Given: Any angle whatever. Required: to divide any angle into three equal parts, using only straight lines and circles in the construction. Thousands of mathematicians have sought to solve that problem. It is comparatively easy of solution with a peculiarly linked chain or by means of complex curves which no compass can draw on a flat surface; but impossible, mathematicians generally agree, with the simple tools of straightedge and compass.
Last week the new, bland, stiff-collared president of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Very Rev. Jeremiah Joseph Callahan.* declared "the problem can easily...