An oblique passion

doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7499.1093-a

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Kevin Barraclough, general practitioner

Painswick, Gloucestershire

Throughout my life I have had a persistent, rather dilettante interest in mathematics. I dabble a little, drift away with pressures of work and family, but always seem to return.

It is, I think, the calm that draws me back. It is detached from the grit and noise of the medical world—a place of clean lines and perfect spheres, of abstract objects that glisten in the imagination in a sharp, multidimensional light. Sometimes I see them as solid …