Yes, your honor, I did it.

Last Thursday, just after sunset, I got in my car, leaving behind the wife, the kids, and the first round of the NCAA hoops tournament, and drove across town to attend a math lecture. And I did it of my own free will.

Now that may not be your idea of fun, and truth told, it’s not mine either. But UNCA was hosting John Conway, famous math guy, and promised that his talk would be geared to the general audience.” As your resident wide-ranging earnest affable fearless topic-hungry A&E columnist, I thought it was important to get out and report on the lecture. Yep, folks, it was time to review a math show.

Immediately upon arrival, I noticed some key differences between the UNCA gig and your typical rock-n-roll show. The audience more, well, collegial, and the age range had a different skew: everyone seemed to be either in their early 20s or mid-50s. Many of them possessed what could only be called a mathematician’s sense of fashion, so I fit right in. The start was early (7 p.m.!) and there were no beer sales (no wonder the crowd was so subdued). It was an astute crowd, no doubt, and I didn’t look quite so strange scribbling furiously in my notebook as I do at an Orange Peel gig.

The warm-up act was positively staid. On an overhead projector, the following words greeted the arriving fans: In the sequence 1, 4, 75, 28, 8 ... what are the next few terms?

Before I had time to work that one out — I would have needed at least four years and some graduate coursework — the star of the show ambled to the front of the room and greeted the adoring crowd. John Conway is widely known for his work in number theory, group theory, game theory, knot theory, coding theory, and tilings (there was no word on bathtub installation).

He started by giving the answer to his warm-up problem (56 and 375, naturally), and explained that there were just seven groups of order in 375, and that 375 is the smallest number with seven groups, and I can tell you right now that made me feel a lot better, just knowing that.

Then he started in on his talk, titled “Knots and Tangles,” which had to do with the mathematical models one can use to identify styles of knots and tangles. Observers may have noted that my scribbling subsided shortly after the lecture started, as a dense fog descended on my head. The talk may have been aimed at a “general audience,” but I’m afraid I was even more general than Dr. Conway had counted on. I’m very very general on the subject of math.

It was amusing nonetheless. Dr. Conway has a charming, almost avuncular style about him, and I give him high marks for both humor and humility. Have you ever heard people laughing aloud at a math lecture? As of last week, I have.

Dr. Conway proceeded to talk of the Bangle of Tangles, the Knumbering of Knots, and the wily Modulos, and for a moment I thought I was trapped in a children’s adventure novel set in the magical wilds of Numberland. Perhaps I was.

As he progressed from knots to tangles, Dr. Conway pulled out two jump ropes, recruited five audience members, and proceeded to demonstrate the mathematical properties of tangles with a nifty audience-participation bit. Yes, folks, it was math as a spectator sport, with folks from the audience shouting suggestions, encouragement, and occasional imprecations at the assembled volunteers. Dr. Conway took our meandering solution in stride, although at one point he was compelled to shout,

“You’re a bunch of dummies!” Dummies we might have been, but at the end it was Dr. Conway who was down on his knees, tearing up a plastic grocery bag with his teeth. (I kid you not. I’ve been to a lot of rock-n-roll shows, but rarely have I seen anything so primal. The bag was a prop for the tangle demonstration, and he needed to tear it apart for the grand finale. Apparently he left his scissors at home.)

In the end, I’ll admit, the math show was rather fun, even if it was a cerebral sort of fun. It was a free show, I got home early, and my eardrums didn’t throb the next morning. I’ll admit that I didn’t understand much, but I didn’t understand much the last time I saw Bob Dylan either, and I liked that show too. Well done, Dr. C.

The Great Gordo sez: four stars.

(Jay Hardwig is a writer and teacher who lives in Asheville.)