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Hi everyone! Isn't it nice of the Mathematica Ludibunda authors to let me help make this revised, special edition made for ordinary people? And that they made my story into an introduction of this great book? Plus they even let me sit on the playground so I could tell y'all some of the great stuff I'm reading. Of course the quotes I tell you when you click on me are completely taken out of context so they only show a tiny part of the people's thoughts, but they're fun anyway, right?
As you can see here, the Mathematica Ludibunda authors even let me write my own chapter for their book. So in my chapter I would first like to tell you how I got to know these very special people. To accomplish this I reprinted the First Letter I wrote to them right after I escaped from the tower. As they were interested in my ideas, they asked me to join their team.
After that first letter, I had a lot of contact with the authors. We discussed the new edition and I got to know them so well that they asked me to write a short text about them. I have done this with much pride. It has been a real pleasure working with these fairies. So the second part of my chapter will be a page About the Authors.
Not only have the authors been great to work with, but I also found some great friends in the other people who also helped. So here I'd like to reprint a story my friend Dragon wrote after we had all gone on a trip to Switzerland. I really like to think back to that time. Of course Dragon had to take along the prince he was keeping captive at that time, so that was a bit of a drag. I don't know how he does it, but Dragon always seems to get the most boring princes assigned to him to capture. Anyway, here's the story which Dragon has appropriately named On the Problem of Swiss Chocolate.
I'd also like to add to this book a Glossary. I really like to be in the company of fairies, but their huge vocabularies sure are a problem. And just because they know all these crazy words, they think ordinary people like you and me should know them too. Well, I've tried to take out the worst words while proof-reading for them and I'm adding this glossary now. I hope it will help you too.
One more thing I'd like to add (apparently fairy books never have this either), is a list with good Books and Links for further reading.
One last thing I'll add here is a list with References. Fairies tend to forget that they didn't do all the work themselves. They say that if they truly understand a problem, it doesn't matter anymore who did what work. I agree with that, but if they want to publish this book for a general audience, they might otherwise get into copyright problems. So I'll just add these references to my chapter, even though they don't really belong here.
