Lots of readers append favorite quotes or snatches of verse at the end of

their communications. Here’s a particularly cute one that caught my eye.

It’s by Danish mathematician-poet Piet Hein, whose name is well known to fans

of Martic Gardner’s old Mathematical Games column in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN.

The road to wisdom? Well, it’s plain

And simple to express:

Err, and err, and err again,

But less, and less, and less.