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Oxen of the Sun

The Oxen of the Sun (of the Problema Bovinum) is one of the most difficult chapters in Joyce’s Ulysses. Ulysses is the 1904 version of Homer’s Odyssey so the Oxen appear also in his Book XII :

And thou wilt come to the isle Thrinacia. There in great numbers feed the kine [cattle] of Helios and his goodly flocks, seven herds of kine and as many fair flocks of sheep, and fifty in each.

Homer must have suffered from an acute form of innumeracy as the minimal solution to the cattle problem gives as the total number the smallest integer greater than

$\frac{25194541}{184119152} (109931986732829734979866232821433543901088049+ $

$50549485234315033074477819735540408986340
\sqrt{4729494})^{4658} $

a number whose actual digits take up 47 pages, one of the most useless pieces of mathematical wall-paper!

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