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The joke posted by Bert Mosselmans reminds me of a question I have long 
had, 
but have been too lazy to try to examine myself: Is Lewis Carroll alluding 
to 
Jevons (or to Bentham?) in the opening episode of "Alice in Wonderland"? 
 
"So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot 
day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a 
daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the 
daisies..." 
 
When it was first published (1865), Jevons had already presented (1862) his 
paper to Section F of BAAS. There had been some discussion of it in the 
press. Carroll was himself a mathematician and enjoyed any unusual 
applications of mathematics; he must have been acute to things like that. 
 
Has the problem been studied? 
 
Yuri Tulupenko 
 
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