John Hannay, a theoretical physicist at Bristol University, believes he has come up with a three-line proof which shows beyond doubt that Dr Ardavan's mathematics must be flawed.

ECONOMIST: Physics

Overall English pupils achieved scores in line with the international average for maths in the 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), with the top 10% of pupils' results comparable with those from some high achieving East Asian countries.

BBC: Top maths pupils 'fail to keep up with world's best'

The percentage of 14 year olds achieving the expected level was almost in line with statistical neighbours and was better than the national average for English, mathematics and science.

BBC: Kent's selective schools compared

The bottom line is that human beings have brains capable of counting to high numbers and manipulating them, so we use mathematics as a useful tool to describe the world around us.

FORBES: Does Math Really Exist?