The burning ship is still my favourite object in mathematics despite about twenty years of study since I first came across it. In an echo of the famous story ab

The burning ship is still my favourite object in mathematics despite about twenty years of study since I first came across it. In an echo of the famous story about Tamm and the Taylor series error, I once had to explain the burning ship to border control in an impromptu test of my credentials (though I'm not sure if I'd have been shot if I got it wrong).