OK, I've been pondering this for a while, and have come to the
conclusion that it is unsolvable. (Non-math people will probably
either find this boring or it will bring back frightening memories
of high school math classes!)

O J wrote:

Allow me a brief poetic interlude:

But what are all such gaieties to me,
who's head is full of indices and surds.
X squared plus seven x plus fifty-three
equals eleven thirds.
(Author unknown -- at least I've forgotten)


So,

(Note - I'm using the ** operator to mean "to the power of", so
"x**2" means "x squared")

x**2 + 7x + 53 = 11/3

3x**2 + 21x + 159 = 11

3x**2 + 21x + 148 = 0

This can't be factored, because no pair of factors for 148 can be
added together to make 21.

So, what does the poem mean??? I was sure that x was going to be
some magic number!

Joyce