In the passage, ‘The Sand Reckoner” Marcus’s words about needing to disembark contribute to the plot because in paragraph 2 Archimedes is trying to play mathematical games with Marcus, but Marcus is trying to get Archimedes to be serious.
The central idea refers to the number of existing women to see the show, which outnumbered the number of men. Despite the fact that cycling is not considered a sport for women, attendance at the show suggests the great number of followers that this sport had in itself.
