Stickning och matte (Knitting and maths)

Found on Isis Rising´s blog Knitters of the World, when you see the following, what do you think? CO 88 (K2P2)X 40 Divide 44 (44) (SL1K1 ODD P EVEN) X 40 TURN H P/U GUSS DEC EACH SIDE= 88 K EVEN X 40 DEC EACH SIDE MKR= 4 EVEN =26 END A friend of mine visited me. He looked at the above on a notecard, and he swore it was some weird advanced calculus formula. I let him take it home, in hopes he can solve it! I thought he was kidding, at first. He was dead serious, telling me the CO stood for cosine. Okay. In the meantime, those of us in the knitting know see the above for what it really is: A shorthand pattern for a sock!