Clint Eastwood is 76. In honor of his birthday, a three-part meditation on quality: Part I -- From The Quality of Diamond, Log24 entries from Feb. 2004: The Quality And what is good, Phaedrus, Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance Part II -- From Log24 on Dec. 7, 2003:
Part III -- From the website of
not the original lyrics, of course."] Related material
Posted 5/31/2006 at 3:00 AM |
The Mathematical Association of America discusses finite geometry:
"Against stupidity the gods themselves fight unvictorious." -- Schiller,* quoted as the epigraph to the chapter on Galois in Men of Mathematics, by E. T. Bell Related material: Galois Geometry * From Die Jungfrau von Orleans (The Maid of Orleans), Act III, sc. vi. Today is the feast of that Jungfrau. Click on picture for details. Posted 5/30/2006 at 9:00 PM |
Posted 5/30/2006 at 2:19 PM |
Lifetime Achievement In honor of the long and rewarding life of Henry Bumstead, Oscar-winning production designer, who died last Wednesday in Pasadena at 91: and Background for the above material: See the Log24 entries of March 26, 2006 and the Log24 archive for Dec. 1-15, 2005. Related material: From the Log24 entries on May 24, the date of St. Henry Bumstead's death: Sunrise in Death Valley (Click to see the larger original, a photo by Michael Trezzi) Why "St." Henry? If you need to ask, you don't know what saints are. Posted 5/30/2006 at 3:26 AM |
For John F. Kennedy's birthday: The Call Girls Revisited See The Shining of May 29 from 2002 and the references to the marriage theorem in Dharwadker's Alleged Proof from 2005. "By groping toward the light we are made to realize how deep the darkness is around us." -- Arthur Koestler, The Call Girls: A Tragi-Comedy, Random House, 1973, page 118 For related material on academic darkness, see Mathematics and Narrative. Posted 5/29/2006 at 3:00 PM |
Strange Bedfellows Ted Berkman, author of books about the Israeli military, died at 92 on May 12, 2006. Dennis Hevesi in today's New York Times: "In World War II he served as the Middle East chief of the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service, a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1946, as a radio correspondent for ABC, he provided an eyewitness account of the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem by Jewish terrorists." He also worked as a screenwriter (with his brother-in-law Raphael Blau) on the films "Girl of the Night" (1960), starring Anne Francis, and "Bedtime for Bonzo" (1951), starring Diana Lynn. These are two of my all-time favorite actresses, and I am grateful to Berkman for providing them with roles. I am less grateful for his Zionist politics. Who he is in bed with now, God only knows. Anne Francis Diana Lynn Posted 5/29/2006 at 2:45 AM |
Related
Related
Posted 5/28/2006 at 4:29 PM |
Time Travel "Since thirty mornings are required to make A day of which we say, this is the day That we desire, a day of blank, blue wheels, Involving the four corners of the sky, Lapised and lacqued and freely emeraldine In the space it fills, the silent motioner There, of clear, revolving crystalline; Since thirty summers are needed for a year And thirty years, in the galaxies of birth, Are time for counting and remembering...." -- Wallace Stevens, "Of Ideal Time and Choice," in The Necessary Angel, 1951 "When it's time to railroad, people start railroading." -- Robert A. Heinlein in The Door into Summer, 1957 "Everybody's doin' a brand new dance now..." -- Kylie Minogue, 1987-88 Happy birthday, Kylie. Posted 5/28/2006 at 5:55 AM |
For Stevie Nicks, whose birthday is today "The quidditas or essence of an angel is the same as its form." -- William T. Noon, Society of Jesus, Joyce and Aquinas, Yale, 1957 Related material from Oct. 27, 2003: See the picture in the web page "It does, indeed,
look more -- Madeleine L'Engle, letter of Posted 5/26/2006 at 12:00 PM |
A Living Church
continued from March 27 "The man who lives in contact with what he believes
to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and
Shakespeare to-morrow at breakfast."
-- G. K. Chesterton
Related material: Yesterday's entries and their link to The Line as well as Galois Geometry and the remarks of Oxford professor Marcus du Sautoy, who claims that "the right side of the brain is responsible for mathematics." Let us hope that Professor du Sautoy is more reliable on zeta functions, his real field of expertise, than on neurology. The picture below may help to clear up his confusion between left and right. His confusion about pseudoscience may not be so easily remedied. flickr.com/photos/jaycross/3975200/ (Any resemblance to the film "Hannibal" is purely coincidental.) Posted 5/26/2006 at 8:00 AM |
Ennui May there be an ennui of the first idea? What else, prodigious scholar, should there be? -- Wallace Stevens, "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction" Related material: The Line. Posted 5/25/2006 at 7:13 PM |
Order and Ennui Meanwhile, back at the Institute for Advanced Study: May 25, 4:40 PM -- Research Seminar (Simonyi Hall Seminar Room) -- Pirita Paajanen, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem: Zeta functions of finitely generated infinite groups Some background cited by Paajanen: M.P.F. du Sautoy, "Zeta functions of groups: The quest for order versus the flight from ennui," Groups St Andrews 2001 - in Oxford, Volume 1, CUP 2003. Those who prefer the showbiz approach to mathematics (the flight from ennui?) may enjoy a website giving further background from du Sautoy. Posted 5/25/2006 at 4:40 PM |
In her honor, as well as that of Bob Dylan and Rosanne Cash, whose birthdays are today, here are a picture and two songs. Sunrise in Death Valley (Click to see the larger original, a photo by Michael Trezzi) A song for Rosanne Cash: Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam. A song for Bob Dylan: Curtain up, light the lights, You got nothin' to hit but the heights! (The original cast album of "Gypsy" was recorded on St. Sarah's Day, 1959.) (The photo was found during a search for the phrase "great gray space." See the review by John Updike linked to in yesterday's Art Wars entry.) Posted 5/24/2006 at 4:07 PM |
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Posted 5/23/2006 at 7:11 PM |
Exhibit A: A science vulgarizer in today's New York Times-- Exhibit B: John Updike's review in the May 22 New Yorker of a new novel by Michel Houellebecq, The Possibility of an Island-- "Nor is Houellebecq.... entirely without literary virtue. His four novels-- Whatever (1994), The Elementary Particles (1998), and Platform (2001) are the three others-- display a grasp of science and mathematics beyond that of all but a few non-genre novelists."A character in the new novel-- "a lengthy exercise in futuristic science fiction"-- writes that "The dream of all men is to meet little sluts who are innocent but ready for all forms of depravity-- which is what, more or less, all teenage girls are."Exhibit C: A mathematician hopes for more exciting vulgarizations of his subject-- "I would hope that clever writers might point out how mathematics is altering our lifestyles and do it in a manner that would not lead Garfield the Cat to say 'ho hum.'"Exhibit D: Today's Garfield-- Exhibit E: Log24 entry of May 18, a parody of "Contact," a 1997 film that vulgarized science-- Space Cadet
"They should have sent a poet." Exhibit F: Gilbert and Sullivan, "The Mikado"-- "(With great effort) How de do, little girls, how de do? (Aside) Oh, my protoplasmal ancestor!" Posted 5/23/2006 at 10:18 AM |
A Kind of Cross
Google Maps image of the isle of Delos, birthplace of Apollo: "I faced myself that day with -- Joan Didion, "On Self-Respect," "For every kind of vampire, -- Thomas Pynchon, Mathematics and Narrative, Secret Passages Posted 5/22/2006 at 1:06 PM |
Posted 5/22/2006 at 4:04 AM |
Story
Balanchine, Dunham In memory of Katherine Dunham, who died Sunday at 96 "How much story do you want?" -- George Balanchine From pbs.org: "In 1940 Dunham and her company appeared in the black Broadway musical, 'Cabin in the Sky,' staged by George Balanchine, in which Dunham played the sultry siren Georgia Brown...." From the Library of Congress: "George Balanchine and Katherine Dunham were, in effect, co-choreographers of the dances in the show, at least for those in which she and her dancers appeared. When choreographing for dancers trained in techniques other than classical ballet, Balanchine's habit was to respect their expertise and their personal style, to allow them as much creative input as they wished to make, and then to arrange their steps, combinations, and movements into a unified choreographic composition. Dunham found this method of collaboration quite agreeable, and she and Balanchine enjoyed a particularly amicable working relationship. The story of Cabin in the Sky centers on Little Joe, a kindhearted but morally ambivalent Everyman, who is stabbed in a dispute over a crap game, dies and is bound for Hell, but is saved by his good wife's prayers and given extra time on earth to qualify for admission to Heaven. Dooley Wilson played Little Joe...." "It's still the
same old story...." Posted 5/22/2006 at 2:45 AM |
"Das Ewig-Weibliche
Zieht uns hinan." ("The Eternal-Feminine Draws us on.") -- Conclusion of Goethe's Faust
At Amazon.com, a search
inside
The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown, shows 34 pages with references to the word "feminine." Draws us, indeed. Posted 5/21/2006 at 5:00 PM |
Women-Only
From May 15 through May 26, there is a women-only meeting on zeta
functions at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Today's
activities: Meeting at Princeton
No movie?
Posted 5/19/2006 at 4:07 PM |
The Great Bartender by Peter Viereck (1948) Being absurd as well as beautiful, Magic-- like art-- is hoax redeemed by awe. (Not priest but clown, the shuddering sorcerer Is more astounded than his rapt applauders: "Then all those props and Easters of my stage Came true? But I was joking all the time!") Art, being bartender, is never drunk; And magic that believes itself, must die. My star was rocket of my unbelief, Launched heavenward as all doubt's longings are; It burst when, drunk with self-belief, I tried to be its priest and shouted upward: "Answers at last! If you'll but hint the answers For which earth aches, that famous Whence and Whither; Assuage our howling Why? with final fact." -- As quoted in The Practical Cogitator, or The Thinker's Anthology, Selected and Edited by Charles P. Curtis, Jr., and Ferris Greenslet, Third Edition, Revised and Enlarged, With a new Introduction by John H. Finley, Jr., Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1962 The dates of Viereck's birth and death are according to this morning's New York Times. Posted 5/19/2006 at 2:02 AM |
Star and Diamond
continued " 'I know what it is you last saw,' she said; 'for that is also in my mind. Do not be afraid! But do not think that only by singing amid the trees, nor even by the slender arrows of elvenbows, is this land of Lothlórien maintained and defended against the Enemy. I say to you, Frodo, that even as I speak to you, I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or all his mind that concerns the Elves. And he gropes ever to see me and my thought. But still the door is closed!' She lifted up her white arms, and spread out her hands towards the East in a gesture of rejection and denial. Eärendil, the Evening Star, most beloved of the Elves, shone clear above. So bright was it that the figure of the Elven-lady cast a dim shadow on the ground. Its ray glanced upon a ring about her finger; it glittered like polished gold overlaid with silver light, and a white stone in it twinkled as if the Even-star had come to rest upon her hand. Frodo gazed at the ring with awe; for suddenly it seemed to him that he understood. 'Yes,' she said, divining his thought, 'it is not permitted to speak of it, and Elrond could not do so. But it cannot be hidden from the Ring-Bearer, and one who has seen the Eye. Verily it is in the land of Lórien upon the finger of Galadriel that one of the Three remains. This is Nenya, the Ring of Adamant, and I am its keeper.' " -- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings Related material: The last 3 entries, as well as Mathematics and Narrative "How much story do you want?" -- George Balanchine Posted 5/19/2006 at 1:00 AM |
Posted 5/18/2006 at 4:00 PM |
Space Cadet "They should have sent a poet." You'd never know it, But buddy, I'm a kind of poet... Starring in tonight's New York Times obits:
The "Coppertone girl" artist died at 88 on Monday, May 15. In her memory, here is a an entry from that day on a women-only mathematics program at Princeton that started on Monday. That entry opens with a quote from Robert A. Heinlein, whose writing inspired the TV series "Space Cadet." The star of that series, Frankie Thomas, died at 85 on Thursday, May 11. In his honor as a member of the elite Solar Guard, here is a solar entry from Sunday, May 14. In honor of Jodie Foster, space explorer and Coppertone girl incarnate, here is a link to "Spare Oom." "My God, it's full of stars!" Posted 5/18/2006 at 2:45 AM |
Tombstone From today's New York Times: Obituary-- "Jiri Frel, a mercurial and eccentric curator who helped build the J. Paul Getty Museum into a major center for Greek and Roman art but resigned after revelations about unscrupulous acquisition practices, died on April 29. He was 82.... a well-regarded expert in Greek tombstones...." News story-- "ATHENS, May 16 — After four hours of talks here with the Greek culture minister, the director of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles said Tuesday that he would press for the return of some of the Getty's most prized ancient artifacts to Greece.... Greece is seeking the repatriation of a... tombstone...." From a photo accompanying the obituary: Museum window To Aster, from Plato Asteras eisathreis, Aster emos. You gaze at stars, my Star. Related material: Log24 entries of Dec. 31, 2002 Posted 5/17/2006 at 4:29 AM |
Posted 5/16/2006 at 2:45 AM |
For the next generation: Some websites on zeta functions (a classic topic of considerable current interest):
Posted 5/15/2006 at 12:00 PM |
Today's birthday: George Lucas, STAR WARS continued:
Posted 5/14/2006 at 5:00 PM |
ART WARS continued... A Fold in Time
Above: Braque and tesseract "The senses deform, the mind forms. Work to perfect the mind. There is no certitude but in what the mind conceives." -- Georges Braque, Reflections on Painting, 1917 Those who wish to follow Braque's advice may try the following exercise from a book first published in 1937: Hint: See the above picture of Braque and the construction of a tesseract. Related material:
Storyline and Time Fold (both of Oct. 10, 2003), and the following--
"Time, for L'Engle, is accordion-pleated. She elaborated, 'When you
bring a sheet off the line, you can't handle it until it's folded, and
in a sense, I think, the universe can't exist until it's folded-- or
it's a story without a book.'"
-- Cynthia Zarin on Madeleine L'Engle, "The Storyteller," in The New Yorker, issue dated April 12, 2004 Posted 5/13/2006 at 4:00 PM |
The Carlin Code Happy birthday, George: Sources: Tom Hanks's birthday, 2005 Salute to Anthony Hopkins, May 3, May 4, May 5 Today's Wizard of Id Judeo-Christian Heritage: The Wiener Kreis André Weil As I Knew Him, by Goro Shimura (pdf) Simone Weil on George Herbert Related material: The Prime Cut Gospel Harvard Symbology God Is Red Quine's Shema The Big Red One Posted 5/12/2006 at 3:00 PM |
Tesseract "Does the word 'tesseract' mean anything to you?" -- Robert A. Heinlein in The Number of the Beast (1980) My reply-- Part I: A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle (first published in 1962) Part II:
and Geometry of the 4x4 Square Part III: Catholic Schools Sermon Conclusion:
"Wells and trees were dedicated
to saints. But the offerings at many wells and trees were to
something other than the saint; had it not been so they would not have
been, as we find they often were, forbidden. Within this double
and intertwined life existed those other capacities, of which we know
more now, but of which we still know little-- clairvoyance,
clairaudience, foresight, telepathy."-- Charles Williams, Witchcraft, Faber and Faber, London, 1941 Related material:
A New Yorker profile of Madeleine L'Engle from April 2004, which I found tonight online for the first time. For a related reflection on truth, stories, and values, see Saint's Day. For a wider context, see the Log24 entries of February 1-15, 2003 and February 1-15, 2006. Posted 5/12/2006 at 3:00 AM |
"... we have condensed six dimensions into four, then we either work by analogy into six, or we have to use math that apparently nobody but Jake and my cousin Ed understands. Unless you can think of some way to project six dimensions into three-- you seem to be smart at such projections." I closed my eyes and thought hard. "Zebbie, I don't think it can be done. Maybe Escher could have done it." The above screenshot shows a moveable JavaScript display of a space of six dimensions (over the 2-element field). (To see how the display works, try the Kaleidoscope Puzzle first.) "I laugh because I dare not cry. This is a crazy world and the only way to enjoy it is to treat it as a joke." Solomon's Cube, the five Log24 entries ending on 3/14, and the American Mathematical Society on Mathematical Imagery. Related material: A more extensive excerpt from The Number of the Beast, and Story Theory and the Number of the Beast. Posted 5/10/2006 at 4:29 PM |
My Space Posted 5/10/2006 at 2:02 AM |
x Posted 5/8/2006 at 4:24 PM |
Why "saint"? See his accurate depiction of evil, the "Eater of Souls" in Glory Road. Related material: "Steven Cullinane is a Crank" and "Certified Crank." Posted 5/8/2006 at 3:15 PM |
Bagombo Snuff Box (in memory of Burt Kerr Todd) "Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you're gonna have to serve somebody." -- "Bob Dylan" (pseudonym of Robert Zimmerman), quoted by "Bob Stewart" on July 18, 2005 "Bob Stewart" may or may not be the same person as "crankbuster," author of the "Rectangular Array Theorem" or "RAT." This "theorem" is intended as a parody of the "Miracle Octad Generator," or "MOG," of R. T. Curtis. (See the Usenet group sci.math, "Steven Cullinane is a Crank," July 2005, messages 51-60.) "Crankbuster" has registered at Math Forum as a teacher in Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon). For a tall tale involving Ceylon, see the short story "Bagombo Snuff Box" in the book of the same title by Kurt Vonnegut, who has at times embodied-- like Martin Gardner and "crankbuster"-- "der Geist, der stets verneint." Here is my own version (given the alleged Ceylon background of "crankbuster") of a Bagombo snuff box: Related material: Log24 entries of April 16-30, 2005, and the 5 Log24 entries ending on Friday, April 28, 2006. Posted 5/7/2006 at 3:00 AM |
x Posted 5/7/2006 at 2:45 AM |
Born on this date 100 years ago: André Weil "... just as God defeats the devil: this bridge exists...." -- André Weil "... I always prefer saying chance rather than Providence...." -- Simone Weil Posted 5/6/2006 at 2:02 PM |
Mathematics and Narrative continued Related material: Anthony Hopkins Writes Screenplay about God, Life & Death Posted 5/5/2006 at 1:09 PM |
First of all...
On this date in 1927, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was chartered. Related material: Dante and Plato, Plato, Pegasus, and the Evening Star, Mathematics and Narrative, The Tiffany Code Posted 5/4/2006 at 1:09 PM |
x Posted 5/3/2006 at 2:56 PM |
Ontology Alignment
continued "Mathematics ushers one into the realm of abstraction and universality,
grasped only through pure reason. Mathematics is the threshold we cross
to pass into the ideal, the truly real."
-- Rebecca Goldstein, Mathematics and the Character of Tragedy Mid-day 703
Evening 462 "You gotta be true to your code" -- Sinatra (see previous entry)
The numbers 703 and 462 are, in Goldstein's phrase, "truly real."
However, their link to St. Athanasius and to the Spanish language is,
as purveyors of fiction* say, "purely coincidental"-- as is much of what
makes life interesting.
"All persons living and dead are purely coincidental...."-- Kurt Vonnegut, epigraph to Bagombo Snuff Box * For instance, David Auburn in Proof, which also involves Dewey decimal numbers Posted 5/3/2006 at 1:00 PM |
Quarter to Three
continued For Henriette D. Avram, a systems analyst who "had to enter the mind of the library cataloger, a profession whose arcane knowledge-- involving deep philosophical questions about taxonomy, interconnectedness and the nature of similarity and difference-- was guarded like priestly ritual." -- Margalit Fox in today's New York Times Mrs. Avram died on April 22. For related material on priestly ritual, see
Finis Coronat Opus "You gotta be true to your code" -- Sinatra Posted 5/3/2006 at 2:45 AM |