Log24

The New York Times  this morning, in an
obituary for a maker of crossword puzzles :

"… the first known crossword puzzle appeared in
an American newspaper. (Called a 'word-cross'
and shaped like a diamond, it was published in
The New York World  on Sunday, Dec. 21, 1913.)"

See St. Nicholas  magazine, November 1874, p. 59 :

For the answer, see this  journal on Aug. 29, 2002
(with a scene from Spellbound ) and on July 15, 2004.

In memory of a dead poet —

"Relax," said the night man.
"We are programmed to receive."

* A phrase from a new book by mathematician
  Michael Harris, Mathematics without Apologies .

The Yale Daily News  on Sept. 9, 2014 —

Related material on "the hard problem" of consciousness—

Wikipedia on the problem, and Tom Stoppard's first new
play in nine years, "The Hard Problem."

See also, in this journal, the posts of Sept. 9, 2014, 
the date of the above Yale Daily News  story
"Research Suggests New Consciousness Hub."

The above scene from the new Stoppard play
suggests also a review of Kulturkampf for Princeton. 

    See also a tribute to Wang (a Yale math major).

Lest the links in the previous post be thought merely
"absurd, imbecilic or sarcastic" —

   John 1:5 .

See Devil's Bible, Early Nothing, and A Good Time.

Click on the image above for the LA Times  obituary of Charles Townes, inventor of the laser.

See also a statement at Adherents.com —

From: "'STATEMENT BY CHARLES HARD TOWNES 
At The Templeton Prize News Conference, March 9, 2005,'
posted on Templeton Prize official website"—

"Science and religion have had a long history of interesting interaction. But when I was younger, that interaction did not seem like a very healthy one. For example, when I was a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology, even my professor who was directing my research jumped on me for being religiously oriented. I myself have always thought that science and religion are not unrelated, and should be honestly and openly interacting. Later, in the early 1960s, I was at Columbia University and the men's group of Riverside Church, near Columbia, asked if I would talk to them about my views, since I was one of few scientists they knew who attended church. Surprisingly, a week after my talk someone telephoned to ask if he could publish my talk he had heard on the relation between science and religion. Of all things, he wanted to publish it in THINK magazine of IBM, of which he was editor. Shortly after that, the editor of the MIT Alumni Journal read it and also wanted to publish it in his journal, and did. But a prominent MIT alumnus wrote him that if he ever published anything like it again on religion, he would never have anything more to do with MIT. This of course only encouraged me to provide many other talks and articles on the subject as I was invited, but it reflected a common view at the time among many scientists that one could not be a scientist and religiously oriented. There was an antipathy towards discussion of spirituality."

See as well a post, American Activities, from the above-mentioned date— March 9, 2005— in this journal.

A passage relevant to that post from a review of the recent film  Predestination :

"By the end, even bad jokes and tired riddles come together in a giddy concatenation of thought and feeling. When a central character asks, 'Which came first, the chicken or the egg?' he answers for himself: 'The rooster.'  We learn that he’s not just being absurd, imbecilic or sarcastic. He’s presaging the movie’s existential triple whammies."

— "Deep Focus: Predestination," by Michael Sragow, Jan. 8, 2015

Columbia University physics writer Peter Woit dubbed
yesterday Snowpocalypse 2015 in New York City.

Woit used the day to ponder a new book by mathematician
Michael Harris, Mathematics without Apologies .

Related material: a search for Michael Harris in this journal.

That search includes…   

The above art includes an image of William Rubin,
former director of painting and sculpture at the
Museum of Modern Art. Rubin reportedly died on
January 22, 2006. See Log24 posts from that date.

Julianne Moore at the Screen Actors Guild awards
on Sunday evening:

"When I was 17, I decided I wanted to be
an actor. It didn't seem possible because
I'd never met a real actor," Moore said.
"So I want to say to all the kids in the
drama club, you guys are the real actors."

On the main character of the new film "Birdman"—

"Thomson is clearly talented, yet unable to get out of
the shadow of his superhero role. He is filled with
a simmering rage as Robert Downey Jr. appears
on the TV, arguably the highest profile actor alive
courtesy of a role in the Marvel films."

— Grant Pearsall at The Snapper

A midrash for Robert:

See The Stars My Destination and Cube of Ultron.

From a search for "snowflake" in this journal —

See also the January 13  death of a mathematician,
graph theorist Ralph Faudree of the University of Memphis.

Two hymns that may or may not be relevant:

Walking in Memphis and Come Falda di Neve,
the song that plays over the ending credits of
Exorcist III —

†

Those who prefer more-secular music may consult
Princeton Requiem, a post from the day of Faudree's death.

See the works of Christine Brooke-Rose.

* See the previous post's link Against Dryness.

The Malfunctioning TARDIS continues…

The New York Times  this evening claims that
this is a photo from the Year of Our Lord 1970:

It clearly is not.  [See correction below.]

Related material: 

See the reference to 1970 in a post from last Saturday night
and an image from the 2002 film Minority Report :

Update to Log24 at 6:52 PM ET Jan. 21
copied from an earlier correction at the Times :