Log24

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Saturday February 7, 2009

Filed under: General,Geometry — m759 @ 2:02 pm
Childish Things

(continued from Thursday's
"Through the Looking Glass")

DENNIS OVERBYE

"From the grave, Albert Einstein poured gasoline on the culture wars between science and religion this week.

A letter the physicist wrote in 1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind, in which he described the Bible as 'pretty childish' and scoffed at the notion that the Jews could be a 'chosen people,' sold for $404,000 at an auction in London. That was 25 times the presale estimate."

Einstein did not, at least in the place alleged, call the Bible "childish." Proof:

(Click for larger version.)
 
Proof that Einstein did not call the Bible 'childish'

The image of the letter is
from the Sept./Oct. 2008
Search Magazine
.

By the way, today is
the birthday of G. H. Hardy.

Here is an excerpt from his
thoughts on childish things:

"What 'purely aesthetic' qualities can we distinguish in such theorems as Euclid's or Pythagoras's?…. In both theorems (and in the theorems, of course, I include the proofs) there is a very high degree of unexpectedness, combined with inevitability and economy. The arguments take so odd and surprising a form; the weapons used seem so childishly simple when compared with the far-reaching results; but there is no escape from the conclusions."

Eightfold (2x2x2) cube

"Space: what you
damn well have to see."

— James Joyce, Ulysses  

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