In memory of George F. Simmons, a mathematician
who reportedly died Aug. 6 at the age of 94 —
"It seems to me that a worthwhile distinction can be made
between two types of pure mathematics. The first …
centers attention on particular functions and theorems
which are rich in meaning and history…. The second is
concerned primarily with form and structure."
— George F. Simmons, Introduction to Topology and
Modern Analysis (1963)
" . . . Only by the form, the structure,
Can words or music reach
The stillness . . . ."
— Adapted from T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets by replacing "pattern" with "structure."
Two posts related to Eliot's theological interests:
… Continued from previous posts now tagged Art Logos.
"Logos," a Greek word used in philosophy and theology,
is, in modern usage, also a brief form of "logotypes,"
a name for the branding symbols used by businesses.
For some less commercial aspects of the philosophical
concept, see Logo in this journal.
Mr. Frank, who was best known for his groundbreaking book,
“The Americans,” had a visually raw and personally expressive
style that made him one of the most influential photographers
of the 20th century.
Philip Gefter in The New York Times —
Robert Frank, one of the most influential photographers
of the 20th century, whose visually raw and personally
expressive style was pivotal in changing the course of
documentary photography, died on Monday in Inverness,
Nova Scotia. He was 94.
Yes, we received your payment.
No, it wasn't late, but it was for $78.13,
and the bill was for $78.31.
Okay, great.
Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/
movie_script.php?movie=the-circle
Another such transposition:Pages213 and 231 in a search
for "gaps" in a 2010 paperback discussion of Lacan —
"Deconstruction calls attention to gaps and reveals
that their claims upon us are fraudulent."
A related search at Amazon.com:
Barbara Johnson explains Lacan:
" The 'gap' in the real is the leap
from the empirical to
the signifying articulation
of the object of desire;
it cannot be perceived empirically.
It is 'nothing.' "
— Persons and Things , paperback (2010),
Harvard University Press, page 213
[Carol calmly blasts energy out of her fists towards a jukebox
on the opposite side of the room before resting her head
back on her fist. Fury continues to look towards the jukebox,
both concerned and confused]
Fury: And how is that supposed to prove to me that you're not a Skrull?
Carol: It's a photon blast.
Fury: And…?
Carol: A Skrull can't do that. So a full-bird colonel turned spy turned
SHIELD agent must have pretty high security clearance. Where's Pegasus?
[The scene changes to a black car driving through an empty highway
next to a mountain, before changing to the inside of the car showing Fury
driving and Carol in the passenger seat]
Fury: So the Skrulls are alien races which infiltrate and overtake alien planets.
And you're a Kree, a race of noble warriors.
"Letting someone speak does not mean we condone
what they are saying, and it does not absolve that person
or group from consequences. And when we disagree,
we have an obligation to respond earnestly."
— Harvard College dean Rakesh Khurana in an undated
"Welcome Home" message to returning students (Fall, 2019)
An earnest response from this journal —
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"When you come to a fork . . . ." — Yogi Berra (?)
The Observable site does not work in my Chrome browser.
To play with it, use Firefox. For a more straightforward
JavaScript program see the Diamond 16 Puzzle.
A link, observablehq.com/demo, (not functioning in my Chrome
browser at the present time but apparently OK in Firefox) in the previous post suggests . . .
"From an early age she aspired to be a ballet dancer,
and, though never the sveltest girl en point, at 16
she landed a job in the corps de ballet at Radio City Music Hall."
She gaped at him. “Do you mean a Riemann sheet? A branch cut from one Riemann sheet to another?”
“That’s right.” He hesitated. “You know these words?”
She laughed unsteadily. “It’s nonsense. Not the sheets, I mean, but they’re just mathematical constructs! They don’t actually exist. You can’t physically go through a branch cut any more than you could step into a square root sign.”
"There is a house in New Orleans…
Not the one you've heard about,
I'm talking about another house.
They spoke of gold in the cellar
That a Spanish gentleman had left…"
For less high-minded meditations, see Tony Stark in today's previous post —
"Tony Stark: That's how I wished it happened.
Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing, or BARF.
God, I gotta work on that acronym.
An extremely costly method of hijacking the
hippocampus to . . . clear traumatic memories. Huh."
The title is from the post "Child's Play" of May 21, 2012 . . .
"It seems that only one course is open to the philosopher
who values knowledge and truth above all else. He must
refuse to accept from the champions of the forms the
doctrine that all reality is changeless [and exclusively
immaterial], and he must turn a deaf ear to the other party
who represent reality as everywhere changing [and as only
material]. Like a child begging for 'both', he must declare
that reality or the sum of things is both at once [το όν τε και
το παν συναμφότερα] (Sophist 246a-249d)."
The exercise in the previous post was suggested by a passage
purporting to "use standard block design theory" that was written
by some anonymous author at Wikipedia on March 1, 2019:
Here "rm OR" apparently means "remove original research."
Before the March 1 revision . . .
The "original research" objected to and removed was the paragraph
beginning "To explain this further." That paragraph was put into the
article earlier on Feb. 28 by yet another anonymous author (not by me).
An account of my own (1976 and later) original research on this subject
is pictured below, in a note from Feb. 20, 1986 —
Comments Off on Schoolgirl Space — Tetrahedron or Square?
The following paragraph from the above image remains unchanged
as of this morning at Wikipedia:
"A 3-(16,4,1) block design has 140 blocks of size 4 on 16 points,
such that each triplet of points is covered exactly once. Pick any
single point, take only the 35 blocks containing that point, and
delete that point. The 35 blocks of size 3 that remain comprise
a PG(3,2) on the 15 remaining points."
Exercise —
Prove or disprove the above assertion about a general "3-(16,4,1)
block design," a structure also known as a Steiner quadruple system
(as I pointed out in the March 5 post).
Relevant literature —
A paper from Helsinki in 2005* says there are more than a million
3-(16,4,1) block designs, of which only one has an automorphism
group of order 322,560. This is the affine 4-space over GF(2),
from which PG(3,2) can be derived using the well-known process
from finite geometry described in the above Wikipedia paragraph.
* "The Steiner quadruple systems of order 16," by Kaski et al.,
Journal of Combinatorial Theory Series A Volume 113, Issue 8,
November 2006, pages 1764-1770.
Comments Off on On Steiner Quadruple Systems of Order 16
"If you want to win, you need to know just one thing and not to waste your time
on anything else: the pleasures of erudition are reserved for losers. The more
a person knows, the more things have gone wrong."
— Eco, Umberto. Numero Zero (p. 9). HMH Books. Kindle Edition.
"All this notwithstanding, I dreamed what all losers dream, about one day writing
a book that would bring me fame and fortune. To learn how to become a great
writer, I became what in the last century was called the nègre (or ghostwriter,
as they say today, to be politically correct) for an author of detective stories who
gave himself an American name to improve sales, like the actors in spaghetti
westerns. But I enjoyed working in the shadows, hidden behind a double veil
(the Other’s and the Other’s other name)."
— Eco, Umberto. Numero Zero (pp. 9-10). HMH Books. Kindle Edition.
The title was suggested by the previous post, by Zorro Ranch,
by the classic 1967 film The Producers , and by . . .
Related material —
Vanity Fair on Sept. 8, 2017, celebrated the young actress
who played Beverly Marsh in the 2017 film version of
Stephen King's IT . See a post from her 12th birthday —
"Winter's Game" — that touches upon Maori themes.
“His tenure at Warner Bros. included discovering and
shepherding The Matrix into production, and the
purchase of the rights to the Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling.”
Misreading the words of di Bonaventura
yields a phrase that might be applied to
the Church of Rome . . .
"A franchise based on release dates."
See dies natalis in this journal.