Log24

"Blackboard Jungle," 1955 —

"Through the unknown, remembered gate . . . ."

— T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

A differently remembered gate —

Historical photo —

An image from "Blackboard Jungle," 1955 —

"Through the unknown, remembered gate . . . ."

— T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

From a news article featured on the American Mathematical Society
home page today —

A joint Vietnam-USA mathematical meeting in Vietnam on
June 10-13, 2019:

This  journal on June 12, 2019:

See also the Twentieth of May, 2008 —

Welcome to the Garden Club, Pilgrim.

Click on the book cover below for posts tagged "Haiku."

See as well the Log24 post Stability of August 9th, 2017.

The Los Alamos Vision

“Gates said his foundation is an advocate for the Common Core State Standards
that are part of the national curriculum and focus on mathematics and language
arts. He said learning ‘needs to be on the edge’ where it is challenging but not
too challenging, and that students receive the basics through Common Core.

‘It’s great to teach other things, but you need that foundation,’ he said.”

— T. S. Last in the Albuquerque Journal , 12:05 AM Tuesday, July 1, 2014

See also the previous post (Core Mathematics: Arrays) and, elsewhere
in this journal,

“Eight is a Gate.” — Mnemonic rhyme:

Today's Harvard Crimson—

Students Discuss Mental Health

In an effort to break the silence on an often-stigmatized topic,
members of the Harvard community gathered to share
experiences with mental illness through spoken word,
interpretive dance, and candid conversations at Friday night’s
second-annual “Words on the Mind” open mic night.

Related material from this  journal on Friday—

The Hallowed Crucible—

Some related symbolism (headings added Oct. 7)—

Today's (Sunday, Oct. 7, 2012)  Google Doodle for Bohr's birthday—

Review  (See also Faust in Copenhagen in this journal)—

» more

(Continued)

The Hallowed Crucible—

Some related symbolism—

See also Stallion Gate  (a novel) in this journal.

For some related nonfiction, see interviews with
Los Alamos physicist Robert F. Christy, who died
at 96 on Wednesday, October 3, 2012.

(Continued)

A meditation suggested by the April 20 post Complex Reflection
and by the life and April 20 death of a scientist who worked
at Los Alamos (home of the Monte Carlo method) and at
the Santa Fe Institute (home of complexity theory).

A search for 286 in this journal yields "Yet Another Cartoon Graveyard."

That June 1, 2008, post linked to poem  286 in a 1919 anthology.

Here is that poem, together with poem 823.

Together, these poems may be regarded as a meditation on
Simone Weil and her brother André Weil or, 
more abstractly, on Love and Death.

Happy birthday to Al Pacino.

"When shall we three meet again?"

Left to right— John von Neumann, Richard Feynman, Stanislaw Ulam

The source of the above book's title, "Analogies between Analogies,"
was misattributed in a weblog post linked to here on March 4th, 2012.
It occurs in a quote due not to Stanislaw Ulam but to Stefan Banach—

Ulam was Jewish. Banach was not.

From a webpage on Banach—

"On 3 April 1892, he was baptized in the Roman Catholic
 Parish of St. Nicholas in Krakow."

See also…

1. a post of Sunday, April 2, 2006,
2. yesterday's Pennsylvania lottery, and
3. post 585 in this journal. 

(At Los Alamos, Ulam developed the Monte Carlo method.)

(Continued from previous posts)

  Detail from a Washington Post  page today (below)…

  Click to enlarge—

In related news…

  The Hallowed Crucible

"After all the pretty contrast of life and death
 Proves that these opposite things partake of one,
 At least that was the theory…."

— Wallace Stevens, "Connoisseur of Chaos"

Death of a Holy Man

Part I:  An American Religion

Hiroshima Mayor Says
US Worships Nukes

“HIROSHIMA — Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba warned that the world is moving toward war and accused Washington of ‘worshipping’ nuclear weapons during Wednesday’s ceremony marking the 58th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city….

… the Hiroshima mayor blamed the United States for making the world a more uncertain place through its policy of undermining the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

‘A world without nuclear weapons and war that the victims of the atomic bomb have long sought for is slipping into the shadows of growing black clouds that could turn into mushroom clouds at any moment,’ Akiba said. ‘The chief cause of this is the United States’ nuclear policy which, by openly declaring the possibility of a pre-emptive nuclear strike and by starting research into small ‘useable’ nuclear weapons, appears to worship nuclear weapons as God.’ “

— Mainichi Shimbun, Aug. 6, 2003

Part II: Holy Men and
             Sons of Bitches

“I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.”

— Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer,
    Director of Los Alamos

John Steinbeck describing Cannery Row in Monterey:

“Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, ‘whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,’ by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, ‘Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,’ and he would have meant the same thing.”  

“Now we are all sons of bitches.”

— Dr. Kenneth Bainbridge,
    Director of Trinity Test

Part III: Death of a Holy Man

From a review of The Atomic Scientists:

“… the authors try to add a personal element that can excite the reader about science.”

For more excitement, see Timequake, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Rhymes with Puck

Readings for May Day, also known as Beltane.

  I. The Playboy of the Western World

• Operation Playmate
• Puck Fair
• Playboy Magazine, June 2003:
  See cover headline at top left.

 II.  Beltane

• St. Mary-of-the-Woods
• Our Lady of the Woods, Los Alamos
• Our Lady of the Woods, Bellarmine U.

III.  A is for Art

• Wrestling Pablo Picasso
• Terpsichore’s Birthday
• Bell/Taine (see below)

Bell/Taine

In 1993, The Mathematical Association of America published Constance Reid’s

THE SEARCH FOR E. T. BELL
also known as John Taine.

This is a biography of Eric Temple Bell, a mathematician and writer on mathematics, who also wrote fiction under the name John Taine.

On page 194, Reid records a question Bell’s son asked as a child.  Passing a church and seeing a cross on the steeple, he inquired, “Why is the plus up there?”

For an answer that makes some sort of sense

• in the context of Part II above, and
• in the context of last month’s “Math Awareness Month” theme, mathematics and art,

consider the phrase “A is for Art,” so aptly illustrated by Olivia Newton-John in “Wrestling Pablo Picasso,”  then examine the photograph of ballerina Margaret “Puck” Petit on page 195 of Reid’s book.  Puck, as the mother of Leslie Caron (see Terpsichore’s Birthday), clearly deserves an A⁺.