Log24

From this journal on All Hallows' Eve 2007 —

"God demands scrutiny beyond his menacingly comic aspects."

— Harold Bloom on José Saramago's The Gospel According to
Jesus Christ  (1991). Saramago was awarded the Nobel Prize 
in Literature in 1998. 

The Hamilton watch from "Interstellar" (2014) —

In an update yesterday by Peter Woit to his post
on a recent paper about the Riemann Hypothesis (RH) —

" Nature Physics highlights the Bender et al. paper
with 'Carl Bender and colleagues have paved the way
to a possible solution [of the RH ] by exploiting a
connection with physics.' Some wag there has categorized
this work as work with subject term 'interstellar medium.' "

Math.stackexchange.com —

Do you know where your watch is?

From a post of May 13, 2015 —

From the recent film "Interstellar" —

"In linear algebra, the basis of a vector space
is an alphabet in which all vectors
can be expressed uniquely. The thing to remember
is that there are many such alphabets."

—  "A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel,"
       by Yoon Ha Lee

See also Starflight in this journal.

Into the Dark

O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,
The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant
….
And we all go with them, into the silent funeral,
Nobody’s funeral, for there is no one to bury.
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of
    darkness on darkness….

— T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

“I’m well past eighty now and fairly certain I won’t see ninety but I’d like more of a choice than Hell or Paradise when I leave. Now that we know the Bible was created by a vote of Emperor Constantine’s clergy, wouldn’t we all be better off if other options were offered? Or is the fear of what happens after death the glue that holds Religion together? I hope not because I believe better of God.

As a Deist, I have no fear or doubts of the way that life ends. I can bravely face the reality of ceasing to exist because the God of my heart comforts me by promising to provide a dark, starless night of nothingness when my visit is over.”

— Paul Winchell (pdf) (See previous entry.)

Paul Winchell was born at the winter solstice — the longest night — December 21, 1922.

For another view of the longest night, see the five Log24 entries ending on the day after the longest night of 2003.   Summary of those entries:

“My God, it’s full of stars!”