"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.
"Nabokov's problem, in its simple prettiness and purity, suggests he has just invented starflight himself."
— Tim Krabbé, Open Chess Diary, Entry 9— July 1, 1999
Related— New York Lottery on October 10, 2010—
Midday 137,
Evening 701.
Some context for the Halloween season—
137: Jung, Pauli, and the Pursuit of a Scientific Obsession
See also Saturday evening's post in this journal, Jaunt 701.
See posts now tagged Starbursts,
and a search for Nabokov + Starflight.
For the Janus-Faced Human Race
Related material —
Strange Myths and The Starflight Problem.
Synchronicity check —
"On the afternoon of October 10, 2013,
an unusually cold day, the streets of downtown
Dublin were filled …." — "How Stories Deceive"
See also this journal on October 10, 2013.
Today is the feast of St. Yul Brynner,
who died on this date in 1985.
“Head bent down over the guitar,
he barely seemed to hum;
ended “all come home”;
….
Yule– Yul log for the
Christmas-fire tale-spinner–
of fairy tales that can come true.
Yul Brynner.”
— Marianne Moore,
“Rescue with Yul Brynner”
Related material:
Starflight, a year ago today
Pleiades, by Ivan Bunin, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1933, whose birthday is today
Natasha’s Dance (Log24, Jan. 8, 2004)
Star! by John Gregory Dunne (NY Review of Books, Jan. 15, 2004)
Starflight
In memory of
Jacques Derrida and James Chace,
both of whom died in Paris on
Friday, Oct. 8, 2004, and of
Orson Welles, who died
on this date in 1985
 Orson Welles |
|
"The black king has three white flight squares, without mates being provided for these flights, which suggests giving him a fourth. 1. Bg2 therefore presents itself, especially when you notice that it prepares mates for all the flights, and for the king remaining on its original square.
1. Bg2
Kxc6 2. Nfe5 mate
Ke6 2. Nd4 mate
Kc4 2. Nd2 mate
Ke4 2. Nd4 mate
fxg3 2. Ng5 mate
The five variations together are the theme, 'starflight.' (With orthogonal squares it is called plus- or cross-flight.)"
— Open Chess Diary, 1999,
by Tim Krabbé, Amsterdam
For an appropriate bishop, see
| Starflight Theme
On Graham Greene’s novel “Greene, always the master of economy, never wrote a tighter or more beautifully focused novel.” |
|
“The main character is Maurice Castle, the head of the Africa station for a branch of British intelligence…. [the] writing is sparse and neat rather than languid or flowery….”
— Kevin Holtsberry
From Chapter I:
“Castle could see that telling the truth this time had been an error of judgement, yet, except on really important occasions, he always preferred the truth. The truth can be double-checked.”
On fiction and truth:
Here is a short story that is
tight, focused, sparse, and neat.
The story is also true.
| |
This problem embodies the “starflight” theme;
for details, see Tim Krabbé’s
Open Chess Diary, entry 9.
As the example of Nabokov shows, a taste for truth (as in chess or geometry) may accompany a taste for fiction. This applies also to Krabbé, as shown by the following reviews of his novel The Cave:
New York Times
“Krabbe’s carefully constructed narrative has a geometry so precise that the patterns buried under the surface emerge only in the final pages.”
Library Journal
“A diamond of a book- perfectly proportioned, multifaceted, and containing not one wasted word”
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