See Fields of Force and recent posts.
From PR Newswire in July 2011 —
Campus Crusade for Christ Adopts New Name: Cru
60-year-old Int’l Ministry Aims to Increase
Relevance and Global Effectiveness
Related material:
Friday, December 25, 2015
At Play in the Fields
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Friday, November 28, 2014
Off the Map
Alexander Grothendieck, Récoltes et Semailles , 18.5.9.5. e, p. 1181 :
Pour mettre la joie à son comble, j’ajoute que le dénommé Saavedra
semble avoir disparu de la circulation sans plus laisser aucune trace….
Du coup, l’histoire prend des allures de sombre intrigue policière.
Man of La Mancha :
"Who knows where madness lies?"
An author quoted here at 10 PM ET Monday, Nov. 24, 2014 :
And then there is author Dan McGirt :
|
It sounded fun, so I signed up — and soon learned writing a story set in someone else’s fictional world presents certain … challenges. It was an enjoyable experience, yet very different than being able to write and run with whatever crazy idea pops into my head. Trying to capture the feel of a game that is more based on action and blowing stuff up than on deep character moments (not that I would know much about that … ) was also a challenge. I experimented with things like using comic book sound effects, lean descriptions (do I really need to describe a fireball spell in detail?) and other tricks to keep things moving. I also got to add to Magicka lore. Often the answer to my questions about some bit of in-world history or “fact” was “Make something up.” So I did! (Often getting a response of … “Odin’s onions, no! You can’t do that!”) So I was thrilled and excited to contribute in a small way to the development of Midgård. The result is Magicka: The Ninth Element , in which four young Wizards are sent on a quest to pursue the mysterious Purple Wizard who has stolen a powerful artifact from the Order of Magick. Which powerful artifact? No one is quite sure (for reasons explained in the story). What does it do? Again, unclear. But it can’t be good. Thus our heroes Davlo, Grimnir, Fafnir and Tuonetar set out on their quest — and promptly go off the map. (I’m not even kidding. The Midgård map in the front of the book will of little use to you. But it’s pretty!) Will they survive the dangers of the Unmapped Lands? Will they catch the Purple Wizard in time? Will they save the world? Read the book to find out! |
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Saturday, November 15, 2014
A Dark Detective Story
Alexander Grothendieck, Récoltes et Semailles , 18.5.9.5. e, p. 1181:
Pour mettre la joie à son comble, j’ajoute que le dénommé Saavedra
semble avoir disparu de la circulation sans plus laisser aucune trace….
Du coup, l’histoire prend des allures de sombre intrigue policière.
Google Translate version:
To the joy at its height, I would add that the so-called Saavedra
seems to have disappeared from circulation without leaving any trace….
Suddenly, the story looks like a dark detective story.
Or horror film —
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Friday, November 14, 2014
Some Symplectic History
A paper from 1976 on symplectic torsors and finite geometry:
FINITE GEOMETRIES IN THE THEORY OF THETA CHARACTERISTICS
Autor(en): Rivano, Neantro Saavedra
Objekttyp: Article
Zeitschrift: L’Enseignement Mathématique
Band (Jahr): 22 (1976)
Heft 1-2: L’ENSEIGNEMENT MATHÉMATIQUE
PDF erstellt am: 14.11.2014
Persistenter Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.5169/seals-48185
(Received by the journal on February 20, 1976.)
Saavedra-Rivano was a student of Grothendieck, who reportedly died yesterday.
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Sunday, March 9, 2014
At Play in the Fields of Brazil
From Facebook, a photo from the Feast of St. Francis, 2013:
Neantro Saavedra-Rivano, author of the 1976 paper “Finite
Geometries in the Theory of Theta Characteristics,” in Brasilia—
On the same date, art from Inception and from Diamonds Studio
in Brazil —
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Sermon
On Theta Characteristics
— From Zentralblatt-math.org. 8 PM ET update: See also a related search.
Some may prefer a more politically correct— and simpler— sermon.
Background for the simpler sermon: Quilt Geometry.
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Monday, August 19, 2013
Noon
Last midnight's post quoted poet John Hollander
on Cervantes—
"… the Don’s view of the world is correct at midnight,
and Sancho’s at noon."
The post concluded with a figure that might, if
rotated slightly, be regarded as a sort of Star of
David or Solomon's Seal. The figure's six vertices
may be viewed as an illustration of Pascal's
"mystic hexagram."
Pacal's hexagram is usually described
as a hexagon inscribed in a conic
(such as a circle). Clearly the hexagon
above may be so inscribed.
The figure suggests that last midnight's Don be
played by the nineteenth-century mathematician
James Joseph Sylvester. His 1854 remarks on
the nature of geometry describe a different approach
to the Pascal hexagram—
| "… the celebrated theorem of Pascal known under the name of the Mystic Hexagram, which is, that if you take two straight lines in a plane, and draw at random other straight lines traversing in a zigzag fashion between them, from A in the first to B in the second, from B in the second to C in the first, from C in the first to D in the second, from D in the second to E in the first, from E in the first to F in the second and finally from F in the second back again to A the starting point in the first, so as to obtain ABCDEF a twisted hexagon, or sort of cat's-cradle figure and if you arrange the six lines so drawn symmetrically in three couples: viz. the 1st and 4th in one couple, the 2nd and 5th in a second couple, the 3rd and 6th in a third couple; then (no matter how the points ACE have been selected upon one of the given lines, and BDF upon the other) the three points through which these three couples of lines respectively pass, or to which they converge (as the case may be) will lie all in one and the same straight line." |
For a Sancho view of Sylvester's "cat's cradle," see some twentieth-century
remarks on "the most important configuration of all geometry"—
"Now look, your grace," said Sancho,
"what you see over there aren't giants,
but windmills, and what seems to be arms
are just their sails, that go around in the wind
and turn the millstone."
"Obviously," replied Don Quijote,
"you don't know much about adventures.”
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