Log24

See as well the search for Veritas  in this  journal.

Harvard’s motto is Veritas, i.e., Truth.

Today’s Crimson says a new philosophy professor has joined the Harvard faculty.

The professor, Mark E. Richard, is the author of a 2008 book, When Truth Gives Out.

For related material, see this journal on Oct. 19, 2002: “What Is Truth?.” The conclusion of that entry quotes Jack Nicholson’s classic remark, “You can’t handle the truth.”

For one way to handle the truth, see Pilate Goes to Kindergarten.

From an article on cybersecurity in today's new New Yorker —

Boback and Hopkins formed a corporation.
Hopkins came up with its name, Tiversa ,
a portmanteau of “time” and “universe.”
It was also an anagram of veritas :  Latin for
“truth,” but scrambled.

Then there is …
vastier veritas —

One possible answer —

     * See Veritas (March 7, 2016).

This post was suggested by this morning's New York Times  story on the missing cornerstone of St. Patrick's Cathedral and by the recent design for an official T-shirt celebrating Harvard's 375th anniversary—

In Harvard's case, the missing piece beneath the cathedral-like spire* is the VERITAS on the college shield.

Possible sources for a shield image representing VERITAS—

1. "Patrick Blackburn" in this journal, which might be combined with

2. Reflections on Kurt Gödel ** by Hao Wang, Chapter 9, "To Fit All the Parts Together"—

"The metaphor of fitting parts together readily suggests
  the concrete image of solving a picture puzzle…." (p. 243)

Or the image of a Wang tiles puzzle.

A graphic image, colorful but garish, that summarizes these two sources—

  Shield with matching Wang tiles

* The Lowell House bell tower
** MIT Press, first published in 1987

Sicut aquila provocans ad volandum pullos suos,
et super eos volitans, expandit alas suas,
et assumpsit eum, atque portavit in humeris suis.

— Deuteronomy 32:11 (Clementine Latin Vulgate)

In his honor, a small correction will be made this morning to the Wikipedia article on Harvard University.  The date of the founding of Harvard will be changed from today, September 8, to the apparently more correct date October 28 (1636).

“… the Massachusetts
Great and General Court…
on Oct. 28, 1636, set aside
400 pounds for that
     ‘schoale or colledge….'”

— TIME, Sept. 28, 1936

“Only through time
   time is conquered.”
— T. S. Eliot

Update of 7:14 PM Sept. 8:

Democracy has prevailed, and my correction has now been made politically correct.

Here is my comment at Wikipedia:

I see that Daniel P. B. Smith has changed the article in accordance with his earlier suggestion. This is at least an improvement. Enemies of Harvard’s political correctness may be amused by the fact that in the summary box, the college motto Veritas (Truth) is followed immediately by a Harvard lie.

At Last, Some Veritas

From the Harvard Crimson, 1/12/04:

College Faces Mental Health Crisis

“An overwhelming majority of Harvard undergraduates struggle with mental health problems, a recent Crimson poll found.”

Related material:

“The people who intermediate between lunatics and the world used to be called alienists; the go-betweens for mathematicians are called teachers. Many a student may rightly have wondered if the terms shouldn’t be reversed.”

— Book review in the current Harvard Magazine; among the authors reviewed is Harvard mathematician and administrator Benedict H. Gross.

“Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 has said improving mental health services is one of his top priorities in his first year on the job.”

— Harvard Crimson 1/12/04

“He takes us to the central activity of mathematics—which is imagining….”

— Harvard Magazine on Harvard mathematician and author Barry Mazur.

For related material on Mazur, see

A Mathematical Lie.

“The teenagers aren’t all bad. I love ’em if nobody else does. There ain’t nothing wrong with young people. Jus’ quit lyin’ to ’em.”

— Jackie “Moms” Mabley