The Greek capital letter Omega, Ω, is customarily
used to denote a set that is acted upon by a group.
If the group is the affine group of 322,560
transformations of the four-dimensional
affine space over the two-element Galois field,
the appropriate Ω is the 4×4 grid above.
See the Cullinane diamond theorem .
If the group is the large Mathieu group of
244,823,040 permutations of 24 things,
the appropriate Ω is the 4×6 grid below.
See the Miracle Octad Generator of R. T. Curtis.
The Matrix —
The Grid —
Picturing the Witt Construction —
"Read something that means something." — New Yorker ad
A professor at Harvard has written about
"the urge to seize and display something
real beyond artifice."
He reportedly died on January 3, 2015.
An image from this journal on that date:
Another Gitterkrieg image:
The 24-set Ω of R. T. Curtis
Click on the images for related material.
"… the movement of analogy
begins all over once again."
See A Reappearing Number in this journal.
Illustrations:
Figure 1 —
Background: MOG in this journal.
Figure 2 —
Background —
| SPOILER ALERT
This post links to a column that |
The title is from a column by Stanley Fish
on The Hunger Games books in today's
online New York Times . The column
was posted at 9 PM EDT on May 7th, but I
did not see it until this morning.
Fish says—
"In the end… [spoiler details omitted]…
children… 'don’t know they play
on a graveyard'…."
For some literary background, see last night's post
on the May 7th, 2012, NY Times obituaries as well
as the May 7th, 2006, Log24 post featuring 24 squares
arranged in a rectangular frame.
See also Frame Tales and, more generally,
The King and the Corpse.
"Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera." — Yul Brynner
Josefine Lyche's
"Theme and Variations" (Oslo, 2009)—
Some images in reply—
Frame Tale
Click on images for further details.
"In the name of the former
and of the latter
and of their holocaust.
Allmen."
Bagombo Snuff Box
(in memory of
Burt Kerr Todd)
“Well, it may be the devil
or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to
serve somebody.”
— “Bob Dylan”
(pseudonym of Robert Zimmerman),
quoted by “Bob Stewart”
on July 18, 2005
“Bob Stewart” may or may not be the same person as “crankbuster,” author of the “Rectangular Array Theorem” or “RAT.” This “theorem” is intended as a parody of the “Miracle Octad Generator,” or “MOG,” of R. T. Curtis. (See the Usenet group sci.math, “Steven Cullinane is a Crank,” July 2005, messages 51-60.)
“Crankbuster” has registered at Math Forum as a teacher in Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon). For a tall tale involving Ceylon, see the short story “Bagombo Snuff Box” in the book of the same title by Kurt Vonnegut, who has at times embodied– like Martin Gardner and “crankbuster“– “der Geist, der stets verneint.”
Here is my own version (given the alleged Ceylon background of “crankbuster”) of a Bagombo snuff box:
Mathematical Style:
Mac Lane Memorial, Part Trois
(See also Part I and Part II.)
“We have seen that there are many diverse styles that lead to success in mathematics. Choose one mathematician… from the ones we studied whose ‘mathematical style’ you find most rewarding for you…. Identify the mathematician and describe his or her mathematical style.”
| — Sarah J. Greenwald, take-home exam from Introduction to Mathematics at Appalachian State U., Boone, North Carolina |
From today’s Harvard Crimson:
Ex-Math Prof Mac Lane, 95, Dies
[Saunders] Mac Lane was most famous for the ground-breaking paper he co-wrote with Samuel Eilenberg of Columbia in 1945 which introduced category theory, a framework to show how mathematical structures relate to each other. This branch of algebra has since influenced most mathematical fields and also has functions in philosophy and linguistics, but was first dismissed by many practical mathematicians as too abstract to be useful.
Gade University Professor of Mathematics Barry Mazur, a friend of the late Mac Lane, recalled that the paper had at first been rejected from a lower-caliber mathematical journal because the editor thought that it was “more devoid of content” than any other he had read.
“Saunders wrote back and said, ‘That’s the point,'” Mazur said. “And in some ways that’s the genius of it. It’s the barest, most Beckett-like vocabulary that incorporates the theory and nothing else.”
He likened it to a sparse grammar of nouns and verbs and a limited vocabulary that is presented “in such a deft way that it will help you understand any language you wish to understand and any language will fit into it.”
“In my hour of weakness,that old enemy
tries to steal my soul.
But when he comes
like a flood to surround me
My God will step in
and a standard he’ll raise.”
Readings for Trinity Sunday
For more on the structure
discussed by Nickerson, see
For theology in general, see
Raiders of the Lost Matrix
“In general, a matrix… is something that provides support or structure, especially in the sense of surrounding and/or shaping. It comes from the Latin word for ‘womb,’ itself derived from the Latin word for ‘mother,’ which is mater [as in alma mater].” — Wikipedia
For a mystical interpretation of the above matrix as it relates to the Hebrew words at the center of the official Yale seal, see Talmud.
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