"I am serious about my study. I am a distinguished professor of mathematics at Brown University, though I have not for decades concerned myself with arithmetic, calculus, matrices, theorems, Hausdorff spaces, finite lattice representations, or anything else that involves values or numbers or representations of values or numbers or any such somethings, whether they have substance or not. I have spent my career in my little office on George Street in Providence contemplating and searching for nothing. I have not found it."
Everett, Percival. Dr. No: A Novel (p. 6). |
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Art for Nihilists
Philosophy Painted Black
From a New York Times obituary today . . .
"Armed with his work on the German phenomenologist Edmund Husserl,
in his late 20s and early 30s Mr. Hountondji undertook to confront head-on
'Bantu Philosophy,' a book by a Belgian missionary priest, Placide Tempels…."
Belgian Puzzle Art
From the Belgian artist of the March 25 New Yorker cover —
“There comes a time when the learner has identified
the abstract content of a number of different games
and is practically crying out for some sort of picture
by means of which to represent that which has been
gleaned as the common core of the various activities.”
— Article at Zoltan Dienes’s website
Tuesday, March 5, 2024
“If It’s Tuesday…”
Monday, January 22, 2024
Tuesday, January 9, 2024
Heart of Darkness
For some, yesterday was just another Maniac Monday.
Today being Tuesday suggests a Belgium-related search
in this journal . . .
Wednesday, December 27, 2023
Notes Toward a Ghent Altarpiece
From Prof. Dr. Koen Thas at the University of Ghent on 13 Dec. 2017 —
From this journal on that same date — 13 Dec. 2017 —
Related material for fans of synchronology — both from Nov. 3, 2009 —
Nightlight and Summa Mythologica .
Tuesday, December 5, 2023
Tuesday, November 7, 2023
If It’s Tuesday . . .
Friday, October 27, 2023
Tuesday, October 10, 2023
“If It’s Tuesday…” Continues.
A nihilist altarpiece, from other posts tagged "Ghent Links" —
Some will prefer the "Better to light one candle" philosophy and . . .
Candle from Sense8, Season 1, Episode 1: “Limbic Resonance” —
Tuesday, October 3, 2023
Tuesday… Belgium.
The inscape in the previous post suggests a review of
work by the Belgian mathematician Koen Thas on what
might be called the "quantum tesseract theorem."
Tuesday, September 26, 2023
If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium
Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023. Tags: Ghent Links — m759 @ 4:07 PM
Related material: "Ducky" died, Circle Zen, Palmervision
Monday, August 28, 2023
The Missing Links
Thursday, June 1, 2023
Antwerp Revisited: Diamond Space
Wednesday, September 21, 2022
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
The Amsterdam Connection
Tuesday, November 13, 2018
Blackboard Jungle Continues.
From the 1955 film "Blackboard Jungle" —
From a trailer for the recent film version of A Wrinkle in Time —
Detail of the phrase "quantum tesseract theorem":
From the 1962 book —
"There's something phoney
in the whole setup, Meg thought.
There is definitely something rotten
in the state of Camazotz."
Related mathematics from Koen Thas that some might call a
"quantum tesseract theorem" —
Some background —
See also posts tagged Dirac and Geometry. For more
background on finite geometry, see a web page
at Thas's institution, Ghent University.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Logos
Continued from All Hallows Eve…
The Belgian Lottery was a sponsor of
last month's 25th Solvay Conference —
"The Theory of the Quantum World,"
Brussels, October 19-22, 2011.
See also this journal in October and Change Logos—
(Physicists will recognize the kinship
with the coat of arms of Niels Bohr.)
Wednesday, June 1, 2005
Wednesday June 1, 2005
“History is not, of course, a cookbook offering pretested recipes. It teaches by analogy, not by maxims. It can illuminate the consequences of actions in comparable situations, yet each generation must discover for itself what situations are in fact comparable.”
Drama of the Diagonal, Part Deux
“Les livres d’histoire et la vie
racontent la même comédie….“
— Alain Boublil
“Along the road from Ohain to Braine-l’Alleud that hemmed in the plain of Mont-St-Jean and cut at right angles the road to Brussels, which the Emperor wished to take, he [Wellington] had placed 67,000 men and 184 cannons.”
Wednesday, April 9, 2003
Wednesday April 9, 2003
Hearts of Darkness
Today's birthdays:
Charles Baudelaire, poet, b. 1821
Leopold II, King of Belgium, b. 1835
Tom Lehrer, mathematician, b. 1928
In view of these birthdays and of yesterday's entry quoting Eliot on "the Shadow," the following trilogy of links seems appropriate:
The Lamont Cranston: |
Nota bene:
Today is also the birthday of
Paul Robeson and J. William Fulbright,
shadows to respect.