Continued from yesterday, the date of death for German
billionaire philanthropist Klaus Tschira —
For Tschira in this journal, see Stiftung .
For some Würfel illustrations, see this morning's post
Manifest O. A related webpage —
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Würfel-Märchen
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Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Mathematics for Jews*
Headline at the Toronto Star on Friday, March 27, 2015:
Robert Langlands: The Canadian
who reinvented mathematics
“He’s like a modern-day Einstein.”
Apparently, unlike God, Langlands würfelt .
* See also Blockheads in this journal.
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Saturday, March 28, 2015
Against Dryness
"July 5, 2012, begins normally enough —
Ben Affleck’s character goes for a drink
at the bar he co-owns with his hilariously
sarcastic twin sister Margo …."
Margo Dunne: Well, the Irish prince graces us
with his presence. [she flicks water in his face]
Nick Dunne: His majesty prefers not to be moistened.
Margo and Nick go on to discuss what Nick should get
his wife as a fifth ("wood") anniversary present.
One possibility, from the German website EinsteinSpiele.de —
(Suggested by the word Legespiel in yesterday's link Tribute.)
See also the above date — July 5, 2012 — in this journal.
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Saturday, May 26, 2012
Talk Amongst Yourselves
Hard Science Fiction weekend at Dragon Press Bookstore
Saturday May 26:
11am-noon Playing with the net up:
Hard Science Fiction in the era of
short attention spans, crowd-sourcing,
and rapid obsolescence
( Greg Benford, James Cambias, Kathryn Cramer)
….
3pm-4:30 Technological optimism and pessimism;
utopia and dystopia; happy endings & sad endings:
what do these oppositions have to do with one another?
Are they all the same thing? How are they different
from one another? Group discussion.
My own interests in this area include…
(Click image for some context)
The above was adapted from a 1996 cover—
Vintage Books, July 1996. Cover: Evan Gaffney.
For the significance of the flames,
see PyrE in the book. For the significance
of the cube in the altered cover, see
The 2×2×2 Cube and The Diamond Archetype.
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Sunday, January 22, 2012
The Presbyterian Exorcist
(Backstory— Presbyterian in this journal)
Princeton University Press on a book it will publish in March—
Circles Disturbed brings together important thinkers in mathematics, history, and philosophy to explore the relationship between mathematics and narrative. The book's title recalls the last words of the great Greek mathematician Archimedes before he was slain by a Roman soldier–"Don't disturb my circles"–words that seem to refer to two radically different concerns: that of the practical person living in the concrete world of reality, and that of the theoretician lost in a world of abstraction. Stories and theorems are, in a sense, the natural languages of these two worlds–stories representing the way we act and interact, and theorems giving us pure thought, distilled from the hustle and bustle of reality. Yet, though the voices of stories and theorems seem totally different, they share profound connections and similarities.
Exercise— Discuss the above paragraph's vulgarity.
Discuss also the more robust vulgarity of Marvel Entertainment…
Context— "Marvel" in this journal, and The Cosmic Cube.
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