Log24

Today is Wednesday.

O.E. Wodnesdæg  "Woden's day," a Gmc. loan-translation of L. dies Mercurii  "day of Mercury" (cf. O.N. Oðinsdagr , Swed. Onsdag , O.Fris. Wonsdei , M.Du. Wudensdach ). For Woden , see Odin  . — Online Etymology Dictionary

Above: Anthony Hopkins as Odin in the 2011 film "Thor"

Hugo Weaving as Johann Schmidt in the related 2011 film "Captain America"—

"The Tesseract* was the jewel of Odin's treasure room."

Weaving also played Agent Smith in The Matrix Trilogy.

The figure at the top in the circle of 13** "Thor" characters above is Agent Coulson.

"I think I'm lucky that they found out they need somebody who's connected to the real world to help bring these characters all together."

— Clark Gregg, who plays Agent Coulson in "Thor," at UGO.com

For another circle of 13, see the Crystal Skull film implicitly referenced in the Bright Star link from Abel Prize (Friday, Aug. 26, 2011)—

Today's New York Times  has a quote about a former mathematician who died on that day (Friday, Aug. 26, 2011)—

"He treated it like a puzzle."

Sometimes that's the best you can do.

* See also tesseract  in this journal.

** For a different arrangement of 13 things, see the cube's 13 axes in this journal.

From http://msa-x.msa-x.org/?p=1064 —

"Exit Art New York, The Labyrinth Wall:
From Mythology to Reality" —

From tonight's online New York Times  obituaries —

Ms. Ingberman died Wednesday. Related material—

Symmetry (Wednesday), Design (Thursday), Solomon's Labyrinth (Friday).

See also an essay by John Haber —

"Exit Art may yet offer an alternative: shut them up in the labyrinth, with the Minotaur and, as in Iraq, no Ariadne's thread to guide them out. Jeannette Ingberman and Papo Colo line the space with 'The Labyrinth Wall: From Mythology to Reality,' inviting fifty-one artists to cover its sixty-two panels."

— "Marlene Dumas, The Labyrinth Wall, and Emily Jacir"

Haber  (ibid .) also describes artist Marlene Dumas, a recent winner of a Royal Swedish Academy Schock Prize. For a fellow Schock winner— mathematician Michael Aschbacher— see Thursday's Design.)

* For another version of the title, see this morning's front page.

Some context for last night's post on group theorist Michael Aschbacher—

Video: Pope to youths in Cuatro Vientos: "Thank you for your joy and resistance"

Tony Long at Wired.com, Aug. 30, 2007—  "Scattered to the four winds"—

"This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, ' patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,
                Is immortal diamond." —Gerard Manley Hopkins, Society of Jesus

Wednesday's Marginal Remarks pictured Robert De Niro
and Sean Penn in "We're No Angels." De Niro appeared
again in a Saturday Night Live sketch linked to
in last night's 9:29 post.

Here are some remarks featuring Penn related to
Peter J. Cameron's description yesterday of Sudoku
as an example of mathematics.

(Recall that the symbol #, known as 'hash,"
can stand for checkmate.)

For a sample chess problem, see a post from Oct. 10, 2005,
the day that the Sudoku remark Cameron describes was
in the news.

For Ms. Julie and the Pope

For Ms. Julie:

Nuevas Banderas in this journal…

Click on image
for details.

See also Balakrishnan's Last Problem—

For the Pope:

Now playing; click poster for details.

See also "Damnation Morning" in this journal—

She drew from her handbag a pale grey gleaming implement
that looked by quick turns to me like a knife, a gun, a slim
sceptre, and a delicate branding iron—especially when its
tip sprouted an eight-limbed star of silver wire.

“The test?” I faltered, staring at the thing.

“Yes, to determine whether you can live in the fourth
dimension or only die in it.”

— Fritz Leiber, short story, 1959

* For a time-leap from Leiber's 1959 to Hollywood's 2011, see yesterday's
  Marginal Remarks,  "The God particle ?" and a different Banderas.

Today's Google Doodle is in honor of Fermat's birthday—

"I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this theorem,
 which this doodle is too small to contain." — Google's caption

Another marginal remark, from a link target in last night's "Ein Kampf"—

"We are talking about the spatial and temporal phenomenon of language,
not about some non-spatial, non-temporal chimera [Note in margin:
Only it is possible to be interested in a phenomenon in a variety of ways]."

— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations  (1953),  Section 108

Related material on spatial and temporal phenomena—

A Dec. 29, 2010, comment to a Dec. 26 weblog post on
"Unexpected Connections in Mathematics"—

Connoisseurs of synchronicities  in the phenomena of language may note that
these December dates mark the feasts of St. Stephen and St. Thomas Becket.

From the feast of the latter, two Log24 posts: Toy Stories and True Grid.

Those less enchanted by pop math than Google may prefer to observe
two other birthdays today— those of Robert De Niro and of Sean Penn:

"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language."

"Die Philosophie ist ein Kampf gegen die Verhexung unsres Verstandes durch die Mittel unserer Sprache."

— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations  (1953),  Section 109

"When the battle's lost and won" — The Scottish play

Related material— Monday's Language Game.

There is an unwarranted leap here
from "suggests" to "knowledge."

See Under the Volcano  and "harrowing" in this journal.

"Let him who is without sin among you
 serve the first drink."

Related material—

Yesterday, 3:33 PM, in this journal— "Time for you to see the field"— and…

Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury , opening paragraph of part two, "June Second, 1910"—

"When the shadow of the sash appeared on the curtains it was between seven and eight oclock and then I was in time again, hearing the watch. It was Grandfather's and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it's rather excruciating-ly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father's. I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly, and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools."

See also Willard Van Orman Quine in this journal on August 15, 2009—

"A tale told by an idiot"— and such a tale—

The Montreal Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor has been reviewed
online recently in The New Yorker  and The Nation .

Here is some background from this journal and from a 1989 book.

Update of 5:01 AM August 14— See also Valéry and the Self in this journal.