"Translation in the direction
conceptual -> concrete and symbolic
is much easier than
translation in the reverse direction…."
— The late William P. Thurston
(See also "Atlas to the Text," Harvard Crimson , March 8, 2011).
Related cinematic imagery
Conceptual (thanks to Don DeLillo and The New York Times )—
Concrete and symbolic (thanks to Amy Adams and Emily Blunt, as well as
Frederick Seidel in the September 3, 2012, New Yorker )—
"Biddies still cleaned the student rooms."
Last night's 10 PM post linked to an April 7, 2012,
post that through a series of further links leads
to Columbia Film Theory .
For other film-related remarks, by a
Columbia alumnus,* see last night's post.
See also the 1.3 MB image from Aug. 16, the night
of Elvis's Wrap Party. An excerpt from that image
stars Amy Adams—
For Amy, from the current New Yorker—
The Master—
* N.O.C.D.
Do you know where your children are?
Continued from Plan 9 , a Log24 post of 9 PM Monday—
See another weblog's April 7, 2012, post on
God and Horror Movies.
See also this weblog's post on that date.
(Continued from June 14, 2007)
The late William P. Thurston on how mathematical knowledge may decay:
"There are several obvious mechanisms of decay. The experts in a subject retire and die, or simply move on to other subjects and forget. Mathematics is commonly explained and recorded in symbolic and concrete forms that are easy to communicate, rather than in conceptual forms that are easy to understand once communicated. Translation in the direction
In short, mathematics only exists in a living community of mathematicians that spreads understanding and breaths [sic ] life into ideas both old and new. The real satisfaction from mathematics is in learning from others and sharing with others. All of us have clear understanding of a few things and murky concepts of many more. There is no way to run out of ideas in need of clarification. The question of who is the first person to ever set foot on some square meter of land is really secondary. Revolutionary change does matter, but revolutions are few, and they are not
— At mathoverflow.net, October 30, 2010.
The discussion has been "closed as no longer relevant."
For another Thurston quote of interest, see a more recent
mathoverflow discussion "closed as not a real question."
It was a dark and stormy night.
— A Wrinkle in Time (brought up to date)
"Plato's cave was brought up to date in 1978…."
— Keith Devlin in Mathematics: The Science of Patterns
Related material from yesterday: Touchy-Feely and Plan 9.
"Plan 9 deals with the resurrection of the dead."
For a rather different approach to Plato, see three posts of August 16, 2012—
Hope of Heaven , by John O'Hara—
Avon paperback edition, 1947
Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer being here below? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. Oh, blindness to the future! kindly given, That each may fill the circle, marked by Heaven: Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, and now a world. Hope humbly, then; with trembling pinions soar; Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore. What future bliss, He gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blest: The soul, uneasy and confined from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
— Alexander Pope in An Essay on Man
A remark by the late William P. Thurston—
Please note: I'm not advocating that
we turn mathematics into a touchy-feely subject.
Noted. But see this passage—
|
The Mathematical Experience , by Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh (1981), updated study edition, Springer, 2011— From the section titled "Four-Dimensional Intuition," pages 445-446: "At Brown University Thomas Banchoff, a mathematician, and Charles Strauss, a computer scientist, have made computer-generated motion pictures of a hypercube…. … at the Brown University Computing Center, Strauss gave me a demonstration of the interactive graphic system which made it possible to produce such a film…. … Strauss showed me how all these controls could be used to get various views of three-dimensional projections of a hypercube. I watched, and tried my best to grasp what I was looking at. Then he stood up, and offered me the chair at the control. I tried turning the hypercube around, moving it away, bringing it up close, turning it around another way. Suddenly I could feel it!. The hypercube had leaped into palpable reality, as I learned how to manipulate it, feeling in my fingertips the power to change what I saw and change it back again. The active control at the computer console created a union of kinesthetics and visual thinking which brought the hypercube up to the level of intuitive understanding." |
Thanks to the Web, a version of this experience created by Harry J. Smith
has been available to non-academics for some time.
Image from the New York Times Book Review of August 26.
See also a related song for Marxists who like Brecht.
For some lighter entertainment, see a 1942 movie trailer.
* A sequel to today's noon post Logical Song (itself suggested
by a Chautauqua, NY, end-of season event)
" Und ein Schiff mit acht Segeln…"
For the Feast of Saint Louis—
— Eliot, The Waste Land , from
Wagner, Tristan und Isolde
See…
For a racecar driver who reportedly died in
Orange, California, on August 12—
"Never one to take it slow, Grant was also an avid boater,
motorcyclist and aerobatic pilot. He last rode his motorcycle,
a BMW R1200R, on July 12."
"I love those Bavarians… so meticulous."
"The 'Valley of Death' is the oldest
concentration camp memorial in Bavaria."
* German for "Of Death."
For a different Todes, see an obituary of a poet.
See also Rosetta Jacobs in this journal.
Six PM EDT is midnight CEST in Geneva.
For the late Marvin W. Meyer, professor at Chapman
University in Orange, California, and a graduate
of Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan…
(Some background: Marilynne Robinson.)
(Continued from In Memoriam (Aug. 22), Chapman's Homer (Aug. 23),
and this morning's Colorful Tale)
An informative, but undated, critique of the late Marvin W. Meyer
by April D. DeConick at the website of the Society of Biblical Literature
appeared in more popular form in an earlier New York Times
op-ed piece, "Gospel Truth," dated Dec. 1, 2007.
A check, in accord with Jungian synchronicity, of this journal
on that date yields a quotation from Plato's Phaedrus —
"The soul or animate being has the care of the inanimate."
Related verses from T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets —
"The detail of the pattern is movement."
"So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern."
Some background from pure mathematics (what the late
William P. Thurston called "the theory of formal patterns")—
(Continued from July 19, 2008)
From the Diamond 16 Puzzle —
The resemblance between the "quadrants" part of
the above picture and the new Microsoft symbol—
— is of course purely coincidental, as is the fact
that the new symbol illustrates four colors.
Louis Sahagun in today's Los Angeles Times—
The late Professor Marvin W. Meyer
"was our Indiana Jones," said James L. Doti,
president of Chapman University in Orange,
where Meyer held the Griset Chair in Bible
and Christian Studies and was director of
the Albert Schweitzer Institute.
Meyer reportedly died on August 16.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
|
See tonight's leading obituaries
from The New York Times .
A quotation from William P. Thurston,
who died yesterday—
"It may sound almost circular to say that
what mathematicians are accomplishing
is to advance human understanding of mathematics.
I will not try to resolve this
by discussing what mathematics is,
because it would take us far afield.
Mathematicians generally feel that they know
what mathematics is, but find it difficult
to give a good direct definition.
It is interesting to try. For me,
'the theory of formal patterns'
has come the closest, but to discuss this
would be a whole essay in itself."
Related material from a literate source—
"So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern"
— and from a different source, cached shortly after midnight
on the (GMT) date of Thurston's death —
(Click for Google Cache information and to enlarge.)
Detail from the above Math Overflow discussion—
(Continued from the day of Hunter S. Thompson's suicide)
See "The First Church of Marilynne Robinson."
(The New Yorker , May 30, 2012)
(Continued from March 28, 2001)
"Hillbillies, Okies, Arkies— they're all the same people."
— Hunter S. Thompson, Hell's Angels
Related cinematic art:
Hunger Games (2012)—
Winter’s Bone (2010)—
Coltrane, not coal train.
See also a children's version.
Last night's 2:01 AM post suggests …
The Washington Post on yesterday's presidential Sunday—
"Accompanied by his wife, Michelle, and daughters
Sasha and Malia on the mild, overcast morning,
Obama walked through Lafayette Square
to St. John’s Episcopal Church.
The Rev. Michael Angell delivered a sermon
from John 6 about the extended metaphor
of eating Jesus’ flesh….
The Obamas, all wearing shades of blue,
participated in Holy Communion before
motorcading back to the White House."
In related news—
" We praised him and then we ate him,
all courtesy of a generous catering budget
from film director Tony Scott."
— "Death in the Center Ring:
Timothy Leary's High Dive,"
by Douglas Rushkoff, May 13, 2008
See also…
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