From the journal of Steven H. Cullinane...
2006 May 01-31
Wednesday, May 31, 2006 3:00 AM
Clint Eastwood
is 76.
In honor of his birthday,
a three-part meditation
on quality:
Part I --
From The
Quality of Diamond,
Log24 entries from Feb. 2004:
The Quality
with No Name
And what is good, Phaedrus,
and what is not good...
Need we ask anyone
to tell us these things?
-- Epigraph to
Zen
and the Art of
Motorcyle
Maintenance
Part II --
From Log24 on
Dec.
7, 2003:
|
Eyes on the Prize
Dialogue from "Good Will Hunting" --
Will: He used to just put a belt,
a
stick, and a wrench
on the kitchen
table
and say,
"Choose."
Sean: Gotta go with the belt, there.
Will: I used to go with the
wrench.
Location, Location, Location
|
Part III --
From the website of
Noam D. Elkies,
Harvard
mathematician:
SLUMMERVILLE
|
Somerville,
|
Where the livin' is sleazy:
|
Folk are humpin'
|
And the chillun is high.
|
Oh yo' daddy's rich,
|
'Cos yo' ma is good lookin'
|
So hush, ugly baby,
|
Or I'll make you cry.
|
["Parody by Noam D. Elkies;
not the original
lyrics,
of course."]
Related material
from Log24 on
April 10, 2006:
Noam D. Elkies
The Magic Schmuck
Tuesday, May 30, 2006 9:00 PM
The Mathematical
Association of America
discusses
finite geometry:
"One thing in the Fano plane that bothered me
for years (for years,
I say) is that it had a circle - and it was described as a line. For
me, a line was a straight line, and I didn't trust curved or wriggly
lines. This distrust kept me away from understanding projective planes,
designs, and finite geometries for a awhile (for years)."
|
"Against stupidity
the gods themselves
fight unvictorious."
-- Schiller,* quoted as
the epigraph to the
chapter on Galois in
Men
of Mathematics,
by E. T. Bell
Related material:
Galois Geometry
* From
Die Jungfrau von Orleans
(The Maid of Orleans), Act III, sc. vi.
Today is the feast of that Jungfrau.
Click on picture
for details.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006 2:19 PM
Keir
Dullea
is 70 today.
"There are some extremely
odd things about this mission."
-- HAL
Tuesday, May 30, 2006 3:26 AM
Monday, May 29, 2006 3:00 PM
For John F. Kennedy's birthday:
Sunday, May 28, 2006 4:29 PM
Related
Philosophy:
|
6.54
My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me
finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through
them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder,
after he has climbed up on it.)
He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world
rightly.
7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be
silent.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Routledge and Kegan
Paul, London, 1922
|
Related
Art in Our Schools:
| |
Former President
of Dartmouth Dies
From today's New York Times:
"In one widely publicized episode, in 1988, he condemned The Dartmouth
Review, a conservative student newspaper, for ridiculing blacks, gay
men and lesbians, women and Jews."
|
|
Sunday, May 28, 2006 5:55 AM
Time Travel
"Since thirty mornings
are required to make
A day of which we say,
this is the day
That we desire, a day of
blank, blue wheels,
Involving the four corners
of the sky,
Lapised and lacqued
and freely emeraldine
In the space it fills,
the silent motioner
There, of clear, revolving
crystalline;
Since thirty summers
are needed for a year
And thirty years,
in the galaxies of birth,
Are time for counting
and remembering...."
-- Wallace Stevens,
"Of Ideal Time and Choice,"
in The Necessary Angel, 1951
"When it's time to railroad,
people start railroading."
-- Robert A. Heinlein in
The Door into Summer, 1957
"Everybody's doin'
a
brand new dance now..."
-- Kylie Minogue, 1987-88
Happy birthday, Kylie.
Friday, May 26, 2006 12:00 PM
For Stevie Nicks,
whose birthday is today
"The quidditas or essence
of an angel is
the same as its form."
-- William T. Noon, Society of Jesus,
Joyce and Aquinas, Yale, 1957
Related material
from
Oct. 27, 2003:
See the picture
in the web page
Poetry's Bones.
"It does, indeed, look more
like Proginoskes than any of
the pictures on the book jackets."
-- Madeleine L'Engle, letter of
November 28, 1976
Friday, May 26, 2006 8:00 AM
A Living Church
continued from March 27
"The
man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is
a man always expecting to meet Plato and Shakespeare to-morrow at
breakfast."
-- G. K. Chesterton
Thursday, May 25, 2006 7:13 PM
Ennui
May there be an ennui
of the first idea?
What else, prodigious scholar,
should there be?
-- Wallace Stevens,
"Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction"
Related material: The Line.
Thursday, May 25, 2006 4:40 PM
Order and Ennui
Meanwhile, back at the Institute for Advanced Study:
May
25, 4:40 PM --
Research Seminar
(Simonyi Hall Seminar Room) --
Pirita Paajanen,
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem:
Zeta functions of
finitely generated infinite groups
Some background cited by Paajanen:
M.P.F. du Sautoy, "Zeta functions of groups: The quest for order versus
the fl ight from ennui," Groups St Andrews 2001 - in Oxford, Volume 1,
CUP 2003.
Those who prefer the showbiz approach to mathematics (the flight from
ennui?) may enjoy a website giving further background from du Sautoy.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006 4:07 PM
Wednesday, May 24, 2006 3:00 PM
Tuesday, May 23, 2006 7:11 PM
Tuesday, May 23, 2006 10:18 AM
Exhibit A:
A science vulgarizer in today's New York Times--
"Somewhere
out there, more elusive than a snow leopard, more vaunted in its
imagined cultural oomph than an Oprah book blurb, is the Science Movie.
You know, the film
that finally does for science and scientists what 'The Godfather' did
for crime and what 'The West Wing' did for politics, accurately
reproducing the grandeur and grit of science while ushering its
practitioners into the ranks of coolness."
-- Dennis Overbye
Exhibit B:
John Updike's review in the May 22 New Yorker
of a new novel by Michel Houellebecq, The Possibility of an Island--
"Nor is Houellebecq.... entirely without
literary virtue. His four novels-- Whatever (1994), The
Elementary Particles (1998), and Platform (2001) are the
three others-- display a grasp of science and mathematics beyond that
of all but a few non-genre novelists."
A character in the new novel-- "a lengthy exercise in
futuristic science fiction"-- writes that
"The
dream of all men is to meet little sluts who are innocent but ready for
all forms of depravity-- which is what, more or less, all teenage girls
are."
Exhibit C:
A mathematician hopes for more exciting vulgarizations of his subject--
"I would hope that clever writers might
point out how mathematics is
altering our lifestyles and do it in a manner that would not lead
Garfield the Cat to say 'ho hum.'"
-- Philip J. Davis, "The
Media and Mathematics Look at Each Other" (pdf), Notices of the
American Mathematical Society, March 2006
Exhibit D:
Today's Garfield--
Exhibit E:
Log24 entry of May 18, a parody of "Contact," a 1997
film that vulgarized science--
Space Cadet
"They should have
sent a poet."
Exhibit F:
Gilbert and Sullivan, "The Mikado"--
"(With great effort) How de do, little girls, how de do? (Aside)
Oh, my protoplasmal ancestor!"
Coda
"It might be asking too much
to make us cool."
-- Science vulgarizer
Dennis Overbye
Robert De Niro as the
young Vito Corleone
Monday, May 22, 2006 4:04 AM
Monday, May 22, 2006 2:45 AM
Story
Balanchine, Dunham
From pbs.org:
"In 1940 Dunham and her company appeared in the black Broadway musical,
'Cabin in the Sky,' staged by George Balanchine, in which Dunham played
the sultry siren Georgia Brown...."
From the Library of Congress:
"George Balanchine and Katherine Dunham were, in effect,
co-choreographers of the dances in the show, at least for those in
which she and her dancers appeared. When choreographing for dancers
trained in techniques other than classical ballet, Balanchine's habit
was to respect their expertise and their personal style, to allow them
as much creative input as they wished to make, and then to arrange
their steps, combinations, and movements into a unified choreographic
composition. Dunham found this method of collaboration quite agreeable,
and she and Balanchine enjoyed a particularly amicable working
relationship.
The story of Cabin in the Sky centers
on Little Joe, a kindhearted but morally ambivalent Everyman, who is
stabbed in a dispute over a crap game, dies and is bound for Hell, but
is saved by his good wife's prayers and given extra time on earth to
qualify for admission to Heaven. Dooley Wilson played Little Joe...."
"It's still the
same old story...."
Sunday, May 21, 2006 5:00 PM
"Das
Ewig-Weibliche
Zieht uns hinan."
("The Eternal-Feminine
Draws us on.")
-- Conclusion of Goethe's Faust
Draws us, indeed.
Friday, May 19, 2006 4:07 PM
Women-Only
Meeting at Princeton
From May 15 through May 26, there is a women-only
meeting on zeta
functions at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New
Jersey. Today's activities:
| 8:00- 9:45 a.m. |
Breakfast (Dining Hall) |
| 9:00– 9:30 a.m. |
T-shirt Sale, Harry’s Bar – Dining Hall |
| 9:30-10:00 a.m. |
Depart for Princeton University (talks, lunch, campus and art
museum tour, and dinner) |
No movie?
Friday, May 19, 2006 2:02 AM
The Great Bartender
by Peter Viereck (1948)
Being absurd as well as beautiful,
Magic-- like art-- is hoax redeemed by awe.
(Not priest but clown,
the shuddering sorcerer
Is more astounded than
his rapt applauders:
"Then all those props and Easters
of my stage
Came true? But I was joking all the time!")
Art, being bartender, is never drunk;
And magic that believes itself, must die.
My star was rocket of my unbelief,
Launched heavenward as
all doubt's longings are;
It burst when, drunk with self-belief,
I tried to be its priest and shouted upward:
"Answers at last! If you'll but hint
the answers
For which earth aches, that famous
Whence and Whither;
Assuage our howling Why? with final fact."
-- As quoted in The Practical Cogitator,
or The Thinker's Anthology,
Selected and Edited by
Charles P. Curtis, Jr., and
Ferris Greenslet,
Third Edition, Revised and Enlarged,
With a new Introduction by
John H. Finley, Jr.,
Houghton Mifflin Company,
Boston, 1962
The dates of Viereck's birth and death are according to this morning's New York Times.
Friday, May 19, 2006 1:00 AM
Star and Diamond
continued
" 'I
know what it is you last saw,' she said; 'for that is also in my mind.
Do not be afraid! But do not think that only by singing amid the trees,
nor even by the slender arrows of elvenbows, is this land of
Lothlórien
maintained and defended against the Enemy. I say to you, Frodo, that
even as I speak to you, I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or
all his mind that concerns the Elves. And he gropes ever to see me and
my thought. But still the door is closed!'
She lifted up
her white arms, and spread out her hands towards the East in a gesture
of rejection and denial. Eärendil, the Evening Star, most beloved
of
the Elves, shone clear above. So bright was it that the figure of the
Elven-lady cast a dim shadow on the ground. Its ray glanced upon a ring
about her finger; it glittered like polished gold overlaid with silver
light, and a white stone in it twinkled as if the Even-star had come to
rest upon her hand. Frodo gazed at the ring with awe; for suddenly it
seemed to him that he understood.
'Yes,' she said, divining
his thought, 'it is not permitted to speak of it, and Elrond could not
do so. But it cannot be hidden from the Ring-Bearer, and one who has
seen the Eye. Verily it is in the land of Lórien upon the finger
of
Galadriel that one of the Three remains. This is Nenya, the Ring of
Adamant, and I am its keeper.' "
-- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Thursday, May 18, 2006 4:00 PM
Thursday, May 18, 2006 2:45 AM
Space Cadet
"They should have
sent a poet."
You'd never know it,
But buddy, I'm a kind of poet...
Starring in tonight's
New York Times obits:
One for
my baby
|
And one more
for the road
|
The "Coppertone girl" artist died at 88 on Monday, May
15. In her memory, here is a an entry from that day on a
women-only mathematics program at Princeton that started on
Monday. That entry opens with a quote from Robert A. Heinlein,
whose writing
inspired the TV series "Space Cadet." The star of that
series, Frankie Thomas, died at 85 on Thursday, May
11. In his honor as a member of the elite Solar Guard, here is a solar entry from Sunday, May 14. In honor of
Jodie Foster, space explorer and Coppertone girl incarnate, here is a
link to "Spare
Oom."
See also the
previous entry:
"My God, it's
full of stars!"
Wednesday, May 17, 2006 4:29 AM
Tombstone
From today's New York Times:
Obituary--
"Jiri Frel, a mercurial and eccentric curator who helped build the J.
Paul Getty Museum into a major center for Greek and Roman art but
resigned after revelations about unscrupulous acquisition practices,
died on April 29. He was 82.... a well-regarded expert in Greek
tombstones...."
News story--
"ATHENS, May 16 — After four hours of talks here with the Greek culture
minister, the director of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles said
Tuesday that he would press for the return of some of the Getty's most
prized ancient artifacts to Greece.... Greece is seeking the
repatriation of a... tombstone...."
From a photo accompanying the obituary:
Tuesday, May 16, 2006 2:45 AM
Monday, May 15, 2006 12:00 PM
For the next generation:
Some websites on zeta functions (a classic topic of considerable
current interest):
Sunday, May 14, 2006 5:00 PM
Today's birthday: George Lucas,
creator of the mother of all battle epics.
STAR WARS continued:
Saturday, May 13, 2006 4:00 PM
ART WARS
continued...
A Fold in Time
|
Braque
|
 |
Above: Braque and tesseract
"The senses deform, the mind forms. Work to perfect the
mind. There is no certitude but in what the mind conceives."
-- Georges Braque, Reflections on Painting, 1917
Those who wish to follow Braque's advice may try the following exercise
from a book first published in 1937:
Hint: See the above picture of
Braque and the construction of
a tesseract.
Related material:
Storyline
and Time
Fold
(both of Oct. 10, 2003),
and the following--
"Time, for L'Engle, is
accordion-pleated. She elaborated, 'When you
bring a sheet off the line, you can't handle it until it's folded, and
in a sense, I think, the universe can't exist until it's folded-- or
it's a story without a book.'"
-- Cynthia
Zarin on Madeleine L'Engle,
"The Storyteller," in The New Yorker,
issue dated April 12, 2004
Friday, May 12, 2006 3:00 PM
Friday, May 12, 2006 3:00 AM
Tesseract
"Does the word 'tesseract'
mean anything to you?"
-- Robert A. Heinlein in
The Number of the Beast
(1980)
My reply--
Part I:
A Wrinkle in Time, by
Madeleine L'Engle
(first published in 1962)
Part II:
Diamond
Theory in 1937
and
Geometry
of the 4x4 Square
Part III:
Catholic
Schools Sermon
Conclusion:
"Wells and trees were dedicated to saints. But the
offerings at many
wells and trees were to something other than the saint; had it not been
so they would not have been, as we find they often were,
forbidden.
Within this double and intertwined life existed those other capacities,
of which we know more now, but of which we still know little--
clairvoyance, clairaudience, foresight, telepathy."
-- Charles Williams, Witchcraft, Faber and Faber, London, 1941
Related material:
A New Yorker profile
of Madeleine L'Engle from April 2004, which I found tonight online
for the first time. For a related reflection on truth, stories,
and values, see Saint's Day. For a wider context, see the
Log24 entries of February 1-15, 2003 and February 1-15,
2006.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006 4:29 PM
"... we have condensed six dimensions into four,
then we either work by analogy into six, or we have to use math that
apparently nobody but Jake and my cousin Ed understands. Unless you can
think of some way to project six dimensions into three-- you seem to be
smart at such projections."
I closed my eyes and thought hard. "Zebbie, I don't
think it can be done. Maybe Escher could have done it."
Monday, May 8, 2006 3:15 PM
Sunday, May 7, 2006 3:00 AM
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:
Saturday, May 6, 2006 2:02 PM
Born on this date
100 years ago:
André Weil
"... just as God defeats the devil:
this bridge exists...."
-- André
Weil
"... I always prefer saying chance
rather than Providence...."
-- Simone
Weil
Friday, May 5, 2006 1:09 PM
Thursday, May 4, 2006 1:09 PM
First of all...
Wednesday, May 3, 2006 1:00 PM
Pennsylvania Lottery:
The winning numbers
for Tuesday, May 2--
the feast of
St. Athanasius:
Mid-day 703
Evening 462
"You gotta be true to your code"
-- Sinatra (see
previous entry)
The numbers 703 and 462 are, in Goldstein's phrase,
"truly real."
However, their link to St. Athanasius and to the Spanish language is,
as purveyors of fiction* say, "purely coincidental"-- as is much of
what makes life interesting.
"All persons living and dead are purely coincidental...."-- Kurt
Vonnegut, epigraph to
Bagombo
Snuff Box
* For instance,
David Auburn in
Proof,
which also involves
Dewey decimal numbers
Wednesday, May 3, 2006 2:45 AM
Quarter to Three
continued
For Henriette D. Avram,
a systems analyst who "had to enter the mind of the library cataloger,
a profession whose arcane knowledge-- involving deep philosophical
questions about taxonomy, interconnectedness and the nature of
similarity and difference-- was guarded like priestly ritual." --
Margalit Fox in today's New York Times
Mrs. Avram died on April 22.
For related material on priestly ritual, see
Finis Coronat Opus
"You gotta be true to your code"
-- Sinatra
