| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
15 Apr 2005 03:31:15 AM |
| Object: |
OT: John Allen Paulos |
Beyond the fringe
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/lastword/story/0,13228,1458540,00.html
Play games with the top internet search queries and the fantastic
conjunctions that result can be uncomfortably close to the real news,
writes J A Paulos
Thursday April 14, 2005
The Guardian
The Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle (Workshop of Potential
Literature), Oulipo for short, was the name of a small group of
primarily French writers, mathematicians and academics devoted to
exploring mathematical and combinatorial techniques in literature.
Founded in 1960 (and still somewhat active), the group searched for new
literary structures by imposing unusual constraints.
Raymond Queneau's One Hundred Trillion Sonnets is a prime example of
Oulipo's combinatorial approach. The work is 10 pages long, with a
sonnet on each page. Cut crosswise, the pages allow each of the 14
lines of each sonnet to be turned separately. Thus any of the 10 first
lines may be combined with any of the 10 second lines, resulting in 102
or 100 different pairs of opening lines. Any of these 102 possibilities
may be combined with any of the 10 third lines to yield 103 or 1,000
possible sets of three lines. Continuing, we conclude that there are
1014 possible sonnets. Queneau claimed that they all made sense,
although it's safe to say that the claim will never be verified since
there is more text in these 1014 different sonnets than in all the rest
of the world's literature.
John Allen Paulos
http://news.google.com/news?q=Paulos%20(John%20OR%20Allen%20OR%20JA%20OR%20J%20OR%20A)%20John%20OR%20Allen%20OR%20JA%20OR%20J%20OR%20A&num=100&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?q=Paulos+(John+OR+Allen+OR+JA+OR+J+OR+A)+John+OR+Allen+OR+JA+OR+J+OR+A&num=100&hl=en&lr=&tab=nw&ie=UTF-8&sa=N
http://www.google.com/search?q=Paulos+%28John+OR+Allen+OR+JA+OR+J+OR+A%29+John+OR+Allen+OR+JA+OR+J+OR+A&btnG=Google+Search&hl=en&cat=gwd%2FTop
http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=Paulos%20(John%20OR%20Allen%20OR%20JA%20OR%20J%20OR%20A)%20John%20OR%20Allen%20OR%20JA%20OR%20J%20OR%20A&num=100&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&sa=N&scoring=d&tab=wg
Math OR Maths OR Mathematics OR Mathematical OR Mathematician OR
Mathematicians
http://news.google.com/news?q=%20Math%20OR%20Maths%20OR%20Mathematics%20OR%20Mathematical%20OR%20Mathematician%20OR%20Mathematicians&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?q=Math+OR+Maths+OR+Mathematics+OR+Mathematical+OR+Mathematician+OR+Mathematicians&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&tab=nw&sa=N
http://www.google.com/search?q=Math+OR+Maths+OR+Mathematics+OR+Mathematical+OR+Mathematician+OR+Mathematicians&num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&output=search&cat=gwd/Top
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_oq=Math%20Maths%20Mathematics%20Mathematical%20Mathematician%20Mathematicians&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=100&hl=en
OT: Some numbers you can't count on
http://tinyurl.com/ysjn
A Blueprint for the Future
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/59c28cd6dfe6f60f
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