| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
18 Oct 2003 06:07:10 AM |
| Object: |
OT: Some numbers you can't count on |
Keep on tracking
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1065255,00.html
Frank Kermode enjoys two investigations into the origins of our notion
of infinity, Infinity by Brian Clegg and Everything and More by David
Foster Wallace
Saturday October 18, 2003
The Guardian
Infinity: The Quest to Think the Unthinkable
by Brian Clegg
288pp, Constable, £8.99
Everything and More: A Compact History of
by David Foster Wallace
320pp, Weidenfeld, £14.99
Even those of us to whom calculus was a distant peak we had no
prospect of climbing can remember a time of innocence when numbers
were full of mysterious interest. If a number is divisible by three,
the sum of its digits is also divisible by three, eg 714, 1,002,
108,762 . . . If a number is divisible by 11, the sums of its
alternate digits will always be equal (121, 671, 2541 . . .). Twos and
fives need no help, and the only number that yields to no such tricks
is seven. And incidentally, why is the sum of two odd numbers, like
the sum of two even numbers, always an even number?
Only connect
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1065257,00.html
What a small world - or is it? Steven Poole is fascinated by Duncan J
Watts' Six Degrees
Saturday October 18, 2003
The Guardian
Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age
by Duncan J Watts
368pp, Heinemann, £20
Small world, isn't it? You may have occasion to use this phrase if
your yoga teacher reports that he met your childhood sweetheart last
week on the beach in Goa. On the other hand, you might say it if you
meet a saxophonist at a party who turns out to know your old
university friend whom you haven't seen in years. But the first story
is one of mere coincidence, to which people tend to attach mystical
significance by suppressing the memory of the uncountable times it
doesn't happen. And the second story is only a very weak version of
the "small world" phenomenon, since by virtue of being invited to the
same party in the first place, people are bound to have all sorts of
unguessed social connections.
Brian Clegg
http://news.google.com/news?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22Brian+Clegg%22&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22Brian+Clegg%22&sa=N&tab=nw
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22Brian+Clegg%22&sa=N&tab=wd&cat=gwd%2FTop
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_epq=Brian%20Clegg&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=100&hl=en
David Foster Wallace
http://news.google.com/news?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22David+Foster+Wallace%22&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22David+Foster+Wallace%22&sa=N&tab=nw
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22David+Foster+Wallace%22&sa=N&tab=wd&cat=gwd%2FTop
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_epq=David%20Foster%20Wallace&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=100&hl=en
Duncan J Watts
http://news.google.com/news?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22Duncan+J+Watts%22&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22Duncan+J+Watts%22&sa=N&tab=nw
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22Duncan+J+Watts%22&sa=N&tab=wd&cat=gwd%2FTop
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_epq=Duncan%20J%20Watts&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=100&hl=en
six degrees of separation
http://news.google.com/news?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22six+degrees+of+separation%22&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22six+degrees+of+separation%22&sa=N&tab=nw
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22six+degrees+of+separation%22&sa=N&tab=wd&cat=gwd%2FTop
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_epq=six%20degrees%20of%20separation&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=100&hl=en
OT: Some numbers you can't count on
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=18510aff.0305290044.5ac65ce0%40posting.google.com
A Blueprint for the Future
http://tinyurl.com/9wjv
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| User: "maff" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Some numbers you can't count on |
30 Oct 2003 05:14:05 AM |
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(maff) wrote in message news:<18510aff.0310180316.5740c6b@posting.google.com>...
[...]
Approaching infinity
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2003/10/26/approaching_infinity/
David Foster Wallace talks about writing novels, riding the Green
Line, and his new book on higher math
By Caleb Crain, 10/26/2003
IF THERE WERE ANOTHER superpower anymore, it would probably classify
David Foster Wallace's "Everything and More: A Compact History of ?"
(W.W. Norton) as a Sputnik-level threat to its national security.
After all, America's intellectual vigor must be fearsome if a
publisher is willing to bet that its citizens will voluntarily,
recreationally, and in reasonably large numbers read a book with
sentences like this:
Cantor shows that P's first derived set, P', can be "decomposed" or
broken down into the union of two different subsets, Q and R, where Q
is the set of all points belonging to first-species derived sets of
P', and R is the set of all points that are contained in every single
derived set of P', meaning R is the set of just those points that all
the derived sets of P' have in common.
David Foster Wallace
http://news.google.com/news?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22David+Foster+Wallace%22&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22David+Foster+Wallace%22&sa=N&tab=nw
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22David+Foster+Wallace%22&sa=N&tab=wd&cat=gwd%2FTop
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_epq=David%20Foster%20Wallace&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=100&hl=en
Georg Cantor
http://news.google.com/news?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Georg+Cantor&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Georg+Cantor&sa=N&tab=nw
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Georg+Cantor&sa=N&tab=wd&cat=gwd%2FTop
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=Georg%20Cantor&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=100&hl=en
Kurt Godel
http://news.google.com/news?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Kurt+Godel&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Kurt+Godel&sa=N&tab=nw
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Kurt+Godel&sa=N&tab=wd&cat=gwd%2FTop
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=Kurt%20Godel&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=100&hl=en
Gödel Kurt
http://news.google.com/news?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&cat=&q=G%C3%B6del+Kurt&sa=N&tab=dn
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=G%C3%B6del+Kurt&sa=N&tab=nw
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=G%C3%B6del+Kurt&sa=N&tab=wd&cat=gwd%2FTop
http://groups.google.com/groups?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&scoring=d&q=G%C3%B6del+Kurt&sa=N&tab=wg
OT: Some numbers you can't count on
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=18510aff.0305290044.5ac65ce0%40posting.google.com
A Blueprint for the Future
http://tinyurl.com/9wjv
.
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| User: "maff" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Some numbers you can't count on |
01 Nov 2003 04:46:31 AM |
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(maff) wrote in message news:<18510aff.0310300313.39fea3e4@posting.google.com>...
[...]
'A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market': He Should Have Known Better
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/02/books/review/02KUTTNET.html?pagewanted=all&position=
By ROBERT KUTTNER
Published: November 2, 2003
ike thousands of other investors, the mathematician John Allen Paulos
took a bath in WorldCom stock. Unlike most, he should have known
better, having written widely read books on how numbers play tricks on
people, including the best-selling "Innumeracy." As a hapless
investor, Paulos fell into the same wishful traps as less numerate
people, trusting stock touts, joining investors' Internet chat rooms,
trying to recoup by accumulating additional shares as WorldCom stock
fell and even failing to study the fundamentals of the telephone
industry (excess capacity, falling earnings).
John Allen Paulos
http://news.google.com/news?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22John+Allen+Paulos%22&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22John+Allen+Paulos%22&sa=N&tab=nw
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22John+Allen+Paulos%22&sa=N&tab=wd&cat=gwd%2FTop
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_epq=John%20Allen%20Paulos&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=100&hl=en
OT: Some numbers you can't count on
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=18510aff.0305290044.5ac65ce0%40posting.google.com
A Blueprint for the Future
http://tinyurl.com/9wjv
.
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| User: "maff" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Some numbers you can't count on |
02 Dec 2003 03:56:04 AM |
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(maff) wrote in message news:<18510aff.0311010247.2b887f8e@posting.google.com>...
[...]
Historic maths problem 'cracked'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3243736.stm
By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science
A 22-year-old student at Stockholm University, Elin Oxenhielm, may
have cracked part of one of mathematics' greatest unsolved problems.
Called Hilbert's problem 16, it has confounded workers for over a
century.
David Hilbert
http://news.google.com/news?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22David+Hilbert%22&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22David+Hilbert%22&sa=N&tab=nw
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22David+Hilbert%22&sa=N&tab=wd&cat=gwd%2FTop
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_epq=David%20Hilbert&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=100&hl=en
Elin Oxenhielm
http://news.google.com/news?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22Elin+Oxenhielm%22&sa=N&tab=gn
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22Elin+Oxenhielm%22&sa=N&tab=nw
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+%22Elin+Oxenhielm%22&sa=N&tab=wd&cat=gwd%2FTop
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_epq=Elin%20Oxenhielm&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_scoring=d&lr=&num=100&hl=en
OT: Some numbers you can't count on
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=18510aff.0305290044.5ac65ce0%40posting.google.com
A Blueprint for the Future
http://tinyurl.com/9wjv
.
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