- Proverbs for Paranoids, 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.—Gravity’s Rainbow
‘Is it about a bicycle?’ he asked.—The Third Policeman
Tag Archives: mathematics
Havoc
While we’re on the subject of insects [ "Spiders aren't insects!" --- "Oh, don't be such a freaking literalist!" ], here’s an urgent message from Physics Today:
In 2005, we all witnessed, via the international media, the devastation that hurricanes caused in property damage and loss of life. Katrina alone almost destroyed New Orleans and flooded [...]
1101110010110100000
There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don’t those who are sick of this joke. (Google says there are about 452,00010 instances of it on the web.)
Attractive
Who would’ve expected to find Lorenz attractors on a box of Godiva chocolates?
Here’s a nice Java applet that generates the Lorenz “butterfly.”
Ones
Laura sent an e-mail to a mutual friend, letting him know about a Terry Jones show on TV this week, The Story of One.
Here’s what she got back:
Ah yes, one.
It’s given us all a lot of trouble.
First the Jews turned it into a religion.
Then the Christians showed up and kept calling it three.
The Manicheans—remember the Manicheans?—kept [...]
Random?
Of course, nothing’s really random. Nothing comes from nowhere. We’ll use the category “Random” in the slang sense, as in “Where the hell did that come from?”
I remember when I had to generate random numbers to pick a couple of winners (we gave out iPods—well, a chance at an iPod—to people who answered a detailed [...]
Resolution