Thomas > Recent Status Updates

Did not expect this to reveal itself to be part of my dystopian summer reads, but here we are.

While it since clarified the ambiguity I complained about in the last update, it now presented a function graph that has the graph curving back on itself, meaning multiple values per input, meaning it's not what we today would call a function. (For all my complaining, it's all in all still a good read.)

Stumbled on the first two disappointing elements: A side-remark that is more confusing than helpful (and seems to only have been added in the Gardner edition), and some too sloppy wording that could be read to imply that the derivative at a certain point can be used to exactly calculate the value of the function anywhere else, when of course that only holds for linear functions or as an approximation "close by".

"What one fool can do, another can."

More quotes:

"Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible." - Richard Feynman

"The greater the continent of knowledge, the greater the coastline of the unknown." - Isaac Newton

Some really nice quotes used throughout so far, including:

"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." - Stephen Jay Gould

"If you decide you don't have to get A's, you can learn an enormous amount in college." - I. I. Rabi

"When I close my eyes and think of the number 5, it looks yellow to me."
I wonder if that kind of synesthesia can help with mathematical thinking. My guess: Yes.

"It sometimes seems as if curbing entropy is our quixotic purpose in this universe."

Done with Weaver; now comes Shannon.

"In supporting an opinion, it is a mistake to argue from the wisdom of our ancestors, or from customs, or from common belief. In support of his view [Roger Bacon] quotes Seneca, Cicero, Avicenna, Averroes, Adelard of Bath, St Jerome, and St Chrysostom. These authorities, he seems to think, suffice to prove that one should not respect authority."

"...that oddity of distorted entropy called life..."

I just read an unexpected and unexpectedly good naturalistic (as in realistic reactions and circumstances, not devoid of supernatural elements) rendition of the nativity story in a book that turns out to be much better than I had any expectation of it being.