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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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the question would be (and the point I guess I didn't make very well): is there a difference between a polymath (a person of much or varied learning) and a pantomath? if you want to make the argument that a pantomath is a person of much AND varied learning, I will gladly see that you get an appointment to the Tetrapyloctomy
Society. it's an unnecessary word, best reserved for applying to someone who *thinks they know everything.
-joe (pantomath is my middle name) friday
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veteran
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veteran
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I don't believe there is anyone but we two on this board who is particularly interested in JSB, so I'll stop posting about him for the moment. But before I do, let me recommend to you the music of Dietrich Buxtehude, one of the North German masters of the generation before J.S. Bach, and whom Bach, in his youth, visited to learn from him. I love Buxtehude's organ works almost as much as Bach's (and they are easier to play!). Finally (really) for more on Bach, this is a good site: http://www.jsbach.org
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Split ends! Agggggghhhhhhhhh! Where's that boar bristle brush when you need it?
Thanks for tetrapyloctomy and for mathanein...and far be it from me to wish to split any hairs with you.
May your hairs be single and strong,
And may they be both broad and deep...
WordWonderer
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Carpal Tunnel
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the Renaissance man
Interesting to see this phrase and yet no mention of the one and only Leonardo Da Vinci! (by the way, the Danes just built a smaller version of a bridge he designed...where did he get all this engineering insight way back then? Does our resident architect, Jazzo, have any theories on this?) But I nominate Leonardo as the truest of pantomaths! And I do it through a Mona Lisa smile.
(I enjoyed all the Bachian discussion, by the way)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Ah, yes! Great link, tsuwm! It seems the equation is purely polymathematical! :)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Interesting to see this phrase and yet no mention of the one and only Leonardo Da Vinci! (by the way, the Danes just built a smaller version of a bridge he designed...where did he get all this engineering insight way back then?
Well, there's the supernatural or X-Files-type explanation for Leonardo. Planted by aliens or visitation by aliens.
I read an article years ago which had a much more plausible theory.
Leonardo was just one of those dilettantes who doesn't perhaps understand everything to any great depth, but who has the ability to create new knowledge from the synthesis, in its philosophical sense, of existing knowledge. He was trained as an artist and engineer, the rest followed simply because he had an inquiring - and intelligent - mind. You have to remember that the vast majority of his "inventions" were totally impractical. Our astonishment is at his grasp of the basic principles so long ago rather than at his achievements themselves. What his work did do, however, was to show that there may be a way to make some of these things happen. He thought the previously unthinkable. And perhaps that's where his true genius (aside from his undisputed talent as an artist) lay.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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An English inventor built a computer that had the means to search every database, every library and in fact every source of knowledge physical or non-physical that exists anywhere in the world. He was justifiably proud of his magnum opus, and on the night he finished it be was so excited that he woke up his neighbour to tell him the news. His neighbour, rather understandably, was less than overjoyed at being disturbed at 6 a.m. and was not in the best of tempers.
"Go on, go on!", the inventor urged him, "Ask it anything. It'll know, for sure!"
The neighbour gave in. "Okay then, where's my father?"
The computer murmured away for a few moments, then responded in an electronic voice, "Your father is fishing off the end of Brighton Pier."
"Ah well, then," the neighbour said. "See, it doesn't know everything. My father's been dead for years."
The inventor was a little put out, but soon recovered.
"Maybe," he suggested, "you should rephrase the question slightly. Give it another go."
"Hmmm," muttered the neighbour, then "Okay, where's my mother's husband?"
The computer hummed away to itself for a few moments, then responded.
"Your mother's husband died of a heart attack in 1973. However, your father is still fishing off the end of Brighton Pier."
-------
Ah well.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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old hand
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old hand
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For every panthomath who knows everything, we would need three others to tell us if it's true - did your thoughts go in this direction  ?
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