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...some of our savants tell us why many intellectuals admire Leibnitz
Considering the hoohah raised recently about speaking for others, do you consider that an appropriate request, Dr. Bill?
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FWIW, I've read that Archimedes, Newton and Gauss are generally considered (among mathematicians) to be the three greatest mathematicians of all time: difficult to rank among the three, but fairly clearly above all others.
My recall is that the source is Bell, Men of Mathematics; I'll LIU tonight.
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Considering the hoohah raised recently about speaking for others, do you consider that an
appropriate request, Dr. Bill?
Dear Faldage: I must confess total inability to comprehend your meaning. I resent the suggestion that I would make a post that I knew was inappropriate.
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inability to comprehend your meaning.
You ask us to speak for intellectuals.
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veteran
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I've read the same thing.
Archimedes brought us nearly to calculus, summations of infinitesmals.
Newton developed calculus itself (although it was at one time purported that he might have gotten more from earlier, greek work than was earlier suspected, I'm not sure whether those claims went anywhere). Did Newton or Leibnitz either one actually develop the fundamental theorems of calculus?
Gauss developed probability, formulated the bell curve, and established non-euclidean geometry. I like him because of his early history - he came from semi-literate, working parents. There's a perhaps apocryphal story about his illiterate (?) mother asking one of his schoolmates whether Karl was really so good at math, to which the friend replied that he was the best mathematician in Germany. I also like him because of his comments on Kant ("Everything Kant says is either trivial or false."). I think I read somewhere that he did not publish his findings on non-euclidean geometry for years after he wrote them down, because Kant had supposedly proven that Euclidean geometry was the only possible geometry. I don't know if this is true or not, though. He was known for hording his knoweldge and honing it until it was perfect for publication ("few but ripe," wonder what that is in German ... wenige aber reif?).
I guess I get some of this from Keiva's source, and maybe some from others. (Always possible I misremembered stuff, too.)
The reason behind choosing these guys is that if you asked professional mathematicians to name their top 10, these three names would be on everyone's list. (That was the justification given in some source I read.)
k
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If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, is it possible for Him to create something that He cannot lift?
Being omniscient, powerful and wise, God could. but would not be so capricious and inconsistent as to break His/Her own laws ...
at least that is what the Good Sisters told us ... except .... their puzzle was "Can or would God make a square circle?"
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could, but would not
These apparent contradictions are, more often than not, more a measure of our inability to properly formulate the problem than any measure of the abilities or inabilities of the entity or entities involved in the apparent problem.
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Speaking of which, once the Ark has grounded on relatively dry land and the animals have all dispersed to eat each other in peace, God contacts Noah again.
"Noah," he said. "Noah, I have another task for you."
Noah stamps (or splashes muddily) on the ground, in no mood for another losing contract.
"Lord," he said, "Haven't I done enough? I build the Ark as you commanded, I worked as an animal tamer and trainer for 40 days. I didn't even eat the dove although we were sorely tempted after twenty-eight straight days on lentils and dried bean." Sighs. "Oh well, what do you want?"
"Noah," the Lord said in a reflective tone of voice, "I want you to build another Ark."
Noah is flabbergasted. "Another o' them mothers, Father? You know what you're askin', given that little spring shower you coughed up lasstime washed damned near every tree ever planted into the water?"
"Yep," agreed the Horde of Toasts, cheerily. Pause. "Only bigger this time. Much bigger."
"Bigger?" gasps Noah. "How MUCH bigger?" And where, oh where, he wondered, would he get the wood?
"Well," says Yahweh, "You can take the size of that wreck over there and cube it."
"But Lord," protests the Unsuspecting Carpenter of Ararat, "That'd make it twenty decks high!"
"Sounds about right," the Pi in the Sky replies. "Get going! Time's a wastin'!"
Noah contemplates suicide briefly, but realises that that would only make things worse all round, although the free brimstone would be welcome. Ararat is 12,000 feet high and not exactly tropical.
"Lord," he mutters finally, capitulating. "And what do you want me to put in it?"
"Oh, that's easy," God replies. "Trout. Lots of trout. Swimming in water, of course."
Noah is now beyond surprise. But he has to ask. "Why trout, Lord?" And where the hell am I going to find them? he wonders.
"Oh, I dunno," the Man replies. "Just kinda fancied a multi-storey carp ark."
Courtesy of Bunty Kennedy, BBC Radio 2.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Dear CK Old Noah would have had quite a job whomping up the vehicles to fill the carp ark. Where were all the trout going to go?
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