Shick Shtick

Slightly adapted from Joseph Degrazia’s Math is Fun (1954):

Six Writers in a Railway Car

On their way to Chicago for a conference of authors and journalists, six writers meet in a railway club car. Three of them sit on one side facing the other three. Each of the six has his specialty. One writes short stories, one is a historian, another one writes humorous books, still another writes novels, the fifth is a playwright and the last a poet. Their names are Abbott, Blake, Clark, Duggan, Eccles and Farmer.* Each of them has brought one of his books and given it to one of his colleagues, so that each of the six is deep in a book which one of the other five has written.

Abbott reads a collection of short stories. Clark reads the book written by the colleague sitting just opposite him. Blake sits between the author of the short stories and the humorist. The short-story writer sits opposite the historian. Duggan reads a play. Blake is the brother-in-law of the novelist. Eccles sits next to the playwright. Abbott sits in a corner and is not interested in history. Duggan sits opposite the novelist. Eccles reads a humorous book. Farmer never reads poems.

These facts are sufficient to find each of the six authors’ specialties.


*In the original, the surnames were Blank, Bird, Grelly, George, Pinder and Winch.

Performativizing Papyrocentricity #44

Papyrocentric Performativity Presents:

Lesser LettersYou’ve Had Your Time: Being the Second Part of the Confessions of Anthony Burgess, Anthony Burgess (Heinemann 1990)

The Light of DaySJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police, Vox Day (Castalia House 2015)

Sextual KeelingSextant: A Voyage Guided by the Stars and the Men Who Mapped the World’s Oceans, David Barrie (William Collins 2014)

Twy Defy the EyeThe World of Visual Illusions: Optical Tricks That Defy Belief!, Gianni A. Sarcone and Marie-Jo Waeber (Arcturus 2012)


Or Read a Review at Random: RaRaR

Don’t Do Dot…

It’s a mistake to think that Guardianese, the optimal dialect of keyly committed core components of the counter-cultural community, mandates optionizing on a permanent basis for the pretentious and polysyllabic. Yes, Guardianistas are addicted to phrases like “in terms of” and “prior to”, but they also like urgently throbbing monosyllables like “key”, “core” and “spike”.

These are unnatural words, taken from headlines, not from normal English. They reveal an important truth: simplicity can be pretentious too. The two aspects of Guardianese come together in phrases like “key indicator” and “core metric”. I would say that “vital sign” and “important statistic” are better and more natural English, but you can’t tell that by counting syllables.

And sometimes Guardianese doesn’t use any syllables at all…  Guardianistas also like the stylistic trick of trailing dots. I find it cheap and irritating, so I’m glad that one of my favourite writers thought the same long ago. In his essay “Stories I Have Tried to Write”, M.R. James (1862-1936) said this:

In parenthesis, many common objects may be made the vehicles of retribution, and where retribution is not called for, of malice. Be careful how you handle the packet you pick up in the carriage-drive, particularly if it contains nail parings and hair. Do not, in any case, bring it into the house. It may not be alone… (Dots are believed by many writers of our day to be a good substitute for effective writing. They are certainly an easy one. Let us have a few more……) (“Stories I Have Tried To Write”, 1929)

In short: Don’t do dot…


Elsewhere other-engageable:

 

Ex-term-in-ate!
Titus Graun
Reds under the Thread

Mater Mysteriorum

“But just as all of Baltimore pondered the mystery of how a progressive city could produce such a despotic police force, a second mystery had presented itself: If everyone was organized to prevent violence, why did it continue to happen? The cops were back at their posts. The whole city had been politicized. The poorest streets were filled with activist group meetings and sermons. The gangs were professing nonviolence. Still, the murders continued.” — “A Most Violent City”, New York Magazine, viâ Steve Sailer.

Terminal Teraticity…

Americotrop-ism: n. literally, a tendency or habit of moving towards America; hence, a tendency or habit of adopting American culture, vocabulary and usage when one is not oneself American. | -ist, -ic(al) [Americ(a) + -o- + tropism, on the analogy of phototropism, chemotropism, geotropism, etc]

• “The Guardian-reading community displays a marked Americotropism.”

Self-Raising Power

The square root of 2 is the number that, raised to the power of 2, equals 2. That is, if r^2 = r * r = 2, then r = √2. The cube root of 2 is the number that, raised to the power of 3, equals 2. That is, if r^3 = r * r * r = 2, then r = [3]√2.

But what do you call the number that, raised to the power of itself, equals 2? I suggest “the auto-root of 2”. Here, if r^r = 2, then r = [r]√2. I don’t know a quick way to calculate the auto-root, but you can adapt a well-known algorithm for approximating the square root of a number. The square-root algorithm looks like this:

n = 2
r = 1
for c = 1 to 20
    r = (r + n/r) / 2
next c
print r

r = 1.414213562…

Note the fourth line of the algorithm: r = (r + n/r) / 2. When r is an over-estimate of √2, then 2/r will be an under-estimate (and vice versa). (r + 2/r) / 2 splits the difference and refines the estimate. Using the lines above as the model, the auto-root algorithm looks like this:

n = 2
r = 1
for c = 1 to 20
    r = (r + [r]√n) / 2[*]
next c
print r

r = 1.559610469…


*This is equivalent to r = (r + n^(1/r)) / 2

Here are the first 100 digits of [r]√2 = r in base 10:

1, 5, 5, 9, 6, 1, 0, 4, 6, 9, 4, 6, 2, 3, 6, 9, 3, 4, 9, 9, 7, 0, 3, 8, 8, 7, 6, 8, 7, 6, 5, 0, 0, 2, 9, 9, 3, 2, 8, 4, 8, 8, 3, 5, 1, 1, 8, 4, 3, 0, 9, 1, 4, 2, 4, 7, 1, 9, 5, 9, 4, 5, 6, 9, 4, 1, 3, 9, 7, 3, 0, 3, 4, 5, 4, 9, 5, 9, 0, 5, 8, 7, 1, 0, 5, 4, 1, 3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 9, 1, 2, 8, 3, 9, 7, 3…

And here is [r]n = r for n = 2..20:

autopower(2) = 1.5596104694623693499703887…
autopower(3) = 1.8254550229248300400414692…
autopower(4) = 2
autopower(5) = 2.1293724827601566963803119…
autopower(6) = 2.2318286244090093673920215…
autopower(7) = 2.3164549587856123013255030…
autopower(8) = 2.3884234844993385564187215…
autopower(9) = 2.4509539280155796306228059…
autopower(10) = 2.5061841455887692562929409…
autopower(11) = 2.5556046121008206152514542…
autopower(12) = 2.6002950000539155877172082…
autopower(13) = 2.6410619164843958084118390…
autopower(14) = 2.6785234858912995813011990…
autopower(15) = 2.7131636040042392095764012…
autopower(16) = 2.7453680235674634847098492…
autopower(17) = 2.7754491049442334313328329…
autopower(18) = 2.8036632456580215496843618…
autopower(19) = 2.8302234384970308956026277…
autopower(20) = 2.8553085030012414128332189…

I assume that the auto-root is always an irrational number, except when n is a perfect power of suitable form, i.e. n = p^p for some integer p. For example, autoroot(4) = 2, because 2^2 = 4, autoroot(27) = 3, because 3^3 = 27, and so on.

And here is the graph of autoroot(n) for n = 2..10000:
autoroot

Term-in-ator!

V. disappointed by China Miéville on BBC Radio 4’s Book Club (Sunday 1st November). It took him eight minutes to say “in terms of”.

Performativizing Papyrocentricity #43

Papyrocentric Performativity Presents:

Avens AboveHarrap’s Wild Flowers: A Guide to the Wild Flowers of Britain & Ireland, Simon Harrap (Bloomsbury 2013)

Place of GladesA Dictionary of British Place-Names, A.D. Mills (Oxford University Press 1991)

De Minimis Curat Rex?Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Theory Shaped the Modern World, Amir Alexander (Oneworld 2014)

Seen and Not HeardThe Greatest Albums You’ll Never Hear, ed. Bruno MacDonald (Aurum Press 2014)


Or Read a Review at Random: RaRaR