“I think it is all right to argue sometimes.”
“I disagree!”
(From Raymond Smullyan.)
Author: Greg Ross
Podcast Episode 321: The Calculating Boy
George Parker Bidder was born with a surprising gift: He could do complex arithmetic in his head. His feats of calculation would earn for him a university education, a distinguished career in engineering, and fame throughout 19th-century England. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast, we’ll describe his remarkable ability and the stunning displays he made with it.
We’ll also try to dodge some foul balls and puzzle over a leaky ship.
The Logic House
Can you draw this figure without lifting your pencil from the paper?
Knowledge and Belief
Imaginary distinctions are often drawn between beliefs which differ only in their mode of expression;– the wrangling which ensues is real enough, however. To believe that any objects are arranged as in Fig. 1, and to believe that they are arranged as in Fig. 2, are one and the same belief; yet it is conceivable that a man should assert one proposition and deny the other. Such false distinctions do as much harm as the confusion of beliefs really different, and are among the pitfalls of which we ought constantly to beware, especially when we are upon metaphysical ground. One singular deception of this sort, which often occurs, is to mistake the sensation produced by our own unclearness of thought for a character of the object we are thinking. Instead of perceiving that the obscurity is purely subjective, we fancy that we contemplate a quality of the object which is essentially mysterious; and if our conception be afterward presented to us in a clear form we do not recognize it as the same, owing to the absence of the feeling of unintelligibility. So long as this deception lasts, it obviously puts an impassable barrier in the way of perspicuous thinking; so that it equally interests the opponents of rational thought to perpetuate it, and its adherents to guard against it.
— Charles Sanders Peirce, “Illustrations of the Logic of Science: How to Make Our Ideas Clear,” Popular Science Monthly, January 1878
Art and Commerce
Founded in 1957, catalog showroom Best Products distinguished itself with highly unorthodox facades, designed by architect James Wines for nine retail facilities across the United States. This one, the “Indeterminate Facade” in Houston, Texas, was said to have appeared in more books on 20th-century architecture than photographs of any other modern structure. The company eventually went bankrupt, and most of the buildings have been redesigned or demolished, but one in Richmond, Va., with a forest in its entryway, is now home to a Presbyterian church.
See more at Archilaces.
Foursquare
A puzzle proposed by David L. Silverman in the Fall 1963 issue of Pi Mu Epsilon Journal:
The points of the plane are divided into two sets. Prove that at least one set contains the vertices of a rectangle.
The Boekenkast
In the Kinkerbuurt, Amsterdam, the streets are named after Dutch poets and writers of the 18th and 19th centuries. Correspondingly, Yugoslavian artist Sanja Medic transformed the façade of a local building into a case holding 250 ceramic “books” by these authors.
It’s a substantial library — each volume weighs more than 25 kg, so the frontage had to be reinforced to support them.
In a Word
unyore
adv. not long ago, recently, lately
obliviality
n. liability to be forgotten
nutual
adj. expressed merely by a gesture
illation
n. an inference; conclusion
Norbert Wiener of MIT was well known as an extreme example of someone who could get lost in thought. Once while walking on campus, Wiener met an acquaintance, and after a while he asked his companion: ‘Which way was I walking when we met?’ The man pointed, and Wiener said, ‘Good. Then I’ve had my lunch.’
— Reuben Hersh and Vera John-Steiner, Loving and Hating Mathematics: Challenging the Myths of Mathematical Life, 2010
Shikaku
Japanese publisher Nikoli produces this geometric logic puzzle. Can you divide this grid into rectangular and square pieces such that each piece contains exactly one number and each number reflects its piece’s area?
Straight and Narrow
English philanthropist Lady Jane Stanley financed footpaths through her native Knutsford with an odd proviso:
For some unknown reason Lady Jane disliked to see men and women linked together, i.e. walking arm in arm; and in her donations for the pavement of the town, provided that a single flag in breadth should be the limit of her generosity,– but she did not specify how broad the single flag was to be, and I fear her wishes are evaded, and the disapproved linking together often indulged in: the chief security for her order being observed is the disagreeable fact that in many places the streets and consequently the raised pavements are too narrow to allow of more than a very slender foot-path, so that if the lasses occupy the flags, the swains must either walk behind, or pick their way in the channel.
Never married, she composed her own epitaph:
A maid I lived,– a maid I died,–
I never was asked,– and never denied.
(From Henry Green, Knutsford, Its Traditions and History, 1859.)