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The Mathematical Magpie
''The Mathematical Magpie'' is an anthology published in 1962, compiled by Clifton Fadiman as a companion volume to his '' Fantasia Mathematica'' (1958). The volume contains stories, cartoons, essays, rhymes, music, anecdotes, aphorisms, and other oddments. Authors include Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll, and many other renowned figures. A revised edition was issued in 1981 and again in 1997. Although out of print, it is recommended for undergraduate mathematics libraries by the Mathematical Association of America as part of their Basic Library List. , retrieved 2014-04 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clifton Fadiman
Clifton Paul "Kip" Fadiman (May 15, 1904 – June 20, 1999) was an American intellectual, author, editor, radio and television personality. He began his work with the radio, and switched to television later in his career. Background Born in Brooklyn, New York, Fadiman was a nephew of the emigree Ukrainian psychologist Boris Sidis and a first cousin of the child prodigy William James Sidis. Fadiman grew up in Brooklyn. His mother worked as a nurse; his father, Isadore, immigrated from Russian empire in 1892 and worked as a druggist.One of "Kip's" older brothers, Edwin, taught him how to read. Edwin later married Celeste Frankel and became the brother-in-law to Margaret Lefranc (Frankel), who was a future recipient of the Governor's Award for Painting. He attended Columbia College at Columbia University. One of his teachers was lifelong friend Mark Van Doren; his undergraduate contemporaries included Jacques Barzun, Mortimer Adler, Lionel Trilling, Herbert Solow, Arthur F. Bur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Bunyan
Paul Bunyan is a giant lumberjack and folk hero in American and Canadian folklore. His exploits revolve around the tall tales of his superhuman labors, and he is customarily accompanied by Babe the Blue Ox. The character originated in the oral tradition of North American loggers, and was later popularized by freelance writer William B. Laughead (1882–1958) in a 1916 promotional pamphlet for the Red River Lumber Company. He has been the subject of various literary compositions, musical pieces, commercial works, and theatrical productions. His likeness is displayed in a number of oversized statues across North America. Etymology There are many hypotheses about the etymology of the name ''Paul Bunyan''. Much of the commentary focuses on a French-Canadian origin for the name. Phonetically, Bunyan is similar to the Québécois expression "''bon yenne!''" expressing surprise or astonishment. The English surname Bunyan is derived from the same root as "bunion" in the Old French ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computer science and various areas of analytic philosophy, especially philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics.Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy"Bertrand Russell" 1 May 2003. He was one of the early 20th century's most prominent logicians, and a founder of analytic philosophy, along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege, his friend and colleague G. E. Moore and his student and protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein. Russell with Moore led the British "revolt against idealism". Together with his former teacher A. N. Whitehead, Russell wrote ''Principia Mathematica'', a milestone in the development of classical logic, and a major attempt to reduce the whole ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Max Beerbohm
Sir Henry Maximilian Beerbohm (24 August 1872 – 20 May 1956) was an English essayist, parodist and caricaturist under the signature Max. He first became known in the 1890s as a dandy and a humorist. He was the drama critic for the '' Saturday Review'' from 1898 until 1910, when he relocated to Rapallo, Italy. In his later years he was popular for his occasional radio broadcasts. Among his best-known works is his only novel, ''Zuleika Dobson'', published in 1911. His caricatures, drawn usually in pen or pencil with muted watercolour tinting, are in many public collections. Early life Born in 57 Palace Gardens Terrace, London which is now marked with a blue plaque, Henry Maximilian Beerbohm was the youngest of nine children of a Lithuanian-born grain merchant, Julius Ewald Edward Beerbohm (1811–1892). His mother was Eliza Draper Beerbohm (c. 1833–1918), the sister of Julius's late first wife. Although the Beerbohms were supposed by some to be of Jewish descent, on looking ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory of relativity, but he also made important contributions to the development of the theory of quantum mechanics. Relativity and quantum mechanics are the two pillars of modern physics. His mass–energy equivalence formula , which arises from relativity theory, has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation". His work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science. He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect", a pivotal step in the development of quantum theory. His intellectual achievements and originality resulted in "Einstein" becoming synonymous with "genius". In 1905, a year sometimes described as his ''annu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johnny Hart
John Lewis Hart (February 18, 1931 – April 7, 2007) was an American cartoonist noted as the creator of the comic strips '' B.C.'' and ''The Wizard of Id''. Brant Parker co-produced and illustrated ''The Wizard of Id''. Hart was recognized with several awards, including the Swedish Adamson Award and five from the National Cartoonists Society. In his later years, he was known (and sometimes criticized) for incorporating Christian themes and messages into his strips. Hart was referred to by Chuck Colson in a ''Breakpoint'' column as "the most widely read Christian of our time," over C. S. Lewis, Frank E. Peretti, and Billy Graham. Biography Born in Endicott, New York, Hart's first published work was in '' Stars and Stripes'' while he served in Korea as an enlisted member of the United States Air Force. Returning in 1953, he published cartoons in ''The Saturday Evening Post'', ''Collier's Weekly'' and other magazines. His pre-cartooning employment included working in a barbecue ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Leacock
Stephen P. H. Butler Leacock (30 December 1869 – 28 March 1944) was a Canadian teacher, political scientist, writer, and humorist. Between the years 1915 and 1925, he was the best-known English-speaking humorist in the world. He is known for his light humour along with criticisms of people's follies. Early life Stephen Leacock was born on 30 December 1869 in Swanmore, a village near Southampton in southern England. He was the third of the eleven children born to (Walter) Peter Leacock (b.1834), who was born and grew up at Oak Hill on the Isle of Wight, an estate that his grandfather had purchased after returning from Madeira where his family had made a fortune out of plantations and Leacock's Madeira wine, founded in 1760. Stephen's mother, Agnes, was born at Soberton, the youngest daughter by his second wife (Caroline Linton Palmer) of the Rev. Stephen Butler, of Bury Lodge, the Butler estate that overlooked the village of Hambledon, Hampshire. Stephen Butler (for who ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corey Ford
Corey Ford (April 29, 1902 – July 27, 1969) was an American humorist, writer, outdoorsman, and screenwriter. He was friendly with several members of the Algonquin Round Table in New York City and occasionally lunched there. Early years Ford was a member of the Class of 1923 at Columbia College of Columbia University, where he edited the humor magazine ''Jester of Columbia,'' and wrote the Varsity Show ''Half Moon Inn'' and Columbia's primary fight song, "Roar, Lion, Roar"''.'' He also joined, and was expelled from, the Philolexian Society. Failing to graduate, he embarked on a career as a freelance writer and humorist. In the 1930s he was noted for satirical sketches of books and authors penned under the name "John Riddell".Pseudonyms include John Riddell and June Triplett. Theodore Dreiser was shown adopting the guise of a common workman building his newest and biggest novel from bricks and mortar. He reviewed ''Dead Lovers are Faithful Lovers'' as "Dead Novelists are Good Novel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raymond Queneau
Raymond Queneau (; 21 February 1903 – 25 October 1976) was a French novelist, poet, critic, editor and co-founder and president of Oulipo ('' Ouvroir de littérature potentielle''), notable for his wit and cynical humour. Biography Queneau was born at 47, rue Thiers (now Avenue René-Coty), Le Havre, Seine-Inférieure, the only child of Auguste Queneau and Joséphine Mignot. After studying in Le Havre, Queneau moved to Paris in 1920 and received his first baccalauréat in 1925 for philosophy from the University of Paris. Queneau performed military service as a ''zouave'' in Algeria and Morocco during the years 1925–26. During the 1920s and 1930s Queneau took odd jobs for income such as bank teller, tutor, translator and some writing in a column entitled, "Connaissez-vous Paris?" for the daily ''Intransigeant''. He married Janine Kahn (1903–1972) in 1928 after returning to Paris from his first military service. Kahn was the sister-in-law of André Breton, leader of the su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Nine Billion Names Of God
"The Nine Billion Names of God" is a 1953 science fiction short story by British writer Arthur C. Clarke. The story was among the stories selected in 1970 by the Science Fiction Writers of America as one of the best science fiction short stories published before the creation of the Nebula Awards. It was reprinted in ''The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964''. Plot summary In a Tibetan lamasery, the monks seek to list all of the names of God. They believe the Universe was created for this purpose, and that once this naming is completed, God will bring the Universe to an end. Three centuries ago, the monks created an alphabet in which they calculated they could encode all the possible names of God, numbering about 9,000,000,000 ("nine billion") and each having no more than nine characters. Writing the names out by hand, as they had been doing, even after eliminating various nonsense combinations, would take another 15,000 years; the monks wish to use modern te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Hughes (writer)
Richard Arthur Warren Hughes (19 April 1900 – 28 April 1976) was a British writer of poems, short stories, novels and plays. He was born in Weybridge, Surrey. His father was Arthur Hughes, a civil servant, and his mother Louisa Grace Warren who had been brought up in the West Indies in Jamaica. He was educated first at Charterhouse School and graduated from Oriel College, Oxford in 1922. A Charterhouse schoolmaster had sent Hughes's first published work to the magazine ''The Spectator'' in 1917. The article, written as a school essay, was an unfavourable criticism of '' The Loom of Youth'', by Alec Waugh, a recently published novel which caused a furore for its account of homosexual passions between British schoolboys in a public school. At Oxford he met Robert Graves, also an Old Carthusian, and they co-edited a poetry publication, ''Oxford Poetry'', in 1921. Hughes's short play '' The Sisters' Tragedy'' was being staged in the West End of London at the Royal Court The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Blish
James Benjamin Blish () was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He is best known for his ''Cities in Flight'' novels and his series of ''Star Trek'' novelizations written with his wife, J. A. Lawrence. His novel ''A Case of Conscience'' won the Hugo Award. He is credited with creating the term "gas giant" to refer to large planetary bodies. Blish was a member of the Futurians. His first published stories appeared in ''Super Science Stories'' and ''Amazing Stories''. Blish wrote literary criticism of science fiction using the pen name William Atheling Jr. His other pen names included Donald Laverty, John MacDougal, and Arthur Lloyd Merlyn. Life Blish was born on May 23, 1921, at East Orange, New Jersey. While in high school, Blish self-published a fanzine, called ''The Planeteer'', using a hectograph. The fanzine ran for six issues. Blish attended meetings of the Futurian Science Fiction Society in New York City during this period. Futurian members Damon Knight a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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