A British train approaches a station. Image: Ingy the Wingy, via flickr.
I spent about a month in the UK earlier this summer, and that meant I took a lot of train trips. I love riding trains: the feeling of endless possibility I get when I look at the departure boards, the countryside rolling by, the fantastic people-watching, the two-hour de [...]
Monthly archives for July, 2014
The Shocking Failure of British Rail ...
A British train approaches a station. Image: Ingy the Wingy, via flickr.
I spent about a month in the UK earlier this summer, and that meant I took a lot of train trips. I love riding trains: the feeling of endless possibility I get when I look at the departure boards, the countryside rolling by, the fantastic people-watching, the two-hour de [...]
Siddhartha, Herman Hesse
I read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse as part of my Nobel literature project. Hesse received the Nobel in 1946. Siddhartha was published in 1922. I was glad to read a German author in Germany. I downloaded it from Project Gutenberg (translated by Gunther Olesch, Anke Dreher, Amy Coulter, Stefan Langer, and Seymon Chaichenets) and read it on my e [...]
Some Infinities Are Bigger than Other...
The Fault in Our Stars has some interesting references to Cantor and different sizes of infinity. In this post at Roots of Unity, I take a look at them and explain what these potatoes have to do with a teen tearjerker.
The Inaugural Breakthrough Prizes in ...
Image: Julie Rybarczyk, via flickr.
$3 million is a lot of money, and five mathematician just got $3 million apiece. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Read more at the AMS Blog on Math Blogs.
Blindness, José Saramago
Blindness by José Saramago is the subject of the first reflection in my Nobel literature project. Saramago, a Portuguese author, was the Nobel laureate in literature in 1998. Blindness was published in Portuguese (as Ensaio sobre a cegueira, or Essay on Blindness) in 1995 and English in 1997.
I read Blindness in 2011. My memory is a bit hazy, [...]
British Objects of Constant Width
Several British objects of constant width. Image: Evelyn Lamb.
Almost immediately after getting off the plane at Heathrow, I got some breakfast and some change in the form of metal shapes of constant width. That’s right, all British coins are shapes of constant width. This isn’t remarkable because circles have constant width, and [...]
Recent Comments