Thursday, 10 February 2011
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Litterature
Thank you for sending me a copy of your book;
I'll waste no time reading it.
— Moses Hadas
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
Kind To Be Cruel
Always forgive your enemies;
nothing annoys them so much.
— Oscar Wilde
Labels:
Oscar Wilde
Monday, 7 February 2011
Sunday, 6 February 2011
Mathematics Made Simple
Gödel's First Incompleteness Theorem
Any adequate axiomatisable theory is incomplete. In particular the sentence "This sentence is not provable" is true but not provable in the theory.
Gödel's Second Incompleteness Theorem
In any consistent axiomatisable theory (axiomatisable means the axioms can be computably generated) which can encode sequences of numbers (and thus the syntactic notions of "formula", "sentence", "proof") the consistency of the system is not provable in the system.
Labels:
Gödel,
Self-Reference
Incompleteness Theorem
I'm not a complete idiot.
Part of me is missing.
Part of me is missing.
Labels:
Gödel,
T-Shirt Slogans
Saturday, 5 February 2011
Hofstadter's Law
It always takes longer than you expect,
even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.
— Douglas Hofstadter 'Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid'
even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.
— Douglas Hofstadter 'Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid'
Labels:
Douglas Hofstadter,
Self-Reference
Friday, 4 February 2011
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
Error Message Haikus
A file that big?
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
Windows XP crashed.
I am the blue screen of death.
No one hears your screams.
First snow, then silence.
This thousand dollar screen dies
So beautifully.
With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
"My novel" not found.
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
Windows XP crashed.
I am the blue screen of death.
No one hears your screams.
First snow, then silence.
This thousand dollar screen dies
So beautifully.
With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
"My novel" not found.
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.
Labels:
Poems
Monday, 31 January 2011
Painting By Numbers
If a theory is a palette,
then its canvas is not a blank slate.
then its canvas is not a blank slate.
Labels:
Philosophy
Sunday, 30 January 2011
Saturday, 29 January 2011
Earthmoving
Yet such is oft the course of deeds
that move the wheels of the world:
small hands do them because they must,
while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.
that move the wheels of the world:
small hands do them because they must,
while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.
Labels:
JRR Tolkien
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