New Year’s Eve Question

Edge still has not revealed its New Year’s Eve Annual Question 2008, but, due to a leak to The Independent, I know that it is is wonderful:

What have you changed your mind about? Why?

Indeed, what have you changed your mind about in 2007?

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A painting with a whiff of mathematics

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Numbering at Bethlehem.
1566, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels
Source: Wikimedia Commons, higher resolution.

Actually, there is more geometry in the painting than arithmetic.

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness…

I do not know whether you are prepared to believe me, but yesterday I was running through the labyrinths of Heathrow Terminal 1, shouting at the full force of my lungs: “Hey! Is there anyone from British Airways around?”

There were no response…

Manifestations of Infinity

As I have already mentioned, I have started, in collaboration with David Corfield, yet another blog, A Dialogue on Infinity. My approach to the issue of infinity is that of a practicing mathematician. In particular, I repeat Vladimir Arnold’s famous claim that tires on the pictures below are manifistations of infinity in the real world.

Details can be found in my post.

Infinity

I started yet another blog, A Dialogue on Infinity, a joint venture with David Corfield. Meanwhile, here is the only decent picture found in Google Images:

It is an advertisement, as you can easily guess, for BIC. Source: Ads of the World.
[Advertising Agency: TBWA Hunt Lascaris, South Africa. Creative Director: Tony Granger
Copywriter: Clare Mcnally. Art Director: Jan Jacobs.]

But I warn you against an attempt to search for images related to Eternity: you will find yourself in the Kingdom of Kitch, and horrendous kitch.

A drawing with a whiff of mathematics

Satire on “False Perspective” by William Hogarth, 1753

“Whoever makes a Design without the knowledge of Perspective will be liable to such absurdities as are shewn in this Frontispiece.”

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Poetry with a whiff of mathematics, VII

Вокруг него система кошек,
Система окон, ведер, дров
Висела, темный мир размножив
На царства узкие дворов.

Nikolai Zabolotskii