Re-reading the entire Hornblower series for the umpti-umpth time
“It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions.” —Thomas Jefferson (1808)
It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.
And that’s when you met me.
“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”
“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.
“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”
“Yup,” I said.
“I… I died?”
“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.
You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”
“More or less,” I said.
“Are you god?” You asked.
“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”
“My kids… my wife,” you said.
“What about them?”
“Will they be all right?”
“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”
You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”
“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”
“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”
“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”
“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”
You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”
“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”
“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”
“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”
I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.
“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”
“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”
“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”
“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”
“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”
“Where you come from?” You said.
“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”
“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”
“So what’s the point of it all?”
“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”
“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.
I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”
“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”
“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”
“Just me? What about everyone else?”
“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”
You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”
“All you. Different incarnations of you.”
“Wait. I’m everyone!?”
“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.
“I’m every human being who ever lived?”
“Or who will ever live, yes.”
“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”
“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.
“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.
“And you’re the millions he killed.”
“I’m Jesus?”
“And you’re everyone who followed him.”
You fell silent.
“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”
You thought for a long time.
“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”
“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”
“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”
“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”
“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”
“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”
Sum of three cubes for 42 finally solved -- using real life planetary computer
Date:
September 6, 2019
Source:
University of Bristol
Summary:
Hot on the heels of the ground-breaking 'Sum-Of-Three-Cubes' solution for the number 33, mathematicians have solved the final piece of the famous 65-year-old math puzzle with an answer for the most elusive number of all - 42.
Share:
FULL STORY
Hot on the heels of the ground-breaking 'Sum-Of-Three-Cubes' solution for the number 33, a team led by the University of Bristol and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has solved the final piece of the famous 65-year-old maths puzzle with an answer for the most elusive number of all -- 42.
The original problem, set in 1954 at the University of Cambridge, looked for Solutions of the Diophantine Equation x^3+y^3+z^3=k, with k being all the numbers from one to 100.
Beyond the easily found small solutions, the problem soon became intractable as the more interesting answers -- if indeed they existed -- could not possibly be calculated, so vast were the numbers required.
But slowly, over many years, each value of k was eventually solved for (or proved unsolvable), thanks to sophisticated techniques and modern computers -- except the last two, the most difficult of all; 33 and 42.
Fast forward to 2019 and Professor Andrew Booker's mathematical ingenuity plus weeks on a university supercomputer finally found an answer for 33, meaning that the last number outstanding in this decades-old conundrum, the toughest nut to crack, was that firm favourite of Douglas Adams fans everywhere.
However, solving 42 was another level of complexity. Professor Booker turned to MIT maths professor Andrew Sutherland, a world record breaker with massively parallel computations, and -- as if by further cosmic coincidence -- secured the services of a planetary computing platform reminiscent of "Deep Thought," the giant machine which gives the answer 42 in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Professors Booker and Sutherland's solution for 42 would be found by using Charity Engine; a 'worldwide computer' that harnesses idle, unused computing power from over 500,000 home PCs to create a crowd-sourced, super-green platform made entirely from otherwise wasted capacity.
The answer, which took over a million hours of calculating to prove, is as follows:
X = -80538738812075974 Y = 80435758145817515 Z = 12602123297335631
And with these almost infinitely improbable numbers, the famous Solutions of the Diophantine Equation (1954) may finally be laid to rest for every value of k from one to 100 -- even 42.
Professor Booker, who is based at the University of Bristol's School of Mathematics, said: "I feel relieved. In this game it's impossible to be sure that you'll find something. It's a bit like trying to predict earthquakes, in that we have only rough probabilities to go by.
"So, we might find what we're looking for with a few months of searching, or it might be that the solution isn't found for another century."
Sum of three cubes for 42 finally solved -- using real life planetary computer
Date:
September 6, 2019
Source:
University of Bristol
Summary:
Hot on the heels of the ground-breaking 'Sum-Of-Three-Cubes' solution for the number 33, mathematicians have solved the final piece of the famous 65-year-old math puzzle with an answer for the most elusive number of all - 42.
Share:
FULL STORY
.....and this contributes exactly what for humanity....
"The Lies of Locke Lamora" was so good, I'm going straight into "Red Skies over Red Seas". Usually I split up a series and read something else in-between.
"Cooking isn't about struggling; It's about pleasure. It's like sǝx, with a wider variety of sauces."
At any given time the urge to sing "In The Jungle" is just a whim away... A whim away... A whim away...
Starting to lose a little enthusiasm when picking up the next book. I’ll see how it goes, but it might be time to mix it up and save the remaining ones for another day.
Comments
If you want to bomb me send it to Tony @0patience
If you are a newbie I got Dem nachos....
Sum of three cubes for 42 finally solved -- using real life planetary computer
Hot on the heels of the ground-breaking 'Sum-Of-Three-Cubes' solution for the number 33, a team led by the University of Bristol and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has solved the final piece of the famous 65-year-old maths puzzle with an answer for the most elusive number of all -- 42.
The original problem, set in 1954 at the University of Cambridge, looked for Solutions of the Diophantine Equation x^3+y^3+z^3=k, with k being all the numbers from one to 100.
Beyond the easily found small solutions, the problem soon became intractable as the more interesting answers -- if indeed they existed -- could not possibly be calculated, so vast were the numbers required.
But slowly, over many years, each value of k was eventually solved for (or proved unsolvable), thanks to sophisticated techniques and modern computers -- except the last two, the most difficult of all; 33 and 42.
Fast forward to 2019 and Professor Andrew Booker's mathematical ingenuity plus weeks on a university supercomputer finally found an answer for 33, meaning that the last number outstanding in this decades-old conundrum, the toughest nut to crack, was that firm favourite of Douglas Adams fans everywhere.
However, solving 42 was another level of complexity. Professor Booker turned to MIT maths professor Andrew Sutherland, a world record breaker with massively parallel computations, and -- as if by further cosmic coincidence -- secured the services of a planetary computing platform reminiscent of "Deep Thought," the giant machine which gives the answer 42 in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Professors Booker and Sutherland's solution for 42 would be found by using Charity Engine; a 'worldwide computer' that harnesses idle, unused computing power from over 500,000 home PCs to create a crowd-sourced, super-green platform made entirely from otherwise wasted capacity.
The answer, which took over a million hours of calculating to prove, is as follows:
X = -80538738812075974 Y = 80435758145817515 Z = 12602123297335631
And with these almost infinitely improbable numbers, the famous Solutions of the Diophantine Equation (1954) may finally be laid to rest for every value of k from one to 100 -- even 42.
Professor Booker, who is based at the University of Bristol's School of Mathematics, said: "I feel relieved. In this game it's impossible to be sure that you'll find something. It's a bit like trying to predict earthquakes, in that we have only rough probabilities to go by.
"So, we might find what we're looking for with a few months of searching, or it might be that the solution isn't found for another century."
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Bristol. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X19305371
http://www.natureknows.org/2016/08/this-high-school-cross-country-team-takes-lonely-shelter-dogs-on-their-morning-runs.html
At any given time the urge to sing "In The Jungle" is just a whim away... A whim away... A whim away...
Starting to lose a little enthusiasm when picking up the next book. I’ll see how it goes, but it might be time to mix it up and save the remaining ones for another day.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/denying-the-grave/201901/climate-change-denial
This problem is everyone's.
I like Oliva and Quesada (including Regius) a lot. I will smoke anything, though.