Age of Reason

Random musing of books and stuff I am reading.

2005/07/15

Truth and Proof in Shakespeare

Shakespeare's could have been a mathematician,
here is what his plays contain (all quotes are
taken out of context):

OTHELLO: I'll have some proof.
DUKE OF VENICE To vouch this, is no proof,

Cymbeline:
CAIUS LUCIUS: Let proof speak.
GUIDERIUS : Out of your proof you speak:

Measure for Measure
POMPEY: Proof?

And Pedro spoke both of truth and proof in Much Ado:
DON JOHN: What proof shall I make of that?
LEONATO: we have ten proofs to one
DON PEDRO : But what was true and very full of proof.

This guy ruins a proof by sorting in Taming the Shrew:
PETRUCHIO: is sorted to no proof.

Cressida [T&C], Olivia, Olivia [12th Night] are real Math teachers,
and Nestor seems to be a bit in water:

CRESSIDA Troilus will stand to the proof, if you'll prove it so.
NESTOR: That proof is call'd impossibility.

OLIVIA Make your proof.
OLIVIA Well, sir, for want of other idleness, I'll bide your proof.
VIOLA No, not a grize; for 'tis a vulgar proof,

The Gentlemen of Verona don't seem to like proofs:
SPEED Such another proof will make me cry 'baa.'

Winter's tale has this quote about elegant proofs:
Third Gentleman Most true, if ever truth ..
there is such unity in the proofs.

Henry IV, has proof by handwaving by Falstaff:
PRINCE HENRY Well, we leave that to the proof.
MISTRESS QUICKLY Come, I'll drink no proofs nor no bullets:

Henry 8th and R&J have proof personified
BUCKINGHAM: And proofs as clear
He shall appear in proof.
ROMEO: And I am proof
FLAVIUS: And set me on the proof.

And GLOUCESTER doesn't like the first proof in Richard 3rd
The play has several references re-proofs:
GLOUCESTER: Or bitterly to speak in your reproof.

Hamlet shames Zeno:
HAMLET: this was sometime a paradox,
but now the time gives it proof.

Some Real Analysis from Julius Caesar
BRUTUS But 'tis a common proof,
PORTIA I have made strong proof of my constancy,

KING LEAR I'll put 't in proof;

Sonnet CXVII -- And on just proof surmise accumulate;
Sonnet CXXIX -- A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;


---
Q. Why were the mathematicians covered with cake at the end of their tea party?
A. Because the secretary brought some cake, and no one wanted it, so he divided
it by zero and ended up with an infinity amount of cake.

2005/07/13

Mgrep Find-Grep-Filter-Edit in QT

Here is a QT program mgrep with source to
find-grep-filter-edit for files on your disk.

Why is it better than 'gnu find and gnu grep'?
It keeps history of all options and grep/find out text across sessions.
The earlier version used external process to launch gnu grep and gnu find,
then I decided to use QRegExp and simplify the source.
Feel free to improve on it, I will move it to source forge later.

Here is the source mgrep.cpp mgrep.h and download the whole mgrep.zipt
The zip file contains the vc6 project (dsp,dsw,cpp,h,exe) for windows.
Linux users can use the GPL version of the QT to compile it.

To compile on windows, you will need QT library, which
comes with Blanchette's QT book. You can get this book with QT CD
from Nerdbooks.com. If just want to run the mgrep.exe on windows,
you will need QT-MTNC321.DLL for windows, download it from here.
The CD on the book comes with Borland C++ bcc 5.5; or
you can use VC++6 with sp6.

> tail mgrep.txt

PROS and CONS to Mgrep

Mgrep has session history, small customisable QT C++ GPL source,
ability to filter and refine searches, quicker preview than launching vi,
but not as many options as gnu grep and gnu find.

Alternatives

GNU emacs has grep-find, delete-matching-lines,dired
GVIM has :grep, filter :v/keep/d :g/filter/d,preview, gf (edit file).
GNU BASH : find dir -prune skip | grep keep | grep -v ignore | xargs grep text | gvim -
CYGWIN for windows comes with all the gnu tools and X server!
OPERA look for your files on google.com, it works.

2005/07/05

Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray is the master builder of Indian movies,
and his movies in Bengali are highly recommended:

Uppal Dutt in "The Stranger" and "Two Daughters".
The Stranger examines modern middle class values
prevalent in Calcutta. While two daughters is about
rural Bengal of 1960s.

The Apu Triology: Pather Panchali, Apu Sansar, Aparajito.
We studied Pather Panchali for ICSE, and also saw
this triology at British Council Library as part of school work
at Cathedral and John Connon School. This series traces
the life of Apu from childhood in a rural village in Bengal with his
sister Durga, to his student life in Calcatta.

I have lived in Calcutta and it is culturally vibrant city
unlike any other in India, and Bengali is easy to understand.

You can get all the Satyajit Ray movies on DVD or VCD
with English Subtitles at a good price from BdBazar.com

The other recommened movies is by Arthur Miller and Henrik Ibsen,
from Broadway Theatre Archive: An Enemy of the People from 1966.

The other profound movie is "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead",
a Absurd Drama by Tom Stoppard. A roller coaster tempo of wit.
Here is a summary.
It has a few allusions to science thrown in --
Galileo's feather and ball, Archimedes
water displacement, Newton's apple and probability
theory. The existential wordplay is amazing,
you may want to read the text separately.