Is this mathematical Limerick sound?

[Berkeley Brett]

I hope you're all well & in good spirits.

I recently came upon a mathematical Limerick. You may see both the arithmetic and the verbal versions of that Limerick here:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CZZiNSbVAAAIU_d.jpg:large

But you don't have to see the arithmetic version to address my question.

Here is the verbal version of the Limerick:

A dozen, a gross, and a score
Plus three times the square root of four
Divided by seven
Plus five times eleven
Is nine squared and not a bit more.

Is there an "order-of-operations" problem in this verbal version?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_operations

The Limerick assumes the quantity (a dozen, a gross, and a score, plus three times the square root of four) is divided by seven -- but one could also read it as "three times the square root of four divided by seven" and exclude the dozen, the gross, and the score from the division.

What do you think? Is the Limerick sound?

Thanks in advance for anything you care to share (including any other geekish Limericks).

--
Brett (in Berkeley, California, USA)
On Twitter at:
http://twitter.com/BerkeleyBrett
(You don't have to be a Twitter user to view this stream of ideas!)

[Richard Tobin]

In article <1ba43eb2-3ab7-48af...@googlegroups.com>,

Berkeley Brett <roya...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Here is the verbal version of the Limerick:
>
> A dozen, a gross, and a score
> Plus three times the square root of four
> Divided by seven
> Plus five times eleven
> Is nine squared and not a bit more.
>
>Is there an "order-of-operations" problem in this verbal version?

The metre of the limerick should be taken to provide the bracketing.
You suggest that the third line could be bracketed with the second,
but in most limericks the first two lines go naturally together. On
the other hand, the third and fourth lines also usually go together,
suggesting that one might divide by 7 + 5 x 11.

>Thanks in advance for anything you care to share (including any other
>geekish Limericks).

There was a young lady from Crewe,
Whose limericks stopped at line two.

-- Richard

[Peter Moylan]

There was a young man from Verdun.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

[Richard Tobin]

In article <n7vsvv$km8$2...@dont-email.me>,

Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

>> There was a young lady from Crewe,
>> Whose limericks stopped at line two.

>There was a young man from Verdun.

And there's that one about the Emperor Nero:


-- Richard

[Jerry Friedman]

On 1/23/16 4:30 AM, Berkeley Brett wrote:
> I hope you're all well & in good spirits.
>
> I recently came upon a mathematical Limerick. You may see both the arithmetic and the verbal versions of that Limerick here:
>
> https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CZZiNSbVAAAIU_d.jpg:large
>
> But you don't have to see the arithmetic version to address my question.
>
> Here is the verbal version of the Limerick:
>
> A dozen, a gross, and a score
> Plus three times the square root of four
> Divided by seven
> Plus five times eleven
> Is nine squared and not a bit more.
>
> Is there an "order-of-operations" problem in this verbal version?
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_operations
>
> The Limerick assumes the quantity (a dozen, a gross, and a score, plus three times the square root of four) is divided by seven -- but one could also read it as "three times the square root of four divided by seven" and exclude the dozen, the gross, and the score from the division.
>
> What do you think? Is the Limerick sound?
>
> Thanks in advance for anything you care to share (including any other geekish Limericks).

What are all these gaieties to me?

--
Jerry Friedman

[Charles Bishop]

In article <n7vs7c$1n2s$3...@macpro.inf.ed.ac.uk>,

There was a young bard of Japan
Whose limericks never would scan.
When asked why,
He made this reply:
"Because I always try to cram as many words in the last line as I
possibly can."

--
charles

[Richard Tobin]

In article <ctbishop-E72553...@news.individual.net>,

Charles Bishop <ctbi...@earthlink.net> wrote:

>There was a young bard of Japan
>Whose limericks never would scan.
>When asked why,
>He made this reply:
>"Because I always try to cram as many words in the last line as I
>possibly can."

Better middle two lines:

When asked why it was,
He said "It's because

-- Richard

[musika]

There wath a young lady from Crewe,
Whothe limerickth thtopped at line two.
The third line, and fourth
Were mithing, of courth
The fifth line wath left up to you.
--
Ray
UK

[Joe Fineman]

Berkeley Brett <roya...@gmail.com> writes:

> Thanks in advance for anything you care to share (including any other
> geekish Limericks).

A mathematician named Hall
Had a dodecahedral ball,
And the cube of its weight
Times 11, plus 8,
Was five-ninths the square root of fuck-all.
--
--- Joe Fineman jo...@verizon.net

||: If we were all good liars, there would be little :||
||: commendation of honesty. :||

[grabber]

On 1/23/2016 11:30 AM, Berkeley Brett wrote:
> I hope you're all well & in good spirits.
>
> I recently came upon a mathematical Limerick. You may see both the arithmetic and the verbal versions of that Limerick here:
>
> https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CZZiNSbVAAAIU_d.jpg:large
>
> But you don't have to see the arithmetic version to address my question.
>
> Here is the verbal version of the Limerick:
>
> A dozen, a gross, and a score
> Plus three times the square root of four
> Divided by seven
> Plus five times eleven
> Is nine squared and not a bit more.
>
> Is there an "order-of-operations" problem in this verbal version?
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_operations
>
> The Limerick assumes the quantity (a dozen, a gross, and a score, plus three times the square root of four) is divided by seven -- but one could also read it as "three times the square root of four divided by seven" and exclude the dozen, the gross, and the score from the division.
>
> What do you think? Is the Limerick sound?
>
> Thanks in advance for anything you care to share (including any other geekish Limericks).

I would tend to assume that any calculation written out in words like
this is intended to be parsed left to right.

The last line of this limerick seems a bit lame to me. A better
numerical limerick (IMHO) is the one consisting of a single number. I
don't think it works in AmE though.

I can't find or reconstruct it at the moment. From memory, the third and
fourth lines are something like 4171 and the last line starts with the
decimal point. Does anyone else know this one?

[grabber]

Found it: 1264853971.2758463. Rhyming is inaccurate, but good enough for me.

[RH Draney]

The last time we got into this, our own Mr Hogg presented us with this:


A haiku composer from Tsu:
Tried writing a limerick too
But after two lines
His senses were distracted
By cherry blossoms.

....r

[John Varela]

or
When he was asked why
He made this reply:


--
John Varela

[Peter T. Daniels]

... but what's the point of the lisp?

[Peter T. Daniels]

Please lineate. An American faced with an agglomeration like that would simply
name the digits.

[Peter Moylan]

Lovely! I'd forgotten that one.

[Mark Brader]

Richard Tobin:

> The metre of the limerick should be taken to provide the bracketing.

Agreed.
--
Mark Brader | "If I quoted each [part] that had serious problems,
Toronto | [the author] could sue me for copyright infringement."
m...@vex.net | -- Steve Summit

[Mr Macaw]

On Sat, 23 Jan 2016 11:47:22 -0000, Stefan Ram <r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:

> Berkeley Brett <roya...@gmail.com> writes:
>> Here is the verbal version of the Limerick:
>> A dozen, a gross, and a score
>> Plus three times the square root of four
>> Divided by seven
>> Plus five times eleven
>> Is nine squared and not a bit more.
>> Is there an "order-of-operations" problem in this verbal version?
>

> The English text
>
> »three divided by four plus two«
>
> can be read as
>
> »3 / 4 + 2«
>
> or
>
> »3 /( 4 + 2 )«.
>
> In natural languages, a common way to resolve such ambiguities
> is to choose the interpretation that makes the whole assertion
> true or makes it to have sense. Or to ask the utterer when possible.
>
> While mathematically false, some authors even write
>
> »3 / 4 + 2«
>
> to mean
>
> »3 /( 4 + 2 )«, otherwise they would have written
>
> »2 + 3 / 4«.
>
> In programming languages, however, this interpretation is never used.
>
> You can read the limerick as an exercise to find the interpretation
> that makes it true.
>
> I am not sure whether one usually expects a limerick to be »sound«.

Easy enough when speaking, you use louder words or speak faster for the bit in brackets.

--
Bumper sticker: "Help! She's farted and I can't get out."

[Peter T. Daniels]

Should an English haiku too count moras rather than syllables?

[charles]

In article <a4e8be68-104f-4e41...@googlegroups.com>,

There was a young man of Japan
Who wrote poems that never would scan.
When told this was so,
He said "Yes, I know,
I always put as many words in the last line as I possibly can."

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England

[grabber]

I dare say. But the puzzle is not to predict how someone would read it,
but to find the way of reading it so that is forms a limerick. I think
it just about works in AmE, even with the missing "and"s.

Solution below, after some spoiler space.












































One billion two hundred and sixty
Four million eight hundrend and fifty
Three thousand nine hun-
dred and seventy one
Point TWO seven FIVE eight four SIX three.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Saturday, January 23, 2016 at 7:21:48 PM UTC-5, grabber wrote:
> On 1/23/2016 11:29 PM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Saturday, January 23, 2016 at 1:41:27 PM UTC-5, grabber wrote:
> >> On 1/23/2016 6:31 PM, grabber wrote:

> >>> The last line of this limerick seems a bit lame to me. A better
> >>> numerical limerick (IMHO) is the one consisting of a single number. I
> >>> don't think it works in AmE though.
> >>> I can't find or reconstruct it at the moment. From memory, the third and
> >>> fourth lines are something like 4171 and the last line starts with the
> >>> decimal point. Does anyone else know this one?
> >> Found it: 1264853971.2758463. Rhyming is inaccurate, but good enough for me.
> > Please lineate. An American faced with an agglomeration like that would simply
> > name the digits.
>
> I dare say. But the puzzle is not to predict how someone would read it,
> but to find the way of reading it so that is forms a limerick. I think
> it just about works in AmE, even with the missing "and"s.

We don't use "and"s in the places indicated -- Brits do. However, ...

> Solution below, [no longer] after some spoiler space.

>
> One billion two hundred and sixty
> Four million eight hundrend and fifty
> Three thousand nine hun-
> dred and seventy one
> Point TWO seven FIVE eight four SIX three.

All it needed was commas. Those are American billions.

1,264,853,971.2758463

None of sixty, fifty, and three rhyme with each other.

[grabber]

You couldn't work out where they would go?

> Those are American billions.

Not any more. We all have the same billions now.

> 1,264,853,971.2758463
>
> None of sixty, fifty, and three rhyme with each other.

See my comment above. But you mean "six three".

[Peter T. Daniels]

Then I don't understand what you meant by "I think it just about works in
AmE, even with the missing "and"s," given that the necessary "and"s are not
missing, but are present and superfluous.

[grabber]

They would be missing if the number were rendered in AmE. The poem would
then not scan as well (IMO), though the effect is not as pronounced as I
thought it might be when I couldn't remember the number. The "and"s are
not superfluous in BrE which is what I speak, and that is why I put them in.

[James Hogg]

You are joking, aren't you? Or do you unknowingly pronounce "fourth" to
rhyme with "course"?

--
James

[Peter T. Daniels]

Ah. Not a minimalist, I see! (And adding the line that required the deformation
vitiated the point of the first two lines.)

[GordonD]

I came across this limerick in one of Martin Gardner's compilation
books of his 'Mathematical Recreations' columns in 'Scientific
American' (though I don't believe he wrote it). The "ands" were
apparently good enough for him...
--
Gordon Davie
Edinburgh, Scotland

[grabber]

Yes, me too. It was in "Further Mathematical Diversions", aka "The
Unexpected Hanging" (I think these are respectively the UK and US
editions).

> (though I don't believe he wrote it). The "ands" were
> apparently good enough for him...

Apparently it was sent in by Leigh Mercer, of London, which explains the
BrE.

[Peter T. Daniels]

The limerick wouldn't work without them. That doesn't make it idiomatic American.

If, then, it dates to the 60s or 70s, the American billions shouldn't have
been acceptable to the "and" users. When did you capitulate?

[Jerry Friedman]

As a look at COHA will confirm, using the "and" is several or many times
more common in American English than omitting it, and has been since at
least 1800.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Coincidentally (or not?) Jerry's Coyne has a quite different
mathematical limerick on his website today
(https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2016/01/24/an-algebraic-limerick/).
It's expressed in proper mathematical symbols, but I'll try to
approximate it in text:

[12 + 144 + 20 + 3 sqrt(4)] / 7 + (5 x 11) = 9^2 + 0

You can find the solution in the first comment (and a slightly
different, and in my view better, one a few lines down). However, what
the heck, I'll give it here in ROT13:

N qbmra, n tebff naq n fpber
Cyhf guerr gvzrf gur fdhner ebbg bs sbhe,
Qvivqrq ol frira
Cyhf svir gvzrf ryrira
Rdhnyf avar fdhnerq naq ab zber.

I suppose there must be people who've trained themselves to read ROT13
straight off, but I'm not one of them.

--
athel

[grabber]

Now that is interesting. Hearing some AmE users miss out the "and"s must
have made me think they all did. I once did a programming exercise in
which the output had to be the number input, expressed in words, and
that had to be done without the "and"s. Peter seems to think that
putting them in isn't idiomatic American, but who's to argue with COHA?

[grabber]

I think this is where we came in.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Did we? The example you gave yesterday seems to me to be completely different.

>> You can find the solution in the first comment (and a slightly
>> different, and in my view better, one a few lines down). However, what
>> the heck, I'll give it here in ROT13:
>>
>> N qbmra, n tebff naq n fpber
>> Cyhf guerr gvzrf gur fdhner ebbg bs sbhe,
>> Qvivqrq ol frira
>> Cyhf svir gvzrf ryrira
>> Rdhnyf avar fdhnerq naq ab zber.
>>
>> I suppose there must be people who've trained themselves to read ROT13
>> straight off, but I'm not one of them.

--
athel

[grabber]

Yes, but that was in reply to the OP's limerick, which is also yours.

[Peter T. Daniels]

I have it written down in my 4th-grade arithmetic book. It must be right.

The oddest BrE number-naming I encounter regularly on the BBC is "one and a
half thousand" instead of "fifteen hundred," and similarly for other numbers
read as fractions.

[grabber]

Is that odd?

Google search for "half a billion dollars": 445000 hits
For "five hundred million dollars": 119000 hits

Maybe not so odd.

[Tony Cooper]

On Sun, 24 Jan 2016 19:43:03 +0000, grabber <g...@bb.er> wrote:

>> The oddest BrE number-naming I encounter regularly on the BBC is "one and a
>> half thousand" instead of "fifteen hundred," and similarly for other numbers
>> read as fractions.
>
>Is that odd?

Yes. For thousands. We would use that starting with a million: one
and a half million.

>Google search for "half a billion dollars": 445000 hits
>For "five hundred million dollars": 119000 hits
>
>Maybe not so odd.

Also odd would be "half a thousand dollars". We start using that
terminology at a million: half a million.

--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

[grabber]

On 1/24/2016 9:12 PM, Tony Cooper wrote:
> On Sun, 24 Jan 2016 19:43:03 +0000, grabber <g...@bb.er> wrote:
>
>>> The oddest BrE number-naming I encounter regularly on the BBC is "one and a
>>> half thousand" instead of "fifteen hundred," and similarly for other numbers
>>> read as fractions.
>>
>> Is that odd?
>
> Yes. For thousands. We would use that starting with a million: one
> and a half million.
>
>> Google search for "half a billion dollars": 445000 hits
>> For "five hundred million dollars": 119000 hits
>>
>> Maybe not so odd.
>
> Also odd would be "half a thousand dollars".

That would be unusual in BrE too. But 7500 would be "seven thousand five
hundred" or "seven and a half thousand" much more often than
"seventy-five hundred"

[Joe Fineman]

Berkeley Brett <roya...@gmail.com> writes:

> Thanks in advance for anything you care to share (including any other
> geekish Limericks).

College-level geekery:

The integral z squared dz
From 1 to the square root of 3
Times the cosine
Of 3 pi over 9
Equals log of the cube root of e.
--
--- Joe Fineman jo...@verizon.net

||: Live each day as if it were your last. Someday you'll be :||
||: right. :||

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

Agreed.

The use of N hundred seems to be much more common in AmE than in BrE.

However, there is a lack of consistency in AmE.

1,500 is "fifteen hundred" and 2,500 is "twenty five hundred", so why
isn't 2,000 "twenty hundred"?

>> We start using that
>> terminology at a million: half a million.
>>

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[GordonD]

On 24/01/2016 22:18, Joe Fineman wrote:
> Berkeley Brett <roya...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Thanks in advance for anything you care to share (including any other
>> geekish Limericks).
>
> College-level geekery:
>
> The integral z squared dz
> From 1 to the square root of 3
> Times the cosine
> Of 3 pi over 9
> Equals log of the cube root of e.
>

And that one doesn't work in BrE.

[Peter T. Daniels]

That's not the pattern I mentioned, innit.

[Jerry Friedman]

On 1/24/16 11:36 AM, grabber wrote:
> On 1/24/2016 3:23 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>> On 1/24/16 7:05 AM, grabber wrote:
>>> On 1/24/2016 1:57 PM, GordonD wrote:
>>>> On 24/01/2016 08:31, grabber wrote:
>>>>> On 1/24/2016 3:56 AM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>>>>> On Saturday, January 23, 2016 at 7:48:24 PM UTC-5, grabber wrote:
>>>>>>> On 1/24/2016 12:31 AM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Saturday, January 23, 2016 at 7:21:48 PM UTC-5, grabber wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On 1/23/2016 11:29 PM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On Saturday, January 23, 2016 at 1:41:27 PM UTC-5, grabber wrote:

[number that can be read as a limerick]

I was taught not to use "and" there and I don't, and I'm not surprised
that your exercise didn't allow "and"s--but I won't argue with COHA.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Mark Brader]

Joe Fineman posted:

> > The integral z squared dz
> > From 1 to the square root of 3
> > Times the cosine
> > Of 3 pi over 9
> > Equals log of the cube root of e.

Gordon Davie notes:

> And that one doesn't work in BrE.

Just change "z" to a more suitable letter, say "t".
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "Operating systems are too important
m...@vex.net | to be 'visionary'." --Linus Torvalds

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

--
athel

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2016-01-24 19:47:32 +0100, grabber <g...@bb.er> said:

OK. I have found it now. the problem was that I don't read the OP's posts.


--
athel

[Jerry Friedman]

Or in Math.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Jerry Friedman]

This should work:

The integral t squared dt
From 0 to square root of 3
Times 2 times the sin

Of 3 pi over 9
Equals log of the cube root of e.

--
Jerry Friedman supposes he could have just Googled that.

[Jerry Friedman]

Ah, the original works with "cube root" in the second line.

http://www.pleacher.com/mp/mpoetry/integrl2.html

My emendation scans better, IMO, and I think it's slightly more amusing
mathematically.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Peter Moylan]

On 2016-Jan-23 22:30, Berkeley Brett wrote:

> Thanks in advance for anything you care to share (including any other geekish Limericks).

"Potato?! Potahto!" said she,
"And of course it's tomahto, you see.
But the square of ct
Minus x^2 will be
Always something on which we agree."

A conjecture both deep and profound
Is whether the circle is round.
In a paper of Erdös
Written in Kurdish
A counterexample is found.

When jumping from high in a tree,
Just write down del L by del z.
Take del L by z dot,
Then t-dot what you've got,
And equate the results (but quickly!).

A mathematician named Klein
Thought the Möbius band was divine.
Said he, "If you glue
The edges of two,
You'll get a weird bottle like mine!

Given the mathematics that has turned up in this thread, we shouldn't
forget the oldie:

A mathematician named Hall
Had a hexahedronical ball,
And the square of its weight
Times his pecker, plus eight,
Was four fifths of five eighths of fuck all.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

[Jerry Friedman]

On 1/25/16 7:30 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 2016-Jan-23 22:30, Berkeley Brett wrote:
>
>> Thanks in advance for anything you care to share (including any other geekish Limericks).
>
> "Potato?! Potahto!" said she,
> "And of course it's tomahto, you see.
> But the square of ct
> Minus x^2 will be
> Always something on which we agree."

I suppose there's no need to repeat the classics about the lady named
Bright and the physicist, Fisk.

> A conjecture both deep and profound
> Is whether the circle is round.
> In a paper of Erdös
> Written in Kurdish
> A counterexample is found.

That's a good one.

> When jumping from high in a tree,
> Just write down del L by del z.
> Take del L by z dot,
> Then t-dot what you've got,
> And equate the results (but quickly!).

Definitely different terminology from what I learned. "Speedily" would
scan a little better than "but quickly". And does "z" rhyme with "tree"
in Australia?

It reminds me of a double dactyl I wrote while taking a class nicknamed
Death Mechanics. I hope I'm permitted to repeat it (the doggerel, not
the class).

Partial L partial q,
William R. Hamilton
Tried to do physics
With no need for force.
Maupertuis's Principle's
Generalizable,
But the Least Action is
Bagging the course.

[snip two more]

--
Jerry Friedman

[Peter Moylan]

On 2016-Jan-26 17:03, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> On 1/25/16 7:30 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:

>> When jumping from high in a tree,
>> Just write down del L by del z.
>> Take del L by z dot,
>> Then t-dot what you've got,
>> And equate the results (but quickly!).
>
> Definitely different terminology from what I learned. "Speedily" would
> scan a little better than "but quickly". And does "z" rhyme with "tree"
> in Australia?

No, it doesn't. I should make it clear that none of these is my
invention. I found them on the web; my contribution was checking for
typos and spelling errors.

I agree that "speedily" would have been better.

> It reminds me of a double dactyl I wrote while taking a class nicknamed
> Death Mechanics. I hope I'm permitted to repeat it (the doggerel, not
> the class).
>
> Partial L partial q,
> William R. Hamilton
> Tried to do physics
> With no need for force.
> Maupertuis's Principle's
> Generalizable,
> But the Least Action is
> Bagging the course.

Nice.

[GordonD]

On 26/01/2016 02:30, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 2016-Jan-23 22:30, Berkeley Brett wrote:
>
>> Thanks in advance for anything you care to share (including any other geekish Limericks).
>
> "Potato?! Potahto!" said she,
> "And of course it's tomahto, you see.
> But the square of ct
> Minus x^2 will be
> Always something on which we agree."
>
> A conjecture both deep and profound
> Is whether the circle is round.
> In a paper of Erdös
> Written in Kurdish
> A counterexample is found.
>
> When jumping from high in a tree,
> Just write down del L by del z.
> Take del L by z dot,
> Then t-dot what you've got,
> And equate the results (but quickly!).

When jumping from off a bunk bed

Just write down del L by del z.
Take del L by z dot,

Then t.dot what you've got
Before you land on your head.

[J. J. Lodder]

Jerry Friedman <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> On 1/25/16 7:30 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
> > On 2016-Jan-23 22:30, Berkeley Brett wrote:
> >
> >> Thanks in advance for anything you care to share (including any other geeki
sh Limericks).
> >
> > "Potato?! Potahto!" said she,
> > "And of course it's tomahto, you see.
> > But the square of ct
> > Minus x^2 will be
> > Always something on which we agree."
>
> I suppose there's no need to repeat the classics about the lady named
> Bright and the physicist, Fisk.

The physicist wouldn't scan, in my version.

"There once was a fencer named Fisk,

Jan

[Joe Fineman]

Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> writes:

> When jumping from high in a tree,
> Just write down del L by del z.
> Take del L by z dot,
> Then t-dot what you've got,
> And equate the results (but quickly!).

In my (US) dialect, "del" means the inverted triangle (a.k.a. nabla),
not the partial-derivative delta character, which seems to be meant
here.

Quoth Goldstein, "Quite obviously
We have L equals T minus V,
And the a-lambda-mu's
Are functions of q's
And q-dots, and possibly t."

--
--- Joe Fineman jo...@verizon.net

||: People change and forget to tell each other. :||

[Anders D. Nygaard]

On 23-01-2016 12:47, Stefan Ram wrote:
> [...]
> While mathematically false, some authors even write
>
> »3 / 4 + 2«
>
> to mean
>
> »3 /( 4 + 2 )«, otherwise they would have written
>
> »2 + 3 / 4«.
>
> In programming languages, however, this interpretation is never used.

Incorrect. In APL all operators have the same precedence and are
(collectively) right-associative.

/Anders, Denmark

[Peter Moylan]

On 2016-Jan-26 04:59, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> On Monday, January 25, 2016 at 8:59:11 AM UTC-7, Jerry Friedman wrote:

>> This should work:
>>
>> The integral t squared dt
>> From 0 to square root of 3
>> Times 2 times the sin
>> Of 3 pi over 9
>> Equals log of the cube root of e.
>
> Ah, the original works with "cube root" in the second line.

At first sight -- especially because we're distracted by the limerick
form -- it's impressive that we should get such an equality. Once you
sit down and do the calculation, you realise that it's not so
complicated after all.

That reminds me that many people have found something impressive,
perhaps even mystical, about the equality
exp(i \pi) = -1
because it seems to relate a couple of transcendental quantities and the
mysterious imaginary "i" to one another. Well, perhaps so, but it's not
at all mystical. It's a natural consequence of the way we define these
numbers, and the way we define a complex exponential.

Still, I suppose that all mathematics is magic to those who do not yet
understand it. A corollary of Clarke's Law?

[Mark Brader]

Stefan Ram mispunctuated:

>> While mathematically false, some authors even write
>>
>> "3 / 4 + 2"
>>
>> to mean
>>
>> "3 /( 4 + 2 )", otherwise they would have written
>>
>> "2 + 3 / 4".
>>
>> In programming languages, however, this interpretation is never used.

Anders Nygaard writes:
> Incorrect. In APL all operators have the same precedence and are
> (collectively) right-associative.

But in APL, / means "reduce", not "divide", and 3 is not a valid value
for its left argument.
--
Mark Brader | Of course, we'd have to flatten both the iceberg and Wyoming,
Toronto | and that would change what area Wyoming covers, but that's
m...@vex.net | all right since I've never been to Wyoming. --Tony Cooper

[Richard Tobin]

In article <n89ep8$uqs$1...@dont-email.me>,

Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

>That reminds me that many people have found something impressive,
>perhaps even mystical, about the equality
> exp(i \pi) = -1
>because it seems to relate a couple of transcendental quantities and the
>mysterious imaginary "i" to one another. Well, perhaps so, but it's not
>at all mystical. It's a natural consequence of the way we define these
>numbers, and the way we define a complex exponential.

It's perhaps a little more surprising in the form

(e^pi) ^ i = -1

since e^pi is the innocuous looking 23.1406+

-- Richard

[Peter Moylan]

I'd never though of it that way. What a pity I no longer have students
to pester with such problems.

[J. J. Lodder]

Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

> On 2016-Jan-26 04:59, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> > On Monday, January 25, 2016 at 8:59:11 AM UTC-7, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>
> >> This should work:
> >>
> >> The integral t squared dt
> >> From 0 to square root of 3
> >> Times 2 times the sin
> >> Of 3 pi over 9
> >> Equals log of the cube root of e.
> >
> > Ah, the original works with "cube root" in the second line.
>
> At first sight -- especially because we're distracted by the limerick
> form -- it's impressive that we should get such an equality. Once you
> sit down and do the calculation, you realise that it's not so
> complicated after all.
>
> That reminds me that many people have found something impressive,
> perhaps even mystical, about the equality
> exp(i \pi) = -1
> because it seems to relate a couple of transcendental quantities and the
> mysterious imaginary "i" to one another. Well, perhaps so, but it's not
> at all mystical. It's a natural consequence of the way we define these
> numbers, and the way we define a complex exponential.

In particular, pi is defined as half the period of the exponential.
It becomes mystical only when you mix definitions
from different branches of mathematics.

> Still, I suppose that all mathematics is magic to those who do not yet
> understand it. A corollary of Clarke's Law?

Mathematics is first of all a language.
(and a very terse one)
I don't understand a word of Inuit,
but I don't think that messages in Inuit are magic,

Jan

[Joe Fineman]

nos...@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J. Lodder) writes:

> In particular, pi is defined as half the period of the exponential.
> It becomes mystical only when you mix definitions from different
> branches of mathematics.

Anything can be made mysterious, or possibly even mystical, if you make
yourself stupid enough. As a child, I managed that feat with the
commutativity of multiplication. How can you be so sure, if you have a
heap of 35 beans, that you can divide it either into 7 heaps of 5 or 5
heaps of 7? The mystery dissolves if you arrange them in a 5×7
rectangle.

--
--- Joe Fineman jo...@verizon.net

||: Climate is what we expect; weather is what we get. :||

[Anders D. Nygaard]

On 27-01-2016 06:38, Mark Brader wrote:
> Stefan Ram mispunctuated:
>
>>> While mathematically false, some authors even write
>>>
>>> "3 / 4 + 2"
>>>
>>> to mean
>>>
>>> "3 /( 4 + 2 )", otherwise they would have written
>>>
>>> "2 + 3 / 4".
>>>
>>> In programming languages, however, this interpretation is never used.
>
> Anders Nygaard writes:
>> Incorrect. In APL all operators have the same precedence and are
>> (collectively) right-associative.
>
> But in APL, / means "reduce", not "divide", and 3 is not a valid value
> for its left argument.

I should have known: My APL is apparently too rusty after
30+ years of non-use.

/Anders, Denmark.

[RH Draney]

On 1/27/2016 3:59 AM, J. J. Lodder wrote:

> Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> That reminds me that many people have found something impressive,
>> perhaps even mystical, about the equality
>> exp(i \pi) = -1
>> because it seems to relate a couple of transcendental quantities and the
>> mysterious imaginary "i" to one another. Well, perhaps so, but it's not
>> at all mystical. It's a natural consequence of the way we define these
>> numbers, and the way we define a complex exponential.
>
> In particular, pi is defined as half the period of the exponential.
> It becomes mystical only when you mix definitions
> from different branches of mathematics.

Something to do with a MacLaurin series, innit?...the complex extension
of the Taylor series, and the equality above is actually a trivial case
of the more useful formula....

I wish I could remember where I saw the series that, truncated at
various terms, gave the number of distinct tones in various musical
scales: 5 (pentatonic), 7 (melodic), 12 (chromatic), 19, 43 (Harry
Partch)...seeing it before me, even briefly, solved the mystery of why
there are no 10-tone or 14-tone scales in common use....r

[Jerry Friedman]

On Wednesday, January 27, 2016 at 4:38:45 PM UTC-7, RH Draney wrote:
> On 1/27/2016 3:59 AM, J. J. Lodder wrote:
> > Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:
> >>
> >> That reminds me that many people have found something impressive,
> >> perhaps even mystical, about the equality
> >> exp(i \pi) = -1
> >> because it seems to relate a couple of transcendental quantities and the
> >> mysterious imaginary "i" to one another. Well, perhaps so, but it's not
> >> at all mystical. It's a natural consequence of the way we define these
> >> numbers, and the way we define a complex exponential.
> >
> > In particular, pi is defined as half the period of the exponential.
> > It becomes mystical only when you mix definitions
> > from different branches of mathematics.
>
> Something to do with a MacLaurin series, innit?...the complex extension
> of the Taylor series,

The Maclaurin series is the Taylor series around x = 0, and they can
both be extended to the complex plane (and need to be to talk about
the radius of convergence and probably other stuff).

> and the equality above is actually a trivial case
> of the more useful formula....

Yes, e^(i*theta) = cos theta + i sin theta

That comes from the Maclaurin series for e^x, sin x, and cos x.

> I wish I could remember where I saw the series that, truncated at
> various terms, gave the number of distinct tones in various musical
> scales: 5 (pentatonic), 7 (melodic), 12 (chromatic), 19, 43 (Harry
> Partch)...seeing it before me, even briefly, solved the mystery of why
> there are no 10-tone or 14-tone scales in common use....r

Does that have to do with going around the circle of fifths till you
get close to where you started, up to a power of 2?

--
Jerry Friedman

[Richard Bollard]

On Sat, 23 Jan 2016 13:22:14 -0500, Joe Fineman <jo...@verizon.net>

wrote:

>Berkeley Brett <roya...@gmail.com> writes:
>

>> Thanks in advance for anything you care to share (including any other
>> geekish Limericks).
>

>A mathematician named Hall
>Had a dodecahedral ball,
> And the cube of its weight
> Times 11, plus 8,
>Was five-ninths the square root of fuck-all.

Very close to one I encountered on a toilet wall

There was a young man from Bengal
Who had a rectangular ball
The square of his date
Plus his penis times eight
Was two fifths of five eights of fuck-all.
--
Richard Bollard
Canberra Australia

To email, I'm at AMT not spAMT.

[RH Draney]

After looking up that "more granular than the chromatic" scale, which I
had mistakenly identified with gamelan, it seems to come from a theory
of Mr Partch's about "harmonic limit"....r

[Mark Brader]

Mark Brader:

>> But in APL, / means "reduce", not "divide", and 3 is not a valid value
>> for its left argument.

Anders Nygaard:

> I should have known: My APL is apparently too rusty after
> 30+ years of non-use.

Well, for the same reason, I should have said "'reduce' or 'compress'",
not "'reduce'". When +/1 2 3 4 makes 10, that's reduction; when
0 0 1 0 / 1 2 3 4 makes 3, that's compression.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "...one man's feature is another man's bug."
m...@vex.net --Chris Torek

My text in this article is in the public domain.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2016-01-27 03:52:47 +0000, Peter Moylan said:

> On 2016-Jan-26 04:59, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>> On Monday, January 25, 2016 at 8:59:11 AM UTC-7, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>
>>> This should work:
>>>
>>> The integral t squared dt
>>> From 0 to square root of 3
>>> Times 2 times the sin
>>> Of 3 pi over 9
>>> Equals log of the cube root of e.
>>
>> Ah, the original works with "cube root" in the second line.
>
> At first sight -- especially because we're distracted by the limerick
> form -- it's impressive that we should get such an equality. Once you
> sit down and do the calculation, you realise that it's not so
> complicated after all.
>
> That reminds me that many people have found something impressive,
> perhaps even mystical, about the equality
> exp(i \pi) = -1

I've always liked it better in the form e^(i \pi) + 1 = 0

because then you get the five fundamental constants into one equation.

What I also like is Feynman's tour de force where he goes from ideas of
counting to Euler's equation is simple steps in less than ten pages
(Chapter 22 of Lectures of Physics).

> because it seems to relate a couple of transcendental quantities and the
> mysterious imaginary "i" to one another. Well, perhaps so, but it's not
> at all mystical. It's a natural consequence of the way we define these
> numbers, and the way we define a complex exponential.
>
> Still, I suppose that all mathematics is magic to those who do not yet
> understand it. A corollary of Clarke's Law?


--

athel

[David Kleinecke]

There is an anecdote about Euler proving the existence of God by that
equation - e^(pi*i)+1=0.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

The story is here (involving Euler and Diderot), but no what we usually
call Euler's equation: http://www.mapleprimes.com/posts/40025-God-Exists
--
athel

[J. J. Lodder]

David Kleinecke <dklei...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thursday, January 28, 2016 at 10:14:50 AM UTC-8, Athel Cornish-Bowden:

The English version has it wrong.
Wikipedia Fr gives the original,
and also the source for the anecdote.
====
Une anecdote rapportée par Dieudonné Thiébault met en scène les
croyances religieuses d'Euler. Le philosophe français Denis Diderot, en
visite à Saint-Pétersbourg en 1773-1774, avait accepté, à la demande de
l'impératrice Catherine II, de voir la preuve de l'existence de Dieu
qu'Euler prétendait pouvoir produire. Les deux hommes se rencontrèrent
donc et Euler, sur un ton d'une parfaite conviction annonça « Monsieur,
(a + bn)/n = x ; donc Dieu existe, répondez ! » . Le désarroi de
Diderot, pour qui, (selon l'anecdote) les mathématiques étaient
incompréhensibles, provoqua les rires de la cour. Gêné, il demanda à
quitter la Russie. Il est plus que probable que l'anecdote soit
apocryphe et Thiébault ne prétend pas le contraire. De toute évidence,
ce dernier n'était pas présent, ses mémoires sont tardifs, la formule
soi-disant donnée par Euler n'a aucun sens et Diderot n'était pas
étranger aux mathématiques - comme en atteste la réputation qu'il
s'était faite avec ses Mémoires sur différents sujets de mathématiques
entre autres.
====

Euler presented a non-sequitur, not a valid result,
as is appropriate for an existence proof of god.

It has been obvious from the start that the anecdote is a fabrication,

Jan

[J. J. Lodder]

Athel Cornish-Bowden <acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> wrote:

> On 2016-01-27 03:52:47 +0000, Peter Moylan said:
>
> > On 2016-Jan-26 04:59, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> >> On Monday, January 25, 2016 at 8:59:11 AM UTC-7, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> >
> >>> This should work:
> >>>
> >>> The integral t squared dt
> >>> From 0 to square root of 3
> >>> Times 2 times the sin
> >>> Of 3 pi over 9
> >>> Equals log of the cube root of e.
> >>
> >> Ah, the original works with "cube root" in the second line.
> >
> > At first sight -- especially because we're distracted by the limerick
> > form -- it's impressive that we should get such an equality. Once you
> > sit down and do the calculation, you realise that it's not so
> > complicated after all.
> >
> > That reminds me that many people have found something impressive,
> > perhaps even mystical, about the equality
> > exp(i \pi) = -1
>
> I've always liked it better in the form e^(i \pi) + 1 = 0
>
> because then you get the five fundamental constants into one equation.
>
> What I also like is Feynman's tour de force where he goes from ideas of
> counting to Euler's equation is simple steps in less than ten pages
> (Chapter 22 of Lectures of Physics).

Disagree. Your form hides the essential mathematical point,
namely that the exponential function is periodic with period 2pi.

And while you are at it,
why not get the next 'fundamental' constant in and write:

e^(2i\pi) + 2e(^i\pi) + 1 = 0

Jan

[Jerry Friedman]

Incidentally, in the original version of the story (which is in French),
the theist debater was "un philosophe russe", not Euler.

https://books.google.com/books?id=NkOWUZLmNloC&pg=PA9

--
Jerry Friedman

[Jerry Friedman]

The French Wikipedia's version is distinctly worse than the English
one's.

> It has been obvious from the start that the anecdote is a fabrication,

It's not so obvious about the original story, though the French Wikip
is correct in saying that the source didn't guarantee it was true.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Thanks. That's very interesting, and it makes much more sense than the
usual story, as it recognizes that Diderot realized that the "proof"
was nonsensical but he couldn't think how best to answer it. I also
find "un philosophe russe" more plausible than Euler.

--
athel

[Snidely]

Thursday, Athel Cornish-Bowden quipped:

> On 2016-01-27 03:52:47 +0000, Peter Moylan said:

>> That reminds me that many people have found something impressive,
>> perhaps even mystical, about the equality
>> exp(i \pi) = -1
>
> I've always liked it better in the form e^(i \pi) + 1 = 0
>
> because then you get the five fundamental constants into one equation.

Backslash? Are you using that instead of splat or icks to signify
multiplication? Or is it an artifact of trying to get an html entity
for pi?

/dps

--
"What do you think of my cart, Miss Morland? A neat one, is not it?
Well hung: curricle-hung in fact. Come sit by me and we'll test the
springs."
(Speculative fiction by H.Lacedaemonian.)

[Mark Brader]

> > I've always liked it better in the form e^(i \pi) + 1 = 0
>

> Backslash? Are you using that instead of splat or icks to signify
> multiplication? Or is it an artifact of trying to get an html entity
> for pi?

It's a TeXism.
--
Mark Brader | "The essence of tyranny is not iron law.
Toronto | It is capricious law."
m...@vex.net | --Christopher Hitchens

[Lothar Frings]

Berkeley Brett wrote:

> I hope you're all well & in good spirits.
>
> I recently came upon a mathematical Limerick. You may see both the arithmetic and the verbal versions of that Limerick here:
>
> https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CZZiNSbVAAAIU_d.jpg:large
>
> But you don't have to see the arithmetic version to address my question.
>
> Here is the verbal version of the Limerick:
>
> A dozen, a gross, and a score
> Plus three times the square root of four
> Divided by seven
> Plus five times eleven
> Is nine squared and not a bit more.
>
> Is there an "order-of-operations" problem in this verbal version?
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_operations
>
> The Limerick assumes the quantity (a dozen, a gross, and a score, plus three times the square root of four) is divided by seven -- but one could also read it as "three times the square root of four divided by seven" and exclude the dozen, the gross, and the score from the division.
>
> What do you think? Is the Limerick sound?

Isn't a limerick supposed to contain a
geographic (or at least localized) term in the
first line?

The first English limerick I read was in
my first English class at school:

There was a young man at the zoo
who wanted to catch the 02.02(*).
When he came to the gate
they said: "You must wait -
it's one minute or two to 02.02".

-----
(*) read "two-two".

[Snidely]

Mark Brader was thinking very hard :

>>> I've always liked it better in the form e^(i \pi) + 1 = 0
>>
>> Backslash? Are you using that instead of splat or icks to signify
>> multiplication? Or is it an artifact of trying to get an html entity
>> for pi?
>
> It's a TeXism.

Ah, gotcha. I'm slow 'coz it's late. (At other times of the day, I'll
have to invent another excuse.)

/dps

--
"I am not given to exaggeration, and when I say a thing I mean it"
_Roughing It_, Mark Twain

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2016-02-24 08:05:04 +0000, Mark Brader said:

>>>
>>> I've always liked it better in the form e^(i \pi) + 1 = 0
>>
>> Backslash? Are you using that instead of splat or icks to signify
>> multiplication? Or is it an artifact of trying to get an html entity
>> for pi?
>
> It's a TeXism.

Yes.


--
athel

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Yes, but to make it a proper TeXism I should have used curly brackets
for the exponent: e^{i \pi} + 1 = 0, and put the whole thing between $
signs: $e^{i \pi} + 1 = 0$.
--
athel

[James Hogg]

Lothar Frings wrote:
> Berkeley Brett wrote:
>
>> I hope you're all well & in good spirits.
>>
>> I recently came upon a mathematical Limerick. You may see both the arithmetic and the verbal versions of that Limerick here:
>>
>> https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CZZiNSbVAAAIU_d.jpg:large
>>
>> But you don't have to see the arithmetic version to address my question.
>>
>> Here is the verbal version of the Limerick:
>>
>> A dozen, a gross, and a score
>> Plus three times the square root of four
>> Divided by seven
>> Plus five times eleven
>> Is nine squared and not a bit more.
>>
>> Is there an "order-of-operations" problem in this verbal version?
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_operations
>>
>> The Limerick assumes the quantity (a dozen, a gross, and a score, plus three times the square root of four) is divided by seven -- but one could also read it as "three times the square root of four divided by seven" and exclude the dozen, the gross, and the score from the division.
>>
>> What do you think? Is the Limerick sound?
>
> Isn't a limerick supposed to contain a
> geographic (or at least localized) term in the
> first line?

Not necessarily.

> The first English limerick I read was in
> my first English class at school:
>
> There was a young man at the zoo
> who wanted to catch the 02.02(*).
> When he came to the gate
> they said: "You must wait -
> it's one minute or two to 02.02".
>
> -----
> (*) read "two-two".

--
James

[Mark Brader]

Lothar Frings:

> The first English limerick I read was in
> my first English class at school:
>
> There was a young man at the zoo
> who wanted to catch the 02.02(*).
> When he came to the gate
> they said: "You must wait -
> it's one minute or two to 02.02".
>
> -----
> (*) read "two-two".

Cute.

The presentation would be more effective if you wrote the time
as "2.2 (*)" in the body, matching the pronunciation, and then
explained it as "i.e. 14:02" in the footnote.

The notation "2.2" for a time is now obsolete as far as I know,
and I say good riddance; but it was used in Britain well into
the 20th century. Even now they still often write times with
other things than a colon between hours and minutes.
--
Mark Brader diagnostic: n. Someone who's not sure
Toronto about science and evolution, either.
m...@vex.net --Steve Summit

[Lothar Frings]

Mark Brader wrote:

> The presentation would be more effective if you wrote the time
> as "2.2 (*)" in the body, matching the pronunciation, and then
> explained it as "i.e. 14:02" in the footnote.

I wasn't aware that "2.2" would be recognized as a time of day.

[Katy Jennison]

On 24/02/2016 11:20, Mark Brader wrote:
> Lothar Frings:
>> The first English limerick I read was in
>> my first English class at school:
>>
>> There was a young man at the zoo
>> who wanted to catch the 02.02(*).
>> When he came to the gate
>> they said: "You must wait -
>> it's one minute or two to 02.02".
>>
>> -----
>> (*) read "two-two".
>
> Cute.
>
> The presentation would be more effective if you wrote the time
> as "2.2 (*)" in the body, matching the pronunciation, and then
> explained it as "i.e. 14:02" in the footnote.

I think it would be more fun if you had to work it out (even more than
you do in Lothar's rendering) in order to make it rhyme and scan
properly. From that point of view, "14.02" would be what you want.
"02.02" doesn't work as well, because it would ordinarily be followed by
"am" or "pm", and on its own it just looks odd.

I'm reminded of "Look dear, isn't that good? 'Will you march too, or
wait till March the second?'"

https://greatwarlondon.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/march-2-punch-1-3-1916.jpg

Lastly, I'll anticipate Rey and mention that lines 3 and 4 ought to be
indented.

>
> The notation "2.2" for a time is now obsolete as far as I know,
> and I say good riddance; but it was used in Britain well into
> the 20th century. Even now they still often write times with
> other things than a colon between hours and minutes.
>

--

Katy Jennison

[Lothar Frings]

Katy Jennison wrote:

> I think it would be more fun if you had to work it out (even more than
> you do in Lothar's rendering) in order to make it rhyme and scan
> properly. From that point of view, "14.02" would be what you want.
> "02.02" doesn't work as well, because it would ordinarily be followed by
> "am" or "pm", and on its own it just looks odd.

I really can't remember how ih was written in our
English textbook. I just rwemember a story called
"The blue kitchen" and "X is for danger".

>
> I'm reminded of "Look dear, isn't that good? 'Will you march too, or
> wait till March the second?'"
>
> https://greatwarlondon.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/march-2-punch-1-3-1916.jpg

Which reminds me of Star Wars day: "May the 4th be with you".

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Wednesday, February 24, 2016 at 3:11:43 AM UTC-5, Lothar Frings wrote:

> Isn't a limerick supposed to contain a
> geographic (or at least localized) term in the
> first line?

No. The only parameters are the meter and the rhyme.

[Lothar Frings]

I see. Wikipedia says "The first line traditionally
introduces a person and a place", so it's a tradition but
not a must. Anyway, the vast majority of limericks
seem to adhere to that rule.

[Reinhold {Rey} Aman]

Katy Jennison wrote:
>
> Lastly, I'll anticipate Rey and mention that lines 3 and 4 ought
> to be indented.
>

Good woman, Katy.

I've given up correcting the morons & ignoranti.

--
~~~ Reinhold {Rey} Aman ~~~

[grabber]

On 2/24/2016 11:20 AM, Mark Brader wrote:
> Lothar Frings:
>> The first English limerick I read was in
>> my first English class at school:
>>
>> There was a young man at the zoo
>> who wanted to catch the 02.02(*).
>> When he came to the gate
>> they said: "You must wait -
>> it's one minute or two to 02.02".
>>
>> -----
>> (*) read "two-two".
>
> Cute.
>
> The presentation would be more effective if you wrote the time
> as "2.2 (*)" in the body, matching the pronunciation, and then
> explained it as "i.e. 14:02" in the footnote.
>
> The notation "2.2" for a time is now obsolete as far as I know,

But useful for limericks. I daresay many here know this one:

There was a young fellow named Tate
Who dined with his date at 8.8
But I'd hate to relate
What that fellow named Tate
And his tête-à-tête ate at 8.8

[Joe Fineman]

Lothar Frings <Lothar...@gmx.de> writes:

> I see. Wikipedia says "The first line traditionally introduces a
> person and a place", so it's a tradition but not a must. Anyway, the
> vast majority of limericks seem to adhere to that rule.

Some notable exceptions of obvious antiquity:

The youth who frequent picture palaces
Have no use for psychoanalysis.
Although Dr Freud
Is distinctly annoyed,
They cling to their long-standing fallacies.

You can smoke a symbolic cigar,
You can ride in a long, sexy car,
But a phallic church steeple,
To sensible people,
Is stretching the thing rather far.
--
--- Joe Fineman jo...@verizon.net

||: Make sure in advance that if the forces of evil triumph, you :||
||: will be on the losing side. :||

[Mark Brader]

Lothar Frings:
>>> The first English limerick I read was in
>>> my first English class at school:
>>>
>>> There was a young man at the zoo

>>> who wanted to catch the 02.02(*) ...

>>> -----
>>> (*) read "two-two".

Mark Brader:

>> The presentation would be more effective if you wrote the time
>> as "2.2 (*)" in the body, matching the pronunciation, and then
>> explained it as "i.e. 14:02" in the footnote.

Katy Jennison:

> I think it would be more fun if you had to work it out (even more than
> you do in Lothar's rendering) in order to make it rhyme and scan
> properly. From that point of view, "14.02" would be what you want.

Not to my taste, but I see what you mean.

> "02.02" doesn't work as well, because it would ordinarily be followed by
> "am" or "pm", and on its own it just looks odd.

Whoa! As far as I'm concerned, if you write the hours with a leading zero,
that means you're using the 24-hour clock. So 02:02 (or 02.02 or 0202)
is unambiguously 2:02 am. It's only times from 10:00 to 12:59 that are
ambiguous between 12- and 24-hour notation.
--
Mark Brader "Male got pregnant -- on the first try."
Toronto Newsweek article on high-tech conception
m...@vex.net November 30, 1987

[Charles Bishop]

In article <VI-dnT-Tivwp1VPL...@giganews.com>,

m...@vex.net (Mark Brader) wrote:

> Lothar Frings:
> >>> The first English limerick I read was in
> >>> my first English class at school:
> >>>
> >>> There was a young man at the zoo
> >>> who wanted to catch the 02.02(*) ...
>
> >>> -----
> >>> (*) read "two-two".
>
> Mark Brader:
> >> The presentation would be more effective if you wrote the time
> >> as "2.2 (*)" in the body, matching the pronunciation, and then
> >> explained it as "i.e. 14:02" in the footnote.
>
> Katy Jennison:
> > I think it would be more fun if you had to work it out (even more than
> > you do in Lothar's rendering) in order to make it rhyme and scan
> > properly. From that point of view, "14.02" would be what you want.
>
> Not to my taste, but I see what you mean.
>
> > "02.02" doesn't work as well, because it would ordinarily be followed by
> > "am" or "pm", and on its own it just looks odd.
>
> Whoa! As far as I'm concerned, if you write the hours with a leading zero,
> that means you're using the 24-hour clock. So 02:02 (or 02.02 or 0202)
> is unambiguously 2:02 am. It's only times from 10:00 to 12:59 that are
> ambiguous between 12- and 24-hour notation.

Well then we'll use your scheme to give 012:32

Charles

[Lothar Frings]

Joe Fineman made known:

> Lothar Frings <Lothar...@gmx.de> writes:
>
> > I see. Wikipedia says "The first line traditionally introduces a
> > person and a place", so it's a tradition but not a must. Anyway, the
> > vast majority of limericks seem to adhere to that rule.
>
> Some notable exceptions of obvious antiquity:
>
> The youth who frequent picture palaces
> Have no use for psychoanalysis.
> Although Dr Freud
> Is distinctly annoyed,
> They cling to their long-standing fallacies.
>
> You can smoke a symbolic cigar,
> You can ride in a long, sexy car,
> But a phallic church steeple,
> To sensible people,
> Is stretching the thing rather far.

I wonder why Tom Lehrer didn't do limericks.