Magritte Joke

From an article at the spoof news website, The Onion:

Magritte's work has often been the subject of litigation, most notably in 2003 when the Los Angeles County Museum of Art filed a Treachery of Images charge against the artist's estate after purchasing a piece by Magritte that was believed to be a pipe, but was later revealed not to be a pipe.

Eddingtoniana

Last Saturday I watched the BBC drama "Einstein and Eddington".  I will just say that the wonder isn't that it was done well, but that it was done at all.  For a program about such an abstruse subject (the 1919 Eclipse test of general relativity) to appear on television is pretty unusual; for it to involve such high profile actors as Andy Serkis ("Gollum") and David Tennant ("Doctor Who") seems little short of a miracle.  So, instead of grumping about the inaccuracies, I will just provide a few links to some background material:

A. S. Eddington, "Report on the Relativity Theory of Gravitation", The Physical Society of London, 1920. (Eddington's report on general relativity, which got a mention in the program.)

Daniel Kennefick, "Not only because of Theory: Eddington and the Competing Myths of the 1919 Eclipse Expedition", arXiv:0709.0685, 2007. (A thorough debunking of the rumours that Eddington fudged the results of the 1919 Eclipse Expedition.)

And, finally, that famous little story about Eddington (here told in Walter Grazer, "Eurekas and Euphorias: The Oxford Book of Scientific Anecdotes", Oxford, 2002):

Eddington was painfully shy but far from modest. His illustrious pupil Subramanyam Chandrasekhar recalled overhearing a conversation between Eddington and another astronomer, Ludwig Silberstein: Silberstein believed that he himself had a firm grasp of Einstein's theory and complimented Eddington for being one of the three people in the world to understand it.  When Eddington hesitated Silberstein asked why he was flaunting his false modesty.  'Not at all', came the reply, 'I am trying to think who the third one might be.'

Taking the Pants from a Highlander

Most of the mathematical logicians who have come after Boole are men who would have stuck at the impossible subtraction in ordinary algebra.  They say virtually, "How can you throw into a heap the same things twice over; and how can you take from a heap things that are not there."  Their great principle is the impossibility of taking the pants from a Highlander.  Their only conception of the analytical processes of addition and subtraction is throwing into a heap and taking out of a heap.  It does not occur to them that the processes of algebra are ideal, and not subject to gross material restrictions.

From "Lectures on ten British mathematicians of the nineteenth century" by Alexander Macfarlane (1916).

(I should perhaps mention, for those mystified by the above reference, that Scotsmen, and presumably Highlanders in particular, are reputed not to wear any pants under their kilts.)

Unnoticed Haikus

From a post by Eva Amsen at Nature Network:

For the past two weeks
I have twittered in haiku.
Nobody noticed.

C++ versus C#

Overheard at work:

C++ is a real pain in the backside after using C#.
And I used to like C++!