Posts Tagged ‘Voltaire’
Fables that have been agreed upon*…
From College Humor. Click on the image above, or here
* “All the ancient histories, as one of our wits says, are just fables that have been agreed upon. ” – Voltaire, Jeannot et Colin
As we try to find alternatives to Arthur on the afternoon television schedule, we might recall that it was on this date in 1542 that Portuguese explorer João Rodrigues Cabrilho discovered Santa Catalina Island, while exploring the coast of California for the Spanish, for whom he was sailing. Cabrilho (“Juan Rodriguez Cabillo,” as he was known in Spanish) had made his fortune with Hernán Cortés in Mexico (then called New Spain) and later, mining gold in Guatemala. But as enough is never enough, when the Viceroy of New Spain, Antonio de Mendoza, tapped him to lead an expedition up the Pacific Coast, he leapt at the opportunity to search for a way to China (the full extent of the northern Pacific was still unknown) and to find the mythical Strait of Anián (the Northwest Passage) connecting the Pacific Ocean with Hudson Bay. While he found neither of those, he did discover familiar landmarks up the Golden Coast (San Diego Bay, San Pedro, San Clemente), all the way to the Russian River– though he sailed unawares past San Francisco Bay, making for Point Reyes…
Adventures in the Counterintuitive…
Your correspondent is headed away for a week or so, ranging more then ten times zones from home– the current limit to continuous timely posting of (R)D… So, while regular service will resume on-or-around the 20th, a little something to keep one occupied:
Readers will recall that, on the occasion of an earlier hiatus, your correspondent wheeled out “the Monty Hall Problem” (c.f., “Riddle Me This” and “Birdbrains“). This time, with thanks to Prof. Stan Wagon at Macalester College:
Alice and Bob face three doors marked 1, 2, 3. Behind the doors are placed, randomly, a car, a key, and a goat. The couple wins the car if Bob finds the car and Alice finds the key.
First Bob (with Alice removed from the scene) will open a door; if the car is not behind it he can open a second door. If he fails to find the car, they lose. If he does find the car, then all doors are closed and Alice gets to open a door in the hope of finding the key and, if not, trying again with a second door.
Alice and Bob do not communicate except to make a plan beforehand. What is their best strategy?
Source: A. S. Landsberg (Physics, Claremont Colleges, California), Letters, Spring 2009 issue of The Mathematical Intelligencer.
The answer is here— and more nifty puzzles, here.
As we craft our own strategies, we might solve a memorial problem for Gabrielle-Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet, the French mathematician and physicist who is probably better known as Voltaire’s mistress; she died on this date in 1749. Fascinated by the work of Newton and Leibniz, she dressed as a man to frequent the cafes where the scientific discussions of the time were held. Her major work was a translation of Newton’s Principia, for which Voltaire wrote the preface. The work was published a decade after her death, and was for many years the only translation of the Principia into French.
Judge me for my own merits, or lack of them, but do not look upon me as a mere appendage to this great general or that great scholar, this star that shines at the court of France or that famed author. I am in my own right a whole person, responsible to myself alone for all that I am, all that I say, all that I do. it may be that there are metaphysicians and philosophers whose learning is greater than mine, although I have not met them. Yet, they are but frail humans, too, and have their faults; so, when I add the sum total of my graces, I confess I am inferior to no one.
– Mme du Châtelet to Frederick the Great of Prussia
If we do not meet with agreeable things, we shall at least meet with something new…
Just over 250 years ago, a short volume by Voltaire– Candide, ou l’Optimisme— was making the underground rounds. Within a month of its publication in January of 1759, the Grand Council of Geneva and the administrators of Paris had banned Candide; still, it sold twenty thousand to thirty thousand copies by the end of the year in over twenty editions, a clear best-seller by the standards of the time. In 1762, Candide joined Giordano Bruno’s works on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. (Indeed, though its authorship was a badly-kept secret, Candide was, as can be noted above, ostensibly written by “Doctor Ralph’; Voltaire only admitted his paternity in 1768.)
Now, through April, readers can revel both in Voltaire’s sardonic indictment of optimism (and poor Gottfried Liebniz) and in the stories that surround it: The New York Public Library is hosting “Candide at 250: Scandal and Success”– an exhibit (at the Schwartzman Building Gallery) and a wonderful on-line experience.
Then, “let us cultivate our garden.”
As we discipline our inner Pangloss, we might recall that it was on this date in 1886 that Karl Friedrich Benz patented the Benz Patent Motorwagon– the first “automobile” entirely designed to generate its own power (via a water-cooled gasoline engine)… that’s to say, not simply a motorized stage coach or horse carriage.
It’s only rock and roll…
Special bonus: the first known footage of Jimi Hendrix
As we tap our toes, we might recall that today is the birthday of the intellectual Father of Rock and Roll– the Father of the Age of Reason and author (in Candide) of the immortal– and sardonic– advice that each of us should “tend his own garden,” Francois-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire; he was born in Paris on this date in 1694.
Collect ’em all!…
From The Fifty Worst Album Covers Ever…
As we organize our record collections, we might recall that it was on this date in 1778, on his return to Paris from Ferney, at a performance of Irene (his last completed play), that Voltaire (aka François-Marie Arouet) was crowned with a laurel wreath.
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