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  #21  
Unread 06-17-2022, 10:27 PM
John Isbell John Isbell is offline
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Hi Tim,

Yes, I had letters from my father that began "Dear Clay, Let x be 17..." It is as you say.

There *is* a Trinity College, Oxford, of course! But it doesn't have a Great Court, so I think Barrington had the other one in mind. I knew someone who worked at Bletchley, but they didn't talk about it much. This was in the 1980s.

Anyhow. 13 state football championships in Illinois is a tall order. Your school sounds pretty dominant - I am reminded of my Hoosier years (22 of them), and a film I still have a soft spot for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoosiers_(film)

Cheers,
John
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  #22  
Unread 06-17-2022, 11:57 PM
Tim McGrath Tim McGrath is offline
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Yeah, that was a good movie too. I've heard that IU has a beautiful campus as well as a basketball tradition.

Wikipedia tells us that the platypus has a venomous bite, painful but not lethal to humans.

Going through my library tonight, I found a short book by Timothy Gowers. I'll read it next.
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  #23  
Unread 06-18-2022, 12:21 AM
John Isbell John Isbell is offline
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Yes, IU has lots of trees and little wooden bridges. it's very charming. It also has a really good rare books library, with a Declaration of Independence and a Gutenberg Bible.

I can't say I knew Tim Gowers well but I would think he would remember me, as remember him.

This platypus as I recall lays an egg in the Albanian Legation and causes an international incident. Following a brilliant early diplomatic career being all things to all people.

Cheers,
John
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  #24  
Unread 06-18-2022, 08:44 PM
Tim McGrath Tim McGrath is offline
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Yes, the platypus "was loved and honored from the Andes to Estonia,
He soon achieved a pact between Peru and Patagonia"

Your father must be John Lane Bell, the logician, mathematician, and philosopher of science.

While visiting your father in Western Canada, you may have encountered the poetry of Robert W. Service, whose tales of the Klondike are similar in tone and duration to Patrick Barrington's epic

I love high school football, but the Carmelites also provided me with an introduction to theology, which I found highly valuable, and they tried to teach me German, Latin, and Russian.

Last edited by Tim McGrath; 06-18-2022 at 09:35 PM.
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  #25  
Unread 06-18-2022, 09:36 PM
John Isbell John Isbell is offline
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Hi Tim,

To think the platypus showed such promise! It is an object lesson to us all.

I've known some Bells, but my dad was the mathematician John Rolfe Isbell, inventor of the Isbell Zigzag Theorem: https://projecteuclid.org/journals/p...102645825.full

Sadly, he didn't win a Feilds Medal for it. I have read some Robert Service though, but it's been a while.

It's good to hear theology has been of use! Mine has been of use to me as well, and languages are ever-useful. It sounds like a good school - mens sana in corpore sano, as they say. King's Canterbury was probably a very similar place.

Cheers,
John
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  #26  
Unread 06-18-2022, 09:57 PM
Tim McGrath Tim McGrath is offline
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Yes, John R. Isbell. My mistake. The second big mistake I've made tonight. How can I learn Riemann's Hypothesis, never mind your fathers theorem, if I keep making these stupid mistakes?
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  #27  
Unread 06-18-2022, 10:14 PM
John Isbell John Isbell is offline
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Mistakes are the gateway to discovery. If we never make a mistake, we'll never learn a thing.

Cheers,
John
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  #28  
Unread 06-18-2022, 10:52 PM
Tim McGrath Tim McGrath is offline
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I wonder if zigzag theory is related to meander theory. Probably not.
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  #29  
Unread 06-18-2022, 11:00 PM
John Isbell John Isbell is offline
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My memory is that it is the optimal method for getting out of the woods if you are lost in a forest. But that link gives you a short proof of it. My dad worked a fair bit in game theory.

Cheers,
John
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  #30  
Unread 06-20-2022, 12:43 PM
Tim McGrath Tim McGrath is offline
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Let's say that your father's interest in zigzag theory is the outward expression of an inner state that reflected his life as an Army brat, moving from base to base during his formative years. Let's further say that this inner state caused him to zig and zag between multiple colleges, first as a student and later as a professor, before he eventually found a home at SUNY Buffalo. Finally, let's speculate that you, his son, inherited this tendency but that, due to environmental and genetic factors, the straight lines of zigzag motion gave way to the curved lines of meander theory, a branch of geometry, which explains why you meander in your verse.

Last edited by Tim McGrath; 06-20-2022 at 03:31 PM.
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