February 28, 2005
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The Meaning of 3:16
From The New Yorker, issue dated Feb. 28, 2005:
“Time Bandits,” by Jim Holt, pages
80-85:“Wittgenstein once averred that ‘there can never be surprises in logic.’”
“Miss Gould,” by David Remnick, pages
34-35:“She was a fiend for problems of sequence and logic…. Her
effect on a piece of writing could be like that of a master tailor on a
suit; what had once seemed slovenly and overwrought was suddenly trig
and handsome.”
Suddenly:See Donald E. Knuth’s Diamond Signs, Knuth’s 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated, and the entry of 3:16 PM today.
Trig and handsome:
Remnick on Miss Gould again:
“She shaped the language of the magazine, always striving for a kind of
Euclidean clarity– transparent, precise, muscular.”
Einstein on his
“holy geometry book” –“Here were assertions, as for example the intersection of the three
altitudes of a triangle in one point,
which– though by no means
evident– could nevertheless be proved with such certainty that any
doubt appeared to be out of the question. This lucidity and certainty made an indescribable impression upon me.”
“I need a photo opportunity,
I want a shot at redemption….”
