Recent reading

[bunrab]

The Thread, A Mathematical Yarn by Philip J. Davis. This is very funny if you like tracking down words - and despite its title, it is more about words than it is about math. Specifically, it is the author's rather eccentric search for the origins of the name Pafnuty, as in the first name of the mathematician Pafnuty Tschebyscheff. I would put it right up there with Rats, Lice and History for eccentric science reading, except that The Thread is much shorter and easier to read.

The next batch of reading will be odder; I have two BookCrossing bookrings to read and pass on, and reading Brokeback Mountain and Tales from Sanctuary, The Vampire Sex Bar together should provide for an interesting couple of days.

And then, after that, while reading Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors (see about three posts back), I was struck with the idea that I should really read Thackeray's Vanity Fair and The Newcomes so I will be hunting those down during my next trip to the library.

Comments

[leiacat.livejournal.com]

I would be curious to find out how he went about looking.

I suppose I'm at an unfair advantage, but for me the search was quite anticlimatic. (I started with knowing that it was an old Russian name. After about 2-3 minutes of searching I landed on a Russian Orthodox book of names (Православный именослов), which informed me that the name is "Perhaps, belonging to God (egyp.), and given the list of 8 saints' days that the name belongs to.

And then, I realized that I misspelled the name in my search, corrected the error, and learned about the venerable Pafnutiy, the hegumen and miracle-worker of Borovsk, as well as several other saints, and at least one false saint. (Also, the mathematician's last name in Russian has half the letters of the version above.)

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

One whole chapter of the book is a discussion of how many ways we could transliterate A!K=IG33 9[%?%3Q Q+#YS+% into the Roman alphabet.