Thursday, August 03, 2006

My friends at the BBC report that some hidden texts containing works by Archimedes have been discovered.

I say that those who hid them knew what they were doing.

Archimedes was a famous mathematician (that really should be an oxymoron). His contributions to humanity were:

  • To use mathematics to develop weaponry
  • To foist his inane ramblings on generations of oppressed school students who should have been doing something more interesting, probably behind the bikesheds.

He is also apocryphally famous for being too stupid to realise that there was too much water in his bath.

Can humanity really benefit from learning more of the theories of this fascist?

I think that he has foisted enough of his tripe on us, and his ramblings should be left to rot. What will they discover next? Lost episodes of Family Fortunes? Three volumes of “The Wit and Wisdom of Iain Duncan Smith”? Turner prize winners from 1900 to 1920? “Grateful Dead – Just the Drum Solos”?

There is enough crap in the world already, stop looking for more

13 comments:

zoe said...

alright, vicus, i'll take you off my blogroll then.

Vicus Scurra said...

Yes, I suppose I do rather show the others up.

Anonymous said...

He was no Lobachevsky.

Who made me the genius I am today,
The mathematician that others all quote,
Who's the professor that made me that way?
The greatest that ever got chalk on his coat.

One man deserves the credit,
One man deserves the blame,
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach-

I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky.
In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics:
Plagiarize!

Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize -
Only be sure always to call it please 'research'.

Mark Gamon said...

I used to quite enjoy a Grateful Dead drum solo. Except they weren't, strictly speaking, solos. Because they had two drummers.

Not sure I could listen to a whole album's worth though. On balance, I concur.

Mind you, I'd watch a lost episode of Family Fortunes. You're clearly not a connoi... connose... connosewe... an afficionado of classic game shows. Or you'd have picked on Mr and Mrs.

hqevomke. The feeling you get every time they cast Hugh Grant as a foppish posh English bloke in a heart-warming comedy based somewhere in the Home Counties.

Romeo Morningwood said...

Bravo great dispenser of antiquated antiquities.

For all of the bloody hours wasted in bloody school that I can never bloody well get back....

Eureka my ass!
Toss the bastard out with the bloody bathwater!
No more I say. Never again!

Bloody tedious bastard.

tom909 said...

Surely you are overlooking the archimedes screw. It is all very well to rush to judgement but without this where would we be - grain augers wouldn't work for a start.

Mark Gamon said...

My God!!!!! I'd forgotten all about grain augurs!!!!

Vicus Scurra said...

Having lived for a considerable while on the planet without encountering an archimedes screw, I think I would risk doing without one for the rest of my life if it meant erasing the influence of this sordid old git.
I hope for the sake of my genteel audience that you are referring to some mechanical apparatus and not a sordid Mediterranean sexual practice.

Betty said...

Who was the bastard who discovered the principals of trigonometry? Having to do trigonometry homework was one of the worst tortures I ever had to endure. I hope he had a long and painful death.

That is all.

Frontier Editor said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Frontier Editor said...

Raincoaster: You forgot:
I have a friend in Minsk,
Who has a friend in Pinsk,
Whose friend in Omsk
Has friend in Tomsk
With friend in Akmolinsk.
His friend in Alexandrovsk
Has friend in Petropavlovsk,
Whose friend somehow
Is solving now
The problem in Dnepropetrovsk.

And when his work is done -
Ha ha! - begins the fun.
From Dnepropetrovsk
To Petropavlovsk,
By way of Iliysk,
And Novorossiysk,
To Alexandrovsk to Akmolinsk
To Tomsk to Omsk
To Pinsk to Minsk
To me the news will run,
Yes, to me the news will run!

The best part of the whole song!

Frontier Editor said...

At the risk of gales of derisive laughter, I will state that I did gain two very useful benefits from struggling through trigonomety.

1) I learned the verse "Oscar has a heap of apples and oranges," which gave me the artificial comfort of knowing the traingle side ratios for sine, cosine, tangent and cotangent. This will stand me in good stead one day when I finally get selected as a "Jeopardy" contestant, I'm sure.

2) I can pull lead on any dumb bastard running from me in a snowball fight and damn near take off their head, at least in a situation where Newtonian physics still holds sway. Come to think of it, there's precious few places left in the U.S. where Newton still has a chance thanks to all these damn evangelical Christians . . . .

Guess my days are numbered then.

Anonymous said...

I did NOT forget. I just linked and spared the rest to make this comment section a cleaner read.

Are you sure you're really an editor??? I thought it was writers who were paid by the printed word.