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Can you
identify the author of the following passage? The book? Write us at hubbard@matrixeditions.com with "math metaphors" as the subject. Or submit
your favorite literary passage involving mathematics.
We will
give the answer and post a new excerpt June 1.
New
Challenge
Everything has to begin somewhere and there is no answer to that.
Except, of course, why does it? Why, since we accept the notion
of infinity without end, should we not accept the logically identical
notion of infinity without beginning? .... Consider the series of
proper fractions. Etcetera. (To secretary.)
Then Cantor, then no beginning, etcetera, then Zeno. Insert: But the
fact is, the first term of the series is not an infinite fraction
but zero. It exists. God, so to speak, is nought.
Previous
challenge
It
is the vice of a vulgar mind to be thrilled by bigness, to think that a
thousand square miles are a thousand times more wonderful than one
square mile, and that a million square miles are almost the same as
heaven. That is not imagination. No, it kills it.
Answer
This is from Howard's End, by E. M. Forster
For
earlier challenges (and their answers), go to previous
challenges
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