24 December 2008

Gallica


Gallica is the Interner digital library of the National Library of France. It was established more than 10 years ago. To-date, it hosts about one hundred thousand books, most in scanned form. Everything is available for free. It is a treasure for those who do not have direct access to the original sources, such as the works of Henri Poincare (see e.g. `La Valeur de la Science'). There is a lot of information out there, but verylittle time. A few thoughts come in mind: (1) How can we use the information efficiently? (2) It is, after all, true that our hours are minutes when we wait to learn and centuries when we know what is to be learnt, as António Machado says.

Incidentally, Newton's birthday (the image above is from one of his major works) is tomorrow, 25 December.

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T H E B O T T O M L I N E

What measure theory is about

It's about counting, but when things get too large.
Put otherwise, it's about addition of positive numbers, but when these numbers are far too many.

The principle of dynamic programming

max_{x,y} [f(x) + g(x,y)] = max_x [f(x) + max_y g(x,y)]

The bottom line

Nuestras horas son minutos cuando esperamos saber y siglos cuando sabemos lo que se puede aprender.
(Our hours are minutes when we wait to learn and centuries when we know what is to be learnt.) --António Machado

Αγεωμέτρητος μηδείς εισίτω.
(Those who do not know geometry may not enter.) --Plato

Sapere Aude! Habe Muth, dich deines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen!
(Dare to know! Have courage to use your own reason!) --Kant