Oh, I don't know...it all adds up to me. Euclid have seen it coming a mile away.
Ping!
Posted on 08/16/2006 9:19:03 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
For the past 12 years, the American Institute of Mathematics has succeeded in luring mathematicians out of their garrets and into a Palo Alto warehouse next to Fry's Electronics. On July 19, the Morgan Hill City Council approved the institute's request to build a 168,000-square-foot replica of the Alhambra, a massive citadel the Moors built seven centuries ago on the hills of Granada, Spain.
Morgan Hill will join the three other [math] institutes in Oberwolfach, Germany; Luminy, France; and most recent, Bamff, Canada.
It is almost completely funded by John Fry, president of Fry's Electronics, and his company. The castle -- with its rumored price tag of $50 million -- will be leased to the institute for $1 a year. Fry…founded the institute in 1994 together with one of his university professors.
The choice of the Alhambra as a model for the institute was a long process. Several castles were considered before the design team visited the Moorish castle, according to Scott Stotler of Stotler Design Group. "We needed to capture the spirit of Alhambra, but we haven't reproduced it. We have produced a building that we feel would be proud to be attached to the Alhambra."
…Alhambra was chosen because, although it was built in the 14th century, it offered many modern amenities. Among them was continuous running water filtered by crushed granite and a cooling system that was copied around the world. …the crowning feature … is the Court of Lions, a circle of 12 stone lions that tells time by water flowing from their mouths. A court of lions also will grace the Morgan Hill castle.
"That's how far ahead of their time they were. Everyone else was using sundials and they had lions that told the time using technology that is still studied today," Stotler marveled.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Okay, I must ask: why are they putting a math institute in Banff? (I assume that is a typo; a lot of research institutes have been opening in Alberta as of late.)
GGG ping
Oh, I don't know...it all adds up to me. Euclid have seen it coming a mile away.
Ping!
Better there than Siberia, although that seems to be where the brains are located :)
The Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, NJ, isn't exclusively math, but it's defintiely a math institute. And come to think of it, in St. Peterburg, Russia there's a math institute that has on faculty the fellow believed to have proved Poincare's Conjecture.
Well, I will append my comment to say that I genuinely like Banff, and Alberta in general. But putting a math institute there seems...odd.
Regardless of the architecture, just look at what happens when smart people get together, are well treated, well fed, and not drug tested nor have to punch a time clock.
There's something to be said for this.
"We have produced a building that we feel would be proud to be attached to the Alhambra."Scott Stotler works in the English dep't. :')
Before the Arab world descended into the depths of Islamic fundamentalism, the Arabs did make significant contributions to the sciences, including mathematics. Once, the influence of religious fundamentalism took hold, there was little interest in continuing scientific research and advancement.
A transcendental idea! I don't mean to go off on a tangent about the financing for this venture, but who cosined the note?
Bill Gates take note: Fry's $50 million will go a lot further than your billions squandered on AIDS and social programs in Africa. In 20 years, Fry will be a great man and you will be known for increasing the number of HIV carriers 10-fold.
Well treated, well fed and not drug tested nor have to punch a time clock = they are all asleep! Look at all the think tanks your federal tax dollar pays for, have you ever heard of something GOOD coming out of them? No, it takes good old **** kicking to make things happen. Large organizations are 80% human deadwood and this outfit will be no different. Heck, ask them all why an ameobbit is a math curiousity...
(LHW)=V.
Mathemeticians are a little bit different than most people you'll meet in the world.
You don't go into that line of work unless you love what you do. :)
It really isn't "work" for them.
Think tanks are the most productive portion of the government. They might tell the truth when some muslim wench from Vermont pulls vaseline, matches, a screwdriver and instructions from herself on an airplane!
At least the meth and crack users probably aren't asleep. LOL!
The rest of the government's staff is at 95% deadwood, and that goes all the way down to your local public school.
El Cid that point to you, but I think they should remember a simple lesson...try to emulate the moors Andalusia head!
Well, I take the christian viewpoint : a tree is known by its fruit. It is said that there are 3 math "schools" : platonic(50%), technical(45%) and realist(5%); I'm in the last category. Example : 7/0 = ?
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