googol

Fri Jan 28 16:30:40 UTC 2011

Those who read both _One, Two, Three,  Infinity_
and _Mathematics and the Imagination_ (where one
should find the square root of minus one) at the age of 12 may be excused.

Joel

At 1/28/2011 10:51 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>At 10:40 AM -0500 1/28/11, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>I read the same book when I was twelve. And I remember the "googol" thing.
>>But he didn't attribute it to his nephew.
>>
>>BTW, acc. to Google Books the passage doesn't exist.  Like the square root
>>of -1.
>>
>>JL
>
>
> From the OED, which I just realized might elucidate the matter, s.v. GOOGOL:
>
>1940 KASNER & NEWMAN Math. & Imagination i. 23
>The name 'googol' was invented by a child (Dr.
>Kasner's nine-year-old nephew) who was asked to
>think up a name for a very big number, namely, 1
>with a hundred zeros after it.
>
>I knew there was a young nephew involved, I just forgot whose.
>
>LH
>
>>
>>On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 10:29 AM, Laurence Horn
>><laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:
>>
>>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>  -----------------------
>>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>  Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>>  Subject:      Re: FW: Pauli
>>>
>>>
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>  At 12:49 AM -0500 1/28/11, Seán Fitzpatrick wrote:
>>>  >My father, who was a student of George Gamov at George Washington
>>>  >University, told me of a time a student answered a query from Gamov in
>>>  >class.  When Gamov looked at him silently,
>>> he added anxiously " Isn't that
>>>  >right?".  To which Gamov replied
>>> "Right!?!?  That isn't even wrong."  This
>>>  >would have been in the late '40s or early '50s.
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>
>>>  Is that George Gamow of "googol" fame?  At least
>>>  I recall first encountering "googol" and
>>>  "googolplex" in Gamow's _One, Two, Three,
>>>  Infinity_, where I recall he credited his young
>>>  nephew for the term.  That was a while ago,
>>>  though, so I may well be misremembering.
>>>
>>>  LH
>>>
>>>  >
>>>  >It is perhaps relevant that though my
>>> father was a very honest man, one of
>>>  >his favorite quips had to do with "never
>>> letting a slavish devotion to the
>>>  >truth stand in the way of a good story".
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >Seán Fitzpatrick
>>>  >Roses are #FF0000.  Violets are #0000FF.
>>>  >
>>>  >All of my base are belong to you.
>>>  >
>>>  >www.logomachon.blogspot.com
>>>  >
>>>  >  -----Original Message-----
>>>  >From: Victor Steinbok [mailto:aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM]
>>>  >Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2011 4:52 PM
>>>  >Subject: Pauli
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >Wolfgang Pauli usually gets credit for the quit, "That's not right--it's
>>>  >
>>>  >not even wrong!" (or something similar, depending on source). The common
>>>  >
>>>  >reference for this is from Rudolph Peierls's 1960 recollections (I can't
>>>  >
>>>  >really call it an obituary):
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >Rudolph Peierls, "Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, 1900-1958." (Royal Society, GB)
>>>  >
>>>  >Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society 5:174-192 (1960)
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >Wiki not only highlights the whole episode in the article on Pauli:
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >>  Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch! "Not only
>>>  >
>>>  >>  is it not right, it's not even wrong!"
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >but even has a separate entry for "not even wrong":
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >>  An argument that appears to be scientific is said to be not even wrong
>>>  >
>>>  >>  if it cannot be falsified (i.e., tested) by experiment or cannot be
>>>  >
>>>  >>  used to make predictions about the natural world. The phrase was
>>>  >
>>>  >>  coined by theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli, who was known for his
>>>  >
>>>  >>  colorful objections to incorrect or sloppy thinking. Rudolf Peierls
>>>  >
>>>  >>  writes that "a friend showed [Pauli] the paper of a young physicist
>>>  >
>>>  >>  which he suspected was not of great value but on which he wanted
>>>  >
>>>  >>  Pauli's views. Pauli remarked sadly, 'It is not even wrong.' "
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >It may be impossible to either verify or reject the origin of the
>>>  >
>>>  >phrase--Pauli died in 1958, leaving a large number of anecdotes about
>>>  >
>>>  >his life, but not a lot of biographical material, and the quip was
>>>  >
>>>  >originally supposed to be in German. However, recognizing Pauli's sense
>>>  >
>>>  >of humor, it is possible that he might have been mocking a religious
>>  > >
>>>  >argument that relied on a strawman
>>> statement that needed a rebuttal, e.g.,
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >http://goo.gl/2yadK
>>>  >
>>>  >Principles of the faith in relation to sin. By Orby Shipley. 1879
>>>  >
>>>  >>  Take three strict rules for guidance, in regard to devout jealousy
>>>  >
>>>  >>  against falling into little sins.
>>>  >
>>>  >>
>>>  >
>>>  >>  i. Never to allow self-indulgence in any known fault, however small.
>>>  >
>>>  >>
>>>  >
>>>  >>  People, in relation to this rule, may be heard to say, " Yes ; it is
>>>  >
>>>  >>  not right ; it is even wrong ; but, still, I do allow myself in such
>>>  >
>>>  >>  and such a liberty."
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >My brief search revealed little useful information and the statement may
>>>  >
>>>  >well be original with Pauli. I thought I would throw it out into the
>>>  >
>>>  >ether and see if anyone has the stomach to check it out deeper (and
>>>  >
>>>  >perhaps check it out in German as well).
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >      VS-)
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >PS: I was wondering about the origin because Pauli's other famous quip,
>>>  >
>>>  >also cited in Wiki has an alternative origin.
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >>  "Well, I'd say that also our friend Dirac has got a religion and the
>>>  >
>>>  >>  first commandment of this religion is 'God does not exist and Paul
>>>  >
>>>  >>  Dirac is his prophet'".
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>   >As Wiki suggests, a similar statement was made much earlier about Robert
>>>  >
>>>  >Green Ingersoll. Although it's impossible to judge whether Pauli was
>>>  >
>>>  >familiar with the previous quip, the likelihood of coincidence seems
>>>  >
>>>  >rather small.
>>>  >
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>>
>>
>>
>>--
>>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>>
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>
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>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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