[math-fun] Transfinite ordinals in Shakespeare
There's an explicit reference to $\omega + 1$ in Shakespeare's the Taming of the Shrew, 1596 (emphasis mine): BIONDELLO I cannot tell; expect they are busied about a counterfeit assurance: take you assurance of her, 'cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum:' to the church; take the priest, clerk, and some sufficient honest witnesses: If this be not that you look for, I have no more to say, But bid Bianca farewell *for ever and a day*. Did this hold the record for the largest ordinal discovered until Cantor? Best wishes, Adam P. Goucher
On 23/08/2017 09:06, Adam P. Goucher wrote:
There's an explicit reference to $\omega + 1$ in Shakespeare's the Taming of the Shrew, 1596 (emphasis mine):
BIONDELLO I cannot tell; expect they are busied about a counterfeit assurance: take you assurance of her, 'cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum:' to the church; take the priest, clerk, and some sufficient honest witnesses: If this be not that you look for, I have no more to say, But bid Bianca farewell *for ever and a day*.
Did this hold the record for the largest ordinal discovered until Cantor?
I think "le'alam ul'alme 'almaya" in the Kaddish has to mean at least omega+omega. The Kaddish long predates Shakespeare, but I don't know how old any particular words in today's text are and my knowledge of Hebrew and of Jewish history are both too weak to make me a good person to try to find out. -- g
Nice. I thought I might have been able to get omega^2 with 'in saeculo saeculorum', but unfortunately that merely means 'ages of ages' rather than 'eternity of eternities'.
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2017 at 11:23 AM From: "Gareth McCaughan" <gareth.mccaughan@pobox.com> To: math-fun@mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: [math-fun] Transfinite ordinals in Shakespeare
On 23/08/2017 09:06, Adam P. Goucher wrote:
There's an explicit reference to $\omega + 1$ in Shakespeare's the Taming of the Shrew, 1596 (emphasis mine):
BIONDELLO I cannot tell; expect they are busied about a counterfeit assurance: take you assurance of her, 'cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum:' to the church; take the priest, clerk, and some sufficient honest witnesses: If this be not that you look for, I have no more to say, But bid Bianca farewell *for ever and a day*.
Did this hold the record for the largest ordinal discovered until Cantor?
I think "le'alam ul'alme 'almaya" in the Kaddish has to mean at least omega+omega. The Kaddish long predates Shakespeare, but I don't know how old any particular words in today's text are and my knowledge of Hebrew and of Jewish history are both too weak to make me a good person to try to find out.
-- g
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Seems to me that "le'olam va'ed" = "forever and again" is omega + omega -- Adam, do you not feel that "forever and ever" is longer than "forever and a day"? On the other hand "le'olam ul'almei 'almaya" = "until forever and the forever of all forevers" would be omega + omega^2, no? Or at least omega^2, if you can't bring yourself to forgive the ancient Israelites for not realizing transfinite addition is not commutative. That appears in the Seder Rav Amram, the first written Jewish prayer book, from the 9th c. (I can't think of any records to indicate how much older than that it is.) This "X of the Xs" repetition is the same grammatical construction that in biblical times gave us "Song of songs" (a.k.a. Song of Solomon) as the emphatic or superlative form of "song". --Michael On Wed, Aug 23, 2017 at 10:10 AM, Adam P. Goucher <apgoucher@gmx.com> wrote:
Nice.
I thought I might have been able to get omega^2 with 'in saeculo saeculorum', but unfortunately that merely means 'ages of ages' rather than 'eternity of eternities'.
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2017 at 11:23 AM From: "Gareth McCaughan" <gareth.mccaughan@pobox.com> To: math-fun@mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: [math-fun] Transfinite ordinals in Shakespeare
On 23/08/2017 09:06, Adam P. Goucher wrote:
There's an explicit reference to $\omega + 1$ in Shakespeare's the Taming of the Shrew, 1596 (emphasis mine):
BIONDELLO I cannot tell; expect they are busied about a counterfeit assurance: take you assurance of her, 'cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum:' to the church; take the priest, clerk, and some sufficient honest witnesses: If this be not that you look for, I have no more to say, But bid Bianca farewell *for ever and a day*.
Did this hold the record for the largest ordinal discovered until Cantor?
I think "le'alam ul'alme 'almaya" in the Kaddish has to mean at least omega+omega. The Kaddish long predates Shakespeare, but I don't know how old any particular words in today's text are and my knowledge of Hebrew and of Jewish history are both too weak to make me a good person to try to find out.
-- g
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-- Forewarned is worth an octopus in the bush.
Check out the Wikipedia entry here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_saecula_saeculorum One gets the sense that any particular translation may or may not encapsulate what was being translated. The final paragraph touches on Gareth's "le'alam ul'alme 'almaya".
On Aug 23, 2017, at 10:10 AM, Adam P. Goucher <apgoucher@gmx.com> wrote:
I thought I might have been able to get omega^2 with 'in saeculo saeculorum', but unfortunately that merely means 'ages of ages' rather than 'eternity of eternities'.
participants (4)
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Adam P. Goucher -
Gareth McCaughan -
Hans Havermann -
Michael Kleber