Haven’t read the whole yet, but the great circle joining Boston & london arcs to the north, not the south, unless you go the long way or measure the trajectory arrives Ng at London, both of which seem perverse to me. http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=lhr-jfk,lhr-bos,lhr-iah&MS=bm&DU=mi&SG=0.82&SU=... On Wed, Nov 7, 2018 at 20:01 James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com> wrote:

I've posted a draft of my next essay at http://mathenchant.org/041b.pdf ; as usual, I'll be grateful for thoughtful criticism, both positive and negative. I'll ponder any comments you care to send and will acknowledge them at the end of the essay if they've helped me make the piece better.

My main fear is that the piece won't really succeed in communicating its main point to people who don't already understand the main point. (Example: I can imagine a reader who feels that "All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, hence Socrates is mortal" is valid whereas "All men are immortal, Socrates is a man, hence Socrates is immortal" is nonsense, and who stops reading at the point in the essay where I seem to be giving them equal respect.) Are there other pieces of writing you can think of that do a better job of saying what I'm trying to say here?

Thanks,

Jim Propp

P.S. I already know about the "Lobachevkian" typo; I'm sure there are others I've missed. _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun

“often turned out to implications” is missing “have”, “As befit an essay” should have “befits”. On Wed, Nov 7, 2018 at 20:01 James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com> wrote:

I've posted a draft of my next essay at http://mathenchant.org/041b.pdf ; as usual, I'll be grateful for thoughtful criticism, both positive and negative. I'll ponder any comments you care to send and will acknowledge them at the end of the essay if they've helped me make the piece better.

My main fear is that the piece won't really succeed in communicating its main point to people who don't already understand the main point. (Example: I can imagine a reader who feels that "All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, hence Socrates is mortal" is valid whereas "All men are immortal, Socrates is a man, hence Socrates is immortal" is nonsense, and who stops reading at the point in the essay where I seem to be giving them equal respect.) Are there other pieces of writing you can think of that do a better job of saying what I'm trying to say here?

Thanks,

Jim Propp

P.S. I already know about the "Lobachevkian" typo; I'm sure there are others I've missed. _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun