[math-fun] Schensted's two-dimensional abacus
Oops; this thread needs a subject-line. On Sun, Jun 10, 2018 at 9:00 PM, James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com> wrote:
According to Martin Gardner's piece "Napier's Abacus" (chapter 8 in "Knotted Doughnuts and Other Mathematical Entertainments"):
Craige Schensted was inspired by Napier's device to invent a chessboard computer on which many astonishing calculations can be made. The basic idea is to allow the columns to be labeled with the powers of one base and the rows to be labeled with the powers of a different base. Each cell represents the product of its row and column numbers. It would require a long chapter to do justice to the elegant ways Schensted found for using such a board to solve problems that otherwise would be difficult. Does anyone know anything about this?
I wonder whether the only extant account of Schensted's device is in Gardner's files of correspondence. I assume that these files are available to scholars. Perhaps someone should seek to publish those letters that contain contributions to mathematics that would otherwise be lost to posterity?
Jim Propp
I wonder whether the only extant account of Schensted's device is in Gardner's files of correspondence.
Apparently Craige Eugene Schensted (later, "Ea Ea") and his wife Irene Verona published "The Two Dimensional Abacus" in 1974. Good luck finding a copy. I wonder if this is arose somehow from Jean Van Arsdel and Joanne Lasky's article "A two-dimensional abacus - the Papy Minicomputer" in The Arithmetic Teacher, October 1972: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41188061 Both Craige and Irene were born in 1927. Not sure what his status is but she died a few months ago.
Thanks! The Wikipedia page for Craige gives no death date, but uses the past tense in describing his residency in Portland, Maine. I’ll write to Knuth to see if he has a copy of “The Two Dimensional Abacus”. Does anyone know what happened to Martin Gardner’s books? Ideally they would all be kept together in the form of a library (specifically, an approximation to The Library of All Books Mentioned In Martin Gardner’s Writings), which could be useful to various sorts of scholars, particularly in the case of obscure books. (Cf. the Eugene Strens Collection at Calgary.) Jim Propp On Sunday, June 10, 2018, Hans Havermann <gladhobo@bell.net> wrote:
I wonder whether the only extant account of Schensted's device is in Gardner's files of correspondence.
Apparently Craige Eugene Schensted (later, "Ea Ea") and his wife Irene Verona published "The Two Dimensional Abacus" in 1974. Good luck finding a copy. I wonder if this is arose somehow from Jean Van Arsdel and Joanne Lasky's article "A two-dimensional abacus - the Papy Minicomputer" in The Arithmetic Teacher, October 1972:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41188061
Both Craige and Irene were born in 1927. Not sure what his status is but she died a few months ago. _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
Stan Isaacs (cc'ed) would probably know if some portion of Martin Gardner's personal library is included in the corpus of material that Stanford has related to Gardner. https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/4822392 On Sun, Jun 10, 2018 at 9:40 PM James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks!
The Wikipedia page for Craige gives no death date, but uses the past tense in describing his residency in Portland, Maine.
I’ll write to Knuth to see if he has a copy of “The Two Dimensional Abacus”.
Does anyone know what happened to Martin Gardner’s books? Ideally they would all be kept together in the form of a library (specifically, an approximation to The Library of All Books Mentioned In Martin Gardner’s Writings), which could be useful to various sorts of scholars, particularly in the case of obscure books. (Cf. the Eugene Strens Collection at Calgary.)
Jim Propp
On Sunday, June 10, 2018, Hans Havermann <gladhobo@bell.net> wrote:
I wonder whether the only extant account of Schensted's device is in Gardner's files of correspondence.
Apparently Craige Eugene Schensted (later, "Ea Ea") and his wife Irene Verona published "The Two Dimensional Abacus" in 1974. Good luck finding a copy. I wonder if this is arose somehow from Jean Van Arsdel and Joanne Lasky's article "A two-dimensional abacus - the Papy Minicomputer" in The Arithmetic Teacher, October 1972:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41188061
Both Craige and Irene were born in 1927. Not sure what his status is but she died a few months ago. _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
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-- Thane Plambeck tplambeck@gmail.com http://counterwave.com/
A quick search suggests Gardner box 26 folder 8 has the relevant discussion on the chessboard computer. https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt6s20356s/entire_text/ -- Stephen Lucas, Professor Department of Mathematics and Statistics MSC 1911, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA 22807 USA Phone 540 568 5104, Fax 540 568 6857, Web http://educ.jmu.edu/~lucassk/ Email lucassk at jmu dot edu (Work) stephen.k.lucas at gmail dot com (Other) Mathematics is like checkers in being suitable for the young, not too difficult, amusing, and without peril to the state. (Plato) On Jun 11, 2018, at 1:26 AM, Thane Plambeck <tplambeck@gmail.com<mailto:tplambeck@gmail.com>> wrote: Stan Isaacs (cc'ed) would probably know if some portion of Martin Gardner's personal library is included in the corpus of material that Stanford has related to Gardner. https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__searchworks.stanford.ed... On Sun, Jun 10, 2018 at 9:40 PM James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com<mailto:jamespropp@gmail.com>> wrote: Thanks! The Wikipedia page for Craige gives no death date, but uses the past tense in describing his residency in Portland, Maine. I’ll write to Knuth to see if he has a copy of “The Two Dimensional Abacus”. Does anyone know what happened to Martin Gardner’s books? Ideally they would all be kept together in the form of a library (specifically, an approximation to The Library of All Books Mentioned In Martin Gardner’s Writings), which could be useful to various sorts of scholars, particularly in the case of obscure books. (Cf. the Eugene Strens Collection at Calgary.) Jim Propp On Sunday, June 10, 2018, Hans Havermann <gladhobo@bell.net<mailto:gladhobo@bell.net>> wrote: I wonder whether the only extant account of Schensted's device is in Gardner's files of correspondence. Apparently Craige Eugene Schensted (later, "Ea Ea") and his wife Irene Verona published "The Two Dimensional Abacus" in 1974. Good luck finding a copy. I wonder if this is arose somehow from Jean Van Arsdel and Joanne Lasky's article "A two-dimensional abacus - the Papy Minicomputer" in The Arithmetic Teacher, October 1972: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.jstor.org_stable_41... Both Craige and Irene were born in 1927. Not sure what his status is but she died a few months ago. _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com<mailto:math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__mailman.xmission.com_cg... _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com<mailto:math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__mailman.xmission.com_cg... -- Thane Plambeck tplambeck@gmail.com<mailto:tplambeck@gmail.com> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__counterwave.com_&d=DwIGa... _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com<mailto:math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__mailman.xmission.com_cg...
The Kadon Enterprises profile of Craige < http://www.gamepuzzles.com/eagy.htm > best explains his mid-1990s weirdness, if I may call it that. The final paragraph suggests that he's still on Peaks Island (Portland), Maine past 1999 but I have a residency for him in Lunenburg, Massachusetts 1998-2001. Nothing since. Irene had a residency on Peaks Island 2007-2008 but her recent death was in Miami Beach, Florida. Craige's mother apparently died in 1995. Her obit mentions one son and two grandchildren!
On Jun 11, 2018, at 12:11 AM, James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com> wrote:
The Wikipedia page for Craige gives no death date, but uses the past tense in describing his residency in Portland, Maine.
The Wikipedia page for Craige gives no death date, but uses the past tense in describing his residency in Portland, Maine.
I had stated that Craige's mother's obit mentioned two grandchildren so I had hopefully assumed that they might be Craige's kids, he being her only child. I'm fairly certain now that Craige fathered no children and that his mother's grandchildren should more properly have been described as her step-grandchildren. In the search to uncover all this, I unexpectedly discovered that Craige Schensted is still alive! He's living in Portland, Maine.
Yes, and goes by the name Ea Ea. On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 10:50 PM, Hans Havermann <gladhobo@bell.net> wrote:
The Wikipedia page for Craige gives no death date, but uses the past tense in describing his residency in Portland, Maine.
I had stated that Craige's mother's obit mentioned two grandchildren so I had hopefully assumed that they might be Craige's kids, he being her only child. I'm fairly certain now that Craige fathered no children and that his mother's grandchildren should more properly have been described as her step-grandchildren.
In the search to uncover all this, I unexpectedly discovered that Craige Schensted is still alive! He's living in Portland, Maine.
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Oh, sorry for not reading this thread more carefully. Somebody else already said this. On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 10:58 PM, Allan Wechsler <acwacw@gmail.com> wrote:
Yes, and goes by the name Ea Ea.
On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 10:50 PM, Hans Havermann <gladhobo@bell.net> wrote:
The Wikipedia page for Craige gives no death date, but uses the past tense in describing his residency in Portland, Maine.
I had stated that Craige's mother's obit mentioned two grandchildren so I had hopefully assumed that they might be Craige's kids, he being her only child. I'm fairly certain now that Craige fathered no children and that his mother's grandchildren should more properly have been described as her step-grandchildren.
In the search to uncover all this, I unexpectedly discovered that Craige Schensted is still alive! He's living in Portland, Maine.
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
I know “Ea Ea” is Babylonian, but it brings to my mind the pseudo-Polynesian “Ea Ea” at the end of the Kellogg’s Puffa Puffa Rice commercial (does anyone else remember that?). Jim Propp On Wednesday, June 13, 2018, Allan Wechsler <acwacw@gmail.com> wrote:
Oh, sorry for not reading this thread more carefully. Somebody else already said this.
On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 10:58 PM, Allan Wechsler <acwacw@gmail.com> wrote:
Yes, and goes by the name Ea Ea.
On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 10:50 PM, Hans Havermann <gladhobo@bell.net> wrote:
The Wikipedia page for Craige gives no death date, but uses the past tense in describing his residency in Portland, Maine.
I had stated that Craige's mother's obit mentioned two grandchildren so I had hopefully assumed that they might be Craige's kids, he being her only child. I'm fairly certain now that Craige fathered no children and that his mother's grandchildren should more properly have been described as her step-grandchildren.
In the search to uncover all this, I unexpectedly discovered that Craige Schensted is still alive! He's living in Portland, Maine.
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
participants (5)
-
Allan Wechsler -
Hans Havermann -
James Propp -
Lucas, Stephen K - lucassk -
Thane Plambeck