It’s fun to spend a day inventing mathematical smack talk:
“These guys’ second derivative must be less than zero, ’cause they’re about to go concave DOWN!”
“I’m in – Victory and these chowderheads aren’t even PATH CONNECTED sets.”
“They’re the compact set, and we’re the finite cover, dig?”
“Time to go Hausdorff on this space and separate these chumps from their crazy.”
“I think there’s gonna be a discontinuity in their victory function as t approaches US.”
“There’s no epsilon ball small enough to contain what’s gonna be left of them.”
So, the next time you are at a Math Bowl and want to throw down, you now have just that much more in your pocket.
– Count Dolby von Luckner
Frederick the Great: A Most Lamentable History Breaching Space and Time.
A Twice-Weekly webcomic about the enlightened monarchical adventures of Frederick the Great and company! (Since 2007!)
Here is E.T. Bell’s summary of the awesome machines Archimedes invented for the defense of Syracuse:
Hieron begged Archimedes to prepare a suitable welcome for Marcellus [the invading Roman general]. Once more deisisting from his researches to oblige his friend, Archimedes constituted himself a reception committee of one to trip the precipitate Romans. When they arrived his ingenious deviltries stood grimly waiting to greet them.
The harp-shaped Roman turtle affair on the eight quinqueremes lasted no longer than the fame of the conceited Marcellus. A succession of stone shots, each weighing over a quarter of a ton, hurled from the super-catapults of Archimedes, demolished the unwieldy contraption. Crane-like beaks and iron claws reached over the walls for the approaching ships, seized them, spun them round, and sank or shattered them against the jutting cliffs. The land forces, mowed down by Archimedean artillery, fared no better. Camouflaging his rout in the official bulletins as a withdrawal to a previously prepared position in the rear, Marcellus backed off.
Damn straight.
– Count Dolby von Luckner
