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BTW, while interesting on its own, the article provides us with this little tidbit about the novel's author, Ethel Voynich, which is sure to be of interest to H
by qohen 10y ago
BTW, while interesting on its own, the article provides us with this little tidbit about the novel's author, Ethel Voynich, which is sure to be of interest to HN-ers (my emphasis added):
The melodrama of Voynich’s novel is matched by the extraordinary story of her own life. Ethel was born in Cork to parents George Boole, an eminent mathematician and the philosopher Mary Everest, whose uncle gave his name to the world’s highest mountain.
(And, yes, it really is that George Boole:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Boole#Family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Boole#Family )
- bbctol 10y agoAnd she married the man who gave his name to the Voynich manuscript! What a strange, small world history can be.
- wuschel 10y agoThe Irish are a small hyperconnected, global community. Having lived in Ireland for a while, the statement above does make me smile, but does not surprise me anymore.
- seanmheff 10y agoSo true. As an Irishman living in Canada, it does not surprise me in the least when I bump into a fellow Irishman and we know some of the same people. My Canadian friends always think this is strange.
- stinkytaco 10y agoKind of ironic, since I'm a Canadian living in the US and and every time it comes up, people tell me about who they know that lives in Canada. I realize they are just being polite, they don't expect me to know these people, but I can't help but feel that it's a little ridiculous. How the hell would I know Frank?
- dmix 10y agoMy girlfriend always does this to people when she finds out they went to x university. "Oh do you know this or that person". A university with 100k students. Some people's brains don't consider scale/space when hearing a familiar connection. :p
- eschutte2 10y agoIt happens. I was once in SF talking to a total stranger from LA (pop ~4m) and when I mentioned I grew up in Dallas (pop ~1.3m), she said "oh, do you know [X]?" And I did.
- kgwgk 10y agoHow is this relevant? It seems she was born in Cork to non-Irish parents and returned to England when she was a child. Did she keep a connection to the Irish community? Had her husband any other connection to Ireland?
- theoh 10y agoIt's spurious to attribute it to Irishness. More to do with Eminent Victorians than any fantasy of Ireland as a distributed global village.
- Xeoncross 10y agoOf importance to my son, it was Ethel's nephew (Sebastian) that invented the Junglegym.
- p1esk 10y agoOne of their great-great-grandsons is Geof Hinton.
- jamesblonde 10y agoWhat a family! George Boole, Herself (Ethel?), then Geoff Hinton. I wouldn't be surprised if history remembers Hinton more than his illustrious ancestors.
- mastazi 10y agoEthel Voynich also inherited the misterious Voynich manuscript[1] which is one of the most studied texts in the history of cryptography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript [1] "In 1930, the manuscript was inherited after Wilfrid's death by his widow Ethel Voynich, author of the novel The Gadfly and daughter of mathematician George Boole. She died in 1960 and left the manuscript to her close friend Anne Nill" - from the Wikipedia page linked above.
- dmix 10y agoOh great, I've never heard of the Voynich manuscript now I've spent the last hour reading Wikipedia and watching this doc https://youtu.be/awGN5NApDy4 https://youtu.be/awGN5NApDy4 This is why I try avoid HN. But none the less, very interesting! ;)
- mastazi 10y agoI just wanted to follow up on this, last night I watched that doco and I found it very enjoyable, thanks for the link!