3 ms·

I love Tom Lehrer, but I was a little taken aback when I learnt that Lobachevsky was a real mathematician and not as far as anyone knows a plagiarist. Seems har

• etiam 6y ago
  Yeah, that one took me a quite while to realize as well. As far as I now understand, Lobachevsky was a truly great mathematician and any accusations of plagiarism absolutely unfounded. Lehrer simply chose him because the name went well with the Danny Kaye song "Stanislawsky" which he was paraphrasing. Apparently Lobachevsky's relatives were, understandably, not at all happy with the implications. It's the one occasion I can think of where I feel Tom Lehrer's satire was truly misdirected. One of many reasons I appreciate him so much is otherwise that when the sharp wit was at someone's expense, they had earned it (and this in contrast to the practice with most contemporary purported comedians, at least in my country).
  • 082349872349872 6y ago
    Over 2'000 years to resolve an open question (Elements, ca. -300 → On the Origin of Geometry, 1829) is a considerable time. http://www.claymath.org/euclid/index/book-1-postulates http://www.claymath.org/euclid/index/book-1-postulates (the image is clickable, but it's all greek to me) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_postulate#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_postulate#History I think Lehrer was counting on both the Danny Kaye reference and his prosody statement to hint at where this song stands with respect to Poe's Law: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24281288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24281288