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There was one about Mockingbirds I read a few decades ago. I think this is the one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Mock_a_Mockingbird https://en.wikipedia.o
by hyperman1 5y ago
There was one about Mockingbirds I read a few decades ago. I think this is the one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Mock_a_Mockingbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Mock_a_Mockingbird
Nothing explicit computery or even technical in there. Only all kinds of invented birds with specific weird behavior. You need to know nothing above what a 10 year old knows (and be interested in logic). And yet, when you're at the end, it turns out you know what 'Y combinator' actually means.
- eatonphil 5y ago> And yet, when you're at the end, it turns out you know what 'Y combinator' actually means. Sweet. I just learned about this book earlier today. It's on my list now!
- Jtsummers 5y agoPretty much everything by Smullyan is interesting (probably all, but I haven't read it all yet).
- eatonphil 5y agoWhat else have you read of his that you recommend (related or not to this thread)?
- Jtsummers 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Smullyan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Smullyan Under "Logic Puzzles", through To Mock a Mockingbird (about to reread it because I read it years ago and a lot of things didn't stick at that point). I picked up his books to flesh out my home library (I'd read some of them back in college) and started rereading from the beginning. Have a notepad and pencil to help puzzle through the problems (or index cards, I have a few stuck in the books). They span from riddles, to logic puzzles (the classic Knight & Knave puzzles), to computation-based puzzles with combinators.
- carapace 5y ago"Planet Without Laughter" > excerpted from This Book Needs No Title: A Budget of Living Paradoxes by Raymund Smullyan https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/smullyan.html https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/smullyan.html