unholy math

In medieval Europe the numerals we use today weren’t so much unknown as they were taboo. They were sinful, evil, because Christianity. 

Numbers were dangerous; at least these Indian [also known as Arabic] numbers were. They were contraband. The zero was the most unholy: a symbol for nothingness, a Hindu concept, influenced by Buddhism and transplanted to Christian Europe. It became a secret sign, a signal between fellow travelers. Sunyata was a well-established Buddhist practice of emptying the mind of all impressions, dating as far back as about 300 B.C. The Sanskirt term for zero was sunya, meaning ‘empty’ or ‘blank.’ Flashing a zero to another merchant let him know that you were a user of Hindu-Arabic numerals. In many principalities, Arabic numerals were banned from official documents. Math was sometimes exported to the West by ‘bootleggers’ in Hindu-Arabic numerals. There is plentiful evidence of such illicit number use in thirteenth-century archives in Italy, where merchants used Gwalior numbers as a secret code.

Hindu-Arabic numerals were so much easier to use in calculations than Roman numerals that they were even considered magical — which, of course, made them more verboten. 

I wonder how many mathematicians were burned at the stake. 

source:

Lost Discoveries: the ancient roots of modern science — from the Babylonians to the Maya

by Dick Teresi

2002. Simon & Schuster, New York, NY

New York City tableau

The musician known as Moby namedrops a lot in his memoir Then It Fell Apart. He also drinks a lot and does a lot drugs.  This was the paragraph that maxed the namedropping: 

Teany had become a place where some of the public figures in the neighborhood like to hang out, and somehow today they had all shown up at the same time. Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, and Lee Ranaldo from Sonic Youth were at one of the tables. David Bowie and Iman and their toddler daughter were at another table. A few feet away Gus Van Sant was having tea with Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Joaquin Phoenix. Outside, Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal were having scones.

Do I want to hang out with David Bowie and Jake Gyllenhaal and that lot? Wouldn’t it be nice?

Moby is, like, one month older than me. He found fame and wealth pursuing his art. The adoring crowds, the money, the celebrity buddies made him feel loved. For a little while. 

Teany was a tea shop / lounge that Moby and his girlfriend Kelly opened in NYC. Moby had a lot of money to throw around. He financed teany, but says Kelly did almost all the work. Theirs is one of the longer relationships Moby describes in his book. Intimacy gives him panic attacks, he says, and he evens himself out with large quantities of drink. 

Moby describes taking every kind of drug, often in poured in together, though he drinks so much the drugs are really only sprinkles on the alcohol cupcake. 

It’s hard to feel sorry for someone who buys a three-storey penthouse apartment with expansive views of Central Park. But, yeah, the poor guy was unhappy. And Natalie Portman wishes he wouldn’t say they were ever in a relationship. 

source:

Then It Fell Apart

Moby

2019. Faber & Faber, London UK

The French in Bernard into Battle

Bernard into Battle is the last book in Margery Sharp’s Rescuers series (or, as the author seems to prefer it, the Miss Bianca series). This last adventure has the mice who live in the Embassy threatened by an invasion of rats from the sewer. The mice must mount a defense, and, it turns out, it’s a deadly battle. 

The rats lay siege to the Moot Hall of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society, which is an old wine barrel. To thwart the rats, the mice fight back with chemical warfare — a particularly stinky old cheese:

[The] fumes [of the bad cheese] proved so deadly, the rats succumbed as before a gas attack. Those in front fell sideways from their hunkers with all four feet in the air, and even the rearmost ranks choked and spluttered but a moment before following suit, and within a moment all were hors de combat (which is French for being down and out). Even Hercules was hors de combat, he the foremost of all having received the Gorgonzola’s full blast absolutely nez a nez (which is French for head on), and lay senseless upon what should have been his field of victory!

The deadliness of the fumes prove to be more figure of speech than real poison, and the rats recover to attack another day.

While the rats are recuperating, our old friend Bernard convinces Miss Bianca to stay out of any future fray. She may be able to talk a cat out of eating a mouse, but Bernard doesn’t think Miss Bianca’s silver tongue is up to the challenge of a swarm of rats. Miss Bianca, however, refuses to be cooped up 24/7.

Bernard … consented to [Miss Bianca] walking out for twenty minutes or so each day in the Radish Patch, which permission he gave more readily because the Radish Patch was surrounded by practically a cheval-a-frise of close set holly bushes …

The war culminates in a real pitched battle. Pen-nibs have been appropriated from the Ambassador’s office to act as spear heads. Even thus armed, our mouse heroes are outmatched by the burlier rats.

Many a pen-nib indeed found its mark in rattish vitals, but even a rat struck to the heart could ere he succumbed still bowl his assailant over and leave it to a fellow-rat to administer the bite, or coup de grace.

Hercules, the leader of the rats, is confident of victory.

Hercules advanced at the head of his corps d’elite (again French, meaning his best troops).

definitions: Margery Sharp usually provides quick translations of her French in Bernard into Battle. But here are some versions from the internet, too:

hors de combat : Out of action due to injury or damage.

nez a nez : face to face

cheval-a-frise : an obstacle, usually a piece of wood with projecting spikes, formerly used to hinder enemy horsemen 

coup de grace : a death blow or death shot administered to end the suffering of one mortally wounded

corps d’elite : A select group

source:

Bernard into Battle

by Margery Sharp

illustrated by Leslie Morrill

1978. Little, Brown, & Co., Boston