The thing of greatest importance to mathematics in Europe was the discovery by Tartaglia that you can solve a cubic equation - which, although it is very little used, must have been psychologically wonderful because it showed a modern man could do something no ancient Greek could do, and therefore helped in the renaissance which was the freeing of man from the intimidation of the ancients ...

Richard Feynman

Knuth on sorting ...

Although dictionaries of the English language define "sorting" as the process of separating or arranging things according to class or kind, computer programmers traditionally use the word in the much more special sense of marshaling things into ascending or descending order. The process should perhaps be called ordering, not sorting; but anyone who tries to call it "ordering" is soon led into confusion because of the many different meanings attached to that word. Consider the following sentence, for example: "Since only two of our tape drives were in working order, I was ordered to order more tape units in short order, in order to order the data several orders of magnitude faster." Mathematical terminology abounds with still more senses of order (the order of a group, the order of a permutation, the order of a branch point, relations of order, etc., etc.). Thus we find that the word "order" can lead to chaos.

Some people have suggested that "sequencing" would be the best name for the process of sorting into order; but this word often seems to lack the right connotation, especially when equal elements are present, and it occasionally conflicts with other terminology . It is quite true that "sorting" is itself an overused word ("I was sort of out of sorts after sorting that sort of data"), but it has become firmly established in computing parlance . Therefore we shall use the word "sorting" chiefly in the strict sense of sorting into order, without further apologies .

- From the book (epic) "Art of Computer Programming - Vol 3"

It tolls for thee ...

"No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee."

These famous words were taken from the "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions", by John Donne, circa 1623.

I am not much into classical literature (atleast currently), but this piece stands out. It shows us even in our 'nuclear' world, we are all interconnected. Another man's (or woman's for that matter) loss is my loss. Here a bell tolling signifies a death. So next time do not inquire who died, the bell tolled for you.

What could be a more powerfull expression of brotherhood than this!

Diplomacy ...

The characters:

1. Sir Humphrey – Permanent Cabinet Secretary
2. Sir Frederick – Permanent secretary of the Foreign and Commonwealth office
3. Bernard Woolley – Private secretary to the Prime Minister

-------------------------------

Sir Frederick: There are 157 independent countries in the world, we have dealt with them for years. There is hardly any MP who knows anything about any one of them.

Sir Humphrey: Show them a map of the world, most of them will have a job finding the Isle of Wight.

Bernard: Well, politicians can’t be that ignorant.

Both secretaries laugh.

Sir Frederick: Very well, sit down Bernard.

Sir Frederick: Where is Upper Volta?

Bernard: um …

Sir Humphrey: What’s the capital of Chad?

Bernard: um …

Sir Frederick: What language do they speak in Bali?

Bernard: um …

Sir Humphrey: Who is the president of Peru?

Bernard: um …

Sir Frederick: What is the national religion of Cameroon?

Bernard: um …

Sir Humphrey: Bernard, you should stand for parliament.

(taken from the episode, "A Victory for Democracy").