"My favorite teacher, when I was leaving primary school for high school, stopped me one day and gave me a piece of advice: 'Don't complicate your life.' I'm not sure if he was alarmed by my appearance or my 'rock attitude,' but either way, I was in the process of becoming a 'writer-worm' (hopefully to evolve into a 'writer-butterfly'). Thank you for reminding me of my love for labyrinths, intricate maps, and ciphered keys. By the way, the initial simplicity of Borges' worlds..."
Irrational numbers, when I first heard the term in a math class lightyears ago, made no sense to my rational mind. If a number were irrational, then why use it? Good one though, Terry. I will rename your exercise "a reverse linguistic acrostic".
Nonsense! Come up to London the day before my course (which is on 8th June), stay over in a nice hotel, and do my course. You will go away armed with a load of block-busting techniques and sore ribs from laughing so much
Ha, the Arthur C. Clarke response! Whenever someone wrote to him with a crackpot suggestion he would reply: "There may be something in what you say." 🤣
Ah, Terry, Terry, Terry. If I signed up for Oulipo 101, and this were the first assignment, I would be the first one to drop out ( and then go spend the newly-free time doing Waffle puzzles.) To me this is brain boggling.
Good to know. But please don't use "Sharron" and "exercise" in the same sentence. BTW I will have your wonderful "Essex Station" photo out on Saturday. Where the hell is Essex station?
That’s incredibly Sherlockian, well done! And highly irrational (as in my preferred use of the word being untamed and wild, not that of the math pedants I referred in my post!)
Use of letters to words like surrealist did the irrational of putting letters in a hat and randomly picking them out to make a poem. No numbers involved but allows the irrational to coexist with a rational outcome. I have to think of pi placement of numbers to the nth degree as a formula for calculating the irrationality of the world progress in space/time and realize there is no rational answer to how the earth turns in the galaxy nor what our future will be. Nostradamus tried. What will be will be.
Hah! Brilliant, Terry. I'm glad that it was this elegant/involved as I was worried I was missing something incredibly obvious!
Thanks, Nathan! Chortle.
"My favorite teacher, when I was leaving primary school for high school, stopped me one day and gave me a piece of advice: 'Don't complicate your life.' I'm not sure if he was alarmed by my appearance or my 'rock attitude,' but either way, I was in the process of becoming a 'writer-worm' (hopefully to evolve into a 'writer-butterfly'). Thank you for reminding me of my love for labyrinths, intricate maps, and ciphered keys. By the way, the initial simplicity of Borges' worlds..."
Very funny! My pleasure, Rafa. Agree re Borges.
Pie is proven to be directly related to circumference.
😂
Irrational numbers, when I first heard the term in a math class lightyears ago, made no sense to my rational mind. If a number were irrational, then why use it? Good one though, Terry. I will rename your exercise "a reverse linguistic acrostic".
😂 I always had a similar problem with imaginary numbers. I mean, either a number exists or it doesn't, and if the latter why bother?
Well, OK. I have no idea why you would do this. 🤷🏼♀️
😂 simply to see what you can produce. It's useful if you have a bit of Writer's block 😄
!!! I think I'd rather just stick pins in my eyes.
Nonsense! Come up to London the day before my course (which is on 8th June), stay over in a nice hotel, and do my course. You will go away armed with a load of block-busting techniques and sore ribs from laughing so much
I’m sure you’re right!
Ha, the Arthur C. Clarke response! Whenever someone wrote to him with a crackpot suggestion he would reply: "There may be something in what you say." 🤣
Ah, Terry, Terry, Terry. If I signed up for Oulipo 101, and this were the first assignment, I would be the first one to drop out ( and then go spend the newly-free time doing Waffle puzzles.) To me this is brain boggling.
It won't be the first exercise, Sharron 😆
Good to know. But please don't use "Sharron" and "exercise" in the same sentence. BTW I will have your wonderful "Essex Station" photo out on Saturday. Where the hell is Essex station?
😂. Great! Nowhere near Essex. It's in London, near an area called Islington
That’s incredibly Sherlockian, well done! And highly irrational (as in my preferred use of the word being untamed and wild, not that of the math pedants I referred in my post!)
Thanks, Bryn. Definitely irrational then, in a rational sort of way 😆
Very cool. I would have never guessed. Can you do this with other math problems or answers?
I should like to think so. There must be a way of using algebra for instance.
Use of letters to words like surrealist did the irrational of putting letters in a hat and randomly picking them out to make a poem. No numbers involved but allows the irrational to coexist with a rational outcome. I have to think of pi placement of numbers to the nth degree as a formula for calculating the irrationality of the world progress in space/time and realize there is no rational answer to how the earth turns in the galaxy nor what our future will be. Nostradamus tried. What will be will be.
Interesting. The Oulipians distanced themselves from the Surrealists because of the latter's reliance on chance
So cool. I AM a Maths person but no, that constraint was nowhere in my field of view. Very cool. 😎
😁
My head is swimming -- I'm not a maths person -- but am intrigued, and liked the resulting poem and challenge, so thanks, Terry.
Thanks, Mary. Well, if it's any consolation, I'm not a maths person either, but am trying to get a bit better!
That's a very pertinent use of the word 'irrational', Terry. 🤯
Bravo, though - that's really, really clever! You got me - as usual. 🙄
Beth - I loved your explanation too - which is a word puzzle in its own right - so a BRAVO* to you, too.
*😉
Chortle! Thanks, Rebecca. And yes, definitely agree with you about Beth T 😀
Ah, you agree that the 'BRAVO' I awarded to Beth deserved to be in capitals, then!
😊🤭😊
Of course! I gave her a shout-out in my post, didn't I?
Yes, you did!
My 'Bravo' to you was in lower case.... 🤫
*giggles*
😉
Oh! Chortle!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
"rats who constructed the labyrinth from which they then try to escape." Sounds like a metaphor for life in general : )
Doesn't it though...
LOL. I hadn't thought of that but you're right!