Sad news: Leonard Nimoy, the sonorous, gaunt-faced actor who won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock, the resolutely logical human-alien first officer of the Starship Enterprise in the television and movie juggernaut “Star Trek,” died on Friday morning at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. He was 83. His wife, Susan Bay Nimoy, confirmed his death, saying the cause was end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Leonard Nimoy has the distinction of having starred in two of the greatest television series ever. Let us recall that he went straight from Star Trek to…
There's lots of good blog fodder out there, but I don't want to let too much time go by before finishing my discussion of Stephen Fry's presentation of the Problem of Evil. See Part One for the full context. Of all the responses I've seen to Fry's interview, there was one that was so bizarre and demented that we just have to take a look at it. And it came from an unexpected source--Larry Moran: This video is making the rounds and a lot of atheists are wetting their pants over Stephen Fry's response to the question of what he would would say to “he, she, or it” if he encountered god when he…
Let's consider a hypothetical situation. Professor Jones, who has tenure, learns that a graduate student in a different department has conducted a class in a manner he finds objectionable. So Jones writes a blog post in which he attacks the graduate student by name. He uses incendiary rhetoric he could reasonably know would lead to threats, harassment and intimidation directed at the student. In describing what transpired, he makes several errors of fact that are defamatory toward the people being discussed. It is later revealed that he has done this before. That is, he has attacked…
The fifth Problem Of the Week has now been posted at the big website. I've also posted an “official” solution to Problem Four. POTW will be taking two weeks off after this one, so you will have to make this last. (Spring break is almost upon us, which seems incredible considering how cold it is outside.) In other news, I see that Jerry Coyne is spotlighting the videos of British comedian Philomena Cunk, such as this one about evolution: Great stuff! It reminded me of this old Bob and Ray routine about the Komodo dragon:
My favorite philosophical conundrum has been back in the news lately, thanks to a recent interview with British actor Stephen Fry: Asked by the interviewer what he would say to God were he to discover, after his death, that He existed, Fry replied: I'd say, bone cancer in children? What's that about? How dare you? How dare you create a world where there is such misery that is not our fault. It's not right. It's utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God, who creates a world that is so full of injustice and pain? That's what I'd say. Skipping…
All my hard work in Baltimore, and all the frustrations of the various drives, paled to insignificance upon arriving at the Parsippany Hilton. You see, it was time for another go at the U. S. Amateur Team East chess tournament. It's one of the biggest chess parties of the year, with more than 1300 players in attendance. Me and my homies got together for one more run at the title: Closest to the camera is our board four, lawyer-extraordinaire Brian Cige, sporting a rating of 1315. I never got around to asking him what his knight was doing on h5 here. Next to him is Ned Walthall, rated 1390.…
It's snowing again. Pretty hard, actually. So, since it looks like I won't be going anywhere today, how about I tell you about my recent travels? My adventures started last Thursday. I hopped into the Jasonmobile around noon, and headed out to Baltimore. This entails driving on I-495, better known as “The Beltway.” When you hear folks in Washington DC described as living “inside the beltway,” that's what they mean. Now, let me tell you something about the Beltway. There is no good time to be driving on it. I've been there at midnight and found myself stuck in traffic. So I expected…
My recent travels, to Parsippany, NJ via Baltimore, MD, which involved three talks in two days, followed by multiple games of chess, bookended by two long drives, came to a dramatic conlcusion yesterday when I had to drive home in the snow. Not fun! There was so much snow on the road that you frequently couldn't see the lane markings, making it difficult to orient yourself. And let me tell you, the truckers who use that particular road weren't going to let a little snow slow them down. Then, after creeping along at thirty miles per hour for long stretches (on what is usually a seventy…
The third problem of the week is now up at the big website. I've also posted the official solution to Problem Two. So go have a look and let me know what you think. Feel free to present solutions in the comments. Unless, of course, you just want to pick micronits with the problem statement. In that case you don't need to let me know what you think.
I will be in Baltimore at the end of week to give a couple of talks in honor of Darwin Day. On Thursday, February 12, I will be speaking to the Baltimore Ethical Society. Pot luck dinner at 6:30 pm, with the talk beginning at 7:30. I will give a talk entitled Among the Creationists; I seem to recall a good book with that title. The talk will present some anecdotes from my experiences at creationist conferences, and will also discuss the various sources of conflict between evolution and religion. Then, on Friday the 13th, I will be delivering a colloquium talk at the UMBC Math Department…
It's time to take a break from helpmates and return to selfmates. This week's problem was composed by Andrey Selivanov in 2014. The stipulation is selfmate in three: Recall that in a selfmate, white plays first and forces black to give checkmate in no more than the stipulated number of moves. Black, for his part, will try despeartely not to give mate. It's a complete inversion of normal chess logic! Selivanov is something of a wizard when it comes to selfmates. He routinely churns out problems that make other composers weep with envy. This is actually one of his lighter efforts, but…
Here's something that happened this week: David Brooks wrote a bad column about secularism. In fairness, it gets off to a decent start: Over the past few years, there has been a sharp rise in the number of people who are atheist, agnostic or without religious affiliation. A fifth of all adults and a third of the youngest adults fit into this category. As secularism becomes more prominent and self-confident, its spokesmen have more insistently argued that secularism should not be seen as an absence -- as a lack of faith -- but rather as a positive moral creed. Phil Zuckerman, a Pitzer…
The second Problem of the Week has now been posted. Also posted is an official solution to the first problem. Go have a look, and let me know what you think in the comments. But don't get cocky. The problems get harder as we go along...
Broadly speaking, there are two general strategies for proving that God exists. One we might call the scientific approach. This is where you point to some empirical fact and argue that it is beyond the reach of natural forces. The classic example is Paley's version of the argument for design. Paley argued that just as the complex, functional interweaving of parts in a watch immediately implies a watchmaker, so too does the complex functionality of living organisms demand a creator. This was a compelling argument for its time, and there is a reason it was accepted by almost everyone. But…
This week we continue our look at helpmates. This week's problem has very different feel from the two helpmates we have seen thus far. It was composed by Joao Santiago and Nenad Petrovic, back in 1951. The stipulation calls for helpmate in four: Let me remind you that in a helpmate, white and black cooperate to contrive a position in which black is checkmated. We assume that black moves first. Even though white and black are cooperating, normal chess rules apply. In particular, if either side is placed in check during the solution, then that person must get out of check on his next…
We're only six episodes into The Nightly Show, the program Comedy Central put on to replace Colbert, but I'm about ready to write it off. Larry Wilmore, the show's host, was pretty funny as a correspondent for The Daily Show, so I was optimistic. But it was not to be. The basic format is this: In the first segment Wilmore does a monologue on some issue of note. In the second segment there is a discussion of the issue with four guests. In the third, the panel is asked blunt questions, and is then judged on whether or not they are keeping it real. The trouble is that the panelists, each…
Do you prefer math problems to chess problems? Well then today's your lucky day! For today is the day that Problem Of the Week returns! Our theme this semester is: Geometry. Euclidean geometry to be exact. There will be ten problems during the term. The first five are meant to be relatively simple, while the second five will be more challenging. So have a look, see what you can make of it, and feel free to leave your solutions in the comments.
This week we shall continue our look at helpmates. The problem below was composed by Zivko Janevski in 2011. It calls for helpmate in two, with three solutions: Before diving in, let's review how helpmates work. In defiance of normal chess logic, white and black will be cooperating to contrive a position in which black is checkmated. The convention is that black moves first, so that, from the diagram, we are looking for a sequence of the form: Black moves, White moves, Black moves, White gives mate. Even though black and white are cooperating, normal chess rules apply. It is fine for…
I'm not in the mood for heavy blogging just now, so how about we discuss something light and frivolous. Like the meaning of life. Back in July, I wrote this: Answers about our origins have no implications at all for questions of meaning and value. Arising through blind, uncaring forces in no way implies that life is not awesomely precious, and being made in the image of a transcendent designer in no way implies that it is. That seems entirely obvious to me, but I routinely hear religious people deny it. They say that if there is no God, then life has no meaning. The only way this claim…
This series has featured quite a few direct mates, selfmates and endgame studies. There are, however, other problem genres to consider. One of these neglected genres is the helpmate. So, over the next few weeks, I'd like to show you a few of them. This week's example is a simple, but, I think, elegant example of how helpmates work. It was composed by me, and it was published all the way back in the April 1989 issue of Chess Life magazine. The problem calls for helpmate in two, with the added stipulation that there are two solutions: Now, as the name suggests, in a helpmate, white and…