I'll have to downgrade myself to "generally excellent recall", which is
the real reason I never read books twice :-)

As for whether God is fair, I think not. 15 hours after I returned to
Singapore from Denmark, my mother passed away. I am in the process of
packing the whole family up to go back for the funeral and all the
practical arrangements. So I have to run.

Bjorn

John Nitrox wrote:
> At 05:08 PM 5/7/2005, Le Poisson wrote:
>
>> While Bjorn graciously and generously told me that I don't need to
>> mail it back to him, but pass it on to someone (which I already did)
>> who might enjoy it, he made a statement to the effect that he never
>> re-read any book because of his "photographic memory" which I
>> immediately challenged because I have not seen the evidence of
>> anyone who can prove "photographic memory" even though many claimed
>> they had (including myself <G>).
>
>
> Forty-one years ago I went away to Columbia College in the City of New York
> and met one of these extraordinary folks who claimed to have a photographic
> memory.  George S., that should keep me from being sued, challenged us to
> show him any page in English which we did and which he recited word for
> word after having read it over once.  I'm not sure what is denoted or
> implied by having a "photographic memory" but I was impressed.  On the down
> side he also claimed that everyone was a little bit homosexual.  While
> impressed by his memory feats I questioned his assertion, and even though
> it turned out that George was a whole lot homosexual, his claim didn't
> really work out with a lot of other folks.  As it turned out George didn't
> have lots of other academic talents besides remembering everything, but he
> still did all right in school and afterwards.  I'll tell everyone except
> Don what he's doing for a living now.
>
> Is God fair; I think not, but I still get to play the Feeeesh game so here
> are my guesses, and I hope that folks who are in math don't get to enjoy
> this too much.
>
>> Question 1:  What is the significance of the number 16998 ?
>
>
>         I fiddled with this question a little and I can't find anything
> unusual that a normal person untutored in mathematics should be able to
> detect after an hour or two of effort.
>
>> Question 2:  What is the significance of the number 3,021,377 ?
>
>
>         I don't know, but maybe this is just a really big prime number,
> but why it should be interesting I have no idea.  I don't think it should
> be interesting because I'm sure mathematicians have figured out prime
> numbers to one hundred or two hundred places and I just don't have access
> to these tables.  I know a bunch of physicists, both experimental and
> theoretical, and I know a couple of mathematicians, but I'm not asking them
> and I'm sticking with my guess.  It's a big prime number with no special
> significance.
>
>         For a little fun here's a joke I heard a physicist tell a
> mathematician about 40 years ago.
>
> A guy was walking home and looking in a store window he saw a sign that
> "Shirts washed, starched, and ironed:  20 cents."  A week later he looked
> in the same window and saw a sign that said, "Suits dry
> cleaned:  $1.00."  The next week as he walked by the store front he saw a
> sign that said, "Laundry done: 10 lbs. $1.00."  Well that did it, he
> brought down a couple of suits, a few shirts, and about 20 pounds of
> laundry to the store front, where he heard the man at the desk say, "Hey,
> we don't do laundry here: we just make signs."  According to my physicist
> friends who found this hysterically funny, this is the difference between
> physicists and mathematicians.
>
>         So maybe 3,021,377 has something to do with the know universe, or
> maybe it's just something known to mathematics, but I'm more inclined to
> stay with this second possibility and my original guess.  Also I apologize
> about being so incommunicado with my friends on the list.  Also, I'm
> working to crank up the list's posts a little bit and won't take any crap
> from folks who don't add plenty of extras to entertain the NEDs.
>
>         Also for Bjorn, we're going to Helle Sorensen's wedding on the Mon
> (Moen) Island later this summer, and I want to quiz him about how to get
> along with Danes.  As I understand it so far they are friendly to friends
> of relatives, know everything about everything especially if they've had a
> chance to study it, all speak six or more languages, all are extra good
> looking, and none of them own automatic weapons or have more than a few
> hundred rounds of ammo.  BK and I have bought about half a dozen travel
> guides to Denmark, and I've been reading one book in Borders about the
> culture shock of going to Denmark.  I sort of hope that it will be like
> most other countries I've visited where the people are much nicer than
> folks from the U.S. but less open and less well armed.   According to
> Helle's intended, Dane's are unlike Americans in that they won't quiz you
> about sex, personal finances, or make party plans with you until they know
> your name, but he could be wrong.  Now I'm just hoping I've irritated
> enough NEDs to get them to post something.  :-)
>
>
>
> DPTNST,
>
>
> John
>