Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!m.cs.uiuc.edu!zweig From: zweig@cs.uiuc.edu (Johnny Zweig) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: it's turtles all the way down Message-ID: <1991Apr15.192739.30838@m.cs.uiuc.edu> Date: 15 Apr 91 19:27:39 GMT References: <455@txsil.lonestar.org> <1991Apr14.232710.8841@newshost.anu.edu.au> <1991Apr15.002132.29831@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu> Sender: news@m.cs.uiuc.edu (News Database (admin-Mike Schwager)) Reply-To: zweig@cs.uiuc.edu Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL Lines: 28 Nntp-Posting-Host: cassius.cs.uiuc.edu meissner@osf.org (Michael Meissner) writes: >In article <1991Apr15.002132.29831@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu> >akbloom@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu (Keith Bloom) writes: >| rjm@vulcan.anu.edu.au (Robert J. McArthur) writes: >| An older reference: Carl Sagan, "Broca's Brain", 1978, ch. 24: Gott >| and the Turtles. >| >| Can anyone find an even older one? >I heard it attributed to Henry James. I heard another version of the Bertrand Russel story -- only he is in India, talking to some conference on Cosmology, and a man comes up afterwards and says he is a devout Hindu and he knows that the world is supported on the backs of four elephants. "But what are the elephants standing on?" asks Russel. "On the back of a giant turtle." "But what is the turtle standing on?" "On the back of another, even larger one." "But what is _that_ turtle standing on?!?" "After that, sahib, it is turtles all the way down." This version from a Comp-Sci teacher at the University of Oregon. I guess the source of the second most famous turtle quote (the most famous being "Cowabunga!" ;-) is one of those cosmic mysteries (urban legends) that is unkowable.... -Johnny T