Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!umcp-cs!eneevax!hsu From: hsu@eneevax.UUCP (Dave Hsu) Newsgroups: net.arch Subject: Re: Computational ability of houseflies Message-ID: <653@eneevax.UUCP> Date: Mon, 5-May-86 18:30:08 EDT Article-I.D.: eneevax.653 Posted: Mon May 5 18:30:08 1986 Date-Received: Thu, 8-May-86 07:09:00 EDT References: <3080@ncsu.UUCP> <468@cubsvax.UUCP> <1196@lsuc.UUCP> Reply-To: hsu@eneevax.UUCP (Dave Hsu) Organization: Imperial Widget Research Center, Kingdom of Maryland Lines: 29 In article <1196@lsuc.UUCP> msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader) writes: >Peter S. Shenkin (peters@cubsvax.UUCP) writes: >> The chemist Kekule ... described his 1857 discovery of the structure >> of benzene as having come to him in a a vision, while gazing at a fire. >> ... he "saw" the ancient alchemical symbol of the ourobouros, >> a snake swallowing its tail.) > >I can't let this go uncorrected. It was 1865, and more important, >he wasn't gazing at a fire; he was riding a bus. Really now! > >Mark Brader, transit fan This is all and well and not unlike the peculiar mathematical solutions by Ramanujan that Douglas Hofstatder relates in GEB:an EGB. But then again, what does this have to do with his computational ability? Did he suspect that benzene was a ring? Is this really closer to saying "the brothers Montgolfier discovered the hot-air ballon while watching clothes dry over a fire" than it is to say, "I discovered the structure of the modern high- performance jet fighter by gazing at golf-balls", or maybe "I saw the structure of the 32-bit processor while gazing at a 1960 map of Manhattan"? -dave -- David Hsu (301)454-1433 || -8798 Communication & Signal Processing Lab / Engineering Computer Facility The University of Maryland -~- College Park, MD 20742 ARPA:hsu@eneevax.umd.edu UUCP:[seismo,allegra,rlgvax]!umcp-cs!eneevax!hsu "No way, eh? Radiation has made me an enemy of civilization!"