Morning, yet again. Hope yours is peachy. Links?
- Our current preference for the tarnished anti-hero … in film.
- My one Jesse/Obama kerfuffle link. I think Mr Jackson has it wrong, Mr Obama talks down to everyone.
- The green skyhook.
- The model for Dostoevsky’s Zosima. And Zosima makes a list.
- Comparative
theology, err, mysticism. - No. No. No. No. No.
- Five books that changed your mind, lists in comments.
- VI gets a prize, well deserved too. update: read the comment
- A valiant attempt to explain Sola Scriptura.
- Contra the language/thought police.
- When the left talks about “jingoist patriotism” and the 4th, you realize this is the sort of thing which they are decrying … and it seems perfectly fine to me.
- Calling prayer a good habit … is not right. Is breathing a good habit?
- Ephraim!! (on prayer no less).
- Double communion and the
troglogyte, err, Zoghbyite. - Seattle and knickname suggestions, I liked the “278th sunniest city west of the Rockies”.
- Animation or real?
- A book reviewed and recommended.
- 10 skills for the modern world.
- Insulin.
Arnold was one of the chief forces in keeping Jews out of Moscow State University.
Iyov,
I wasn’t aware of that. I mostly know him from this book, which was a beautiful text.
Arnold is a brilliant mathematician, and a wonderful author — there is no denying that. His book is perhaps second only to Morse and Feshbach’s brilliant exposition.
Also, to be fair to Arnold, Moscow State U. had a long history of anti-semitism in its math department — see here for details.
The main charge against Arnold by Russian Jews was that Arnold, under political pressure, lobbied for the entrance examinations in mathematics to be simplified. A large fraction of the highest scoring entrants on the entrance examination were Jewish (as marked on their identity cards). After the lowering of the level of the exam, a large number of people receiving perfect scores, and thus lead to selection based on criteria other than test exams.
You can talk with Kolmogorov’s students, notably Leonid Levin for the more detailed story, if you wish.