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Post by aaroncampbell on May 30, 2014 7:01:16 GMT
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Post by noone3 on May 30, 2014 7:05:15 GMT
Very Pratchetty of Tom, im my humble oppinion.
You know, gommetry, headology and all that stuff...
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Post by KartoffelnMcNugget on May 30, 2014 7:06:20 GMT
Is hard to count when you have no fingers (or arms).
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Post by aaroncampbell on May 30, 2014 7:14:27 GMT
This makes me wonder what the lifecycle and duration is for the fairies; are they immortal barring accidental/intentional death? (I'm looking at you, Ysengrin!) Also, I wonder which region this one is from? She doesn't have any dots on her right arm, so either she only has dots on her left arm or she has none. Either way it's interesting; it may be that the dot counts are asymmetrical (most likely), there's a zero-dot group (possibly), the dots are optional (doubtful), or this is not a regional fairy but some other type of fairy. |
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Post by keef on May 30, 2014 7:19:29 GMT
Next he is going to tell her how Annie burned all of the forest down, and destroyed Ysengrin's army.
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Post by freeformline on May 30, 2014 7:20:49 GMT
"Well just 'cos you got your fancy numbers doesn't mean it's not true!"
Oh goodness, it's like talking to my grandfather about anthropogenic climate change!
Also, it's nice to see that Green is making major contributions to the forest's computational mathematics arsenal. Just imagine, with a little more theorizing and chalkboard action, they might even work out how many tens are in a hundred. What a time to be alive!
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Post by noone3 on May 30, 2014 7:33:48 GMT
Just imagine, with a little more theorizing and chalkboard action, they might even work out how many tens are in a hundred. Why the eternal limbo would they want to do that, prey? Anyway, they wouldn't come up to much doing math in the Forest, until they devised an imaginary Coyote Number, which can be any value it damn pleases. |
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Post by KMar on May 30, 2014 8:45:29 GMT
I'm beginning to like Mr. Armless Monster from Canvey Island more and more.
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Post by Angry Individual on May 30, 2014 10:54:53 GMT
I'm beginning to like Mr. Armless Monster from Canvey Island more and more. And I'm beginning to like the pseudo fairy animal thing more. I like a skeptical person. |
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Post by Lightice on May 30, 2014 11:03:03 GMT
Also, I wonder which region this one is from? She doesn't have any dots on her right arm, so either she only has dots on her left arm or she has none. Either way it's interesting; it may be that the dot counts are asymmetrical (most likely), there's a zero-dot group (possibly), the dots are optional (doubtful), or this is not a regional fairy but some other type of fairy. Maybe she's a juvenile and hasn't developed dots yet? That might also be why no-one thought to invite her? |
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Post by arf on May 30, 2014 11:23:31 GMT
According to Richard Adams (Watership Down), rabbits can count up to four. Any more than that is 'hrair' (many/thousand) Limitations of number system notwithstanding, Green is displaying a firm grasp of critical thinking and looks to be a sharp cookie. I predict a bright future for her. ...once Ysengrin stomps on her. (she'd be a natural for this class.) |
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Post by Daedalus on May 30, 2014 12:43:34 GMT
Numbers - they work, b*tches! The double irony: I'm at a math competition today, so this made me giggle out loud. Thanks Tom (and how are you watching me?) According to Richard Adams (Watership Down), rabbits can count up to four. Ahhhhh I love that book! It was the first long book I ever read, and still one of my favorites. |
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Post by csj on May 30, 2014 13:01:18 GMT
Fairy: ಠ_ಠ
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Post by ctso74 on May 30, 2014 13:15:09 GMT
I was wanting her to throw a volume or two of Principia Mathematica on him. Sadly, "fancy number" skills probably aren't required in the Forest.
Of course now, my go-to phrase will be, "That's like ten... lots of ten!" It's just to perfect.
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Post by fwip on May 30, 2014 13:17:24 GMT
Numbers - they work, b*tches! The double irony: I'm at a math competition today, so this made me giggle out loud. Thanks Tom (and how are you watching me?) According to Richard Adams (Watership Down), rabbits can count up to four. Ahhhhh I love that book! It was the first long book I ever read, and still one of my favorites. High five for Watership Down! rough translation - "Eat sh*t you stinking [predator])! if I remember correctly. |
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Post by TBeholder on May 30, 2014 19:36:57 GMT
This ball of yarn will spin up until centrifugal forces will tear it into a wave of tiny fragments, blasting away everyone around.  |
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Post by Intelligence on May 30, 2014 19:38:12 GMT
:|The more Canvey talks, the more I hate him
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Post by aaroncampbell on May 30, 2014 20:21:45 GMT
Tom, can you please fix that snowflake? I know the Gunnerverse is special, but even allowing for all of the special rules, ice crystals are ice crystals and they should be hexagonal, not octagonal. Pretty please? I know how you like to work with nature, not against it. Thanks!!
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2014 22:13:39 GMT
I was wanting her to throw a volume or two of Principia Mathematica on him. Wouldn't this make Gödel the Canvey Island Monster to Russell's greenhorn fairy? (The bottom-left panel is pretty much the condensed version of the incompleteness theorems) Tom, can you please fix that snowflake? I know the Gunnerverse is special, but even allowing for all of the special rules, ice crystals are ice crystals and they should be hexagonal, not octagonal. Pretty please? I know how you like to work with nature, not against it. Thanks!! The sun on the left also has eight rays, mirroring it. Why eight, though? Perhaps they are supposed to evoke a compass, or just hint at the fairy's not-quite perfect understanding of nature? What do the Forest kids learn in school these days, anyway? |
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Post by TBeholder on May 31, 2014 1:30:00 GMT
Tom, can you please fix that snowflake? I know the Gunnerverse is special, but even allowing for all of the special rules, ice crystals are ice crystals and they should be hexagonal, not octagonal. But can this fairy count to 6 reliably enough? |
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Post by ctso74 on May 31, 2014 1:46:48 GMT
The bottom-left panel is pretty much the condensed version of the incompleteness theorems Wow, you're absolutely right. If he says that what Annie did next, has anything to do with fuzzy logic or set theory, I'll be deeply confused and convinced Tom is messing with us. |
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Post by eyemyself on May 31, 2014 4:44:07 GMT
The bottom-left panel is pretty much the condensed version of the incompleteness theorems Wow, you're absolutely right. If he says that what Annie did next, has anything to do with fuzzy logic or set theory, I'll be deeply confused and convinced Tom is messing with us. I just assume Tom is always messing with us. To keep us on our toes. |
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melkior
Junior Member
Nice Hat!
Posts: 84
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Post by melkior on May 31, 2014 6:08:25 GMT
Fun fact: Most primitive cultures have exactly three numbers. One. Two. Three. Many.
This was illustrated on a TV show with a native Australian who, when asked how many children he had, proceeded to give their names instead of giving a number because he had more than three children.
Which is why Ghan-Buri-Ghan the Wild Man surprised the Rohirrim when he said that he counted many things, including the stars in the sky, and proceeded to prove he could count higher than three by giving a close estimate of the number of Rohirrim compared to their enemy's numbers.
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Post by philman on May 31, 2014 10:03:25 GMT
Fun fact: Most primitive cultures have exactly three numbers. One. Two. Three. Many. This was illustrated on a TV show with a native Australian who, when asked how many children he had, proceeded to give their names instead of giving a number because he had more than three children. Which is why Ghan-Buri-Ghan the Wild Man surprised the Rohirrim when he said that he counted many things, including the stars in the sky, and proceeded to prove he could count higher than three by giving a close estimate of the number of Rohirrim compared to their enemy's numbers. That's a bit of a myth, while some Australian aborigine cultures certainly do have that, it's a mistake to extrapolate that ALL primitive cultures do the same. And just because they don't have specific words doesn't mean they cannot count. (There was a case with some south american tribes where the western anthropologists assumed this, and the tribespeople played along treating it as a big joke, when in reality they could count perfectly fine.) |
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Post by Lightice on May 31, 2014 11:09:56 GMT
That's a bit of a myth, while some Australian aborigine cultures certainly do have that, it's a mistake to extrapolate that ALL primitive cultures do the same. And just because they don't have specific words doesn't mean they cannot count. (There was a case with some south american tribes where the western anthropologists assumed this, and the tribespeople played along treating it as a big joke, when in reality they could count perfectly fine.) Yeah, this has actually only been confirmed with a couple of very isolate tribes. But many don't count in base-ten, and directly translated may sound like "many-many-lots-one", without the translator realising that "many" and "lots" are also synonyms to specific numbers. |
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Post by TBeholder on May 31, 2014 16:09:33 GMT
Fun fact: Most primitive cultures have exactly three numbers. One. Two. Three. Many. Hmm. How do you define "primitive cultures"? (shuffles aside trying not to look at a slightly cleaner spot of the floor) This was illustrated on a TV show with a native Australian who, when asked how many children he had, proceeded to give their names instead of giving a number because he had more than three children. Which is why Ghan-Buri-Ghan the Wild Man surprised the Rohirrim when he said that he counted many things, including the stars in the sky, and proceeded to prove he could count higher than three by giving a close estimate of the number of Rohirrim compared to their enemy's numbers. So... the Rohirrim were used to deal with native Australians?  |
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Post by Nnelg on Jun 1, 2014 5:20:06 GMT
That's a bit of a myth, while some Australian aborigine cultures certainly do have that, it's a mistake to extrapolate that ALL primitive cultures do the same. And just because they don't have specific words doesn't mean they cannot count. (There was a case with some south american tribes where the western anthropologists assumed this, and the tribespeople played along treating it as a big joke, when in reality they could count perfectly fine.) Yeah, this has actually only been confirmed with a couple of very isolate tribes. But many don't count in base-ten, and directly translated may sound like "many-many-lots-one", without the translator realising that "many" and "lots" are also synonyms to specific numbers. Wait: this is something that is a real thing? And I'd thought Terry Pratchett had made it all up. |
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Post by keef on Jun 1, 2014 9:57:27 GMT
Yeah, this has actually only been confirmed with a couple of very isolate tribes. But many don't count in base-ten, and directly translated may sound like "many-many-lots-one", without the translator realising that "many" and "lots" are also synonyms to specific numbers. Wait: this is something that is a real thing? And I'd thought Terry Pratchett had made it all up. In a way he did. Pterry created Discworld, and the wizards of Discworld created Roundworld, the place we currently live on. |
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Post by Lightice on Jun 1, 2014 12:15:37 GMT
Wait: this is something that is a real thing? And I'd thought Terry Pratchett had made it all up. PTerry actually took most of the weird Discworld cultural quirks from real life sources. Like how the trolls believe that future is behind you and the past is in front of you, because you can see the past, but not the future; that came from a real Native American tribe. I admit I took the wordings from PTerry there, because I couldn't remember how the exact translation went, but it had the same basic gist. It was in base six, not in base two, though, if I remember correctly. Pretty often Western anthropologists especially in the early 20th century went their way to translate the cultural conventions of others to sound as stupid as possible, like with an Australian Aboriginal tribe who use the same word for flying insects and birds, which literally means "flying creatures", but translated it as "birds", so they could laugh at them for thinking that flies and mosquitoes are birds. |
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Post by warrl on Jun 1, 2014 14:39:54 GMT
The bottom-left panel is pretty much the condensed version of the incompleteness theorems Wow, you're absolutely right. If he says that what Annie did next, has anything to do with fuzzy logic or set theory, I'll be deeply confused and convinced Tom is messing with us. Well, when she's trying to reason with a small mammal, there's probably some fuzzy logic involved. |
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