Tomorrow's Teaser

Teaser Question - What do Lord Voldermort and mathematician Colin Maclaurin have in common?

Teaser Events - I have to put up the math posts first, and I'm out of time for what happened the rest of today - and even for my other mathematician from today - but when I get a chance, what's coming up is - Canongate Kirk and kirk yard, New Scottish Parliament Building, Arthur's Seat, the ruins of St. Anthony's Chapel in Holyrood Park, Holyrood Palace, Holyrood Abbey, and Greyfriar's Kirk and kirk yard. It was a full day!

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Next day post script - The teaser has to remain a teaser a little longer as for some reason I cannot upload photos to blogger tonight :-(

 (This could snowball into an avalanche rather quickly, as I have much to post each day!  Hoping for better things tomorrow!)

Mathematician John Playfair

John Playfair (1748-1819), Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and Fellow of the Royal Society was a professor of natural history at the University of Edinburgh.  His name lives on most prominently in "Playfair's Axiom" an axiom equivalent to Euclid's Fifth Postulate but simpler to state and grasp.  The fact that his name is attached to it is odd, since this axiom had been around since the time of Proclus and was used by others, particularly William Ludlum, whom Playfair did credit in his writings.  

Playfair's nephew was the famous architect William Henry Playfair, and it was he who built the above monument to John Playfair, which can be found on Calton Hill just in front of the City Observatory, which William also designed.

John Playfair is buried just across the way from Calton Hill, in Old Calton Burial Ground, which is one of the places I was most hoping to see while in Edinburgh, but when I found the gate closed and all these "no access" signs posted :-(  (It seems they are quite serious about not letting people in right now!)

I find that many cemeteries here have a board posting the "celebrities" who are buried inside, so I was able to get a picture of his name on that board just beside the gate.

Here is a view looking down into Old Calton Burial Ground from Calton Hill.  The round monument is to philosopher David Hume.  (Aside - the unusual dome just left of center on the skyline is that of St. Giles' Cathedral.)

Mathematicians of Edinburgh

When first planning these mathematical travels I had only planned a couple of days for Edinburgh.  My interest was in John Napier, a very interesting character who also invented logarithms and is responsible for popularizing the use of the decimal point.  After seeing Merchiston Tower, which is all that remains of his castle in Edinburgh and is now part of Edinburgh Napier University, and after touring Lauriston Castle, home of his brother, I was going to be on my way to my myriad of mathematical stops in England.

However, as I began to look into Edinburgh I became aware of more and more mathematicians and mathematical physicists of note who were associated in some way with Edinburgh.  Along with Napier, these are:

Girolamo Cardano
Colin MacLaurin
John Playfair
Mary Somerville
William Thompson, Lord Kelvin
James Clerk Maxwell
Peter Guthrie Tait

and, currently, Sir Michael Atiyah, geometer and Fields Medal winner.

Clearly my Edinburgh sojourn needed to be extended, and I ended up reserving six days in Edinburgh rather than the two I had initially planned.  Even at that I need to focus on two or three and just touch on the others.  In this post I am sharing landmarks that all of these mathematicians would have been familiar with - that's not to say that some changes may not have been made to certain places such as Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace between the time of Napier (b. 1550) and Atiyah (b. 1929).

EDINBURGH CASTLE

HOLYROOD PALACE

HOLYROOD PARK AND ARTHUR'S SEAT

St. Anthony's Chapel ruins in Holyrood Park - partway up to Arthur's Seat

Overlooking the city from near the top of Arthur's Seat

ST. GILES' CATHEDRAL

EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY

Main Campus

"New College" Campus - now a divinity school

"New College" Campus

"New College" Campus (with John Knox)

THE FIRTH OF FORTH

I haven't gotten close yet, but here it is from a bit below Arthur's Seat

CALTON HILL (with or without observatory and various monuments)

Observatory and Playfair Monument

Edinburgh - the Athens of the North

Viewing across Old Calton Burial Ground

Top left - looking over Holyrood Palace

Post Script - this idea of common landscapes was confirmed today (March 31, 2016) when I visited the National Portrait Gallery and saw the piece below from 1820 showing Calton Hill and Arthur's Seat behind it.

Belated Penrose Post

I'm "cheating" a bit.  I'm actually posting this on January 17, 2018, a year and a half after my sabbatical, but two months ago opportunity came up to revisit the amazing city of Edinburgh.

Even though I was there "just for fun" this time, I couldn't help but look into some of the things related to math that I had missed initially.  One mathematician I'm quite interested in is Roger Penrose whose "impossible shapes" made it into the movie Inception.

Penrose's mathematical work takes inspiration from many places, including the world of art.  He collaborated with artist M. C. Escher, and he had an uncle who was an artist and a collector of surrealist art.  This uncle was Roland Penrose, and his collection is housed at "Modern Two" in Edinburgh.  The rest of this blog consists of photographs I took in the Roland Penrose Gallery of "Modern Two."  They may give a sense of one influence in the life of mathematician Roger Penrose.

Maternity by Miro

Never Again by Tanguy

Magritte

The Black Flag by Magritte

Untitled by Roland Penrose

The Joy of Living by Ernst

Hat in Hand, Hat on Head by Ernst

Roland Penrose

Day 1

Well, I don't have much to post about mathematicians today, but this is "mathsabPLUS," which is for friends and family, and I need to let y'all know I got in safe and how it's starting out, so here goes!

Travel was amazingly smooth!  I know many prayers were said for me, and I appreciate it greatly!  I was blessed with people who sat near me on the plane - interesting conversations on the first leg of the journey - and, even better, on the second leg of the journey I sat by a mother and daughter who are from Edinburgh, and they were WONDERFUL!

I'm not a traveler (well, I wasn't  .  .  . until today  .  .  .), and they gave me so many good tips and hints about what stores to look for and where certain things are - and just made me feel really welcome.  The best, however, is that they let me know about the tram, which I hadn't known existed; I had been going to take a bus - but guess what?  I flew in right at rush hour.  With the tram - no problem!  GENIUS!



I arrived at the hotel at 9am.  I had requested early check-in in advance, but they are swamped right now and couldn't let me in until afternoon.  I'd traveled for 15 hours, and I hadn't slept at all the night before, but somehow I still felt pretty good at that point.  Six and a half hours later having trekked through the city while waiting for my room has left me weary beyond words, but I'm trying to keep myself up until normal bed time here so that I can get on track and over jet-lag faster.

I'm still getting my bearings - surprised at what the hotel doesn't have that I'm used to in the US: shampoo and conditioner, a safe, a refrigerator, a closet, drawers - not even an alarm clock or clock of any kind (maybe it's not a US/UK thing - maybe it's my "thrifty" choosing - we'll see).  I don't have a functional phone yet - did get a SIM card today, but the folks at the store weren't able to help me put it in and set it up, so I'll get to work on that (maybe tomorrow).

The city is BEAUTIFUL!  Everywhere I look beauty is staring me in the face!  My first glimpse of that was from the air - seeing Arthur's Seat (which I've been determined to climb ever since I decided to come to Edinburgh) and seeing the bridges over the Firth of Forth (which are absolutely astonishing!).

One disappointment is that a major (for me) site is closed - Old Calton Burial Ground.  I really wanted to get in and get pictures there  .  .  .  alas  .  .  .

I'm going to post a few pictures from my first day.  I whiled away my 6.5 hours on Calton Hill, in Princes Street Gardens, at Edinburgh Castle, on one campus of University of Edinburgh, and at St. Giles Cathedral.

CALTON HILL (Edinburgh is known at "The Athens of the North.")

NEW COLLEGE CAMPUS, UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH (home of the divinity school)

PRINCES STREET GARDENS (Mostly views of other things from there)

EDINBURGH CASTLE

 ("Oh, you mean THIS gate key?")

("Light the beacons!")

(Well after 1pm, above - at 1pm, below - one shot fired daily at 1pm for time-keeping purposes.)

ST. GILES' CATHEDRAL - THE HIGH KIRK OF EDINBURGH (Knox preached here.)

Well, maybe my definition of "a few" is rather expansive  .  .  .