Did you know that Boxing Day is named for gift-giving — not the sport ?
Although the Oxford English Dictionary traces the first published mention of the term “Boxing Day” to 1743, the acts associated with the day are significantly older, and stem from murky origins. One popular theory is that the holiday grew from the tradition of distributing the donations collected in church alms boxes to the poor on December 26, a date historically celebrated as St. Stephen's Day (or the Feast of St. Stephen) in honor of the charitable Christian martyr. Another widely cited belief is that members of the upper class once filled Christmas boxes with food, money, and small gifts and gave them to the household staff to enjoy on December 26, a well-deserved day off after spending Christmas Day in servitude.
While the charitable elements of the holiday have largely faded, Boxing Day still offers its share of modern traditions. Though its origins aren’t sporty in nature, the day off is considered a good time to enjoy sports, both for the energetic folk who seek to work off their Christmas dinners and the contentedly relaxed who want to tune in to a full slate of soccer games on television. Additionally, Boxing Day has emerged as a big retail day in the mold of Black Friday, which means the opportunity to snag a few more end-of-year savings, as well as the chance to return those unwanted socks as quickly as possible.
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The Professor shares his discoveries, so that you can share them with others.
2024-11-16
5-2024 The mathematician who starved himself to death .....
Mathematicians are queer people. The more they are gifted, the more they behave weird. Here is the best example :: Kurt Godel
Kurt Gödel, the author of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems (Kurt Gödel 1906 -1978 )
was born in Austria-Hungary. His two incompleteness theorems changed the way we should look at mathematics. “The first incompleteness theorem states that in any consistent formal system F within which a certain amount of arithmetic can be carried out, there are statements of the language of F which can neither be proved nor disproved in F. According to the second incompleteness theorem, such a formal system cannot prove that the system itself is consistent (assuming it is indeed consistent).”
Gödel also showed that neither the axiom of choice nor the continuum hypothesis can be disproved from the accepted Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, assuming that its axioms are consistent. The former result opened the door for mathematicians to assume the axiom of choice in their proofs.
He also made important contributions to proof theory by clarifying the connections between classical logic, intuitionistic logic, and modal logic.
Later in his life, Gödel suffered periods of mental instability and illness. Following the assassination of his close friend Moritz Schlick, Gödel developed an obsessive fear of being poisoned, and would eat only food prepared by his wife Adele. Adele was hospitalized beginning in late 1977, and in her absence Gödel refused to eat; he weighed 29 kilograms (65 lb) when he died of "malnutrition and inanition caused by personality disturbance" in Princeton Hospital on January 14, 1978. He was buried in Princeton Cemetery.
He also made important contributions to proof theory by clarifying the connections between classical logic, intuitionistic logic, and modal logic.
Later in his life, Gödel suffered periods of mental instability and illness. Following the assassination of his close friend Moritz Schlick, Gödel developed an obsessive fear of being poisoned, and would eat only food prepared by his wife Adele. Adele was hospitalized beginning in late 1977, and in her absence Gödel refused to eat; he weighed 29 kilograms (65 lb) when he died of "malnutrition and inanition caused by personality disturbance" in Princeton Hospital on January 14, 1978. He was buried in Princeton Cemetery.
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