Tag Archives: logic
Or do I mean Logic Square? Because it works either way. The Logic Square (or Square Logic) in question is a logic game created by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898) and introduced in his 1896 book Symbolic Logic Part I (a second part was published posthumously).
Dodgson was a capable mathematician, but most probably know him by his penname, Lewis Carroll, under which he wrote poetic fantasy fiction about a girl who goes on wild adventures.
But this is about his logic game. It’s like a square Venn diagram with game pieces.
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5 Comments | tags: boolean logic, four-square, Lewis Carroll, logic, logic games, Venn diagram | posted in Basics, Math
Expert Logician
For a little Friday Fun I have a logic puzzle for you. I’ll give you the puzzle at the beginning of the post, detour to some unrelated topics (to act as a spoiler barrier), and then explain the puzzle in the latter part of the post. I would encourage you to stop reading and think about the puzzle first — it’s quite a challenge. (I couldn’t solve it.)
The puzzle involves an island with a population of 100 blue-eyed people, 100 brown-eyed people, and a very strange social practice. The logic involved is downright nefarious, and even after reading the explanation, I had to think about it for a bit to really see it. (I still think it’s twisted.)
To be honest, I’m kinda writing this to make sure I understand it!
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21 Comments | tags: Daniel Craig, George Lazenby, James Bond, logic, logic puzzle, NASA, Pierce Brosnan, Randall Munroe, Roger Moore, Sean Connery, Terry Tao, Timothy Dalton | posted in Math
You’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop, right? The tick to finally tock? (My clock is — as usual — running a bit behind; this should be #62, but that’s another story.) Today’s tale involves electro-mechanical logic! Computing with relays rather than solid-state gates.
Rather than the tick-tock of a mechanical clock, the tock-tick of lots and lots of relays! Aisle after aisle of racks of relays, many thousands of them all clicking away like chattering insects. That’s what is (or was) inside some of those windowless buildings found in every neighborhood with local phone service.
However, today the focus is quite a bit smaller…
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3 Comments | tags: binary logic, boolean logic, electro-mechanical, flip-flop, full-adder, half-adder, inverter, logic, logic gate, PBX, relay logic, telephones | posted in Sideband
If it hasn’t been apparent, I’ve been giving a bit of a fall semester in some computer science basics. If it seems complicated, well, the truth is all we’ve done is peek in some windows. From a safe distance. And most of the blinds were down.
I thought we’d finish (yes, finish!) with a bang and take a deep dive down into the lowest levels of a computer, both on the engineering side and on the abstract logic side. When they say, “It’s all ones and zeros,” these are the bits (in both senses!) they mean.
Attention: You need to be at least this ━▇━ geeky for this ride!
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6 Comments | tags: adder, AND gate, binary, binary logic, calculation, calculator, computer chip, flip-flop, full-adder, half-adder, logic, NAND gate, NOR gate, NOT gate, OR gate, transistor, XOR gate | posted in Computers
In my family, we were rather casual about birthdays and other event days. It wasn’t unusual to celebrate a birthday, not on the exact day, but on a nearby day. We were fairly poor, so birthdays mostly consisted of a cake and a token present of some sort. (Put it this way: I can’t recall a single birthday present I ever got. We just weren’t that into birthdays.)
But I don’t recall ever not celebrating Christmas or Easter on the day. That may be as much due to my father being a pastor and having to do his thing at church on those days. The religious upbringing — and the strong streak of anti-materialism that went with it — likely accounts for downplaying birthdays and other gift-giving occasions.
Which is all to say that I missed posting on John Venn‘s birthday!
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12 Comments | tags: aliens-robots-zombies, Doctor Who, geeks-nerds, John Venn, logic, sets, Simon & Garfunkel, Star Trek, Venn, Venn diagram, Venn diagrams | posted in Wednesday Wow
The countdown to retirement continues. As I mentioned last Tuesday, this week I pulled the lever on making it official. Six more weeks, and I can put The Company in my rear-view mirror and speed off in my own directions. The big project I’ve been leading looks like it will complete before I exit. We should begin end-to-end system testing in a week or so.
The flip side is that, between tension over retirement and massive project effort during the week (and trying to catch up on blog reading and commenting (and watching baseball)), there isn’t much left for blogging right now.
So you get another Brain Bubble. I would have called this post “No Shoes,” except that it sends the wrong message. This post isn’t about lacking shoes. Or shirts.
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11 Comments | tags: logic, road signs, signs, syllogism | posted in Brain Bubble
I’ve written articles here that touched on art theory, quantum theory, science fiction theory and number theory. There are many more theories: gravitational, electromagnetic, economic, social. Of course, there is also pure, practical and applied theory.
The idea gets around. On the outskirts there are theories about UFOs, ghosts, Noah’s Ark, many more!
And there are the “my theory” theories put forth from soap boxes, fliers and now blogs such as this. Literally such as this, since here’s my theory about theories.
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3 Comments | tags: logic, no black swans | posted in Basics, Philosophy
Logos con carne 