Author: Jonathan Basile
Publisher: punctum books
ISBN: 1947447505
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 110
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Book Description
TAR FOR MORTAR offers an in-depth exploration of one of literature's greatest tricksters, Jorge Luis Borges. His short story "The Library of Babel" is a signature examplar of this playfulness, though not merely for the inverted world it imagines, where a library thought to contain all possible permutations of all letters and words and books is plumbed by pious librarians looking for divinely pre-fabricated truths. One must grapple as well with the irony of Borges's narration, which undermines at every turn its narrator's claims of the library's universality, including the very possibility of exhausting meaning through combinatory processing. Borges directed readers to his non-fiction to discover the true author of the idea of the universal library. But his supposedly historical essays are notoriously riddled with false references and self-contradictions. Whether in truth or in fiction, Borges never reaches a stable conclusion about the atomic premises of the universal library - is it possible to find a character set capable of expressing all possible meaning, or do these letters, like his stories and essays, divide from themselves in a restless incompletion? While many readers of Borges see him as presaging our digital technologies, they often give too much credit to our inventions in doing so. Those who elide the necessary incompletion of the Library of Babel compare it to the Internet on the assumption that both are total archives of all possible thought and expression. Though Borges's imaginings lend themselves to digital creativity (libraryofbabel.info is certainly evidence of this), they do so by showing the necessary incompleteness of every totalizing project, no matter how technologically refined. Ultimately, Basile nudges readers toward the idea that a fictional/imaginary exposition can hold a certain power over technology.
Author: Jonathan Basile
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781947447516
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 98
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Book Description
Author: William Goldbloom Bloch
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199715165
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 213
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Book Description
"The Library of Babel" is arguably Jorge Luis Borges' best known story--memorialized along with Borges on an Argentine postage stamp. Now, in The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges' Library of Babel, William Goldbloom Bloch takes readers on a fascinating tour of the mathematical ideas hidden within one of the classic works of modern literature. Written in the vein of Douglas R. Hofstadter's Pulitzer Prize-winning Gödel, Escher, Bach, this original and imaginative book sheds light on one of Borges' most complex, richly layered works. Bloch begins each chapter with a mathematical idea--combinatorics, topology, geometry, information theory--followed by examples and illustrations that put flesh on the theoretical bones. In this way, he provides many fascinating insights into Borges' Library. He explains, for instance, a straightforward way to calculate how many books are in the Library--an easily notated but literally unimaginable number--and also shows that, if each book were the size of a grain of sand, the entire universe could only hold a fraction of the books in the Library. Indeed, if each book were the size of a proton, our universe would still not be big enough to hold anywhere near all the books. Given Borges' well-known affection for mathematics, this exploration of the story through the eyes of a humanistic mathematician makes a unique and important contribution to the body of Borgesian criticism. Bloch not only illuminates one of the great short stories of modern literature but also exposes the reader--including those more inclined to the literary world--to many intriguing and entrancing mathematical ideas.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Railroads
Languages : en
Pages : 1326
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Book Description
Author: Jorge Luis Borges
Publisher: Penguin Modern Classics
ISBN: 9780141183022
Category : Argentine literature
Languages : en
Pages : 560
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Book Description
Though best known in the English speaking world for his short fictions and poems, Borges is revered in Latin America equally as an immensely prolific and beguiling writer of non-fiction prose. In THE TOTAL LIBRARY, more than 150 of Borges' most brilliant pieces are brought together for the first time in one volume - all in superb new translations. More than a hundred of the pieces have never previously been published in English. THE TOTAL LIBRARY presents Borges at once as a deceptively self-effacing guide to the universe and as the inventor of a universe that is an indispensible guide to Borges
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Building
Languages : en
Pages : 604
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Book Description
Author: John Selmar Siebert
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Masonry
Languages : en
Pages : 94
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Book Description
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Infantry
Languages : en
Pages : 56
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Book Description
Author: Edward H. Knight
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3385390354
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 970
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Book Description
Reprint of the original, first published in 1882.
Author: Bhavikatti S.S.
Publisher: Vikas Publishing House
ISBN: 9325960443
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 207
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Book Description
Building Materials covers in detail the properties and uses of various building materials, including stones, bricks, tiles, timber, cement, sand, lime, mortar, concrete, glass, plastics and so on. Ferrous and non-ferrous metals, bitumen, asphalt, tar, plastics, paints and varnishes are included, as are non-traditional materials like fibre reinforced plastics and smart materials. For each material, its manufacture, properties, uses, advantages and disadvantages, and so on, are discussed. The text, presented in simple, precise and reader-friendly language, is amply supported by figures and tables. The book will meet the academic requirements of degree as well as diploma students. Relevant IS codes have also been listed for the benefit of practising engineers.
