FloatingPoint Blog

Using "dG" in vim.

= Such a beautiful command. So elegant, just three keystrokes, and waiting for when ever you may need it. Otherwise, you would never be aware of it.

There are few applications, where you can erase all text, with so little effort. True, it isn't for casual use. However, when you need it. Just works.

= Now, yes, any Windows app you Select All, and Cut. or Ctrl-A, Del; if supported? However, GUI apps often don't "truly erase everything," and MS Word does not prefer handling pure ASCII text. Plus, you usually have to check what if? Did it get it all? vim just does it, end of story.

vim and XEmacs are free for Windows & Linux, anyhow. Why bother?

Glen

PS. Yes, you have to be at the start of the file. After you learn vim, it makes perfect sense.

• A little courtesy goes a long way.
• A little kindness goes a long way.
• Kindness unreturned is hostility remained.
• Only small people complain about everything. Assuming someone else has to fix it.

Glen

Thank you Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

A very nice Web Gallery of Fine Art

Home of KFKI MTA

Glen

= World War II history fascinates me. Especially, discussions of the scientists behind it. VonNeumann, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Teller, and Oppenheimer.

Quote:

George Pólya and the Heuristic Tradition
Fascination with Genius in Central Europe

by Tibor Frank
....

Despire what we know about the social conditions which nurtured and even forced out the talent of these many extraordinary scientists, how this occured still remains somewhat mysterious. Stanislaw Ulam recorded an interesting quote from John von Neumann when describing their 1938 journey to Hungary in his Advdentures of a Mathematician.

I returned to Poland by train from Lillafüred, traveling through the Carpathian foothills. ... This whole region on both sides of the Carpathian Mountains, which was part of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, was the home of many Jews. Johnny [von Neumann] used to say that all the famous Jewish scientists, artists, and writers who emigrated from Hungary around the time of the first World War came, either directly or indirectly, from these little Carpathian communities, moving up to Budapest as their material conditions improved. The [Nobel Laureate] physicist I[sidor] I[saac] Rabi[25] was born in that region and brought to America as an infant. Johnny used to say that it was a coincidence of some cultural factors which he could not make precise: an external pressure on the whole society of this part of Central Europe, a feeling of extreme insecurity in the individuals, and the necessity to produce the unusual or else face extinction[26].

An interesting fact about Jewish-Hungarian geniuses at the turn of the century was that several of them could multiply huge numbers in their head. This was true of von Kármán, von Neumann and Edward Teller. Von Neumann, in particular commanded extraordinary mathematical abilities. Nevertheless, there is no means available to prove that this prodigious biological potential was more present in Hungary at the turn of the century than elsewhere in Europe[27].

Unquote:

Glen

Here is the method. Seems too simple. Just breathe it in. You can solve anything with these basic steps. Assuming it is solvable?

Glen

Quote:

Polya's Heuristics Chart:

The List
Taken from Polya's How to Solve It
UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM
To understand the problem, first ask yourself:
What is the unknown?
What are the data (the given)?
What is the condition?
Then
Draw a figure.
Introduce suitable notation.

DEVISING A PLAN
Then find the connection between the data and the unknown.
Have you seen it before or have you seen the same problem in a slightly different form?
Do you know a related problem?
Look at the unknown! And try to think of a familiar problem having the same or a similar unknown.
Could you restate the problem?
If you cannot solve the proposed problem try to solve first some related problem.

CARRYING OUT THE PLAN
Carrying out your plan of the solution, check each step.
Can you see clearly that the step is correct?
Can you prove that it is correct?
After you have an answer, examine the solution obtained.

LOOKING BACK
Can you check the result?
Can you derive the solution differently?
Can you see it at a glance?
Can you use the result, or the method, for some other problem?

Unquote:

If you don't know of George Polya? I highly recommend you check him out.

= His most popular book was "How to Solve IT"

See here for the Wikipedia Entry on George Polya.

= He published a common man's book for teaching everyone, how to think.

How to Solve It! in 1957. Sure, this doesn't seem like much of an accomplishment. However, consider the times, and how many decades since then. American Education has gone through several changes, since the 60s even. Plus, students today are getting more reliant on technology than ever. I digress.

Anyhow, pick it up. Read it. It won't take you more than three days or just skim it.

= In my opinion, the number one purpose of the book, is to consider. How do you think about problems. ie, Heuristics, the field Polya pioneered.

Glen