Taylor Smith
@taylorjsmith.bsky.social
618 followers 210 following 385 posts
🇨🇦 Theoretical computer scientist. Assistant professor at @stfx-university.bsky.social. Website: taylorjsmith.xyz.
🇨🇦 Theoretical computer scientist. Assistant professor at @stfx-university.bsky.social. Website: taylorjsmith.xyz.
![An excerpt from Peter Hacker's 2015 article "How the Tractatus was Meant to be Read". The excerpt reads:
"It is on this basis that Wittgenstein proceeds to construct his tree, working level by level. It would no more have been possible to compose the Tractatus in the sequential order of the published text than it would be to paint an original painting complete from left to right (in the way a laser printer reproduces a painting). Rather, the text is built up not by vertical descent, but by horizontal level, every train of thought being followed through as far as possible on the same level of the tree, and only subsequently elaborated on a deeper level of elucidation. By p. 5 of MS 104 (the third page of the text), when he has added a further 26 propositions, the tree, as Dr Bazzocchi explains, looks like this: [illustration of a tree depicting the structure of the text]"](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:f6tvcgb4p6fmvinz23kus77k/bafkreigr3moqzz7hozciijpefgoxi3s2a33b6amxlqzne5kucolfeqtqne)
![A screenshot of an assignment question I wrote. It reads:
"In the Astadhyayi, Panini developed a grammar for the Sanskrit language. Here, we will use the grammar for a very small subset of Sanskrit.
Consider the following four Sanskrit root words: bhu (to be), kr (to do), path (to read), likh (to write), and vad (to speak). Sanskrit combines root words with endings that depend on the grammatical person and number:
- First person singular: ami
- First person plural: amah
- Second person singular: asi
- Second person plural: tha
- Third person singular: ti
- Third person plural: anti
For example, to say "I read" in Sanskrit, you would say pathami.
Like Panini, we can develop some grammar rules to form Sanskrit words:
- word -> stem ending
- stem -> root a
- a a -> a (sandhi vowel contraction rule)
- bhu -> a (guna vowel gradation rule)
- kr a -> kara (guna vowel gradation rule)
Using our grammar rules, how can we derive the following words?
(a) pathami ("I read", first person singular)
(b) likhamah ("we write", first person plural)
(c) vadasi ("you speak", second person singular)
(d) karatha ("you [all] do", second person plural)
(e) bhavanti ("they are", third person plural)"](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:f6tvcgb4p6fmvinz23kus77k/bafkreie6avpuj3nfpk5owzngfgo6y2bplovcgzqe4s7mic6fvbzh62tg6m)
![An excerpt from Bach and Shallit's 1996 text "Algorithmic Number Theory". It reads "The name "Atlantic City" was first used by J. Finn [1982a]."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:f6tvcgb4p6fmvinz23kus77k/bafkreibsv74arridrdrmogldzejtzmqhdn2brldv424k6quxxgulpnmdfq)
![A footnote from Copeland's book "The Essential Turing". It reads:
"Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, 42 (1936–7), 230–65. The publication date of ‘On Computable Numbers’ is sometimes cited, incorrectly, as 1937. The article was published in two parts, both parts appearing in 1936. The break between the two parts occurred, rather inelegantly, in the middle of Section 5, at the bottom of p. 240 (p. 67 in the present volume). Pages 230–40 appeared in part 3 of volume 42, issued on 30 Nov. 1936, and the remainder of the article appeared in part 4, issued on 23 Dec. 1936. This information is given on the title pages of parts 3 and 4 of volume 42, which show the contents of each part and their dates of issue. (I am grateful to Robert Soare for sending me these pages. See R. I. Soare, ‘Computability and Recursion’, Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, 2 (1996), 284–321.)
The article was published bearing the information ‘Received 28 May, 1936.—Read 12 November, 1936.’ However, Turing was in the United States on 12 November, having left England in September 1936 for what was to be a stay of almost two years (see the introductions to Chapters 3 and 4). Although papers were read at the meetings of the London Mathematical Society, many of those published in the Proceedings were ‘taken as read’, the author not necessarily being present at the meeting in question. Mysteriously, the minutes of the meeting held on 18 June 1936 list ‘On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungs- problem’ as one of 22 papers taken as read at that meeting. The minutes of an Annual General Meeting held [...]"](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:f6tvcgb4p6fmvinz23kus77k/bafkreicnvavdeuakfijlzm5z5t3pv7p6ppou3lohgligl7jumyvi3czwh4)
![The continuation of a footnote from Copeland's book "The Essential Turing". It reads:
"[...] on 12 Nov. 1936 contain no reference to the paper. (I am grateful to Janet Foster, Archives Consultant to the London Mathematical Society, for information.)"](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:f6tvcgb4p6fmvinz23kus77k/bafkreicbeixwjoo5ceveokhzdu3tw7zqmdmg77l2deuhgqxtkfibr4snda)
