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The Gnomon Chronicles is a work of fiction and nonfiction by Karl Jones (nonfiction). Fresh content daily.
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October 3

Better Than News

Barbie Darko: Commitment to Sparkle Motion is a science fiction psychological comedy film directed by Greta Gerwig and Richard Kelly.
Hamlet is a 1979 science fiction horror film written and directed by Ridley Scott and based on the play of the same name by William Shakespeare.
Canopic Snickers is an unlicensed transdimensional corporation which manifests itself as an ancient Egyptian candy bar with alleged life extension properties.
Please Allow Me to Excavate Myself is a 1999 British-American archaeology film about an adventurer (Brendan Frasier) who travels to Hamunaptra, the City of the Dead, with a librarian and her older brother, where they accidentally awaken Imhotep (Mick Jagger), a rock star high priest with supernatural powers.
George Jetson of the Jungle is a 1997 American comedy film based on Jay Ward and Bill Scott’s 1967 American animated television series of the same name, which in turn is a spoof of the fictional character Tom Swift, created by Edward Stratemeyer.
Suddenly Satellite is an advanced orbital satellite control system which also functions as a salad spinner.

Beyond Plausible

Superluminal is a science fiction psychological thriller film about a writer (Karl Jones) who becomes obsessed with the speed of light.

In Other Words

Boogie Down is a Marxist nightclub franchise.
Kick the War Habit.

Are You Sure ...

A Caley graph encodes the abstract structure of a group using a specified, usually finite, set of generators for the group.

This Cayley graph shows the free group on two generators a and b.

• ... that mathematician Arthur Cayley (16 August 1821 – 26 January 1895) was the first to define the concept of a group in the modern way (as a set with a binary operation satisfying certain laws); and that formerly, when mathematicians spoke of "groups", they had meant permutation groups?

• ... that mathematician Reginald Robin Farquharson (3 October 1930 – 1 April 1973) worked on game theory because he was interested in both mathematics and politics; and that Farquharson's doctoral thesis, which analyzed voting systems, was influential when later published as Theory of Voting (Oxford: Blackwell, 1970)?

• ... that 2001: A Species Odyssey is a short documentary film about the ethical dilemma faced by two astronauts (Frank Bowman and David Poole) when they discover an alien-human hybrid child stowed away on their spaceship?

• ... that physicist and astrophysicist Robert F. Christy was distraught at the outcome of the 1954 Oppenheimer security hearing; and that when Christy encountered Edward Teller, who had testified against Oppenheimer, Christy publicly refused to shake Teller's hand?

Selected Anniversaries

1842: Mathematician Arthur Cayley admitted to fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, at age 21, younger than any other fellow at the College.
1881: Mathematician and religious leader Orson Pratt dies. As part of his system of Mormon theology, Pratt embraced the philosophical doctrine of hylozoism.
1882: Canterbury scrying engine reprogrammed to detect and expose crimes against mathematical constants.
1891: Mathematician Édouard Lucas dies. He studied the Fibonacci sequence; the related Lucas sequences and Lucas numbers are named after him.
1930: Mathematician Robin Farquharson born. He will write an influential analysis of voting systems in his doctoral thesis, later published as Theory of Voting.
2006: Mathematician and physicist John Crank dies. He worked on the numerical solution of partial differential equations; his work with Phyllis Nicolson on the heat equation resulted in the Crank–Nicolson method.
2012: Physicist and astrophysicist Robert F. Christy dies. He is generally credited with the insight that a solid sub-critical mass of plutonium could be explosively compressed into supercriticality, a great simplification of earlier concepts of implosion requiring hollow shells.

Topic of the Day

Non-Fungible Tokens

The Lord of the NFTs is an epic fantasy NFT film about a software developer (Sauron) who creates the One NFT to maximize return on investment from Men, Dwarves, and Elves.
N for NFT is a 1973 docudrama film by Orson Welles. about Elmyr de Hory, a professional NFT forger; de Hory's story serves as the backdrop for a meandering investigation of the natures of authorship and authenticity, as well as the basis of the value of art.
The NFTers is a 1990 American neo-noir NFT crime thriller film about three grifters desperate to sell their non-fungible tokens at a profit.
ScarNFTs is 1983 crime NFT film about Cuban refugee Tony Montana (Al Pacino), who arrives penniless in 1980s Miami and goes on to sell non-fungible tokens to a powerful drug lord.