United States or Sri Lanka ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Warned by the unanswerable arguments of Zeno against infinitesimals, mathematicians substituted for this the statement that, by continuing the construction, we can inscribe a polygon approaching equality with the circle as nearly as we please. The method of exhaustion used, for the purpose of proof by reductio ad absurdum, the lemma proved in Eucl.
This constant study of little things; this harassing anxiety about dress; this talk of fashionable infinitesimals; this shoe-pinched, hair-frizzled, fringe-spattered group that simper and look askance at the mirrors and wonder, with infinity of interest, "how that one geranium leaf does look;" this shrivelling up of man's moral dignity, until it is no more observable with the naked eye; this taking of a woman's heart, that God meant should be filled with all amenities, and compressing it until all the fragrance, and simplicity, and artlessness are squeezed out of it; this inquisition of a small shoe; this agony of tight lacing; this wrapping up of mind and heart in a ruffle; this tumbling down of a soul that God meant for great upliftings!
Thus if there are to be no infinitesimals, no two moments are quite consecutive, but there are always other moments between any two. Hence there must be an infinite number of moments between any two; because if there were a finite number one would be nearest the first of the two moments, and therefore next to it.
And perhaps, also, his is a certain softening humor, which is the cause that the two later plays, written by both partners, are not so hard in their brilliance as the two earlier comedies, the work of M. Meilhac alone. It may seem something like a discussion of infinitesimals, but I think M. Halévy's co-operation has given M. Meilhac's plays a fuller ethical richness.
He gave good measure, not prodigal, for he was loyal to his employer, but putting a very moderate strain on the ribbon, and letting the thumb-nail slide with a contempt of infinitesimals which betokened a large soul in its genial mood.
If it had not been for quiet people, who sat still and studied the sections of the cone, if other quiet people had not sat still and studied the theory of infinitesimals, or other quiet people had not sat still and worked out the doctrine of chances, the most 'dreamy moonshine, as the purely practical mind would consider, of all human pursuits; if 'idle star-gazers' had not watched long and carefully the motions of the heavenly bodies our modern astronomy would have been impossible, and without our astronomy 'our ships, our colonies, our seamen, all which makes modern life modern life could not have existed.
Doctor signs the death-warrant, 'pothecary does the deed!" "Certainly we don't profess to keep a dying man alive upon the juice of the deadly upas-tree." "Of course you don't. There are no poisons with us. That's just the difference between you and me, Dr. Dosewell." "Indeed, I have always said that if you can do no good, you can do no harm, with your infinitesimals."
No regular physician would ever admit that the homeopathic preparations, 'infinitesimals, could do any good as direct curative agents; and yet it was perfectly certain that homeopaths lost no more of their patients than others. There was but one conclusion to draw that most drugs had no effect whatever on the diseases for which they were administered." Dr.
Beyond the independence of a little sum laid aside for burial-money, and of a few clapboards around and shingles overhead on a lot of American soil owned, and the easy dollars that supply the year's plain clothing and meals, the melancholy prudence of the abandonment of such a great being as a man is to the toss and pallor of years of money-making with all their scorching days and icy nights and all their stifling deceits and underhanded dodgings, or infinitesimals of parlors, or shameless stuffing while others starve ... and all the loss of the bloom and odor of the earth and of the flowers and atmosphere and of the sea, and of the true taste of the women and men you pass or have to do with in youth or middle age, and the issuing sickness and desperate revolt at the close of a life without elevation or naivete, and the ghastly chatter of a death without serenity or majesty, is the great fraud upon modern civilization and forethought, blotching the surface and system which civilization undeniably drafts, and moistening with tears the immense features it spreads and spreads with such velocity before the reached kisses of the soul.... Still the right explanation remains to be made about prudence.
The little woman had been devoting herself very earnestly to the perusal of books of etiquette 'The Upper Circles, 'What is What, 'The Creme de la Creme, and works of a corresponding order, and was now much more learned in the infinitesimals of polite life than was Sir Reginald or his daughter. She had a profound belief in the mysterious authors of these interesting volumes.
Word Of The Day