JimmiGerman

Like "gladiator gladio pugnat". We don't know such a case in German, and we use, as in English, prepositions to manage it. There are still Indo-Germanic languages (i.e. Albanian), but not many, where the ablative can be found; but there is no Germanic language. Weltdeusch (Universal German) was planned to be developed and introduced as an international Lingua Franca for all German territories http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltdeutsch during the colonial times of the German Kaiserreich, with only one article (de instead of der / die / das) and with even more simplifications regarding declinations and conjugations. How would it only have sounded if it had been realized...?

So the example with the cube shows that at the 13th dimension the constellations that are mentioned were unavoidable, and that would be the point at which Graham's number appears, and, under his restrictions, no bigger number was thinkable, then. Impressing. But you mean that those possible numbers have not been proven? So it's only a hypothetical assumpton that there were larger numbers than Graham's or others' proven numbers by their mathematical models? Maybe, somehow and somewhere, there is a limitation, an end, and mathematical equations resulting in eternity end in singularities. But singularities are worthless for us, unimaginable, uncalculable, undescribable, beyond the frame of experimental or even theoretical physics and science. I've often asked myself why we can't imagine eternity. Maybe our mind works correctly and there is no eternity, only in our wishes and imagination...? However, we can't imagine our own death, in the meaning of total non-existence, and maybe, therefore, there is no death, if our mind doesn't deceive us, and this, on the other hand, makes us strongly believe in eternity. In this case, I would say, it ends in a draw between mathematics and religion for the moment.

Oh, you certainly mean this (let me, to make it more understandable for you, use Donald Knuth's up-arrow notation): Wait... ...wait a minute... just calculating it, and it seems to me to be a really large number, and I'm not at the end yet... puuuh, even greater than... than... ...it fills out the... how can I describe it... can you still hear me?... much greater than the number of all popcorn sub-particles in the XXL bag that Jimmi Popcorn is holding in his hands... ...and be sure he won't share even a single popcorn with you, 'cause he wants to eat all sub-particles alone!

Peace!

One could believe there is some kind of higher and revealing knowledge behind mathematics. I'm not the right person to judge about it. The String Theory and comparable concepts according to an all-embracing theory of the nature are certainly based on mathematical eqations. It's not difficult to represent some higher dimensions only by increasing the exponent to get a five- or even ten-dimensional "space" instantly, in an abstract way. But our mind wouldn't find an adequate word for that... something (or singularity), and we would be far beyond our abilities to describe or even to imagine what it was. Mathematics and abstract concepts apparently are miles and miles ahead of our cognitive understanding and ability of transforming that knowledge into words. Thus, we are very often unable really to see or imagine what all those equations might tell us. Maybe we've been made for understanding words, not numbers. But we don't always even understand those words.

Hi, Mr Nice Guy!

Silence is golden...

It's the most mightyful number, I guess. I forgot... the Babylonians didn't know a "zero" in their arithmetic system. It's maybe that why their tower fell to pieces... due to incorrect calculations...?

I think you are right, Vort, I've overseen that point. ... das Mädchen, das Fräulein, das Frauchen, das Hündchen (little dog), das Jüngelchen (little boy), das Bengelein (a naughty little boy, from der Bengel), das Händchen (little hand), das Kindchen (but das Kind is neutrum, anyway), das Männchen (little, fragile man) etc. "Das Mädchen", indeed, is maybe a diminutive of "die Maid" ("das Maidchen...?"), an Old German word. On the other hand I can't see any rule or logic in general for assigning an article to a noun. Maybe there are some rules (sometimes depending on the ending of the noun, i.e. nouns ending with an "e" very often have the feminine article, but what about "der Riese"...? Yea, "der RIESE" (the giant) is BIG and STRONG, so, of course, it can't be feminine... On the other hand there exists the word "Riesin", a female Riese... Leave me alone. If you questioned me I would certainly know the correct article for 99.9 % of all German nouns, without any problem, spontanically, and without thinking about it. We simply know it. Anyway, for any mysterious reason this knowledge seems to be very important for us, as it's apparently very important for a hamster to run pointlessly miles and miles only in his traversing wheel... sorry, in its traversing wheel.

As I've mentioned here before, it's maybe because our language is probably based on a masculine position or standpoint (by its historical and grammatical structures), and a girl has been considered neutrally, under some assumed protection or convention of untouchability, as long as a girl hasn't become a woman. ...das Mädchen, das Fräulein (the girl has become a "Frau" but hasn't been married yet), die Frau, die Ehefrau, die Dame The example given by you is probably based on a masculine position and linguistic traditions. There is no systematic logic you will find behind those der / die / das articles - or any kind of mysterious meanings. See it this way: the whole thing once started, and if you had the choice of the article that has to be assigned to a noun, which article would you have chosen, if there were no clearly defined rules, except the subject showed obvious female attributes...? And remember the old American proverb: why can you lead him (your horse) to water but can't make him drink? Even if "him" was a "she"...? ...

It depends on the base, as Vort says. And why does a circle have 360 degrees? It results from the Babylonians with their arithmetic system based on 60. So it's pure chance, and nine is not a mysterious number, purely appearing accidentally by some algorithms shown by the "circle mystery" here in this thread. Like the so-called "Bible code" (leave me alone with that!). There is no mystery or supernatural power behind any number. It may sound ignorantly, but the nine, as any other number, is only a result of assumptions and abstractions based on human thinking, and mathematics don't substitute the cognitive knowledge. Maybe the zero is an exception: but if there is zero money in your pockets, even the zero won't tell you where your money has gone, and, as it happens so often, the answer is blowin' in the wind. PS... However, maybe I'm only jealous of those people who are good at mathematics, since I'm a rivet on this field.

I've found this video by chance on YouTube and thought it was great. And, by the way, in this video you won't see her with a cigarette in her hand... and no offensive scenes in this video. (Was it possibly made for this forum...?) But melancholy, anyhow.

Jo. Hans-Albers-Platz, Hamburg St-Pauli (image showing Hans Albers memorial)

Vort said: But not for every word that starts with s-consonant, but iwhen a word starts with st / sp, i.e. Startbahn, Standard, Stange, Stagnation, Spielplatz, Sprengler, Sportveranstaltung, Spaß etc. However, in Hamburg, decades ago, there was a strong tendency to pronounce st / sp not in the sch-way, but wit a real s. That was a characteristic of the Hamburg dialect, and it still can be said, that people from other parts of Germany can identify us easily by our typical accent.

I would agree. There is he / she / it in English, but only with one and the same article, the. Maybe in English there has been a grammatical superficiality (except the tenses). But there is a certain tendency, at least in American English (maybe influenced by German immigrants), for using male or female pronouns, i.e. in the proverb "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink", and a ship is always "she". I'm sure there could be more examples found.

No, certainly not, and you are absolutely right when you say it's true it has become more casual this day that way than it used to be a few decades ago in Germany. The normal way of discussing in a German internet forum is by using the "du"-form.

A real eulogy (not meant in the American understanding as a funeral oration, but more laudatory), although quite critically. I don't guess you mean to move on even for a fourth one...? Well, what does always make sense...? Our language is probably based on a masculine position (from its developement), and a girl is just considered sexuell neutrally there (Mädchen, Fräulein, Frau). Therefore, this would be my explanation.

I was talking hypothetically, because I haven't been involved personally in the events I've posted in the case of Marianne Bachmeier. But I remember that case very well. I think vengeance would always change the situation, and it would change it in quite an effective way. Sorry, I know you will be concerned about my words.

I would say it was a miraculous mystery - or a mysterious miracle.

There was a tv report here about him and his methods in Arizona. I don't know exactly why, but something lets me freeze if I'm trying to imagine his psychic constellation.

I agree. But I don't believe that the death penalty has a great potential of deterrance, anyway, and I don't think that deterrance alone should be understood as its most significant aspect. Revenge and retribution would appear more significant to me.

I can't agree. I wouldn't say that one better should be executed than to live in prison, even if it was a life term, and even if he didn't commit the crime. As I said, modern forensic science and DNA methods can lead the police to the murderer, and the "bias" you have mentioned wouldn't play a great role if the evidence would be given by a hundred percent, even if it sounds a bit naive. The problem are miserable defenders and failed appeals.

There is an old word I once heard: blood atonement. Ronnie Lee Gardner was the last executed in Utah by a firing squad in 2010, and the only and last person in Utah's death row, who is still alive, and who has been given the choice to decide the way of being executed (lethal injection or firing sqad), is Ron Lafferty, once found guilty on a first degree murder of a young woman and her fifteen-month-old daugher in American Fork / Utah in 1984. Gardner's case and execution in 2010 went trough the media, and anti-mormon reports spoke of "blood atonement" (because blood fled when he was shot). But this method is not carried out in Utah any more, with one (hypothetical) exception: Ron Lafferty. His sentence was spoken before the abolition of this method of execution. Personally, I am for the capital punishment, but only if an exact criminal-technical proof situation is given (i.e. DNA proofs) and when it concerns a terrible and cruelful murder in the first degree. I think the firing squad would be the most efficient and most human method, even under retention of the dignity (of a dead under those circumstances). And I don't want to let it unmentioned, that I'm only for CP when the accused is male. For women I'm absolutely against CP and would never agree to that. For me it's a principal and fundamental point of view. Violent crimes like rape and serial murders (the most abominable and terrible ones) are always commited by male persons (i.e. against prostitutes, because they are often in a desperate life situation and very often compelled to to take a high risk on them). I don't see the CP for those (male) murderers as a prevention, but as a legitimate revenge in the name of the murdered person or persons, also giving soul peace for the relatives of the victim (i.e. the parents of the child that's been murdered).