Jews From The United Kingdom

"Problem 9. What is the correspondence between cellular automata and continuous systems? Cellular automatat are discrete in several respects. First, they consist of a discrete spatial lattice of sites. Second, they evolve in discrete steps. And finally, each site has only a finite discrete set of possible values. The first two forms of discreteness are addressed in the numerical analysis of approximate solutions to, say, differential equations. ... The third form of discreteness in cellular automata is not so familiar from numerical analysis. It is an extreme form of round-off, in which each "number" can have only a few possible values (rather than the usual 216 or 232)."

"Computational reducibility may well be the exception rather than the rule: Most physical questions may be answerable only through irreducible amounts of computation. Those that concern idealized limits of infinite time, volume, or numerical precision can require arbitrarily long computations, and so be formally undecidable."

"Cellular automata are discrete dynamical systems with simple construction but complex self-organizing behaviour. Evidence is presented that all one-dimensional cellular automata fall into four distinct universality classes. Characterizations of the structures generated in these classes are discussed. Three classes exhibit behaviour analogous to limit points, limit cycles and chaotic attractors. The fourth class is probably capable of universal computation, so that properties of its infinite time behaviour are undecidable."

"If we describe... heat... the air... it's this temperature, this pressure. That's as much as we can say... People [from the future] will say, "I just can't believe they didn't realize that there was this detail and all these molecules that were bouncing around, and that they could make use of that." ...One of the scenarios for the very long term history ...is the where everything... becomes thermodynamically boring... equilibrium. People say that's a really bad outcome, but actually... it's an outcome where there's all this computation going on... molecules bouncing around in very complicated ways, doing this very elaborate computation. It just happens to be a computation that right now, we haven't found ways to understand... [O]ur brains... and our mathematics and our science... haven't found ways to tell an interesting story about that. It just looks boring to us."

"If we want to have a predictable life... then we have to build in these... pockets of reducibility. If we were... existing in this irreducible world, we'd never be able to... know what's going to happen."

"I think there is an infinite collection of these local pockets [of reducibility]. We'll never run out..."

"[In] Ancient Babylon... they were trying to predict three kinds of things.... where the planets would be, what the weather would be like, and who would win or lose a certain battle; and they had no idea which of these things would be more predictable than the other."

"[S]cience has become used to... using the little... pockets of computational reducibility ([A]n inevitable consequence of computational irreducibility... There have to be these pockets ...scattered around.) to be able to find those cases where you can jump ahead."

"The future of medicine is safe in your hands."

"The desert is not an island: the island is not enchanted: and the desert is no habitation for men."

"Uccello cello cello I love myself."

"What I liked about Greece was [...] the impressive force of the language itself, unconfined by dictionaries, spoken in the streets, in cafés and in the country."

"There is nothing I want more than to return to Russia."

"I repent and ask for forgiveness for greed. I longed for riches, not thinking that this is to the detriment of others. Covering my sins with the words "historic moment," "brilliant combinations" and "tremendous opportunities," I forgot about my fellow citizens.… I repent and ask for forgiveness for trampling free speech. Justifying myself with the desire to save Russia from the red-brown plague, I defined the policy of the country's chief information mouthpiece, neglecting democratic values.… I repent and ask for forgiveness for bringing Vladimir Putin to power. I should have seen, but could not see in him the future of a greedy tyrant and usurper, a man who trampled freedom and stopped the development of Russia. Many of us did not recognize it then, but that does not excuse me. I'm sorry."

"I do support direct action. I do not advocate or support violence.… Elections are not a viable means of ensuring democratic change in Russia. Therefore I do support using other methods to push for a change back towards democracy"

"The omelet called “race” has no existence outside the statistical frying- pan in which it has been reduced by the heat of the anthropological imagination."

"[C]ircumcision, an archaic ritual mutilation that has no justification whatever and no place in a civilized society."

"The world is so full of wonderful things we should all, if we were taught how to appreciate it, be far richer than kings."

"Bigotry and science can have no communication with each other, for science begins where bigotry and absolute certainty end. The scientist believes in proof without certainty, the bigot in certainty without proof. Let us never forget that tyranny most often springs from a fanatical faith in the absoluteness of one’s beliefs."

"The ability to play is one of the principal criteria of mental health."

"If we had not just 10 oligarchs, but more like 1,000, all of Russia's problems would be solved."

"And we begin to understand that the goal of life is to die young — as late as possible!"

"Among both the Northern and Eastern Hamites are to be found some of the most beautiful types of humanity."

"The Eskimos live among ice all their lives but have no single word for ice."

"The family unit is the institution for the systematic production of mental illness."

"The word "souvenir" has, of course, slightly extended itself in meaning until it now denotes almost anything either breakable or useless; but even today, ninety per cent of the items covered by the word are forgettable objects in which cigarettes can be left to go stale."

"I rang room service, and asked for a bottle of Perrier, because while I was asleep someone had come in and carpeted my throat."

"Apart from cheese and tulips, the main product of the country is advocaat, a drink made from lawyers."

"Strictly speaking, the land does not exist; it is merely dehydrated sea."

"Ethnically, the Germans are Teutonic...being made up of Vandals, Gepidae, and Goths, all of whom emigrated - south from Sweden in about 500 BC; why they emigrated is not exactly clear, but many scholars believe it was because they saw the way Sweden was going, i.e. neutral."

"Having lost the last war, they are currently enjoying a Wirtschaftswunder, which can be briefly translated as "The best way to own a Mercedes is to build one.""

"Since Switzerland has nothing else to identify it…and since both its national products, snow and chocolate, melt, the cuckoo clock was invented solely in order to give tourists something solid to remember it by."

"A long, soft sigh, one of those very Italian sighs that express so much, that say "Ah, signor, if only this world were an ideal world, what would I not give to be able to do as you ask, we should sit together in the Tuscan sunshine, you and I, just two men together, and we should drink a bottle of the good red wine, and we should sing, ah, how we should sing.""

"Does not even the most sexually democratic of us, among which number I unquestionably count myself, not choke back the tiniest sob at the sight of poor old Denis [Thatcher] stumbling along behind, struggling pitifully to hold his trilby on, as the PM strides across Goose Green with the wind managing only to make her hair look more [[Medusa|Medusan, and the very mines praying she will not crush them under-heel?"

"Disneyworld ... is a historical reconstruction as sanitised as the Kremlin's, and a future vision as uncognisant of contemporary pointers as Peter Pan's. It is a magic carpet under which everything has been swept."

"In the days when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, I know one boy who won't be sweating. I intend to raise my coffin-lid briskly, throw a few things into an overnight bag, and, whistling something appropriate, prepare to meet my Maker."

"You just threw cheese at Sam & Mark. Don't you think they've suffered enough?!"

"As part of the National Strategy, the Government should commit itself to the virtual elimination of functional illiteracy and innumeracy."

"Education costs money, but then so does ignorance."

"Balfour's interest in the Zionist cause exceeded the bounds of duty."

"[W]hen anti-Semitism is everywhere, it is nowhere. And when every anti-Zionist is an anti-Semite, we no longer know how to recognize the real thing--the concept of anti-Semitism loses its significance."

"People of goodwill who support the Palestinians resent being falsely accused of being anti-Semites."

"For many years, and like many British people, I had little feeling for the most expressive and roughest form of early twentieth century European painting, the expressionism of German artists around the First World War like Kirchner."

"A visit to a studio never fails to test my resources. It constantly reminds me of the condition in which most people first confront contemporary art. This is a state of "not knowing", of "not understanding", of being disorientated or challenged by the unfamiliar. One of my responsibilities as a curator is therefore to remember that a visitor encountering an unfamiliar work of art in the museum is likely to be as unprepared as I was in the studio. But I've come to realise that it's precisely when I am most challenged in my own reactions that the deepest insights emerge."

"After thirty years of looking at new work in galleries and even newer work in studios, I am very familiar with the experience of being completely at a loss when confronting a new idea or image."

"For the late twentieth-century museum director there is no more certain prospect for audience acclaim and sponsor success than those Impressionist and Post-impressionist artists who were so reviled a century earlier"

"Damien Hirst's Mother and Child Divided (1993) is a work which can at first glance be read as nothing more than two brutally severed carcasses. "A freak show" was how the art critic of the Sunday Telegraph responded to its presentation in the Turner Prize in 1995. For me, the undoubted shock, even disgust provoked by the work is part of its appeal. Art should be transgressive. Life is not all sweet."

"In 1964 I was at school, planning to study economics and sociology, when curiosity took me to the Tate Gallery to see an international survey exhibition of contemporary art. It brought together the painting and sculpture of the previous decade, beginning with the late works of the modern masters, Matisse and Picasso, and concluding with the twenty-seven year olds Allen Jones and David Hockney. I was bowled over. Suddenly, art was not just Turner and Constable, or Leonardo and Michelangelo, but objects of considerable size and brilliant colour, dealing with the sensations, subjects and issues of the Sixties."

"For in spite of much greater public interest in all aspects of visual culture, including design and architecture, the challenge posed by contemporary art has not evaporated. We have only to recall the headlines for last year's Turner Prize. "Eminence without merit" (The Sunday Telegraph). "Tate trendies blow a raspberry" (Eastern Daily Press), and my favourite, "For 1,000 years art has been one of our great civilising forces. Today, pickled sheep and soiled bed threaten to make barbarians of us all" (The Daily Mail). Are these papers speaking the minds of their readers? I have no delusions. People may be attracted by the spectacle of new buildings, they may enjoy the social experience of visiting a museum, taking in the view, an espresso or glass of wine, purchasing a book or an artist designed t-shirt. Many are delighted to praise the museum, but remain deeply suspicious of the contents."

"An honest curator will admit that judgement is fallible, especially for art made yesterday."