Re: Question On The Harry Potter Books

: "Michael S. Schiffer" <mschiffe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
: I don't disagree with what you and Wayne are saying. If Mr. A Square
: of Flatland was a mathematician who found himself on a standard
: Asteroids screen, he could reasonably determine that he lived on a
: torus however it might be projected into a hypothetical 3-D space.
: (I don't think he has any way of determining the latter.) But Sea
: Wasp's sense of a torus is probably the more common one in standard
: English (and was, I think, originally the standard mathematical
: definition as well), even if it's not the one used by modern
: mathematicians.

Yes, true enough. But. Hm. How many here think "decimate" means
"kill one tenth of a legion"? (Note, "means", not "meant".)


Wayne Throop throopw@xxxxxxxxx http://sheol.org/throopw
.

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