Silly Putty

No updates about Silly Putty in Germany yet (Weiß jemand, ob man das Zeug hier kaufen kann?), but it seems it was a favorite toy of some of my dear readers. I want to play with Silly Putty, too!

Late flip today…

I spent the afternoon in three different libraries in search for a book. The first two didn’t have it, and the third was closed. Why didn’t anybody tell me the math library closes so much earlier during summer break?

I’ll go back tomorrow and hope they’ve got the book I’m looking for. It came out in 1880 and was reprinted in 1966, but none of the online bookshops listed it, and it was not in the Libri database which lists all available books in Germany. I – need – this – book!

Das Buch heißt übrigens Vorlesungen über die Theorie der elliptischen Modulfunktionen (I und II) und ist von Felix Klein und R. Fricke. Und da drin finde ich hoffentlich die Ikosaedergleichung, an der ich letzte Woche vier Tage gerechnet habe. Irgendwie kamen mir Koeffizienten in der Größenordnung von Millionen doch etwas suspekt vor…

Hoaxes

I found this link to Hoaxbusters on /usr/bin/girl today. Useful bookmark in case anybody dares to send me this kind of chain letter ever again. A few months back, I got the Bill Gates hoax email twice in one day and couldn’t believe that anybody thought this was true! Next time I’ll know what URL to send them for an answer.

The Gates hoax was started in 1997. It’s unbelievable that people keep this going for years!

I usual answer email chain letters with this, which can also be found here.