THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
03/26/10 -- Vol. 28, No. 39, Whole Number 1590
C3PO: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
R2D2: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Squirrel!... (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Philip K. Dick on BLADE RUNNER (pointer by Richie Bielak)
What You Don't Know You Can't Do (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
MUTANTS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Remakes (letter of comment by Dave Anolick)
Zeugma and Syllepsis (letter of comment by David Goldfarb)
This Week's Reading (THE DECHRONIZATION OF SAM MAGRUDER and
THE GREAT TAOS BANK ROBBERY) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
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TOPIC: Squirrel!... (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Sign I saw on a building: "A.D.D. Clin."
[-mrl]
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TOPIC: Philip K. Dick on BLADE RUNNER (pointer by Richie Bielak)
http://www.philipkdick.com/new_letters-laddcompany.html
==================================================================
TOPIC: What You Don't Know You Can't Do (comments by Mark
R. Leeper)
I was at one point visiting my in-laws. My wife's father had
recently read a book about the spying case of the Rosenbergs. He
had come to the conclusion that the Rosenbergs had sold the secret
of the atom bomb to the Soviets.
Many of you may remember that one of the most famous espionage
cases in American history led to the trial and execution of Julius
and Ethel Rosenberg. The claim had been that after World War II
the United States had a monopoly on the technology for making
nuclear bombs. Then in a surprisingly short interval of time the
Soviets developed their own nuclear bomb. The American public was
incensed. In the thinking of the time only we could develop the
Bomb. And the Rosenbergs were accused of giving the "secret of the
atomic bomb" to the soviets.
Did the Rosenberg's sell the secret? That is not the current
opinion. The Rosenbergs (or more likely just Julius) may well have
sold data and it may have been helpful, but the modern opinion is
that the real secret of the atom bomb was made public the day
Hiroshima was bombed. What was the secret of the atom bomb?
Simply that there are no insuperable problems in building an atom
bomb weapon. The Manhattan Project was a big gamble. At no point
until the first bomb was detonated, was it clear that the bomb that
was built was ,either too weak or too strong to be usable. On
August 6, 1945 scientists all over the world found out that atom
bombs were actually feasible. Simply knowing the task of building
such a weapon could be successful made it became a great deal
easier. [It is an interesting coincidence and irony that later my
father-in-law taught at the same college as one of the Rosenbergs'
two sons, and that the son was instrumental in nominating my
father-in-law for an emeritus position. I don't think they
discussed this issue.]
I was reminded of this when I was helping a student with a problem.
It was not an easy problem and it was giving me trouble. This is
the problem. (A cube has eight vertices and twelve edges.) A bug
sits on one vertex of a cube. He spins around and chooses one of
the adjacent edges completely at random. He walks to the other
vertex of the edge. He repeats the process of spinning, choosing
and walking. What is the probability that after seven repetitions
the bug would have visited all eight vertices?
The obvious way to do it is to count up all the successful paths
and divide by the 3^7 possible (successful or not) paths. I
started to try to count up all the successful paths and quickly ran
into difficulty. Okay, I thought, how about if I try to figure the
probability for each move that it was to a new corner. That also
seemed to be computationally too complex. I decided to leave the
problem alone for a while and come back to it. I had to explain
the solution to the student so I decided to take a quick peek at
the answer. It was an expression over 3^7. I snapped the book
shut. Somehow the only thing that could have been over 3^7 was the
number of paths that worked.
I went back to the problem. The bug has three possible choices for
the first move and they are all safe. On the next move the bug has
three choices and as long as it does not return the way it came the
remaining two are safe. Without losing generality I place the cube
on a table with the three points visited against the table top.
The bug can now finish by going up a level. Only one direction
around the upper corners will leave it directly above the unvisited
point on the table. He goes that way.
On the other hand, the bug for its third move can go to the last
unvisited vertex on the lower level. It can then go up a level and
hit those corners clockwise or counter-clockwise. Those are the
only three ways to finish. So there are 18 successful paths. The
probability is 18/3^7 or 2/3^5.
Now could I have found a way to easily count the successful paths
if I had not known that there was an effective strategy for doing
it? Perhaps eventually when I gave it enough thought. But a lot
of my time would have been wasted in other approaches.
"Double Dare" by Robert Silverberg involves two races--one human,
one alien--each trying to recreate three items of the other's
technology. But what they don't know is each has been given one
item that neither race has but both want. By believing it has been
invented by the other race, it makes it possible to "re-invent"
what never really existed.
A related idea is that what you don't know is impossible may not
be. A mathematics graduate student came late to class one day and
copied the homework from the board. The problem turned out to be a
real bear, but he found the way to prove the assertion. You
guessed it. It was actually not the homework but an unsolved
problem. It was a previously unsolved problem. He got a Ph.D. out
of it.
See http://www.snopes.com/college/homework/unsolvable.asp.
Thanks to Evelyn for finding this article. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: MUTANTS (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: This 2009 zombie film from France does everything it does
well but little that is original. Fans of the zombie sub-genre
will get very much what they are expecting whether that is what
they really want or not. Two lovers fight to survive in a world
over-run but microbe-transformed zombies. Most of the photography
is shot though a blue-gray filter to give a downbeat sensibility
and a great deal of not-quite-believable stage blood gets dripped,
sloshed, spattered, and sneezed. David Morlet writes and directs
this graphic horror tale with strong action sequences with
immediacy. Rating: high +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
In the last two years the United States has been treated to a
Swedish vampire film, a Norwegian zombie Nazi film, a Canadian
zombie film, and now a French zombie film. The Swedes are out in
the lead. These films are in subgenres of horror in which the
United States has been the most prolific. I believe all of them
have shown on the IFC cable station, which is doing a fine job
seeking out interesting international horror films. Of these four
films I would say that the Swedish LET THE RIGHT ONE IN and the
Canadian PONTYPOOL show us interesting and different takes on the
old horror themes. The Norwegian DEAD SNOW gives us little
different from what we have seen before and for the most part
echoes American approaches to the zombie film. Still less is new
in MUTANTS. Writer director David Morlet is able to create a good
action scene and packs the film with them, but the style of the
film is really better than the ideas. One keeps seeing people
barricaded against the onslaught of ravaging mindless zombies. We
have people bitten, but hoping against hope they have not been
infected, usually in vain. These are staple situations going back
to NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, though much is borrowed also from 28
DAYS LATER.
A runaway virus that, like rabies, turns people into mad animals
anxious to viciously bite other humans has infected France about
six months before the action of the film. Now the infected seem to
outnumber the uninfected. Sonia (played by Hélène de Fougerolles),
her lover Marco (Francis Renaud), and Perez (Marie-Sohna Conde)
drive a commandeered ambulance looking for a military camp aptly
called NOAH. NOAH seems to be their hope for survival. After
being on the road for a while and nearly being killed several times
what is left of the main party takes refuge in a large disquieting
empty building. When the zombies become attracted to the presence
of humans than attack the building in force. The action is fast--
often a little too fast to follow. Characters are lost from the
story and added to the story.
That story is drenched in syrupy blood and punctuated with bullets
from large firearms. It is generally filmed in blue and gray tones
that effectively drain the life out of the people. These are not
unfamiliar touches. Sonia is the main focus for much of the film.
She is both hero and victim. While she goes through the same
trials as most of the other characters she continues to survive.
She can be hurt, but seems unkillable and in that some of the
tension of the film is lost. The issue is not will she survive
until near the end of the film. It is will she be alive after the
end. That takes some of the suspense out of the film.
Fans of zombie films may be a little sorry that so much of the film
is familiar. This is a one viewing film. But for that one viewing
it is a polished work. I rate MUTANTS a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale
or 6/10. The title MUTANTS is probably a misnomer. People
infected may be victims, but they are not mutants in the usual
sense. People are affected by the virus itself and not its change
to their DNA which probably would not be the same from person to
person.
Film Credits: http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt1146320/
What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10011790-mutants/
[-mrl]
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TOPIC: Remakes (letter of comment by Dave Anolick)
In response to Mark's comments on remakes in the 03/19/10 issue of
the MT VOID, Dave Anolick writes:
I loved your article on remakes of movies, a bad film is a bad film
and remakes *can* be good films. Even so, I think the odds of
that happening are much lower than for a non-remake. If the ratio
of Good Movies to the Number of Movies made is 1:n, I would argue
the ratio of Good Remakes to number of remakes made is closer to
1:3n.
Why is it so hard? One factor that can help make a movie good is
originality. Since the plot of a remake is by definition not
original, it gets harder for a remake to score "points" based on
originality.
Another factor is that typically remakes are made from good movies
and since the original movie already beat the 1:n odds, it raises
the bar even more for the remake. An original so-so movie will be
considered by some people to be good, but a so-so remake movie will
have so much comparison to the original which vastly reduces its
chances to be considered good.
You implied a lot of this in your article, so I'm not sure I'm
adding anything new. Hmmm ... is this message a remake? [-da]
Mark replies, "I think that was what I was trying to say in the
article. Also your 1:3n may be generous. But each film has to be
considered without preconceptions and evaluated on its own merits.
Expect that the remake of DEATH AT A FUNERAL will be a very funny
film. Not many people saw the original and for much of the new
audience the humor will be fresh." [-mrl]
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TOPIC: Zeugma and Syllepsis (letter of comment by David Goldfarb)
In response to Evelyn's question in the 03/19/10 issue of the MT
VOID ("What about pseudo-parallel construction, e.g., 'He got
awakened, ready, and his coat"? Is there a name for this sort of
thing?'"), David Goldfarb writes:
Have you no faith in the ancient Greeks? Of course there's a name
for this sort of thing. The construction where one verb governs
several subclauses is called "zeugma"; when the clauses are
intentionally anti-parallel as in your example, that's a
subcategory of zeugma called "syllepsis". You can find a
discussion of both in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeugma. [-dg]
Evelyn responds, "Well, I guess I knew there would be a name for
it; the problem is that there is no good way to look up the name
from the description. Thanks!" [-ecl]
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TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
THE DECHRONIZATION OF SAM MAGRUDER by George Gaylord Simpson
(ISBN-13 978-0-312-15514-8) is a novella-length time travel story.
Inspired by H. G. Wells's THE TIME MACHINE (also novella-length),
it chronicles a trip into the distant past rather than one to the
future. (If there were any doubt as to the source of the
inspiration, the use of designations rather than names for the
characters (e.g., the Universal Historian, the Ethnologist) is the
final clue.) There is also perhaps a touch of Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle's THE LOST WORLD and other prehistoric adventure tales.
Simpson is described on the back cover as being "widely regarded as
the greatest vertebrate paleontologist of the twentieth century,"
so this is not very surprising.
But there are other connections one can make, and the main one is
one that Simpson had no way of knowing about. Since Simpson died
in 1984, he may have written it even before the Alvarezes' proposal
that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs. But it was certainly
written before the events dramatized in the recent film INTO THE
WILD. In that film (based on a true story), Chris McCandless tries
to survive on his own in the wild, much as Magruder has to do.
McCandless does not have to deal with a finger bitten off by a
large reptile, but there is one definite parallel between him and
Magruder. Both McCandless and Magruder decide to build up a food
supply by killing an animal and drying the meat. Magruder, in the
tradition of most adventure heroes, manages this fairly
successfully, with fish and turtle meat. I suppose McCandless
might have been more successful trying these rather than mammal
meat, but I still think that preventing other animals from stealing
the drying meat would have been a big problem for either one. (In
McCandless's case, the meat went bad, so having animals steal it
became less of a problem.)
I suppose what all this means is that fiction does not have to be
true to reality.
THE GREAT TAOS BANK ROBBERY by Tony Hillerman (ISBN-13
08263-0530-X) is a collection of essays. The title story is about
a bank robbery--of sorts. "We All Fall Down" describes the search
for the source of a bubonic plague outbreak in New Mexico a la
Berton Roueche. "Mr. Luna's Lazarus Act" is a very topical
discussion of election mathematics (with aspects of Arrow's Theorem
in play, even if it is not explicitly named). Some of the
remaining "essays" are just very short anecdotes, but overall one
gets a sense of the atmosphere and culture of the Southwest.
[-ecl]
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Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Opera in English is, in the main, about as
sensible as baseball in Italian.
-- H. L. Mencken