I was uncertain whether this post should have the title I gave it or “Till Gray Do Us Part”. I’ve chosen the standard formula to echo the Italian version: “Questi, che mai da me non fia diviso”. That is Dante’s Inferno, of course. But, really, I am going to discuss an aspect of Lab which is very well known but, I suspect, sometimes ill-understood. Moreover, I’ve drawn the conclusion that gray couldn’t really part anything, because it only represents equilibrium instead – but before you call 911 I suggest you to read on.

Did you know that everytime you write the word Google you’re actually writing a number? I am not talking about the IP address, but if someone at some point hadn’t written it wrong, today we would not be searching Google, but Googol. I don’t know how much of an urban myth the story is, but it seems that the guy instructed to register googol.com spelled it wrong and registered google.com

One man, millions of ideas

Does anyone remember Bertrand Russell? He’s always been one of my heroes because he was not afraid of doubt. Philosopher, logician, author of the Principia Mathematica with Alfred North Whitehead, Nobel Prize for literature at the age of 78: “in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought”. His well-known antinomy known as Russell’s Paradox shook the foundations of mathematics and started ramifications which are maybe not yet fully understood (it is enough to mention the two incompletness theorems stated by Kurt Gödel in order to solve the problem). He died in 1970, aged 97, so he didn’t live long enough to know Photoshop. Yet I think that if he were alive he would have something to say on some preconceptions which cross our field, and he would whip into place several wrong ideas we’ve been living with for too long.