factoids

My uneven collection of facts, quotations, and other miscellaneous scraps, that don't naturally fit anywhere else. I used to keep them in a shoebox, until I discovered the Web.

About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o'news,
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

-- W. S. Gilbert, The Pirates of Penzance, 1879

abstractabstract data type
Ackermann's function
Adaadjective order
affordance
• algebra • Algol
• and • P. W. Anderson • antisymmetric relation
APL
ASCII artAsimov's laws • asymmetric relation
atheist
autopoeisis
• awk

B
Babbage • bag • BASIC
• BCPL
Samuel Beckett
• big numbers
Bliss
• Niels Bohr • Boltzmann constant
Tycho BraheJacob Bronowski
Edmund Burke

Cc • C++
calculus
• censorship
G. K. Chesterton • ChillChurch-Rosser • Winston S. Churchill
• Clarke's lawsclass • classification • Clean • Arthur Hugh Clough • CLU
• Cobol • Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Comal • Compton wavelengthConfucius • continuum hypothesisCoral
• CPL
• cradle

• Charles Darwindata abstractionRichard Dawkins
delegation • Augustus De Morgan • denotational semantics • Antoine de Saint-Exupery • René Descartes
•  Edsger W. Dijkstra • Paul A. M. Dirac • divisibility tests
Dynamo

e
EiffelManfred Eigen
electron mass/chargeGeorge Eliot
Ralph Waldo Emerson
energy equivalentsEnglish
• equivalence relation
estivate
• Euclid (language) • Euclid's proof • eugenics • Eulerian patheumemics
evolution
• exploratory programming

Richard P. Feynman
Fibonacci seriesfigures of speech
fleas
Forth • Fortran
Anatole FranceBenjamin FranklinFreeman's commentaryRobert Frost
Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic

G
German
Ginsberg's theorem
• Goldbach's conjecture • googol(plex)
Graham's numbergravitational constantgrok
• Gypsy

h
Ernst Heinrich HaeckelJ. B. S. HaldaneBeatrice HallMonty Hall problemHamiltonian pathRichard W. Hamming • Handel-CLeslie Poles Hartley • Haskell
• Patrick Henry
hibernate • history • Hite's rule
Hofstadter's lawHoraceA. E. Housman

Icon
immortality
• incompetent • Robert Ingersollinheritance • Internet
• irrational number • irreflexive relation

William JamesJava
• Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Jowett
• Julia set

k
John F. Kennedy
Rudyard Kipling

languagesPierre-Simon de Laplacelaws
• leap yearStephen LeacockLe VerrierC. S. Lewis
• libertyspeed of lightline printer artLisp • J. E. Littlewood
• logistic mappinglogistics • Logo • Lojban
• Lucas-Lehmer primality testLucid

Mandelbrot setAndrew MarvellMatlab
meddleMega • Megagon • Megiston • H. L. Mencken • Mersenne primesmetonymy • Bertrand Meyer
John Stuart Millmillennium • Miranda • Mitochondrial Eve
ML
• Modula • model • Monty Hall problem • Moser's number
multiple inheritance • multiset

network
Martin Niemöller • Friedrich Nietzsche
Barry Norman

Oberonobject • object basedObjective-C • object oriented
occam (language)Occam's Razor
• onlyontogeny
• operational semantics • OPS5
• orthogonality
• C. J. Overbeck
oxymoron

Thomas PaineBlaise PascalPascal (language)pattern
• pedantperfect numbersPerl
Pilot
PL/1 • Max Planck • Planck constant/length/massPlato • pleonasm • plurals
• Political Correctnesspolymorphic type • Pop • Alexander PopePostScript
• Terry Pratchett • prime numbersprimitive recursive functionprobability paradoxesprogramming languages • Prolog • pronunciation • proton mass
Pythagorean triple

quotations

randomRandom Boolean Network
Eric Raymond
reflexive relationrewrite rules
Theodore Roosevelt
• Bertrand Russell

SAS
Bruce Schneier
self • self-organisation • semantics
• William Shakespeare • George Bernard Shaw • Percy Bysshe Shelley
• SimpleSimpson's paradox • Simula
• Skewes' number
sleep
Smalltalk
• Snobol
species • specification • spelling • split infinitive
Peter Steiner • Robert Louis StevensonTom Stoppard • strategy • strongly typedSturgeon's law
• superclass • subclass
Jonathan Swift
• syllepsis • symmetric relationsynecdoche

tactics
Tcl
TeX
Dylan ThomasHenry David Thoreau
transitive relation
• Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky
Turing
• Mark Twain
• Tycho Brahetype
• Lao Tzu

Unix

violenceviscosity
VoltaireJohn von Neumann

Booker T. Washington
WebRebecca WestHermann Weyl
Alfred North Whitehead • Walt Whitmanwho/whom
• Eugene Wigner • Ludwig Wittgenstein

William Butler Yeats

Frank Zappa
Zeppelins • zeugma
John Ziman