Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898), an obscure Oxford mathematician. Author of "Symbolic Logic", "Memoria Technica", "The condensation (factoring) of determinants" and "A discussion of the various methods of procedure in conducting elections".

Oh, and a couple of strange books for children called "AlicesAdventuresInWonderland" and "ThroughTheLookingGlass, and what Alice found there", which for some reason have outlasted his mathematical works. They're certainly more amusing.

One or the other of these two personalities also had a deep fondness for both hashish and very young pouty girls. Hardly the kind of thing you could base a Disney movie on...

Dodgson was also a talented, and progressive, photographer (often of those self-same pouty girls, and especially AliceLiddell?); see http://www.lewiscarroll.org/photo.html.

See also HuntingOfTheSnark


A major contribution to software design is the quote: "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."

--you know who

Whereupon Humpty's pair, disliking the word did not come from the SystemMetaphor, was impossible to pronounce, and did not describe the concept it named, gave him a little nudge.


See also: (from the excellent MacTutor History of Mathematics archive) http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Dodgson.html


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