Serendipities

Serendipities: Language and Lunacy (originally published in English, translated by William Weaver) is a 1998 collection of essays by Umberto Eco. Dealing with the history of linguistics and Early Modern concepts of a perfect language, the material in the book overlaps with La ricerca della lingua perfetta. As Eco explains it in his preface, serendipity is the positive outcome of some ill-conceived idea.[1]

First edition
(publ. Columbia University Press)

Chapters
  1. The Force of Falsity
  2. Languages in Paradise
  3. From Marco Polo to Leibniz: Stories of Intellectual Misunderstandings
  4. The Language of the Austral Land
  5. The Linguistics of Joseph de Maistre

In chapter 1, based on a 1994 lecture held at Bologna University, Eco introduces his thesis about consequences of erroneous beliefs. Chapter 2 contains essentially the same material as chapters 1 and 3 of La ricerca della lingua perfetta, while chapter 3 is a reworking of its chapters 7 and 14(5). Chapters 4 and 5 have been published as essays in honor of Luigi Rosiello and deal with La Terre Australe connue by Gabriel de Foigny and Joseph de Maistre's views as exposed in his Soirees de Saint Petersbourg.

Editions
  • Columbia University Press, New York (1998 - trans. William Weaver) ISBN 0-231-11134-7.
  • Phoenix, London (1998).
  • Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London (1999).
  • Harvest Books, Fort Washington, PA (1999) ISBN 0-15-600751-7.
gollark: Go(lang) = bad.
gollark: ``` [...] MIPS is short for Millions of Instructions Per Second. It is a measure for the computation speed of a processor. Like most such measures, it is more often abused than used properly (it is very difficult to justly compare MIPS for different kinds of computers). BogoMips are Linus's own invention. The linux kernel version 0.99.11 (dated 11 July 1993) needed a timing loop (the time is too short and/or needs to be too exact for a non-busy-loop method of waiting), which must be calibrated to the processor speed of the machine. Hence, the kernel measures at boot time how fast a certain kind of busy loop runs on a computer. "Bogo" comes from "bogus", i.e, something which is a fake. Hence, the BogoMips value gives some indication of the processor speed, but it is way too unscientific to be called anything but BogoMips. The reasons (there are two) it is printed during boot-up is that a) it is slightly useful for debugging and for checking that the computer[’]s caches and turbo button work, and b) Linus loves to chuckle when he sees confused people on the news. [...]```I was wondering what BogoMIPS was, and wikipedia had this.
gollark: ```Architecture: x86_64CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bitByte Order: Little EndianCPU(s): 8On-line CPU(s) list: 0-7Thread(s) per core: 2Core(s) per socket: 4Socket(s): 1NUMA node(s): 1Vendor ID: GenuineIntelCPU family: 6Model: 42Model name: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E31240 @ 3.30GHzStepping: 7CPU MHz: 1610.407CPU max MHz: 3700.0000CPU min MHz: 1600.0000BogoMIPS: 6587.46Virtualization: VT-xL1d cache: 32KL1i cache: 32KL2 cache: 256KL3 cache: 8192KNUMA node0 CPU(s): 0-7Flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx lahf_lm pti tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid xsaveopt dtherm ida arat pln pts```
gollark: I think it's a server thing.
gollark: My slightly newer SomethingOrOther 5000 does too.

References
  1. "I wanted to show how ... false beliefs and discoveries totally without credibility could then lead to the discovery of something true (or at least something we consider true today). In the field of the sciences, this mechanism is known as serendipity. An excellent example of it is given us by Columbus.." Eco U., Serendipities, Preface, p. vii
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