Mark III
Sir:
It was a pleasant surprise to find our neighbor Mark III on the cover of TIME [Jan. 23]. Three cheers for Artzybasheff's originality and for the clear and masterfully written article . . .
[But] you should have made somewhat clearer the point that these differential analyzers are entirely subservient to the direction of man. They may blow a fuse, or mark time like a contingent of soldiers faced into a stone wall, if asked to do something any intelligent dog would consider simple. Machines cannot get beyond the graphic or punched tape instructions fed into them . . .
PETER H. NASH Harvard University Cambridge, Mass.
Sir:
Congratulations on your cover! For a long time I have known that it takes a superman to be a naval officer . . .
MORRIS P. LANDISS Nashville, Tenn.
Sir:
May I say that reading such an article in a magazine that has the background and sensibility that TIME has, is much more terrifying than the atom or hydrogen bomb's worst psychological effects . . .
TOM BALOW Bloomington, Ind.
Sir:
. . . TIME has given a very clear picture of a complicated mechanism, except one item. Will you kindly explain to me how come that "0 is 0; 1 is 1 but 2 is 10; 3 is11; 4 is 100; and 14 is 1110"? . . . This one has me cornered
Lakeland, Fla. EVELYN A. JARVIS P: Ordinary numbers are called "decimal" because they have ten digits: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. When all the digits have been used (i.e., a number above 9), the digit 1 is moved a space to the left and assigned a value ten times as great as before. Decimal eleven, for instance, is written 11 (1 times ten plus 1).
Binary numbers work exactly the same way, except that there are only two digits, 0 and 1, and a shift to the left merely doubles a digit's value instead of multiplying it by ten. Herewith a short table of the two systems:
Decimal Binary 0 0 1 1 2 10 3 11 4 100 5 101 6 110 7 111 8 1000 9 1001 10 1010 11 1011 12 1100 13 1011 14 1110 15 1111 16 10000 17 10001 18 10010 -- ED.
Sir:
What are the chances of obtaining the services of Mark III for the balance of the Santa Anita season?
H. M. CHADWICK
Thermal, Calif.
P: Will Horseplayer Chadwick please translate his handicapping figures into binary numbers?--ED.
Sir:
The special language of numbers spoken by Mark III brings to mind the declamation of the witch rejuvenating Goethe's Faust:
See, thus it's done !
Make ten of one,
And two let be,
Make even three,
And rich thou'lt be.
Cast o'er the four!
From five and six
(The witch's tricks)
Make seven and eight,
'Tis finished straight!
And nine is one,
And ten is none.
This is the witch's once-one's-one ! . . .
THOMAS K. HERRMANN Washington, D.C.
Sir:
You may be grateful to know that I intend to cancel my subscription to TIME effective with the first issue edited by any of the progeny of Mark III.
Great Falls, , . Mont. RALPH P. JOLY
Cutlet for the Countess
Sir:
Nature indeed follows art; at least so it would seem if we can believe your Viennese correspondent who reported The Elephant restaurant [TIME, Jan. 23].
The story of the elephant cutlet concluded Ludwig Bemelmans' first book published here, My War with the United States (1937) As many of your readers will remember, the story concerned a Viennese restaurateur who wanted to run a restaurant such as had never existed beforehand advertised "Cutlets from Every Animal in the World." His first customer, a countess, asked for an elephant cutlet. The chef rose to the occasion with the punch line: "Madame, I am very sorry, but for one cutlet we cannot cut up our elephant."
MARSHALL A. BEST The Viking Press, Inc. New York City
Sub for Sale?
Sir:
Will you ask your readers whether any of them who has bought, inherited or received as gift a perpetual subscription to TIME is prepared to sell it to me? Incidentally, every owner of such perpetual subscription might find it advisable to dispose of it, by sale or gift, during his life, because the establishment of its taxable value in the estate may cost more than $60 in fees and estate expenses, as there exists hardly any comparable asset.
K. KAUFFMANN-GRINSTEAD New York City
Ziggurats & Crocodile Tears
Sir:
Your comparison of "wedding-cake modern" skyscrapers to the Babylonian ziggurat [TIME, Jan. 23] is most apt. For the ziggurat was none other than the Tower of Babel, a culture center for men intent on creating a world unified without God. Babylon the Great marches on: "Alas, alas, that great city . . ." (Revelation 18:16).
EDWARDS E. ELLIOTT St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church Baltimore, Md.
Sir:
. . . The ziggurat served remarkably well its purpose of being a man-made hill on a marshy, level plain, from which the astronomer-priest made his observations. Today's architectural "wedding-cake" in its own stead serves with keen acuteness the need of providing today's businessman with the area necessary for conducting his affairs ... At the end of the day he is vomited out; scurries into the holes provided in the sidewalk, and is not seen until the next morning.
This need and solution as seen in the changing skyline of New York City shows only that the architect has been able to express with complete, esthetic frankness the purpose of the structure. The long lines of glass, stainless steel and brick are fresh and esthetically sound, and do not collect as much dust as did their predecessors with layer upon layer of excremental ornament.
It may well happen that some people with a feeling of nostalgia for the existing and the past will in the year 2050 shed a few crocodile tears for these same buildings when they, too, become obsolete and are demolished.
V. BOBOVITCH
N. FOOK New York City
Tits on a Toot
Sir:
I might suggest that the unusual behavior of the blue tits in England [TIME, Jan. 23] was occasioned by their eating fermented berries. It is not an unusual occurrence for birds to become somewhat inebriated as a result of partaking of fermented sap or berries. The yellow-bellied sapsucker of our country is known for its queer behavior in this respect.
JOHN V. DENNIS Department of Biology University of Florida Gainesville, Fla.
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