Thursday, May 30, 2013

Nonsense

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was a mathematician in the nineteenth century. He was also a writer, photographer, and deacon. His pen name was Lewis Carroll.
His talent was playing with logic. Here are a few extracts from his book, Alice in Wonderland. 

     "Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
     "I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone: "so I can't take more."
     "You mean you can't take less," said the Hatter. "It's very easy to take more than nothing." (Chapter VII).

Do you agree with Alice or the Hatter?

Here's some more:

About the ordered execution of the Cheshire cat, who only had a head at this point in the book:


"The executioner's argument was, that you couldn't cut off a head unless there was a body to cut it off from: that he had never had to do such a thing before, and he wasn't going to begin at his time of life.
The King's argument was that anything that had a head could be beheaded, and you weren't to talk nonsense. "

Again, who do you agree with?


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