Thursday, June 26, 2008

Inspiratus

Our reflective magician friend Fredrick reminded us of the magic word inspiratus, Latin for the divine "breath" that inspires creativity. We unearthed a delightful fakir's incantation that incorporates the word as it celebrates a Schrödinger's Cat paradox:
Hocus, pocus, inspiratus,
there is a cat in the hat;
hocus, pocus, inspiratus,
there is no cat in the hat.
(Incantation quoted in Lawrence Bruehl's The Mathematics of Unlimited Prosperity, 1939, p. 313.)

No comments: