Vincent van Gogh aka Vincent Willem van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890, b. Zundert, Netherlands) - Maison à l'arbre Rouge (The Red Tree House), 1890 Paintings: Oil on Canvas
#can you imagine the poor lady who had an existential crisis over this tho#‘Dana. dana i don’t know the name#when I asked the name they just said to surprise them#dana what does that mean what do i do#who says that’
can someone please explain how it’s possible that every single month this year ended as quickly as it started and yet this whole year has felt like an eternity
So there’s a pretty long tradition in math of people coming up with problems they can’t solve, and talking to their friends, and realizing that nobody they know can solve them either, and then announcing to the world that you would get some sort of prize if someone could solve them.
Usually the prize is a small amount of money.
Sometimes, if someone is really cocky, or the problem is known to be really hard, it’s a lot of money.
And sometimes there’s Stanisław Mazur, who offered a live goose as a prize for finding a particularly pathological object (a Banach space for which some compact operator is not the limit of finite-rank operators).
And then, Per Enflo did manage to find such an object. Today, there is photographic evidence that he did, in fact, receive his prize. Go look at that picture, and tell me that Enflo is not 100% pumped about his goose. The older Mazur, on the other hand, looks mostly like “WTF, this fool actually called my bluff”.
The photograph is a delight. @elodieunderglass I cannot but suspect that this intersection of mathematics and geese may speak to you.
“The construction of a Banach space without the approximation property earned Per Enflo a live goose in 1972, which had been promised by Stanisław Mazur (left) in 1936.”
WHEN will my field finally award me my rightful GOOSE
Role swap au where Zuko was the Avatar who got frozen for a hundred years, so when he’s rescued from the ice instead of a goofy twelve year old Katara catches this mysterious teenager with long hair and a cool scar and a fucking DRAGON
Katara: BOY???? HOT BOY?????? HOT TEENAGE BOY?????????
Zuko: *speaks*
Katara: nevermind I hate him
How does Aang factor into this? I ask because the more I think about it the more I want him to somehow be trying to capture the Avatar.
Aang is 112 years old, decided he was going to be Zuko’s airbending teacher, and refuses to take no for an answer
Aang: Aw, the new Avatar doesn’t want me. Aang: *gets out a weighted net* Time for Plan B then.
JDJSHJABDBFJSH
Look, you know how you keep a net from falling on you? YOU AIRBEND IT, SUCKA. Air comes right after fire in the cycle so it’s not like the guy has any other options. Do you want a flaming net falling on you? No? Then learn to airbend. Or this tiny old man will cart you away like a trussed turkey and lecture you about the power of laughter, going with the flow, opening your chakras, and other hippie shit.
Sokka, slouching against a fence, not moving: Oh nooooooo, that creepy old man stole the Avataaaaaaaaaar. Sokka, sitting down on the ground: We should dooooo something. Sokka, pulling out his lunch: Otherwise he might actually learn something. That would be teeeerrible. Katara, indignant rage coursing through her body: Sokka!!!!!!!! We have to go look for him!!!! Sokka: Might! Actually! Learn! Something! Katara! Katara: *wavers* Katara, also sitting down: We have to go look for him…. *gets out her own sandwich* But, maybe after lunch.
I love that this transforms Aang’s role in the full Team Avatar familial situation from the baby of the family to the Grandpa with weird hobbies
My brain, immediately after the “Aang won’t take no for an answer” post:
Aang: I’m gonna ride him! *jumps on Zuko’s shoulders*
Actually, I thought a bit more about this: If Aang is “grandpa figure who won’t fucking stop teaching Zuko to be a better and more spiritually fulfilled person,” then what is Iroh doing?
And then it hit me.
Iroh: *sitting in a teahouse at a paisho table* Iroh, deadpan: I must capture the last airbender. Iroh: It is the only way to make sure the powe rof the Avatar won’t be turned on the Fire Nation. Iroh: Only then will I be redeemed in the eyes of the Fire Lord for my failure at Ba Sing Se. Iroh: … Iroh: Anyway, it’s your turn.
About half of the B plots are just Iroh finding new ways to feign incompetence and bad luck so that his political watchdog can’t prove that he’s letting Aang - and by extension Zuko - get away.
Sometimes Iroh plays paisho with Aang, whose entire disguise during these games consists of a painfully fake mustache.
AANG WAS THE OTHER PLAYER IN THAT SCENE OF COURSE IT’S PERFECT (the moustache is just a bit of Appa’s fur tied in a string)
And you know he would do an exaggerated old man voice, despite being 112 years old and every time, Zuko would get yell “You don’t need to pretend to be old! You are old!” and Aang would wag a finger and call him a cheeky whippersnapper :D
Wisdom, a Laysan albatross and the world’s oldest known bird, has returned to Midway Atoll in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. She is at least 68 years old – and biologists have confirmed that she has laid an egg!
Albatross often take time off to rest between egg-laying years, but the Wisdom and her mate Akeakamai have met on Midway Atoll to lay and hatch an egg every year since 2006. Wisdom has laid between 30 and 35 eggs in her lifetime. In 2017, the chick that she fledged in 2001 was observed just a few feet away from her current nest, marking the first time a returning chick of hers has been documented.
