-------- Original Message --------
Dieter: have I missed a posting? The cunning part of my sad
"coincidence" was that it did not rely on knowing N, the number of
words in 'Ada!' except that I knew for certain that N did not exceed
1.5 million! What I said was that "the number of words in 'Ada' equals
exactly the number of deaths during the siege of Leningrad between two
'fatidic' dates to be supplied later." Knowing that the estimated
_total_ number of deaths was 1.5 million, we can establish the
_existence_ of two dates during the siege between which N inhabitants
died. The dates, by definition, become 'fatidic' even if I do not
have, as yet, sufficient data to establish those dates. We
mathematicians are painfully trained for max precision. Hence the
phrase "to be supplied later." I even allow for the possibility that,
under the extreme conditions prevailing, the daily fatality statistics
may be imprecise or even non-existent. We rely on a form of the Mean
Value Theorem. Picture a histogram of accumulated daily deaths from 0
to 1.5 million (monotonic non-decreasing), with a base-line, x-axis,
of the 827 days of the siege. We take two parallel lines N units
apart, parallel to the x-axis. Move these two lines in the y-axis
direction, and check for intersections with the histogram. Since N <
1.5 million, we know there must be at least one pair of intersections,
D1 snd D2. Between D1 and D2, the deaths have increased by N. QED. NB
Unlike Pale Fire, this is a problem for which we can _prove_ a
solution exists even we can't _name_ the solution.
May I end, Dieter, by pointing out that the definition of a word in
'Ada" (or any complex text) is NON TRIVIAL. Simple word-counts take
'space' as the word-delimiter, which would count some hyphenated
strings (be-that-as-it-may) as one word.
PS: googling Salzman, as you know, gives 950,000 matches! Genug ist
nicht genug?
CTaH
Quoting "Dieter E. Zimmer" <mail@D-E-ZIMMER.DE>:
> No sir, 'Ada' does not contain 203000 words but only 174000, not
> according to my calculations but to my PC (I had to offer myself a
> digital copy to work on the German commentary).
>
> This gives me occasion to ask the List a minuscule question: Would
> anybody have an idea what author and book the title 'Salzman'
refers
> to, occurring five times (pp. 459, 476, 477, 486)?
>
> Dieter E. Zimmer, Berlin
>