#Mathematician in Wonderland

[silostosstuff]

Wanna hear a fun fact I've learned today?

The author Lewis Carrol (you know, the dude that wrote Alice in Wonderland) was actually a mathematician

[mirrormazeworld]

Ace's Character Concept Deep Analysis Based on Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

⚠️WARNING ⚠️ CONTAINS ADVANCED MATH

When "Ace is Traitor" theory suddenly becomes popular because of his birthday card where there is something like the oysters from Alice in Wonderland (that we know is deceived by the Walrus) I suddenly remembered one riddle from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll that I believe is related to Ace (if Yana really did base him on Alice in Wonderland)

For those who have been following me and read my theories so far, you all know that when I do analysis "based on Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll" there will be high level math so buckle up if you are interested because it'll be a very long post or stay back if you can't stand it.

I'm not a mathematician and is stupid so I'm sorry if my understanding and calculation of math is wrong. If you are an expert at this field you are very welcome to correct and teach me.

Alright everyone, today let's learn Math to find the hidden character concept behind Ace Trappola

The Knave of Heart's Trial

To do a character analysis for Ace we should go back to Heartslabyul chapters because he played an important part in that book : As the "Knave of Hearts" who stole Queen of Heart's tart in "Alice in Wonderland" .

In the original Alice in Wonderland book by Lewis Carroll, Alice's dream of Wonderland ends when the trial of Knave of Hearts suddenly and dramatically collapses like a house of cards. Why? The answer to that is number "42"

And it's interesting how in Twisted Wonderland Yana chose to illustrate this in Heartslabyul book where the dream ends after the cards collapsed which is based on Lewis Carroll's version of Alice in Wonderland rather than the Disney one which Alice was woken up from her dream because of Queen of Hearts and her card soldiers are chasing her to the Wonderland Hall.

You can say that Lewis Carroll's wonderland is the wonderland that's created with base number 42. It begins on the title page with “Forty-two illustrations by John Tenniel.” After descending into Wonderland, Alice encounters an angry Pigeon who protects her nest “night and day” and hasn’t “had a wink of sleep these three weeks.” This gives her egg a hatching period of 21 days +21 nights = 42, or a unit value of(3 × 7 × 2) = 42. There's also the suppression of two guinea pigs in the trial scene. A guinea in English currency has a value of 21 shillings; consequently, the two guinea pigs (or piggy banks) would have a total value of 42 shillings. In the Queen’s rose garden, Alice encounters three gardeners who are animated numbered playing cards. If we add up the card numbers(2 + 5 + 7 = 14), then multiply that by the number of cards(14 × 3), once again we get 42.

And especially at the Knave of Heart's Trial, there are normally fifty-two cards in a deck. However, Carroll has been careful to leave the gardeners (the ten numbered spade cards) out of the procession, with the result that there are exactly 52 – 10 = 42 cards. The King of Hearts also said rule 42 as the oldest rule in the book, since it relates to the mathematical structure of wonderland which creates the Wonderland itself.(Riddle I'm looking forward for you to say rule 42 in the game)

Now let's move on to why number 42 is so important in Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

Wonderland Multiplication Table

“I’m sure I’m not Ada,” she said, “for her hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine doesn’t go in ringlets at all; and I’m sure I can’t be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a very little! Besides, she’s she, and I’m I, and—oh dear, how puzzling it all is! I’ll try if I know all the things I used to know. Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate! However, the Multiplication Table doesn’t signify: let’s try Geography.

-Alice in Wonderland Chapter 2 : Pool of Tears-

Alice's adventure begins and ends with number 42 as Carroll actually already gave a hint where in Wonderland's great hall at the very beginning of her adventure in wonderland, she recites the multiplication table, but as we see from what she said, it's a system that's suddenly foreign to her. And then she said "The Multiplication table doesn't signify." This is actually a math problem based on scales of notation.

For a normal people, when Alice said "4 x 5 = 12 , 4 x 6 = 13" it might seems like Alice forgets how to do the multiplication because what we know is "4 x 5 = 20, 4 x 6 = 24" but actually it's not that she forgets how to do it. It's because the multiplication table we used to learn in elementary school and is what we usually use in our everyday life is the multiplication table with the base of 10 while she did it with the base of 39

In daily life we usually work with a base of 10 (multiples of 10) such that 1111 becomes ‘one thousand one hundred and eleven’. But in other things like in Computer Science for example, there are other numbering systems that are used besides base of 10, some examples are Binary (Base 2) and Hexadecimal (Base 16)

In binary system , where base is 2 (multiples of 2), (1111)₂ = 15 (8×1+4×1+2×1+1×1). Now I'll explain why it can be this way.

In binary, there are only two possible digits because this binary system only has two characters: 0 and 1. Therefore each digit in a binary number represents a power of 2, starting from the right and increasing by one for each position to the left.

Let's break down the binary number (1111)₂ step by step:

The rightmost digit is 1, and it represents 2^0, which is 1.

The next digit to the left is also 1, and it represents 2^1, which is 2.

The next digit to the left is again 1, representing 2^2, which is 4.

Finally, the leftmost digit is 1, representing 2^3, which is 8.

Now, to find the decimal (base 10) equivalent of this binary number, you add up these values:

1 + 2 + 4 + 8 = 15

So, (1111)₂ in binary is equivalent to 15 in decimal. The expression "(8×1+4×1+2×1+1×1)" represents exactly this process of adding up the powers of 2 to calculate the decimal value of the binary number.

Now I'll give another example in the Hexadecimal numbering system where the base is 16(multiples of 16). I'll explain why (14)₁₆ =20 which makes 4×5=(14)₁₆ (20 represents the value in decimal calculated by adding the powers of the base of the Hexadecimal number system while (14)₁₆ represents the number in Hexadecimal number system itself)

In the hexadecimal (base 16) numbering system, there are 16 possible digits, which include the usual 0-9 digits and the additional A, B, C, D, E, and F, representing the values 10 to 15.

Now to convert the hexadecimal number (14)₁₆ to decimal (base 10) :

The rightmost digit '4' represents 4 in decimal, just like in our regular base 10 system.

The leftmost digit '1' represents 1 in decimal.

Now, to find the decimal equivalent of (14)₁₆, we simply multiply each digit by the corresponding power of 16 and add them together:

(4 * 16^0) + (1 * 16^1) = 4 + 16 = 20

So, (14)₁₆ is equivalent to 20 in decimal. The expression "(4 * 16^0) + (1 * 16^1)" represents this process of converting the hexadecimal number to decimal by calculating the values of each digit and summing them up.

Note : In any number system, including our familiar decimal system and other base systems like binary, hexadecimal, or any base you might encounter, any number raised to the power of 0 is always equal to 1. This is a fundamental mathematical rule that applies universally.

Therefore Mathematically, for any number 'a' in any number system with any base :

a^0 = 1

Now back to Alice in Wonderland, we have to find a base such that 4×5=12 as said by Alice in her multiplication table which is 18 (12)₁₈=20(18×1+1×2).

Alice’s multiplication table goes as :

4×5=(12)₁₈

4×6=(13)₂₁

4×7=(14)₂₄

4×8=(15)₂₇

As we can see the base is increasing by 3. So

4×12=(19)₃₉

And therefore, Alice is reciting the multiplication table with the base of 39.

Now Alice said that she will never reach 20. The value of (20)₄₂=42×2+0×1=84 but 4 times 13 is 52 which implies

4×13≠(20)₄₂

Therefore Alice will never get to twenty.

Once we progress to the 13 times level, to maintain the rule of this system, we must employ base 42. This proves to be fatal and the entire system thereafter collapses.

It's a pun!' the King added in an offended tone, and everybody laughed, 'Let the jury consider their verdict,' the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.

Because of number 42 (as a base number in the Wonderland multiplication system), Alice is right to declare that she will “never get to twenty at that rate.” And neither will the King of Hearts: “ ‘Let the jury consider their verdict,’ the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.” But like Alice, the King never gets to twenty either. For here we find the fatal number 42 looms up once more, and brings all in Wonderland to a cataclysmic end.

At this moment the King, who had been for some time busily writing in his note-book, cackled out “Silence!” and read out from his book, “Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court.”

Everybody looked at Alice.

“I’m not a mile high,” said Alice.

“You are,” said the King.

“Nearly two miles high,” added the Queen.

“Well, I shan’t go, at any rate,” said Alice: “besides, that’s not a regular rule: you invented it just now.”

“It’s the oldest rule in the book,” said the King.

“Then it ought to be Number One,” said Alice.

The King turned pale, and shut his note-book hastily. “Consider your verdict,” he said to the jury, in a low, trembling voice.

It is by the authority of Rule Forty-two that the King attempts to expel Alice from the court. Alice disputes this, however, objecting that if Rule Forty-two is the “oldest rule in the book” as the King claims, “then it ought to be Number One.” And with this peculiar logic, she suddenly finds herself capable of overruling the King and Queen of Hearts.

How is this possible? And why, besides the King and Queen, is Alice the only one not ordered executed? Once again, Carroll is playing a word game, this time the word-within-the-word game.

In one example, he suggests that although one may find ink in a drink, it is not possible to find a drink in ink. In another, he explains that one may find love in a glove, but none outside of it.

Consequently, Alice is ultimately able to overrule the King and Queen of Hearts when she discovers her true rank in this game: hidden within the word Alice there is an Ace

When the procession came opposite to Alice, they all stopped and looked at her, and the Queen said severely “Who is this?” She said it to the Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and smiled in reply.

“Idiot!” said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently; and, turning to Alice, she went on, “What’s your name, child?”

“My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,” said Alice very politely; but she added, to herself, “Why, they’re only a pack of cards, after all. I needn’t be afraid of them!”

“And who are these?” said the Queen, pointing to the three gardeners who were lying round the rose-tree; for, you see, as they were lying on their faces, and the pattern on their backs was the same as the rest of the pack, she could not tell whether they were gardeners, or soldiers, or courtiers, or three of her own children.

“How should I know?” said Alice, surprised at her own courage. “It’s no business of mine.”

The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a moment like a wild beast, screamed “Off with her head! Off—”

“Nonsense!” said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was silent.

The King laid his hand upon her arm, and timidly said “Consider, my dear: she is only a child!”

According to the rules of Carroll’s card game Court Circular, in which hearts are trumps, “the Ace may be reckoned either with King, Queen, or with Two, Three.” We are told the numbered heart cards in Wonderland are “the royal children,” which would seem to explain why the King of Hearts initially informs the Queen that Alice “is only a child”—in fact, the youngest child.

However, as an ace, she can choose to switch from the lowest-ranking heart to the highest. When she claims her power as the highest-ranked card in the deck—the Ace of Hearts—her role in Wonderland suddenly shifts from the virtually powerless to the most powerful.

Alice has finally discovered Wonderland’s “rule of processions.” In the ranking of Wonderland’s forty-two-card deck, Alice has become the highest-ranked heart. She has become the fatal number 42 that in the Wonderland multiplication table wrecks the mathematical structure upon which Wonderland is constructed. She overrules the rulers, and claims the power to end her dream. In waking, Alice brings the whole of Wonderland down like a house of cards.

So for those people who suspect "Ace Trappola" might have "Alice" in him, based on this analysis of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, you are correct! 🎉

Conclusions (and Speculations)

Up till now we still don't know Ace's unique magic. I don't know if "Ace is Traitor" theory will turn out to be true but if Yana really created Ace based on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, after I did a deep analysis on him I don't think he will betray Yuu. It's more like "he will be the one that makes Yuu realize Twisted Wonderland is just a dream just like how any other Wonderland that we know is". But since Wonderland is "deceptive" itself by its nature, just like any other Wonderland that we know, Yuu might think of Ace as a traitor but in fact he is just telling the truth.

Based on the analysis of Carroll's riddle and Heartslabyul book, my prediction is his unique magic at least capable of doing this :

1. From the weakest become the strongest.

2. Break and collapse a dream/dream world. This can be a dream world made by Malleus or Twisted Wonderland itself, in which he might play an important role in the Diasomnia chapter or NRC/Ramshackle chapter. In my past theory of a way for Yuu to go back home , I put Silver as one of the key characters for Yuu to go back home since he relates more to the quaternion and had ever met Mickey, but I also always think Ace might also play an important role for Yuu to go back home.

Well, what do you think? I look forward to the continuation and revelation of the main story.

Thank you for reading this far and Happy Birthday, Ace! 🎂🎉

[mocktortis]

So recently I've been seeing this bit of information around that "Lewis Carroll was a mathematician and he was inspired to write Alice in Wonderland because he was really frustrated by the contemporary math of his time." Specifically people kept bringing up imaginary numbers.

And that struck me as weird, because I have read a lot of writings on Alice, and I had never come across this before. I have the mega-version of the Annotated Alice, and multiple copies of Alice with introductions from pretty well-known Carrollian scholars. They all mentioned that Carroll's real identity was the mediocre mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, but never really tied that with Alice. Even The Annotated Alice, which was edited by the math guy Martin Gardner, only has math related footnotes when math (usually arithmetic) is specifically brought up by the text (such as when Alice is struggling to remember her times-tables). I should probably warn you now, there will be math in this post.

So... where does this claim come from?

I asked people for sources, and I got one response that was actually useful. They admitted they didn't have an academic source, but told me to try googling "Alice in wonderland math". It was the best lead I had (one person told me verbatim "Google is free". Classy), so I put it into Google and came up with a decent amount of results. The first article I found linked to another article from 2009 by a doctoral candidate at Oxford called Melanie Bayley. Unfortunately, the article is only available if you make an account with New Scientist, which I was not keen to do. I moved on, continued reading through poorly written articles and 10 year-old blogs, looking through their sources to see where they were getting their information... and every single article and blog post linked back to Bayley's article from 2009, or an op-ed she wrote for NY Times (also blocked behind a give-your-name-to-the-fae type deal). Fortunately, one of my family members actually has an NY Times account already, so I just asked if I could use their account to access this article.

Eureka. After reading through so many misinformed and poorly explained sources (one of which just copy-pasted Bayley's article into their blog), reading Bayley's actual article was like a miracle. It was so well-written, well-researched, and actually solidly convincing. I was nearly crying at just how beautiful the thing everyone else was ripping off really was. This encouraged me to make an account to read her New Scientist article.

Bayley references back to a paper published in 1984 by Helena Pycior, At the Intersection of Mathematics and Humor. Pycior is a Professor at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, an MA in math, and a historian. Her paper is rigorously researched and does a fabulous job of explaining mathematical advancements (especially symbolical algebra) in the late-18th to mid-19th centuries, Lewis Carroll's own education in mathematics, and his more serious writings on math as Charles Dodgson. Pycior also highlights a line in the chapter Alice's Evidence, when Alice remarks, "I don't believe there's an atom of meaning in it, which is eerily similar to a line in Augustus De Morgan's Trigonometry and Double Algebra ("With one exception, no word nor sign of arithmetic or algebra has one atom of meaning throughout this chapter,"), a math textbook Carroll definitely read. Pycior's paper is very technical, however, and might not be for everyone. But it is a great foundation for Bayley to base her claims.

While I would highly recommend reading Bayley's articles, I understand not everyone will be interested, so I will summarize:

Bayley's analysis mainly focuses on sections added by Lewis Carroll after 1864. Carroll's original manuscript, written for Alice Liddell and her sisters, is missing several scenes from the final published version, and there are some scenes in the manuscript that were extended in the final version. The scenes Bayley dissects are Advice from a Caterpillar, Alice's first meeting with the Duchess, Alice's conversation with the Cheshire Cat, and A Mad Tea Party.

Bayley first covers the chapter Advice From a Caterpillar. She connects it to De Morgan's Trigonometry and Double Algebra. Helena Pycior points out that Carroll was "clearly inspir[ed]" by De Morgan, and references De Morgan in a few of his academic works published under his real name. Bayley draws attention to De Morgan's use of the Arabic phrase: "al jebr e al mokabala" —the original Arabic name for algebra. Bayley explains that it means "restoration and reduction". I actually don't think I can put it much better than she did, so I will use an excerpt from her article:

"Restoration was what brought Alice to the mushroom: she was looking for something to eat or drink to “grow to my right size again”, and reduction was what actually happened when she ate some: she shrank so rapidly that her chin hit her foot."

A little later, Bayley adds:

"De Morgan... proposed... that symbolic algebra should be considered as a system of grammar. “Reduce” algebra from a universal arithmetic to a series of logical but purely symbolic operations, he said, and you will eventually be able to “restore” a more profound meaning to the system – though at this point he was unable to say exactly how."

Part of the Caterpillar's "advice" to Alice is "Keep your temper", after Alice complains that she keeps changing in size. Alice assumes he means not to get angry but, as Bayley explains "To intellectuals at the time, though, the word “temper” also retained its original sense of “the proportion in which qualities are mingled”" ie. tempered steel, tempered glass, tempered chocolate etc. Bayley proposes that the Caterpillar is using this meaning of the word temper— meaning his remark would be advising her to keep her proportions the same, even if she can't stay the same size. That remark becomes relevant after Alice tries changing her size with the two sides of the mushroom: when she tries just the small side, her torso shrinks and brings her face so close to her feet she can scarcely open her mouth; when she tries just the large size, her neck stretches to ridiculous lengths. Only when she tries a bit of both in a balance— tempering them— is she able to change size while keeping her proportions.

Alice next encounters the Duchess in her kitchen, and the Duchess' notably ugly baby. As the Duchess leaves for croquet she throws (literally throws) her baby at Alice, who catches the baby and takes it outside, reasoning to herself that the violent Duchess and her Cook would likely kill the baby if Alice were to leave it there. As Alice looks down at the baby, she realizes it is turning into a pig, and she releases the baby-turned-pig into the wood.

Bayley's interpretation of this scene is as a satire of projective geometry— and specifically the "principle of continuity", laid out by French mathematician Jean-Victor Poncelet. Poncelet's description of the principle (via Bayley) is “Let a figure be conceived to undergo a certain continuous variation, and let some general property concerning it be granted as true, so long as the variation is confined within certain limits; then the same property will belong to all the successive states of the figure.” In Bayley's NY Times article, she explains it more clearly as, "[the principle of continuity] involves the idea that one shape can bend and stretch into another provided it retains the same basic properties— a circle is the same as an ellipse or parabola."

Bayley suggests that Carroll's rebuttal to this is based off Poncelet's use of the word "figure". If the figure of a triangle can change its shape while remaining a triangle, then the figure of a person (or baby, in this case) can also change its shape. As Bayley puts it "What works for a triangle should also work for a baby."

Skipping ahead to the Mad Tea Party, Bayley proposes that the characters of the March Hare, the Mad Hatter, and the Dormouse, are paralleling the concept of quaternions, proposed by William Rowan Hamilton in 1843. Hamilton's Lectures on Quaternions was the first way of representing rotations in three dimensions with algebra, and it was well-known enough at the time that it is reasonable to assume Carroll had read it, or at least seen arguments relating to it.

Here is Bayley's explanation of Hamilton's quaternions:

"Just as complex numbers work with two terms, quaternions belong to a number system based on four terms. Hamilton spent years working with three terms – one for each dimension of space – but could only make them rotate in a plane. When he added the fourth, he got the three-dimensional rotation he was looking for, but he had trouble conceptualising what this extra term meant. Like most Victorians, he assumed this term had to mean something, so in the preface to his Lectures on Quaternions of 1853 he added a footnote: “It seemed (and still seems) to me natural to connect this extra-spatial unit with the conception of time.”"

Breaking that down a little more (serious math alert): a complex number is a number with two terms, a real portion (represented by a), and an imaginary portion (represented by bi), and is written as a+bi. One of Hamilton's quaternions would be represented like this: a+bi+cj+dk. (I don't really know how they work either.)

In A Mad Tea Party, the Mad Hatter says, "It's always six o'clock now", trapping the party at perpetual teatime. The Hatter's explanation for this is that he quarreled with the personification of Time, and in retaliation, Time is keeping the clocks at six for the foreseeable future. Without Time, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and The Dormouse keep rotating around the table, as if in a two-dimensional plane. It is possible that this is Carroll's way of poking fun at the absurd idea that time would factor into an expression meant to determine the movement of objects in space.

And it is this final section of Bayley's article which gets misinterpreted into the claim, "Lewis Carroll was inspired to write Alice in Wonderland because he was frustrated by imaginary numbers."

I want to end with this: we have no proof Carroll intended any sort of mathematical allegory in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. He seemingly did his best to keep his life as a mathematician and his life as a popular children's author separate from one another. Most of his surviving writing's on his inspirations for Alice make no mention of Math. That said, Melanie Bayley's article provides a truly fascinating interpretation of some of the most beloved episodes in Alice, and I wouldn't begrudge anyone who wants to believe it.

If you're interested in reading more, this is a free PDF of Melanie Bayley's NY Times op-ed. The first page is an email someone sent to friends that contained the article, but the full article is underneath.

Also, this article by Art Publika has a great overview of both of Melanie Bayley's articles, plus some extra background on Carroll, and so many pictures.

[thezombieprostitute]

Tutoring

A/N: Written for @the-slumberparty​ this is my fourth entry for the Bingo card combining “college AU” and “bodyguard AU” (though I’m kinda cheesing it on the “college AU” part). Reader has no physical descriptions.

Warnings: School stress, implied kidnapping. This story is about 1700 words!

“Hi there, you must be Peter. I’m Y/N and I’ll be your literature tutor.” You shake the hand of the young man in front of you. He seemed so small but that was likely a combination of his seemingly shy nature and his giant bodyguard next to him. You’d been warned before agreeing to tutor Peter that his father, Tony Stark, was quite protective of him and he’d have a security detail. Your only requirement was that the bodyguard did not interfere with the tutoring. 

“Hi Y/N,” Peter shook your hand back, “thanks, again, for agreeing to this. I really have no idea what I’m doing with literature. I’m more of a math and science brain. Oh, and this is my bodyguard for the day, Ari.”

“Nice to meet you, too, Ari,” you extend your hand. He quickly shakes your hand, completely covering yours with his, before getting back into lookout mode. “And I understand what you mean, Peter. Today is going to be a sort of Session Zero, where we talk out your assignments, possible ideas and goals, and make sure we can actually work well together. Sound good?”

He nods ascent and you guide him to the library’s study room you had reserved. You’re glad he agreed to meet at your university’s library, you had some friends here who would look out for you and knew your signals if you needed a call for help. Tutoring was great practice for your education degree and the money was good enough but you knew to make safety a priority. 

The two of you get settled in the study room while Ari sets himself up a chair that puts himself between Peter and the door. He’s so massive you’re glad you reserved one of the larger study rooms. You’re definitely not worried about him interrupting the tutoring; he’s very much all business.

Your session with Peter goes very well. You work out a way to get his math and science interests integrated into the literature project with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. 

“Why that one,” Peter asks.

“Fun fact, Lewis Carroll’s writings are still studied by Logicians. It’s not just word play or fantastical things in this book, there’s also plays on logic and mathematical references.”

Peter’s eyes go wide, “you’re kidding me!”

“Nope, and I think that you can do this project, literature analysis, whatever you want to call it, by looking at Alice’s Adventures through the lens of a mathematician or logician. Just please, please, please make sure to talk to your teacher about this. I’d hate for us to get almost done with everything only for them to say, ‘that’s not what I wanted.’ Okay?”

“Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, I’ll make sure to ask her at class on Monday.”

“And if she doesn’t give you a response right away, please do email her. Get some kind of paper trail going so she can’t say you never got hold of her. I’ve had bad experiences like this before.”

“Sure thing!” 

“I think this was a very successful Session Zero, Peter. What say we do this again next week?” Peter nods enthusiastically as you both pack up your things. “And thank you, Ari. I’ve had people promise to not interfere with sessions only to end up being nothing but an annoyance.” He nods and gives you a smile so charming you feel yourself almost melting.

Next week’s session you meet up with Peter at the study room but he’s not with Ari. 

“Hi Y/N! This is another of my bodyguards, James,” Peter is quick to explain. “Security detail gets switched up every now and then.”

You stand up and go to shake James’s hand, “well, as long as you also agree to not interrupt today’s session, we should get along just fine.” James nods his head and returns your handshake before moving between Peter and the door. He’s big and tall like Ari, but with short hair and light stubble where Ari had longer hair and full beard. James doesn’t take a seat and just stands there, seemingly not looking at anything. You look back and forth between him and Peter with a confused expression and Peter whispers, “he’s kinda hardcore on protection. Doesn’t believe in sitting while on duty.” You nod as though you understand but you can’t imagine opting to stand all day when chairs are available.

“Well, let’s get to it then,” you smile at Peter. “Did you get approval from your teacher on this?”

“She said she’d have to get back to me so I followed your advice and emailed her. Just to be safe.”

“Good call. So, where would you like to begin today’s session?”

After some time of discussing various passages that Peter had problems with he sighed and said, “I sometimes feel like I’m just not meant to understand literature. I tried reading things like The Hobbit, a kids book, and I couldn’t even get into it.”

“Neither could I the first several times I tried to read it,” you confessed. Out of the corner of your eye you could swear you saw James fidget. “And it took me a really long time to figure out why. It was Tolkien’s style of world-building.”

“Yeah,” Peter began, “like taking five pages to describe a door, right?”

“Actually, no.” Again, your attention is drawn to movement from where James is standing, but you continue with Peter. “You see, part of Tolkien’s world-building is including names, poems and songs ‘of old’ that are meant to tell the reader ‘this is an old world with lore and history.’ But for readers like me, and possibly you, it felt like I was starting a series with the fourth book and I had missed out on some required reading. I felt as though the names were people I was supposed to already know. It wasn’t until I read The Silmarillion that things really started to fall in place for me.”

“That makes a lot of sense,” Peter commented. “A lot of times literature feels like I’m missing pieces of the puzzle for the story to make sense, for me to see why it’s such a ‘classic’ or why it’s important.”

“Something to consider, if you’re up for it, is learning about the time period the book was written in. Not when it’s set in, because those aren’t always the same, but when it was written. It can really help explain a lot of those ‘this doesn’t make sense’ details.”

“It still feels like a lot of work to just understand a book,” Peter complains.

“But you’re not just understanding a book,” you reply. “You’re understanding a culture.”

Your discussion went on like that for the rest of the session, with no further movement from James’s section of the room.

The next session Peter showed up with yet another bodyguard. He looked apologetic when he told you, “this is Lloyd. He’s today’s security detail.”

“Nice to meet you, Cupcake,” Lloyd pulled you closer to him as he shook your hand. “I’ve heard nothing but good things from the other guys.” 

You try to back away from him. Between his handlebar mustache, aggressive body language and overpriced cologne, you knew he wasn’t going to make today’s session easy.

“Hello Lloyd,” you reply curtly. “Just to make sure, you are aware of the conditions for allowing you to sit with us for the tutoring session, yes?”

“I’m aware,” his smile grows, showing his teeth, “and I promise to try to abide. But it’s not my fault if I end up finding you distracting.” You give him an incredulous look and respond, “yes, yes it is. But if you become too much of a distraction you will have to stand outside the room or you’ll have to explain to Mr. Stark why today’s session got canceled.”

“Ooo, so bossy,” he leered. “I like ‘em bossy.” You roll your eyes and try to get the session started. 

It isn’t long until the small study room is full of Lloyd’s cologne and giving you a headache. Your mood is worsened by Lloyd’s constant fidgeting and frequent derisive noises and comments. You’re very tempted to cancel the session but Peter’s such a  good student and you want to do right by him. 

“So have you heard back from your teacher about this?”

“Yeah, finally got an email response saying she’s going to have to see a rough draft before she’ll approve.”

“A full rough draft? Not an outline or summary,” you ask. “That’s a lot of work and a ton of time you’ll never get back if she says no to this.”

“You could just bitch slap her into accepting,” Lloyd interjects. “Bitch slapping bitches always works.” Peter winces at his words and that’s the last straw for you. 

“So you’re saying it would work on you?” You do not hold back on your glare and the comment seems to catch him off guard.

“I’m no bitch.”

“Then why are you acting like a needy bitch boy who’s not getting enough attention? You were allowed here with the understanding that you do not interfere. And yet you’ve done nothing but annoy, distract and deride. So either you sit still, shut up and do your job or I slap you and see if your bitch slap theory holds.”

Both men look taken aback at your anger but you don’t stop staring down Lloyd until looks away with a “yes, ma’am.” You turn back to Peter, smile, and continue to talk out how to handle his teacher while working on the project. 

As the weeks go by you’re grateful to never see Lloyd again. Peter alternates between Ari and James for the rest of your sessions and, when it’s finally time, you’re almost sad to say goodbye to the kid. Ari even gives you a giant smile and says he owes you one. Apparently your session with Lloyd was the last straw and they were finally able to get him fired. You were happy to help and only one bad session out of a semester’s worth of tutoring was your best record thus far. Now you could focus on your own finals, you were just a couple weeks away from getting your degree and wanted to finish strong. 

You were so caught up in finals stress that you didn’t notice someone following you until you were grabbed with a rag pressed into your face. The smell is strong and you find yourself passing out quickly. The last thing your brain registers is the too strong stench of overpriced cologne and someone whispering the word, “bitch” into your ear.

[mlleclaudine]

The Original Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland Manuscript, Handwritten & Illustrated By Lewis Carroll (1864)

by Ilia Blinderman - Open Culture, July 2, 2024

On a summer day in 1862, a tall, stammering Oxford University mathematician named Charles Lutwidge Dodgson took a boat trip up the River Thames, accompanied by a colleague and the three young daughters of university chancellor Henry Liddell. To stave off tedium during the five-mile journey, Dodgson regaled the group with a story of a bored girl named Alice who finds adventure in the most unexpected places. By the day’s end, Liddell’s middle daughter, also named Alice, was so enthralled by this account that she implored the mathematician to write the story down. Some three years later, Dodgson would publish Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland under the nom de plume of Lewis Carroll (the pen name is an Anglicized version of “Carolus Ludovicus,” the Latinized form of Charles Ludwidge). The perennial children’s read was immediately popular, counting Oscar Wilde and Queen Victoria among its ardent fans, and has never been out of print since its initial publication in 1865.

Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, the original version of the book that Carroll presented to Alice Liddell in 1864, is presently housed in the British Library, which has graciously made it freely available online. You can view it here. The handwritten volume includes 37 crisp ink illustrations, all personally drawn by Dodgson. Discerning Alice readers will notice that these illustrations differ from the iconic images (and, to my eyes, very much superior) created by famed Punch magazine political cartoonist John Tenniel.

Title and illustrations aside, the original manuscript is considerably slimmer than the final version, containing roughly 12,000 fewer words.

Those wishing to revisit Alice’s adventures can do so at the British Library’s site.

[gildedbearediting]

Alice in Wonderland Day

It’s July 4, which for some may be a day of independence. Yet for bookish people, July 4 is Alice in Wonderland Day. It’s said that Alice’s Day is celebrated on this day because it’s when the story was first told by Lewis Carroll. The Man Behind the Curtain Carroll was a mathematician and photographer in addition to being a novelist. However, Lewis Carroll was a pseudonym for the man behind the…

[non-reader]

The Original Alice

This month i picked up this small book called The Original Alice by Sally Brown. It is a short biography about Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) and how he came to create The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland. I picked up this book because I do want to read his book and wanted to know more about him. I've only read a little of The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland, but I've heard a great deal about Lewis Carroll.

There tends to be a lot of miss information about him, his works, and his reason for creating the works, so here's the basic gist of it. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) was a mathematician working at Christ Church. Oxford when he met the Liddells. He became friends with the three daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Liddell: Lorina, Alice, and Edith. The biggest issue that most people have with this friendship is that Dodgson was 24 when he met the girls and the sisters were still children.

He would often take the girls on outings and tell them stories. Eventually, Dodgson got into photography and began to take pictures of the girls. Though it is not in this book, there are sources that say he took pictures of the girls naked sometimes. It is unclear if this was meant to be predatory or simply an act of this time, however it does give off major red flags.

Alice was his favorite and main source of inspiration when it came to his stories. She would ask him to write down the stories he would tell her so she can have her own to read. It was then he wrote the collection of stories called Alice's Adventures Under Ground.

A bit later, when he began to take his writings more seriously and began writing The Adventure's of Alice in Wonderland, Mrs. Liddell began to separate the girls from Dodgson and proceeded to cut contact with him. She grew suspicious of how close Dodgson was with the girls and believed he had inappropriate interests in Lorina, the eldest of the sisters. Because of this, many have come to the conclusion that Dodgson was a predator and a pedophile.

Soon he eventually had his first work published and it was a success. It wasn't until after he published his second book, Through the Looking Glass, that Dodgson was able to the Liddell sisters again. Though Dodgson was happy to see them again, he was disappointed to see that Alice wasn't the happy little girl she used to be. He couldn't make her smile like he used to when she was younger, which bothered him.

I find the story of Dodgson to be interesting because his life does greatly revolve around his experiences with children as an adult. Finishing this book, which had a neutral perspective of him, along with the info from people I hear who are for ang against him, I've come to the conclusion that he's like a creepy uncle that adults are nervous about but children love. The reason why we don't have more information on him to fully come to the conclusion as to whether or not he was a predator was because a lot of his diaries, pictures, and works were either burned by his family after his death or as lost.

It was a light read that gave me good information and a better idea about his life. It has his diary entries and rough drafts of his works scattered about. It was interesting to see the original sketches and compare them to the final more well known illustrations we know. I am not sure how widely available this book is, but I would suggest it to anyone who likes to read up about famous authors.

[just-an-enby-lemon]

you know what? all this character analysis made me wonder why Riddler is so often coded as "the math guy" when it really is Mad Hatter that should be the "math guy" among the rogues. His whole thing is being an Alice in Wonderland fan and that book is all about logical fallacies and mathematics -

That's an excelent question. I think it happens because Riddler is often cast as the "smart guy" on general and society still is extremaly biased in considering intelligence as something intrisic to math as if the only way one could be a genius is if they are mathematicians.

On relation to Jervis it works on two aespects: people often don't analyse Alice in Woonderland all that much and even less correctly (i.e: all adaptations having the caterpiller actually be a sage creature and not a merely pretencious bastard and the removal of the nursery rhymes even though they are important to the discussion on the failure and frivolity of the educacional system and how it tends to desconsider creativity, critical thinking and the search for new solutions) therefor many writers simply make Jervis say book quotes and be "mad" and ignore the book connection with math (that would btw work wonders with Jervis since he is an engenier wich is very related to math and while his study on brain cells and more importantly neuro transmissions isn't math it is closer to it than riddles). The second reason I suppose would be related to Jervis status as somewhat delusional. The idea of someone who has problems with their perception of reality being a mathetician break the colective imaginary of math genius/enjoyers being completly logical people with little care to abstract things and a keen perception of what it's real and what's not (one of the few fictional math genius who also accepts magic and the spiritual and different perceptions of reality that I can recall it's Doom and that is mostly because he is a foil to Reed who is the classical logical math related genius).

[grouper]

I know this might come off as a " oh youre a fan? name 5 of their albums" type question but its not I'm legit just curious: have you read the original alice in wonderland novel and if you have what was your opinion of it? :0

I originally read the novel as a young child and it scared the shit out of me LOL but now i'm about a quarter way through reading it as an adult and . Wow it is so densely layered with comedy, introspection, and fantastic concepts. Lewis Carroll (i'll talk about him more eventually) was a mathematician and academic among other things and it really shows in his writing.

Of course the story was originally created to entertain children, but you can tell that Carroll also wrote it for himself as an academic. It reminds me of Sophie's World by Jostein Gaard as an episodic look into different philophical concepts. Alice is the proxy, and each character she meets (in her own mind!) is a vehicle for a dialogue on concepts ranging from identity to child abuse- quite early for such topics to be explored in a story form, as stories for children in victorian england predominantly focused on Godliness or other obedience. Think of it as a collection of philosophical concepts as you may explain them in an entertaining way to a layman in the 17th century. This would have been quite a challenge for Carroll to undertake.

As with any other spearheading work of fiction, it is marked by its time. But studying Alice as a work of literature, a philosophical dialogue, and a piece of history make for very interesting reading.

Thanks for the lovely ask anon:)

[takinbreak]

I love the fact that it’s commonly believed the writer (and mathematician!) Lewis Carroll could have done a math diss on quaternions, their unintuitive multiplication and their non-commutative nature in the Mad Hatter scene in “Alice in Wonderland”.

“Why, you might just as well say that I see what I eat is the same thing as I eat what I see !”

All credits to 3Blue1Brown on Youtube (Video: “Visualising quaternions (4d numbers) with stereographic projection”)

[shiroi---kumo]

A Guard's Thoughts || Accepting

@expressionbean asked: revon (present) + 💭 + your co-binds

·:¨༺ ✩★✩ ༻¨:·. This is not an easy ask. The traveler has picked a most difficult subject and he doesn't know how to convey it all well without needing to explain much.

Valo is his own beast right now because of the damage he took when they all fell. Wonderland is a harsh cruel climate and it is nothing like their Misterica so it has been rough. When he landed in Wonderland he found the pair of them - Aamunkoitto and Valo crash landed in a forest with no food and many injuries. Aamunkoitto had attempted to make a camp for them but he only had limited training considering the military background of his parents.

They were both a mess. Aamunkoitto's glasses were shattered and Valo was... barely alive. The man of roses was in a mad panic that the historian was without his medication but he's been like that ever since. He doesn't know how he's survived all these years but somehow he managed to live through the puncture wound in his leg and the deep scratches that tore themselves into his belly. Whatever Valo landed on he - didn't land gracefully and from the looks of Aamunkoitto he tried to cushion the descent with the best of his ability.

They're lucky the pair of them were still alive.

It was all he could do to get them to town. He can still remember begging and pleading with the Innkeeper for some kind of help in and language he had no grasp of. He didn't understand anything the man said and the man didn't understand him but he must have at least understood the look of desperation in his eyes and the pleading vibrations of his voice. If it meant that Tähtien Valo lived, he'd beg a thousand times over and then do it again. If that's what it took to keep his family alive.

Somehow he was successful and when Valo was feeling more himself, he went to work using that linguist brain of his to cracking the code of this Wonderlandian language and making sure they all could understand and communicate better than the mess that had occurred only months prior.

Valo had been bedridden for months and somehow that man let them stay if only for trade of manual labor and help around his small shack of an establishment. He isn't now but that doesn't change what he was. Every day he thanks the Celestial Mother above for sparing the man's life and allowing him to continue to breathe. It hasn't been easy but he's here.

Now he's quiet and he's tired. He's always been like that so it's not something that's changed. Now he can't stand for long periods and he favors his right leg. When they couldn't fly it had become even more difficult for the man. He needs to talk to that Cid fellow about a cane. Valo could never fly for long distances but now he can't even walk for them.

Somehow it feels like it's his fault even if he knows it isn't, but if anyone blames themselves more than the knight does, it's certainly Aamunkoitto.

Aamunkoitto is also his own mess. He's nearly lost his sight all together but refuses to tell anyone. His glasses only did so much, especially when they were cracked. He kept insisting on wearing them even know they were all aware they were hardly doing anything. The mathematician almost cut his hair many times in the past years but he watched the man crumble to pieces when their resident starlight weakly asked him not to. He's watched the man of roses break more times than he cares to count...

.. but that's what happens when you go without food and water for days on end. There wasn't always an inn to sleep in or a town to find supplies. There wasn't always a river to fish from with food that was safe to eat. They couldn't always sniff out the poison or find the things that would have they laying on the forest floor from eating something that would only twist their stomachs in pain... and

... and there was plenty in this world that saw them as the meal even if he didn't know how that would work since their bodies fade out when they die. Mist eaters he called them and he's watched creatures inhale it like it was a precious resource they couldn't get enough of. Truly this world was filled with demons like he could have never imagined and Aamunkoitto could hardly see any of them because of the state of his eyes.

Even with the repair to his glasses now that they have found refuge within Pilvi's sanctuary, he's seen the look on the man of rose's face when he attempts to read basically anything. He's as blind as his mist is but for some reason refuses to tell anyone about his struggles. If he's told anyone - most likely he's only told Tähtien, and that isn't serving them in any way constructive when Tähtien is in bed at near all times if only because it is difficult for the man to drop weight on his leg.

And then there's Sielu. Sielu is - complicated and he doesn't know how to describe the man with any other word than ravaged and not in the sense that Sielu is a ravage beast or anything of the like. No, no. In the sense that Sielu was ravaged. He is the causality left after a war and somehow he managed to drag his body out of the soil field even if all that remains of him was ravaged by the monsters that lurked there.

Sielu is a mess. He is the man he always was but just ravaged. He doesn't want to say he's damaged because it makes it sound like he was broken or put in a form of disrepair. It makes it sound so ... wrong in his mind. Saying anything akin to Sielu is damaged makes it sound like he is unlovable for some reason and that is far from the case.

Even so, in his ravaged state he has become the beasts that tortured him. A man that was never mean for war but yet his body became a battlefield all the same. His mind turned time bomb and no one knows when the next strike will go off because of all his fellow binds, Sielu is the only book with no lines in the story to read. No words to weave his tale and a deep part of his soul wishes to know what happened to his precious friend but at the same time the twisting in his stomach tells him it's better not to push for such information.

Sielu is as delicate as he is jagged and by that he has become to the same glass that could shatter in an instant but yet just as quick to use those shattered edges to cut any who would dare get to close. Sydän is gone now and with her went what was left of Sielu's will to live. Two souls born of the same Mist and yet with one disappears the other's will goes right along with it. He cannot speak to him about it or about her.

She is a sacred treasure and none dare speak her name. Not even the prince and he can see the look in jade eyes that longs to ask. She was as family to them just as she was to him but just not quite so intwined. Sielu is the same man he always was. Just ravaged. Just jagged.

Still he'll love him nonetheless. Just silently, lest the words set him off again and the musician turned soldier hellbent to rip the words from the lips of any who dare speak them. Even the prince. Even Pilvi. None of us can proudly hold our love for him in any place he can see it. It turns him ... wild.

So the knight is sighing as he shifts and his shoulders drop as he does. A deep sadness lingers in ruby pink while his gaze fixes on the stranger before him with light green brows upturning at his thoughts.

"I am thankful for them every day. They are a gift from the Celestial Mother and I see each and every one of them as lives most sacred. I love them with all my heart."

[mirrormazeworld]

Normal people: Math can only be used in science, computers and physics.

Lewis Carrol: Bet. *proceeds to write Alice in wonderland and the sequel*

What was this man ON?? How many articles did you had to go about math for those Twst theories? Is NUTS how a man uses math for writing. But hey, he knew his way, that’s for sure.

Hello anon! Sorry I just replied to you my social battery has been drained so much lately and I have been busy with work as well

Beats me I've read many books especially the older literatures that only God knows how much I've read since I didn't count it, but mostly I read history, philosophy, mythology, theosophy and mathematical books, in addition to Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll's real name) diary and letters which was published by his nephew, Stuart Dodgson Collingwood in 1898

But based on his diary, Lewis Carroll himself wrote the story for about 2-3 years until it's finally completed so you can see why it's really complex especially when the man who wrote it was a logician and mathematician

[citizenscreen]

#OnThisDay in 1862, "Alice in Wonderland" manuscript is sent as a Christmas present.

Oxford mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson sends a handwritten manuscript called Alice’s Adventures Under Ground to 10-year-old Alice Liddell.

[rametarin]

What's the story with Alice in Wonderland being a mathematician making fun of his rivals?

[taylorthrift]

Alison Wonderland

As a writer, I really appreciate the artistry that Taylor does not just in technical skill, but her ability to convey a story. The arc of folklore through midnights has been incredible.

Something her art has told me about is how much she is like or at least inspired by lewis carrol. Like Taylor, Lewis carrol hid all sorts of secret things in his work. He was a mathematician first and foremost, but put a lot of little hidden math inside alice in wonderland.

The annotated alice is an exceptional book that talks about this.

Much of Taylors media image mirrors the protagonist of Carrols story. (Isn't that a funny distinction? We talk about Taylor so profoundly casually when we should probably be giving her an incredible amount more formal respect for how good of an artist she is period.)

When I was writing I would hide hidden details and clues throughout my work and after publishing it was heart-rending when people didn't look too deeply to see them. So I did an annotated edition, and still nobody cared.

I wasn't aware back then about the secret messages that Taylor was putting in her work as well, and I wish I had back then. Because I am heavily influenced by lewis carrol and look for Wonderland in everything I do. And I know how it sucks when you put work into make your art not just pretty, but thoughtful and meaningful and then people just go "This is Nice."

All of us Swifties are proof of it being much more to us than "nice pop music". There is a story that we are so deeply invested in that we are all hurting hurting right now

We don't listen to a song of hers and say neat song and move on with our day, we are riveted and swooned and feeling what the Artist is putting into the Art.

I have no doubt that whatever the medium, whether it's music or movies or reality (the internet) she's going to be successful and will be regarded as one of the greatest American Artists-not simply a popstar or even something as liberated as a singer/songwriter-

Taylor is our Shakespeare. Or if that's too bold, our Lewis Carrol.