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Sixty Million Trillion Combinations
"Sixty Million Trillion Combinations" is a short mystery story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the May 5, 1980, issue of ''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine'' under the title "64 Million Trillion Combinations," and reprinted in ''Banquets of the Black Widowers'' (1984) and ''The Return of the Black Widowers'' (2003). Asimov originally entitled it "Fourteen Letters", but a variant of the magazine's title was used in subsequent publications of the story."Afterword" to "Sixty Million Trillion Combinations" The story is one of a collection of short mysteries whose characters are based loosely upon the Trap Door Spiders, a stag-club of which Asimov was a member. Plot summary Each month, the seven men who comprise the Black Widowers (six who dine, and the waiter who attends them) meet at a fine restaurant and converse over dinner with each other, their guest, and their waiter, Henry. The host of the group — that is, the member who pays for everyone else's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov ( ; – April 6, 1992) was an Russian-born American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. A prolific writer, he wrote or edited more than 500 books. He also wrote an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. Best known for his hard science fiction, Asimov also wrote mystery fiction, mysteries and fantasy, as well as popular science and other non-fiction. Asimov's most famous work is the ''Foundation (book series), Foundation'' series, the first three books of which won the one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966. His other major series are the ''Galactic Empire series, Galactic Empire'' series and the ''Robot series, Robot'' series. The ''Galactic Empire'' novels are set in the much earlier history of the same fictional universe as the ''Foundation'' series. Later, with ''Foundation an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine'' is a bi-monthly American digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction, and mystery fiction. Launched in fall 1941 by Mercury Press, ''EQMM'' is named after the fictitious author Ellery Queen, who wrote novels and short stories about a fictional detective named Ellery Queen. From 1993, EQMM changed its cover title to be ''Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine'' (without the "'s"), but the table of contents still retains the full name. Background Ellery Queen was the pseudonym of the team of Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, who had been writing under the name since 1929. ''EQMM'' was created to provide a market for mystery fiction above the common run of pulp crime magazines of the day. Dannay served as the magazine's editor-in-chief (although still under the name Ellery Queen) from its creation until his death in 1982, when managing editor Eleanor Sullivan succeeded to the post. Following her death in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Banquets Of The Black Widowers
''Banquets of the Black Widowers'' is a collection of mystery short stories by American writer Isaac Asimov featuring his fictional club of mystery solvers, the Black Widowers. It was first published in hardcover by Doubleday in September 1984, and in paperback by the Fawcett Crest imprint of Ballantine Books in June 1986. The first British edition was issued by Grafton in August 1986. This book is the fourth of six that describe mysteries solved by the Black Widowers, based on a literary dining club he belonged to known as the Trap Door Spiders.Asimov 1994, ''I. Asimov'', chapter "120. The Trap Door Spiders". It collects twelve stories by Asimov, together with a general introduction and an afterword by the author following each story. Nine of the stories were previously published; "The Driver," "The Wrong House" and "The Intrusion" are new to this collection. Each story involves the club members' knowledge of trivia. Nearly every story here is about decoding a riddle, each of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Return Of The Black Widowers
''The Return of the Black Widowers'' is a collection of short mystery stories by American writer Isaac Asimov, featuring his fictional club of mystery solvers, the Black Widowers. It was first published in hardcover by Carroll & Graf in December 2003, and in trade paperback by the same publisher in November 2005. This book is the last of six books that collect the stories of the Black Widowers, a club based on a literary dining club Asimov belonged to known as the Trap Door Spiders.Asimov 1994, ''I. Asimov'', chapter "120. The Trap Door Spiders". It was assembled and edited after Asimov's death by Charles Ardai, and collects the last six stories Asimov wrote for the series. These six stories are preceded by an introduction by Harlan Ellison, ten stories selected by the editor as the best from the previous Black Widowers collections, and a homage by William Brittain. They are then followed by an eleventh reprinted tale featuring a fictionalized version of Ellison, a new Black W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trap Door Spiders
The Trap Door Spiders are a literary, male-only eating, drinking, and arguing society in New York City, with a membership historically composed of notable science fiction personalities. The name is a reference to the reclusive habits of the trapdoor spider, which when it enters its burrow pulls the hatch shut behind it. History and practices The Trap Door Spiders were established by author Fletcher Pratt in 1944 to exclude operatic soprano Mildred Baldwin, in response to the June 7, 1943 marriage between Baldwin and Pratt's friend Dr. John D. Clark. Baldwin was unpopular with her husband's friends, despite their participation in the ceremony (Pratt's own wife Inga Stephens Pratt was matron of honor, and L. Sprague de Camp served as Clark's best man). Pratt reasoned that the club would give them an excuse to spend time with Clark without Baldwin. The presidency of the club rotated among the members, the president for a given evening being the member who had volunteered to host th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brandy
Brandy is a liquor produced by distilling wine. Brandy generally contains 35–60% alcohol by volume (70–120 US proof) and is typically consumed as an after-dinner digestif. Some brandies are aged in wooden casks. Others are coloured with caramel colouring to imitate the effect of ageing, and some are produced using a combination of ageing and colouring. Varieties of wine brandy can be found across the winemaking world. Among the most renowned are Cognac and Armagnac from south-western France. In a broader sense, the term ''brandy'' also denotes liquors obtained from the distillation of pomace (yielding pomace brandy), or mash or wine of any other fruit ( fruit brandy). These products are also called '' eau de vie'' (literally "water of life" in French). History The origins of brandy are tied to the development of distillation. While the process was known in classical times, it was not significantly used for beverage production until the 15th century. In the e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cryptanalysis
Cryptanalysis (from the Greek ''kryptós'', "hidden", and ''analýein'', "to analyze") refers to the process of analyzing information systems in order to understand hidden aspects of the systems. Cryptanalysis is used to breach cryptographic security systems and gain access to the contents of encrypted messages, even if the cryptographic key is unknown. In addition to mathematical analysis of cryptographic algorithms, cryptanalysis includes the study of side-channel attacks that do not target weaknesses in the cryptographic algorithms themselves, but instead exploit weaknesses in their implementation. Even though the goal has been the same, the methods and techniques of cryptanalysis have changed drastically through the history of cryptography, adapting to increasing cryptographic complexity, ranging from the pen-and-paper methods of the past, through machines like the British Bombes and Colossus computers at Bletchley Park in World War II, to the mathematically advanced ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alliteration
Alliteration is the repetition of syllable-initial consonant sounds between nearby words, or of syllable-initial vowels if the syllables in question do not start with a consonant. It is often used as a literary device. A common example is " Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers". Historical use The word ''alliteration'' comes from the Latin word ''littera'', meaning "letter of the alphabet". It was first coined in a Latin dialogue by the Italian humanist Giovanni Pontano in the 15th century. Alliteration is used in the alliterative verse of Old English poems like Beowulf, Middle English poems like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Old Norse works like the Poetic Edda, and in Old High German, Old Saxon, and Old Irish. It was also used as an ornament to suggest connections between ideas in classical Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit poetry. Today, alliteration is used poetically in various languages around the world, including Arabic, Irish, German, Mongolian, Hungari ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Goldbach's Conjecture
Goldbach's conjecture is one of the oldest and best-known list of unsolved problems in mathematics, unsolved problems in number theory and all of mathematics. It states that every even and odd numbers, even natural number greater than 2 is the sum of two prime numbers. The conjecture has been shown to hold for all integers less than but remains unproven despite considerable effort. History Origins On 7 June 1742, the Prussian mathematician Christian Goldbach wrote a letter to Leonhard Euler (letter XLIII), in which he proposed the following conjecture: Goldbach was following the now-abandoned convention of Prime number#Primality of one, considering 1 to be a prime number, so that a sum of units would be a sum of primes. He then proposed a second conjecture in the margin of his letter, which implies the first: Euler replied in a letter dated 30 June 1742 and reminded Goldbach of an earlier conversation they had had (""), in which Goldbach had remarked that the first of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nebuchadnezzar II
Nebuchadnezzar II, also Nebuchadrezzar II, meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir", was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BC to his own death in 562 BC. Often titled Nebuchadnezzar the Great, he is regarded as the empire's greatest king, famous for his military campaigns in the Levant and their role in Jewish history, and for his construction projects in his capital of Babylon, including the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Ruling for 43 years, Nebuchadnezzar was the longest-reigning king of the Babylonian dynasty. By the time of his death, he was among the most powerful rulers in the world. Possibly named after Nebuchadnezzar (governor of Uruk), his grandfather of the same name, or after Nebuchadnezzar I ( 1125–1104 BC), one of Babylon's greatest ancient warrior-kings, Nebuchadnezzar II had already secured renown for himself during his father's reign, leading armies in the Medo-Babylonian conquest of the Assyrian Empir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cryptogram
A cryptogram is a type of puzzle that consists of a short piece of encrypted text. Generally the cipher used to encrypt the text is simple enough that the cryptogram can be solved by hand. Substitution ciphers where each letter is replaced by a different letter, number, or symbol are frequently used. To solve the puzzle, one must recover the original lettering. Though once used in more serious applications, they are now mainly printed for entertainment in newspapers and magazines. Other types of classical ciphers are sometimes used to create cryptograms. An example is the book cipher, where a book or article is used to encrypt a message. History The ciphers used in cryptograms were created not for entertainment purposes, but for real encryption of military or personal secrets. The first use of the cryptogram for entertainment purposes occurred during the Middle Ages by monks who had spare time for intellectual games. A manuscript found at Bamberg states that Irish visitor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poetry, Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romanticism, Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ''masterpiece, magnum opus'' is generally considered to be ''The Prelude'', a semi-autobiographical poem of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times. It was posthumously titled and published by his wife in the year of his death, before which it was generally known as "The Poem to Coleridge". Wordsworth was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death from pleurisy on 23 April 1850. He remains one of the most recognizable names in English poetry and was a key figure of the Romantic poets. Early life Family and education The second of five children born to John Wordsworth and Ann Cookson, William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 in what is now named Word ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
