A new article of mine appeared in Meridian Magazine today: ““Crawling Over, Under, or Around Section 132”: The Debate Over Joseph Smith and Polygamy” And Episode 17 of our Becoming Brigham series went up this morning: “Was Zion’s Camp Formative or a Failure?” I would be pleased and honored if you would take a look at them. And here are a pair of items from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that you should see: “Church Provides... Read more
This is a continuation of a previous post. I proceed now with a few more notes taken from (and/or inspired by) Robert Kanigel, The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan (New York and London: Washington Square Press, 1991): In the 1930s, E. T. Bell would remark that Ramanujan had broken the rules by which mathematicians evaluate their own. “When a truly great [algorist, or formalist] like the Hindu Ramanujan arrives unexpectedly out of nowhere, even... Read more
I had a number of pressing items to take care of today, so I reluctantly stayed in London to catch up on some work. But our group (including my wife!) went out today to Hampton Court Palace, which I last visited about a year ago and have visited multiple times over the years. On the whole, I would rather have gone this time, too. But life intervenes. It’s a structure going back to its foundation in 1514 by Cardinal... Read more
Even when, as I typically am, I’m off glutting myself with the labors of the Interpreter Foundation’s innocent and unsuspecting donors (see Alma 30:27, 31; compare Mosiah 9:12), indulging myself in luxurious travels and wallowing in vast gourmet banquets, the Foundation continues to produce. For instance, a new article — this one written by Allen Wyatt (one of the Foundation’s three vice presidents) — was published earlier today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 68... Read more
Two or three weeks ago, I posted an entry here under the title of “God’s Equation.” It reminded me of a pair of blog entries that I had posted roughly five years ago and that seem directly relevant to the issues that it raised. I want to return to those issues: I first read about Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920) back when I was in eighth or ninth grade, probably either in James R. Newman’s four-volume The World of Mathematics or in... Read more
I missed the first installment of the BYUtv series mentioned here, but I look forward to seeing it when we’re back. This promises to be quite interesting. I’m especially glad that they took up the story from Ghana: “‘Voices for Faith’ Part 1: In defense of religious freedom: During ‘The Freeze’ in Ghana, Latter-day Saints were restricted from gathering to worship, demonstrating the value of religious freedom” And, of course, you shouldn’t miss Becoming Brigham (becomingbrigham.com). The sixteenth (16th) installment... Read more
We walked around the area of Liverpool’s Albert Docks this morning in cold and blustery weather. (Fortunately, the rain was light and short-lived.) This was the port through which passed most of the Latter-day Saint converts from England and from continental Europe. My Norwegian Lutheran grandmother also sailed to North America from Liverpool. She was alone and just eighteen, and I’m astonished at her courage. We also visited World of Wedgwood, in Staffordshire, the relevance of which to the... Read more
Episode 16 of Becoming Brigham is now up online: “Who was more loyal, Emma Smith or Brigham Young?” Perhaps you should watch it? We opened the day with a multi-hour walking tour of Church historic sites in Preston, where the missionaries first arrived in 1837 and where the Church’s oldest continuously functioning congregation meets. Among other things, we walked down through Avenham Park, where an official memorial to the church pioneers is located in the Japanese Garden, to the... Read more
We began the day by walking (through the Shambles, no less) to the magnificent York Minster, the Cathedral of York (or, officially, the Cathedral and Metropolitan Church of Saint Peter in York), for a Sunday morning service. The congregation wasn’t very large — our group made up at least a third of it, I would guess — and by far most of those in it were pretty plainly tourists (judging from the fact that they were clearly struggling, as... Read more
We began the morning by driving to Boston, a market town and inland port in the English county of Lincolnshire. The name Boston is said to be a contraction of “Saint Botolph’s town” — named after a seventh-century Saxon abbot — with tun being an Old English, Old Norse, and modern Norwegian term for a “hamlet” or a “farm.” In Latin, Boston was known as villa Sancti Botulfi “St. Botulf’s village,” and the name Botulfeston appears in 1460. By the... Read more
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