When I first arrived at Brigham Young University, I came as a mathematics major, with the vague notion that I wanted to become a cosmologist.  (I had almost gone to Caltech, which, in retrospect, would have been a significant mistake.)  Also, I seem to recall that I just thought that mathematics was the most purely intellectual of all subjects, something wonderfully admirable, so that was what I wanted to do.   I soon realized, though, that mathematics was... Read more

    It’s always fun for me to return to St. George.  I don’t have any significant ties here any more, but my Mormon-side family roots — such as they are — cluster mainly in and around St. George, and I’ve always been fond of the place.   ***   Don’t miss the Interpreter Radio Show, which runs from 7-9 PM, Utah time, on K-Talk Radio AM, and which is also accessible live online.   ***   Maybe I just... Read more

    We’re just back from Cedar City where, today, we took in an afternoon performance of The Foreigner (in the Randall Jones Theater) and an evening performance of The Merchant of Venice (in the Engelstad Shakespeare Theatre).   This is at least the third time, and perhaps the fourth, that I’ve seen The Foreigner.  It’s a very — very — funny play.   The Merchant of Venice is powerful, eloquent, and, at points, distinctly uncomfortable for a contemporary audience.  Shylock... Read more

    As might have been predicted, since it’s the 316th Friday in a row that this has occurred, a new article has appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture:   “The Habeas Corpus Protection of Joseph Smith from Missouri Arrest Requisitions”   The author’s article is A. Keith Thompson, who currently serves as the associate dean at the University of Notre Dame Australia School of Law, in Sydney.   ***   I think that I may have neglected to... Read more

    I suppose that, from one perspective, the best answer to that question would be that what happens will be what had to happen.  There’s no way out of it; it was all set at the Big Bang, if not before.   Still, as they were fated to do billions of years ago, Azim Shariff (University of Oregon) and Kathleen Vohs (University of Minnesota) published an article in the June 2014 issue of Scientific American that considers “The world... Read more

    Yesterday afternoon, we attended a performance in Cedar City, Utah, of the musical Big River, with book by William Hauptman and music and lyrics by Roger Miller.  It’s based upon Mark Twain’s 1884 novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.     That’s a good novel to base a play on.  “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn,” said Ernest Hemingway, who wasn’t a bad writer himself, sometimes.  “American writing comes from that. There was... Read more

    I conceived, founded, and, until 2012 or 2013 (depending upon how you read the history), served as editor-in-chief of Brigham Young University’s Middle Eastern Texts Initiative, which — until it was very recently handed over to Brill Publishing in the Netherlands — produced bilingual editions of books (mostly Islamic, but also sometimes Eastern Christian and Jewish) from the classical Islamic world.  The books were printed at Brigham Young University Press and distributed by the University of Chicago Press.... Read more

    On Sunday, the discussion topic in our quorum of elders was “tender mercies.”  Members of the quorum were invited to share the tender mercies in their lives, and some did.  We also briefly considered the question of how to distinguish such tender mercies from simple coincidences.   I think that such a distinction is easy in a few cases, but rather difficult in many others.   I thought of several such tender mercies, one of which I’ve told... Read more

    I share just a bit more from James Hannam, The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution (Washington DC: Henry Regnery, 2011).   Hannam is a graduate of Oxford University in physics who holds a doctorate from Cambridge University in the history of science.  He’s discussing Gerbert of Aurillac (ca. AD 940-1003), a scholar and natural philosopher who eventually became Pope Sylvester II and who, among other things, introduced Arabic numerals to Christian Europe:   Gerbert... Read more

    I’ve just read a short but interesting article in the latest issue — 4 August 2018 — of the Economist, titled “Hosannahs in the sand?”   It seems that Muhammad bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, who has broken with tradition by allowing cinemas to open, open-air pop concerts to be held, and, most amazing of all, women to drive, is thinking about permitting the opening of churches within the boundaries of Saudi Arabia.  In October 2017, he... Read more