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| Partial Solution to Eternity 2 Puzzle |
A while back I spent some time on the Eternity 2 puzzle. It soon became obvious that a computerized, brute force approach was unlikely to find a solution before our sun goes Nova. As I didn't have any other big ideas I let it slide.
Occasionally I will get an email notifying me of some activity in the Yahoo group dedicated to this proposition. Usually they are cryptic files with the results of how another idea failed. This morning though I got several images of partial solutions. The above image is only ten tiles square, the original puzzle has sixteen tiles on a side. Also, all the tiles around the edge of the image are missing one edge (the gray triangles) and the half-tile in the upper left corner doesn't match. Still, it's impressive. And pretty.
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| Introduction To Solid State Physics by Charles Kittel |
On another tangent I joined
a local Meetup group to talk about physics. I went to a couple of meetings but I haven't been back. It takes an hour to go to Portland and back during which my monster big rig sucked down two or three gallons of gas, and this was back when gas was $4 a gallon, so my wallet noticed.
Anyway I got an email a couple of days ago talking about elementary physics textbooks:
Solid State Physics by R J Singh
Introduction to Solid State Physics by Charles Kittel
Kittel's book got a rave review in the email, and it came with a link where I might be able to get a really cheap copy, so I followed the link to
AddALL books, which led me to
AbeBooks, where I did buy
a copy for under $20, including shipping. The curious thing here is that
AbeBooks is in
India and evidently they have figured out how Hong Kong is
shipping stuff to the USA cheaply because the shipping was under $5. I'm a little curious to see how long it will take, and I admit I am a little excited about getting something from half way around the world. I have great intentions of reading it. We shall see how that pans out.
Good grief! What edition of Kittel did you buy? We used a book by Kittel (and one by Sproul) in Solid State Physics class in 1958! I gave those books away, years later, when I figured that as a structures engineer I no longer needed them. And the guy to whom I gave them was looking towards returning for an MS in physics. (I had switched into Engineering Mechanics about 1/2-way to MS in physics.)
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The order acknowledgement says the 8th edition. It also asks for another $10 for shipping on account of the book weighs so much. It's also a little vague on whether they are actually going to ship it or not. My faith in India is being well maintained.
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