Author: Gonçalo M. Tavares

Plague Diary, May 3

Plague Diary, May 3

Posted by | May 13, 2020 | |

3 May In Spain, a medical team celebrates the closing of a field hospital.The hospital, which was full, is now empty. The lights go out like in a theatre – and the last nurses leave. I receive a message from Brazil: “Yesterday on my way back I felt the strangeness of the moment for the first time. We passed only delivery trucks and ambulances. A lot of ambulances.” Ambulances: pure speed, and anxiety conveyed from one place to another. Vehicles for delivery or help. The transfer between home and hospital. “China will never learn” from coronavirus, says the dissident...

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Plague Diaries, April 11

Plague Diaries, April 11

Posted by | Apr 24, 2020 | |

11 April   Two ways to get out of the news: religion and mathematics. There are more, of course. A line from Breton: “the act of love and the act of poetry are not compatible with reading a newspaper out loud.” In these days incompatibilities have increased. But yes, two ways to get out of the news: religion and mathematics. A 20th-century mathematician, Edward Kasner, asked his nephew “to think up a name for a number with a hundred zeros”. The kid gave it the name: Googol. A googol is a 1 followed by a hundred zeros. It is...

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