Arithmancy (was Undecidability (was reasoning))

[Tim Regan <timregan@microsoft.com>]

--- Barb wrote:
> Actually, it's pretty easy to find out what she SHOULD be 
learning.  
> Just Google "Arithmancy" and you'll get a slew of sites explaining 
> what this is.  The short answer: numerology, basically, largely to 
> do with birthdates and a little with names.  

I knew a little about this kind of arithmancy, from reading 
Tolstoy's "War and Peace". In it one of the characters (Pierre) is 
given a revelation just after he joins the Masons: 
"Writing the words L'Empereur Napoleon in numbers, it appears that 
the sum of them is 666, and that Napoleon therefore the beast 
foretold in the Apocalypse. Moreover, by applying the same system to 
the words quarante-deux, which was the term allowed to the beast 
that "spoke great things and blasphemies," the same number 666 was 
obtained; from which it followed that the limit fixed for Napoleon's 
power had come in the year 1812 when the French emperor was forty-
two." 

I'd assumed, for the reasons you give, that the Arithmancy of 
Hogwarts and the Arithmancy of our Muggle World must be different. 
And I doubt we'll find out much about the Hogwarts version since, as 
you point out, JKR doesn't seem to have much of a mathematical bent.

There was also a lovely thread of arithmancy and related arts 
running through an audio book I just finished, Umberto 
Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum" (impossible to read - easy to listen 
to ;-) The main character is convinced he's decoded a secret 
document from The Knights Templars when his wife, far more 
effectively, deconstructs the document as a medieval shopping list!

Hermione is rational and cynical - the arithmancy she loves must be 
something else, please.


Cheers,


Dumbledad.


PS It turns out that Hermione has read Tolstoy too! In "Harry Potter 
and the Legend of the Golden Serpent" by Camille (available in 
Google's cache) we hear:

"Where Hermione, specify! You MUST have our entire itinerary already 
planned out down to the last second!" Hermione looked up from War 
and Peace, a manic grin on her face. 
"First off, the Gallows," she said reverently.

PPS I took the "War and Peace" quote from http://www.online-
literature.com/tolstoy/war_and_peace/ but if you do plan to read it 
(and I really recommend it, way more gripping and easy than its 
reputation suggests) I recommend the Luis and Aylmer Maude 
translation.