Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
T. S. Eliot’s playful cat poems have delighted readers and cat lovers around the world ever since they were first published in 1939. They were originally composed for his godchildren, with Eliot posing as Old Possum himself, and later inspired the legendary musical Cats. Now with vibrant illustrations by the award-winning Axel Scheffler, this captivating edition makes a wonderful new home for Mr. Mistoffelees, Growltiger, the Rum Tum Tugger, Macavity the mystery cat, and many other memorable strays. It’s the perfect complement to the beloved previous edition, which remains available. - Publisher.
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What Hacker News says
- Ah, a literalist.
I see your literality, and raise:
enabled a pivotal moment in my life
Like that time you beat Archimedes to the punch and moved the world with a cantilever?
To not just 'standup philosopher'-post: Gödel, Escher, Bach (already mentioned by another I see); Euclid's Elements; Polya's How To Solve It; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich; Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats - clearly non-fiction, if you know cats. :)
- Oddly enough, Heaviside's name has been heard in song by tens of millions of people in recent years.
In the musical Cats, every Jellicle Cat hopes to be the one chosen to ascend to the Heaviside Layer.
This may be a metaphorical place in the play, but it is also an actual layer of the ionosphere. Oliver Heaviside and Arthur Kennelly (working independently) predicted its existence in 1902, and it was confirmed in 1924 by Edward Appleton.
Cats is based on the 1939 book Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot. Shortwave radio was a big deal at the time, and anything to do with radio signals and propagation caught the public's attention.
Today, the Heaviside Layer is known as the E layer, and is much beloved by amateur radio operators for its unpredictable propagation known as "sporadic E skip".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennelly%E2%80%93Heaviside_lay...
https://catsmusical.fandom.com/wiki/Heaviside_Layer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Possum%27s_Book_of_Practic...
