Immanuel 'the Königsberg clock' Kant (2015) | Hacker News Reader

Immanuel 'the Königsberg clock' Kant (2015)

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36 pointsrishabhd8 comments

> Having been born in Königsberg in 1724, he never left the small German city, dying there in 1804 aged 79 never having once gone further than the city’s limits.

Totally false! Slander! He once went as far as the village of Jarnołtowo, a whole 60 miles from Königsberg![0]

But yeah. Maybe not one of history’s greatest travelers.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarno%C5%82towo

He made plans for a trip to Paris to read a specific book, but the librarians he had been corresponding with mailed it to him as a sign of respect for his time.

It's because he got stuck on the bridges.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Bridges_of_K%C3%B6nigsbe...

Reminds me of Emilio Salgari (late 19th century, Italy's Jules Verne), one of my favorite authors growing up. He has many books on Malaysian pirates, Wild west cowboys (he's apparently considered the grandfather of the spaghetti western), adventures in India, etc. Always thought he must have been an adventurer, or at least a sailor. He never left Verona.

This persistent until quite recently. My neighbour told me his mother never travelled more than 15km from the town where she was born. Apart from a pilgrimage to Lourdes my grandmother would have been about the same.

The FBI used to like to hire the young from southwestern Virginia, western North Carolina, and such places: generally the kids wouldn't have traveled at all far from their birthplaces, and so security checks were that much easier.

> We should note – without seeing it as physiologically symbolic of their respective philosophies – that Kant was constipated, while Nietzsche suffered from compulsive vomiting.

To the contrary, I'm pretty sure it is more than symbolic. Surely it matches their temperament (respectively) and thereby their philosophies.

Not so regular after all eh?

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