Literary notes about compute (AI summary)
Across a range of literary works, the term "compute" appears not only in its literal sense of calculation but also as a vehicle for metaphor and rhetorical flourish. In some texts, it is employed in a straightforward, almost technical manner—such as tallying savings or calculating percentages ([1], [2], [3])—while in others it takes on a more abstract or even ironic tone. For instance, authors use "compute" to highlight the folly of trying to grasp immense or unknowable quantities—be it the immensity of the universe or the ineffable qualities of divine figures ([4], [5], [6]). Moreover, it often serves to underscore the limitations of human knowledge when applied to vast or mystical subjects, as seen in the hesitant computations of natural phenomena ([7], [8], [9]) and the satirical comparisons of human and divine attributes ([10], [11]). This multifaceted usage points to a rich literary tradition where "compute" bridges the realms of empirical measurement and philosophical contemplation ([12], [13]).
- Everything she was able to make or mend, she made and mended, and it gratified her to compute the money she saved thus in dressmakers.
— from Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo by Juliette Drouet and Louis Guimbaud - Compute percentages of water-insoluble ash and water-soluble ash.
— from All About Coffee by William H. Ukers - It is, as we compute, towards three in the afternoon.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle - By millenniums-more than embarrassed scholars care to compute!-the skeptic Time has validated Vedic worth.
— from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda - The stature of Buddha was, we are told, 12 cubits; but Brahma, Indra, and the other gods vainly tried to compute his dimensions.
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano - In vain do our knowing ones try to compute Their r
— from History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I - "Yes, my boy, and don't even try to compute the number of these infusoria.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne - The actuarial degree of improbability as to a coincidence so close, over a range so vast, I will not undertake to compute.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park - How many pounds each man ate in a day, I will not attempt to compute.
— from Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana - We compute the Tramecksan , or high heels, to exceed us in number; but the power is wholly on our side.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Regions of the World by Jonathan Swift - We compute the Tramecksan , or high heels, to exceed us in number; but the power is wholly on our side.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift - They say: 'Their bones shall rot who compute the end of the time.'
— from Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ by Aaron Bernstein - And, he, ’tis said, did first compute the stars Which beam in Charles’s wain, and guide the bark Of the Phœnician sailor o’er the sea.
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius