Literary notes about deadlock (AI summary)
The term "deadlock" is employed in literature to illustrate situations where progress is halted by opposing forces locked in an impasse. In the ancient military treatise by Sunzi, it vividly describes a scenario where neither side yields, highlighting a standoff in strategic decision-making ([1]). E.M. Forster later offers a humorous twist, suggesting that when even reason falters, one might resort to preaching to break free from such stalemate conditions ([2]). Arthur Conan Doyle uses the word to depict a temporary cessation of activity amidst a mystery, hinting at deeper complications in human interactions ([3]). Meanwhile, in a more playful mathematical context, Henry Ernest Dudeney portrays a deadlock as a mechanical conundrum involving train engines, symbolizing the complexities of coordination and operation ([4]).
- [Tu Mu says: "Each side finds it inconvenient to move, and the situation remains at a deadlock."]
— from The Art of War by active 6th century B.C. Sunzi - Let proportion come in as a last resource, when the better things have failed, and a deadlock—Gracious me, I’ve started preaching!”
— from Howards End by E. M. Forster - She would have nothing to do with it, and for a time Stapleton was at a deadlock.
— from The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle - It looked like a hopeless deadlock, and each engine-driver wanted the other to go back to the next station and take off nine wagons.
— from Amusements in Mathematics by Henry Ernest Dudeney
