Modern Greek, Ancient Mathematicians...Internet Porn?

What better way to test how much Greek I've learned than to go to an event held only in Greek?

I've had mixed results with this approach before. I took a wine-tasting class here in Athens which was taught in Greek. As the only English speaker in the room, I didn't learn much about wines. I did get a lot of practice fake-laughing and pretending that I understood the joke about why a particular wine tasted bitter. The last day of class, I thought the teacher was handing out a test. Only after careful inspection did I realize he was handing me a diploma. "O Chris Daffy, son of Mark" had passed Oinologia 1.

But I've learned a lot of Greek since those early wine-tasting days, so when a friend invited me to a lecture sponsored by her boss (a Greek author), I jumped at the opportunity.

But right away, I figured that this event might be over my head. The title of the lecture was "Ευκλε?δης και Εντροπ?α: Μ?α σ?ντομη πορνογραφικ? σχ?ση" which translates to "Euclid and Entropy: A Brief Pornographic Relationship"

Ok... so we have:
1) ancient mathematicians
2) scientific terms I only vaguely understand
3) porn

How could this not be hilarious? It sounded like the kind of thing that I wouldn't have understood even in English.

Like a lot of things in Greece, the lecture turned out to be completely different than I expected. I probably understood only 40%, but the chunks that I got were really fascinating. The lecture dealt with the history of the mathematics behind the Internet. It turns out that a small number of mathematicians pioneered the ideas behind analyzing information and their work laid the foundation for the Internet, cell phones, pretty much all the technology that's revolutionized the world.

During the lecture, I looked around the room and took in the number of audience members. Sure the lecturers were funny and engaging and the lecture was held in the Benaki Museum's hip Peiraos annex, but there were A LOT of people there for a math lecture. I had a moment where I realized that for thousands of years Athenians have been attending lectures just like this one (ok, there were probably fewer references to Internet porn in Aristotle's talks, but still...). It feels exciting to be a part of that. Widespread intellectual curiousity is an aspect of Greek culture that I appreciate and admire. Learning isn't just for students here, it's a daily activity undertaken by people from all walks of life.