%Sample uscthesis, by Jose M Vidal
%
%Last updated in Wednesday, 21 November 2007, 10:57AM
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%Use pdflatex to compile this since the Graduate school wants a pdf file.
%latex->dvi->ps->pdf also works, but is just silly.

%Some packages, such as float.sty and algorithm.sty, have to be loaded
%before uscthesis. In general, load uscthesis last.

\documentclass[12pt]{report}
\usepackage{uscthesis}

%To get single-space, (for drafts only!) use:
%\singlespacing

\title{The Library of Babel}
\author{Jorge Luis Borges}

\abstract{ The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of
  an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries,
  with vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings. From
  any of the hexagons one can see, interminably, the upper and lower
  floors. The distribution of the galleries is invariable. Twenty
  shelves, five long shelves per side, cover all the sides except two;
  their height, which is the distance from floor to ceiling, scarcely
  exceeds that of a normal bookcase. One of the free sides leads to a
  narrow hallway which opens onto another gallery, identical to the
  first and to all the rest. To the left and right of the hallway
  there are two very small closets. In the first, one may sleep
  standing up; in the other, satisfy one's fecal necessities.}

%Degree you are applying for, defaults to Master of Engineering
%\degree{Master of Science}
%\degree{Doctor of Philosophy}

%Your Previous Degree \\ University, year
\authordegree{Bachelor of Arts \\ College Calvin, 1919}

%Example with two degrees:
%\authordegree{Master of Arts \\ University of South Carolina, 1922
%  \\ \vspace{1em}
%Bachelor of Arts\\ University of South Carolina, 1919}

%Students' college defaults to COE&IT.
%\college{College of Liberal Arts}

%All departments default to Computer Science and Engineering, but you can
%change them.
%Student's dept
%\dept{Astronomy and\\ Physics}
%\directordept{Astronomy and\\ Physics}
\secondreaderdept{Astronomy and\\ Physics}
%\thirdreaderdept{Economics}

%Year thesis is submitted
\copyrightyear{2004}

\begin{document}

%For MS students
%\makethesistitle

%For PhD students
\makedissertationtitle

%PhD only, and then only if you elect to Copyright your dissertation
%\makecopyrightpage

%Optional
\prefacesection{Acknowledgments}
I would like to thank my advisor for allowing me to graduate.

%For PhD dissertations. This abstract conforms to the UMI guidelines.
%The abstract must be 350 words or less.
%\director{Dr. Lousy Advisor}
%\makeumiabstract

%For MS thesis (or, you can use the one for PhD). This abstract
%maintains the same look as all other sections.
\makeabstract

%Optional
%\prefacesection{Preface}

\tableofcontents

%Uncomment following line if you have 4 or more tables
%\makelistoftables

%Uncomment following line if you have 4 or more figures
%Note that in you should now do your captions as:
% \caption[one line description for the listoffigures]{really long
%     description which appears under the figure}
\makelistoffigures

%Optional
%\prefacesection{List of Abbreviations}

%Start numbering in arabic
\pagenumbering{arabic}

\chapter{Introduction}

The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an
indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries, with
vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings. From any of
the hexagons one can see, interminably, the upper and lower floors.
The distribution of the galleries is invariable. Twenty shelves, five
long shelves per side, cover all the sides except two; their height,
which is the distance from floor to ceiling, scarcely exceeds that of
a normal bookcase. One of the free sides leads to a narrow hallway
which opens onto another gallery, identical to the first and to all
the rest. To the left and right of the hallway there are two very
small closets. In the first, one may sleep standing up; in the other,
satisfy one's fecal necessities. Also through here passes a spiral
stairway, which sinks abysmally and soars upwards to remote distances.
In the hallway there is a mirror which faithfully duplicates all
appearances. Men usually infer from this mirror that the Library is
not infinite (if it were, why this illusory duplication?); I prefer to
dream that its polished surfaces represent and promise the
infinite\ldots{} Light is provided by some spherical fruit which bear
the name of lamps. There are two, transversally placed, in each
hexagon. The light they emit is insufficient, incessant.



\section{My Life}
\label{sec:my-life}

Like all men of the Library, I have traveled in my youth; I have
wandered in search of a book, perhaps the catalogue of catalogues; now
that my eyes can hardly decipher what I write, I am preparing to die
just a few leagues from the hexagon in which I was born. Once I am
dead, there will be no lack of pious hands to throw me over the
railing; my grave will be the fathomless air; my body will sink
endlessly and decay and dissolve in the wind generated by the fall,
which is infinite. I say that the Library is unending. The idealists
argue that the hexagonal rooms are a necessary form of absolute space
or, at least, of our intuition of space. They reason that a triangular
or pentagonal room is inconceivable. (The mystics claim that their
ecstasy reveals to them a circular chamber containing a great circular
book, whose spine is continuous and which follows the complete circle
of the walls; but their testimony is suspect; their words, obscure.
This cyclical book is God.) Let it suffice now for me to repeat the
classic dictum: The Library is a sphere whose exact center is any one
of its hexagons and whose circumference is inaccessible.



\subsection{The Axioms}
\label{sec:axioms}

There are five shelves for each of the hexagon's walls; each shelf
contains thirty-five books of uniform format; each book is of four
hundred and ten pages; each page, of forty lines, each line, of some
eighty letters which are black in color. There are also letters on the
spine of each book; these letters do not indicate or prefigure what
the pages will say. I know that this incoherence at one time seemed
mysterious. Before summarizing the solution (whose discovery, in spite
of its tragic projections, is perhaps the capital fact in history) I
wish to recall a few axioms.


\begin{itemize}
  
\item First: The Library exists \emph{ab aeterno}. This truth, whose
  immediate corollary is the future eternity of the world, cannot be
  placed in doubt by any reasonable mind. Man, the imperfect
  librarian, may be the product of chance or of malevolent demiurgi;
  the universe, with its elegant endowment of shelves, of enigmatical
  volumes, of inexhaustible stairways for the traveler and latrines
  for the seated librarian, can only be the work of a god. To perceive
  the distance between the divine and the human, it is enough to
  compare these crude wavering symbols which my fallible hand scrawls
  on the cover of a book, with the organic letters inside: punctual,
  delicate, perfectly black, inimitably symmetrical.

  
\item Second: The orthographical symbols are twenty-five in
  number.\footnote{The original manuscript does not contain digits or
    capital letters.  The punctuation has been limited to the comma
    and the period.  These two signs, the space and the twenty-two
    letters of the alphabet are the twenty-five symbols considered
    sufficient by this unknown author. (Editor's note.)} This finding
  made it possible, three hundred years ago, to formulate a general
  theory of the Library and solve satisfactorily the problem which no
  conjecture had deciphered: the formless and chaotic nature of almost
  all the books.  One which my father saw in a hexagon on circuit
  fifteen ninety-four was made up of the letters MCV, perversely
  repeated from the first line to the last. Another (very much
  consulted in this area) is a mere labyrinth of letters, but the
  next-to-last page says ``Oh time thy pyramids.'' This much is
  already known: for every sensible line of straightforward statement,
  there are leagues of senseless cacophonies, verbal jumbles and
  incoherences. (I know of an uncouth region whose librarians
  repudiate the vain and superstitious custom of finding a meaning in
  books and equate it with that of finding a meaning in dreams or in
  the chaotic lines of one's palm\ldots{} They admit that the
  inventors of this writing imitated the twenty-five natural symbols,
  but maintain that this application is accidental and that the books
  signify nothing in themselves. This dictum, we shall see, is not
  entirely fallacious.)

\end{itemize}

For a long time it was believed that these impenetrable books
corresponded to past or remote languages. It is true that the most
ancient men, the first librarians, used a language quite different
from the one we now speak; it is true that a few miles to the right
the tongue is dialectical and that ninety floors farther up, it is
incomprehensible. All this, I repeat, is true, but four hundred and
ten pages of inalterable MCV's cannot correspond to any language, no
matter how dialectical or rudimentary it may be. Some insinuated that
each letter could influence the following one and that the value of
MCV in the third line of page 71 was not the one the same series may
have in another position on another page, but this vague thesis did
not prevail. Others thought of cryptographs; generally, this
conjecture has been accepted, though not in the sense in which it was
formulated by its originators.

Five hundred years ago, the chief of an upper hexagon\footnote{Before,
  there was a man for every three hexagons. Suicide and pulmonary
  diseases have destroyed that proportion. A memory of unspeakable
  melancholy: at times I have traveled for many nights through
  corridors and along polished stairways without finding a single
  librarian.} came upon a book as confusing as the others, but which
had nearly two pages of homogeneous lines. He showed his find to a
wandering decoder who told him the lines were written in Portuguese;
others said they were Yiddish. Within a century, the language was
established: a Samoyedic Lithuanian dialect of Guarani, with classical
Arabian inflections. The content was also deciphered: some notions of
combinative analysis, illustrated with examples of variations with
unlimited repetition. These examples made it possible for a librarian
of genius to discover the fundamental law of the Library. This thinker
observed that all the books, no matter how diverse they might be, are
made up of the same elements: the space, the period, the comma, the
twenty-two letters of the alphabet. He also alleged a fact which
travelers have confirmed: In the vast Library there are no two
identical books. From these two incontrovertible premises he deduced
that the Library is total and that its shelves register all the
possible combinations of the twenty-odd orthographical symbols (a
number which, though extremely vast, is not infinite): Everything: the
minutely detailed history of the future, the archangels'
autobiographies, the faithful catalogues of the Library, thousands and
thousands of false catalogues, the demonstration of the fallacy of
those catalogues, the demonstration of the fallacy of the true
catalogue, the Gnostic gospel of Basilides, the commentary on that
gospel, the commentary on the commentary on that gospel, the true
story of your death, the translation of every book in all languages,
the interpolations of every book in all books.

\begin{figure}[tbp]
  \centering
    \fbox{
    \parbox{4in}{%\rule[-2cm]{0mm}{4mm}%
      \begin{enumerate}
      \item This is a figure
      \item with some text in it.
      \item How silly.
      \end{enumerate}
      } }
    \caption[My first figure, buddy]{My first figure. The caption text
      is single spaced because otherwise it looks too ugly and the
      Graduate guide is silent on this. The footnotes are also single
      spaced as required by the guide.}
  \label{fig:first}
\end{figure}

When it was proclaimed that the Library contained all books, the first
impression was one of extravagant happiness. All men felt themselves
to be the masters of an intact and secret treasure. There was no
personal or world problem whose eloquent solution did not exist in
some hexagon. The universe was justified, the universe suddenly
usurped the unlimited dimensions of hope. At that time a great deal
was said about the Vindications: books of apology and prophecy which
vindicated for all time the acts of every man in the universe and
retained prodigious arcana for his future. Thousands of the greedy
abandoned their sweet native hexagons and rushed up the stairways,
urged on by the vain intention of finding their Vindication. These
pilgrims disputed in the narrow corridors, proffered dark curses,
strangled each other on the divine stairways, flung the deceptive
books into the air shafts, met their death cast down in a similar
fashion by the inhabitants of remote regions. Others went mad\ldots{} The
Vindications exist (I have seen two which refer to persons of the
future, to persons who are perhaps not imaginary) but the searchers
did not remember that the possibility of a man's finding his
Vindication, or some treacherous variation thereof, can be computed as
zero. 
\begin{figure}[tbp]
  \centering
  \fbox{ Emptiness.}
  \caption{My second figure}
  \label{fig:second}
\end{figure}
At that time it was also hoped that a clarification of humanity's
basic mysteries -- the origin of the Library and of time -- might be
found. It is verisimilar that these grave mysteries could be explained
in words: if the language of philosophers is not sufficient, the
multiform Library will have produced the unprecedented language
required, with its vocabularies and grammars. For four centuries now
men have exhausted the hexagons\ldots{} There are official searchers,
inquisitors. I have seen them in the performance of their function:
they always arrive extremely tired from their journeys; they speak of
a broken stairway which almost killed them; they talk with the
librarian of galleries and stairs; sometimes they pick up the nearest
volume and leaf through it, looking for infamous words. Obviously, no
one expects to discover anything. 
\begin{figure}[tbp]
  \centering
  \fbox{
    \parbox{5in}{
  Gee, I feel kind of LIGHT in the head now, knowing I can't make
 my satellite dish PAYMENTS!}}
  \caption{My third figure}
  \label{fig:third}
\end{figure}
As was natural, this inordinate hope was followed by an excessive
depression. The certitude that some shelf in some hexagon held
precious books and that these precious books were inaccessible, seemed
almost intolerable. A blasphemous sect suggested that the searches
should cease and that all men should juggle letters and symbols until
they constructed, by an improbable gift of chance, these canonical
books. The authorities were obliged to issue severe orders. The sect
disappeared, but in my childhood I have seen old men who, for long
periods of time, would hide in the latrines with some metal disks in a
forbidden dice cup and feebly mimic the divine disorder. 
\begin{figure}[tbp]
  \centering \fbox{
    \begin{minipage}{6in}
      There is extra space at the end of this page because TeX tries
      very hard to place the footnote (next page) in the same page
      where it is referenced, same as with the last page. In any case,
      long footnotes are distracting.
    \end{minipage}
  }
  \caption{My fourth figure}
  \label{fig:fourth}
\end{figure}

Others, inversely, believed that it was fundamental to eliminate
useless works. They invaded the hexagons, showed credentials which
were not always false, leafed through a volume with displeasure and
condemned whole shelves: their hygienic, ascetic furor caused the
senseless perdition of millions of books. Their name is execrated, but
those who deplore the ``treasures'' destroyed by this frenzy neglect
two notable facts. One: the Library is so enormous that any reduction
of human origin is infinitesimal. The other: every copy is unique,
irreplaceable, but (since the Library is total) there are always
several hundred thousand imperfect facsimiles: works which differ only
in a letter or a comma. Counter to general opinion, I venture to
suppose that the consequences of the Purifiers' depredations have been
exaggerated by the horror these fanatics produced. They were urged on
by the delirium of trying to reach the books in the Crimson Hexagon:
books whose format is smaller than usual, all-powerful, illustrated
and magical.

We also know of another superstition of that time: that of the Man of
the Book. On some shelf in some hexagon (men reasoned) there must
exist a book which is the formula and perfect compendium of all the
rest: some librarian has gone through it and he is analogous to a god.
In the language of this zone vestiges of this remote functionary's
cult still persist. Many wandered in search of Him. For a century they
have exhausted in vain the most varied areas. How could one locate the
venerated and secret hexagon which housed Him? Someone proposed a
regressive method: To locate book A, consult first book B which
indicates A's position; to locate book B, consult first a book C, and
so on to infinity\ldots{} In adventures such as these, I have squandered
and wasted my years. It does not seem unlikely to me that there is a
total book on some shelf of the universe;\footnote{I repeat: it
  suffices that a book be possible for it to exist. Only the
  impossible is excluded. For example: no book can be a ladder,
  although no doubt there are books which discuss and negate and
  demonstrate this possibility and others whose structure corresponds
  to that of a ladder. } I pray to the unknown gods that a man -- just
one, even though it were thousands of years ago! -- may have examined
and read it. If honor and wisdom and happiness are not for me, let
them be for others. Let heaven exist, though my place be in hell. Let
me be outraged and annihilated, but for one instant, in one being, let
Your enormous Library be justified. The impious maintain that nonsense
is normal in the Library and that the reasonable (and even humble and
pure coherence) is an almost miraculous exception. They speak (I know)
of the ``feverish Library whose chance volumes are constantly in
danger of changing into others and affirm, negate and confuse
everything like a delirious divinity.'' These words, which not only
denounce the disorder but exemplify it as well, notoriously prove
their authors' abominable taste and desperate ignorance. In truth, the
Library includes all verbal structures, all variations permitted by
the twenty-five orthographical symbols, but not a single example of
absolute nonsense. It is useless to observe that the best volume of
the many hexagons under my administration is entiteld The Combed
Thunderclap and another The Plaster Cramp and another Axaxaxas mlo.
These phrases, at first glance incoherent, can no doubt be justified
in a cryptographical or allegorical manner; such a justification is
verbal and, ex hypothesi, already figures in the Library. I cannot
combine some characters

     
dhcmrlchtdj

which the divine Library has not foreseen and which in one of its
secret tongues do not contain a terrible meaning. No one can
articulate a syllable which is not filled with tenderness and fear,
which is not, in one of these languages, the powerful name of a
god. To speak is to fall into tautology. This wordy and useless
epistle already exists in one of the thirty volumes of the five
shelves of one of the innumerable hexagons -- and its refutation as
well. (An n number of possible languages use the same vocabulary; in
some of them, the symbol library allows the correct definition a
ubiquitous and lasting system of hexagonal galleries, but library is
bread or pyramid or anything else, and these seven words which define
it have another value. You who read me, are You sure of understanding
my language?)

The methodical task of writing distracts me from the present state of
men. The certitude that everything has been written negates us or
turns us into phantoms. I know of districts in which the young men
prostrate themselves before books and kiss their pages in a barbarous
manner, but they do not know how to decipher a single
letter. Epidemics, heretical conflicts, peregrinations which
inevitably degenerate into banditry, have decimated the population. I
believe I have mentioned suicides, more and more frequent with the
years. Perhaps my old age and fearfulness deceive me, but I suspect
that the human species -- the unique species -- is about to be
extinguished, but the Library will endure: illuminated, solitary,
infinite, perfectly motionless, equipped with precious volumes,
useless, incorruptible, secret. 

I have just written the word ``infinite.'' I have not interpolated
this adjective out of rhetorical habit; I say that it is not illogical
to think that the world is infinite. Those who judge it to be limited
postulate that in remote places the corridors and stairways and
hexagons can conceivably come to an end -- which is absurd. Those who
imagine it to be without limit forget that the possible number of
books does have such a limit. I venture to suggest this solution to
the ancient problem: The Library is unlimited and cyclical. If an
eternal traveler were to cross it in any direction, after centuries he
would see that the same volumes were repeated in the same disorder
(which, thus repeated, would be an order: the Order). My solitude is
gladdened by this elegant hope.\footnote{Letizia \'{A}lvarez de Toledo
  has observed that this vast Library is useless: rigorously speaking,
  a {\em single volume\/} would be sufficient, a volume of ordinary format,
  printed in nine or ten point type, containing an infinite number if
  infinitely thin leaves. (In the early seventeenth century, Cavalieri
  said that all solid bodies are the superimposition of an infinite
  number of planes.) The handling of this silky vade mecum would not
  be convenient: each apparent page would unfold into other analogous
  ones; the inconceivable middle page would have no reverse.}

\subsection{Dummy}
- if it GLISTENS, gobble it!!
\subsection{Zippy}
A dwarf is passing out somewhere in Detroit!
\subsection{Zippy}
But was he mature enough last night at the lesbian masquerade?
\subsection{Zippy}
Civilization is fun!  Anyway, it keeps me busy!!
\subsection{Zippy}
Don't worry, nobody really LISTENS to lectures in MOSCOW, either!
 ..  FRENCH, HISTORY, ADVANCED CALCULUS, COMPUTER PROGRAMMING,
 BLACK STUDIES, SOCIOBIOLOGY!..  Are there any QUESTIONS??
\subsection{Zippy}
Everywhere I look I see NEGATIVITY and ASPHALT...
\subsection{Zippy}
FOOLED you!  Absorb EGO SHATTERING impulse rays, polyester poltroon!!
\subsection{Zippy}
GOOD-NIGHT, everybody..  Now I have to go administer FIRST-AID
 to my pet LEISURE SUIT!!
\subsection{Zippy}
He probably just wants to take over my CELLS and then EXPLODE
 inside me like a BARREL of runny CHOPPED LIVER!  Or maybe he'd
 like to PSYCHOLOGICALLY TERRORIZE ME until I have no objection
 to a RIGHT-WING MILITARY TAKEOVER of my apartment!!  I guess
 I should call AL PACINO!
\subsection{Zippy}
I am having FUN...  I wonder if it's NET FUN or GROSS FUN?
\subsection{Zippy}
Just imagine you're entering a state-of-the-art CAR WASH!!
\subsection{Zippy}
KARL MALDEN'S NOSE just won an ACADEMY AWARD!!
\subsection{Zippy}
Leona, I want to CONFESS things to you..
 I want to WRAP you in a SCARLET ROBE trimmed with POLYVINYL CHLORIDE..
 I want to EMPTY your ASHTRAYS...
\subsection{Zippy}
My FAVORITE group is "QUESTION MARK and THE MYSTERIANS"...
\subsection{Zippy}
Now my EMOTIONAL RESOURCES are heavily committed to 23\% of the
 SMELTING and REFINING industry of the state of NEVADA!!
\subsection{Zippy}
On SECOND thought, maybe I'll heat up some BAKED BEANS and
 watch REGIS PHILBIN..  It's GREAT to be ALIVE!!
\subsection{Zippy}
PUNK ROCK!!  DISCO DUCK!!  BIRTH CONTROL!!
\subsection{Zippy}
QUIET!!  I'm being CREATIVE!!  Is it GREAT yet?  It's s'posed to
 SMOKEY THE BEAR...
\subsection{Zippy}
Remember, if you try to ESCAPE, many APARTMENT HOPPING ALCOHOLICS will
 SIMONIZE your HALLWAYS!!  This is your LAST WARNING!!
\subsection{Zippy}
Sometime in 1993 NANCY SINATRA will lead a BLOODLESS COUP on GUAM!!
\subsection{Zippy}
Then, it's off to RED CHINA!!
\subsection{Zippy}
UH-OH!!  I put on ``GREAT HEAD-ON TRAIN COLLISIONS of the 50's''
 by mistake!!!
\subsection{Zippy}
Vote for ME -- I'm well-tapered, half-cocked, ill-conceived and
 TAX-DEFERRED!
\subsection{Zippy}
What I need is a MATURE RELATIONSHIP with a FLOPPY DISK...
\subsection{Zippy}
Xerox your lunch and file it under ``sex offenders!''




\chapter{Conclusions}
I conclude that it is time for me to graduate and get a real job.

My advisor tells me that I need some citations so here is one
\cite{axtell00a}, and another one \cite{levitan99a}, and this one
\cite{parkes00a}, and our textbook \cite{weiss99a}, and one of his
papers \cite{vidalclri}.

%We typeset the bibliography entries in singlespace so they look prettier.
\begin{singlespace}
\bibliographystyle{plain}
\bibliography{uscthesis}
\end{singlespace}

%Start your appendices, optional.
\appendix
\chapter{My First Appendix}

Einstein said that

\begin{equation}
  \label{eq:1}
  E= mc^2
\end{equation}

\end{document}


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