From Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. I suspect Crosby has read it.
"In a rather simple way. It merely required the use of that much-neglected commodity -
common sense. You see, there is a branch of human knowledge known as symbolic logic,
which can be used to prune away all sorts of clogging deadwood that clutters up human
language."
"What about it?" said Fulham.
"I applied it. Among other things, I applied it to this document here. I didn't really need to for
myself because I knew what it was all about, but I think I can explain it more easily to five
physical scientists by symbols rather than by words."
....
"All right." Hardin replaced the sheets. "Before you now you see a copy of the treaty between
the Empire and Anacreon - a treaty, incidentally, which is signed on the Emperor's behalf by
the same Lord Dorwin who was here last week - and with it a symbolic analysis."
The treaty ran through five pages of fine print and the analysis was scrawled out in just under
half a page.
"As you see, gentlemen, something like ninety percent of the treaty boiled right out of the
analysis as being meaningless, and what we end up with can be described in the following
interesting manner:
"Obligations of Anacreon to the Empire: None!
Powers of the Empire over Anacreon: None!"
Stephen
