Sferics and Tachtsachen

[Dave Meury]

Kevin asks regarding the line from the Tractatus:

>Or did Kurt actually _hear_ it somewhere before?

Apparently, it was "in the air" at the time, like a screaming across the 
sky -- sferics-wise.  Actually, Wittgenstein had been working on the 
Tractatus since his time in the Army during WWI if not before.

The German edition was published in 1921.

And the line is pretty catchy. I think Wittgenstein had a poetic heart. 
 According to one of his biographies (Ray Monk's?), in a rare meeting he 
had with some of the Vienna Circle members, he threw them a curve ball by 
reciting a Rabindranath Tagore poem.