Universality?

from xkcd: http://xkcd.com/638/

IT'S MAY TWENTY-TWO

In case you somehow missed the recent hoopla, note the date on the billboard below and that supposed associated event:



Here's today's follow-up:

OK Go

I'm so glad I have kids who bring such things to my attention!

Honor

Caleb was in Washington DC last week on his 8th-grade trip. He was one of 3 students selected by virtue of an essay to have the honor of honoring our fallen heros who are "known but to God."

No New Taxes?

Click on image to enlarge:

Steps to Your Eternity

You that seek what life is in death,
Now find it air that once was breath.
New names unknown, old names gone:
Till time end bodies, but souls none.
Reader! then make time, while you be,
But steps to your eternity.

Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (1554-1628)

Mathematical Wrinkle

Now that exams are over (see picture at bottom of post), I get to switch gears and am looking forward to a change of pace. I love teaching, but it doesn't leave much time for anything else, and I am so looking forward to reading and writing - doing my own study for a while instead of guiding others in theirs!

While moving into my new mode today I grabbed a book off my shelf that I had forgotten I had. It was first published in 1912, and I see by the markings inside that I purchased it at the local used bookstore, Yesterday's Books. It's called Mathematical Wrinkles and is by S. I. Jones "Formerly Professor of Mathematics, David Lipscomb College, and Assistant Secretary and Treasurer of Life and Casualty Insurance Company, Nashville Tennessee" (as it says behind his name on the title page) - a serious-sounding gentleman.

I paged through it and realize I must have picked it up for its collection of contest-type problems. I often write tests for math competitions, so I'm always looking for new or old or different ideas. I find I can use some of the ideas, but many problems are clearly from a more agricultural time in our nation and/or use archaic language:

"A square field contains 10 acres. What will it cost to fence it at $1.25 per rod?"

"A banker discounts a note at 9% per annum, thereby getting 10% per annum interest. How long does the note run?"

The author seemed to have two intents in publishing, one was to provide recreational problems for math clubs (which is why I picked it up) and another was to provide supplemental problems for classroom teachers. He puts it as follows:

"About the time the First Edition appeared, the first Mathematics Clubs in Secondary Schools in this country were being organized. Since that time greater interest has been aroused in the study of the by-paths of Mathematics and new emphasis has been placed on recreational values. The mind has always found pleasure in puzzles, tricks and curiosities of all kinds. This is true of both young and old, of every land, age, and clime."

And:

"This book is intended to be helpful to be a helpful companion to teachers, and to impart to students a knowledge of the applications of mathematical principles, which cannot be obtained from text-books. The present-day teacher has little time for selection of suitable problems of supplementary work. This book is designed to meet the requirements of teachers who feel such extra assignments essential to thorough work."

It is a quaint and lovely little volume, and (with appropriate changes) I have used some of the problems to inform my contest writing, but what really caught my attention in terms of change in our society is that in this serious little volume by this august-sounding author, written for public school teachers and math clubs in secondary schools, is a section on the fourth dimension which quotes a variety of Bible verses in a manner that clearly assumes everyone is familiar with them and speaks unabashedly of the spiritual implications of higher dimensional geometry. Here is a sample:

"The question now arises: Why may there not be a space of four dimensions and thus a geometry of four dimensions in which the exact position of a point may be determined by measuring in four perpendicular directions? This question is one we cannot escape. Paul may have had the fourth dimension in mind, when, speaking of spiritual life, he said, `That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height' (Eph. 3:17, 18); or when he wrote, `I knew a man whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell, how that he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words' (2 Cor. 12:2, 3). What did John mean when he `was in the spirit viewing the Heavenly Jerusalem' and said, `The city lieth foursquare' (Rev. 21:16)? Was Christ's transfigured body which appeared in the midst of a closed room a four-dimensional body? Was the ascension like a disappearance? Although these questions cannot be answered by man, we are certain that the term fourth-dimensional came to us from a firm believer in spiritual life."

"Now, if there be a four-dimensional world, our three-dimensional space must lie in its midst. All people would then be three-dimensional shadows of four-dimensional beings. We could only become endowed with four-dimensional knowledge or become four-dimensional beings by supernatural means. We could move in a four-dimensional being, and not understand how such a thing is possible. If there be such a thing as a four-dimensional being, it would perhaps assist us in understanding the following scripture, `That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being' (Acts 17:27, 28)"

Speaking of the fourth dimension, paging through this book has made me feel like I've traveled in time and had a glimpse of a very different era! I'm eager to read further! I'm also just eager to continue to peruse my book shelves, to discover and learn, to read and to write. Ahhhh...summer... :-)

As promised, here is a photo of what my very recent past contained. I think I will develop a new term for measure, and that term is "a tome of grading!" These are the final exams I graded this weekend juxtaposed with the longest novel I possess! The exams comprised somewhat more than a tome of grading!

April 20

It is a crazy-busy time right now with school winding up as it winds down - cram night, exam writing, exam grading, finalizing records, trying to assuage student distress, etc., etc. It's also kind of a special day - my grandpa's 98th birthday, and the anniversary of the day David and I got engaged :-)

In the midst of the craziness I still couldn't resist driving 90-ish miles to go to a math lecture at Stanford. The title Linguistics, Poetry, and Mathematics (my three very most favorite topics) just made it too tempting to me to resist. Not only that but the speaker, Dr. Majul Bhargava of Princeton, got his Ph.D. under Andrew Wiles (of Fermat's Last Theorem fame), so that added to the draw for me. Besides, I hadn't been out of town in as long as I can remember, so it was time for an adventure.

As part of the adventure I arrived a bit early and just enjoyed Stanford's beautiful campus - with my eye and with my camera.

One thing I was very pleased to see is that the speaker used overhead projectors - my favorite, yet much maligned, mode of presentation! (Note the good-sized crowd.)

Here's a close-up (note that the poetry he focused on was Sanskrit poetry):

The Case for Obscurity (or Good Advice!)

THE CASE FOR OBSCURITY
On Thoughts and Words I.


If no thought
your mind does visit,
make your speech
not too explicit.

Piet Hein (1905-1996)

MysteryGuitarMan Fractal

...self-similarity...detail at all scales...hmm...seems MysteryGuitarMan is channeling fractals...

Music to Grade by

After dinner, conversation and play with extended family tonight it was hard to come home and get into grading. I've been using YouTube as my "playlist" tonight - just searching as I went for what seemed would make me feel happy and take my mind off of work. Music to grade by:

Beethoven's 7th Symphony

Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata

Bach's Toccata and Fugue in d minor

Bach's Now Thank We All Our God

B. Marcello's Psalm 19

Lemmens' Fanfare and Toccata

And (thanks to Caleb) The Theme from Super Smash Bro's Luigi's Mansion (below). Does anybody know if this is based on a piece of classical/baroque music? It sure sounds like it (especially right around 0:40).

Cogito Ergo Sum?

xkcd: original at http://xkcd.com/876/

OH NO!

I opened the paper today and found this! How can it be?!
I LOVE the Jumble!

Huh?

The stories I was hearing at work today were making me wonder if this were April 1 rather than March 21! These might be "had to be there" situations, but I'm gonna share them anyway.


STORY #1

One of my colleagues is particularly concerned about people smoking in non-smoking areas. He has a daughter who suffered terribly from asthma, and he spent many hours in ER with her throughout her childhood, so he knows what second-hand smoke can do, particularly to those with health issues. Whenever he sees a someone smoking in a non-designated area on campus, he points it out to them and asks them to stop.

This happened today. He was walking across campus, saw someone with smoke curling up from their fingers, and he let them know they couldn't smoke there. The person said to him:

"Oh . . . it's OK . . . I'm not smoking it, I'm just holding it."

HUH?


STORY #2

We have to be careful to protect student confidentiality in all areas - one of them being grades. This is a bit tricky, because students like to have instructors post grades so they can check what is officially recorded for them. We obviously can't use names, and we really aren't supposed to use ID numbers. One of my colleagues was looking for an idea of how to post grades while at the same time protecting privacy. He was given the idea of having students make up nicknames for themselves that others wouldn't guess and then posting the grades using the nicknames.

So off he went to class to implement this new idea. He asked the students to take out a piece of paper and write their name on it and then a nickname that could be used for posting purposes. More than one student turned in the paper with only their new nickname (apparently thinking he was psychic - in which case why turn it in at all?). Also while the students were at work on this one shouted out to him, "Can't you just pass around one piece of paper and have us all write our names and nicknames on it?!"

HUH?


CONCLUSION: We do our best as faculty to protect our students' health and privacy, but sometimes . . . sometimes . . . uh . . . you know . . . sometimes we're just left scratching our heads! (and maybe chuckling a bit too :-)

Pi Day Follow Up: Math Rocks!

Happy PI Day!!

- a shout out to Wade for sending this on - Thanks!!

And happy birthday to 3 of my favorite people: Sue, Carla and Einstein! :-)

Seeking Your Input!

I always want to keep my classes lively. A topic coming up in my liberal arts math class is logic - you know, reasoning and statements and syllogisms and truth tables and so on. As I cover this topic I want to bring in some attention-grabbing, interesting items from popular culture. For instance there is the "Battle of Wits" in the movie The Princess Bride; there is the Ferry Scene in Batman: Dark Knight; there is a scene in the 1986 movie Labyrinth, where the heroine has to decide what door to choose (see clip at bottom of post).

There are examples in literature as well, what comes most immediately to mind is Lewis Carroll's work in Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. There are the writings of philosopher, mathematician, pianist Raymond Smullyan.

I'm looking for any well-known books, movies, commercials, cartoons, comics, poems, games, and/or other items that involve logic puzzles in any way in order to bring this to life for my students - whether you are a math teacher, a student who saw something cool in class, or someone who has just come across something along these lines, please send it on to me in the comments section!

THANKS!!!

Renewed Hope

I found myself in an oasis of hope today.

With the ongoing economic crisis and states making budget cuts and all the rancor and finger-pointing going on - much of it pointed at education and many negative things being said about teachers and schooling in general, I was so refreshed by being in the midst of a picture of all that's right and hopeful in education right now.

The county Science Olympiad was today, a competition for junior high and high school students. There were literally thousands of people involved. What struck me was all the volunteers and supporters. Many of my colleagues (science professors) were creating and running events - as were other volunteers including students from the college, teacher/coaches and parents were there supporting the kids - as were administrators from many of the schools involved as well as at the college hosting it (dean and VP of instruction) and the county superintendent of education, huge teams of kids from many schools were involved. That too was encouraging, as I too often read in the paper how we are falling behind other countries and as I too often hear from students such things as "Why do we have to learn this?" - not today - not with this group - and it was a BIG group. The kids were engaged and totally jazzed about what they were doing, and those who won (though cool teenagers) were not shy about showing their enthusiasm!

This gives me hope for our future!

Today I saw everything that was right about education - enthusiastic kids, administrators from all levels there all day on a Saturday to cheer the kids on, parents and other family members encouraging the kids and interacting with educators, college professors using their time and energy to make a difference for kids in grades 7-12, and teachers who go above and beyond their classroom responsibilities to take time throughout the year to coach the kids and then to be there all day with them, and I do mean all day. It was an 8am to 5:30pm even on a Saturday. Nobody got paid for this. It was all about the kids. All these people were there volunteering to promote education and science and for the benefit of these kids. Awesome! Awesome! Awesome!

Kudos to all involved.

Pictures yet to come (once I get the camera from David).

POP!

Buds have been nearly bursting on the trees for a while now. I hadn't noticed any blossoms on ours until I left for work this morning. It seems like they popped just today. I love February in northern California!

Valentine's Day

Thanks to Caleb we do it up big around here for Valentine's! A few years back he initiated the idea of "Valentine's Bags" (kinda like Christmas Stockings). We just opened ours tonight:



Here's my loot:
GET IT??

Would you ever have guessed he was such a romantic guy??

I love it that my hubby is such an artist! :-)

Heisenberg's at Home

Click to enlarge - or go to the original at http://xkcd.com/824/ on Randall Munroe's site XKCD: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

To the Core of All

Should something from the window fall
(and if it just the smallest be)
how jumps the law of gravity
as mighty as wind from the sea
at every ball or blueberry
and take them to the core of all.

from The Book of Hours by Rainer Maria Rilke

The Belle of Amherst

I was the slightest in the House—
I took the smallest Room—
At night, my little Lamp, and Book—
And one Geranium—

So stationed I could catch the Mint
That never ceased to fall—
And just my Basket—
Let me think—I'm sure—
That this was all—

I never spoke—unless addressed—
And then, 'twas brief and low—
I could not bear to live—aloud—
The Racket shamed me so—

And if it had not been so far—
And any one I knew
Were going—I had often thought
How noteless—I could die—

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Human Calculator

(from Stan Lee's Superhuman Bios at History.com)

Convergence

I picked up the paper today and found an article on what I posted about earlier this week - based on the texting woman falling into a fountain. The newspaper article, by David Bauer of the Associated Press is titled:

SMART PHONES, DUMB HABITS: New Yorker says talkers have replaced tourists as sidewalks' biggest headache.

Here are some quotes:

"It was a miserable morning in New York, rain falling heavily and a 30 mph wind that made holding an umbrella difficult. Yet a man walked briskly up Fifth Avenue, balancing his umbrella and dodging pedestrians as he texted from his smart phone.

As a sheer physical act, it was almost Olympian in the strength, dexterity and concentration required.

It was also completely ridiculous.

It was RAINING. And cold. The man was, let's presume, minutes from some destination. At any moment, he could spear a fellow pedestrian with his umbrella because he was only marginally paying attention to where he was going. What message could possibly be so important that it couldn't wait?

While smart phones and other electronic devices changed popular culture by offering an ability to always stay connected, they have so swiftly turned into such a compelling need that a simple walk down the street is considered wasted time.

...

Smart phones have replaced tourists as New York pedestrians' biggest headache. We used to disdain people from out of town when they wandered slowly on the sidewalks, looking skyward at tall buildings and muttering as we walked by with purpose.

Now we're the menace.

We also used to walk with a certain amount of hyperawareness. Remember muggers creeping from dark corners? Pickpockets who worked the crowds? Now many people walk down the street oblivious to their surroundings, fiddling with an electronic device worth hundreds of dollars.

...

I've been to parties where clumps of people stared into devices, or texted, instead of actually conversing with humans around them. I always marvel upon landing on a redeye flight from the West Coast at how many people immediately take out their phones and begin dialing. It's 5:30 a.m. — 2:30 in the city they've left. Who are they calling?

William Powers once saw two women in New York crashing baby strollers into one another because they were both concentrating on phones. Powers, a former Washington Post reporter, wrote the book "Hamlet's BlackBerry," about how an addiction to technology prevents people from doing their best work or forging healthy relationships.

...

Powers believes things will calm down as people become more accustomed to the technology.

...

So there's hope. In the meantime, look out for yourself on the street. No one else is."

The full article can be found at:

http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/*/Article_2011-01-20-Lifestyles%20Distracted%20Pedestrians/id-774ae6054d8d47488740d1dd7d16ca67

Glorious Day

We've had so many gloriously foggy days this winter. I don't remember fog this thick nor this frequent since my childhood. It's so cool how it sets things apart.


Here is our house this morning:


And, don't ya know, this is California, so here's our house this afternoon. Yeah, I'm lovin' it!

The Time Has Come

WAY BACK in October, long before the above video went viral this week, I was thinking of writing a post on this topic, but I hadn't fully formulated my thoughts yet. I basically just put up an introductory video. I'm still not sure my thoughts are fully formulated, but this video has convinced me that the time has come to express them anyway.

I have been trying to decide if I am justified in my frustration with society's addiction to texting or if I'm just getting old and crotchety. I try to temper my opinions by trying to keep an open mind. For instance, as I have this internal debate I think about the advent of writing. I love reading, and I find books to be valuable beyond words (no pun initially intended), and yet the wise philosopher Plato wrote this about the invention of writing:

"The fact is that this invention will produce forgetfulness in the souls of those who have learned it. They will not need to exercise their memories, being able to rely on what is written, calling things to mind no longer from within themselves by their own unaided powers, but under the stimulus of external marks that are alien to themselves."

Honestly, I don't think writing has harmed us but rather has been of great benefit (though writing can be used to incite war or to spread garbage as well). The instant communication we have today can be used to good purpose and bad also. So, I wonder, am I reacting to texting like Plato reacted to writing. Is texting really something more good than bad that will some day be taken entirely for granted and as a genuine boon to the good of society?

In my experience I've seen it to be convenient but certainly not necessary - in fact generally quite unnecessary to the point of being worse than frivolous and sometimes actually dangerous.

I think there is at least a two-fold problem. In part, people aren't wise about using this technology. Additionally it has become an addiction. The first thing MOST of my students do as they are dismissed from class - every class - every day - is check their messages, even if they've only been in class 45 minutes - and were outside class as I walked up texting right up until the time class started. Although I require cell phones to be put away during class, many students have them sitting out visibly on the desk anyway, in case a message comes through. Last year I had a student who absolutely freaked out in class because it was too quiet, and it made her feel disoriented and as if she didn't know what was going on. I think she was just so used to having the constant stimulation of ceaseless connection that it was like sensory deprivation for her.

I've gotten a number of emails recently to my work inbox from prospective students, whom I'd never met, wanting to be added to my class, and many of these messages have come to me in "text speech" combined with such poor structure that they are nearly indecipherable (and I'm pretty good at deciphering!). Do people think this is appropriate for official or professional communication? Do they know that it is extremely casual communication? Do they even know that other forms of writing exist? Are they able to write in other forms?

That's where I see and deal with it mostly, but, of course, I see drivers who are talking on phones or texting and weaving all over the road. The statistics are sobering:

Talking on a cell phone causes nearly 25% of car accidents.

For every 6 seconds of drive time, a driver sending or receiving a text message spends 4.6 of those seconds with their eyes off the road. This makes texting the most distracting of all cell phone related tasks.

In 2008 almost 6,000 people were killed and a half-million were injured in crashes related to driver distraction.

Talking on a cell phone while driving can make a young driver's reaction time as slow as that of a 70-year-old.

Texting while driving is about 6 times more likely to result in an accident than driving while intoxicated.

52% of 16- and 17-year-old teen drivers confess to making and answering cell phone calls on the road. 34% admit to text messaging while driving.

Each year, 21% of fatal car crashes involving teenagers between the ages of 16 and 19 were the result of cell phone usage. This result has been expected to grow as much as 4% every year.

Despite the risks, the majority of teen drivers ignore cell phone driving restrictions.

So where do we go from here?

The woman pictured in the video was interviewed on the news later. She has hired a lawyer and is seriously considering suing the mall, first because because they posted this video, and it embarrassed her and, second, because "no one came to her aid" (um, she didn't appear hurt, and she got up so fast who could have gotten there on time anyway - and someone did come after the fact, which can be seen on this video, a maintenance worker walking by checked to see if she was OK). She concludes the interview by warning people that it is dangerous to walk and text at the same time. REALLY? It took falling into a fountain to figure that out?

Again, I ask, where do we go from here?

Can we use this technology as a truly good thing that is mainly of benefit? Can we learn from the accidents that have happened - from vehicular fatalities to falls into mall fountains - and turn this around? Can we undo the addiction and USE cell phones rather than having them USE us? Or is it just too far gone? Is there hope for this situation?

Here is the video I posted earlier:

The answer here is another phone.

REALLY?!

Somehow I just don't think so.

First Poets

I reckon - when I count at all -
First - Poets - Then the Sun -
Then Summer - Then the Heaven of God -
And then - the List is done-

But, looking back - the First so seems
To Comprehend the Whole -
The Others look a needless Show -
So I write - Poets - All -

Their Summer - lasts a Solid Year -
They can afford a Sun
The East - would deem extravagant -
And if the Further Heaven -

Be Beautiful as they prepare
For Those who worship Them -
It is too difficult a Grace -
To justify the Dream -

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

and Thou :-)

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, A Book of verse - and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness -
And Wilderness is Paradise now.

Omar Khayyam (1048-1141)

Life

Whew! It's been quite a ride lately!

It was so AWESOME to have Anthony home again - and so cool that it was such a natural transition back - almost as if he'd never left. It's kind of tough entering this new semester, though, as he may be gone 3 months longer this time than last time - with a one-month winter term added in and the potential for staying at the college to do mathematical research 2 months into the summer. Such mixed feelings - so happy for him to (potentially) have that opportunity, but not ready for him to be so cut loose from home yet. I was still planning on those 3-month-long summers together for a while yet.

I LOVE MY FAMILY!

My semester, the teaching part anyway, began yesterday. I've now met with all my classes and have had a pretty smooth start despite being sick and beginning the week feverish, achy and congested. I think I started turning the corner on that today, which is good because Tuesdays are my long days. I'm on campus for 11+ hours, six and a half of which are lecture, the grand finale being a 3-hour-long night class. With office hours in there too I haven't quite figured out how to fit meals in - grabbed a bean burrito from Taco Bell on my way home at 9:30pm.

The cool thing was that my order number was 111, and today's date is 1/11/11.

Yes, I am easily amused, but at least that shows I was still in a good mood after a very long day.

So far so good with my classes, but once I start giving and grading tests I might be singing a different tune. I have too hard a time turning students away. They do need the class - for some of them it's the last class they need before they can transfer, for others it's the first math class on their path through college, a path that is quite blocked until they get going on the math sequence. I've got over 100 students between my two sections of 101, which will be rough with grading because a lot of the problems are essay-type and not algebra-type problems. So I'll be putting in some long hours on that. I have about 200 students total. For one of the classes I grade homework every night . . . not typical in college, but that class needs the feedback.

It's just before midnight here. I should have been in bed long ago, but it's hard to wind down after teaching up to 9pm - and I had a lot of student email to respond to tonight - so it goes.

I was hoping to sleep in tomorrow, as my classes don't begin tomorrow until 11am (cool!), but Jacob's school decided to have a "late start day," (but not all that late) so I have to get up on time anyway and get him to school (not so cool). The timing sure could have been better on that!

Oh, and though I'm not as disgruntled as one of my colleagues about working in what he terms "the trailer park" (the portables we are in until construction on our classroom building is finished), and though I was reasonably able to put up with the lack of heat and an interior temperature of 43 degrees last week and early yesterday, I must say that utter lack of toilet paper in the restrooms today and the soap dispenser having fallen off the wall did make for a less than desirable work environment.

Well, and the fact that our portable has no refrigerator or microwave adds to the difficulty . . . ah well . . .

That's my life right now - and my mind has lost some of its poetry for the moment (hence my lack of posting) - between the holiday events and maxing out time with Anthony and rockin' and rollin' into a new semester. Hopefully I'll be back to my "normal" self in a week or so!

For now I'll just try to remember to carry some TP with me :-)