I love series. My favorite quote from the chapter: “the land is dying, even the oceans are dying, but one can take refuge in the abstract beauty of sequences like Dion Gijswijt's A090822”.
This is the second PVS book in which Thorp's Beat the Market/Dealer have been referenced. I looked to see if I could check it out from the library: lots of copies of Beat the Dealer, but no copies of Beat the Market in Las Vegas--figures. It's nice to know to stick with the Kelly strategy when at the tables.
We spent a family night exploring the Pythagorean theory—glue and scissors, etc. Our 3-year old liked using scissors; our 9-year old got the concept but was underwhelmed. I still think it is magical.
I also liked the chapter on hyperbolic curves and Infinity. Since God is infinite, is he aleph or c or d? Does this fit into our theology?
I'm with you Alvin—this book reminded me how much I like math. I kind of gave up on math in college when we got into vector spaces and things I couldn't visualize, but thinking about it now, all math (or at least algebra) is an abstraction, right? Numbers are so much fun.
By the way, one of the chapters is titled "Life of Pi". I'm sure everyone's read it, but it is one of my favorite books.
1 comment:
Paul, you say that the difference of 7 between your name and Kristene's is the same as the number of people in your family. So is that a sign from the gods that you're done having kids? Or is it a sign that you should have 7 kids?
I believe God's creations are aleph, but Christ's atonement is e (or whatever's after d). I also believe God works in a base 10 system like us because he also has 10 fingers and toes, though like the amazonian tribes, he doesn't seem to be that big on exact counting. I don't take many of the numbers in the scriptures at face value (40 years, 40 days, 1/3 of the hosts of heaven, 7 times 70, etc.) Lots of approximations.
It's pretty clear he's interested in the one, and infinity will surely be an important concept in the afterlife. Everything in between, negative numbers, etc. seem less important, though the creation (gravitational constant, etc.) must have taken some excellent math skills.
Post a Comment