BSG
I finished season 3 of
Battlestar Galactica, as well as
BSG Razor. This is a remarkable series. In addition to being terrifically entertaining, it raises philosophical questions such as "what does it mean to be human?" In addition to the philosophy, it is often a direct commentary on our immediate political situation. I love it because it provides me with different ways of viewing situations in the current world, and I feel like I understand things better. This show makes me smarter...and more entertained.
I'm on spring break right now. I am not getting a lot of anything done. I am okay with this.
Here is an interesting perspective given to me by Keith Devlin via the MAA via SMF quaker lady. I agree with most, but not all of it. In particular, he does a great job of capturing my disdain for the two-columns proofs from high school geometry. Here are a couple of excerpts.
"What is happening is the systematic undermining of the student’s intuition. A proof, that is, a mathematical argument, is a work of fiction, a poem. Its goal is to satisfy. A beautiful proof should explain, and it should explain clearly, deeply, and elegantly. A well-written, well-crafted argument should feel like a splash of cool water, and be a beacon of light— it should refresh the spirit and illuminate the mind. And it should be charming. There is nothing charming about what passes for proof in geometry class. Students are presented a rigid and dogmatic format in which their so-called “proofs” are to be conducted— a format as unnecessary and inappropriate as insisting that children who wish to plant a garden refer to their flowers by genus and species."
And more:
"Instead of a witty and enjoyable argument written by an actual human being, and conducted in one of the world’s many natural languages, we get this sullen, soulless, bureaucratic form-letter of a proof. And what a mountain being made of a molehill! Do we really want to suggest that a straightforward observation like this requires such an extensive preamble? Be honest: did you actually even read it? Of course not. Who would want to? \\The effect of such a production being made over something so simple is to make people doubt their own intuition. Calling into question the obvious, by insisting that it be “rigorously proved” (as if the above even constitutes a legitimate formal proof) is to say to a student, “Your feelings and ideas are suspect. You need to think and speak our way.”
Finally:
"Could anything be more unattractive and inelegant? Could any argument be more obfuscatory and unreadable? This isn’t mathematics! A proof should be an epiphany from the Gods, not a coded message from the Pentagon. This is what comes from a misplaced sense of logical rigor: ugliness. The spirit of the argument has been buried under a heap of confusing
formalism.
No mathematician works this way. No mathematician has ever worked this way. This is a complete and utter misunderstanding of the mathematical enterprise. Mathematics is not about erecting barriers between ourselves and our intuition, and making simple things complicated. Mathematics is about removing obstacles to our intuition, and keeping simple things simple."
As a mathematician, I wholeheartedly back up the statement that no mathematician would ever write like this. The theme of the entire paper is "there is no actual mathematics being taught in K-12; rather we are teaching a pseudo-mathematics that is only tangentially related to the subject of mathematics." The two-column proof is a good example of how we muck up the actual mathematics.
UNC won. Sibley won. It was a good day for family alma maters.
Prince
Why didn't I know that
Prince is a vegan?
Published
I was just published
here.
UNC
A presidential candidate
agrees with me.
I got BSG: Season 3 yesterday. I watched 7 episodes. It is, of course, really good.
Florida
It is really a shame that Florida will not
revote. This is ultimately good for Obama (who is my preferred candidate), but I don't like that the people from Florida don't get to have a say in the primary process. It is a shame that the voters have to pay for decisions made by the leaders in the Florida Democratic Party.
Of course, I realize that re-voting is a difficult and expensive task. It is the most fair, though.
NCAA
I filled out my
bracket. As usual, I demonstrated a strong bias toward a family alma mater. I can't tell if this is reasonable or not, but I'll blame
Tsjaz if I don't do well.
Hoffarber Rules
Why, oh, why could I have not watched
this game?
Pi Day
Okay, everyone who has organized an event that was covered by the Boston Globe and NPR, please step forward. Hey! Why am I the only one moving?
I am super-happy that I am marrying Skye and not
this woman. I probably wouldn't get a $12,000 engagement ring to begin with.
A
re-do is the only acceptable solution for Michigan and Florida. Their delegates were removed as punishment for moving up their primaries in order to become more influential; this caused candidates not to take the primaries seriously before (Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan). Still, the people should be heard. Therefore, there should be some sort of a vote. I am happy that Michigan is going to find a way to do this.
I am not going to rant against pi day today. I think that it is a little silly, but I also had a good time at the celebration. A lot of people were interested, so I am not going to rant.
So much...
Sorry about the delay. You might notice that I did not take a full month to write, so you are required to excuse me. Many things caused the delay: my grandpa died, I had to decide on a job, we are still planning a wedding, midterms came and went, I had to finish planning for the semester, I had to keep up with a new course.
Skye and I are moving to Minnesota in August. We aren't moving to the exact location we had planned (it is about an hour away from where I wanted to be), but it seems like it will be a fantastic job. I will get to teach pre-service elementary educators in a way that I like, I really like the faculty, I like the administration, there is a great campus culture (students attend classes, there is a big community feeling), and I
really like the students. I'm looking forward to this.
Because of the move, we are going to buy a car. This is both exciting and annoying. Mainly, it is annoying. I don't want to spend the money on having something that I don't want to have to use. On the other hand, I need to use a car in order to maintain the lifestyle I want. I am pushing for an older Mercedes-Benz to convert to run on vegetable oil (Benz's are one of the only sedans that are diesel). I think that shopping for cars will be fun, and tinkering with the engine will be cool (this is the exciting part).
The latest big step in the wedding planning was a purchase of plane tickets for the honeymoon. We decided on Norway and Sweden, and I like this a lot. I started learning Norwegian today - I can say variations of three sentences so far. I'll practice again tonight before going to bed.
We saw
Juno last night. It was good. I have more to say about it, but there are people reading who have not seen it.
Bob Mould is tomorrow night. I'm listening to his new album right now.
