Good day today
Apr. 12th, 2010 02:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
barnabas_trumanAs it was rainy today, I wore my Hazel's big green cloak to school. While walking around I received five compliments and a hug from random passers-by I'd never seen before. I should start wearing cloaks on a regular basis again. :-)
Class today consisted of review of applications of trigonometry--primarily solving triangles with unknown sides or angles, surveying, and graphing simple harmonic motion (springs, pendulums, etc.). It went rather well; I covered all the topics I planned to cover and had some extra time to discuss the history of some of the formulas, the meaning of higher dimensions, and even a bit of philosophy. Best line of the day: "The ancient Greek mathematicians were unable to solve certain problems because of the inherent limitations of the way they thought about numbers. I wonder if the mathematicians of the future will someday say the same about us?" (Second best line of the day: "Your cloak is so awesome! May I hug you?")
On the way back home I stopped by the math department to show some of my colleagues a neat graphing calculator program I wrote to randomly generate the Sierpinski triangle, and ended up discussing fractals, topology, and measure theory with the former department chair, to which the current department chair said "Now I know why you hired this guy--so you'd have somebody to talk to about topology!" Fun times.
Class today consisted of review of applications of trigonometry--primarily solving triangles with unknown sides or angles, surveying, and graphing simple harmonic motion (springs, pendulums, etc.). It went rather well; I covered all the topics I planned to cover and had some extra time to discuss the history of some of the formulas, the meaning of higher dimensions, and even a bit of philosophy. Best line of the day: "The ancient Greek mathematicians were unable to solve certain problems because of the inherent limitations of the way they thought about numbers. I wonder if the mathematicians of the future will someday say the same about us?" (Second best line of the day: "Your cloak is so awesome! May I hug you?")
On the way back home I stopped by the math department to show some of my colleagues a neat graphing calculator program I wrote to randomly generate the Sierpinski triangle, and ended up discussing fractals, topology, and measure theory with the former department chair, to which the current department chair said "Now I know why you hired this guy--so you'd have somebody to talk to about topology!" Fun times.
