Greetings Numerologists,
There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar. I only
mention this because of the topic of the week, which is numbers.
(You do read that title line at the top that relates the topic,
don't you? Good!) I also mention it because of the bean-brained
clerk at one of our local fast food restaurants (which shall
remain McDonald's) who tried to make correct change for a
purchase of $5.89 from a twenty dollar bill. I should mention,
of course, that the correct amount of change to return was
displayed on the computer cash register, so all the person had to
do was supply the indicated amount of American currency to make
me go away happy. This took five tries.
Maybe it is an unkind thought on my part, but I found myself
think that somewhere out there in this vast world of ours, a
village is missing their idiot.
Clearly, our schools have been a bit on the weak side in
math education. But numbers are little details that escape a
large number of us - and escape us regularly. You could say we
can count on being wrong regularly. Math and numbers are so
complex and inflexible that nearly all of us get bit with a
little lack of precision now and again. Mathematically, there is
only one correct answer and an infinite number of wrong ones. It
happened to me last week, too, where in copying the file from one
format to another while assembling SUNFUN, Einstein's mass to
energy became E=mc. And that square of the speed of light is a
larger enough number to make that a really impressive miss. But
a very large number of our science and math gurus noticed that
little flaw, which has been fixed in the website version with the
correct [squared] 2 (As ^2).
Glad we got that out of the way. Geez... Yud hav thot et
wuz a speling mistrake, er sumthin! For the benefit of those of
you who are math-challenged, and for the rest whose computers
won't display math symbols in any known system way, this
discussion of numbers will have to be relatively equation-free.
You're welcome.
Thanks this week numerically superior friends and
contributors, including: Jerry Taff (& his pal, Hugh), R.J.
Tully, Yuhwa Eva Lu & Tiffany, Charles Beckman, Chuck Maray, Jan
Michalski, Bruce Gonzo, Major & Judy McCallum, Catherine Cassidy,
Kenn Venit, Joshua Brink, Sharon Nuernberg, Stanley Leung, Carol
J. Becwar, Kerry Miller, Tom Hadley, Wallace.Adams, Tim McChain
and Helen Yee & Wayne Pokora. To sum up what we've learned of
math so far today, all numerical systems consist of real and
imaginary numbers. Real numbers are pretty easy to grasp, but
imaginary numbers give most people fits, which is precisely why
mathematicians spend so much time talking about them. Imaginary
numbers are actually quite simple to explain so that anyone can
grasp them - all you need is the correct frame of reference;
usually difficult to grasp for the square root of a negative
number. But, simply put, imaginary numbers are that group of
numbers including TV Channel One.
Have a > Average Week,
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TOP TEN EXCUSES FOR NOT DOING MATH HOMEWORK
-------------------------------------------
Math homework, I have noticed with my two teenagers, is the
course work most likely to be put off until last. It is also the
most likely to be slept on, as well as the most likely less than
complete. But most kids hate math. Most adults, too, except
that creative enhancements to our taxes are usually our only math
challenges once we graduate. For those still in class, here are
a few popular excuses that might help to convince your math
teacher you stayed awake for more than half of the class:
- I accidentally divided by zero and my paper burst into
flames.
- I could have sworn I put the homework inside a Klein bottle,
but this morning I couldn't find it.
- I locked the paper in my locker but a four-dimensional dog
got in and ate it.
- I took time off for Isaac Newton's birthday.
- I could only get arbitrarily close to my textbook. Because
of this I couldn't actually reach it.
- I fell into the infinity pool between zero and one.
- I have the proof, but there isn't room to write it in this
margin.
- I was watching the World Series and got tied up trying to
prove that it converged.
- I misread Fermat as ferment, and ended up too drunk to write
any proof in the margins of my paper.
- As I was doing my calculus, I found I could approach the
solution but never quite reach it.
- I have a solar-powered calculator and it was cloudy out.
- I couldn't figure out whether i am the square of negative
one or i is the square root of negative one.
- I took time out to snack on a doughnut and a cup of coffee.
I spent the rest of the night using topological methods
trying to figure out which one to dunk.
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AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY USELESS:
----------------------------------------
53310761 = Elvis Presley's military service ID number.
[ On the other hand, it might be one way of
determining if that Wal-Mart greeter in
Kalamazoo, Michigan is really the King,
himself. ]
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MATH FOR FUN & PROFIT
---------------------
While pure math may be fun - or maybe a seriously bent
obsession - for some, there is a practical side of all this fun
with numbers stuff, especially in that branch of math theory
known as probability theory.
Recently in England, bookmakers have been offering 500-1
odds that tennis players Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf's new-born
baby boy Jaden Gil will grow up and win Wimbledon.
The bookmakers at William Hill in London will also give odds
on the tennis kid with the Grand Slam parents growing up to be
the German Chancellor when he grows up, but the odds there are
1000-to-1 or better. (Or, bettor? Let's call the whole thing
off.)
The odds on soccer player David Beckham's son Brooklyn
playing dad's old sport professionally are no where near as
steep, at only 33-to-1. (Reuters)
[ Being gamblers, the folks who would put
money on these odds are unlikely to notice
that such bets involve the stakes company
holding your money for a couple of decades. ]
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DEFINITIONS DEPARTMENT...
----------------------
LOTTERY (n.) - A tax on people who are bad at math.
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THE PI-EYED KID...
---------------
PI, the math relationship of the circumference of a circle
to its diameter, is a transcendental number. Surprisingly, this
has little to do with the use of hypnosis by dentists. It means,
in short, that you will never come to the end of the digits of
PI, and the digits never repeat. This makes it difficult to
memorize, of course.
Well, it is difficult unless you are Jake Enget of Fargo,
North Dakota.
Last year, the 18-year-old Fargo South High School student
won a fancy graphing calculator by memorizing - and reciting out
loud - the first 1,001 digits of PI. This year, he did even
better, rattling off 5,005 digits to win first place. He spent
two weekends and most of his spare time cramming, rattling off
the numbers in rap rhythm.
And why did Jake grab another piece of the PI?
"I just wanted to hold up my reputation from last year," he
said. (Reuters)
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THE BIG STUFF...
-------------
Since we'd go nuts with all of the zeros involved (the place
holding figure, not the mathematicians), we commonly use names to
refer to really large numbers. Of course, real boffins refer to
a trillion as being 10^12 (Yup, it's that doggone superscript
again. But you have it now, right?). But folks from the English
department are convinced that use of scientific notation leads to
cancer, mental illness and bog spavins. So here are a few of the
names to refer to really big globs of zeros:
* Billion = 9 zeros (Thousand Million in Britain)
Trillion = 12 zeros
Quadrillion = 15 zeros
Quintillion = 18 zeros
Sextillion = 21 zeros (and has the additional
advantage of sounding really dirty)
Septillion = 24 zeros
Octillion = 27 zeros
Nonillion = 30 zeros
Decillion = 33 zeros
Undecillion = 36 zeros
Duodecillion = 39 zeros
Tredecillion = 42 zeros
Quattuordecillion = 45 zeros
Quindecillion = 48 zeros
Sexdecillion = 51 zeros
Septendecillion = 54 zeros
Octodecillion = 57 zeros
Novemdecillion = 60 zeros
Vigintillion = 63 zeros
Googol = 100 zeros.
Centillion = 303 zeros (except in Britain, where
it has 600 zeros)
Googolplex = One googol of zeros
Even a garden variety decillion looks like:
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
so it's no wonder we use the names. As far as how useful these
numbers are, it's worth noting that the number of words printed
since in the 500 years since the Gutenberg Bible is estimated to
be about one Quintillion, and that 1 googol is greater than the
number of protons, electrons, and neutrons in the known universe,
so they probably have little use at describing anything tangible
at the moment.
They may in the near future represent the interest on Bill
Gates' bank account, however...
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If you counted 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it
would take 31,688 years to count to one trillion.
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MATHEMATICIANS - EXPLAINED
--------------------------
A physicist, a chemist, and a mathematician are stuck on a
desert island with several cans of food, but no can opener. They
each try to come up with a way to open the tins of food.
The physicist made his suggestion first. He proposed they
construct small catapult out of a palm tree in order to throw the
cans against some rocks. The cans would break open from the
force of the impact and they could then eat the contents.
The chemist disliked this suggestion and offered his own
concept: They should make a fire and put the cans over the fire.
The food in the cans would expand and the containers would split
open.
A little skeptical at this, the physicist looked the math
professor, who seemed lost in thought.
Finally, the mathematician said, "Let us assume that we have
a can opener..."
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THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LIFE AND COMPLEX NUMBERS - EXPLAINED
-------------------------------------------------------------
Life is complex: Part real, part imaginary.
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© 2001 by Bill Becwar. All Rights Reserved.
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