I’m Doing a thing

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

You’ll probably like it.

Maybe.

In a week or so. But I got sidetracked. And now I’m taking the mathematician for walk.

See you later.

63 thoughts on “I’m Doing a thing”

  1. Better keep your mathematician on a leash. They can get into big trouble while running free. [Very Very Big Crazy Grin]

    Like

    1. . . . because exorcising them leads to non-functional states. Unless he or she is possessed by a printer’s devil, in which case you probably end up with some of the advance theoretical calculus textbooks I’ve seen in university book stores.

      Liked by 1 person

        2. Because they were supposed to be written in English, but I didn’t recognize a thing after the title page and copyright notice. Lots of Greek, upper and lowercase, and some numbers, and what appeared to be an incantation in an ancient and alien tongue, but nothing I’d call standard English. ;)

          Like

          1. So, basically normal for that flavor of mathematics textbook.

            I was wondering if there was some weird trend going on.

            Like

    1. Except the sum of that particular infinite series is 1. Now, if each step took the same time, you would get slower and slower, and you would indeed never arrive. But if each step took half as long, the sum of that infinite series is also 1. As long as you maintain the 1 to 1 ratio of distance and time, you can indeed go a finite distance in a finite time, Are you satisfied, Zeno?

      Like

          1. I’ve been that, too, and likely will be again. As well as pedantic and too clever a donkey I see that WP ate my half-trained mathematician hat. But since I’ve never seen anyone else supply a proper debunking of Zeno’s old chestnut, I felt obliged. I’ll go back to my hermit cave now.

            Like

  8. As an example of how a tortured mind works: Walking the — = doing math. = A Joke!

    The engineer was required to calculate the volume of the loft storage included in the new home. The future owner was adamant that all of the spaces be equal, and of the same general shape. Mr. Engineer thought long and hard. The house was in Victorian style so there was no easy way to manage this until… His eureka moment! He solved the riddle using a Quad-r-Attic equation!

    And this is why nobody likes me…

    Like

    1. I almost posted this to FB but lately every time I click on FB within two minutes I am asking my self why did I click on FB. Sort of like watching a wounded duck swimming in a circle.

      Like

  9. Related (Somehow) I could never be a headline writer. Here, from the Spectator:
    “The Biden administration hates you more than China”
    My immediate reaction: Why does China hate me? they don’t even know me! I mean, not really as far as I know. I never had anything but good thoughts about the people of China. The CCP? well, maybe not so much but when I think of them at all, It’s not all bad…
    What did I do to deserve this rampant China-Hate?
    An so on it goes…

    Like

  11. Mathematicians, gotta’ love ’em. For longer than I’ve been alive, their goal is to create a logically consistent branch of mathematics that is completely useless, but those darn engineers keep finding ways to use things like imaginary numbers and Riemann surfaces. Even prime numbers, long considered useless but entertaining, are used in cryptography.

    Liked by 1 person

      2. Not to worry, the US Treasury is preparing to print an infinite number of dollar bills, so we’ll all have to learn transfinite arithmetic to pay our taxes.

        Like

    3. I was told that my grandfather who did… hydrology, maybe, was once trying to explain aquifer depletion to the city council (I think), and when one of the members – who happened to be a professor of mathematics – claimed to not understand the concepts, my grandfather explained it in mathematical terms.

      Allegedly, this provoked an objection from the mathematician that he didn’t want to hear any practical use for his field of study.

      Like

    2. When my boys were young, we would take the dog out for penny walks. Come to an intersection and flip a penny. Heads, straight, tails turn. If turning, heads left, tails right. Sometimes a very short walk, as the penny lead us right back home, other times a very long walk. It was fun in the days before Pokemon Go.

      Like

  15. If you’re suspicious of imaginary numbers, check out the incantations conjuring the completely fictitious “real” numbers.
    Delta and Epsilon were observed nearby, they’re now hiding out with Bolzano and Weierstrass!

    Like

  16. Well, if the mathematician doesn’t drink, then borrow drunkard to serve as a guide.
    Sorry, I can’t volunteer for this, I’ve been working too much to drink.
    :-(
    John in Indy

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I was thinking more along the lines of the unlamented Governor Blagoiavich. “I’ve got this . . . . Thing. And it’s . . . golden.” (Supposedly he was trying to “sell” a US Senate seat.)

      Like

Comments are closed.