Mathematics
Twelve-Year Old Catches Two Fly Balls in One At Bat
While my posts on this site don't reflect it, I am quite the sports nut. I'm finding out that I'm in the minority of most of the atheist / science geek circles I run in, and that's fine. I've always loved sports, the nature of competition is fascinating to see played out with strategy, injury, and true grit toughness. If you had seen the mountains of baseball and football cards I collected as a kid and teenager, you'd know I'm dead serious.
I don't blog much about sports here mostly because that's not really the point of this blog, but I will do so from time to time because sports are a part of my life and a particular passion of mine. I religiously participate in fantasy sports, especially baseball, and make a habit of having games on in the background whenever possible, even if not actively watching.
Anyway, via Dvorak Uncensored, here is a quick video clip of one twelve-year old kid catching two foul balls during the at bat of one player. That kid has a great story to tell his buds and perhaps his own kids one day. Baseball may be slow, largely filled with long periods of nothing happening and interrupted by quick punctuations of activity, but it is also a game which, more than any other, emphasizes numbers, math, statistics. Like Dvorak stated about the likelihood of this double foul ball situation happening:
This is ridiculous proof of the random number theory which shows things happen in clumps.
Book Review: Irreligion by John Paulos
(out of 5 stars)
Mathematician John Paulos offers a very brief book full of very brief responses to common modern arguments for the existence of God. Each short chapter offers a basic argument made for God, and Paulos presents his logical refutation. This book is so short, I had finished it in one sitting. Paulos muddles at times, makes strange excursions, ends explanations well short of full, and offers an amazing amount of choppiness in a book of such short length.
Overall, Paulos argues familiar lines to skeptical readers, and most of his presentation is not approachable to the novice or less-well read reader. While he works in some mathematical logic without many actual equations, some of his references are to subjects most readers won't understand. This work is mostly effective in shooting down the for-God arguments, but many of Paulos's explanations are meandering, muddled, and sometimes end abruptly. There is even one case where he states the argument could be fleshed out more, and then walks away from it. WTF?
Anyway, not a bad overview of the refutations, but not a very clean treatment. For a better and more comprehensive version of this same theme (with better mathematics and science content), see Victor Stenger's God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist. Not specifically recommended for anyone and not one of the better offerings I've read on the subject. Two and one-half stars.
Term of the Day: Torus
In geometry, a torus (pl. tori) is a surface of revolution generated by revolving a circle in three dimensional space about an axis coplanar with the circle, which does not touch the circle. Examples of tori include the surfaces of doughnuts and inner tubes. The solid contained by the surface is known as a toroid. A circle rotated about a chord of the circle is called a torus in some contexts, but this is not a common usage in mathematics. The shape produced when a circle is rotated about a chord resembles a round cushion. Torus was the Latin word for a cushion of this shape. (Torus)
Book Review: Islands of Truth: A Mathematical Mystery Cruise
(out of 5 stars)
Math is such a hard subject to put into enjoyable narrative that I tend to be relieved when I realize I'm already 100 pages into a math book and don't feel like putting it back on the shelf. Peterson's narrative is engaging and should provide a comfortable realm in which to explore his examples of applied and advanced math studies. While the book itself does contain some discussion of advanced math, the author is careful to offer the reader solid analogies and models to help understand some of the concepts. The book is heavily peppered with graphics, charts, models, and other visual representations of the subjects, which helps enormously in visualizing what the author describes.
This book was written in 1990, so many of the discussions regarding computers and their function in math (generally the last 1/3 or so) are greatly out of date. However, all is not lost since Peterson's underlying points are often untouched by such concerns. Just keep that in mind as you read about things that aren't yet possible on computers, or feats which have surely been bested, such as disussion of Deep Thought (chess playing computer Deep Thought eventually gave way to Deep Blue which scored a highly controversial victory over master and champion Kasparov in 1997 before being dismantled). All in all, well worth a read for most any level of math reader or general science reader. Four stars.
