The virtues of old technology
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Tag Archives: high school
Imaginary numbers and reality
I first visited the complex plane 45 years ago, in High School. It was love at first sight, and I have been smitten ever since. Thank you, Margaret Matchett, my math teacher that year.
EDIT: I just looked her up on the Mathematics Genealogy Project. Go back three “generations” and you get to Ludwig Boltzmann, whose work has fascinated me since I first heard about it, not long after Mrs. Matchett’s math class.
Significant Figures
Measurement and Uncertainty Smackdown. With America being ruled by the Innumerati of all political persuasions anything that helps simple quantitative reasoning is worthwhile.
The basics of this I learned in High School Chemistry (Thank you, Mr. Wheeler) and my first two years at Carleton. Of course, back then (1967-70),
….there is no reason that students in introductory courses couldn’t do the monte
carlo method.
was not quite so obvious.
Bookstore visit
Back in November our foster daughter, carpe_noctum_93, introduced me to Half Price Books. This evening we made a family visit to the Roseville store.
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Convergence 2010 — Physics and Fantasy
Convergence 2010 — Physics and Fantasy
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Perpetual motion machines, cold fusion, free energy and other fake science stories. Where do they come from and what does physics really allow?
Notes from a panel at Convergence 2010, with web
links, comments, and one smart-assed quote.
This brings back memories
I have several real slide rules at home, and I still know how to use them. I could not afford an electronic calculator until 1976, when I got an HP-21.
Via Slashdot.
Friend in the News
Sister Edith Bogue, blogging nun or ‘Monastic Musings’: The Blogging Nun. See also Sr. Edith’s comments at Musing on Musings in the News.
Knitting and Faith
Faith Lessons from Knitting. Sister Edith is one of my oldest friends–I think I met her back in 1967. She is a classmate from both High School and College, and was a fellow folk dancer at Carleton.
