Division by Zero

Posted by: Dave Richeson | September 14, 2011

A neat probability rule-of-thumb

Disclaimer: I am NOT a probabilist. Not only have I never taught probability, the last time I took a course in probability was in my sophomore year of college. So if this is well known (or totally wrong), forgive me.

A non-mathematician friend of mine shared this link with me. It compares the lifetime risk of dying by various means—cancer, heart disease, shark attack, etc. There are many problems with the analysis presented on this web page (for example, you are not equally likely to die from the flu in each of your 77.6 years (the average lifespan), conditional probability would be a more useful measure of risk for some of these, etc.), but I will ignore all of that. I want to focus on the last line. It says:

Lifetime risk is calculated by dividing 2003 population (290,850,005) by the number of deaths, divided by 77.6, the life expectancy of a person born in 2003.

For example, for drowning the risk is 1 in $290850005/(3306\cdot 77.6)=1133.7$

Stated another way, they are claiming that if $D$ people die each year from a given cause, the total population is $P$ , and the life expectancy is $L$ , then the probability of dying from the given cause is $DL/P$ . I saw this and I thought, “Surely this is wrong. Why would that formula give the probability?”

So I tried to calculate it myself. Here is my back-of-the-envelope calculation. The chance of dying from this cause in one year is $D/P$ . The chance of not dying from this cause in one year is $1-D/P$ , the chance of not dying from this cause for $L$ years is $(1-D/P)^L$ , and so the chance of dying from the cause in $L$ years is $1-(1-D/P)^L$ . (Of course, this leaves open the possibility of dying several times in those $L$ years, but we’ll ignore that.)

Let’s use this formula with the drowning example. I get $1-(1-3306/290850005)^{77.6}=0.000881671\ldots$ , or 1 in $1134.2$ .

What?!?! I was shocked to see an answer almost identical to the one using the “wrong” technique. There must be more to this than I first thought. Let’s look a little closer.

First, notice that $1-(1-D/P)^L=1-((1+(-D)/P)^P)^{L/P}$ . Sitting inside this expression is a sub-expression that looks a lot like the limit definition of $e^x$ . In particular, because $P$ is a large number, this expression is very nearly $1-(e^{-D})^{L/P}=1-e^{-DL/P}$ . Aha! There’s the $DL/P$ term! But we still don’t quite have what we want.

What we’ve shown is that if the probability someone dies of a given cause in one year is $x$ , then the probability that they will die from it in $L$ years is approximately $1-e^{-Lx}$ . Now suppose the probability $x$ is small (like the probability of dying by drowning). We will compute the linear approximation to this function at $x=0$ . We see that $d(1-e^{-Lx})/dx=Le^{-Lx}$ . At $x=0$ , that derivative is $L$ . So the linear approximation at $x=0$ is simply $Lx$ . In particular, if we evaluate it at our specific annual probability value $D/P$ , we obtain $DL/P$ . And there it is! [Update: thank you to the commenters for pointing out that the introduction of the exponential function, while fine, is unnecessary. Quicker: just use the linear approximation for $1-(1-x)^L$ at $x=0$ .]

Again, I’ve never seen this before. Perhaps it is well known. For example, maybe it is a good rule-of-thumb that all good actuaries know.

I’d be happy to hear people’s thoughts about this formula and my reasoning. Maybe there’s another, different way to see this.

[I'd like to thank my colleague Jeff Forrester for talking through this with me.]

7 Comments

Posted in Math | Tags: probability, risk, rule of thumb

Posted by: Dave Richeson | August 30, 2011

Advice for new college students

I’m teaching a first year seminar this semester. This isn’t a math course. (The title of my course is “Science or Nonsense?” We will look at a wide range of topics including the paranormal, evolution, climate change, the vaccine/autism controversy, alternative medicines, etc.) We are required to focus on academic writing, library research, oral communication, etc. I will also be the academic advisor to the students in my class until they declare a major. With this last role in mind, I decided to write up some advice for these new students. Here’s my list. I gave them only statements in bold, the plain text is what I told them as we went through the list.

Advice for new college students

Get to class on time.
Read your email, but not during class.
Spend a summer on campus. Work for a professor, be a tour guide, do research, etc.
Use proper grammar and capitalization in the email messages to your professors. The email shorthand that may be appropriate between friends is not appropriate when corresponding with your professor (e.g., “hey, prof. when r u going 2 b in yr office?”).
Call your teachers “Professor —” not “Mr. —” or “Mrs. —.” Almost all of your professors have the highest degree in their field (usually a PhD). (Addressing them as “Dr. —” is appropriate too, although it isn’t common at our school.)
Get to know your professors and let them get to know you. They’re nice people. Ask your professors about their research, their family, their schooling, etc. Tell them about your summer research projects, your internships, etc. Down the road you may want to ask them for a letter of recommendation and they will be able to write you a much better letter if they know you. Besides, they are human beings, if you are rude to them, they will be less enthusiastic about helping you.
Don’t skip class. Either you won’t be able to learn the material that you missed or the “free hour” that you gained will be lost several times over trying to catch up. If you do skip class, DON’T ask the professor what you missed—get notes from a classmate.
Take classes outside of your comfort zone.
Be protective of your online identity. Don’t post photos on Facebook that you wouldn’t want your parents, your professors, your future inlaws, or your future employers to see.
Don’t sell your books back, especially for classes in your major.
Don’t be a member of a clique. For many of you college will be the most diverse living experience of your life. Get to know as many people as possible and not just those with the same background as you.
Be organized, use a calendar, and pay attention to due dates.
Find a good distraction-free place to study.
Learn to write well. I’ve seen far too many mathematics and science students avoid writing courses. They are under the impression that it won’t be relevant to them. Writing is an extremely important skill that is a prerequisite for almost all careers. You will be amazed at how much you will need to write.
Learn from your mistakes. Look over your assignments when you get them back. The professor put those comments on there for your benefit. If you don’t understand the comments, ask.
Do the assigned work. And the related…
Don’t ask for extra credit. I don’t give extra credit and neither do most other college professors; if they do, they would give it to the entire class not just to you individually. Extra credit is great for the strong students—it can boost their grades from an A to an A+. Weaker students who need a grade booster should spend their time doing the assigned work (which they often haven’t done—that’s why their grade is in trouble in the first place). Doing the assigned work is the best preparation for the exams in the class—it gives the best “bang for the buck.”
Start assignments early and start studying early. Related: don’t email the professor late the night before (or worse, the day of) an exam or the due date for an assignment asking for help.
Admit when you are wrong. It may be difficult, painful, or embarrassing, but it is liberating. Living with a lie or a guilty conscience is worse than coming clean.
If you choose to drink alcohol, do so in moderation. Not all college students drinks alcohol. According to a survey given here last year at fall break, approximately one fourth of the first year students had not consumed any alcohol in the past year.
Stay healthy: eat well, exercise, and get enough sleep.
Take the courses you want to take, not the ones your parents want you to take.
Beware of technology such as video games, movies, social media, etc. They can be unhealthy, addictive time sinks.
Don’t read or send text messages in class.
Try new things (clubs, sports, volunteering, etc.), but don’t spread yourself too thin.
Call home, but not too often.
Get off campus and explore the area. Eat in restaurants, go for a hike, see a movie, visit a museum, etc.
Study abroad.
Do not beg your professor for more points on your graded work. If you have doubts about the grading, ask the professor to explain his or her reasoning. Most likely, if there was a grading error, your professor will fix it.
Show up for appointments and be punctual.
Don’t let your parents fight your battles. Professors cannot speak with your parents anyway (without a FERPA release).
If things start going wrong, see a counselor. Each year the counseling center is used by 15–20% of the student body. The service is completely confidential; they won’t notify your parents, your professors, your friends, or your insurance company.
Let go of your high school anxieties. Your classmates didn’t know you in high school. Make new friends, wear new clothes, listen to different music, and try new things.
Don’t lie to your professors; they’ve heard them all (otherwise known as the “dead grandmother rule”). (A retired professor I know used to send a condolence card to the student’s parents every time a student informed him of a death in the family.)
Be considerate of the neighbors. Not everyone in town is a college student. Keep this in mind when you are returning from a party at 2:00 AM.
Be a good roommate.
Don’t cheat. The penalties are steep if you are caught. If you are not caught you will have to contend with a guilty conscience. Cheating will produce a short-term gain and a long-term loss. Besides, it is a slippery slope—this is not the way you want to conduct the rest of your life.
Become a novice. You’ll learn more and get more out of college if you don’t hold onto the attitude that you know everything already.
Go on a road trip.
Look at your final exam schedule before scheduling your flight home.

22 Comments

Posted in Teaching | Tags: advice, advising, college, students

Posted by: Dave Richeson | August 17, 2011

A quick guide to LaTeX

This semester I’ll be teaching real analysis. I am going to have the students type their homework in LaTeX. To make this as easy for them as possible, I will give them a template that is all ready for them to enter their solutions. They shouldn’t have to worry about headers, packages, font sizes, margins, etc. Furthermore, I decided that I should give them a LaTeX cheat sheet—a single document that has all the LaTeX information that they will need. I’ve created LaTeX cheat sheets like this before—but one was for real analysis, one was for topology, one was for linear algebra, and one was for discrete math. Each cheat sheet had different symbols.

So, I decided to bring them all together into a one-size-fits-all LaTeX cheat sheet. I kept it to two pages, so it can be printed (double-sided) on one piece of paper. (I have also posted the LaTeX code. Feel free to take it, edit it, and use it.)

It doesn’t have everything. As I said, I’ve left out all information about headers, etc. Also, since these students will probably not be using figures or tables, I’ve left them out. [Update: I added information about figures. I also added links to some online resources.]

Please let me know in the comments if there is anything that you think I should add. I still have a week and a half to tinker with it before classes begin. Also, please let me know if you find any errors. Thanks!

[Note: When I began this project I intended to modify this cheat sheet by Winston Chang to suit my needs. But in the end, I wiped it clean and started from scratch. (I did use his very nice three-column format though.)]

17 Comments

Posted in Academic Technology, Math, Teaching | Tags: latex, Math, typesetting

Posted by: Dave Richeson | August 12, 2011

Highlights from MathFest 2011

Last weekend I was in Lexingon, Kentucky for MathFest 2011. I had a very nice time and saw some very good talks. I thought, just for fun, that I’d share a couple of juicy mathematical tidbits I learned.

Fibonacci numbers and the golden ratio

Ed Burger of Williams College gave a talk entitled “Planting your roots in the natural numbers: A rational and irrational look at 1, 2, 3, 4,…” From his talk I learned the following interesting facts.

In 1939 Edouard Zeckendorf proved that every natural number can be decomposed uniquely into a sum of Fibonacci numbers in such a way that no two of the Fibonacci numbers are consecutive. Recall, of course, that the Fibonacci numbers are 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55,… In particular, they satisfy the relation $F_1=1$ , $F_2=1$ , and $F_{k+1}=F_k+F_{k-1}$ .

For example:
1=1
2=2
3=1+2
4=1+3
5=5
6=1+5
7=2+5
$\vdots$
30=1+8+21
$\vdots$
48=1+13+34
$\vdots$

Then, in 1957 G. Bergman proved that every natural number can be written uniquely as the sum of distinct nonconsecutive integer powers of $\varphi$ (where $\varphi$ the “golden ratio” $(1+\sqrt{5})/2$ ). For example:

$1=\varphi^0$
$2=\varphi^{-2}+\varphi^1$
$3=\varphi^{-2}+\varphi^2$
$4=\varphi^{-2}+\varphi^0+\varphi^{2}$
$5=\varphi^{-4}+\varphi^{-1}+\varphi^{3}$
$6=\varphi^{-4}+\varphi^1+\varphi^{3}$ (check it here if you don’t believe it)

Then, in 2008 Dale Gerdemann noticed that these facts are related.

First of all, the fact that $\varphi=1+\varphi^{-1}$ implies that $\varphi^{k+1}=\varphi^{k}+\varphi^{k-1}$ , which is a very Fibonacci-like relation.

Moreover, notice that $30=6\cdot 5=6\cdot F_5$ and that $30=1+8+21=F_1+F_6+F_8$ .

Similarly, $48=6\cdot 8=6\cdot F_6$ and $48=1+13+34=F_2+F_7+F_9$ .

Do you see the connection yet? How about this:

$6=\varphi^{-4}+\varphi^1+\varphi^{3}$

$6\cdot F_5=F_{5-4}+F_{5+1}+F_{5+3}$

$6\cdot F_6=F_{6-4}+F_{6+1}+F_{6+3}$

Indeed, Gerdemann proved that $n=\varphi^{k_1}+\cdots+\varphi^{k_n}$ if and only if $nF_m=F_{m+k_1}+\cdots+F_{m+k_n}$ (for $m$ sufficiently large).

So, for example, $7\cdot F_6=7\cdot 8= 56=1+55=F_2+F_{10}=F_{6-4}+F_{6+4}$ . So from this we can conclude that $7=\varphi^{-4}+\varphi^{4}$ , which it is. Isn’t that cool?

Burger went on to describe some work he did with his REU students to extend these results to other sequences and other irrational numbers.

Beyond the Pythagorean theorem

Roger Nelson gave an excellent talk entitled “Math Icons.” It is base on material in his new book (with Claudi Alsina) Icons of Mathematics. They look at the mathematics behind several famous images (icons) in mathematics.

He started by talking about the “bride’s chair.” This is the famous image which gives the geometric interpretation of the Pythagorean theorem. Rather than our usual algebraic $a^2+b^2=c^2$ , it shows that the sum of the areas of the squares on sides $a$ and $b$ is equal to the area of the square on the side $c$ .

He went on to point out, for instance, that the figures on the sides of the triangle need not be squares. Any similar shapes will do. For example, in the figure below we see that the area sum property holds for semicircles as well. (This is in Euclid’s Elements, VI.31: In right-angled triangles the figure on the side opposite the right angle equals the sum of the similar and similarly described figures on the sides containing the right angle.)

He also discussed various properties of the so-called Vecten configuration. This is the same as the brides’ chair, but for triangles that aren’t right.

One property that I thought was particular nice is that if we take a Vecten configuration and draw in the three “flanks” (the red triangles below), then the area of each of the three flanks is the same as the area of the original (blue) triangle.

Finally, we turn to a Vecten-type configuration, but with equilateral triangles on each face. In this case, if we join the midpoints of each of the equilateral triangles, we obtain a new equilateral triangle (the red triangle below). This is now known as Napoleon’s theorem (yes, that Napoleon, and no, although he was interested in mathematics, we don’t believe that he discovered or proved this theorem).

This entire talk was fascinating. There was a lot more great material in it. I’ll have to check out their book!

How to draw a towel on a beach

Annalisa Crannell gave an amazing talk called “In the shadow of Desargues” on math, art, and perspective drawing. The main focus of her talk was Desargues’s theorem and using it to draw a towel on a beach. I couldn’t do the topic justice here, so you’ll have to check out her new book (with Marc Franz) called Viewpoints: Mathematical Perspective and Fractal Geometry in Art. I’m excited to read it.

MAA: The Musical

Finally, I was honored to be asked to participate in MAA: The Musical, which was performed during the opening banquet. I was happy to be asked and even happier not to be asked to sing in the production. I was enlisted as tech support (running the slide-show that went along with their songs). That was right up my alley. The MAA players were Alissa Crans, Annalisa Crannell, Art Benjamin, Bud Brown (musical director), Dan Kalman, David Bressoud, Francis Su, Frank Farris, Jennifer Beineke, Jenny Quinn, Matthew DeLong, Norm Richert, Paul Zorn, Talithia Williams. They did an amazing job (at least one song is now on YouTube).

[Update: Francis Su recorded the entire performance on his phone. It is now available online (audio only). Enjoy!]

All-in-all, it was a great conference.

1 Comment

Posted in Math | Tags: bride's chair, Desargues's Theorem, Fibonacci numbers, golden ratio, MAA, MathFest, perspective drawing, Pythagorean Theorem

Posted by: Dave Richeson | June 22, 2011

The Japanese theorem for nonconvex polygons

A couple of years ago I wrote blog posts about two beautiful theorems from geometry: the so-called Japanese theorem and Carnot’s theorem. Today I finished a draft of a web article that looks at both of these theorems in more detail. It contains all that you could want—connections between these theorems, generalizations of them, and consequence of them. It even has a little topology (the n-dimensional torus makes an appearance). The mathematics is supplemented by some Geogebra applets so that you can see the theorems in action.

You can find the draft of the article here:

The Japanese theorem for nonconvex polygons

[Known problem: the applet featuring irrational rotations of the circle doesn't seem to work in Safari on the Mac—I'm trying to fix that.]

5 Comments

Posted in Math | Tags: applet, Carnot's theorem, GeoGebra, geometry, Japanese theorem

Posted by: Dave Richeson | June 8, 2011

Some LaTeX odds and ends

Here are a few LaTeX tricks I’d like to share. None of them are earth-shattering, but maybe they’d be useful to some of you. (If you want to try these out, you can download this sample tex file and bib file that contains these tricks.)

1. I have always wanted LaTeX to support inline comments. In many computer programming languages you can insert comments /* like this */ in the middle of a line. You can’t in LaTeX. You can add comments using a % symbol, but then everything on the line after it is commented out.

The chief reason I would like to have inline comments is because I like to leave little notes to myself in the LaTeX—facts that I’ve decided to omit, clarifying details, word choices that I haven’t decided on, etc. Wouldn’t it be nice to write this?

The rain in Spain /* or is it France? */ falls mainly on the plain.

Of course, you can effectively leave inline comments like this (with no space between the two lines):

The rain in Spain%or is it France?
falls mainly on the plain.

But I’ve never been happy with the look of that in my code.

Today I had an idea for how to get inline comments in my LaTeX code. I defined a new function that takes one argument and does nothing with it:

\newcommand{\comment}[1]{}

Now I can write inline comments like this:

The rain in Spain\comment{or is it France?} falls mainly on the plain.

2. That inspired me to work on something else on my wish list. When you put

\cite[p. 100]{richeson:2008}

in your article it leaves a citation to the book, includes the page number, and puts the book in the bibliography. When you put

\nocite{richeson:2008}

in your article it does NOT put a citation in the article, but it does put the book in the bibliography. Great. But what I would like to do is put this in my code:

\nocite[p. 100]{richeson:2008}

I want to do this not for the reader, but for me. If I’ve obtained a piece of information from a book, I’d like to make note of it in the body of my text so that I can go back and find it later. For long books, page numbers are crucial. I could use my new comment system

Euler's formula is $V-E+F=2$.\nocite{richeson:2008}\comment{p. 100} Isn't that cool?

Instead, I defined a new command:

\newcommand{\pgnocite}[2]{\nocite{#2}}

This new command takes two arguments—the page numbers and the citation. It ignores the page number and does a “nocite” on the citation. So I write

Euler's formula is $V-E+F=2$.\pgnocite{p. 100}{richeson:2008} Isn't that cool?

3. I do a lot of collaborating using DropBox and LaTeX. When I get the document back from my collaborator, it is difficult to tell what edits he made. So my collaborator and I came up with these commands to highlight new or changed text:

\usepackage[normalem]{ulem}
\usepackage[usenames,dvipsnames]{color}
\newcommand{\remove}[1]{{\color{Red}\sout{#1}$^{\text{remove}}$}}
\newcommand{\moved}[1]{{\color{ForestGreen}#1$^{\text{moved}}$}}
\newcommand{\fix}[1]{{\color{Orange}\uwave{#1}$^{\text{fix}}$}}
\newcommand{\new}[1]{{\color{NavyBlue}#1$^{\text{new}}$}}

When I add a new sentence to the document I put
\new{This is a new sentence.}

in the text. It appears blue with a little superscript “new” next to it. After I’ve read it, I can remove the \new tag. We also defined \remove, \moved, and \fix. You can create your own, add your own colors, and even decorate it with underlines from the ulem package (in the example above, \remove has a strike-through and \fix is underlined with a wavy line).

4. Lastly, we created a command that allows us to put notes in the margin.

\newcommand{\marginnote}[1]{\mbox{}\marginpar{\raggedleft\hspace{0pt}#1}}

Now we type this to get a margin note.

Here's a neat proof of this result.\marginnote{Jim, is this proof correct?}

12 Comments

Posted in Math | Tags: latex, tricks

Posted by: Dave Richeson | June 5, 2011

Extreme examples and counterexamples

I recently read this puzzle at the Futility Closet and it reminded me of a technique that I like to use to test conjectures (when possible). I don’t know if it has a name, so I’ll call it “looking for extreme examples and counterexamples.” I like this technique because when it works it is fast and easy, and it can often be used without writing anything down. I’ll give three examples to illustrate this technique.

Example 1. Let me rephrase the puzzle in the form of a conjecture.

Two runners are in an airport standing at one end of a moving walkway (one of those 100 foot long treadmills). They run at equal speeds to the end of the walkway and back—but one runs on the moving walkway and the other runs on the (unmoving) floor next to the walkway. Conjecture: they both finish at the same time.

The idea, of course, is that the runner on the walkway will get helped by the treadmill going one direction and hindered (by the same amount) in the other direction. He’s traveling the same distance both ways, so the effect of the treadmill cancels itself out.

When you’re imagining the problem in your head you’re thinking that a person runs 15 mph and the treadmill is going 3 miles an hour, or something like that. You may reach for some paper to do some calculations…

But there are no details about velocity in the conjecture. So consider an extreme example—the walkway and the runner are moving at the same speed. Then, running with the walkway the runner goes very fast, but when he tries to come back, he runs on it like a gym-goer does on an exercise treadmill, and makes no progress. He not only loses, he never reaches the finish line. Thus the conjecture is false.

(Note that in the original puzzle the question is: who wins? If the answer HAS a correct answer, then you can use the extreme example given above to conclude that it is not the person running on the moving walkway.)

Example 2. There is a long history of mathematical cranks claiming to be able to trisect an angle. Recall the problem: you are given an angle with measure $\theta$ . Is it always possible, using only a straightedge and compass, to construct an angle with measure $\theta/3$ ? It is a famous result of Pierre Wantzel that while it is sometimes possible, it is not possible in general (in particular, it is impossible to trisect a $60^\circ$ angle).

Here is a favorite “trisection method” given by the mathematical cranks. Suppose you are given an angle $\angle ABC$ . Draw a circle with center $B$ and radius $AB$ . We may as well assume that $C$ is on this circle. Draw the chord $AC$ . Trisect this chord; that is, find a point $D$ on $AC$ such that $AD=AC/3$ (it is well known that it is possible to trisect a line segment using the Euclidean tools). Then $\angle ABD=\angle ABC/3$ .

Conjecture: this is a valid method of angle trisection.

For small angles, this technique looks convincing (see below).

But it must work for all angles. Don’t dust off your copy of Elements and start looking for relevant propositions, look for an extreme example! For example, suppose $\angle ABC\approx 180^\circ$ . Clearly, as we see below, this technique does not trisect such an angle. Thus the technique fails.

Example 3. My last example is the famous Monty Hall problem. I’m sure this problem is well known to many of the readers of this blog, but here’s the setup. Monty Hall (a game show host) presents 3 closed doors to a contestant. He promises that behind one door is a new car and behind the other two are goats (obviously, the contestant wants to win the car). The contestant picks a door. Monty says that he will open one of the two remaining doors to reveal a goat (which he does). Then he asks the contestant if she wants to switch doors.

Conjecture: there is no advantage to switching. (Your rationale: at first your chance of winning was 1/3. But now there are two doors, one hiding a car and one hiding a goat, so it is a 50/50 shot either way.)

Of course this conjecture is FALSE. Here’s an extreme example to illustrate this point. Suppose there are 1000 doors hiding 1 car and 999 goats. You pick one door. There’s a 99.9% chance that the car is behind one of the other doors. Now Monty (who knows what is behind each of the doors) opens up 998 of the remaining doors. There are two closed doors—your door and one other. Using the same rationale as above, your chance of winning is now 50%, right? No! I hope it is clear that you want to switch!

(By the way, I read this explanation in The Drunkard’s Walk by Leonard Mlodinow.)

17 Comments

Posted in Math | Tags: angle trisection, logic, Monty Hall problem, proofs

Posted by: Dave Richeson | May 31, 2011

Hankel on Diophantus

Diophantus of Alexandria was one of the last (c. 250 AD) great mathematicians of the Hellenistic period. He is often called the “father of algebra.” An entire branch of mathematics is named for him. It was in the margin of his book Arithmetica that Fermat penned his famous note.

Today, while looking up some information on Diophantus, I came across this wonderfully descriptive quote by Hermann Hankel (1874) on Diophantus and his mathematics (the English translation is by Heath).

Of more general comprehensive methods there is in our author no trace discoverable: every question requires a quite special method, which often will not serve even for the most closely allied problems. It is on that account difficult for a modern mathematician even after studying 100 Diophantine solutions to solve the 101st problem; and if we have made the attempt, and after some vain endeavors read Diophantus’ own solution we shall be astonished to see how suddenly he leaves the broad high-road, dashes into a side-path and with a quick turn reaches the goal with reaching which we should not be content; we expect to have to climb a toilsome path, but to be rewarded at the end by an extensive view; instead of which our guide leads by narrow, strange, but smooth ways to a small eminence; he has finished! He lacks the calm and concentrated energy for a deep plunge into a single important problem; and in this way the reader also hurries with inward unrest from problem to problem as in a game of riddles, without being able to enjoy the individual one. Diophantus dazzles more than he delights. He is in a wonderful measure shrewd, clever, quick-sighted, indefatigable, but does not penetrate thoroughly or deeply into the root of the matter. As his problems seem framed in obedience to no obvious scientific necessity, but often only for the sake of the solution, the solution itself also lacks completeness and deeper signification. He is a brilliant performer in the art of indeterminate analysis invented by him, but the science has nevertheless been indebted, at least directly, to his brilliant genius for few methods, because he was deficient in the speculative thought which sees in the True more than the Correct. That is the general impression which I have derived from a thorough and repeated study of Diophantus’ arithmetic.

2 Comments

Posted in Math | Tags: algebra, Diophantus, Fermat's Last Theorem, quote

Posted by: Dave Richeson | May 11, 2011

What shape are the golden arches?

Every day for lunch I eat salad (made with vegetables from our local farmers’ market or from our college’s organic farm) and homemade yogurt and granola. The only time I ever eat fast food is on long car trips. So why, I ask you, did the question “What shape are the golden arches?” pop into my head?

I have no idea. But once it did, I just had to investigate. A quick internet search was inconclusive. Commenters on discussion forums assert that they are a pair of parabolas or a pair of catenary curves. But the credibility of the sources is questionable. So I thought I’d see what I could determine using Geogebra.

It turns out that the arches are definitely not parabolas (I didn’t think they were). The catenary is a good fit, but it still isn’t quite perfect. The best fit is an ellipse (or part of an ellipse)! Check out the applet that I made, and see for yourself.

7 Comments

Posted in Math | Tags: catenary, parabola

Posted by: Dave Richeson | May 4, 2011

Auden: minus times minus equals plus, the reason for this we need not discuss

I stumbled upon this quote by W. H. Auden (from A Certain World: A Commonplace Book, 1970).

Of course, the natural sciences are just as “humane” as letters. There are, however, two languages, the spoken verbal language of literature, and the written sign language of mathematics, which is the language of science. This puts the scientist at a great advantage, for, since like all of us, he has learned to read and write, he can understand a poem or a novel, whereas there are very few men of letters who can understand a scientific paper once they come to the mathematical parts.

When I was a boy, we were taught the literary languages, like Latin and Greek, extremely well, but mathematics atrociously badly. Beginning with the multiplication table, we learned a series of operations by rote which, if remembered correctly, gave the “right” answer, but about any basic principles, like the concept of number, we were told nothing. Typical of the teaching methods then in vogue is this mnemonic which I had to learn.

Minus times Minus equals Plus:
The reason for this we need not discuss.

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Posted in Math | Tags: arithmetic, auden

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Auden: minus times minus equals plus, the reason for this we need not discuss

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