Folks,

Donnybrooke:

"They also serve who only stand and wait".

What a pleasant interlude you have offered us. I enjoyed the read and I will see if I can find the book at our library. Thank you so much for sharing and for posting. Please do so often. Do you have other books to recommend?

"I went all gooseflesh for a minute and my hair stood up on my head like
the fretful porcupine's."

I loved that sentence because I have had that very same feeling once or twice in my life without the proper words to express it so well.

Here is a "for instance". On a day way back in the late sixties, my teenage neck fur stiffly bristled when the boyfriend of the girl I happened to be kissing rudely tapped me on the shoulder.

I had the same experience a bit later. I felt the sensation of several thousand pointy little quills earnestly rubbing against the back of my scrunchey, damp collar. They were warning me to duck when several poorly aimed bullets twfutt twfutted by my instantly attentive young ears.

Speaking of the "home front", I am proud to have been part of a project several years ago that celebrated just that during the National Fiftieth Anniversary of WW2 celebration.

We helped get a large number of retailers to display military uniforms, scenes depicting war on the home front and artifacts of the era in their brightly lit show windows.

You see, I found that I had a retired US Air Force S/Sgt. working for us who had a museum-like collection of literally hundreds of mint quality military uniforms from every branch of service. He had mannequins to wear them too. Was his wife ever happy to get them all out of the house? She was ecstatic.

This fellow is simply amazing. I think he should consider a traveling patriotic exhibit. This exhibit would go 'round the country from town to town and from mall to mall. He's not interested so far.

You know those silk maps aviators were given? Silk wouldn't be affected by water like paper would and it was easier to store or hide. Well, this fellow has several authentic maps in perfect condition. I believe these are fairly rare.

I am also proud to say that we received a framed commendation from both the DOD and the DAR for our efforts. The award was appreciated but the real payback was that I learned a lot about WW2 and particularly about the war at home as well.

I also perhaps saved the marriage of that poor sod whose wife was so tired of living in a house stuffed full of mannequins dressed in all manner of uniforms.



------------------
"Blessed are they who expect nothing.
For they will not be disappointed." - Edmund Qwenn, "The Trouble with Harry"

Folks,

Osram:

Calm down. It is ok. English is not your native language. As for my German, brother,I only hope I didn't screw up too badly and write something really stupid like "The cow of my Aunt wore a bright green pencil".

No problem. People are always thinking they read something amazingly different from what I thought I wrote.

You and your father are physicists? Cool.

Perhaps you can take a week or two, maybe much longer, out of your quarky life to explain "string theory" to me? I missed that in general math and I am at a complete loss when others so often bring that subject up at mealtimes.

Just joking. Please do not be offended. I mean no disrespect. I am in awe of those who daily split the atom conjure with superstring theories, peer into black holes and measure time across the cosmos at the speed of light.

About the nano-second that I finally mastered the slide rule, someone invented the digital calculator. I have little facility for advanced math I admit. I do share with you a powerful desire to know what makes everything work, how it all works and why.

Little loopy sub-atomic particles vibrating in ten dimensions is a bit deep for most of us. It keeps the theoreticians happy and its a good way to get a 'Big Bang' for your research bucks I guess. Sorry, another poor physics joke.

I fear my nature favors the other side of my brain from that upon which yours smiles. I will continue to seek the "Grand Unified theory", which is said to be an equation about an inch long, through faith, and philosophy not math.

------------------
"Blessed are they who expect nothing.
For they will not be disappointed." - Edmund Qwenn, "The Trouble with Harry"

[This message has been edited by Jolly Roger Too (edited 01-20-2002).]

[This message has been edited by Jolly Roger Too (edited 01-20-2002).]

JRT, Osram, Others:

My brain by now is half DESTROYED, but it still favors art over logic. I am not capable in the world of Math/Geometry/Trig, etc. Formulas, = signs, and the boring way that Westerners have tried to teach mathematics to us, left me out of it.

However, once I did get a glance at the beauty of it all. Bought an old paperback book (Author's name forgotten, very old, literally fell apart in my hands as I was reading the revelations) about the Arab (forget the name, MoJohann ibn Smithdullah something?) that turned the world on to Algebra. It was illustrated with his patterns, and told in a way that seemed to me like I was seeing the Divinity itself! Like I said, I got one good read and the book disintegrated, like seeing a special sunrise that will never come again!

I disremember the title , and have never heard of this book, since. I have told my children about it many times, when they complain about the lousy ways that Math/Algebra is presented to them at school.

Seems most of the world's problems stem from improper education of the young.

Anyone know this Arab's name? I would like the book for my children, if too late for them, my grandchildren.

BTW, let's drink to Nicola Tesla (9 out of 10 electricians I have met never heard of him!) who gave us alternating current generators, building off the above man's revelations!

Aloha!



[This message has been edited by vadenstick (edited 01-20-2002).]

Folks,

Vadenstick:

Well, living on the 'Island' means you are beginning the evening when I'm starting a new day. I'm glad some folks are still up. It looks as if I was wrong. I am not alone here after all. Thank you for posting tonight.

Diophantus, is often known as the 'father of algebra', and is best known for his Arithmetica, a work on the solution of algebraic equations and on the theory of numbers. However, essentially nothing is known of his life and there has been much debate regarding the date at which he lived.

The Arithmetica is a collection of 130 problems giving numerical solutions of determinate equations (those with a unique solution), and indeterminate equations. The method for solving the latter i believe is now known as Diophantine analysis.

Only six of the original 13 books were thought to have survived and it was also thought that the others must have been lost quite soon after they were written.

There are many Arabic translations, for example by Abu’l-Wafa, but only material from these six books appeared.

I am not familliar with the book you mention. I do have on hand "Tractenburg's theory of basic mathematics". This was a slightly contraversial book for its time. I bought and studied this when I was only 16, believe it or not.

And I still have trouble counting to twenty without removing my shoes.


------------------
"Blessed are they who expect nothing.
For they will not be disappointed." - Edmund Qwenn, "The Trouble with Harry"

[This message has been edited by Jolly Roger Too (edited 01-20-2002).]

Abu'l Wafa might be the name.

Diophantus? Greek? His other 7 works must have been lost in one of the 3 fires in the Libraries of Alexandria. How many illuminations lost in those conflagurations that take centuries for some gifted soul to dream up again?

Mahalo, JRT for the info. 2130 here in HI! Still time to put some 7.92mm rounds into the opposing forces. Been trying my hand at skinning now, with Viper's Tool it is possible for even a fool like me! Getting pixel crazy, tho, must practice putting ordnance on target!

Aloha!



[This message has been edited by vadenstick (edited 01-20-2002).]

Folks,

Vadenstick:

02:28 here in the Carolinas, he said with a great, toothy yawn.

The fellow is associated with Egyptian math it is true. That singular conflagration has to be one of the great tragedies of the ancient and civilized world.

Who knows how far ahead technologically and otherwise our civilization might instantly warp today if one could go back in time and prevent this destructive blaze. How is the work on the time machine coming Osram?

I believe the ancients may well have had wisdom beyond what was passed down to us. Of coarse I also believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny so don't put too much credence in it.

I am typing with only one eye open and stifling a constant yawn. I'm off to slumber whilst dreaming deep dreams of time machines rushing to ancient lands and blazing great libraries.

Usually it's Spitfires and 109s. I'll enjoy the change of pace. Night all.


------------------
"Blessed are they who expect nothing.
For they will not be disappointed." - Edmund Qwenn, "The Trouble with Harry"

Folks,

Timdog:

Glad you're still with us too. Seems like you are a busy fellow and getting busier.

The modding bug bites hard it seems. Once you're bitten you are no longer in complete control of your time. Don't ask me of coarse. Ask the likes of Bader and Old Dux.

They are doing some great work and seem to have been deeply bitten by this life altering bug.

------------------
"Blessed are they who expect nothing.
For they will not be disappointed." - Edmund Qwenn, "The Trouble with Harry"

I sure am getting busy but I like it.

Here are some things I'm working on right now:
Researching for that new $2,500 computer.
Reinstalling my 50+ comp games
Playing my gamecube and PS2
Trying to learn how to mod my games and create 3D models and stuff
making my computer go asa fast as it can
Waiting for Comcast Digital Cable to be installed on my comp
Getting thru 6th grade(Got a progress report average 99.3 ya baby!)
that sure is enough
And I have one thing to say "3 day weekand"

JRT:

Yes, my father was a physicist all his life. I studied theoretical physics at university and then became a sw developer. This is not as surprising as it seems. Actually, even before we began the studies, we were told that we wouild probably not be able to work as physicists. Add to that that I was made my masters thesis about the big bang - something that is of little interest to industry, that I had computers as hobby and that at that time, there was a big shortage of sw developers and that it is abstract thinking as well, it was a very good fit. My first job was to write gfx for a driving simulator .

About string theory:
Hehehe. . Actually, the prof where I made the masters thesis worked in string theory. The basic idea is quite simple:
the elementary particles are not "zero dimensional" points (no extensions in any direction) but one dimensional, like a string. This means they can oscilate, like the strings of a guitar. To calculate this through is very difficult though. One surprising thing is that it only works in certain number of dimensions and that 4 is not among them . The additional dimensions are rolled in so tight that we don't see them. The most measurable effect of these additional dimension would be a change to the law of gravitation at small differences like say 1 mm. So, you have to put two lumps 1 mm apartt from each other and *very* accurately measure the gravitational force between them and ignore all other forces. This is just about the limit of what we can do and it might well be that in a few years time there will be a big discovery on that front.



Ah, why do I write all this, when you know everything already? Seriously that is much more than most people know.



Theoreticians don't need so much money. But I also think that at first many did string theory because they wanted to do pure maths and it was pure maths . However, I really think now that it might in the froseeable future not only be measureable, but that it might come out victorious from the measurements.

vadenstick:

I agree with you that how maths is taught makes it boring to many. Of course, if your dad stays up till 2 o'clock to work
on physics and your mother is a math/physics teacher and loves, for example, "DenkSportAufgaben" (literally, "thinking sport puzzles"),
then it is clear to you from being a small child that this must be unbelievable fun. Well, I was right .
My father always said he can not understand where the thrill of seeing thriller and muredr storioes etc comes from. You know at the beginning the end (especially for hollywood movies), all the good guys will survive and will solve the case etc etc. Even if they would not this would not change anything.
Well, with physics or sw development, you do not know beforehand what will happen. And whether you succeed or not and in what way will influence some lives, mayb in a minor way, but still. In sw development and physics you can (and should) try to see where the way will lead you and the better you get, you will correctly predict more often, but it is still an adventure. Yesterday, I was convinced I had found the main reason for stutter and would just need to get _VIDEOLANDSCAPE_ to work and would have a large breakthrough. Today, I saw that sitting on the ground, the reboot comes not after 2 but after maybe 10 or 20 seconds. I saw large stuttering during these . It took my some time to realise that the reason was simply the huge amount of debug output I shovel onto disc. I switched it off, flew my test mission (BTW, I am much better now as a Ju87 driver ). The landscape looks extremely bad, exactly like the Kyro people described. No stuttering to see, but that does not say much, so look into the debug file that contained just the frame times and the histogram. Some stutter, but that was to be expected because of file loading (I have currently switched off my experimental PreLoading). So, starting with the highest frame times, I look though them, and all are file loading related, Hooray! .
Well, I only looked down to about 45 ms, but like I said, all the maybe 7 or 10 frametimes above were from file loading.

So, I have fixed the reboot, but (surprise) found a new problem, namely the wrong textures used for the tiles.
Oposite to what I thought today noon, the _VIDEOLANDSCAPE_ is as important for stuttering like I thought yesterday.

Surprising to most people (and even many mathematicians would not describe it like I do), maths is both reason and emotion. The good (!) point of maths is that the end result is totally void of emotion, since
it needs to be proven and any emotion would mean that it could be wrong. For me, maths always was the most white thing there is and can be on earth. When I see the advertisements on TV about the new stuff that washes whiter than white, then I always have to laugh and think about maths.
For example, to make us understand the principle, when we did homework at the uni, we had to prove everything that we used apart from what had been proved in the
lessons by the Profs. So, if we used, say the rule od phytagoras, which all of us had learned years ago at school, and if we didn't prove it, then it was unproven and we would get bad marks for that homework.

BTW, unfortunately, there are 2 things that reduce the whiteness of maths a bit, one of them the theorem of Gödel. This is so unbelievably sad that several mathematicians commited suicide due to their broken heart.
This alone shows that maths is also about emotion. The way you reach the soltuion is often quite emotional. For example, when I have to prove or disprove something, I often first see whether emotionally I think the
hypothesis is true or wrong and then go on to try to find out where that emotion comes from. Also, it of course helps to have a "minds eye" of things. The minor subject I had was of course maths, especially vector analysis. This is mainly about vector spaces with inifinte number of dimensions.
So, you had to be able to visualize them in your mind and actually I had 2 or 3 ways to do that. Also, you get feelings for the formulas. For example, do you know the dogs that are so full of muscles everywhere that they can not walk or run effeciently any more? A sort of obscene, ugly, unintelligent, negative power? There is a formula which is exactly like that. IMHO, this formula destroys most of the fun in a complete branch of maths.

I always think it is bad that things as these are not tought in school or university.

About the author, there are quite a lot from that area, for example one that has a name like algorithm, since the name algorithm is from that person. Unfortunately, I don't know the book though.