Math innumeracy

A&W's burger joint serving the "Third pounder" was McDonald's competitor . The people who had the "third pounder" felt gypped that they were "overpriced for less meat." Really? Has Americans gotten that stupid? I think we really have. I say "we" because I have honestly done that once where i mistake something with a fraction of a value as less than it actually is. I think that it truly starts at the teachers. All teachers that teach in the american school system should have a math base so that the importance of  knowing how to do math in real life. Only math teachers should have a strong base in their subject material. Like they need to have passed the level of math that they are teaching with a college class for that level. But besides this level of intensity, it needs to be up to the teacher on how much they incorporate math into their classes. The math shouldn't be hard pre-calc stuff, but basic components such as the importance of fractions and their numerical values, should be taught in every classroom. Private schools that are nit-picky about the teachers they hire do not stress the importance of basic math. They assume that the students at this private school are there because they are smart enough to know that by heart and that the teachers are just to advance the students, not repeat basic math. Yes, there are some students that can multiply crazy large numbers in their heads and spit out the answer faster than their calculator, but those are only a select few. The rest of us are normal teens. We make mistakes and say things without thinking and let our math skills go to pot in public because we don't want to appear as "geek" or  "nerdy" or any of those nickname/insults that we learned in grade school. But I think that we should have a better base of mathematics because we will be ruling this world sooner than our parents would like. If we are stupid now, it's only gonna get worse as we get older. If kids have a good math base, as they get older, society won't be getting stupider. It'll just be continuing. But if the kids are stupid now and it gets worse as one gets older, we will be left with a stupid society. We pass the knowledge along to our kids. If there is not much to pass on, the future of this world will be in great trouble.

Big Numbers

Just recently I saw The Fault in Our Stars. It came out during the summer of 2014 and all my friends, family and coworkers went to see it. The all left the movie theatre, bawling their eyes out. I understand a good movie, but really? Well I watched it for an english project. Ok I admit that I bawled. But that is not the reason that I bring up this movie.

There was a line in the movie that I forgot who said it, but it goes: "Some infinities are bigger than others." See this does actually pertain to math... But if you think of infinity, it is a number bigger than what you can count. As little kids, anything past 100 was considered infinity. But as we get older that number increases. There is a math joke that goes: this 6 is a big number. Which is meant to be funny and it is. 1 is an infinity. There is 1.01, 1.011, 1.0111 and so on. And in between each .01 is a billion gazillion numbers. And even more in between each of those. Just because 1 is an infinity in itself, there are larger infinities. If you have 2 and repeat the process of finding all the numbers in between all the decimal points there is at least double the numbers because 2 is double one and therefore this infinity of numbers is even larger than the infinity of numbers that we discovered with one.

Some movie lines are paradoxes and some make absolutely no sense at all. This line about the infinities make no sense to people who don't understand math. But if you think about it...it makes perfect sense.

Transedentals

In math we learn about transcendental numbers. First of all this is math class and not english class. Where we would learn the meaning of that giant word. Most mathematicians can manipulate the most complex equations around and around until there is a nice pretty "1" as an answer, but spelling and word roots and that sort of englishy stuff is not a strong point of theirs. So how did they come up with it?

According to the Princeton University website, a "a transcendental number is a number (possibly a complex number) which is not algebraic—that is, it is not a root of a non-constant polynomial equation with rational coefficients." 

Holy cow. That is wordy and super duper confusing. Mathematicians understand this wordiness but normal people like you and I have no idea as to what this means. In plain english, a transcendental number is a non-terminating, non-repeating decimal. "Transcendent" means not limiting to the material universe. π and e have no end and go on forever without repeating a sequence of decimal places. That is what mathematicians do in real life. They take the most complex equations (in this case an explanation) and they work it and maneuver it to get a nice pretty answer that people can understand. 

In math this year we will learn about taking the super complicated and turn it into something very pretty. We will do math in the name of "pre calculus" and burn our brains working on these equations. The result is something we can be proud of. Practicing these skills is a much. Besides learning super complicated math, we will learn to think outside the box. Writing a blog posting once a cycle is the perfect way to work those skills. Mathy numbers is not going to help us in the future. Problem solving and thinking about things in a different way, even if you are the only one that understands it will get you far. Thats what we learn at school: how to use our brains to succeed at life.

Sinusoidal curves in everyday life

Harmonic and sinusoidal curves are everywhere in everyday life. One example is the classic ferris wheel example. A friend and you are on the on the ferris wheel and at time = 0 you are at the top and so on. This is the classic example. Every teacher uses it because it works. What I want to talk about isn't so much a "classic example" as one that I thought about and thought would work. Cars. As many of you know, I've got the car fever. I'm a motorhead and proud of it! Well one thing I noticed about cars is the ever changing color pallet and style of the car. Long ago all the cars were the same boring color: the color of the metal. One day someone painted the metal a cool color to be different. Soon everyone wanted to be different so they had different colored cars. As more and more of the different color cars were driven, people started wanting a more natural color for their car such as brown, black, white, and Navy blue. As these colors started coming back, the more odd colors such as orange and red and light blue started to fade. Any student or teacher that knows of harmonic modeling, knows that this is the start of a sinusoidal curve. The range of the graph is the amount of cars that have the cool colors vs the neutral colors and how many cars there are. The range is always increasing because there are new cars being made every year. The period of the graph would be a few years, depending on the data. As of right now, the cool colors such as orange and yellow are starting to fade and the neutral colors are starting to return. A sinusoidal curve can also be used to model the style of cars. The period of this graph would be not one year or even two years, but closer to 20 or so years. The car styles go from sporty then to boxy and somewhat ugly and back to sporty because boxy and ugly isn't selling. This sinusoidal curve has the same idea. As the boxy cars go out of style, the sporty cars become in style and then the curve goes to the sporty side. There are people in the car industry who do this to make the cars that the people want and so that people buy their cars and not the cars of other car brands. These curves really help business of all the car companies of the world.

Pic a day (because i've got nothing better to call it)

For some extra credit for French. We need to post a picture a day on Facebook or Instagram. At first, I actually did it once a day, then I kinda morphed into doing it every other day. I also combined themes in one picture. I just thought that I should show this other part of my life what I photograph.

The theme for today was something i remember. I remember this bear from my childhood.

My mom has buttons.

DIY. I dyed my hair. Aimez-vous les cheveux?

The top pic is that of part of my family and the bottom is my favorite keychain broke. :(

My orange French Book.

I was so tired when I posted this pic.

Repetition in my gingerbread house.

The top pic is a banana in a gingerbread house. The below left is a healthy plant. The bottom right is a fall pic.

Me complaining about getting up for 5:30 morning swim practice.

I had to combine a person with a pic of a key.

The cookie is crunchy. Psychedelic is my favorite word. The Monkeemobile started my love for cars. And the flower is balanced.

There is a triangle in the pic and my pencil box is loud if it falls.

My dad always wears stripes.

I really needed chocolate when I posted this picture.

The left pic is me and my homecoming date Jason: It was sure a party. George Harrison is the best Beatle. There are many angles in the Union Jack. Before the dance Jason and I played a game of pingpong.

I think I came from the 60's and I have one wish and I hope that it'll come true.

So yeah. This is my Septembre en images.!!!!!

The Golden rule of the Pot luck

Dr. Stefano Bertozzi started out taking about sin and I wondered if this was just going to lead into another sermon that I could ask the priest at my church for any time. He uses sin to describe our actions. Like he sinned against the people in the African Sahel and in Bangladesh by flying to the ceremony to give the talk. By flying, he put 600 pounds of CO2 into the air. He said these people that suffer the most every time someone takes and takes, but never gives back. He presented the rule of the pot luck. If you bring 2 people to the pot luck, you bring enough food to feed two people. It's not right if you bring 6 people to the potluck and only bring enough food for one or two. If you take from the planet, you have to give back. Now jsut giving back exactly what you took, but more than that. The most blessed people in this world are the people that take very little and yet still give back even more than they took. These people are the people the world needs so desperately. I feel that "giving more than you take" is the main message of this speech.

My summer Vacation

What I did for the first few weeks of summer besides work (life guarding) is posted on this posting...

Then I saw Ringo Starr and his All Starr band in concert on July 9 (2 days after his b-day and the same night as my friend's big party) Ringo Starr obviously the drummer of the Beatles, Gregg Rolie lead vocals from Santana, Steve Lukather  lead guitarist from Toto, Todd Rundgren, and Richard Page the lead singer of Mr. Mister. The concert was delayed an hour and 45 minutes due to rain!!! In New Mexico!!! Below left is the Poster for the Concert as seen around the city. I got this online. And below right is me standing next to a poster for his art. I was standing in line for the T-shirt.

These pictures are of the shirt I got. Remember Peace and Love, man. Peace and Love!

This is my ticket. It got a bit crumpled from the rain.

 Then My family and I went into New York three days later.

My sisters and I sitting in the airport waiting for the plane.

Polka dotted fields from the plane window.

A cool picture I tool out of the window on the plane. Side note: there was a lot of turbulence on this flight. To ease my nerves, I started taking pictures as the plane was bouncing up and down and turning, at that. 

 

What humidity did to my hair. In the morning  after I brushed it out, I had perfect ringlets.

The humidity also made my hair soooo fluffy!!!!!!

My dad talking to my cousin Jill, who lets me raid her closet (sorta) when we come over).

My new cousin Crystal and her husband (my cousin) and the dog.

All the Vianco girls eating dinner.

My sisters and I playing in Lake Ontario. There was sooo much water!!!!! And a power plant from the beach

Niagara Falls.

My uncle's 1964 restored T-bird. I got to ride in it!!! We went to a car show. And I saw an SS396, a 1970 Pontiac Lemans, and a '67 Camaro, of the cars I recognized

SS396

The guy in the plaid shirt is Lou Gramm. He was the lead singer of Foreigner for 25 years. In this picture, I was asking him about the car and what it was like to be in Foreigner. I forgot to get him to sign something. 

 

We went to a pig roast on Lake Ontario. This is me on the tire swing screaming. 

  

This is the pig on the spit. It was 90 pounds and tasted amazing!!!!

Me doing flips at the park.

Making a hat on the plane because I was bored out of my skull. The picture on the right is the finished hat.

My cousins found this for me. Sadly all the coke was gone before i got it.

This is a clam shell i found in Lake Ontario. Its got a small hole in it. I'm not sure why.

It was a fantastic vacation!!!!