Friday Math Day

Coffee in the San Francisco skyline mug, "Hava Nagila" by Me First & the Gimme Gimmies on iTunes (from Me First & the Gimme Gimmies Ruin Jonny's Bar Mitzvah). My brain is so full! I don't know whether to post about glass (well, tradeshow display booths for glass) or countable infinite sets vs. uncountable infinite sets and the Penrose tiling theory. Though I have to say Wikipedia is not nearly as fascinating or clear as Dave in its definitions. When Dave was explaining both last night they actually made sense (He is reading The Road to Reality and I asked him about it Who knew what I was starting!). I could see something in my head for which there are no words in English. It felt like my head was cracking open a bit and there were lines and colors and pictures instead of words. I usually see in words.

(And as a side note I am thinking that's one of the reasons I have always had such a hard time with math: I am a linguist by education and am very grounded in the relationship of the words in a language to thoughts in my head. If I have a word for it, it is real and I can see it. And the word doesn't have to be English. There are things I can express and understand in French that I can't translate into English. But if there is a concept for which there are no words (like the little Greek squiggles used in math) I have a hard time understanding it.) Dave explained Lambda calculus to me one day and though I can't remember anything about it other than it has to do with functions, every time I think about it now I see spirograph patterns in my head.













Created by Anu Garg.

But now I am out of time to post so the comparison of Sintra board, Gator board and Structa board is going to have to wait till Monday. And never fear, glass will happen today (even as the sales ranking for my book plummets *sigh*).