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This Just In September 1, 2007

Posted by carpebanana in : Bananalets , add a comment

For those of you blessed with knowing Mr Music ~ the Bananalets have been assigned trying on church shoes (fall weather is approaching) prior to a shopping expedition ~ and to my wondering ears comes the sound of tapdancing. Mr Music has on a pair of Miss Language’s outgrown heeled pumps and is tapping away for all he’s worth.

Sorry, no film at 11.

The Unforgivable Sin of Mathematics September 1, 2007

Posted by carpebanana in : Ramblings , add a comment

Mathy stuff occupies large sections of my brain. I’m not proud of it, but there it is.

So, pity poor Miss Dance. This year she is doing Jacob’s Geometry: Seeing, Doing, Understanding. Well, at least she is seeing and doing. I think she hates to admit she is also understanding. She has to do this with a mom who thinks Harold Jacobs would be the ultimate dinner guest. If you have used his books, you know about his fun cartoons, math puzzles, and collections of foreign math books. What could be better? (Leave root canals out of this discussion, OK? They apply only in calculus.) I was also the kid in geometry class who would post the proof done 3 different ways and who loved carrying my collection of very sharp colored pencils.

don't even think about trying it

So, Thursday’s lesson included a Lewis Carroll puzzle that unraveled once you realized the clever way he snuck division by zero past you. But Jacobs included this great quote special for math geeks from a book by Charles Seife called Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea:  “If you wantonly divide by zero, you can destroy the entire foundation of logic and mathematics. Dividing by zero once — just one time — allows you to prove, mathematically, anything at all in the universe.”

I read this to Miss Dance who failed to grasp the poetic beauty of this quote (what a great use of wantonly) and latched onto the idea that maybe if she divided by zero she could prove that she never again had to do math. She scowled at my suggestion that she prove it, establish herself as an eminent mathematician, and try to fly the proof past her evaluator, who just so happens to be a professor of mathematics.

Ha. Division by zero. It’ll get you every time.