A Mathematician’s Lament

Ran into this the other day on the intertubes: A Mathematician’s Lament.

I’ll summarize the article if you don’t want to do the reading (the article is quite long.) Math is art. Math education is broken; mostly because we teach procedures and definitions in math class, not problem solving. To fix math education, we need good teachers who will let their students solve problems. Reciting multiplication tables is not problem solving. Remembering the definition of a whole number is not problem solving. Finding the least common multiple of two fractions is not problem solving. Those are definitions and procedures. Following instructions should be de-emphasized in favor of exploratory logic. Only then will math students enjoy math. Some kids will be really good at math. Other kids will struggle. That’s ok.

Math as art is an interesting discussion. Chess, in it’s abstract form is a big math problem. And good chess is definitely art. I can remember replaying some of Bobby Fisher’s chess games, and being in absolute awe of the logic of what he was accomplishing. That guy was like a force of nature. Too bad he went crazy.

And geometry always felt like the real math to me anyway.

And the rate equations in calculus.

Everything is a rate equation.

And Now For Something Completely Different

We spent April and most of May living on the boat in Charleston, South Carolina. We got a good deal at St John’s Yacht Harbor. Great city. Love the history. The people are cool. And they speak with a killer accent. We made a brief trip to Texas to touch base with some friends and family. Then saw friends in Atlanta and Baltimore. We were also able to meet up with several cruising friends while in Charleston.

While in Baltimore, we had a conversation with our old college roommate, Andrew. We were talking about building a log cabin in Michigan on land that has been in Dana’s family for generations. We purchased logs several years ago, but had done little else. Dana’s father gave us the “If you’re gonna do it, now would be a good time.” speech at least once. But we were a little scared to press the go button on the cabin. It will be tough to afford, even though we plan to do much of the work ourselves. Andrew asked us a tough question; “What are you waiting for?” We could not answer. Now was a good time. We’re jobless. Homeless. Hopeless. What better time than to move to Michigan and start building that cabin we’ve been dreaming about?

One week later we were in Houghton, MI, looking for jobs and rental houses. We’ve got a site picked out and we’ve begun clearing the land. We learned how to use a chainsaw. We drove a skidder. If you’re not from the deep woods, you might not know what a skidder is. Check out this picture.

The boat is up for sale. You can find the details here if you like. We will probably cruise again. Just not in the next few years. We want to get Sam through school before cruising again.

Charleston, SC – 03-April

We made it back to the States. The trip back was a little squirrelly. We had thunderstorms, unpredictable wind, and a new speed over ground record. Sam is the current record holder at 11.7 knots. That Gulf Stream can be a wonderful thing when you’re headed north.

We arrived at the dock in South Carolina after two nights at sea. We made 350 miles in about 50 hours. Not bad for a 40 foot cruising pig. We’d heard that the customs authorities in Florida were pr!cks. So we opted for landfall a little further up the coast, in Charleston, SC. Checking back into the country was friendly and straight forward. The Charleston customs agent assigned to our boat seemed unaware of the cruising permit that Florida customs agents require but which we had neglected to purchase.

The only remarkable bit of the crossing occurred one night in a heavy thunderstorm. Perhaps this dramatization of a Brief Conversation That Might Have Occurred Between Me And My Beautiful Bride Regarding the Non-Deterministic Nature Of Thunderstorms will sufficiently illustrate the nature of our plight.

Me: Ok. Your watch. I’m heading below. Wake me if you need anything.
My Beautiful Bride: Honey?
Me: Yes Dear?
My Beautiful Bride: That thunderstorm up ahead looks dangerous.
Me: Yep.
My Beautiful Bride:
Me:
My Beautiful Bride: Should we alter course?
Me: Ok. Lets head down about 10 degrees. That’ll give us a chance to punch through that thin looking part over there.
My Beautiful Bride:
Me:
My Beautiful Bride: Ummm. It’s moving pretty fast.
Me: Yep.
My Beautiful Bride: We won’t be able to avoid it. If it comes at us we’re gonna get a lot of lightning.
Me: Yep.
My Beautiful Bride:
Me:
My Beautiful Bride: I don’t like it.
Me: Ok. we could come up about 30 degrees. It’s taking us substantially off course, but maybe we could climb over the top of the storm (assuming it is moving west to east.)
My Beautiful Bride: It doesn’t seem like that would work.
Me:
My Beautiful Bride:
Me: Do you want to turn around?
My Beautiful Bride: Not really.
Me:
My Beautiful Bride:
Me: What do you want me to do?
My Beautiful Bride:
Me:
My Beautiful Bride: You could sit here with me in the cockpit and cuddle me.
Me: Done.
My Beautiful Bride:
Me:
My Beautiful Bride:
Me: Since we’re out here alone, in the dark, any chance I could get a little nookie?
My Beautiful Bride: Ok. That’s enough. You can go to sleep now.
Me: That’s what I thought.
My Beautiful Bride: G’night.
Me: G’night.