In a world of internet, air conditioning, and suburbs, it might seem like all the dragons have been slain and there are no adventures to be had. But frontiers exist still, and when you journey into the wild beyond, you want to travel properly armed. I was out there once, and I got caught short. I want to share this story because it is deeply instructive. Continue reading “Dragons, Soundings, and a Little Historical Context”
I want to offer a way of thinking about statistical distributions that might help anybody– student or otherwise– who is struggling with the concept. That will lead into a discussion as to why statistics, compared to other branches of mathematics, is underdeveloped in regards to theoretical foundations. I also want to point out a crucial but overlooked operation of the human mind. Continue reading “Understanding Statistical Distributions… and Phantoms of the Mind”
If your army has great soldiers, but you can’t get them to the fight, then they will do you no good. If you can field a million fighting men, but you can’t sustain them in that field, you will lose. Wars are won and lost on logistics. Continue reading “Mobility is More Important than Firepower”
Doc Savage had his headquarters on the 86th floor. Few elements of the canon are more certain than that. Continue reading “Canon Deleted”
It sounds trite to say that teaching literature is a labor of love, but if you will bear with me for a moment, I can describe the anatomy of the process in good detail, and you will see the precise roles that love plays. Mystics say that all is love; maybe I can show a little bit of what they mean. Continue reading “Oh For the Love of Chekhov”
I would like to give a word of caution to young women who are engaged in romantic relationships. Many such women (by no means all! but enough that it is an observable phenomenon) hook up with a guy who is highly compatible, except for one or two elements in his life, elements she thinks she can change. Continue reading “Some Advice About Young Men”
And they came to the place which the scriptwriters had told him of; and Rambo built an ambush there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Teasle the sheriff, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.
And Rambo stretched forth his hand, and took the M60 to slay Sheriff Teasle.
And the angel of the Lord, the Archangel Colonel Trautman, called unto him out of heaven, and said, Rambo, Rambo: and he said, Here am I.
And he said, Don’t do it! Listen to me, Rambo; you have no chance. Drop your weapon. I’ll order the chopper in to fly you back to Bragg.
So, the book of Tobit starts off in the first person: Continue reading “The Book of Tobit, to Which One Can Relate”
Despite what they say about necessity, sometimes the mother of invention is another invention. For example, look at the airplane. The airplane had three technological prerequisites, two of which were introduced by the Wright brothers: their creation of the wind tunnel enabled practical and replicable research, and differential lift (accomplished today by means of ailerons and back then by wing warping) made it possible to turn an aircraft.
Wind tunnels and wing warping could have been invented long before the Wright brothers came along; those were not breakthrough technologies, just stepping stones on the path to powered flight. The third technological prerequisite, however, could not have been invented very much sooner than it was, yet without it, airplanes would not be possible. Continue reading “Circle the Earth, Then We’ll Rendezvous at the Moon”
Calculus started making a lot more sense for me once I started looking at it in terms of infinitesimals. An infinitesimal is a strange mathematical object, but once we get a good understanding of what they are, then integrals, differentials, and the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus all drop into place. Continue reading “Understanding Calculus by Understanding Infinitesimals”
Of a Sphinx Athwart the Evening Sky 