[lbo-talk] Even a dead Pope can do miracles

Chuck Grimes c123grimes at att.net
Fri Jan 14 15:56:11 PST 2011


I think you're right, which is a miracle.

Jim Farmelant

----------

A miracle because it was me or a miracle because it was Foxymath?

If the former, which made my day laughing out loud, I have to tell you, it wasn't a miracle. I am so used to making simple math mistakes, that I am overly familiar with it as a problem. I don't know how often I've tried to memorize order of operations and almost always forget the left to right rule as the first one. If you think that's funny, then you'll love watching me do fractions. I am even more fun to watch with units and conversions, especially those in physics.

A couple of years ago, when war with Iran was again at it's hysterical best, Ahmadinejad released enough numbers on his centrifuges to use the Dirac (?) equation to calculate their efficiency index number. I blew off several weeks and a whole notebook trying to get these giant or very tiny numbers to work. I had to relearn scientific notation and kept fucking that up.

But what I really couldn't figure out was why the Union of Concerned Scientists didn't publish the equation, the reported critical numbers, and do the math to counter the US propaganda war.

Anyway, these experiences lead me into philosophizing about linear number crunching brains versus gestalt geometry brains or something...

CG



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list