11.28.2011

Day 189

First day back.  And what a day it was.


I got started pretty well on time.  I was a few minutes late... but I don't remember why.  Oh well.


Finance went decently.  We just talked more about combining puts and calls.  We have a quiz on Thursday on this stuff.  I'm going to start studying for it tomorrow with Dustin.


In between classes we went to the Atrium.  A few people looked at my finance homework to try to solve a couple of the harder problems.  Only Tim actually asked for a clarification.  Even though other people who looked at it seemed confused, they didn't ask.  Oh well.  Their loss.  Then Tim presented us with a question.  He wanted to know why pi is an irrational number.  His logic was that pi can be represented by circumference of a circle divided by its diameter.  Therefore, it can be written as a fraction and must be rational.  So I explained that a rational number must be able to be written as a fraction of integers, not just any number.  He countered that since the circumference and diameter have definite lengths, then the decimal representation of those lengths must terminate (like the number 2.3124451231231243456768 terminates at 8).  Since the string used to make the circle has a definite length, then the numerator and denominator of circumference/diameter division must certainly terminate.  I could see where his confusion was.  Since in his mind a number with a decimal keeps getting longer, the number itself must be getting bigger.  So I asked if he was familiar with Zeno's paradox.  I thought that as mathematicians everyone at the table would surely be very familiar with this.  That was not the case.  Everyone looked at me and just started laughing, sort of a "why would I have any idea what that is?" type of laugh.  Not to be discouraged, I explained that it's the idea that if you run half the distance to the finish of a race, then half the remaining distance and so on that you would never actually reach the finish.  Once I explained what it was everyone had heard of it.  Anyhow, then I explained that fractions like 1/3 can be written as a decimal: .3333333333 which repeats forever.  Furthermore, 1/7 can be written as .142857... but both of those are fractions with definite lengths, even though the decimal expansion goes on forever.  I think he was convinced by the end.  Someone made a comment about this being really deep.  I guess I would have considered this to be about moderately deep.  Nothing extravagant though.  Deep is when you take mathematical ideas and combine them with other ideas and philosophies.  So if you continued this idea of an infinitely expanding number that is actually limited and take that into a social context, you get some pretty interesting things.  For instance, there is a saying that "it's never so bad that it couldn't get worse."  The implication is that things can keep getting worse, or we could say that "badness" can continue growing infinitely.  But is there some maximum limit on the amount of attainable evil?  Like in Zeno's paradox, can we get arbitrarily close to the proverbial finish line (some ultimate level of evil, in our example) or will it expand without bounds?  Anyhow.  I didn't want to get into that with all of them... I might have killed their brains.


During life con we discussed our upcoming exam.  It's going to be entirely take home (thankfully).  Mr. Dean reminded us that we must have integrity when working on the exam and not work in groups.  Since it will largely be on Excel he doesn't mind if we help each other use Excel, but not actually help on the problems.  Which is fine with me.  I'm pretty confident that I can do all of this given enough time to check my work.  And I will check my work many many times.


After life con I went to go work out.  I lifted biceps and triceps.  It was alright. When I got home I had a salad for lunch.  I really wish that there was a way of having fresh produce during the off season.  The lettuce I buy is turning brown at the store.  Bleh. Oh well.  After I showered I went to go help Tim with the life con homework.  He doesn't have much experience with Excel so I wanted to explain how to use some of the fancier things that I did with mine.  It took a while but I think he was getting it by the end.  He catches on pretty quickly, but I think he's going to need some more practice before it really sticks.  That's ok though.  The things that I did were a bit complicated. Definitely not the most extensive things you can do in Excel by any means, but far more than what most people do with just entering data and possible doing some basic calculations or table filtering.


Then we had stats.  That's always a treat.


When I got home I had some turkey and potatoes for dinner, then worked on making my life con homework all pretty.  When Clifton came home I talked with him for a bit.  Then we did a little experimentation in the kitchen.  He had just sauteed some onions and mixed it with peanut butter.  It was pretty good, so I suggested that we try to candy the onions with peanut butter while still in the pot.  And that was really good.  Next time I want to make a glaze with peanut butter, a little vegetable oil, maybe some honey, boil it, then let the onions simmer in that for a while.  I think that would be really good.


Dustin came over to ask some questions on finance.  I told him that he really needs to start coming over to do homework with Timbo and me because the three of us work well together.  He agreed.  So hopefully he starts doing that, since he said he doesn't get too much out of his current method.


Then it was starting to get late, so I just played a few minutes of Team Fortress with Miles and James.  And now I'm getting ready to go to bed!

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