First Blog

The Greatest Gift With the gift giving season upon us, we offer gift ideas.  These are varied, general, specific, and relevant. Some are easy, some hard, some unusual.  Stuff... Money.  Aha!  This is what many folks you know want most of all. Give anyone a million and their eyes will alight with joy. They may tear-up.  In lieu of the million, give someone something expensive.  They may not want it, need it, or even know what to do with it, but it releases your "gift" obligation of the season. A Special Treat. If you don't have that million, there is something a special friend, a spouse, or sibling might like.  It is so special that they would feel the expense is frivolous or extravagant and will not buy it for them self.  But receiving it would resonate in their heart, and be remembered forever.  Not exactly a gift certificate to Amazon.com.  Of course, you need to know what it is and take the effort to find it. Gift Certificate.  This is like money.  It is what

The Range of a Project It has been said there are three qualities for the completion of a project. Good, Fast, and Cheap.  You can have but two of the three.  Some projects begin with no clear goal, little money, and no deadline.  Other projects enjoy a clear goal, unlimited money, and a very short deadline. The first is a project of the disinterested investigator - the academic for example.  The other is a national or industrial project desperately needed.  Others live in the middle, and often conclude with middling results.  The development of the atomic bomb during World War II found itself at both extremes of the range.  The Apollo space project during the 60's and 70's is another example. Others include the hunt for a polio vaccine in the 50's. The development of the Internet in the 90's is similar.  None of these registered low on the cheap-o-meter, and though frightfully expensive all were met in their time with near universal acclaim. Some still are. It se

Genius is one of those ephemeral items in the human inventory of gifts together with skills and talents, abilities and intelligence, proficiency and cleverness.  Hard to define, genius is both specific and contextual.  It is not generally abstract.  Genius can reveal itself everywhere, in science, business, politics, war, and literature though often along separate channels.   Some of our greatest philosophers were challenged by the concept and addressed it with notably interesting interpretations. Immanuel Kant in Part I of his Critique of Judgment tells us "Genius is a talent for producing something for which no determinate rule can be given, not a predisposition consisting of a skill for something that can be learned by following some rule or other." In his Twilight of the Idols , Nietzsche writes, "Great men, like great epochs, are explosive material in whom tremendous energy has been accumulated; their prerequisite has always been, historically and

The most powerful words in our highly political country these days are not what you'd expect. You might think, "I love you," would rank way up there. These are powerful words but personal ones. Think of other possibilities. Let everyone respect others. (4) Can't we just get along? (5) Protect our environment. (3) Death to infidels. (3) But these are old, and we are basically numb to these slogans not really believing anything will happen. However, should someone say to this or that event, cause, or circumstance, "I am deeply offended ...," action results. Judges act. Magistrates react. Advocates rejoice. Politicians jump on board. Headline news expostulate. Just be "offended" and you get results. Or so it seems these days.

Today... It is cold today and I love it.  It allows me to be cold. Morale I. Sometimes the lack of morale you see all around is a reflection of the lack of morale you have personally. II. Your sense of morale can be more infectious to your mind than any disease to your body.  Consider the maxim, "Healthy mind, healthy body." Fun...  We live in the fun environment.  Learning should be fun, educators tell us.  This is not often the case.  Learning is hard work. But when accompanied by a sense of achievement, understanding, and enhanced personal power, it is most satisfying. Reflections... I am always just 18, full of hope, full of what could be, and eager to pursue many things all at the same time.  I love to read biographies of great persons, with interest even now piqued, particularly when these heroes were young. I look to what they did do, and compare with what I’ve done.  I make a few notes. a.    Many developed a true mission in life, though not always from th

For the last several years, we’ve seen a parade of prominent educators, businessmen, and politicians extolling the virtues of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).   Big money has been spent, and in the educational enterprise, big means really big.   The US Department of Education conditioned some state funding on the basis of states accepting and implementing the new standards.  Partly because of the probably correct perception our public education system was failing, the CCSS were adopted with virtually no testing by at least forty states.   It was hoped, actually expected, that most states would now be rowing with common ores and the result would be a stronger national educational system.    But these standards are intellectually demanding as to what is taught and importantly to how they are to be taught.    Many of our students and teachers were not up to the challenge.   The teachers were given insufficient training, and the students were left in the wake of this giant oil

The Republican captured the statehouses in Maryland and Massachusetts last night.  This is good and bad.  It is of course good for the Republicans, for obvious reasons.  It is not good for the Republicans, as well.  Even these, the bluest of the blue states can say enough is enough.  We are being taxed to the max, but things are not getting better.  Time for a switch.  Okay, the switch is in.  But the problems in these two states are serious and not surmountable in the short four year gubernatorial term.  Repairing the problems could take a generation, not just a term.  So, the Democrats will be undiminished, already fueling their next campaigns with slogans such as "We gave them a chance, and see there is no real change."  Blue states such as these will heed the lesson, and revert to their natural rather blue roots. The Republicans probably think they can affect the culture of their states with well intended and maybe stringent programs about fiscal responsibility, not r

In a recent article Alice Walton comments on the new Common Core State Standards. She establishes that the Common Core has many flaws, particularly that many students develop at differing rates, and a common curriculum demanding a lock-step approach to education is wrong, and wrong from the get-go.http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2014/10/23/the-science-of-the-common-core-experts-weigh-in-on-its-developmental-appropriateness/ My response to this article follows.  The article is accurate in almost every respect. Let me generalize. One of four flying carpet solutions to the educational mess our nation finds itself are regularly offered. These are grandiose plans advertizing that in a single and simplistic stroke can bring a failing system to the forefront of excellence in education - worldwide. (a) Change the curriculum. (b) Put education on a sound business model. (c) Reduce class sizes. (d) Make education fun. Currently, American education system is suffering the first of these.

Proposition .  Students should learn to solve problems in multiple ways.  Can this be so or are we asking yet again our students learn even more than what is needed? The short answer is "yes." Let me explain.  First, the math teaching community has embraced, I think correctly, the idea of multiple representations.  This means looking at data and functions in multiple ways graphs, tables, formulas, and the like.  In fact, I've written on this. See http://disted6.math.tamu.edu/newsletter/newsletters_new.htm#current_issue for the three articles. Second and more generally, the more facets of the same thing a person is familiar with, the better is his knowledge of it. When it comes to problem solving, the same rule applies.  If a person can solve a problem in two or more different ways, this is an indicator of their understanding of the problem and techniques to solve it.  If they can solve it in only one way, this is an indicator that they have a single method in their mind. 

Now to Ebola... In the late middle ages with the epidemic of the black plague, one of the first causes was declared to be the public bath house.  these were common.  But with the pronouncement, most of these houses disappeared, and consequently personal hygiene essentially disappeared in Europe for centuries.  The ramifications of other diseases probably has never been properly estimated. Ebola manifests the big scare of 2014.  It keeps other calamities and catastrophes off the front page. It allows the bigger issues of cyber security, terrorist threats, and crime on the back burner.  It disrupts the fabric of normal business. My feeling is that with the Ebola scare, hospitals may induce and endure a climate of intense contagion awareness, causing unusual and severe protocols that will not disappear even if Ebola is effectively reduced to nothing. As you know sensible people are not in charge.  Politicians will work this scare to their demagoguery maximum; hospital administrators

Morale I. Sometimes the lack of morale you see all around is a reflection of the lack of morale you have personally. II. Your sense of morale can be more infectious to your mind than any disease to your body.  Consider the maxim, "Healthy mind, healthy body." Fun...   We live in the fun environment.  Learning should be fun, educators tell us.  This is not often the case.  Learning is hard work. But when accompanied by a sense of achievement, understanding, and enhanced personal power, it is most satisfying. Reflections... I am always just 18, full of hope, full of what could be, and eager to pursue many things all at the same time.  I love to read biographies of great persons, with interest even now piqued, particularly when these heroes were young. I look to what they did do, and compare with what I’ve done.  I make a few notes. a.    Many developed a true mission in life, though not always from the beginning. b.    Many were raised in an environment of high expectations. c

One issue in teaching about big numbers is for students to understand just how big numbers can get.  But here we include not just students, but us all.  With modern computers and storage devices, we have become accustomed to some big numbers, notably megabytes, gigabytes, and even terabytes. In this brief article, we examine just how big numbers can get from innocent sounding problems.  This is combined with new ideas about fantasy problems and flying carpet solutions .   Fantasy problems are those arising in our minds from an array of possible disconnects with reality, and flying carpet solutions are those offered with disregard of possibility.  Some sound good; but fantasy may be the best descriptor. One particular example is given about tracking of all people, not dissimilar from information you may have about how your various devices can currently track you.  It is a good teaching exercise of how numbers can get huge, and completely unmanageable.  The tools are only simple fac