I'll bet the guy was using lots of arabic numerals! And he was probably using al-gebra and al-gorithms! Bob --- rwg wrote:
On 2016-05-08 09:40, James Propp wrote:
Some math lingo does smack of terrorism: when we talk about Killing, or annihilation, or blowing things up, or Lie theory ("A big lie can be easier to sell than a littler", said Hitler). But mathematical economics has a kinder, gently vocabulary, I think.
Jim
Do you have any idea how many glider guns I have slipped past TSA? --rwg
On Saturday, May 7, 2016, Warren D Smith <warren.wds@gmail.com> wrote:
Professor's airplane math leads to flight delay AP 6:01 p.m. EDT May 7, 2016
An Ivy League professor said his flight was delayed because a fellow passenger thought the math equations he was writing might be a sign he was a terrorist.
American Airlines confirms that the woman expressed suspicions about University of Pennsylvania economics professor Guido Menzio. She said she was too ill to take the Air Wisconsin-operated flight.
Menzio said he was flying from Philadelphia to Syracuse on Thursday night and was solving a differential equation related to a speech he was set to give at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. He said the woman sitting next to him passed a note to a flight attendant and the plane headed back to the gate. Menzio, who is Italian and has curly, dark hair, said the pilot then asked for a word and he was questioned by an official.
"I thought they were trying to get clues about her illness," he told The Associated Press in an email. "Instead, they tell me that the woman was concerned that I was a terrorist because I was writing strange things on a pad of paper."
Menzio said he explained what he had been doing and the flight took off soon afterward. He was treated respectfully throughout, he added. But, he said, he was concerned about a delay that a brief conversation or an Internet search could have resolved.
"Not seeking additional information after reports of 'suspicious activity' ... is going to create a lot of problems, especially as xenophobic attitudes may be emerging," he said.
American spokesman Casey Norton said the Air Wisconsin crew followed protocol to take care of an ill passenger and then to investigate her allegations. Norton wouldn't specify the details of the allegations, but said officials determined them to be non-credible. The woman was rebooked on a later flight.
As usual, the liberal media suppress important racial data: The woman was a blonde.
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun