[math-fun] Draft of April 17 essay
I've put a draft of my upcoming Mathematical Enchantments essay on the web at http://mathenchant.org/060-draft4.pdf Comments are welcome! Thanks, Jim
Wait, how are there "about as many atoms in a teaspoonful of water as there are molecules of water in all Earth’s oceans"? Both are volumes of water, and the atom-to-molecule ratio is just 3:1. What am I missing? (Also, Dr. T. had "5000 fingers", not "500 finger".) --Michael On Sun, Apr 12, 2020 at 9:05 AM James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com> wrote:
I've put a draft of my upcoming Mathematical Enchantments essay on the web at
http://mathenchant.org/060-draft4.pdf
Comments are welcome!
Thanks,
Jim _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
-- Forewarned is worth an octopus in the bush.
Don't forget about time scales: the age of the universe, of the earth, and the evolutionary age of life as we know it, i.e. time from the last major extinction event. There is a very interesting exponential trend between arthropods, mammals, and angiosperms, which is mentioned in Fig.2 of Ahrens et al. "The evolution of scarab beetles...". The other thing to mention (especially today?) is that Jeans was deeply religious, and is still remembered for his religion, see "Quantum Questions" Ed. Wilbur. Excerpts from the following: https://alta3b.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/quantum-questions.pdf (Shambhala Publications, imo, are trustworthy & reputable). "we can never understand what events are, but must limit ourselves to describing the patterns of events in mathematical terms; no other aim is possible. Physicists who are trying to understand nature may work in many different fields and by many different methods; one may dig, one may sow, one may reap. But the final harvest will always be a sheaf of mathematical formulae. These will never describe nature itself. . . . [Thus] our studies can never put us into contact with reality. " When I was much younger, arguments along these lines--that we can never achieve enlightenment, and that we can never overcome our own biases--convinced me that Jeans was as good a theorist as any of his more-famous contemporaries, Planck, Pauli, and others. Cheers, Brad On Sun, Apr 12, 2020 at 9:30 AM James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com> wrote:
Michael,
Wait, how are there "about as many atoms in a teaspoonful of water as there
are molecules of water in all Earth’s oceans"?
It should say “teaspoons”! Thanks.
(Also, Dr. T. had "5000 fingers", not "500 finger".)
And thanks for catching that too!
Jim _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
It's probably not worth discussing if the athmosphere's thickness, when reducing the earth to the size of a chicken's egg is equal to the chicken shell of 1/5 of it, given the rather vague definition of the athmosphere's thickness. However, I just told this fact to my 9yo daughter, who is not very mathematically inclined. She instantly took an involuntary deep breath. She was impressed! Thank you, and happy Easter! Dirk On Sun, 12 Apr 2020 09:05:06 -0400 James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com> wrote:
I've put a draft of my upcoming Mathematical Enchantments essay on the web at
http://mathenchant.org/060-draft4.pdf
Comments are welcome!
Thanks,
Jim _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
"One example of this is the proposition that there are about as many atoms in a teaspoonful of water as there are molecules of water in all Earth’s oceans." You must've meant "...as there are teaspoons of water in all the Earth's oceans." Brent On 4/12/2020 6:05 AM, James Propp wrote:
I've put a draft of my upcoming Mathematical Enchantments essay on the web at
http://mathenchant.org/060-draft4.pdf
Comments are welcome!
Thanks,
Jim _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
I wonder if people would understand better if the popular press referred to "geometric growth" instead of "exponential"? Brent On 4/12/2020 6:05 AM, James Propp wrote:
I've put a draft of my upcoming Mathematical Enchantments essay on the web at
http://mathenchant.org/060-draft4.pdf
Comments are welcome!
Thanks,
Jim _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
I made a major blunder in this article: 10 to the power of 40 is the approximate ratio of the size of the observable universe to the size of a proton. (What I wrote about 10 to the 40 is very not true.) Also, the human body is several orders of magnitude away from being the geometric mean of the two. I mention this because I’m worried that some of you will vaguely recall my erroneous statement and spread it to others. Jim Propp On Sun, Apr 12, 2020 at 9:05 AM James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com> wrote:
I've put a draft of my upcoming Mathematical Enchantments essay on the web at
http://mathenchant.org/060-draft4.pdf
Comments are welcome!
Thanks,
Jim
participants (5)
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Brad Klee -
Brent Meeker -
Dirk Lattermann -
James Propp -
Michael Kleber