Today's Math Lesson - One Sided Paper

Today's math lesson is about Mobius Strips. Watch the movie below first. 

       

One of the last courses that I took at NIU before getting a masters degree in mathematics was

Topology, the branch of mathematics that the study of Mobius strips falls under. The professor, Robert Wheeler, was the first professor I had in grad school that I felt was a teacher. I had a number of good professors at NIU; college professors are usually just different from teachers. My former boss Bill (who I played golf with today) had a system for hiring new math teachers that involved asking a number of strange questions. One of them was to ask the prospective teacher, "Do you teach math or students?" If he was lucky, the question elicited a long discussion. I don't think your answer mattered as much to Bill as the discussion did. For most young teachers who have not reached a point where reflection about their teaching is the norm, the discussion tended to be fairly short, maybe a quick answer that the jobseeker hoped would match what Bill wanted. Unfortunately that was true for some more veteran teachers as well. If Bill was lucky, the discussion lasted a lot longer, with forays into questions like "Is teaching an art or a science?" Now they mostly ask, "Have you used a smart board before?"     

Well, Dr. Wheeler taught both math and students at NIU.  His topology class was very difficult; I remember trying to get to DeKalb plenty early after work (4 nights a week) so I could run through my homework and notes one more time before class and maybe talk to some of the other high school math teachers (there were three of us amidst all the grad students) who were taking the class. Homework was turned in and graded. The tests were a challenge. I found some of them tucked in the textbook when we were cleaning the basement last spring. I actually did pretty well, from 85% to 95% on the tests and usually 6 or 7 out of 8 on the homework, which shows how hard I worked. Most of the grad students who were in the class were better math students than I was.   I know that I couldn't answer too many of the questions now. It would take a lot of work to figure out what the Heine - Borel Theorem was all about, and I don't have the time now that I'm working on turning my truck into a robot car.    

Babies Are Not My Thing

We spent the last week and a half getting to and being in Oregon for my nephew's wedding in Ashland. One of the bonuses is that the bride and groom have a baby girl named Alice. Tom and Adeline live in Tennessee while they have been pursuing doctorate degrees at Vanderbilt. It has been twenty some years since I have held a baby, and I am sure that there are new ways to do it. I avoided the issue. We did however get pictures of Grandpa and Ann and the bouncing baby girl.    

We found a new best Portland hotel that we love: Red Lion Inn on the Sea. Very nice rooms with cabanas by the pools to keep off the sun and long walkways around the resort that allow you to see the sea, which is actually the beautiful Columbia River.    

Most importantly, the hotel has seating groups on each floor where several people can gather for social activities, like playing Five Crowns card game.    

On the day of the wedding we had to drive up the mountain to reach the 

 wedding resort. Ann mentioned the sheer drop-offs just to the right of our right tire and admonished me to drive with care. When it got pretty scary, they put sticks with reflectors up every ten feet to let you know not to get too close. Only two sections had guardrails of any kind. It was dark and I couldn't see well, but I hesitate to think how much worse it had to be to actually put up guardrails. The wedding was very low key, with good people, good food, and bad dancers. We left early to get Grandpa back home to the hotel. Alan and Vicky were very gracious hosts all week long, opening their gorgeous house for breakfasts and dinners with lots of people. It was the first Armstrong family reunion since Dad's 90th birthday last September. Now we need to wait a year, or even better two so that we can all rebuild our savings for the next reunion. Las Vegas was tossed around little bit as being a cheap destination. Al and Vick would come, but would bring their kayaks and a tent. I'd bring my pension money and see if I can become one of the 1%. Probably the wrong 1%.    

Cooking It Old Style

So we were supposed to make Lemon Chicken tonight, but didn't have the energy, so we went All - American dinner instead. Hot dogs on the grill, corn on the cob, and (way in the back) apple pie for dessert. Not present at time of picture: ice cream for apple pie. Whimzy passed on the corn and pie, but had seconds on the hot dogs. We had extras. Wish you were here. 

MOOC, anyone?

A MOOC is a massively open on-line class. The first round of three courses was offered last fall by Stanford University: Intro to Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Databases. I have a signed certificate on my refrigerator from the instructors saying I successfully completed the Artificial Intelligence course. It was not an easy course. There were graded homeworks and tests along the way, and a midterm and a final exam. I'm sure the heavy dose of statistics was scary to some of the participants. I have taught statistics classes and I still struggled with some of the problems on Bayes Theorem.  

Since then a consortium of universities under the name Coursera have offered an increasingly diverse group of online courses. The word massive refers to the number of participants. I am signed up to take one starting in September that has 36,000 students so far. Open refers to the fact that there are no controls on who can take the class. Some classes have prerequisites, but if you feel you are qualified to sign up, that is all that matters. And there is no harm in dropping out. At any time you can unenroll from a class and try something else. I signed up for a class in Fantasy and Science Fiction this summer, but after reading 155 pages of the 223 required to write an essay on Grimm's Fairy Tales for week one, I gave up. They are not that interesting and the instructor made them even less interesting. So I have signed up for a physics based class called "How Things Work" taught by a professor from the University of Virginia, and an "Intro to Programming with Python" class taught by some folks from Rice University. There are more than 100 classes to choose from in lots of categories.  Here's one class from each broad category:  

Biology: Intro to Genome Science  
Business: Gamification  
Computer Science: Computational Photography  
Economics: Model Thinking   
Education: E-Learning and Digital Cultures (from U of Edinburgh)   
Engineering: Control of Mobile Robots   
Health: Principles of Obesity Economics   
Humanities: Listening to World Music  
Mathematics: Mathematical Biostatistics Boot Camp   
Physical Sciences: Introduction to Sustainability (from U of Illinois)    

The nice thing is that there is no transcript, no grade that goes anywhere but to you, and no harm if all you do is watch the videos and learn without turning anything in. It's nice to get your homework back graded so you can tell where you went wrong, but that is up to you. So check them out at Coursera. There might be something you always wanted to learn but couldn't afford to take at the local university. These classes are all free. Enjoy yourself. I can't wait until next summer when "Programming Your Robot Car" is offered. I'll be texting from my truck by Christmas 2013.   

Bad News Comes in Threes

There were three losses in the last few days that were painful to acknowledge. The first was the death of one of my heroes, Neil Armstrong, at the age of 82 last week.    

He was born in Wapakoneta, Ohio, a town about ten miles from where I grew up in St. Marys, Ohio. My Aunt Nell lived in Wapak. When our kids were young and we were visiting their grandparents, we would all drive to Wapak for dinner at Brown's restaurant, where they could get fries shaped like dinosaurs and Peppermint ice cream for dessert. We took them through the Neil Armstrong Space Museum in Wapak to see a record of his accomplishments.  As I grew up, I found out that I was related to Neil Armstrong, something like a third or fourth cousin according to the local family historians who charted things like that. It made watching the moon landing even more special and helped me decide that I wanted to have something to do with math or science when I grew up.   

In recent years, he had become more vocal in his concern for the lack of funding for space exploration. In an interview this spring, he said,  

"NASA has been one of the most successful public investments in motivating students to do well and achieve all they can achieve. It's sad that we are turning the program in a direction where it will reduce the amount of motivation and stimulation it provides to young people. And that's a major concern to me."

His family, in their statement announcing that he had died, asked people to dispense with words:
"For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request," they said. "Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink."   

Someone in school asked me once, "Was anybody in your family famous?"  I think I can say yes to that.

The second loss was the death of the voice behind everyone's favorite vampire mathematician. Jerry Nelson, the voice of the Count on Sesame Street, died at the age of 78. He also did the voice and puppet work for Snuffleupagus, Gobo Fraggle, and bass player Sgt. Floyd Pepper.  

Lisa Henson, daughter of the late Muppet creator Jim Henson and chief executive of the Jim Henson Co., said in a statement: "Jerry Nelson imbued all of his characters with the same gentle, sweet whimsy and kindness that were a part of his own personality." He had retired from the physical work of puppeteering, but still did voices. He can be heard as the Count on several episodes in the new 43rd season of Sesame Street which debuts this September.    

And finally, on a lighter note, after 24 years in existence, the magazine Nintendo Power is going out of business at the end of this year. For my kids, the arrival of a new Nintendo Power magazine was a joyous occasion. This was pre-internet time: there was no easy way to search for tricks, tips, and cheat codes for Nintendo games. But we were in luck. Nintendo sent them to us in magazine form. The issue pictured below was the one I remember the most. It included a strategy guide for Mario Bros 3 which the boys pored over for hours.   

I think we still have boxes of these magazines stored somewhere in the basement. They are probably collector's items, but I can't imagine anyone selling such a huge part of their childhood. We still all play video games from time to time (Dr. Mario on the original Nintendo system for me), so I would say Nintendo did a great job of motivating their customers.   

What Can You Say? It's a Corgi!

Mars Landing 3

From XKCD:

 

In case you didn't see why the period of time from Curiosity's entrance into Mars' atmosphere to when it touched down on the surface was labeled "Seven Minutes of Terror" by the NASA folks.  The rover was too big and too heavy to land with jets. The crew was worried that the Mars dust that would be kicked up would damage some of the instruments. So with the jet pack hovering the last 50 feet or so above the surface, a skycrane lowered the rover on ropes to a soft landing.  Once the jetpack recognized the rover had touched down, it cut the ropes and flew away so it wouldn't accidentally land on the rover. And all this was done based on the programming given to the lander well in advance because of the time delay for information from the lander to get back to earth. If there had been a problem, the lander would have crashed long before any corrections could be sent. Amazing!   

Mars Landing 2

From the nerdist webcomic Dork Tower: