a most unusual day, especially if you're a circle

In their own way, mathematicians all over the world are explaining to other mathematicians - really, who else would listen - why today is a very special day.

Integral! Radical! Mu, DV
Slipstick! Slide rule! MIT!
E to the x, dy, dx,
E to the x, dx.
Secant, tangent, cosine, sine,
3.14159
Square root, cube root, log base e,
Cheers for math at MIT. 
e to the u, du/dx
e to the x dx
cosine, secant, tangent, sine,
3.14159
integral, radical, u dv,
slipstick, slide rule, MIT!

Imagine if there were a more precise calendar, like if instead of 365 units of 1440 minutes each, modern calculating instruments yielded a choice of smaller units more closely attuned to sunrise and moonrise, and each unit could have a really cool name.... Then a 10-digit Pi Day might occur more than once a century. Or not.

Enough headaches for one morning?

Enjoy this!

4 comments:

  1. Hi WFF,
    Thank you as always for your wise finds . That fight song is incomparable !
    In direct counterpoint to the wealth of mathematics in the MIT song we currently have the common core test .
    I was in a classroom yesterday and read this, taken from an online pin. I don't the author.
    For parents trying to teach their children Common Core math:
    If you have 4 apples and 7 pencils,
    how many pancakes are on the roof?

    Purple. Because everyone knows that aliens wear hats.

    I am still laughing. Or crying.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. well, a cure for befuddlement is to listen to Tom Lehrer, whose albums are collector's items. A lot of his work has found its way to YouTube. I'm betting your boys will love his take on - well, on life in general.

      Delete
  2. And Harvard won!

    Love the couple who married at 9:26 yesterday. Trying to imagine what their marriage will be like.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm trying to imagine a wedding that starts exactly on time.

      Delete

As Alice Roosevelt Longworth said, if you've got anything bad to say, sit next to me! No, really, please remember to be kind, and don't say anything fred's mother would not approve of (Diner's mom didn't approve of anything. Including fred.)
Wellfedfred and the Whining Diner reserve the right to edit or delete any comments submitted to this blog without notice if we find:
1. Comments deemed to be spam or questionable spam
2. Comments including profanity or objectionable language
3. Comments containing concepts that could be deemed offensive
4. Comments that attack a person individually
and since there's been a flood of spam lately, we're trying the Robot thing to see if we can block some spam...