Math: An Experiment in Relearning

Retaking calculus after six years has proved an odd experience. Concepts that came to me so easily back in high school are much more difficult now. On the other hand, those concepts that I did not learn then or that I did not understand fully come much more easily. I am spending the next four days studying for my final. I am using my old technique of creating a comprehensive study guide.

Concerning math, I listened to a pretty cool podcast from In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg which discusses imaginary numbers. Enjoy.

The End of "The Stone"

"The Stone," which was one of the things that really drew me into the New York Times, has finished its run. It was a set of philosophy professors from various universities discussing philosophy in the modern world. Sadly, my love of the New York Times as well is quickly disappearing because of their new pay-to-subscribe policy. I fully understand that the New York Times is a business that needs to support itself in order to provide high quality reporting, but it also acts in some ways as a public service. There should be some way to do both, but I cannot think of it (and clearly they can't either).

As such, I have replaced the RSS feed on the right side of my page, under the Google search bar, with the list of podcasts from Melvyn Bragg's "In Our Time." The podcasts are fun and informative, even if Bragg is sometimes a bit of an arrogant jerk toward his guests. Enjoy!

In Our Time

Unicorns

When I was in sixth grade, we had to do a report on Dragons. We were studying Medieval times and I think that the idea was to teach us as students about the mythology of the time and to help remove caricatured perceptions of medieval times.

I picked up two books; one was some kind of a high school-level(ish) text on the development of dragon mythology, which I did not understand. The other book that I found was a pseudo-zoological study called
Dragons and Unicorns: A Natural History. The book goes through a possible evolution of each of the animals and different subspecies. It's quite a fascinating portrait.

I remembered this because of the piece I posted about yesterday on unicorns. I thought, overall, that the panel was pretty fascinating. I was especially amused by the use of narwhal horn being sold as unicorn horn. Melvyn Bragg, once again [1], got into a minor conflict with one of the established scholars he brought on to talk because he was less interested in the importance of the mythology than the "real world" correlation between myth and unicorns.

As someone who enjoys Herodotus, I found the discussion of the historians who retold alleged sightings of unicorns and the fact that unicorns were not just a powerful symbol but something in which people truly believed. This reminded me of things such as dog-sized gold-digging ants in Herodotus.

Endnotes

1. Melvyn Bragg got into a slightly more stroppy with a scholar during the poetics.

The Return

I have returned from my Alma Mater (a few days ago). I now have a math test I need to crash study for. I will be on hiatus until Friday night. In the meantime, there is a great "In Our Time" piece on Unicorns that I listened to while I was visiting Cerinthus. I highly recommend it and will discuss in in greater detail when I get back.