answersjuly

July's Answers

07-05-01 Ok, here we are. I am now an "unofficial high-school graduate", which I suppose makes me a drop-out. Oh well, college starts in the fall anyway, so that'll be nice. I'm getting somewhat tired of constantly being happy...I mean what am I supposed to do for the next 50 years? See, the plan was to learn math, get some math job and be happy, but now that I'm happy (by which I mean eternally happy, not your everyday by-chance happiness) there's no real use for the next 50 years. Oh well.

Ergonamic Dildo asks three questions, the firts one:
"Do you think the smurfs are communists?"
Yes I do, very much so. First of all, the physical resemblance between Papa Smurf (who by the way wears red) and Marx is eerie. Also, just look at how they live; each smurf has his own special job (the artist, the cook, etc.), but they share everything they have/get...."From each according to ability to each according to need". There's also the whole "nobody can leave" thing and how they all dress the same. Now, the first thing I noticed about the smurfs was that the only unhappy one was Brainy Smurf. It saddened me at first...maybe smart people (or those with hightened consciousness) are doomed to be unhappy...but now that I look at it from the Commie prespective, it makes perfect sense: Trotsky. Brainy smurf is Trotsky, the only one unhappy with Communism and the only one who questioned Smurf ideals. Lets see, what else? Oh ya, that bad guy, the one in the robes, I forgot his name, but he's supposed to represent that capitalist pigs (as is his fat cat) because he wants to capture the smurfs and boil them to turn them into gold. Also, remember how the smurfs were always preparing for Spring Festivals? May Day, that's what the spring festival was. So, yes, I do think that the Smurfs were communists.

Ergonomic Dildo's next question is "I need a name for my right shoe, can you please help me?"
I can try, but I was never any good with names. I had a pet lug-nut once that I named Bolty. Bolty was such a nice pet, but I noticed that he liked my friend Gary more than he liked me (Gary is a completely awesome and UPN guy, so it's no surprise), so I gave Bolty to Gary because I wanted Bolty to be happy. Anyway, some names that spring to mind are Charlie, Heughbart, Evariste, Galois, Gabi, Gabby, and Shoe. Oh ya, and Bolty.

And Ergonomic Dildo's third question is "Is it legal to keep a bandicoot as a pet in America?"
They're an endangered species, so probably not. Of course, those laws are made to protect bandicoots from stupid people and stupid people from bandicoots but, since you're a genius, if you want a bandicoot you should get one despite of it not being legal.

Peter asks "What does AM (like 9:28AM) stand for?"
AM stands for ante-meridien, while PM is post-meridien. "Meridien" is noon, "ante" is before, and "post" is after.

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I don't know today's date, but it's mid-to-late July.
Well, I did some math yesterday, first time in about a month. It was fun, I'd alsmot completely forgotten about math for fun, since I hadn't done any non-school-math in about 2 months. I'm very disappointed with UCLA. I thought universities would be different, but it's the exact same bullshit there as there was in high school, people value mindless obedience way too much and knowledge way too little. Eh, William James Sidis avenged Galois, so that's cool. I miss....[kimler would've kicked me if I had finished that sentence].

Anyway, today's first question comes from Frankie the Fornicator,
Frankie writes:
"In the year 1986, the world cup was held in my own native country of mexico. I had the good fortune to watch one the greatest games ever live in azteca stadium. I was only 4 and i dont remember a anything till the age of 6 came along but i was told a story by one of my uncles. My uncle told me about teh match between 2 of the greatest teams in the world at teh time england and argentina. The final score was 2-1 argentina coming out on top. That allowed argentina to advance in the tournament while england was eliminated. Both of the argentina goals were scored by diego maradona. One of his goals turned out to be an illegal goal since it was pretty clear that his hand touched the ball, a no-no in soccer. After the game he was asked about the incidentand his answer was surpirsing. He said that it was the hand god. so here is my question, since the replay tape showed that it his hand that scored the goal and sicen maradona said that it was the "HAND OF GOD", does that mean that our whole christian- judeo system of religeon is all wrong? Is god really Diego Maradona? Your insight into this matter would really help me."

I was a little over 2 years old when that happened, but I remember hearing about it from my relatives. I think, but I'm not sure, that he said "[it was god acting through my hand]" not "[it was the hand of god]". So, if my recollection is accurate, than god isn't Diego Maradona. However, lets assume your's is true, lets say he said "it was the hand of god". This doesn't mean that Maradona was god, it means that god's hand happened to be attached to Maradona's body. Like if I said "I'm wearing god's shoes", that doesn't mean I'm god, just that I have something that belongs to him.

The next to quesitons, though from different people, deal with the same subject and will be grouped together.
Frankie the Fornicator asks "what's the difference between migranism2 and fascism?"
and VolunteersConqueringFries ask "what ever happened to Migranism?"
I'm done with migranism, and politics in general. Migranism was originally something very close to Scandinavian Socialism (I love Norway). Later on, Migranism2 came around, which, it was pointed out to me later, was frightningly similar to fascism. Frankie, the difference between migranism2 and fascism was "heart". As to whatever happened to migranism, I don't know. It basicly faded away. I care very little about politics now, as long as wherever I am has a stable economy so that I can be left alone to do what I do. Whether I pay no taxes or 99% taxes, whether stuff is owned by the public or private sector doesn't matter much to me anymore.
Actually, in a decade or so, I'm planning to nominate Manuel Ramirez for the presidency of the United States on the basis of Divine Right.

Ok, good bye good people of [place], enjoy yourselves and be happy.

July 24, 2001
   Okay, we've got 4 questions from El Tina. Now, I'm answering all four based on stuff I know without checking with outside sources, so if I give any figures or some perticularly technical facts(unlikely), double check them to make sure they're accurate.
   First, "how do you think taillights on a car work?".
      Okay, when you hit the switch or press on the brakes, you close a circuit and send electricity to the taillight, the same way hitting the light switch at home does. As for the actual light, I'm going to copy a portion of an answer to a question I was asked in May, since it applies perfectly to this one as well. The bulbs have a thin tungsten(or other) fillament, the fillament offers a lot of resistance to the electricity running through it, and turns the electrical energy into heat, this heat causes the fillament to glow, and voila, we have light. Recently I've seen some car lights that were really bright and crisp blue/white, they're called Xenon lights. These work by providing a spark to xenon gas, but I've only seen zenon headlights, so I won't go into great detail about them.
     The bulb is covered with a color plate (orange or red, usually) so the light becomes that color. I'll elaborate on this while answering your next question.

Here's her second question: "What do you think is different about the light that leaves differently colored objects?"
    Wavelength. It's very important to remember that color is a sensation, and not a property of objects. Different wavelenths of light are seen as different colors by our eyes. I don't know which frequency is which color, but you can find a nice little spectrum in most science books. Light comes in photons, and when photons hit electrons, four things can happen:
1. If the electron is in resonance with the wavelenth of the light that hits it, the light is absorbed and transformed into thermal energy (heat).
2. The electron can also absorb the photon's energy and store it
       (luminescence/phosphoresence).
3. If the electron's vibrations are not in resonance with the photon's, then the light will be reflected (sent back the way it came).
or 4. It will pass through the electron (be transmitted).
       It's usually a combination of the above that happens when light hits an object.
What does any of this have to do with color? 3 and 4 are what color is all about.   Well, different materials have different electrons which treat different wavelengths of light differently.....so we see different colors. What we think of as an object's color is actually the wavelength of the light that has been reflected or transmitted by the object. For example, orange plates on taillights transmit the "orange" wavelegth (or a combination of wavelengths that we decode as orange [more details on this in the answer to your next question]) so we see orange light come through them.
     To sum things up, the difference in the light that leaves differently colored objects is the very reason that we perceive the objects as "differentlty colored"; the wavelength of the light transmitted or reflected by the objects.

3: "What does color addition suggest about color vision?".
Once again, color is a sensation and not a property. Our eyes have light-sensitive cells called cones, it is through these that we perceive color. There are three types of cones: red, green, and blue (named after the portion of the spectrum each type is best at absorbing).
Ok, lets leave the above aside for now. From now on whenever I say color I mean "wavelength of light". Any three colors that make white when combined are called primary colors of light. The three most common ones are red, green, and blue. A color produced by equal intensities of two primary colors is called a secondary color(for example, green and red make yellow). Every color has a complementary color, a color, which when added to the original color, makes white(yellow and blue). Basicaly, by fooling around with three primary colors, you can make a huge variety of other colors. So, pretty much all colors contain some mixture of red, blue, and green, Lucky for us, our eyes have receptors for those very three colors. Your red, blue, green cones absorb a light in particular proportions, and these proportions give us the sensation of color. When you see yellow for example, it could either be yellow light, or a mixture of red and green light; our cones register both as the same color. I'm not sure what any of this suggests about color vision, but you can form your own opinion from the above facts.

And her last question: "How are multiple colors on televisions and printed pictures produced?".
       The answer, again, is RED, BLUE, and GREEN. TVs have a cathode tube which creates a vaccuum and sucks up electrons. Color TVs have three electron beams; red, blue, and green. Since these three colors can be combines to produce any color you want, all a TV has to do is point them correctly. The television gets a signal, the signal tells it which beams to have on, where to point them, and at what intensity. I think color is controled by a 3.58 MHs sine wave, with different phase shifts telling the tv to show a different color (red is 75 degrees, blue is 195, etc.). The beams trace tiny horizontal and vertical lines, extremely quickly; getting multiple colors is a simple matter of telling which beam where to go and with what level of intensity.
      The same "red, blue, green" thing is true for printed pictures. Camera film has three layers, sensitive to red, blue and green. Photo paper is the same way. So I think the answer you're looking for is "color addition", whereas mixing three primary colors (again, the msot commonly used ones are red, blue, and green) produces millions of other colors.
     I hope I've answered your questions, if my answer weren't specific enough or did not fit your perticular question, please email a more specific query to McMigran@hotmail.com.

June 28, 2001.
One question today, coming from ASDF. I kind of like this one.
"Why does 1+1=2, huh smartass? :)"
       Ok, first we need to review the Peano Postulates for defining the natural numbers. Well, we don't need all of them, only three. (I'm going to number them 1-3, eventhough these aren't the first three Peano Postulates). Oh yeah, N is the smallest set satisfying all of the postulates.

Postulate 1: 1 is in N.
P2: If x is in N, then it's successor, x', is also in N. (basically says x' follows x and is in N.)
P3: If x isn't 1, then there is a y in N such that y'=x.

Now let's DEFINE addition. Ok, a and b are in N.
     If b=1, then a+b=a' (postulate 1,2).
     If b doesn't equal 1, then c'=b and c is in N (postulate 3). We define a+b = (a+c)'. Now, if c equals 1, fine, if not, then we define a+c=(a+d)' where d'=c and d is in N, so that we have a+b=[(a+d)']'. If d=1, we're done, if not, we add an e,f,g,h, etc. until we get to one.

   Now, we DEFINE 2:   2=1'. According to postulates 1 and 2, and the definition of 2, 2 is in N.

So, a=1, b=1, a+b=a'....1+1=1'=2.

That's pretty much the recursive definition of addition; just for fun, let's do 5+3=8. We've defined which number follows which number ahead of time (1'=2,2'=3,3'=4, 4'=5...2000'=2001 etc.) Ok. a=5, b=3. c'=b, so c=2. d'=c so d=1. Let's go: a+b=(a+c)'=[(a+d)']'. Since d=1, a+d=a'. We get a+b=[(a')']'. a=5, so a'=6, a''=7, a'''=8. So, 5+3=8.

   Of course, all of the above is a fancy way of saying "1+1=2 because we say it does".

   Anyway, great question ASDF.

Don't know the date, but I think it's still July.
    We've got another math question today, so I'm pretty excited.
Jeff asks "I just starting learning about Ramsey Numbers, and I'm pretty confused. For example, for 3,3, it's 6, but you can fit a triangle in 5 points too, so why isn't it 5? I kind of get the definition of Ramsey Numbers, but I still need to see an example to figure out how they work. Thanks"
     I learned about ramsey numbers from my friend Lisa a few months ago, and I pretty much had no idea what she was tlaking about until she explained it to me over and over and over. I'll just use R(3,3)=6 as the example you asked for, and hope that it's enough, since I'll only confuse the two of us if I try to explain it with proofs and definitions and what not.
    Here goes: The ramsey number for 3,3 (written as R(3,3), I think) means the lowest possible number of points that when used to make arcs of 2 different colors (say red and green) will either give a red triangle or green triangle. R(3,3)=6. Here's why: take six points, arrange them like a cirlce. Take on point, and start connecting it to other points with red or green lines. You will either have at least 3 green or at least 3 red lines (since there are five lines, so one color has to be at least 3). Say you get 3 red 2 green. Ok, it'll help if you actually do this on a piece of paper. Now, you've got 3 red lines, all sharing a common point, if you connect any of the three points those red lines make at the other end with each other, you'll get a red triangle. What we want to see is whether this red triangle can be avoided. So, let's connect all the red points to each other with green lines. But, that means you have to connect three red points with green lines, and this gives you a green tirangle. So, the only way to avoid a red triangle is to make a green one, and vice-versa. That's what a ramsey number is, for R(a,b), the ramsey number is the minimum number R such that you are forced to either have an exclusive a sided fiure of one "color" or a b sided figure of another color. I don't know enough about this to help you further, but the reason it's not five is because you can show that with five you're not forced to make a triangle. I don't know how you prove this other than brute force, but I'll update this answer after I get a combinatronics book from the library and read it, since the topic is rather new to me. Good luck.