octobernovember

11-02-01
Hey, here's a long-overdue update.

Today's first "question" comes from Phoenix31:
"I read what you said, that only people with no brains read literature cuz they need something to stimulate their minds. I disagree, strongly, except I don't have a nice set of arguments. Yet.
Meanwhile, I'll slam you for making me feel like an ass. What's so great about Mathematics and Science and all that high-and-mighty stuff anyway? What's the use of knowing how the little atoms of the universe works if you don't even know how the minds and hearts of your fellow human beings work? What's the use of spending hours trying to understand a scientific theorem if you can't understand what makes people do what they do and say what they say? How can you go off in pursuit of the answer to a numerical sum instead of an answer to the millions of questions that literature throws in our faces?
Why would you rather fill your mind with knowlege of things that are so exact, so perfectly precise, that there's no room for imagination to even poke its little finger into?
I just don't understand. So explain please, and please don't use a mathematical formula.

Cheers"

Ok, first I'll answer you questions in the order they were asked: Many things. So that we will. Again, so that we will. There's more to math and science than numerical sums. It's not nearly as precise as you think.

Now, to elaborate. Anyway, what's so great about anything? We're all just trying to find new and fun ways of stimulating our faculties; I like math, you like literature. It's a gross misconception to think that math and science are perfectly precise and boring, I mean just take a look at quantum mechanics, the dreams that stuff is made of. If imagination hadn't poked its little finger in, we wouldn't have a majority of the math and science we've got. The minds and hearts of my fellow human beings are made from little atoms, so your question pretty much answers itself.

The next few are from Kaye.
"Why are flags so boring and totally unimaginative?
And why do kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
And how the hell do you find the time to do so much internet stuff? I mean, someone who can be as witty as you are (over the net) must SURELY have a life!
Yup. That's all. Please e-mail me your oh-so-accurate answers. Thanks."

1. Look at some African flags, they've got plenty of colors. Anyway, the older a nation, the boringer their flag (usually). Why? Well, they had to make them, probably in mass numbers, and it would be hard to massproduce detailed, colorful, imaginative, and pretty flags at low costs.
2. For the same reason they wear pants.
3. It doesn't take too much time, and -unlike those of my timely ilk- I do not go to school.

One more from her, aptly titled "bet you can't answer this one"; "If anything to the power of 0 is 1 ; and 0 to the power of anything is 0 ... then what's 0 to the power of 0?"

It's indeterminate. Basically, if you take functions lim->0 f(x)^g(x), you won't find one limit that is true for all different functions (sometimes it's 1[sin(x)^x] , sometimes it's 0, etc.), so it's indeterminate. However, most mathematicians basically take it to equal 1, since that's what it is in most relevant cases. Anyway, just use L'Hopitals rule and you'll be fine, and thanks for the questions.

This one's from PacificHalcyon
"Hola McMigran,
jackie has these really wierd dreams about these "in-organic" beings and she said they were trying to take her energy, but i am wondering why i dont have these dreams...(i kninda know i'm a witch but i still dont these dreams and jackie does) WHY???? dammit! but at the same time i dont wanna have them, other people( very few) have also said they have these dreams of the beings that wear black cloaks and steal your energy in dreams and reasearchers say its possible to die while having these dreams...do you know anything about these dreams ??? I MUST KNOW!!"

Some psychoanalysts believe in association-by-contrast when it comes to dreams, so if she dreams of her energy being taken away, then she might actually be getting energy. I don't know why you don't have those dreams since I don't know much about you. It's possible to die while having any dream, but I don't think it's possible to die FROM dreams (quick side note, the tibetan book of the dead says that the afterlife is a series of dremas, called the Bardo states, and that the dreams are unique for each person.). I saw something on TLC a few night ago about beings in dark cloak, very tall ones, except they came while people were awake. Sorry that I couldn't be of much help on this one.

Mr. Schran is back with yet another good question:
"Why is it that your mouth feels cold when you breathe in after consuming a breath mint?"

The reason mints make your mouth feel cold is because they have ingredients (mehtol, xycotil, dextrose, peppermint oil, etc.) in them wich have a negative heat of solution. "Solution" in this case means the process of dissolving, not the actual mixture formed. So, the process takes heat away from your mouth, leaving it nice and cool.
The reason it feels even colder when you breath is that menthol penetrates and thins mucus. So, with the mucus in your mouth thinner, there's not as thick a "wall" between your mouth and the air you breathe in, and since the temperature of air is always cooler than your mouth, you really feel the coolness. I think that's it, I'm pretty confident actually, it makes sense, right? Thanks for the question.

11-21-01 Here are a few more.

I don't remember who sent this one; I got a letter asking something like "what is software engineering?", thought it was junkmail, deleted it, and realized later that it probably wasn't junkmail. Anyway;
Software engineering is what software engineers do. More specifically, they find out what kind of software the public wants, then -taking the money, time, and resources available to them into consideration- they design the software and tell the programmers what to program. Using a bit of SAT fun, software engineer:programmer :: architect:contractor/contruction worker.

Nathan asks "What's the dodon star?"
I don't know. However, if you made a typo and actually meant to ask what the dogon star is, then I do know. The dogon star is Sirius B (the dead, incredibly dense, star next to the giant Sirius A). The Dogon are an African tribe that have been around for thousands of years. Their society is very interesting, they're almost unaware of concepts like murder, theft, or suicide. What's really fascinating about them, though, is that they claim that a long time ago, aliens from a distant star visited their ancestors and gave them 365 symbols to interpret and preserve for future generations. They knew the specific star the aliens came from, and could trace it's path in the night sky, eventhough it was invisible to the naked eye ( to the telescoped eye as well, since it's gian partner is so bright). The primitive tribe knew a great deal about astrophysics, they told stories about how the universe was born out of a huge explosion from which everything came pouring out, and of stars that collapse in on themselves and will crush anyone who gets near them, they had pictures of saturn's rings and jupiter's moon (invisible to the unaided eye), and a great depth of other knowledge. It was only in the 20th century that western astronomers discovered Sirius B and it matched the star the Dogon spoke of; years later astronomers, using calculations based on minute shifts in the orbit of Sirius A, plotted out the orbit of Sirius B, and it matched what the Dogon had. The Dogon also claimed that their star was incredibly dense(among other things, this shows an understanding of gravity), which has been confirmed by scientists. The Dogon have a huge ceremony every 65 years, when the earth and Sirius B are aligned and closest to each other(they claim that a certain section of a specific cliff glows when the time comes and have special people whose only job is to let them know when its time). I'm unsure of whether the Dogon claim to have simply been visited by the aliens or if they say they were brought here by the aliens. Anyway, there's one of those "In Search Of" programs about them (with Lenord Nimoy, sporting a cool 70s mustache) that they sometimes show on the History channel, so look for it.
Thanks for the question.