How My Curious Brain Works

All this shows is what curiosity can lead to, and some of the many, uncountable ways that everything is connected.

I wrote this so that someone will read it, “that singular individual,” as Soren Kierkegaard would dedicate this works — yes, I went and found the reference in Works of Love.

I meant to get to some programming today — maybe I still will, maybe I won’t.

It started last week. (Okay, maybe it started years ago, but “every story has to start somewhere,” and sometimes that first sentence is arbitrary). Ryan asked questions about sodium, and potassium. The chemical element ‘Na’ (from the Latin Natrium; [Note: I found a typo in that article]).

So we e-mailed a former chemistry teacher. But due to my inaccurate memory, I had to look up the periodic table of elements — the first column consists of hydrogen, lithium, then sodium, potassium (symbol: K, Kalium — see also the same article), Rubidium, …
PubChem has a short “article” on the history and current status of the periodic table, including this note:

Finally, IUPAC assigns collective names (lanthanoids and actinoids) and group numbering (1 to 18) and has investigated the membership of the group 3 elements.

And what, pray tell, is “group 3” membership? It took some searching: https://iupac.org/project/2015-039-2-200/ In short, there’s some debate about the lower part of the 3rd column of the table, and which elements, if any, belong in the lowest two rows, which are sometimes shown as “expanded” separately — lanthanum (La), actinium (Ac); OR lutetium (Lu), lawrencium (Lr); OR neither…

There is a well-developed literature in the philosophy of science that concerns itself with classification and with the question of natural kinds…

Natural kinds are distinguished from so-called artificial kinds for which classification depends rather on human choices and not on an independently existing reality. …

In the 1970s and 80s a theory was developed by philosophers Kripke and Putnam who sought to define natural kinds through their essences or their objective properties …

I read the whole article, trust me; not much later, I found:

A more general objection to the Kripke-Putnam approach to thinking of natural kinds has been the realization that, whatever kinds are being considered, there is always a certain degree of interest dependence that enters the stipulation of sets of entities …

If we are to believe what the experts on the philosophy of classification and natural kinds have to tell us we should renounce the notion that we will ever arrive at a truly optimal periodic table, since any system of classification must inevitably remain interest dependent. Of course this state of affairs should not negate the attempts to resolve such questions as the membership of group 3 of the periodic table but it should remind us of the fact that any resolution must concede a certain degree of conventionality, or choice, on the part of the scientific community. 

[emphasis added, by me]. In short, all decisions are biased. But that shouldn’t prevent us from making decisions, only recognizing our own preferences and influences.

A student looking at the table shown in figure 3 is bound to wonder whether there is some scientific reason for making the f-block have a width of 15 elements. Neither a student, nor his/her instructors, would probably realize that the table in question has been designed by practitioners of specialized branch of relativistic quantum mechanics concerned with the properties of super-heavy elements

Ryan also asked what is the element with the highest atomic number that “exists” — here, the information I infer from Wikipedia and the “latest” article I could find by IUPAC (Aug. 4, 2020) seem to agree:

Chemically, the now heaviest known element with proton number 118 terminates in column 18, as element oganesson, the seventh row in the Periodic Table of the Elements.

The answer is: Oganesson.

And that is how I add more interesting trivia, how even a mistaken Latin word can lead to serendipitous (re-)discoveries (rather than detritus), and everything is connected to everything.

I chose the word “uncountable” in the first paragraph, from the concept of “countable infinity” — and that’s how I go off in to the world of Gödel’s Incompletenss Theorem. Because maybe there are an infinite number of ideas…

So I’ve connected Ryan’s building of cross-bows and planning of other projectile launchers to chemistry, to philosophy, to my biography, to poetry.

“But wait there’s more!” (Now I’ve connected, if only thru this writing, popular culture and ‘famous’ quotations): epistemology, which, I believe, is intimately tied to theology — how can a person ‘know,’ but there is something to know? See “A Physicist, a Philologist, and the Meaning of Life.”

Two Thousand One

It took me almost a year to come back to this project — then my computer “crashed” and I lost this entire entry; I was so discouraged, it took a month or more to come back to this…

But I’ve had these tabs up w/ info for too long, now, and I’m closing pages that aren’t used, so here goes again…

It’s difficult to think of anything that happened in 2001 besides”9/11,” but there are other things:

• Wikipedia started (I think I knew that)
• Downtown Disney opened in Anaheim, CA (I didn’t know that!)
• Mars Explorer launched — on my birthday!

http://www.eventshistory.com/date/2001/

• Apple introduced the iPod on Oct. 23

But, of course, the year will forever be remembered for the “historic” terrorist attacks that destroyed the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in NYC.

It is difficult to describe how that day felt, and the changes that were a result. The feeling of the world coming to an end — well, maybe not quite, but it was surreal, certainly. For example, I worked on the 7th floor of a building in Richfield, MN, at the time; I remember being told that we could, if we wanted, go home, because the building itself could be a target. And I recall thinking, “no, really??” and, “well, I guess it could be, since ‘that’ happened and who knows, right?” (This was in a time when it wasn’t really “possible” to work from home. At least, I wasn’t set up for that, nor anyone I knew)
We all stood around watching TVs that had been brought in, just for the occasion. No one was even remotely interested in doing any work.

And “the world” changed that day — from the alterations to domestic flight scheduling and planning, airport security, the more subtle changes to thinking about safety and security in general, and long term difference in society.

The example I usually give is walking up to the gate at the airport, but that happened maybe once in my lifetime (for me). It may be true, but it doesn’t cover the story. I’m not sure what would. Maybe taking off your shoes to go thru the security line; more: just the fact of the security gate.

But what I really wanted to write about is the best of humanity that we saw that day, and every day when tragedy strikes. The New Yorker story is “The Real Heroes Are Dead.” Rick Rescorla. Besides saving all of the Morgan Stanley employees, “… one of the last to leave, Bob Sloss, told [his wife] that, just ten minutes before the building collapsed, he had seen Rescorla on the tenth floor. When Sloss reached him, he told Rescorla to get out himself. ‘I will as soon as I make sure everyone else is out,’ Rescorla replied. Then he began climbing back up into the building. ” [emphasis mine]

I was able to write full stories when I was younger! At least, I think I remember being better at putting my thoughts together. But, at least, I’ve put some disjointed thoughts into words.

Next, I’ll move on to two-thousand and two.

Y2K in Retrospect

It would be hard to explain, after the fact, what the Y2K bug represented.

In brief, there was a lot of angst around the problems caused by a simple short-sighted, resource saving “solution.”

Because computer memory was once scarce (was it really that expensive?), programmers stored dates with the year as only two digits. Consequently, when the century turned over, and the year was “00” — not uncommonly, zero as used as a sentinel value, a signal to stop, or enter debug mode, or — well, there were a lot of scenarios of what could happen when the year rolled over.

The range of possible outcomes included mere crashes and systems going down, power grid failures, cell phone networks going down…

All kinds of things were feared. In the end, not much happened. Seems to me I heard one interesting story: a grandmother, 105 yrs old, got a request to sign up for kindergarten (I’m sure there were a few stories like that), but none of the end-of-the-world, apocalyptic things happened.

Twenty Years in Review

It has been a year since I wrote anything here; and in 2018, I only wrote four times (same for the previous year).  Oh, well…

Since it’s a new year approaching, and for various reasons, I thought I’d undertake writing a brief description of each year since the turn of the century, and millennium.

Various reasons: I’m not usually a person to “look back.”  Plus, I’m very bad at remembering, in general, when something happened.  And, though I’ve written some, I’ve generally failed at writing — both “letters to my son” as he’s grown up (he’s 12 yrs old!!), and authoring anything, fiction or memoir…

So, if I broadcast that I’m doing this, maybe someone will check up on me.  If you’re so inclined, feel free to add to my description, esp. in terms of general ambiance for a particular year.  Starting with:

Two Thousand, A.D.

(I know, properly, we’re now using “C.E.”  and “B.C.E.”  But anno Domini sounds better, in my ears)

Off the top of my head, I remember mostly three things: initially, the Y2K “Bug” was in the news, until January 2nd, when it proved a non-event; the year was one of optimism, of “living in the future,” and excitement; and finally, the year 2000 brought us a new term: “hanging chads.” Bush v. Gore ended the election recount and gave George W. Bush the presidency… (that’s not how I ought to say that, but it flows easily).

I don’t know if I had a journal then, and I’m not even going to look right now; I must’ve lived in Little Canada, at that time – 215 E. Co. Rd B2.

I didn’t join FaceBook until 2008, I can’t find anything on-line I would’ve written back then… LinkedIn tells me I worked at StorageTek at the beginning of the year, and GMAC-RFC by the end.

I looked up some “year in review” links:

• https://www.infoplease.com/year-review-1999
• https://www.infoplease.com/year-review-2000
• http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1990s.html
• http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1999.html
• http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/2000.html

The 2000 Summer Olympics were in Sydney, Australia.

Also, as part of the “historical context” (from memory): this was before 9/11 — it’s incredible to me now how two simple numbers, representing a date, can signify so much; I do not know if even “Dec. 7, a day that will live in infamy” carries the same punch, or Nov. 22, 1963.

I glanced at “The People History” for the year and noted that “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” was published then. Of course, the “London Eye” opened — this was part of the new millennium celebration.

From monthly headlines, I’m reminded that the Space Shuttles Endeavor and Atlantis were still flying, Pope John Paul II was head of the Catholic Church. The International Space Station was crewed for the first time.

What strikes me as I read the past headlines is how insignificant some momentous stories turned out to be — things that promised to “rock the world,” or “change the course of history”… of course, some did, but many more did not; as Arthur C. Clarke has commented, “predicting the future is hard.”

I’m going to try and write more, esp. from a personal perspective, and also about the Y2K Bug scare — but I want to get this “published” so I can ask you: what you do recall of the year 2000?

What would you add, what would you change in trying to explain two decades ago to a ‘young person’ (my son is twelve)?

Mindstorm Masters

The FIRST Lego League team from Seven Hills Prepatory Academy competed for their second year this past weekend, on Sunday, December 2, 2018.

This year, they improved over last year in programming, holding second place in their division for several rounds, ending up third. They made it to the quarter-final round during head-to-head play – congratulations, team.

Unfortunately, though they had an excellent project idea (dealing with helping astronauts sleep better during extended space flights), their overall score did not earn enough points to progress to the next round of competition.

Better luck next year!

The members include Nat Walden, Brady Yates, Ryan Parks, and, in their final year*, Elias Caspari and Tanner Hendrickson.

* due to age restriction – after FIRST Lego League would be FIRST Tech Challenge and/or FIRST Robotics Challenge.

For more information about FIRST Lego League and other programs, check out https://www.firstinspires.org/. For information about MN FIRST teams, etc., go to https://hightechkids.org/

Into Orbit

– the theme of First LEGO League (“FLL”) this year.

The short challenge guide is here; if that doesn’t work: http://www.firstlegoleague.org/challenge

Watch the video.

Links about sleep (information):

• NHLBI Info about Sleep Deprivation and Deficiency

Natl. Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Also:

• Your Guide to Healthy Sleep

• Ten Benefits of a Good Night’s Sleep
• 11 Surprising Health Benefits of Sleep

{Team, if you have other links, send them to me, and I’ll add them here.}

• Four…

Robot chassis ideas (fr. Coach Walden):

http://www.fllcasts.com/playlists/29, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DPMt2pMabU, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLSWfKEZRaI

Iterum affectu

The phrase I’m aiming for is: “Once more, with feeling”

C++

headers ref: https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/header

My starting Makefile:

# copied fr. prev. vers.
CPPFLAGS = -g -std=c++11 -Wall -Wextra -v -Weffc++ -Wold-style-cast

LDLIBS = -lstdc++

# new (TDD)
test: PrimeTree
./PrimeTree fn1.txt

PrimeTree.o: PrimeTree.cpp

And first source file:

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
// I might come back to forward_list, but for now (for simplicity)...
#include <list>

// using namespace std;
using std::cout;
using std::endl;

// not where this should go
typedef std::list<long>::iterator data_iterator;

class PrimeTree
{
public:
  PrimeTree() {
    // _data =
    _data.clear();
  };

  int read(char *fn);
  int write(char *fn);

  int add(long n) {
    _data.push_back(n);

    return _data.size();
  };

  friend bool operator==(const PrimeTree& lhs, const PrimeTree& rhs);
protected:
  std::list<long> _data;
};

inline bool operator==(const PrimeTree& lhs, const PrimeTree& rhs)
{
  return lhs._data == rhs._data;
};


int PrimeTree::read(char *fn)
{
  int retval = 0;
  // cout << "PrimeTree read member func. Filename = '" << fn << "'" << endl;
  std::ifstream f;
  f.open(fn);
  long cnt = 0;
  f >> cnt;
  for(int i=0; i<cnt; i++) {
    long d;
    f >> d;
    _data.push_back(d);
  }
  retval = cnt;

  return retval;
};

int PrimeTree::write(char *fn)
{
  int retval = 0;
  std::ofstream op;
  op.open(fn);
  op << _data.size() << endl;

  for (data_iterator i=_data.begin(); i!=_data.end(); i++) {
    op << *i << endl;
  }
  op.close();

  return retval;
}

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
  int retval = 0;

  // cout << "Arg Count = " << argc << endl;
  if (argc > 1) {
    PrimeTree *pt = new PrimeTree();

    retval = pt->read(argv[1]);
    // pt->add(5);
    // pt->add(11);

    // pt->write(argv[1]);

    PrimeTree second;
    second.add(5);
    second.add(11);
    if (second == *pt) {
      cout << "Equal!" << endl;
      retval = 0;
    } else {
      cout << "not equal" << endl;
    }
    delete pt;
  }
  return retval;
}

(I know: no one cares, but me)

 

Has it been a year?

Eleven months since I wrote anything here?

I was going to add First Lego League again, but I was also thinking “recently” of reviving this, anyway…

 

FLL Homework

FIRST Lego League update after Tuesday’s mtg (3rd October 2017)

Previously, we’d discussed the following approach for our “project”: one of the ‘problems’ with how we transport and dispose of water, specifically, is the issue of polluted run-off from roads, etc. thru drains to our lakes and rivers.  {This is a bit of a biased story-line, based on my interpretation only.}  A way to alleviate this would be to replace at least part of parking lots with gardens; schools could do this, and we could start small — just schools in Bloomington, then Minnesota… eventually, the world!

But today, the team wasn’t putting it all together, and also some discussion went off on tangents, etc.  Therefore the coaches tried to let the kids sort out for themselves what direction to go — we both were a little frustrated with the lack of focus [again, editorial by the author].

So, the eight of them moved in this direction (after some stern warning):

yes, there is the grammatical (affect/effect) error; it’s not a big deal.

HOMEWORK: Come up with [two] solutions to our problem (which is: yard waste going down drains, getting into [lakes and rivers, etc.])

 

First Lego League

For those who find this from my FB feed, or Twitter -- probably not what you're 
expecting from me; if you're coming here because I e-mailed you, read on.
(Anyone can read this, but most probably don't know: I'm one of the coaches
for the FIRST Lego League team, which my son is member of...)

WARNING

Let me preface this blog post by saying: this is in no way intended to be a full and complete report of what the first Seven Hills FIRST Lego League team has done or is doing — my main point, in fact, is only to share the links at the end; but I thought, as long as I’m here, I’ll write a bit about what we’ve done so far…

Second, note that this blog contains other, very unrelated, posts – comp. sci. and op. eds of mine; these should probably be ignored, for the most part!

Finally, note that in addition to being incomplete (to put it mildly), the information here is somewhat scattered — much like the absent-minded person I am.

 

IDEAS

Last Tuesday (9/19), last Saturday (9/23) we discussed ideas for the challenge project.

Some of the many ways we find, transport, use or dispose of water: [we] use water in card, [transport] water through pumps underground, [use] water for cooking; find –> rain, in houses, for washing dishes/cleaning/shower & bath, to wash clothes, hands and dishes, glasses of water, dispose –> flush toilet; find –> groundwater; firetruck, [by] sweat[ing] –> “make” water; use water in aquariums, to water plants, for swimming; we use water in trains, planes, for brushing teeth; we dispose of [a lot] of water in car washes.

Problems that we have with the human water cycle include not enough water (due to) poor sanitation; flush toilets [result in] dirty water not handled properly; car washes use lot of unnecessary water — and soap pollutes water, which we can’t use again.  Rain can cause destructive floods.  (Note: many of the ideas we thru out during brain-storming were never fully flushed out after that)

Well, if I continue to write all of even my abbreviated notes, I won’t get to the main point:

 

LINKS

Field Setup Guide video and an image of the full field, and instructions.

The FIRST “Challenge, Updates & Resorces” page has those links and more, including the Mission Model Building Instructions.   (This is already done, but for reference…)

But the “most important” link for this post is: downloading the EV3 software.
(Note: I tried several times to download the “English (U.S.)” version for Windows 7, 8.1, 10; every time it seemed to work, but when I tried to run the install, I got a dialog box saying the file was corrupt.  Eventually, I downloaded the U.K. English version — it works the same, and I haven’t noticed a problem.  If it works for you, please let me know!)