Liberal Arts Blog — The Orion of Math — Counting, Formulating, Calculating

Liberal Arts Blog — Monday is the Joy of Math, Statistics, Shapes, and Numbers Day

Today’s Topic: The Orion of Math — Counting, Formulating, Calculating

This blog is about learning new stuff every day and about trying to digest old stuff everyday. It’s about collecting and distilling. Today is a distillation day. If you asked yourself, what is the essence of math? What would you say if the goal is to tell as simple but as complete a story as possible with as few sentences as possible? And under no circumstances more than seven. We’re back to Orion. What are the three stars of Orion’s belt? Which of these is the Alnilam? What is the Holy Grail of math? Leonardo da Vinci is famous for saying that “Mechanics is the paradise of the mathematical sciences because by means of it one comes to the fruits of mathematics,” Was he right? Do you have a better idea? Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.

ORION’S BELT: Formulating (Alnilam), Calculating (Mintaka). Counting (Alnitak)

1. Formulating: distilling the blob of reality into whisky, the elixir of life.

2. Calculating: relating some category of thing to another.

3. Counting: distinguishing one thing from another and figuring out how many

NB: The belt consists of three general principles. The periphery consists of the four prime examples.

THE TOP TWO STARS: The Circle (Archimedes) and the Triangle (Pythagoras)

4. The triangle — the Pythagorean theorem, Top that! Hallelujah!

5. The circle — the miracle of pi. Or that! Eureka!

THE BOTTOM TWO STARS: Einstein and Pareto

6. E = mcˆ(2 ).Wow! Really? Energy and matter are two avatars of the same damn thing? And the constant is the speed of light squared? You really believe that? Well, I have a bridge to sell you. Remember my favorite quote from von Neumann: “Young man, in mathematics you don’t understand things. You just get used to them.” Agape and agog. The only way to walk through life.

7. The 80/20 rule (the popularized formula for the Pareto Distribution).

My takeaway: most people most of the time in business, government, and private life talk about things that matter less than other things that for lack of attention cause bigger problems down the line. The principal causes of inattention are: fear of looking like an idiot, fear of embarrassing your boss, fear of sounding like an egomaniac, or fear of coming off as a bore. All of these fears are of course perfectly rational.

https://www.exploratorium.edu/pi/history-of-pi

https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/economics/pareto-distribution/

Pareto distribution — Wikipedia

ATTACHMENTS BELOW:

#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).

#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, 11/17/20

Last four years of posts organized thematically:

PDF with headlines — Google Drive

YOUR TURN

Please share the coolest thing you learned this week related to math, statistics, or numbers in general. Or, even better, the coolest or most important thing you learned in your life related to math.

This is your chance to make someone else’s day. And to consolidate in your memory something you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart. Continuity is key to depth of thought.