Jul
27
Overheard: Word hoard
July 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment
From a chapter entitled “In Praise of English”:
One reason English has accumulated such a vast word hoard is that it is the most hospitable and democratic language that has ever existed. English has never rejected a word because of its race, creed, or national origin.
From Richard Lederer’s The Miracle of Language.
Apr
6
News: I find arithmetic very calming
April 6, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Pfft, that’s actually not news at all.
A prime number is only divisible by itself and one, with no other factors. For instance, 4 is not a prime number because it’s divisible by 2. Many people intuit that past a certain point there are no more prime numbers, because big numbers MUST be divisible by something, right? Stupid lying intuition.
Here are some giant prime numbers. They’re not even close to the largest ones, which we aren’t sure are even close to the largest ones we don’t know about yet.
18,926,659
4,572,487
914,873
98,686,867
296,041
42,974,627
35,864,177
1,817,707
I am enrolled in a test-review class where we talk about math a lot. A couple of weeks ago I asked the instructor to help me with a specific question, to which she responded, “Let’s do a factor tree.” YESSSS!
May
31
True story, 2
May 31, 2009 | 1 Comment
While clumsily bumbling down the hallway in my building I ran armfirst into some blunt wall protrusion and have, at the end of the rainbow, discovered a fresh deep-purple bruise the size of a baseball.
Good going, clumsy bumbler. I’d be spinning falsehoods if I pretended this did not happen all the time!