Quick Break

Taking a quick break from writing some mathematics. I should have some good results within a week or so.

Here are a couple of interesting posts:

Politics Leave it to c
Comedy Central to ask the tough questions of the neocons! But this interview shows something else: it shows that an interviewer can be tough but cordial and polite at the same time; these guys are actually having a meaningful but civil conversation instead of a verbal boxing match. Hat tip to Crooks and Liars.

Mathematics and talk shows: no, there is no mathematical talk show that I know of. But there is an interesting blog called Recursivity which has a couple of interesting recent posts.

The first post deals with the kind of mathematical problem I love: simple to state, but hard to solve.

One of the areas I work in is combinatorics on words. In this field, we are interested in words (strings of symbols) and their properties.

For example, a square is a nonempty word of the form xx, where x is a word. Some examples of squares in English include tartar and murmur. If a word contains no subword that is a square, we say it is squarefree. Notice that the word squarefree is not squarefree, as it contains the square ee.

A classical question, first discussed a hundred years ago by the Norwegian mathematician Axel Thue, is whether there exist infinite squarefree words over a finite alphabet. Over a two-letter alphabet, this is not possible, as any binary word of length 4 or more contains a square. (Proof: let the first letter be a. Then if the next letter is a, we have a square. So assume the next letter is b. If the third letter is b, we have a square again. So assume the third letter is a. Now, whatever letter is chosen as the fourth letter, we get a square.)

But is it possible over a three-letter alphabet? The answer is yes, as Thue showed.

Erdős considered a variation on this problem. [...]

Go to the article if you are interested; I don’t want to steal it. Math types won’t be disappointed.

He also posts a second article, in which he points out that someone actually got fired as a talk show host for accurate reporting. No, this isn’t the case of someone, say, calling an obese person who was born out of wedlock a “fat bastard”. This is the case of a talk show host pointing out that a widely circulating “article” is indeed false.

Humor: I also often read the Stubborn Curmudgeon. In the post I linked to, he has an article:

After the hype of Sister Sylvia made waves across the nation last week, theoretical physicists have decided to fight back with their own version of a scientific model not related to quantum chromodynamics, molecular orbit, Maxwell’s equations or finite element analysis. They call her Cosmic Girl.

(note: Sister Sylvia is part of a satirical article at the same site).

As for Cosmic Girl:

(larger image)

I knew that I should have gotten a physics degree instead of one in mathematics!

(Peoria Pundit: eat your heart out)

More Semester Preperation

Workout notes 3.5 mile racewalk (1 easy 14:05, 1 of 1 lap easy, 1 lap quicker 12:48, 1 lap harder 10:31, .5 miles easy. Then yoga, then 2 mile run on the treadmill (varied incline by small amounts), .5 mile cool down walk. Then, I did a very brief weight workout consisting of pull-ups, curls, bench press, squats, military press.

My body is weak, and that will kill me on the trail.

At the moment, I am listening to “Coldshot” from Nikki’s Nest; this is not a professionally produced program, but if you are interested in hate/fascist groups, it is interesting. Right now she is hammering the Council of Conservative Citizens, which is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and is sometimes pandered to by so-called mainstream politicians!

Atheism On Evolution has reprinted a very harsh anti-atheist letter; it is one of those that say that “to be an American, you have to believe” and that recent crime waves have been caused by a lack of prayer in schools.

I wonder if the moron that wrote the letter would refuse life saving medical treatment that was developed by an atheist scientist? (note: 93 percent of Academy of Science caliber scientists reject the idea of a god that intervenes in human affairs, and 60 percent of “all” American scientists do).

Update: the angry letter was a hoax.

Karl Rove I don’t see his leaving as a big deal; not much has or will change. But Redstateupdate weighs in:

Local Heartbreak Recently, a 19 year old Bradley University soccer player died in a house fire. Evidently, he had been in a “prank war” with some of his teammates, and while he slept, his teammates put a type of firecracker under his bedroom door in an effort to scare him. The house caught fire, and he died.

His father was one of the cross country coaches at Bradley (and an excellent master’s track athlete, with a 800 meter time of close to 2 minutes flat), and I worked with him at several of the meets.

A local sports columnist has an interesting column about reacting to this incident:

I do not want to think of the horror Danny Dahlquist faced in his final conscious moments.

I don’t want to think what it was like for Craig and Tricia Dahlquist to wake up early on Sunday morning and learn that 19-year-old Danny, the eldest of their seven children, was dead.

I don’t want to think of what must be going through the minds of David Crady, Ryan Johnson, Nick Mentgen and Daniel Cox – Danny’s housemates, Bradley University soccer teammates and/or friends who played and partied and pulled pranks on one another – as they sit in the Peoria County Jail, charged with aggravated arson in the house fire that caused Danny’s death.

I don’t want to think of what hell the parents of Crady, Johnson, Mentgen and Cox are walking through.

I cannot imagine. I do not want to think.

But I cannot get any of this out of my mind.

I have to think about this. You have to think about this. Every damn one of us has to think about all of this.

We cannot allow ourselves not to think about every aspect of what happened Sunday morning in West Peoria, about the wonderful young life that was lost, about the lives that go on forever altered, about the irresponsible and stupid behavior that changed everything in less time than it takes to score a goal.

If anybody reading this is feeling the least bit self-righteous, inclined to believe “my kids would never do anything like that,” or “this could never happen to us because … (fill in the blank),” do the rest of us a favor.

Get real.

It’s not always “those people” who cause trouble. Not always “that neighborhood” at the root of a problem. Not always “young thugs” who deserve to spend time in jail.

Good kids are perfectly capable of doing stupid things.

Bad things.

Things that kill people.

Things that will get you six-to-30 years, with no chance for probation, if convicted.

As a parent, you can try to do everything perfectly. You can provide your family a nice house, in a tidy bedroom community like Metamora or Morton or a nice neighborhood in far-northwest Peoria. You can take your kids away from what you perceive to be bad influences, and you can put them in the best schools.

You can teach and preach and provide discipline and love and support and by your actions set an impeccable example of how to live. Your kids can be afforded every opportunity to succeed, to play sports on the best travel teams, to earn scholarships to college.

But at some point, you must let go.

And pray.

Because what happened to the Dahlquists, and the Cradys and Johnsons and Mentgens and Coxes, could happen to you.

A stupid prank. Let’s blast off a couple of Roman candles in Danny’s bedroom and watch him run screaming from the house at 4 a.m.

Funny.

Only, Danny never made it out of the house; never even made it out of his room. [...]

State’s attorney Kevin Lyons explained the severity of the charges, the possible penalties, the rationale in the request for such high bail.

This case, Lyons said, “has a higher range on the sympathy barometer with the public.”

“Every person I know,” he continued, “could put themselves in the shoes of the defendants. But I also know – even though I don’t want cookie-cutter justice – it’s important to be fair.”

And it would not be fair, or just, to treat young men of privileged backgrounds, with access to pricey defense attorneys, in a more lenient manner than one of those “young thugs,” – say, perhaps, one who has tossed a patio brick onto an Interstate highway and killed a woman riding in a car.

Two stupid acts. Two dead people.

One scale of justice. [...]