Addition, for me, is intimately connected up with my concept of a number. When I think of numbers in my head, I often think of the number in connection with its constituent parts, and when I divide these parts up into equal pieces I “get” multiplication. However, on top of this bare bones thinking, I also conceptualize numbers strongly by their size, thinking about the number first as the most significant digit in the number and proceeding down to the less significant digits. Which makes me wonder, do we teach addition backwards?
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Religion iff Freedom
Compare and contrast and compare and constrast.
John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1960:
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute–where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote–where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference–and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.
Mitt Romney, December 6, 2007:
Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.
Thomas Jefferson, in a letter, 1802:
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.
Bonus points if you can connect the later quote to the context of the second quote in one historic moment.
New Supersolid Helium Experiments
There’s some interesting new work out on supersolid helium, a subject of great interest and controversy. The work was performed by John Beamish and James Day at the University of Alberta and is reported in this weeks Nature (Day, J. & Beamish, J. Nature 450, 853-856 (2007). Article here, Perspective here.)
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There Is Absolutely No Bubble In Technology
Via John Cook’s Venture Blog, a song on web 2.0 mania:
More Computer Jobs, No Way!
Since I got into trouble for posting about the need for more, not less, funding for science and engineering, (and, I might add, a reengineering of our approach to what it means to produce a successful Ph.D.), I thought I’d continue the trouble by linking to a post over at the Computing Research Policy Blog, “Computer and Mathematical Science Occupations Expected to Grow Quickest Over the Next Decade.”
New Quantum APS Fellows: Lidar, Lloyd, and Terhal
Congrats to Daniel Lidar, Seth Lloyd, and Barbara Terhal, for becoming the first three APS fellows selected through the APS topical group Quantum Information, Concepts, and Computation (GQI). Citations below the fold.
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A Central Non-premise of Quantum Theory
His Squidiness points to a real whopper of a silly article titled “Was Einstein Wrong About Special Relativity?” by Darrell Williams who is listed as a “Mathematician” and a “graduate of Arizona State University.”
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My Door is A Window To My Soul
Chad of Uncertain Principles asks what’s on our office doors. Here in the Paul Allen Center, our doors are too pretty to put things on, but the little square beside our door is perfect for attaching odds and ends. Here is my door in all its glory:
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Happenings in the Quantum World: Dec. 4, 2007
SQuInT program and deadline, Rush Limbaugh on quantum cosmology, and the parallel worlds of Hugh Everett’s son
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Off the Queue and Into the Cranium
Books off the queue and lodge securely somewhere behind my eyes: “A Mathematician’s Apology” by G.H. Hardy and “A Demon of Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial Innovation” by Richard Bookstaber
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