Calculus Made Easy, 1910: All the little bits

Calculus Made Easy is a book on introductory calculus originally written in 1910 by Silvanus P. Thompson. It was such a well-received text for teaching calculus, that it can still be found in print today (it's now in the public domain and also freely available online).

The first bit of text from the first chapter is fairly intriguing. So much so, that I thought you might like to read it here:

Thinking of the integral of dx as an easy way of saying "the sum of all the little bits of x" is a really intriguing approach to explaining some of the most basic ideas of calculus. 

If you've struggled at all with learning calculus, then you may want to give Calculus Made Easy a read. It may be over 100 years old, but much of the writing is still of great value for the interested student.

The Cosmobiologist, Ph.D.

Well, I've successfully defended my Ph.D.! It's a strange feeling, but a good one. I've wondered a lot in this past year if it was worth all of the long hours for little pay with lots of self-doubt, depression, and physical and mental degradation. Honestly, I don't know yet if it was worth it. I figure it will take a few years before I can look back and say, oneway or the other, if I feel like this was a good idea in the end. However, it is pretty awesome to achieve something I've thought about for my entire life. Now I need to start working on figuring out what the next steps will be (while also finishing up some rather large-scale revisions to my dissertation). However, now that I'll have some more free time, I can get back to sharing more of my life here with you, on A Cosmobiologist's Dream!

Professor C. Bodin

Professor C. Bodin was LEGO's first female scientist, released back in 2013. It's awesome to see gender inclusivity with toys for children (and some of us who are really just older children), especially with LEGOs, which were one of my primary influences for creativity as a kid. Professor C. Bodin came equipped with two Erlenmeyer flasks, one containing something blue and one containing something yellow. The only thing I'm left wondering with her character is what those two different substances might be and what kinds of ideas children might have for what happens when Bodin mixes some of the blue stuff with some of the yellow stuff.

College Sports, Failing American Education

Colleges and universities have become for-profit businesses focused on building their brands. One of the ways they do that is by building larger sports programs, which have now been destroying our education programs. College sports are one of the main reasons for the high costs of tuition. The money spent on sports has caused there to be less money provided for paying for good educators, for better academic buildings, and for better educational programs to assist students. Here's a great film from Brave New Films on the topic that briefly looks at this issue:

There's no excuse for paying coaches so much more than professors. There's no reason that sports programs deserve so much money from each students' tuition. Education should not be subsidizing sports. This needs to change if we're ever going to fix the American education system.

"Get Out of Boulder"

"Get out of Boulder!" Those are words that were said to me today at Alfalfa's Market by someone, based solely on her ridiculous assumption that I support Trump's presidential candidacy due to the fact that I was whistling a Beatle's tune while standing in line to order coffee. The woman and I had had a heated exchange of words after she heard me whistling. She said, "The only people I know who whistle are Trump supporters." I thought she was joking. I said, "Oh ya?" But then she got angry and said, "Well, are you?" I could see that she had a hate and an anger in her, and she thought she was somehow something special. I told her it was none of her business who I support in American politics. She then said to the clerk at Alfalfa's and another customer ,"This guy here is a Trump supporter!" 

I think in her mind she wanted them to riot against me and break out their pitch forks and torches. I told her to fuck off (and I said it loudly, which, it turns out, scared the cashier). She said, "You know, you're a fucking asshole" into my face (and, conveniently, so the cashier couldn't hear it), so I told her that she was ugly on both the inside and the outside. 

Later, this woman got the store's manager involved in the hopes that they would kick me out. That's when she told me I should 'get out of Boulder'. Think about that. Think about the hate and the anger and the fear and the ignorance in this woman's life for her to say something like that because she thought I was a supporter of Trump. Now, it truly is none of that woman's business, but I don't support Trump's candidacy. However, even if I did support Trump, the very idea that this woman thinks that anyone who disagrees with her should be kicked out of town is absolutely disgusting. That's no different than white bigots telling black people to 'get out of our town' based on the color of their skin. It's no different than Christians telling Muslims to 'get out of our town' based solely on what they believe. Telling someone to 'get out of our town' because of their political ideology (even if it's only your own unsupported assumption about their political ideology) is part of the problem with this nation. It's exactly that kind of ignorance and hate that has allowed us to get to the point where we may actually have a presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. We can do better as a nation. We can be more accepting of our differences while using reason, argumentation, and compromise to find a way forward. 

Sure, this is just one situation that happened to me (and the plural of anecdote most certainly is not evidence), but we've all seen this happening around the nation: die hard conservatives hating on liberals, using terms like "libtard"; people opposed to firearms automatically assuming that anyone who owns guns or is opposed to certain forms of firearm regulation are somehow "gun nuts"; Democrats and Republicans swapping insults of character as opposed to thoughtful considerations of positions; and the continued division of this nation through our politics and media. 

I most certainly won't "get out of Boulder" to assuage this woman's fears, nor should anyone in this nation be told to 'get out of our town" if they are contributing members of society. This stupidity and arrogance, driven from the very depths of our ignorance and fear, needs to be replaced by intellectualism and humility. I'm still pretty angry and frazzled over my altercation with that woman, but I won't let that drive me down to her level. If anything, it's just another indication to me that the time to work towards a better nation, steeped in education and enlightenment, is now.

Storybots: "I'm a Star"

Artwork from Storybots.com

Storybots.com is an awesome education website which provides fun videos and songs to help educate children. I just came across one of their songs, "I'm a Star", and thought I had to share. Now I'll be hearing this tune nonstop until I fall asleep tonight.