All Numbers are Interesting... Last month I had to renew a prescription. Because I had lost the prescription number, I had to send an email to my doctor asking her to submit a refill order for me. To encourage her to do so, I wrote that I would trade the square root of 200 for her time and effort. She said she was happy to do so and...

Vibration Frequencies of Notes in Jimmy ... A few weeks ago I started wondering if the collection of notes in the songs of songwriters had about the same mean (average) vibration frequency from song to song. I decided to find out and chose Jimmy Buffett’s “Come Monday” as the first song I would sample. When plucked, a guitar string oscillates...

How Many Words do You Know?... Just a few days ago I read an email by one of the faculty members at my college. His emails always make interesting reading. I like reading his emails because I think he is an extraordinary writer. He assembles words together in ways I would never think. He often uses words I don’t know and I have...

Dividing Points in Time and Space... This weekend I flew back to San Jose from Orange County. The pilot told us that we were flying at 40,000 feet. I looked out the window at the clouds and ocean below, the blue sky above the clouds, and then as high as I could into the sky. The blue sky was bright and went from light blue to dark blue....

Astrology and Newton’s F=GMm/r^2... Since I was a little kid I have been interested in the stars. I don’t how old I was when I first heard of astrology, but I remember thinking it was total bunk. Now I am way older and I still think astrology is bunk. In fact, on the official U. S. National Astrophysical Bunk-Meter, housed at...