it's a small world... maybe?

oi... haven't even done that much today and it's already been busy.

woke up at 11, and slowly cleaned up my room (which i left moderately messy for me last night), and got to the car shop by 1pm for my oil change. while i waited for an hour and a half a grandfather age gentleman decided to talk to me and ask me lots of questions about the math corner of academia. his daughter got a phd in microbiology so he had at least some clue of the general framework of academia and research jobs more than some people who ask me questions and then think i'm crazy. he was really interested in my combinatorics of permutations book and the fact that i've lived in europe for a few months... it was really nice to chat with a grandparent age person that freely and have them be really interested in what i'm doing... i miss talking to my grandfathers, and i like when i find someone who's a bit older than me, but isn't against or totally confused by what i'm doing with my life to this point. i had had a similarly nice chat with eric's grandma in detroit on our road trip last summer... i guess i miss that interaction on a regular basis, so it's nice when it does happen :-P

went to the post office and the bank after that, and who of all people to see in the bank, but amanda, my roommate from last year... i seriously hadn't seen her since august when i moved out to live with colleen and leigh... our conversation was something along the lines of
amanda: oh my gosh!
me: oh hi... random seeing you here, huh?
amanda: oh yeah! how are you? how have classes been?
me: good, crazy busy... i have an advisor now
amanda: you didn't before, oh well, that's weird
me: no, not really... it's kinda an exciting big deal when you figure out who you're going to write your thesis with
amanda: oh, yeah, of course, well, i got a new boyfriend... and the new roommate's cool... we're never home at the same time, so it works well
me: i'm glad... yeah, my apartment's working out well too
amanda: yeah, well, ok, have a good semester, bye

go figure. :-P

i got two new books in the mail too :-)

John Craige's Mathematical Principles of Christian Theology -- this is something random i came across for cheap on amazon.com last week and thought i'd read it for fun. here's the back of the book:

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"for Christ to come, 1454 years must first elapse." ~John Craige, 1699

thus began the 200-year controversy over mathematician john craige's theology --an impressive scholarly endeavor or, as one critic said, an "absurd abuse of mathematics"?

craige attempted to determine the earliest possible date of the acpocalypse by using the most current mathematical and philosophical reasoning, but he was more frequently ridiculed as an eccentric and crank than respected as a mathematician. craige's claim that Christ would not return at least until A.D. 3150 often elicited quite emotional responses from other mathematicians, philosophers, poets, and religious thinkers from across the theological spectrum: skptics, deists, Catholics, dissenters, and both low- and high-church Anglicans.

richard nash examines craige's work in light of the intellectual and social contexts of the time (craige's peers included newton and locke). instead of dismissing craige's theology as merely bizarre, however, nash sees the work as important in understanding the history of probability theory and fluxional calculus as well as the intellectual history of late seventeeth- and early eighteenth-century Europe. nash provides the most exhaustive biography of craige available, drawing on numerous personal letters and records, and for the first time, craige's text, attached as an appendix, is translated in its entirety.
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maybe i'm weird, but i think this is going to be a fun 89 page diversion from work :-P

my other new book is Journey Through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics, which i also think will be good leisure reading :-) (i'm not a math student at all, am i :-P)

speaking of new books, the one that dr. z. bought me last week for class, ends its one page chapter 0 with the following line "i promise the rest of the book will be less straightforward" :-) i laughed heartily :-P

later dudes