Next comic early.

More adventures with Calvin.

The most beautiful machine in the world.

Calendars and astronomy have always been one of the main purposes to which people have put mathematical research. Being aware of time, we seem to feel the need to locate ourselves within it. Whether we conceptualize time as linear or cyclical, much of the ritual we concoct has to do with establishing a relationship between it and ourselves and culture.

The Long Now Foundation was established to help humanity think better in the long term. From their website:

The Long Now Foundation hopes to provide counterpoint to today's "faster/cheaper" mind set and promote "slower/better" thinking. We hope to creatively foster responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years.

One of the projects they are working on to that goal is the machine to which the title of the post refers - a clock meant to keep accurate time for the next ten thousand years. The prototype that has already been built is not only visually stunning, but the very idea of building an artifact meant to still be around - and functioning - in a hundred centuries...I find it practically too audacious to contemplate. The designer chose the time frame he did because that is about the age of the oldest known human technology: pottery shards.

Here is the reason I think this may be the most beautiful machine there is: this sort of long term thinking is the sort we must do if we hope to survive as a species. It is beautiful mechanically, but the idea that led to the design choices that led to the design itself are the source of the beauty.

Every technology is the consequence of a series of ideas and choices. We desperately need good ones.

Comic time.

It's Wednesday and that means time for a comic.

Historical problem from Medieval China

The book The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art is an ancient, anonymous Chinese work that gives techniques for solving various practical problems. In 1261, a mathematician named Yang Hui wrote a commentary called "Detailed analysis of the mathematical rules in the Nine Chapters and their reclassifications." This work supposedly contains the "Problem of the Broken Bamboo" which deals with properties of right triangles. If the height of the stalk and of the break are known, the distance from the base of the stalk to the place where the tip touches the ground can be found with the Pythagorean theorem, which was known to them. The angles involved can be found using trigonometry.

Now for a comic.

The reason I like John Napier is that he was one of those people who was like a superhero. Between inventing logarithms, writing theology, and cultivating a terrifying reputation, he had plenty of time left over for general awesomeness.

A new blog.

I created this to blog about the history of math and science, which is a subject I really enjoy. I teach math in a high school, and it is not always possible to talk much about this sort of thing, because it is not actually in the curriculum. Science has historical developments which are covered in science class, but the development of math is not.

One of my favorite parts of the subject is the personalities of the people who made historical developments. I like to tell my classes that anyone smart enough to make a lasting contribution to mathematics is likely to also be a bit colorful. One of my favorites is John Napier, hence the name of the blog.

If you have noticed that the description mentions comics, let's just say that public domain images from old artwork are very handy.