QQC- Chapter 0.000000001

We also know that the viruses that infect our cells are a hundred times smaller than that, ranging from 20 nanometers (polio) to 300 nanometers (smallpox) or 0.00000002 to .0000003 meters.

I found this quote interesting for two reasons. The first is that something can be that small, and if you read on that there are things that can be even smaller than that. It's amazing how very little things can be and if you, say, took a microscope to the skin under your fingernail (according to XKCD, you should never do this), you'd probably find all sorts of insane viruses and bacteria lurking around in there just waiting to kill you.

The other reason was because I get sick so often. I thought it was interesting that the thing which potentially made me sick was smaller than what I could see, perhaps even imagine, and yet it did so much damage. It's amazing to think that something so small could cause such a large reaction... and if that's true, then maybe the theories about even smaller things manipulating the universe may have some credibility to them...

QQC- Chapter 1

My theory is that all beliefs are equally true and cannot be denied.

Harry believes in a flying spaghetti monster that orbits the sun.

I deny the existence of the spaghetti monster.

But according the theory, Harry's belief is true AND my belief is true, yet we believe the opposite of each other. Harry thinks he's right and I think he's wrong. We can't both be right, so the theory must be wrong.

I found this particular part of the packet interesting because I thought it was an interesting way of looking at theories and how to prove them right and wrong. In context, Euclid, who was trying to prove the theory we now call "prime factors" was true, was trying to find an example that could prove it false in case he did something wrong - this quote was used to explain the method that he used to prove it wrong. I liked it because it was simple english, when the rest of the passage trying to explain what he was doing just seemed to be going around in circles and never getting anywhere. "This hypothetical number must be a product of at least two other numbers: a x b, and those numbers must not be prime" indeed.

QQC- Chapter 0

Over time, humans became more numerous; we formed villages and towns and began trading with each other, and so the need for numbers grew. It became necessary to have shorter, easier words for numbers that could be said a little quicker than, "all the fingers and one more raised of jugs of milk in exchange for all the fingers raised and two brought together and raised with the others of eggs."

The main reason I found this part of the reading interesting was because it emphasizes how much we actually need numbers. It's something I hadn't really thought about and would probably never have thought about since we take numbers for granted so much nowadays. It feels weird saying something so long that basically means "eleven jugs of milk for twelve eggs", but I suppose in those times we didn't have the numbers that we do now so it was impossible to say. I feel like, living in those times, I either would have gotten frustrated from having to say so much just to get some simple things, or I would have kept going about my daily life, not thinking it was abnormal or out of the ordinary.

Senior Project Ideas

I wasn't actually sure how I was supposed to do this, so here's some of the ideas I jotted down. The final one (bolded) is the one I kind of like the most.

→ Art as a project:
• Use understanding of different equations to make a picture?
• Use math concepts to make a drawing
• Find link between math and art

→ Language:
• Look into how numbers create a language
• Create a language based around mathematics
• See how/if numbers influence letters

→ Creative medium of choice:
• Given a math concept. Use a medium of choice (writing, comic, drawing, chart, etc) to explain it. Requirements- Believable reason to be explained (for certain mediums like comic or story), correctly explains the concept, does so in a way that someone with, say, a junior high school education can understand.

QQC - Gauss

"Another great work of this period was his 1831 paper on biquadratic residues. Here he extended some of his early discoveries in number theory with the aid of a new method, his purely algebraic approach to complex numbers. He defined these numbers as ordered pairs of real numbers with suitable definitions for the algebraic operations, and in doing so laid to rest the confusion that still surrounded the subject and prepared the way for the later algebra and geometry of n-dimensional spaces."

This quote interested me because I felt like it cemented the fact that Gauss made a lot of important papers and discoveries in his lifetime. It also amazed me that he was the one who made it possible to work with imaginary numbers, which had previously been so hard to work with. Meanwhile, I thought it was common logic, what with the numbers being represented with a variable that we use so often in equations that it just made sense to treat it as if it were a variable. I also found it interesting that such a simple idea ended up paving the way for more algebraic and geometrical discoveries, which would later affect the way we think about math today.

QQC#5- Newton

It seems to me, that if the matter of our Sun and Planets and all the matter in the universe was evenly scattered throughout all the heavens, and every particle had an innate gravity towards all the rest... some of it would convene into one mass and some into another, so as to make an infinite number of great masses scattered at great distances from one to another throughout all that infinite space. And thus might the Sun and Fixt stars be formed, supposing he matter were of a lucid nature.

This quote interests me because it questions the start of the universe, something that we still have not figured out to this day. It also makes me wonder - if all the matter in the universe were created through the same methods, how come there are so many different kinds of things out there? Gas Giants, Rock Planets, Stars, Sun-Stars, and planets like our own... how did all the matter form so many different things? What kind of matter was originally out there, anyway? It makes me wonder just what the universe was like at start, and how it ended up the way it is today.

QQC#4- Chapters 5 & 6

He sent the tooth to Cuvier in Paris for an opinion, but the great Frenchman dismissed it as being from a hippopotamus. (Cuvier later apologized handsomely for his uncharacteristic error.) One day while doing research at the Hunterian Museum in London, Mantell fell into conversation with a fellow researcher who told him the tooth looked very like those of animals he had been studying, South American iguanas. A hasty comparison confirmed the resemblance. And so Mantell's creature became Iguanodon, after a basking tropical lizard to which it was not in any manner related.

This quote stands out to me because of the sheer stupidity of the people involved. First, the guy who said it looked like a hippopotamus tooth. I haven't seen hippo teeth but there is no way a tooth like that could be mistaken for a hippo tooth. Chances are the guy took one glance at it, said "I'm not wasting my time with this" and told the guy the first thing off the top of his head to get him off of his back. Then comes the guy who said it looked like an iguana. Okay, this is slightly more believable, but you'd think that they would run more than just a hasty comparison before they determine something of that scale in the history of our own planet and the species that walked it. It seems to me like they just wanted to get something out there, and put as little effort into it as humanly possible while doing so...