Nonplussed by the Penultimate Redoubt

In science education we speak of the problem of prior misconceptions.  Those pesky ideas that everyone has wrong and are so hard to educate away.  Like that the Earth is closer to the Sun in the summer time.  Or that heavier object fall faster than lighter ones.  We find that students will learn the right answer for your test, but then go right back to their old bad habits afterwards.

Just recently I made a connection with my own bad habits regarding certain plain-old regular words.  For whatever reason, I learned some words incorrectly at first and now it takes work every time I use them to use them correctly!  For instance I might read this entry's title to mean "Not impressed by the better than best look-out"  when it really means "Baffled by the next-to-last stronghold".  Some part of my brain knows that the second phrase is correct, but I can't stop myself from reading it the first way initially.  I can not clear my prior misconception of those words - something about the way our brains lay down memories really does justice to the old "initial impressions matter most".
 
Unlike science misconceptions, I could just continue to misuse these words and hope that society changes their definition to suit me.  One the other hand, the axial tilt of the Earth and the planet's gravitational field are probably less likely to change to accommodate my students...

Speedy Rap

Hi Ho Hi Ho
I wear Speedo
Laps I'm swimmin'
Races I'm winnin'
Distance accumulatin'
Displacement annhilatin'
Hi Ho Hi Ho Hi Ho Hi Ho

You say spedahmeter
I say speed-o-meter
Tomato tomahtoh
Potato pahtahtoh
Let's call this whole rap off

Ridin' up on ya easy
Arrowin' like velocity
All the eyes are on me
Direction/Magntiude's Key
Speed's just a value
Without direction, can't find you

My slope's so steep' it's mighty fine
You so slow look like a flat line
Hi Ho Hi Ho, off to class we go
Rideout Raps, we need some mo
Hi Ho Hi Ho Hi Ho Hi Ho

Failure to Communicate

On our first teacher workday of the year, we had an icebreaker activity.  The staff wanted a chance to catch up across departmental lines and so they did the old draw-numbers-out-of-the-hat.  The idea being to get random groups together to talk about their summers before the school year inevitably separate us into departments again.

I drew 25, which I signalled to the room at large with my fingers as in the istock photo on the left.  Of course, my good friend Paul who also teaches physics, shares 3 classrooms with me and has a desk next to mine in the science office also drew 25 and came right over.  We scanned the room looking for some more group members and saw someone waving to us from across the room.  He flashed the same sign and insisted we join him.  So we worked our way across the room and said "you guys are 25 too?" and they looked at me like I was crazy and said "No, we're group seven".

R.I.P. S.E.G.

Stephen E. Graham 1969-2010

Stephen has been a friend of mine for 26 years now.  We met in band where we had both found refuge from the stress of P.E. class (marching band got you out of PE in those days).  I tell people now-a-days that I was the next to worst trumpet player and Steve, well - let's say he kept me company down there at the end of the line.

I found in him a kindred spirit.  We were quite different but we shared those common teenage feelings of not quite belonging coupled with a great desire for change.  He single-handed created the Math Team, and in his last two years of high school, he taught me all the tricks of being a "Mathelite". 

Looking back, I don't think I ever quite put it together that I dropped out of band my senior year in part because he had left and gone to college.  Who was going to make snarky remarks with me and mock everyone else, if not Steve?  Who else would look at me as we both dropped out and simply pretended to play during the difficult passages? 

I have been lucky enough to continue crossing paths with Steve through the years: in Huntsville, in New York, in Georgia, and, for the last 8 years, in Boston.  Along the way he has taught me what it means to be a good friend.  Being a good friend takes work; it takes effort to maintain a connection through the years, over distance, through life's changes and challenges.  How he understood this so long ago I will never know, but I do know that I am thankful he did. 

Stephen, always one step ahead of me, now has gone on and taken the final step and shown me something remarkable once again.  His legacy is all around us: his friends, his family  - all those he touched with his kindness, his wit, his understanding... he leaves us all the richer and the wiser.

I take comfort in knowing that these final months have been his happiest, his most peaceful, and that he knew he was surrounded by friends and family near and far who loved him and counted themselves lucky to be loved by him.

Rest in peace, Stephen Emerson Graham, and thank you for being such a good friend.

A mug Steve gave me for my 40th birthday. 
The faint writing you see on the left is a copy of a funny note (long forgotten by me)
I gave him for his 17th birthday
"Rules for how to stay cool"

One Token Each

As we say in the Riddy house: "Tank U Chuck E Cheesits"

Do the Living outnumber the Dead?

In a word, no.
However, it is an interesting thing to think about.  For so long, the population of homo sapiens sapiens was extremely low, then the scientific revolution came along, allowing modern medicine & agriculture to develop and BOOM!  the population explosion we are in happens.  Check out this graph from http://www.sustainablescale.org:

Even if you were to extend the time axis backwards to around 200,000 BC when we think our subspecies evolved from the simpler, archaic homo sapiens, the populations were so low that there would not be much area under the curve.  However, the popular number for all homo sapiens sapiens dead is around 60 billion (that's for around 7500 generations between you and the first "modern" man).  That's less than 10 dead for each one of us alive today.  Kind of creepy the way we are swarming the surface of this planet, eh?

Yes - life can be this good!

Chongers sees the next wave coming