All as in One (Chapter One)

“The oneness has led to intolerance and centuries of bitter, bloody battles.”

I thought this reading was the most interesting out of all of the previous ones, I found myself having to choose from a few different quotes to talk about. When they were talking about all of the ways that the number 1 was lucky and unlucky and how often we refer to numbers to relay a message or to conform something that we cooked up. ““it is unlucky to walk around the house in one slipper, which is clearly true when you stub your toe.” It seems just about right to never walk around the house with one shoe because something like that is so likely to happen but when the chapter points out the number one always seeming to occur in bad situations. I also thought it was kind of weird how they brought up the combination of superstitions and numbers, with the quote of “A one eyed person is a witch”. I am someone who isn’t so into math and when I think of numbers I automatically think of adding, dividing, multiplying etc. But this article made me think of them in a different light we use numbers for all sorts of things rather than just calculating them.

My question is who actually created these numbers, and what makes one such an “odd” number, and what makes the number two better than 1? Maybe it has something to do with how our bodies were created because if we only had one leg, it would be normal for us to only wear one slipper around the house than it would change the superstition of wearing one slipper around the house to be unlucky.

Much Ado About Reading Chapter 0

“Pythagoras didn’t quite use fractions as we know them today but he and his followers did think long and hard about sub-multiples of numbers (or factors-the smaller number s your multiply together to get larger ones) and ratios. In Fact Pythagoras made one of the first mathematical studies of music, discovering that when the lengths of several vibrating.”

When I first read this quote about Pythagoras I automatically thought about the project from last semester when Ronnie’s music video about him. I also thought about how he invented the Pythagorean Theorem that we use all the time in math. But it talks about him in a different perspective, he wasn’t all about finding equations for triangles but he used his mathematical mind-set to research something that a lot of us find very interesting which is music. It’s also crazy to think about how long ago some of the things that we learn about, in a way it makes me have a different understanding for the math that we learn. Now every time I’m forced to do the Pythagorean Theorem my mind will wonder to something a little more interesting.

My question is how do they come up with these different calculations for things? Especially without all of the technologies that we have today. Its kind of weird to think about they did this off the top of there head, just working at something for hours and we use what they (old mathematicians) Have come up with for the technology we use today.

Gauss Reading

" Proof not in the sense of the lawyers who set half proofs equal to a whole one but in the sense of the mathematician where 1/2 proof=0 and it is demanded for proof that every doubt becomes impossible."

I picked this quote because it made me think, I don't fully understand it but it seems to have some interesting content. When I first read the quote it made me think about how in the "real world" we always have ideas assumptions and thoughts of course but it seems to me that the quote above is saying that if we have a argument or something that we have to prove when trying to convey to a audience or get someone to believe what you are trying to argue you could use the same tactic that lawyers do which is as long as you have two half proof put them together and present them as one. That's something that is maybe or maybe not effective in the real world but in a mathematics eyes that does equal to nothing. I think that's why he added the equation in for more of a visual aspect. if you only have half of the proof its not enough to make it true.

My question for this is what makes it okay for us to accepted half of the truth in the real world if it in high sight is equal to nothing as Gauss says to his friend above. The quote that he says to me makes more sense then believe two half truths , it also makes me lean more to I need full proof before I believe something. For an example in math my teacher always makes us prove an equation before we are allowed to use it. We have to explain exactly why something is the way it is. Like the Pythagorean theorem we would have to draw out the triangle and explain each side and how Pythagorean came up with the equation. which is something I can now respect, at first I was the first one to critique this way of learning math because I thought that it was pointless in learning the proof of it as long as I knew someone smart made it for me to use. After analyzing this quote his way of going about this sounds a little more reasonable.

Euler Reading

"In his treatise of 1736 he was the first to explicitly introduce the concept of a mass-point particle and he was also the first to study the acceleration of a particle moving along any curve."


I liked this quote because its crazy to think about how his mind could wonder to find the "mass point" of a particle something so small. Its also crazy because he would have had to be very dedicated in order to stick to even getting close to finding some that could lead him to a point where he could teach others about and how to get to the point he did finding the mass point.

In a way he is very interesting I would die to hear the stories of how of some of his inspiration and most famous work came about. He couldn't of one day just woke up and thought that he should find the mass point of a particle , or how a hollow surface made with then rubber makes the surface smoother. These are kind of randomly picked in my book, its not like in math class when my teacher writes something on the board "unknown" like dividing zero by zero makes me wonder why that is unknown and impossible so far, but the thought leaves as soon as it comes then I'm on to thinking about the next thing. But he stuck with a thought enough to get some answers from it and I think that's amazing.

Newton Reading

"in 1963 Newton suffered a severe mental illness accompanied by delusions, deep melancholy and fear of persecution. He complained that he could not sleep and he said that he lacked his former consistency of mind. He lashed out with wild accusations in a shocking letter to his friends Samuel Pepys and John Locke. Pepys was informed that there friendship was over and Newton could no longer see him no more. Locke was charged with trying to entangle him with women and with being a hobbyist(a follower of Hobbs)"

Out of everything I read about Newton this was one of the few things that stuck out the most to me from the reading. Mostly because of Hallie and Max`s project on the mental illnesses of famous mathematicians that it is said to believe that them being so smart is what brought on the mental illnesses. When I read the quote above I instantly connected it to the other four mathematicians that had illnesses the same as Newton.

I also remember the video that we watching in Margaret's class about the man who was trying to figure out pi , He was schizophrenic i believe, he heard voices in his head and he believed there was a chip in his head that was turning him crazy, but in the end he figured it was just because he was too smart and the numbers were ruining his brain. In the quote above when Newton told John Locke that he was "trying to entangle him" it made me think of the Pi movie where his brain is just so smart and there is something always going on in there that there is no room for normal reality so he eventually will have some sort of mental illness.

My questions is there a way that we can do some sort of test on there brain where we can find out wither or not they turn crazy from being to smart?

Bryson Reading Chapter 4-5

"Kelvin wasn’t being willful .it was simply that there was nothing in physics that could explain how a body the size of the sun could burn continuously for more than a few tens of millions of years at most without exhaustion its fuel. Therefore it followed that the sun and it planets were relatively, but inescapably youthful."

I have two questions my first question is that haven't scientist proved that the world has been here for like 4.something billion years, and the sun has had to have been here for the same amount of time.
But I'm confused as to what there trying to convey in the quote above about how the sun couldn't last for tens of millions of years? is it saying there is no pyhsics to explain how the sun is there for tens of millions of years? And also isn't it hard for astronomers to study the sun because there isn't a way for us to efficiently study like go to the sun and calculate different things like we did on the moon?

"Among the questions that attracted interest in that fanatically inquisitive age was one that had puzzled people for a very long tine namely why ancient clamshells and other marine fossils were so often found on mountaintops. How on earth did they get there?"

It was also crazy how the world was once fully covered in water, and they found seashells and different things one would find underwater today on the mountain. showing proof that the water level was once that high up.

For me it is shocking because I begin to wonder where all of that water went once the sea levels began to go down and turn into what we see now as land.

Did that water disappear? If so will the water continue to disappear until there is no water left?

Bryson Reading Chapter 4

“Once he inserted a bodkin-a long needle of the sort used for sewing leather- into his eye socket and rubbed it around “betwixt my eye and bone as near to the backside of my eye as I could” just to see what would happen. What happened miraculously was nothing-at least nothing lasting. “

How is it that you can stick something inside of your eye and it not be hurt or damaged at any extent ? Also how is he "prickly to the point of paranoia" but he could bare to stick a bodkin(needle)in his eye and like not freak out?

I also think that Newton is kind of a freak of course , but I think that its legit how he pretty much answered his own questions and did his own experiences on himself, like he probably one of those hours he was sitting in the bed after waking up he could have been like "Hmm I wonder what would happen to my vison if I stare at the sun? " Then he goes out to get results to his question. It kind of freaks me out but in the same breath its legit.


"He perceived the wavelike nature of earth wakes, conducted much original research into magnetism and gravity and quite extraordinarily envisioned the possibility of black holes two hundred year s before anyone else."

My second question is how can someone prodict the wave pattern of a earthqauke if earthqakes pretty much happen from tetonic plates underground?

Maybe im wrong but back them idk if they had certin technoligoy or even a signifigant way of figuring out things deep down. But then again there was alot of different things discovered way back yander so maybe im just not fully understanding. Once again its also kind of cool to think learn about the founding fathers of alot of useful imformation we use in todays day and age.