Monday, November 23, 2009

Math and Science


I've been trying to think of things to write about, but all my ideas sound boring right now. I've been keeping a running list of topics in an email draft that I have saved so that I could resort to it in a moment like this, but all those ideas are stale now.
At work things are crazy. Last Friday was the deadline for the subject librarians to submit their orders for books to us. They dumped literally thousands of orders on us and we get to sift through them and buy the books we don't already have or that aren't on order. I ordered this one book called Professor Stewart's Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities, by Ian Stewart. It looked pretty interesting, so I looked at the reviews on Amazon.com. I clicked on the icon that lets you read an excerpt, which is here. I read the first puzzle which starts on page 4. Maybe Professor Stewart put the easiest one first so that you'll feel good about yourself, but I felt awesome because I got the right answer. Well, I'm pretty sure that I got the right answer, but I can't be certain because the book review doesn't go to page 252. If you think you got the answer, feel free to leave the answer in a comment. The winner gets to give me an idea of what I should write about tomorrow.
I took my third physiology midterm today. Part of that test covered digestion. Let me tell you, learning about the physiology of digestion makes eating repulsive to me. Especially when you refer to food covered in spit as a bolus and the food in your stomach is chyme. And pancreatic juices being secreted in your duodenum to digest food. Its all pretty gross. On the other hand, the urinary system is quite elegant. I learned how the kidneys purify our blood through filtration and how hormones from the brain control how much we urinate. It's really amazing how the whole body functions together.

1 comment:

Chris said...

yeah! I feel cool too.
Alfy: Veracitor (too much like velociraptor)
Betty: Gibberish
Gemma: Gibberish
when the book comes in you'll have to tell me if I am right. It sounds like a fun one.