I am a slow reader because I spend too much time and effort thinking about what I am reading.
Today I did some reading and thinking about creativity. It was a pleasure to find that several of the authors seem to see at least some of the world as I see it.
I have a doctorate in mathematics, with a specialization in certain theoretical aspects of numerical analysis. At its roots, numerical analysis focuses on computationally intensive methods of solving a variety of math problems.
For example, computers are routinely used for long-range weather forecasting. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_weather_prediction.) Researchers have developed a variety of theoretical models they use in weather forecasting. Instruments located throughout the world gather data about weather conditions at a particular time. The challenge is then to solve a system of many thousands of equations in many thousands of unknowns. This needs to be done in a timely fashion so that a forecast can be made early enough to be of use to people.
The free Information Age Education Newsletter recently published a sequence of seven issues comparing and contrasting our educational system with our medical care system. This “apples and oranges” comparison provides interesting and useful insights into these two important aspects of life in our society. You can read these newsletters at http://iae-pedia.org/IAE_Newsletter.
A recent article in my local newspaper reported that vaccinations for meningitis were not remaining effective for as many years as expected, and discussed teenagers needing a booster shot that costs $100. The article reported data on how many deaths per year are prevented by the initial shot and indicated that a second shot would save 24 deaths per year in the United States. Unfortunately, the article did not indicate how many people would need to be vaccinated per year to save this many lives.
I can still remember when I was taking English Composition as a freshman at the University of Oregon. We often had in-class writing tests. My spelling abilities were not very good. I would compose a sentence in my head, check to see if I could spell all of the words, and edit the sentence so that it avoided words I could not spell.
Many years later my quality of life was much improved by spell checkers becoming available on the computers I used.
One of my favorite quotes is:
