The roots of British hostility to algebra and calculus

Somehow this makes me feel better.
 
In an undated manuscript held in the British Library, scientist and painter Benjamin Wilson (1721-1788) writes to the German theoretician Franz Æpinus. The subject is Æpinus' famous Essay of 1759, in which Æpinus offers the first successful algebraic analysis of electricity and magnetism.
 
Wilson explains to Æpinus that, while he's sure it's all very good, frankly that mathematical stuff is just not for him, or other British scientists. He says:
 
"The introduction of algebra in experimental philosophy is very much laid aside with us, as few people understand it; and those who do, rather chose to avoid that close kind of attention: tho' I make no doubt but I dare say you had a very good reason for making use of that method."
 
That politely condescending tone -- both haughty and parochial at once -- is depressingly familiar from my upbringing in the UK some 200 years later. Still, it helps explain why my university refused to teach me European philosophy and why my secondary school allowed me to give up mathematics at 14, even though I continued to study science (in the form of economics, geography and the philosophy of science) for years after.
 
Now that I have a math-loving child starting to ascend the cliff face of grade school mathematics in a school district that revers the subject, I'm especially lamenting my pathetic excuse for a mathematical education.
 
The quote is from Patricia Fara's An Entertainment for Angels (Icon, UK, 2002) -- a (very) brief look at how electricity was research and theorized in the Enlightenment.

Treasure hunting on Palo Alto's school fields

A sign of the times, perhaps.   Or of the unequal distribution of wealth in our city.
 
Today I drove by one of Palo Alto High School's sports fields and saw a man prospecting across it with a metal detector.
 
Maybe he'd lost a ring there playing with his kids on the weekend. But my guess is he knows the field as a good place to find loose change.
 
A local man with no better prospects for income than trolling across a school field. A school where children are wealthy enough not to notice or care what they've lost. Unfortunately, I find that the most believable explanation.

Volunteering with volunteers

It makes them sound so eager. 'Volunteers' -- to the plantsman/woman -- are the naturally germinated seedlings of plants you like but which you don't actually need. If they're seedlings of plants you don't like, of course, they're weeds.

 Right now my garden is full of volunteers -- lambs ears, fortnight lilly, rosemary, strawberry, california poppy, sedum, anemone, acanthus, even the odd rose. So Ada and I decided to pot a bunch of them up and make use of their willingness to help.

 We sold them to our neighbors in an impromptu plant sale this weekend to raise money for the non-profit Ada's school is supporting in its 'Penny Power' drive this year (the group is called My New Red Shoes and helps supply poor and homeless Bay Area children with new shoes and clothes to wear to school).

 With 4" pots of perennials selling around here for $3-5 and gallon pots at $5-9, we could have made a fortune. But Ada strongly felt a range of 25c to $1 (for the two 5 gallon pots we had) was about right. And that certainly made them easy to sell. She made signs for the sale and called out to all who passed for most of the day. Many, very kindly, came over and shopped. We raised well over $15.

In defense of Taxonomy!

It warms cockles I didn't even know I had to read a stirring defense of systematics and taxonomy.  

In Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum, paleontologist Richard Fortey says this:

"I assert that taxonomy has never been more important than now that so many of the world's precious habitats are under threat."

I've just read the book and he's convinced me.  Ostensibly, it's a history of the people who do the behind-the-scenes research at the museum.  Really, though, it's a crie de cour for us to keep funding the work of naming and grouping the millions of as yet unnamed species in the world.  

I guess I didn't need that much convincing, though.  I'm someone who spent several day's worth of internet time searching for taxonomic charts to hang in my daughter's bedroom.  I never did find what I wanted -- either the posters were insultingly simple (plants and animals but no fungi, let alone protista, archae or monera), or they were all in latin.  If I ever get the time I'm just going to have to produce one myself. 

Hunting for Jade in Big Sur

Ever since we found out about California's 'Jade Coast,' Ada and I have been angling to go there to get us some jade. This weekend we finally had the chance.

 The best site for prospecting is called, unsurprisingly, Jade Cove. It's in Big Sur, about 60 miles south of Carmel on Route 1. Here's the sign that greets you:

Apparently, when the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary was created, jade collecting became illegal. After locals and rock lovers complained a compromise was effected in 1998 that lets you take what you can carry, so long as it's from below the high tide mark and so long as you haven't used more than a hand tool (no jackhammers!) to remove it.
 
Your vision of a cove might echo ours prior to our trip, which is something like a quiet, protected inlet with a small beach. Jade Cove could better be described as 'a tiny, wave-beaten area at the bottom of a treacherous path -- that last part of which has mostly given way -- covered in huge, slippery boulders that have tumbled recently from the unstable cliffs looming above it."
 
Yes, that's the entire cove in the picture below.

Our prospecting was impacted not just by the tiny space available to us between the cliffs and the sea. We faced the added hazard of the onset of the three-day Valentine's weekend storm that brought five inches of rain to Big Sur.

We grabbed a few greenish pebbles and we're waiting to find a knowledgeable geologist to tell us what we've found. Some might be jade, but most are likely to be serpentine, which has the virtue of being the California State Rock, but the vice of usually being deposited with asbestos running through it. We did see some lovely native plants, though. Including a lot of wonderful dudleyas like this one.

The Playmobil theater of cruelty

Michael and I were checking out a local toy store today when, among a large display of Playmobil sets, I saw this one:

It's Playmobil set #4270, which the company simply calls "The Arena," and sells for a cool $95. But let's be clear: This is a Roman amphitheater, complete with gladiators, ferocious wild animals, watch guards, Emperor and representative member of the polis Romana.
 
On the box, that Roman citizen appears to have her thumb held down. "Why?" your child might ask.
 
"Well, darling, she is asking the Emperor to require that one of the gladiators in the ring -- probably the losing one -- be killed in front of everyone," is the right answer, of course.
 
"And what are the animals doing there? Is it like a Zoo?"
 
"No, my love, they are released into the arena to either kill the gladiators or be killed by them. People thought it would be fun to see what happened."
 
Start to explain what actually occurred in these places, and the questions will come in torrents: "What if the animals didn't want to fight that day?" "Why couldn't the gladiators fight just until they were tired?" "Why did the Emperor get to just decide if people lived or died?" "Why did people like to see fighting to the death?"
 
Really, can you play "Roman Arena" and not open yourself -- and your young child -- to these questions? Not to mention the slavery, the treatment of prisoners of war, the rape by animals, the carefully-staged, brutal executions of prisoners and martyrs.
 
Maybe you could refuse to explain anything to your kids about the realities of the Roman arena (although why, then, would you give them this particular Roman set?), but they'll still work at least some of it out. Kids are smart. They have older siblings and aunt and uncles with tin ears for age-appropriate materials and soon you'll have a full blown Coliseum operating in your living room. And, truly, can't that wait? Absolutely, people need to know this stuff. Perhaps even teenagers should be let in on the full-on depravity of ancient Rome -- but at this age?
 
I'm trying to think of another children's play set that would provoke more a unwelcome dive into the depravities of man than a play-Roman amphitheater. A Playmobil Guantanamo, perhaps. Or Playmobil Nazi death camp. And their horrors -- at least -- were not compounded by the added grotesquerie of their being considered mass entertainment at the time.
 
Pirates, I know, could be terribly mean. Knights could be as cruel as it gets. The Egyptians had their nastier practices. But I'm fine with all the Playmobil sets featuring those historical types -- cannons, cutlasses and all. I'm even okay with the other Roman stuff. A great play set-up (a castle, a house, a ship) can house all the imagined kindnesses and casual cruelties that team through any 5 to 10 year-old's mind each day. But that negative play can end when the child's need for it ends.
 
But when was the Roman arena anything but a theatre of (literal) cruelty?
 
You can guess what won't be making it onto the short list for Michael's next birthday. Not that he particularly noticed the Arena set, mercifully. He'd found something much more fascinating.
 
"Dad, when we are rich, can we get this?" he asked, pointing to a giant plush and vibrantly colored giant snake. It was big enough to eat the poor boy whole and I think -- when we are rich -- it will make a lovely gift.