Gabriel’s Trumpet
I was reviewing some math in preparation for my tutoring tomorrow, when I
came across a curious question involving a trumpet shape that is
infinitely long but has a finite area. The book, in typical annoying math
book fashion writes “We have a paradox: it takes an infinite amount of
paint to paint the region but only a finite amount to fill the horn
obtained by rotating the region (How can you resolve this paradox?)”.
I resolved this paradox by flipping the book the bird and looking on the internet. There I found this interesting article about the universe and how it may be shaped like one of these strange trumpets, which would mean that our universe is infinitely long but has finite volume. Who ever said math wasn’t practical?
I did find a tentative resolution to the paradox
here
but even that was hedging its bets with a “One possible explanation of the
paradox” statement. Basically, there is no good ‘resolution’ to the
paradox. That’s why it’s a paradox. Evil math book! My personal take on
this is that it is a place where the mathematical system we have going is
being pushed to the breaking point, a la Godel, and disolving into
nonesense. That’s pretty much my take on all paradoxes.
posted at: 13:47 |
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Homemade Handcream
My mom bought some ‘all nautral’ alo-vera hand lotion, the main ingredient
of which turned out to be triethanolamine, a petrolium byproduct. This
product is known by people in the industry to cause ‘sensitive skin’ to
dry out- kind of not what you are looking for in a handcream. As an
alternative, I found this nice looking recipe on the
dollar
stretcher website:
“Here is a recipe I found for hand cream that is excellent for sore, dry
skin. The recipe, developed by Rosemary Gladstar, is contained in the book
“Tasha Tudor’s Heirloom Crafts.”
* 3/4 cup of apricot or almond oil * 1/3 cup of coconut oil or cocoa butter * 1 teaspoon lanolin * 1/2 oz of grated beeswax
Melt these ingredients over low heat. Cool to room temperature. While these ingredients cool, mix together:
* 2/3 cup of rosewater * 1/3 cup of aloe vera gel * 1-2 drops of rose oil * the contents of 1 vitamin E capsule
Add these ingredients to the first mixture. Whip together until their consistency resembles buttercream frosting. Store in a covered jar.
Sincerely, Pam M. ”
Given the long list of
ingredients I suspect it would in fact be somewhat expensive to make, but
it probably would be great for hands.
posted at: 13:06 |
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Cooking with yogurt
I like the idea of cooking with yogurt, but I’ve always been afraid to do
so, because everyone talks about how it will curdle disasterously if
heated too much. However, people seem to have clued into this problem, and
solved it by adding some starch, as explained here.
I also like the idea of yogurt cheese.
posted at: 14:08 |
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Why Do We Study Calculus?
Why, why, why?
posted at: 13:48 |
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Honey!
Here are lots of
ways to use honey instead of white sugar.
posted at: 17:55 |
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Just so stories
By the way, a just so story, as the term tends to be used currently, is
what might be described as a modern day creation myth. It uses the idea of
evolution as a premise and driving force, but, other than that, relies on
creativity, rather than empirical evidence. For an amusing just so story
about farting, go here.
Evolutionary psychologists tend to take just so stories very seriously.
Usually they try to say that their just so stories aren’t just so
stories.
posted at: 15:00 |
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Just so cooking
Here’s a fun just so story about
the role of
cooking in human evolution.
posted at: 14:59 |
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Bear diets and people diets
This
is what bears eat. I had looked this up a while ago, but I was having some
technical problems at the time so I didn’t get around to putting it in my
blog. I was reminded of it by my bletting entries.
What I find interesting is that if we weren’t tool users, we would be pretty much on a bear diet. Which is- berries, seeds, nuts, the occasional leaves and roots, insects, small animals (frogs, mice, etc.), fish and the occasional left overs from large animal predators (bears rarely hunt large animals but they are happy to eat leftovers). Conveniently, bears hibernate through the winter, so they don’t have to worry about that pesky winter food supply.
In case you think I’m weird for comparing people with bears, I should add that chimpanzees have a pretty similar diet
Now, I’m not espousing this bear diet in any way as the good or proper diet. What I find fascinating is how we have managed to extend our eating options very considerably by the use of tools and architecture. Take cooking, for example. people often talk about cooking in connection with meat eating, but since we can easily consume raw meat this doesn’t really represent an extension of our diets. Instead, I think cooking is more important with respect to beans (lots of beans! lots of beans! lots of beans!) and grains. Beans contain sapponins, so are poisonous unless cooked. Once cooked, they are a great source of protein. Similarly cereals like wheat and oats contain some unappealing chemicals which break down when cooked, they are much easier to eat when cooked, and their protein and starch become more easily digested when cooked. Similarly for things like potatoes and many types of green vegetables (think raw vs cooked broccoli)
In addition to cooking, we’ve become pretty good at using external microbes to complement our internal microbes, thereby also extending our digestive capabilities. The most excellent example of this is our use of non-human milk. Most humans can’t stomach fresh milk from other animals that well (the ability varies from region to region) but can handle milk much more readily in the form of yogurt, butter (fermented, tibetan style), cheese, sour cream, butter milk, etc. etc. all of which make use of bacteria to make the milk both more storable and digestible. Cooking milk also helps. Cream sauce anyone?
Lastly, and what led me to this extended blog entry, is our ability to use architecture to extend our food consumption and storage abilities. Bletting works because architecture enables us to set up exactly the right conditions to encourage certain types of cellular decomposition (e.g. breakdown due to internal enzymes) and not others (e.g. breakdown due to presence of mold). Similar, smoke houses and drying racks allow us to transform food so that we can preserve and eat them later. In some cases it also transforms foods from barely edible (sour grapes) to highly edible (sweet raisins).
In any
case, none of this is to espouse one type of diet over another. I suspect
that most of our food extending knowledge is derived from an immediate
need to avoid starvation, rather than an eye to nutritious eating. You
know, more like “Hey Johnny, maybe if we try cooking that toxic bean over
there we can eat it instead of starving today” rather than “Hey Johnny,
maybe if we try cooking that toxic bean over there we can eat it, therby
improving our fiber and protein food availability, which will improve our
digestive health while at the same time reducing our reliance on animal
protein sources, which, since they, themselves, may cause heart disease
over an extended period of times, will in turn prolong our lives and
increase our quality of life in our later years.” Yeah- I’m going with the
former version, rather than the later.
posted at: 14:23 |
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More Bletting?
I was curious to know if any other fruits could be bletted. The advantage
of bletting is that, since the fruit is actually supposed to get kind
of… overripe… you can store them for a while. I suspect this explains
the popularity of medlars, historically, in England. In the winter,
vitamin C from
‘bletted’ fruit is better than no vitamin C at all. I love how these
necessities turn into culinary delicacies!
My curiosity led me to
- North American Fruit Explorers,
Inc. In the
index of their journal, Pomona, I found the name of an article:
Bletting isn’t just for Medlars!; Rombough, Lon; 33/2; 2000, Spring; p.
32;
Unfortunately, I have as yet found no way to get the article. Perhaps
it’s just as well…
posted at: 12:31 |
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Bletting anyone?
So, we all know that various groups of people have various strange food
habits, right? For some reason the ones that involve rotting, or almost
rotting are quite intriguing to me. Especially since it’s one of those
things where, I’m sure, if you’re a kid you grow up thinking “Man, that
food is delish!” but if you find out about the food as an adult you think
“Even if it tastes good, there’s no way I could bring myself to eat
that!”. A great example of this is the medlar.
Medlars are a fruit
related to rose hips, grown in Britain. They are harvested usually after
the first frost, and left in storage until they are properly ‘bletted’.
What is bletting, you may ask? Many dictionaries define bletting simply as
‘rotting’. People who enjoy medlars, however, wish to make a slightly more
subtle distinction, as described
here. Hmmmm.
posted at: 12:20 |
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Homeopathy 101
The idea behind homeopathy is interesting:
“In homeopathy, illness is seen as an outward expression of the true,
underlying problem. A person experiencing a problem with his or her
health will show a collection of outward indications (symptoms) that are
particular to the person. According to the law of similars, a substance
that can cause a set of symptoms when given to a healthy person can also
help a person who is ill if he or she exhibits the same set of symptoms.
In other words, the similar substance promotes healing by gently nudging
the body’s natural healing mechanisms.”
(taken from
here)
In other words, if you have a runny nose, you should take something that would cause a runny nose in someone who doesn’t have the runny nose. As a result, your body will get around to noticing that you currently have a runny nose and then bring out the heavy artillary to get rid of the runny nose.
The substances in the homeopathic remedy are given power by a series of
dilutions and shakings. So, start with a bunch of stuff. dilute it by
adding nine parts of water to one part of the stuff. Shake. Take one part
of the now diluted stuff. Add nine parts water. Shake. Take one part of
the resulting mixture. Add nine parts water. Shake. Etc. Etc.
posted at: 14:34 |
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Knitting and Marking
I am reading the Yarn Harlot
Blog while marking and enjoying it very much. Thanks May! I find that
when I am marking, I can mark about ten papers and then my brrraaaaiiinnnn
sssslloooooooooowwwsssss dooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
and I have to stop marking for a few minutes to let it unclog. For those
of you who think I’m just procrastinating, I plead innocence. The yarn
harlot is excellent reading while the unclogging process occurs. And, it
occurs to me that knitting is a bit like marking. I have always been a bit
put off by knitting because it seems too slow and I can’t seem to keep it
up for long. But maybe I need to tackle it like I tackle my marking.
Something to think about, anyway.
posted at: 15:37 |
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Ash Water
Keltie passed along
this
interesting article on using ash-water. Basically, chucking cooking ashes
in the water acts as a water softener, making the water easier on clothes
and hair. Good idea!
posted at: 10:48 |
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All material copyrighted by Jen Schellinck. All rights reserved.