Category Archives: sciences

wish I could help

Someone recently found my mathematical doodles page by searching for analemma golden ratio. I hope the visitor was enlightened, but as far as I know there’s no relation between the golden ratio and the analemma!

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the price of pot

Educated Guesswork relays graphs – purporting to be from the ONDCP, no less – showing that the retail prices of heroin, cocaïne and methamphetamine (as adjusted for purity as well as currency inflation) declined fairly steadily between 1981 and 2001, … Continue reading

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at the pictures, 1951

I’ve just seen An American in Paris, whose supporting cast includes the pianist Oscar Levant, who also said: My psychiatrist once said to me, “Maybe life isn’t for everyone.” Happiness isn’t something you experience; it’s something you remember. I envy … Continue reading

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nightmares

I dreamed that Ed Pegg had closed down Mathpuzzle and moved to the Balkans. (Whew.)

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arc en ciel

Sunlight refracted by Venus at the edge of the transit

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up where it’s cold

from Astronomy Picture of the Day, an amazing shot of Phoebe. Guess it’s time to pay some attention to the Cassini mission. (Cited on The Eternal Golden Braid)

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the transcendental dope

The Straight Dope currently has a column about the golden ratio and a staff report about Fibonacci numbers. These have prompted a thread on the Straight Dope Message Board which raises a couple of mathematical questions to which I’d like … Continue reading

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