On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 03:22:44PM -0500, Ben Okopnik wrote: > Unfortunately, this is all 35 years or so behind me, and I couldn't even > begin to do any useful work on an abacus today. My mental math skills > have also deteriorated to a tiny percentage of what they once were (and > that was at the ripe old age of 13.) Even so, I'm often shocked by > people being amazed at how quickly I can calculate certain things... to > me, that's just "natural", simple math, and something that "everyone > just knows". Except not. Which is actually pretty awful, now that I > think about it. Math, like chess, is a great tool for maintaining mental > acuity no matter how old you get, and losing it - or not having it in > the first place - is an absolutely terrible thing.
Of course, I have to object vehemently to your suggestion that math is a great tool for maintaining mental acuity. Not because it's false, but because I think that you're really selling math short here :) And I've never had much use for calculators and the like, what with their complete uselessness for proving theorems and all :) Too bad the working conditions for research mathematicians have deteriorated so badly in the past few decades, or I might still be doing that (hey, you guys got to brag about having had actual bit buckets, so it's only fair that I get a turn) Cheers, Kris -- Kris Coward http://unripe.melon.org/ GPG Fingerprint: 2BF3 957D 310A FEEC 4733 830E 21A4 05C7 1FEB 12B3 _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
