11 comments by 0 or more people

1. Sue

   Another idea. The most favourite present I received at Christmas was a mother and baby goat from Oxfam. You get a little card with a picture of them on. I was so thrilled, what a wonderful present! I almost forgot to say, the animals get sent to Africa to help people live!!

   08 Jan 2010, 18:41

2. Sue

   I was so taken with this present that I gave a mother and baby goat as a present to someone else and on hearing about it a friend gave fourty chickens to someone. I’d be quite happy to always have presents like this and have told all my relatives.

   08 Jan 2010, 19:05

3. Sue

   I always used to write “forty” on things (cheques mostly) and a few years ago I decided it should be “fourty” but have no idea which is the most acceptable spelling. I could look it up in the dictionary but would be more interested to know how other people write 40 as a word.

   08 Jan 2010, 20:36

4. Sue

   I couldn’t wait any longer, I looked it up. It’s forty, still looks strange though but I think I’ll spell it like that in future because fourty looked strange too.

   10 Jan 2010, 13:01

5. Sue

   I just popped out into the kitchen momentarily to hear someone talking about life. I only caught one sentence and always keen to impress with any scientific facts I’ve picked up along the way I came back into the living to inform my partner that “In the 1950’s there was a big debate over whether life was a particle or a wave”. He said “No, light not life”. I quite like the idea of life being a wave and I tried to convince him that we don’t really know enough about it to be sure it’s not a wave.

   10 Jan 2010, 14:01

6. Rob

   Life is both particles & waves.
   Getting money out of Amazon to fundamental physics by way of the gift of a goat with kid, Sue, you were storming! I agree with the practical gifts of goats, hens, etc. These are popular charity fundraising goals by schoolchildren.

   16 Jan 2010, 14:58

7. Sue

   A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.
   Henry Adams

   27 Jan 2010, 01:45

8. Sue

   What I hadn’t realised is that mathematics has developed at such a varying pace in different parts of the world. Throughout the middle ages Europe was significantly inferior to the civilizations further east. The other thing that came as a surprise is that mathematics has such different methodology in different countries. Chinese and Indian mathematics relies on all varieties of proofs including visual demonstrations that are not formulated with reference to any formal deductive system. Muslim mathematics introduced the six basic trigonometrical ratios and their elaboratetion for the solution of geometrical problems.

   29 Jan 2010, 02:45

9. Sue

   I’m at that stage in my reading when I’‘m a little anxious that my reading material will run out before my holiday does so I’ve begun to intersperse it with my partners holiday reading which includes “The history of Mathematics”. Luckily, I’m finding it quite intriguing. In fact this holiday, I seem to have regained the ability to find a great deal of pleasure in reading. This pleasure has eluded me for quite some time and it’s something I have admired in others. My sister often has her head buried in a book with an enthralled look on her face and only recently I walked behind a colleague on my way to work and marvelled at the way she walked while reading, so engrossed was she. Later I learned it was a murder mystery by a Swedish author that she had become so wrapped up in. I find it hard to imagine that I will ever get to that stage. I love reading about peoples thoughts and I think that is why my love of Warwick blogs has never diminished though I miss certain people like Gavin I know he is still here in spirit. I’m heartened that reading books and blogs can walk hand in hand so happily.

   29 Jan 2010, 15:37

10. Sue

    Does anyone know the formula which solves a quadratic equation for discovering the area of overlap in a pair of circles? ‘Strangely enough this is something I’ve come across in my book. The author is a travel writer who meets a man working in a pub he visits who is training to be a maths teacher. This equation is one of the few things that’s stuck in his mind from his school maths lessons many years ago. Though he admits that he has no idea what a quatratic equation is he asks the trainee teacher what possible use it could have in everyday life. He tells him that it can be used by people who keep livestock. For instance, if they have two goats tethered close enough to each other to be able to mate then the formula will tell them the area of shared grazing. The man asks him why the goats are tethered and he says ”Ötherwise they may want to run away!” My partner does know it and can show me in the history of maths book but I wondered if anyone knows it off the top of their head.

    30 Jan 2010, 16:39

11. Sue

    Afterwards I wasn’t sure whether I wanted him to share this episode with me and I think he may have had similar doubts as he said that he’d toyed with the idea of being more explicit but had decided against it.

    05 Feb 2010, 21:38