N and O are for No.

 

     No. is the abbreviation for number. Why it is, I do not know. That may be the very least important thing about numbers that I do not know. What I do know is that numbers are a human construct. A construct that comes with rules, dependable rules, logical rules. Even if it sounds illogical to me.

     I just watched a YouTube video http://bit.ly/1neoEKz from  http://www.numberphile.com/ It explains how adding whole numbers from 1 to infinity results in the sum -1/12. That answer sounds like "minus one-twelfth." The man in the video explaining how this can be so is Tony Padilla. (Dr. Padilla, to his students, I'm sure.) And by-the-bye, Dr. Padilla's specialty is physics.

     To add all those numbers and arrive at a minus fraction, he first establishes two other sums, then weaves a bit of arithmetic magic and in the end is the -1/12.

     I watched the demonstration three times before I actually heard him say "you're not measuring physical infinitives in nature." and I remembered that someone once explained to me that mathematics is a language. A language that can be used to describe all kinds of things -- physics, in my opinion being the most remarkable of those things. But since you can't actually add an infinite number of numbers, you must use these other equations to get the answer. Well, of course, you do.

     Which brings to mind the Abbott and Costello routine showing three different ways that

7 X 13 = 28. You can watch them explain on YouTube. http://bit.ly/1r3cXE3 . Their mathematics may be questionable, but it's funny.

 

       

The Lone Ranger--a movie review

What has this new Lone Ranger movie got? Flash and dash and a laugh or twenty-three. 

And Johnny Depp.

With a bit of computer magic there are more cliff-hanging, hair-raising, heart-stopping, spine-tingling sequences than I’ve ever seen. And so tongue-in-cheek that you’re bound to leave the theater laughing.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s more than enough graphic violence to earn it its PG-13 rating. In fact, it’s my opinion that the visual and auditory intensity of the movie should be quite enough to make it PG-13. That said, I had plenty of warning so I could close my eyes when I didn’t want to see what was coming. (I do that regularly in the movies, to the point that my daughter has punched me in the ribs thinking I’d fallen asleep. Well, to be fair, I’ve done that, too, but not in The Lone Ranger.)

I may be old, but not old enough to remember the radio Lone Ranger. I do remember the TV Lone Ranger. I loved it as a kid. This is not my father’s Lone Ranger, nor my generation’s Lone Ranger, but if you remember those Lone Rangers, you’ll get more of the jokes.

Johnny Depp has brought us The Pirates of the Caribbean Goes West. They play fast and loose with geography, history, physics, and probability theory. But the bad guys are ugly and mean. The whore has a heart of gold and a leg of another precious material. The school marm doesn’t teach school but she’s lovely, sweet, and vulnerable. And the hero wears a white hat.

What more could you want?

A side-kick, of course. Who, in this movie, is really the main character. Johnny Depp as the wise and wonderful wizard of odd. He’s Tonto wearing a dead crow on his head and leading the wrong brother by the nose into hero-hood.

And the score is grand. I swear I heard bits of Carmina Burana in there. Well, maybe not, but they finally did get around to The William Tell Overture and Silver reared up and The Lone Ranger shouted “Hiyo, Silver! Away!”

To which Tonto responded… Well, that would be giving it away. Go see the movie and don’t be afraid to laugh.