Math Modeling – Odd STEM

Witches’ Brew

“But what if there’s more to it than that?”

Like other aspects of culture, witches have stereotypes that are fueled by tradition, fiction, and modern media. A well-known aspect of witch stereotypes is the brewing of potions or witches’ brew, often in a large black cauldron. The purpose of a potion could be to cure illness, obtain immortality, or try to “induce love”, according to Wikipedia.[1] Other historic purposes for witch’s brew can be found on the web as well. The ideas for tradition and fiction are often based on truth. In fact, the mixing of natural ingredients in potions eventually helped bring about modern medicine. Could there be any truth to other supposed uses of witches’ potions, beyond potential use as medicine?

The Universe Doesn’t Care What We Think

“Reality is simply not that convenient.”

Some (most?) people may not care what I think, and that’s fine. But I think the physical universe doesn’t care what any of us thinks. In attempting to explain the universe or the part we experience, just about any theory we throw at it, has limitations that make the theory inaccurate under certain conditions. The experimental results and theories from physics can be different enough from our everyday experience, to make it seem presumptuous to expect the universe to behave the way we normally perceive it or to understand why it does what it does. Relativity and quantum physics come to mind.

The Distance Between Heaven and Hell

“You can calculate just about anything, if you really want to.”

Around Halloween time, you may see someone dressed up like Satan or maybe watch scary movies that involve Satan or demons. But the day after Halloween is All Saints Day, which celebrates people of a more holy disposition, particularly the Christian Saints. And then there is Christmas in December, celebrating the birth of Jesus with images of singing angels. That’s quite a reversal over night or even in two months, as if Heaven and Hell aren’t so far apart. Granted, they may be metaphysical places that we can’t travel to physically, what if we could? How far apart might they be?

Human Design and Reproduction

“Is the quality a defect?”

Every species – whether brought about by evolution or divine creation – has a biological design that strives for the survival of that species. Part of that biological design is reproduction, which is necessary for the survival of our species too, assuming humans will never be immortal. What if someone never reproduces? Biologically, such people seem at first glance to not be contributing to the survival of our species. Are they deviating from our design?

The Lowly Distance Formula

“…the definition of a light year is a direct application of the formula…”

The classic distance formula of rate×time=distance (or r×t=d) may not look like much. I wasn’t particularly impressed with it in elementary school when the teacher started discussing it. I wanted to learn new math that day, and this was just multiplication (or division if rearranged). Was it a new profound concept? No, just boring, mundane stuff. If you travel at this rate of speed for this amount of time,you end up traveling this distance. Being good in math and a fan of science fiction and science, I was hoping for something more interesting. But there’s more to this simple distance formula than meets the eye.

Santa’s Flight-Path Challenge

“This might take some trickery.”

Though there has been much speculation, no one really knows how Santa Claus does it all. Traditionally, he and his crew spend most of the year making and gathering toys for children all over the world. Then he delivers them all on Christmas Eve and early Christmas morning. The delivery itself creates some alarming statistics for how fast Santa’s sleigh must travel and how much time Santa has at each house, for delivering presents and consuming whatever milk and cookies the children leave for him. But I’m wondering, how can Santa even figure out a flight path? How does he choose the first house or the last house or any of them in between?

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The Physically Unknowable

“The universe is keeping secrets from us….”

People say that no one has all the answers. In fact, no one can have all the answers, even if they have some place to store all that information. Some things are simply unknowable. This isn’t just my opinion – this is according to accepted theory. Strangely, some unknowable information occurs in physics, which is contrary to the idea that we can learn as much as we want about something, as long as we have adequate technology. Continue reading “The Physically Unknowable”

Space Pilgrims

“Nomenclature aside, how much energy is required to get every living human off the Earth and relocated elsewhere?”

When we Americans talk about “the Pilgrims,” we usually are talking about the group of English settlers who came to North America in 1620 in search of religious freedom. They celebrated a good fall harvest the following year, which became the first Thanksgiving.[1] In general, a pilgrim is someone who makes a journey for religious purposes.

What then is a space pilgrim? Suppose the entire population of the Earth needed to evacuate the planet and relocate elsewhere. Continue reading “Space Pilgrims”

The Hidden Circle in a Simple Harmonic Oscillator

“Yes, there is definitely a circle there.”

When I was in college, it didn’t make sense to me that the position of an object on the end of a spring should be described by a function like sine or cosine, as in:

It’s just a simple harmonic oscillator. All the thing does is move back and forth. Why is there a function from trigonometry when I don’t see any circles or angles involved? Continue reading “The Hidden Circle in a Simple Harmonic Oscillator”

Should You Run In the Rain

“The results are telling….”

Suppose it’s raining outside and you need to go some short distance on foot, maybe to a building 50 feet away. Should you run or should you walk, in order to stay drier? Opinions can vary and may include “always run,” “always walk,” “it doesn’t matter,” or “it depends.” Of course the choice of the better approach always depends at least a little on the specific situation, but maybe we can arrive at some kind of general answer for the question.

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