Advantages and disadvantages of being sick

I've been a little bit sick the last couple of days. It's not my mental dysfunctions I'm talking about. They are permanent. I've got a flu or something similar, infected by little boy, I think.

Yesterday, I worked from home, to avoid bothering my colleagues in the office landscape with my sneezing, and to not infect them. I canceled the meetings, and just worked on what I wanted to do.

I spent some time on an interesting math problem, and then worked on a paper, about my recent research on magnetic inversion. I hope I can get it submitted before Easter. It's still a lot of work to o before it's finished. Then I had a Skype chat with a friend about rock magnetization. Very interesting and enlightening. Magnetism is a complicated subject.

Today, I rejected a couple of activities I would normally join. I always find it hard to say no to other peoples wishes. Today it was easy. I don't want to go shopping, and I don't want to see the art exhibition downtown. I don't want to go cross country skiing in the forest either. Sorry, I'm still sick. Convenient excuse.

So, now I'm at home alone, for a couple of hours, enjoying my sickness and solitude.

My throat is somewhat soar, I'm coughing and sneezing, and have a little bit headache. That's the disadvantages of being sick. Not much to complain about, and a some paracetamol helps.

(Some math notes from my recent investigations in the field of magnetic inversion. Very entertaining, and it even seems to work ... )

A.Z Challenge 24: X is unknown

This is the equation, 

ax+b=c,

and x is the unknown. Find x; that's easy,

x=(c-b)/a.

Now, let's put in some real numbers, a=2, b=6, c=14, or a=II, b=VI, c=XIV. The answer is x=4 or x=IV, in Arabic and Roman numbers, respectively. Which do you prefer? Today we use the Hindu-Arabic number system, because it's logical and makes it easier  to perform calculations.

There are a few exceptions, in names of popes and kings, and for making the production year unreadable in Hollywood movies.

It wasn't always like that. In earlier times, the Pope's clers did the bookkeeping in Roman numbers. The change from Roman to Arabic numbers did not happen without controversy in the Catholic part of the world.

It was argued that Arabic numbers made it easier to perform fraud. Just add a zero at the end to turn 100 into 1000. Also, it made the clers less exclusive. With Arabic numbers, anyone could do math, at least simple calculations, without being trained on the abacus.

Then there's the religious part. The Arabic numbers came from the Muslim world, the Christian's enemies who conquered the Holy Land. Some Christian scholars even claimed that the Arabic number system was an act of Satan.

In Satan we trust, at least when doing math. >:)

There's an alternative saying regarding math; God made the integers, the rest is Man's work.

Appendix: 

Many years ago I read a cool book called "Number Theory and It's History" (by Øystein Ore). That’s were I learnt most of the stuff above. I also learnt that there's a simple logical reason for our base-10 number system. Many cultures developed their number systems based on the number of fingers on one hand (African tribes), on two hands (modern system), or the total number of fingers and toes  (Mayas). 

The exception is the Babylonians who used base-60. That's why we have 60 minutes in an hour. 60 was a magic number. It's the only number that divide into all the integers from 1 to 6. Also, the Babylonians, who didn't know about Pi, discovered that 6 equal-sided triangles with 60 degree angles fit into a circle. That's why we still count 360 degrees around the full circle.

Fun at work

It's summer, and it's time for fun at work. Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Sure, it is. It's not about sex or anything like that, unfortunately. All the girls are gone on vacation, and all the bosses too. No meetings, no phone calls, no mails to reply to.

July is the best time to work. Hours and days undisturbed. Time to do some real science. Just doing the mathematical analysis, with a pencil and a notebook. Great! And in the end, new ideas often end up in the official research activities of the company.

July this year was as usual, at least for the first 3 weeks. Then they called from the Moscow office.

My one-year multi-visa to Russia expires on the 24. August. It's good for another trip to Moscow in mid August. Now I'm preparing for meetings. Bye bye physics, bye bye math. Back to Powerpoint.

Whatever, I won't complain. This what they pay me to do, and the weather is warm and the sky is blue. I plan to take some vacation the next couple of weeks.

Then I'm ready for Moscow. It's a very fascinating city, and always a pleasure to visit.

Maybe I will meet Snowden at Sheremetyevo, if he's still there, in the transit area. I read in the papers that he might get permission to leave the airport. I hope it's true. There are better places to spend the time in Moscow.

(I usually scan my notes and trash the paper original. It's a convenient way to keep track of things, just a file on the computer.)