I know that memorizing and learning are not the same things. I know that knowing lots of facts does not mean that you are smarter. However, I'm going to make My Future Kids memorize a lot of things. For the convenience, you see. Sure you could derive or look up your times tables every time you need it, but it's so much faster to have it always at hand. I wonder if I would be able to teach My Future Kids an internal indexing of the alphabet. I have to go through the whole sequence whenever I want to alphabetize things, but what makes the alphabet so different from integers? If you could just know the index of a given letter, you could know the relationship between any two letters rather than only as either before or after one another in a list.
I was never made to memorize presidents, but I know lots of children are, and I think that's useful too. Once you have the presidents and the years they were in office memorized, you have a reference for the whole time line of the united states. You no longer have to think about what was happening in the 50s or 40s or industrial revolution, you can just associate events with presidents and have a good rough idea of how it fits into the grand scheme of things. Similarly, My Future Kids will memorize the amendments to the constitution with dates and states along with capitols. They're going to memorize resistor color codes, the NATO phonetic alphabet, prime numbers through 100, basic formulas, trig identities, unit conversions, SI- prefixes, fundamental constants, knots, edible plants, basic first aid rules, and more as I think of them. They don't need to understand them at first. Hopefully, they will just have these lists and facts and things lurking in their brains until suddenly it's useful and suddenly they can go ahead and do things without needing to look up the formula or whatever they need.
As an added bonus, people will think they're really smart, which will make them really smart. Score!
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Monday, April 23, 2012
My Future Tauists
This morning in the shower I made a decision. I shall raise My Future Kids to be Tauists.
I admit that when I was child I was a fan of math more than I was a mathematician. And yes, I memorized digits of pi. I now find this a little embarrassing, not so much because memorizing digits is lame, but because pi isn't actually all that great. Sure pi is cool and all, but you know what's even better? e. Ha, I got you, you thought I was going to say 2pi, but yeah 2pi is also better.
Now, it could well be that raising My Future Kids with less wide-spread fundamental constants is a bad idea. But at least they will be raised with a certain elegance that pi simply cannot offer them. Hopefully they will grow up with a deeper understanding of the relationships between circles and sines and cosines. It will be hard, to be sure, to adjust to talking to people who prefer to think in terms of pi (henceforth known as half-tau), but maybe it will help them switch bases.
I say that I want My Future Kids to learn tau because it will offer deeper understanding, but I have another reason also. It occurred to me this morning that should we make contact with an alien species and attempt to communicate in the universal language of math, we will find ourselves sorely embarrassed. In Stargate, I remember that there was some sort of test to prove that one's species was sufficiently advanced that involved half-tau. It is clear, however, that tau is a much more reasonable and intuitive constant to ask another civilization about. If another species approached ours wishing to forge a connection through the sharing of fundamental constants and basic proofs, I know that I would feel quite childish offering up half-tau with a much more sensible constant just a factor of 2 away.
May we all one day be tauists. May My Future Kids be the beginning of the move to more sensible mathematics.
I admit that when I was child I was a fan of math more than I was a mathematician. And yes, I memorized digits of pi. I now find this a little embarrassing, not so much because memorizing digits is lame, but because pi isn't actually all that great. Sure pi is cool and all, but you know what's even better? e. Ha, I got you, you thought I was going to say 2pi, but yeah 2pi is also better.
Now, it could well be that raising My Future Kids with less wide-spread fundamental constants is a bad idea. But at least they will be raised with a certain elegance that pi simply cannot offer them. Hopefully they will grow up with a deeper understanding of the relationships between circles and sines and cosines. It will be hard, to be sure, to adjust to talking to people who prefer to think in terms of pi (henceforth known as half-tau), but maybe it will help them switch bases.
I say that I want My Future Kids to learn tau because it will offer deeper understanding, but I have another reason also. It occurred to me this morning that should we make contact with an alien species and attempt to communicate in the universal language of math, we will find ourselves sorely embarrassed. In Stargate, I remember that there was some sort of test to prove that one's species was sufficiently advanced that involved half-tau. It is clear, however, that tau is a much more reasonable and intuitive constant to ask another civilization about. If another species approached ours wishing to forge a connection through the sharing of fundamental constants and basic proofs, I know that I would feel quite childish offering up half-tau with a much more sensible constant just a factor of 2 away.
May we all one day be tauists. May My Future Kids be the beginning of the move to more sensible mathematics.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
I Wonder Where That Toy Airplane Went
The posts on this blog have two purposes relevant to Future Me: One is so I can remember all my great ideas about child-raising. The second is to record my thoughts and experiences for Future Me's reference, making the assumption that my experience is roughly equal to that of My Future Kids.
So here's my current experience. Here's my plea for forgiveness for being stupid, irrational, and confused.
I get annoyed when people tell me to talk about myself. This is for two reasons. Firstly, I hate having attention directed at me. Secondly, I don't enjoy talking about things that I don't know anything about.
I don't really know how to interpret my own experiences. What am I feeling? I don't know. Does my neck hurt? Maybe I'm stressed. Why do you suddenly want to cry? Did something sad happen? No. Do you miss anyone? Anything? Not really. What the hell is wrong with you? Fuck if I know. Is it the hormones again? Maybe. Why are you doing that thing? I don't know. Because it's expected? Because I thought I wanted it? No you didn't. Well, maybe I just wanted to want it. Well, do you? How can I tell? Fuck if I know.
I have a hard time parsing emotions and other such feelings unless associated with a physical sensation. As an example, when talking to my professors, I don't feel nervous, but the hot feeling in my face tells me that I must be.
I have a hard time trusting myself. Perhaps for because of the above.
I was in love once. I only vaguely remember what I felt, but I can remember what I thought. It wasn't even a very healthy relationship, but I remember feeling like it was the best thing. Being in love was the best thing, and it was unlikely that anyone had ever felt as I did. I don't know why it felt so wonderful and unique, but it did. When I was in love, I wanted no one else and spending all of my time with my lover was just fine.
But that was love then. I'm a different person now. Different a few times over. How will I know if I'm in love again? Will it feel the same? Will it feel different? Was that euphoria just some kind of fluke? The definition I had for love has definitely changed. I used to think of love as valuing someone more than oneself, but I have since come to the conclusion that that definition is somewhat unhealthy. Those were not the greatest times in my life. Though to be fair, I plan on this definition being valid for My Future Kids and Spouse. However, right now that definition is simply not practical.
I used to think that what I wanted was smooches. Then I thought that what I wanted was someone to smooch. Then I realized that what I wanted was to be in love again. That's the current theory at least. And it makes sense, who doesn't want to be high as a kite forever?
There is a certain fear though. What if what I want doesn't really exist? Maybe I'm not capable of being in love anymore. What if that was just a one-time deal? I've been in a few relationships since, but I've had a hard time feeling anything for any of them. Dates and smooches are fun and all, but at some level, I almost just consider them a way of being polite.
Do you remember this, Future Me? Or as you might call it, Me Proper? When My Future Kids are angsty and confused and just doing shit for no discernible reason to you or them, please forgive them. With any luck, they, too, will grow out of it. Isn't that right, Future Me? Right?
So here's my current experience. Here's my plea for forgiveness for being stupid, irrational, and confused.
I get annoyed when people tell me to talk about myself. This is for two reasons. Firstly, I hate having attention directed at me. Secondly, I don't enjoy talking about things that I don't know anything about.
I don't really know how to interpret my own experiences. What am I feeling? I don't know. Does my neck hurt? Maybe I'm stressed. Why do you suddenly want to cry? Did something sad happen? No. Do you miss anyone? Anything? Not really. What the hell is wrong with you? Fuck if I know. Is it the hormones again? Maybe. Why are you doing that thing? I don't know. Because it's expected? Because I thought I wanted it? No you didn't. Well, maybe I just wanted to want it. Well, do you? How can I tell? Fuck if I know.
I have a hard time parsing emotions and other such feelings unless associated with a physical sensation. As an example, when talking to my professors, I don't feel nervous, but the hot feeling in my face tells me that I must be.
I have a hard time trusting myself. Perhaps for because of the above.
I was in love once. I only vaguely remember what I felt, but I can remember what I thought. It wasn't even a very healthy relationship, but I remember feeling like it was the best thing. Being in love was the best thing, and it was unlikely that anyone had ever felt as I did. I don't know why it felt so wonderful and unique, but it did. When I was in love, I wanted no one else and spending all of my time with my lover was just fine.
But that was love then. I'm a different person now. Different a few times over. How will I know if I'm in love again? Will it feel the same? Will it feel different? Was that euphoria just some kind of fluke? The definition I had for love has definitely changed. I used to think of love as valuing someone more than oneself, but I have since come to the conclusion that that definition is somewhat unhealthy. Those were not the greatest times in my life. Though to be fair, I plan on this definition being valid for My Future Kids and Spouse. However, right now that definition is simply not practical.
I used to think that what I wanted was smooches. Then I thought that what I wanted was someone to smooch. Then I realized that what I wanted was to be in love again. That's the current theory at least. And it makes sense, who doesn't want to be high as a kite forever?
There is a certain fear though. What if what I want doesn't really exist? Maybe I'm not capable of being in love anymore. What if that was just a one-time deal? I've been in a few relationships since, but I've had a hard time feeling anything for any of them. Dates and smooches are fun and all, but at some level, I almost just consider them a way of being polite.
Do you remember this, Future Me? Or as you might call it, Me Proper? When My Future Kids are angsty and confused and just doing shit for no discernible reason to you or them, please forgive them. With any luck, they, too, will grow out of it. Isn't that right, Future Me? Right?
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