My favorite math moments - vanilla geekery

Joey asked me if I have a favorite math moment. Truthfully, after spending nearly a decade tutoring math to college students ranging from the most basic remedial stuff to calculus and trigonometry, I have several.

Euler's identity:

e^iπ+1=0

Oh. my. God.

When I first discovered this I was astounded. I'll let you read wikipedia's explanation of the mathematical beauty if you want. I was convinced that somehow, locked within this equation, was the secret of the universe.

How. HOW did the irrational base of the natural logarithms, raised to the power of the square root of negative one times the (also irrational) ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter... equal negative one? HOW? It astounds me even now. I've worked it out, and it comes out right and proper as it should. It's astounding.

I loved introducing this concept to a student who was just being introduced to imaginary numbers, and watching his or her eyes grow wide. Well, when the student was intelligent enough to grasp the awesomeness. They weren't always. Sometimes they'd just go "Huh?"

Why do I need to learn this?

I don't know if this is really a favorite or if it's just one of those things I loved to hate - but if I had a dime for every time a student said this to me, I'd have a sizable sum of money. My favorite answer, after years of it, was from a book I once read titled Everything Bad is Good for You. You don't learn algebra to use algebra any more than you go to the gym to learn how to use a treadmill. You do both because they build a certain kind of muscle - in the case of algebra it's a problem solving muscle. Algebra gives you the tools to solve problems you may not otherwise know how.

Another thing I'd always tell them is that you never know where you're going to wind up. I certainly never thought I'd wind up being a (mostly math) tutor for a third of my life.

Holy crap I've got it!

The lightbulb moment. When any student gets it. You've been working with the person for hours, possibly days, and the light in his or her eyes has dulled. He's resigned himself that he's never going to get it. She will plod through the exercises as you guide her, but she's never going to understand and she will fail her test.

And then, suddenly, the light returns. He's got it. She's got it. He flies through the next page worth of exercises with no difficulty at all. They can't even be called problems anymore, because they don't present any.

Guiding a person to that moment is fantastic. It happened far less than I would have liked - many students had just resigned themselves to achieve low scores and be happy just to pass, but the ones who struggled at first and then suddenly had it? Oh, yeah, that's a high.

To your scattered ramblings go

We were having some awesome sex when our little one started screaming to wake the dead. Poor little thing has a cold now too and couldn't breathe.

We had a funny conversation though as well, in the aftermath of settling the child.

It even had a title.

"Things we'd say to our 18-year old selves to freak them out and blow their minds."
We were 18 when we first met each other.

Me to him:
"See that girl? One day she's going to be begging to suck your cock."
"See that girl? One day she's going to beg to have you hurt her and fuck her multiple times a day, and you won't even know how to respond."

Him to me:
"See that guy? You're going to like him. A LOT."
"One day you'll be begging me to suck my cock." (aside, to me in the present) "See? You wouldn't believe it either."

Him to himself:
"One day, you're going to have sex. More than once!"

------------------------------

Then there's the dream!

I dreamed that my husband's older brother - my husband does not have an older brother - started hanging out with me a lot, eventually progressing to holding me in bed. He was whispering things to me, this nonexistent brother - "I love holding you like this, I love hanging out with you, I love.."

I broke in - "I love you."

He stopped, froze, didn't move. Some weird dream movements happened, and I was next to the bed, doing something. Some time seemed to have passed. He was still there, looking at me, pondering. A random person came in and sat on the bed, fiddling with something. We didn't speak for a while because we were embarrassed about this person hearing us. Eventually we decided we'd have to talk with that person there, but in low voices.

My husband's nonexistent, nameless brother reached across the bed, clutching at me, pulling me close enough I could hear his whisper. I can still feel his grip on my shoulder. "Listen," he said, "if you don't think you can fulfill your promises to my brother.." he said this like a man who's about to suggest we run away together.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I was outraged. The very suggestion that I wouldn't love my husband anymore just because I also had some deep affection for this man! How dare he question the depth of our True Love!?

The dream kind of dissolved with my anger.... but now I'm left missing this person.

Brewing

Visitors make things harder.

I love seeing them, but greatly miss the opportunities for intimacy. They stay late, chatting, asking for help with this or that or the other thing. I think longingly about what could happen when they leave, but alas, when they finally depart it is too late. Day after day.

I've given 1(one!) morning blow job this week. Just one. It was lovely. But...just one? I thought this morning... but circumstances conspired against us. Again. Morning sex is what keeps me going when the nighttime sex is nonexistent.

Saw an issue of Cosmopolitan at the supermarket. Circle on the cover screaming about kicking your inner good girl to the curb for some kinky sex. Wonder what they mean by kinky? Flipped through it to see if I could find and skim the article, but then it was our turn. Won't pay for that trash just to sate my curiosity. Would have done a blog post about it if I'd found it.

Have been using Moom for my armpits and legs. I like it a lot.

We may be going away for day or two. Should be fun if it happens.

Middle of the month, second payday. We get to keep a little of this one, yay!

Everyone have an awesome weekend!