Help me get a date with Taylor Swift!

For Christmas this year, I want you all to write a letter to Taylor Swift suggesting that she and I go on a date next time she's in Salt Lake (Sept. 28, 2011, I think). It doesn't have to be anything extravagant. When you're done with that, have all your friends and neighbors write, too. Invite them to the Facebook event or send them the link to my blog.

Thanks in advance! Y'all are the best!

Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=110043245733150&num_event_invites=0

Blog: http://musingsofamathman.blogspot.com/2010/11/help-me-get-date-with-taylor-swift.html

Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift Entertainment

242 West Main Street

PMB 412

Hendersonville, TN 37075

USA

F.A.Q.

The questions I am most frequently asked since starting this blog are:

• I want to have your child. Can I can I can I?
• I want to name my firstborn son after you. Do I have to pay a licensing fee?
• What's with the waveform on top of your page?

Actually, nobody has asked that third one yet, but that's the question I'm going to answer.

When I started this blog, I put a nontrivial amount of thought into how things should look and 'feel.' The mood I was trying to convey is that which comes to my mind whenever I hear Elliot Goldenthal's Batman fanfare.

"But Zachary, Blogger allows you to embed audio on your blog. You could've had that music play whenever someone visited your blog."

No. I could not bring myself to do that, for two reasons:

1. This isn't Myspace.
2. This isn't the 1990s.

So since I couldn't play the music audibly, the next best thing was to display the music visually. Now you know.

To listen to the music I'm describing, go here.

To see a low-resolution video of the music in its original context (the opening titles and scene in Batman Forever), go here.

To see the first thing I thought of when I italicized the words 'play' and 'display,' go here.

Nuggets

As I was going through some old papers today I came across several scraps of paper on which I'd written little notes to myself. Some of these were simple To-Do list reminders, but a lot of these were reminders of periodic flashes of clarity. Some of them are quite specific to things happening in my mind and therefore uninteresting to anyone but myself, but some of them are quite general and, I think, insightful. With that, read on, blog world:


If we discarded every idea which fails to appear in nature, we'd have no imaginary number system, and by implication, the most precisely-tested theory in history, Quantum Mechanics, would not exist.

Without reason, faith becomes dogma. Push yourself; challenge your faith to solidify it. You won't get better if you don't push yourself; try it and see what happens. Keep in mind whether there are/should be boundaries on where to look.

Be happy but not complacent. Appreciate the constants, especially in college when everything is changing. Appreciate the changes, too, though.

Pop-Ups

There are things I think about, and there are things that I think of only briefly. This list consists of items in the latter category. Most of these (especially near the beginning of the list) occur with some frequecy.

Sometimes it's scary how well my iPod knows what I want to listen to.

I've been alphabetizing things for most of my life, and weekly for my job over the past couple years, but it still feels like 'V' should come after 'W'.

If you have turn signals, use them. Heck, I don't have blinkers and I still signal. And if I see your signal and I'm in your way, I'll almost always move for you.

I have yet to grow tired of Linkin Park, and Hybrid Theory never gets old.

Analytic functions are awesome.

You owe Lindsay two bucks.

I prefer hiking uphill; I prefer running uphill; but I HATE biking uphill. And downhill isn't always better. The best is level or very slightly downhill.

It's easier to rebuild an economy than an ecosystem.

"Un bel di vedremo" would sound so much better without the singing.

Taylor Series are also awesome (though of course they are pretty much the same thing as analytic functions).

Usually when we say "So-and-so is a good person," we tend to mean "So-and-so is a not a bad person." Someone once said "I've never met a bad person." But there are a few good people I know. They are (in no particular order): Drew Thompson, Karianne Rencher, Sean Davenport, Lindsay James, Tiffany Law, Katie Hobbs, and Amie and David Carman. I'm sure I've met a few more, but my mind is blanking.

That Was Fast . . .

I noticed a couple of weeks ago that both my watch and the clock on my bike computer were running a couple minutes slow. I knew I'd set them both according to my cell phone clock back a few months before. Realizing it would have been too great a coincidence for both timepieces to have dying batteries (dying at the same rate, I should add), I concluded that relativistic time dilation was to blame.* Naturally I wondered how fast I must have been going to have observed this effect.

First, a few words on special relativity. In classical physics, if you and I are driving towards each other at 55 mph and 60 mph, we are approaching each other at 115 mph. It turns out that this breaks down at speeds approaching the speed of light, so one of those speeds is multiplied by a number which depends on the speeds involved. It's a rather remarkable fact that such a major problem in physics can be solved by doing exactly what you did already, but with an extra multiplier. For a more thorough explanation, read Wikipedia.

First, some knowns:

• The clocks were 2:20 slow as of 9:21 am on August 9, 2010
• There were 1341 miles on the odometer at the same time (presumably this should also suffer from relativistic effects).

Next we need to estimate the total time spent travelling on my bike. Most of my riding was commuting, broken down as follows:

• ~8.2 miles from home to train station; typical times were ~25 minutes
• ~3.5 miles from train station to campus; typical times were ~22 minutes
• ~3.5 miles from campus to train station; typical times were ~13 minutes
• ~7.7 miles from train station to home; typical times were ~30 minutes

In a typical day, then, I traveled 22.9 miles in 90 minutes. These times include time stuck at traffic lights. The effect will be counteracted by not adding in the time spent on additional rides, which deserves some mention.

In addition to my daily commute, I probably rode another 85 miles over the summer on other rides. If we subtract the 85 from 1341, we are left with 1256 miles. This divided by 22.9 miles per day yields 54.847 days of riding. Multiplied by 90 minutes per day, we get a total travel time of 4936.245 minutes for the summer as measured by the cycle computer (this is the proper time interval in special relativity).

We now know the proper time interval and the time interval for the reference frame described by Earth's surface (4963.245 minutes plus the 2.333 minutes difference between my clocks and Earth clocks). Using the Lorentz transform (where v is my speed, c=671 million mph is the speed of light, and g takes the place of the traditional gamma),

4965.578 minutes = g * (4963.245 minutes)

=> g = 1/sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2) = (4965.578 / 4963.245) = 1.000470055

=> v = c * sqrt(1 - 1/1.000470055^2) = 0.0307 c,

that is, 3.07 % the speed of light. Putting this into more familiar units and rounding down out of modesty, this is roughly 20 million miles per hour. On average, of course.

My bike computer also has a built-in speedometer. It frequently hovers at or above 20 mph. I guess the manufacturer was off by a few orders of magnitude.

*Even though my phone travels on my bike just as much as my watch and bike computer, it should be immune to relativistic effects since it syncs with a clock somewhere else.

Happiness

Good food,

Good friends,

Good family;

Namaste.

-- Simon McFall

To Be Frank. . .

Yesterday I decided to take a bus from Salt Lake City to Ogden rather than wait for the FrontRunner, which runs only hourly on weekends. I appreciate the change in scenery, and you're a lot more likely to encounter interesting people on the bus than on the train. I met a man named Frank who rides the bus for exactly the same reasons. Well, that and he's homeless.

Frank told me about how he rode a custom-built tandem bike with his blind girlfriend from Florida to Wisconsin (if you want a custom-built tandem bike, Phil Wood is the go-to guy; Frank made me write that down). He's 58 and "an old man now," but his legs are strong, "strong, strong legs." He enjoys riding the 455 because of the beautiful scenery (I agree). He describes himself as an old hippie and a wanderer. He told me I seem like a smart, quiet, sharp, nice guy, and that I just light up when I smile/laugh. I've met a lot of crazy old men, but Frank didn't seem like one of them. Maybe the compliments won me over, but there was something about him that made me think (and this is hard to say precisely) that he still has a handle on life. He goes with the flow, but because that is what he enjoys, not because that is all he has left.

This got me thinking about all the interesting experiences I've had on the bus. I've watched a relationship progress from before they met, to when they started dating, to when she got pregnant, to when he left her. I heard a girl tell her friend how upset she was that her boyfriend had cheated on her with a straight girl (it would have been okay if the girl was bisexual, though). I've listened to anti-Mormon rants, conspiracy theories, and far too many mothers yelling at their two-year-olds. And I've met a whole cast of memorable characters:

• Alexander. The first time I met him he was wandering around on the bus evangelizing or handing out Christian tracts or something. I talked with him for a long time because that was right at the height of my Born-Again Christian phase (I don't use that phrase condescendingly, by the way; I simply find that it conveys my meaning effectively). He had a fantastic conversion story about how he turned away from drugs and sex when he found Jesus, and all-in-all seemed like a pretty cool guy. He invited me to church with him (I never went but almost did a couple times) and made me feel guilty for not telling every person I saw about Jesus.
• Juggalo #1. He's the guy who introduced me to the notion of Juggalos. He was adamant that Juggalos were all a big family, but not a violent gang even though the police treat them as such. He also told me the names of a bunch of record labels I'd never heard of and would probably never care existed.
• Juggalo #2. Technically I met him on a train platform in Salt Lake, but he claims to have recognized me from 25th Street in Ogden. I took this as quite a compliment, actually. I haven't spent much time on 25th Street since high school (and even then I was there somewhat infrequently). Nevertheless, 25th Street is, in my mind, both the literal and figurative heart of Downtown Ogden, one of the three places where I feel most at home.
• Stoner Bus Driver. I only met him once. I'm betting he was fired shortly after. He skipped half a dozen bus stops just to tease some of my classmates. Unfortunately, the old ladies on the bus didn't think his joke was very funny.
• Bus Driver with Good Memory. This bus driver always remembered my bus stop and the stops of many of his other regulars. He got annoyed when us regulars pulled the "Stop Request" cord so he'd tell us to just watch for his wave as we approached our stops.
• Brooklyn Guy. Some guy with a fantastic Brooklyn accent. Wears a yellow poncho and carries a metal lunchbox.
• Friendly Walker Guy. ~55-year-old commuter who gets off a few stops early to walk to work. Wears a fanny pack. Has a daughter with Down Syndrome. Seems like a genuinely nice guy, based on the friendly conversation he has with other commuters. I think his name really is Guy.
• Brianna. Girl from high school. Comes to mind whenever I eat creamy peanut butter, and not in a good way. Got in trouble with the law for beating up her mom. Has some of the prettiest eyes I've ever seen.
• Blind Woman. She and her husband always look happy. I think they are good people (my idea of "good people" will come out in a future post).
• Guitar Guy. First time I saw him, he'd just bought a new chair to sit in while playing guitar. Perhaps the most encouraging guy I've ever met, as I observed the time I accidentally led him to believe I was the drummer in a band called "Legends of the Hidden Gazebo."
• The Deaf Family. These guys make me want to learn sign language just to talk to them. It's either a mom and her son and daughter, or maybe they are boyfriend/girlfriend or husband/wife. Anyway, between the three they've got two electric wheelchairs, two bikes, several crutches, and an orange hunting cap. I see them all the time. If ever it's after noon and you're on Washington Boulevard between 12th Street and 1400 North, you will probably see at least one of them.
• Lagoon Girl. I don't remember her name, but she'd be waiting at the 27th street bus stop to take the 70 to her job at Lagoon when I'd walk past on my way home from work. Usually I keep walking until I see a bus coming, so I'm annoyed when someone talks to me at a bus stop because it sort of makes me feel obligated to stay put, but I enjoyed stopping to talk to Lagoon Girl. I wish I could remember her name. I can't even remember if I had a crush on her or not.
• Drunk Guys. There have been many, some friendlier than others.

My friends complain about their horrifying bus stories,* and I'll admit I didn't mind when Frank would stay silent for a few minutes, but - well, let me put it this way: the driver asked me at one point if Frank was talking too much, and I thought about it for a moment before I said "No." People like Frank are just too interesting to pass up. To use Frank's own words, "I like folks."

*At least the girls do, which makes sense; not only do they get flirted with/hit on, but one friend has been told she should work at Hooters. Another time someone offered to buy her T-shirt. As in the one she was wearing.

What did I do today?

North Ogden Divide Trailhead, 6180 ft.

Catching up with (passing) some friends on the trail, ~4 miles from TH

Snow! ~5 miles from TH

Ben Lomond Peak/20 minute break, 8.2 miles from TH, 9712 ft.

Snow again. It got less cool the more times we had to cross it. ~9 miles from TH

Inspiration Point. We overshot Willard Peak by a couple miles. ~12 miles from TH, 9422 ft.

Willard Peak (we turned back maybe a couple hundred yards from the summit, thinking "close enough" and "we aren't experienced climbers"), ~11 miles from TH, 9764 ft.

Ben Lomond Peak again, plus another 15 minute break, 8.2 miles from TH

Back at the Trailhead

Spent most of the rest of the day cleaning parts to an old bike I'm restoring and watching episodes of Futurama

Sulking

The other day I had trouble sleeping. Then when I woke up the next morning, I was sulking about whatever it was that had given me trouble sleeping. I was sulking all morning until I got to work and grabbed a newspaper. I came across these two articles:

• Guinea holds first free election
• Kyrgyz voters endorse new constitution

Sulking cured.

Ain't That a Co-winky-dink

Maybe it was Divine Intervention, or maybe it was just a coincidence, but the issue of Dialogue my dad had with him today contained an article entitled "Toward a Theology of Dissent: An Ecclesiological Interpretation." The author's purpose was related to the purpose of my previous post, but while I [essentially] focused on the comparative merits of authority and conscience, Matthew Bowman was concerned with simply establishing the common ground necessary for both schools of thought to be discussed fairly. This is important because both approaches tend toward self-affirmation.

Nevertheless, he did have a few things to say on the issue I'd been discussing; namely, that as we do live in communities, it is important for us to have certain universal rules that all should obey. This is important for maintaining order, and perhaps even more important in religious contexts where ritual is a fundamental component. On the other hand, we each have our own individual conscience, and it is our civic duty as well as a moral one to (borrowing a phrase from Paul) "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."

In other news: I think the amount of powder they put in each Fun Dip is a lot less than it used to be. The Lik-A-Stix or whatever they're called feel the same size, but the powder runs out faster now than it did when I was little. How frustrating.

Orthodoxy vs. Orthopraxy

The parents have been out of town for the past few days, leaving me sort of in charge. This means it is my job to cook dinner and also to have my little brothers do their chores. Predictably, the first task is easier than the second. It turns out I may have made even harder than it needed to be, however.

You see, my mom has worked out a checklist system for summer chores where each of the younger children is supposed to complete a certain number of chores before each meal (the older children, not including me, have similar checklists, but those are typically ignored). Yesterday I made fajitas for dinner and I invited my little brothers to come eat. Ricky/Baldy complained that he hadn't completed the requisite number of chores to qualify for dinner. I told him to come eat anyway, since we always eat together as a family, and that he could finish his chores later. I shoved the thought aside, and it came back to me today while I was folding laundry.

I began to worry that perhaps I was undermining my mom's rules by having Baldy eat with the family without finishing his chores (even though she's done it herself). If my brothers know they can eat dinner with the family no matter if they've done their chores, will they actually do their chores? Naturally, this led me to consider the nature of religious orthodoxy.

I've lately found myself involved in what is primarily (but not totally) an internal struggle over the relative merits of religious orthodoxy versus religious orthopraxy. I see this as boiling down to a question of "letter of the law" versus "spirit of the law." As religions go, Christianity is the orthopraxy to Judaism's orthodoxy. A key point of the New Testament is that we should not get so tangled up with obeying the Law that we forget to love God and love mankind. But within Christianity, each tradition lies at a different point on the spectrum. I'd like to think that my chosen tradition of Mormonism is less orthodoxic and more orthopraxic, but I can see that is not necessarily the case. We have our core doctrines and rituals, of course, and those are relatively few. Then we add on a whole bunch of subsidiary commandments and practices. We call them doctrine but I'm not convinced. I think they're mostly cultural. To illustrate, I use the example of the Word of Wisdom.

It is quite well-documented that the early Church did not place the same emphasis on the Word of Wisdom as we do now. Back in those days, it was exactly a "Word of Wisdom" and not a "Word of Commandment." In fact, one could make a good case that Jesus Himself drank alcoholic wine, or at least made it for others. Today obedience to the Word of Wisdom has been made a requirement for earning a temple recommend. But the fact that things were not always this way suggests that many of our "commandments" are not so eternally significant as we like to think.

Let me make a suggestion on the nature of sin. It is ridiculous that you would punish a child for drinking water, but it makes sense to ban water bottles during class if you are a teacher and your students are getting distracted. Same basic principle. Alcohol is not of itself evil (I think), but it causes people to lose focus and lower their inhibitions, which may then lead to sinning. Same thing with movies/music/etc. Anything that distracts us from learning light and truth should be avoided. I can truly say that I've learned more eternal principles from certain PG-13 and R rated movies than some children's movies (The Dark Knight vs. Night at the Museum II, for example), but in general it is probably the case that we are more likely to learn without the added distractions of sex and violence.

I'll briefly discuss an idea that was brought up in my Institute class last spring, and that is the distinction between so-called "Square Mormons" and "Compass Mormons." A Square Mormon is one who follow rules precisely and to the letter. They are rigid like a carpenter's square. A Compass Mormon, on the other hand, is one who reevaluates the principles they have been taught in each situation. They may be said to draw a circle which circumscribes all truth (it is true that God commanded the Israelites not to kill, but it is also true that God commanded Nephi to kill Laban). Hyrum Smith was a Square Mormon. He followed the Word of Wisdom precisely. Joseph Smith was a Compass Mormon. He shared a bottle of wine with Hyrum and John Taylor at Carthage Jail.

I should interject here that I've been developing this idea within a Mormon framework. That is how the thoughts developed in my mind, but the structure should hold in any context, be it religious, political, parenting, etc.

Now I have to find a way to bring this train of thought back to my original story. Crap. Let's see here. . .

It is usually in our best interest to obey the rules, especially when we are young and learning. As we mature we begin to understand the rules. We see what they are meant for and what their limitations are. It is probably the case that we will never get in trouble for following the rules religiously, but sometimes maybe it is better to ignore the rules. A teacher once said to me "There's an exception to every rule, except the rule that says there's an exception to every rule."

Still too many words. Back to the story.

My mom has written up chore checklists for her older kids, but we aren't expected to hold to them rigidly like my little brothers are. We know our responsibilities and we generally follow through on them, checklist or no checklist. In fact, she hasn't written up a checklist for me at all, partly because I'm at work all day, every day, but also because I clean stuff anyway. I don't limit myself to the things on the checklist. If I see something that needs to be cleaned then I'll clean it.

I still don't think I've worked my way back to the point I was trying to make. My goal was to say that there are people who need the rules and other people who don't. There, now I said it. Maybe I'm on to something here. Or maybe I'm just rationalizing my own evil behaviors. Regardless, this post relies too heavily on philosophical introspection. How boring.

One last note: I could not bring myself to write an "I'm starting a blog" post, but I should mention that, for the time being, my blog will probably sound like a cross between The Sarah Starrr Story and The Dilbert Blog. Both of those writers see the world in ways that closely resemble my own worldview, but - let's be honest - the main reason I expect to sound like them is that ripping off writing styles is easy. Eventually I'll probably fall into my own blogging groove, but until then, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?