Happy April 6

Today, in Utah, much celebration called Christmas will take place. Interspersed among the pagan symbolism (Christmas trees etc) and materialistic indulgence (presents under said Christmas tree) are notions of the tortured god-made-man-made-god called Jesus. The ugly “Jesus is the reason for the season” signs will only be put out by the baptists, but most Mormons will tell you that Christmas is the birthday of Jesus. Unless you ask them about April 6^th.

Some Mormons may even say they do not know about April 6^th. Some pretend that it is erroneous.

Since the interface between Mormon belief and observable reality is a constantly changing vapid morass of conjecture it is not surprising that something as concrete as a date becomes blurry. This is surprising as the April 6^th date is established in Mormon scripture (as opposed to the generally used December 25^th date which is kinda made up). The Mormon scriptures may be so ambiguously written as to throw even those to whom they were written into doubt, but the Mormons also have living prophets. Two living prophets (Lee and Kimball) spoke of April 6^th as the birthday of Jesus. This means that, should you get confused by the scripture, god spoke directly through his prophets to tell you when his son's birthday was.

That should be pretty strong stuff, if you believe in the prophet-scripture-faith thing at all. That so many people who call themselves Mormons deny or avoid this seemingly concrete mapping of their revelation onto the calendar is interesting.

If the local WalMart could be convinced (Just like they have been convinced to have an LDS book section up near the registers) to promote Christmas in April I think it might catch on. Perhaps I could be more blunt and state that the unique perspective on Christmas, that when we celebrate it does not actually mean anything , is an opportunity to emphasize those things we truly believe. Those things being that we like a god who does stuff (like the pagan gods who make trees and seasons) and more than that we like the stuff that god makes (Particularly X-Box games).

Now I do not hold that the concrete specifics of a religion make it any more or less believable. The idea that everything could be the result of happenings in a galaxy long long ago and far far away is just as palatable as any more local myth.  I am always amazed at the problems associated with mapping things that supposedly shaped all everything with actual dates and times. For instance, if the world was created in a day, then what date was that exactly? I've been told it was a Tuesday in October. Shouldn't there be celebrations in October for this; “World start day” or “let their be light day”?

Even if it is not spring the days are getting longer in this northern hemisphere. This is reason enough to celebrate. I've been in favor of the idea of pushing Christmas back to the solstice so it could be centered in an observable phenomenon. However you look at it a celebration in the darkest of winter months is a good thing. One cannot blame the Mormons for re-arranging their worship calendar to get a holiday in winter. However, one can point and laugh. It is always good to have laughter at parties, even Official Holiday parties.

"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile!" - Kurt Vonnegut

Frog eyeballs

The Chia seeds (Salvia hispanica) have come in and are as interesting as I could have hoped.  I have created a recipe for Chia fresca, but the truth is that they are so simple to use that a recipe is a formality. 

Chia fresca is supposed to be another miracle drink.  The seeds are magic and are available as the direct result of re-discovering ancient ritualistic truths about mankind.  Presumably the truths were revealed by ancient Gods or astronauts.  I have trouble following these things but there is often a connection between aliens from outer space and colon health (and you wondered why the anal probes?).

I would not be surprised to see Chia patches and tonics marketed for all sorts of things in the not-too-distant future.  The seeds are readily available, very easy to grow, and currently a second-rate cash crop in parts of south America.

The nutrition information is somewhat impressive.  Lots of Omega 3s, antioxidants, calcium, other good stuff.  I'm not sure the seeds would work as a primary food source. The Tarahumara apparently use them as an energy drink on their very long (100 mile plus) runs. 

The cost of the Chia seeds is similar (slightly less) to that of other energy drink options.  I thought they would be worth a try.

The basic method I use for them is:
Put a 50ml scoop of them into a 1 liter water bottle.
then add enough powdered energy drink of choice to make 1/2 a liter of drink. 
then add 1 liter of water.
cap and shake.

It is important to shake the bottle for a while as the seeds can clump irreversibly when beginning to swell.  Usually I can shake the bottle for a couple of minutes, let it sit for 15 minutes, and shake it again to successfully prevent clumps.  The bottle is then left in the fridge overnight to get the best consistency.

The consistency is the coolest thing about these.  The seeds swell and produce a gelatinous sheath, kind-of like a capsule on a microorganism.  The effect is that the drink looks like it is full of the eggs of some kind of amphibian.  I like it.

I have tried to make drinks with a similare consistancy using basil seeds.  The Basil seeds I have gotten from local Asian markets did not work well.  Perhaps they were not fresh enough.  These Chia seeds have produced my first real success in making what I lake to call a "frog eyeball" drink.  I picture Macbeths witches slugging the stuff despite the fact that they clearly ask for "eye of newt and toe of frog".  Somehow "Newt eyeball drink" or "frog toe tonic" did not work for me.

I've tried to picture the final product for you bellow.  The picture on the right is un-augmented.  On the left I've stained the gelatinous sheaths with a black dye.  The scale and concentration of chia seeds are roughly the same.

The recipie:

4 TBSP Chia seeds
1 TSP Lime juice
2 TBSP Honey
1 Liter water

Zeno's paradox

Zeno's is a particularly unsatisfying paradox for me. By Zeno of Elea's paradox I describe a generalized version of his most popular two (the arrow, and Achilles and the tortoise)

Firstly it makes you work to get what it is about. The recursive paradoxes are much more inviting in this regard. Who cannot be sucked in by the “this statement is false” paradox. After thinking about this recursive paradox for a while you can at least be comfortable in the knowledge that the only time you have wasted is the time actually spent thinking about the paradox itself.
Secondly there are several apparent solutions to Zeno's paradox.


Zeno's paradox is traditionally told as some sort of question concerning a really fast Greek god racing a turtle or some great Greek warrior like Achiles running to someplace famous. The details are not important. My favorite explanation of it is embedded in a joke.

  An engineer, a mathematician, and a theoretical physicist went to a dance. Shyly they positioned themselves against a wall where they had a good view of the dance.
  The mathematician sighed heavily and said “I wish I could go ask one of those people sitting at that table over there to dance with me, but it is impossible.”

  “Why is that?” asked the theoretical physicist.

  “If I go halfway over to the table, I will still have halfway to go” replied the Mathematician.

  “Yes” Said the engineer.

   “Then if I cover half the remaining distance I will still have a quarter of the way to go” Said the mathematician.

  “Yes” Replied the engineer.
  The mathematician continued “I can then cover half the remaining distance, but a 16^th of the distance remains.”

  The theoretical physicist chimed in “Everytime you cover half the distance to the table a small but calculatable amount of distance remains.”

  “Right!” said the mathematician “So it impossible for me to go over there and ask for a dance”

  The physicist was about to commiserate with a “too bad for us” when the Engineer got up and walked over to the table.

  The physicist and the mathematician watched in amazement as the engineer asked a particularly attractive young lady to dance, proceeded to dance with her, gave her a lingering kiss, and then came back to their place on the wall.

  “How did you do that?” asked the physicist in awe.

  “Although you were correct I calculated that I would be able to get close enough for any purpose I could think of”.

I like the joke because it is one of the very few I can think of where the engineer gets the girl. Of course with competition like a theoretical physicist and a mathematician the odds are seriously stacked in his favor.


The crux of the paradox is that infinite division creates an infinite number of pieces. Any number can be used. Any situation where the finite measurable quantity could conceivably be infinitely divided can be used. The purpose this paradox is used for most often is to introduce the infinitesimal. A common place to hear it is in introductory calculus. The trouble is that as soon as some people hear it they are thinking in terms of solutions and not of the backdoor introduction to the elusive fluxion.


A couple of solutions are:

1. The mapping solution. Suppose you tell Mr. X that he can find the special something against the far wall of a room, but instead you put it about three quarters of the way across the room. Mr. X dutifully covers half the distance to the far wall, knowing he will never reach it. He then covers half the remaining distance. Before he can move you run up to him telling him to reach down and pick up the special something.
   
   In this solution you know that Mr. X's proposed infinite path must cross through specific identifiable points (in this case I identified the three quarters point) along the way. You simply map the destination to one of these points so that Mr.X and the special something are coincidental.
   

2. The multi-dimensional limit solution. This is the solution most desired by teachers of beginning calculus. In this one the engineer is pictured as traveling at a constant rate of speed. He travels half the distance across the room in one minute (it is a really big room). He then covers half the remaining distance in 30 seconds. Half the remaining distance in 15 seconds, half the remaining after that in 7.5 seconds. In this way as the chunks of distance get infinitesimal so to do the periods of time taken to traverse them. One can then show that if one adds up this infinite set of numbers it can take no longer than one minute to traverse the second half of the room.
   
   Here the number of parcels in one dimension are offset by the size of those parcels in another dimension. If I were teaching introductory calculus I would pause at this point and introduce several notational schemaes.
   

3. The improbability solution. This solution may be my favorite because its heart it is fraught with complexity. What do we really know, and when do we know it? When the poor paradox-ed individual leaves from their starting point the questions of their existence are small with respect to the question at hand. We can identify a ratio of their size to the size of the distance traversed. For any reasonably sized distance that ratio is quickly stood on it's head. When the distance to be traversed is close to the size of the traverser then aspects of the traverser become important. How far have they really moved? If they breath in and their chest expands have they moved again? If they breath out are they moving backwards? Even if we shore up our paradox with some lame stipulation we do not keep trouble at bay for long. Due to the nature of geometric progressions we are soon at the size where surface irregularities rule. The border of a human, at the microscopic level, is not precise. Cells slough off, bacteria move around, strange growths blossom. Are the chunks of skin raining off the mover still part of them? The nature of the verbal tricks needed to maintain our paradox are week at this point, but more trouble awaits. Soon we are at the scale of the atom. Is the individual as large as the distance traveled by the furthest electron orbit associated with the atom closest to the destination? Since that orbit is well described as a probability cloud that extends around neighboring atoms (including those in air molecules) how do we draw a line? Are we to be cavalier and arbitrarily choose one? If we do this then aren't we arbitrarily creating a paradoxical structure. What does the paradox mean if we are to depend on arbitrary decisions in order to maintain it? We become subjective. To person B the traveler has passed into the sphere of the destination. Person C (who is more interesting than persons A or B) notes that there is a certain probability of calculatable physical interaction even before the traveler started across the room and could be said to have arrived even before leaving.
   
   Persons A and B often wonder why they ever invite person C to their parties.