What Would Jimmy Do?

Pi is the most studied number in mathematics, and for good reason. The number Pi is integral to our understanding of geometry. It is used in physics, astronomy and, of course, mathematics as well as being used in architecture and construction. It’s been a vital part of everything from arches and bridges to the Pyramids of Giza.

So it’s only fitting that it should have its own day. Today, March 14th (3/14 – Get it?) is officially Pi Day. The exact correct time for the celebration of Pi Day is at 1:59 pm. At 3/14 1:59 pm the numbers are the first six digits of Pi.
In case you need even more evidence of the importance of Pi Day, it’s also Albert Einstein’s birthday.
The value of Pi was first calculated by Archimedes.
The Pi symbol was introduced by William Jones, a Welsh mathematician, in 1706.

There is an entire language made from the number Pi. How can than be? Well, some people loved Pi enough to invent a dialect based on it. In “Pi-ish” the number of letters in each word match the corresponding digit  of pi. The first word has three letters, the second has one letter, the third has four letters, and so on. The language is more popular than you might think. Software engineer Michael Keith wrote an entire book, called Not a Wake in that language.

The first 36 digits of Pi is called the Ludolphine Number. It’s named after the 16th century Dutch-German mathematician Ludolph van Ceulen who spent most of his life calculating the those first 36 digits. It’s said that the first 36 numbers were engraved on his tombstone.

Chinese people were far ahead of the West in finding the digits of pi — primarily due to two reasons. They had decimal notations and they had a symbol for the number zero. It wasn’t until the late middle ages that European mathematicians started using the number zero. At that time, European mathematicians partnered with Arab and Indian minds to bring the symbol of zero into their system.

Of course, like most things, not everyone is a devoted fan of Pi. Some math enthusiasts argue that “tau,” the number equivalent to twice Pi, also deserves the same notable place in mathematics as Pi. Tau’s approximate value is 6.28, and it refers to the relationship between a circle’s circumference and radius. So, many believe that the one that has a more inherent mathematical value between the two is tau. We’ll discuss this in more depth on June 28th.

But today we’re celebrating Pi….. there’s an old saying that men may come and men may go, but Pi goes on forever.
Or — as my mathematically inclined friends would say, “Have an irrational day.”
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During a recent “winter golf” get together, the conversation incorporated, like always, a few “war stories.” Most all of us “golfers” have had some interesting experiences through the years and sessions like winter golf gives us a chance to remember some of them — with an audience that appreciates them more, because of similar experiences. 

Recently, the discussion somehow turned to the encounters several of us had over the years with NSA (the National Security Agency.)
Several of the guys didn’t know when and how NSA came into being. It’s kind of an interesting story….
After the end of World War II, the United States pretty much dismantled its signals intelligence (SIGINT) and cryptanalysis capabilities. Really, “dismantle” is a kind of strong word — the initiative was just downsized and not a lot of effort was put into it. Soon afterwards, the Soviet Union activated a new communications grid and encryption methodology. They started transmitting signals by cable — that cut off most radio interceptions and what little that was transmitted over the air was indecipherable. This move seemed to shock the United States and in response, the Secretary of Defense ordered the creation of a Top Secret organization known as the Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA,)

The new agency, as might be expected, suffered from institutional dysfunction and wasn’t particularly effective against the Soviets. But the Korean War came along and really gave the AFSN a boost. The agency was assigned to intercept high-level Korean broadcasts. It’s hard to believe, but North Korea was broadcasting the details of its most sensitive military operations in plaintext, with no encryption at all. When the North Koreans finally got wise to America’s interception capability, AFSA made short work of North Korea’s new ciphers. It was a “lesson learned” for the U.S. as to the importance of SIGINT and cryptanalysis. AFSA would eventually be reorganized as the National Security Agency (NSA.)
Now you know “the rest of the story.”
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It’s that time again — time to change the clocks. It’s just something we do, and just like about everything today, it’s controversial. All of the United States, with the exception of a couple of states, practices daylight saving time. Many people don’t like the concept of setting clocks back an hour in the fall and then setting them forward an hour in the spring. 

According to a recent poll, only 33% of Americans see the purpose of DST. In fact, over 83 million people have sent messages to Congress petitioning for the end of daylight time. Of course setting the clocks forward one hour in the spring doesn’t create more daylight — the Sun still rises and sets just the same, but it does change the time on our clocks, so in the spring we add an hour of natural daylight to our afternoon schedule.

I know, every year at this time I dwell on DST, so if you’re tired of hearing it, come back tomorrow — there’ll be a different subject….
One of the reasons Daylight Saving Time started was because of time zones. Time zones were introduced by major railroad companies in 1883 to avoid confusion that caused train crashes because of different local times. These time zones were enforced by the Interstate Commerce Commission and it also enforced daylight saving time years later in order to help the World War I effort.
(Germany had incorporated daylight saving time during World War I to conserve fuel and power. The idea was that if there were more hours of daylight in the day, people would spend more time outside and less time inside, therefore saving energy. Apparently the U.S. thought that was a good idea and incorporated daylight saving time as well.)

After the war, daylight saving time was abolished, but some states chose to continue using it. That created the confusion with transportation all over again, so daylight saving time was reincorporated nationally. 

So the argument continues — those favoring DST think it contributes to improved road safety, and a decrease in robberies — the extra daylight gives people more time for outdoor recreation, and the brighter evening boosts the tourism industry and local economies.
Opponents claim there is no justification to continue using daylight saving time — it doesn’t save energy and we’re not in the midst of a world war. It’s nothing but a nuisance that messes with our biological clock and life.

But no matter what you think, we’ll all be changing our clocks before we go to bed tonight or tomorrow — or at least some of them. A lot of ours automatically change — if we do away with DST, I wonder if all our appliances will be smart enough to know it — or — will we need to get all new stuff — or — maybe we’ll just have chaos…..
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A few weeks ago a friend loaned me a book to read. Claire mentioned that she’s like to read it and after I finished, she read it. We just returned the book. I finished the book in 2 or 3 days and Claire did the same.

But that often isn’t the case — we both have different criteria for books…. in the past, I pretty much always finished a book that I started and Claire often didn’t. Well, of course that got me to thinking. Should you finish every book you start?

I have a friend that says he always reads a book to the end, no matter what, because he’d feel like a quitter if he didn’t. I think Claire’s philosophy is that life is too short to read bad books. Obviously there’s no right answer to the question, but here’s some of my thoughts, and I have to admit that in the last few years, my view has changed a bit.

My original thinking was that if you give up on a book in the middle because  you don’t like a character, plot development, or something else, you may miss out — your opinion might change if you finish the book. Your opinion might not change, but you’ll never know if you don’t finish it.

But — things change…. I’ve gotten older and I’m more likely to abandon a book if it isn’t working for me. Reading is a personal experience and it shouldn’t be a chore. I’ve also become a little more particular about what I read — just because a book is on the best seller list or everyone’s talking about it doesn’t any longer inspire me to want to read it. I’ve kind of settled in to reading things that truly interest me. Someone once said if you read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking, or something like that. So I just read what interests me — I’m not concerned with other people’s opinions. 

I appreciate the fact that the author took the trouble to write the whole book and maybe I do owe it to that author to read the whole book before judging it. I guess I agree that I shouldn’t judge the book without finishing it, but there’s no reason I have to Judge it — if I’m not enjoying it, I just quit reading.
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Every time I go to the doctor, I’m told to “stay off ladders.” I suppose that’s good advice at my age and, probably, good advice in general.

Ladders have been associated with bad luck I guess just about as long as they’ve existed. That’s all chalked up to superstition, but actually there’s some truth to that superstition. According to OSHA, falls from ladders account for about 20% of all falls and lost workday injuries. I couldn’t find any statistics on accidents caused by walking under ladders, but just the same….

From Egyptian times, ladders were believed to be used to help spirits climb to heaven. Walking under a ladder might disturb and anger a spirit who was using it. In the Middle Ages, walking under a ladder was unlucky because leaning a ladder against a wall formed a triangle. This symbol of divine trinity, Father Son and Holy Spirit, was broken when someone walked through it. But there was another powerful reason for staying away from ladders. Before gallows were invented, criminals were hung from the top rungs of ladders, and their angry ghosts might still be “hanging around.”

But if you do happen to walk under a ladder, there are several ways you can reverse any bad luck coming your way. The “historic” solution is to spit three times through the rungs. This seems to work — maybe it just disgusts the evil spirits into leaving you alone.
So my doctor apparently knows what she’s talking about — be wary of ladders…..
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Back in January, I talked about Friday the 13th and that some people believe Fridays and the number 13 are related to bad luck. If you happened to read that entry, you may remember that I mentioned the Code of Hammurabi. I mentioned it because the Code of Hammurabi is famous for a list of “laws” numbered #1 to #282 — except there is no #13.

Anyhow, the story of King Hammurabi is interesting…. he’s one of the few characters that caught my attention and interested me during my ancient history college courses.
Hammurabi was the king of Babylon. Sometime around 1789 B.C. he decided to have his favorite laws carved into an eight-foot high stone column. At the top, his royal artists carved a picture of the great king on his throne. Below that carving is the text, that begins with a rambling message from Hammurabi, in which he calls himself “the exalted prince” and vows to “destroy the wicked and evil-doers.” On the rest of the column is carved a list of laws from #1 to $282, called the Code of Hammurabi. It’s thought that the code was displayed in a conspicuous place, like maybe the town square. That way, nobody had an excuse for breaking the law.

The laws are arranged in orderly groups — a cluster of laws governing slaves are grouped together, laws concerning marriage and inheritance are in another group, and so on. Some of the laws you’ve heard about — like, and eye for an eye. It’s specified in Law #196 this way — “If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.” Pretty basic — a tooth for a tooth is covered under Law #200. There’s no mention of prison — the only alternatives were fines, a death sentence, or like the eye and tooth, the occasional “pound of flesh.”

Crimes and their punishment had a direct correlation to social status. Unless the crime was serious, the higher up you were on the social ladder, the less severely you were punished. The poor slobs clustered around the bottom of the social ladder paid dearly — often with their lives. A good example is Law #8 — it covers the theft of livestock. Say someone steals a goat. If the goat belonged to “a god,” i.e., was stolen from a temple (the very top of the social scale) the thief had to pay 30 times the worth of the goat. If the goat belonged to a “free man.” someone a step up from a regular citizen, the thief had to pay less — just 10 times the amount. If the thief was too poor to pay the fine, he was put to death. 

Actually, there were a lot of opportunities for the average Babylonian to be sentenced to death. Here’s some of the crimes that called for capital punishment….
You would be put to death for:
• Accusing someone of a crime without proof.
• Falsely accusing someone of a crime
• Stealing the property of a temple or a court. 
• Receiving the stolen property of a temple or a court.
• Stealing a slave.
• Breaking and entering.
• Committing a robbery.
• Allowing conspirators to meet in your tavern.
• Violating a virgin who is promised in marriage to another.

Even innocent bystanders could be included in the death sentence. Law #229 states that a house builder will be put to death if the house he built falls in and kills the owner. The next Law #230, adds that if it kills the son of the owner, the son of that builder shall be put to death.
In most cases, the exact manner of death is not specified, but in some cases, it’s well-defined:
• If a wife and her lover had their mates (her husband and the other man’s wife) murdered, both of them shall be impaled.
• If a robbery is committed during a fire, the criminal will be thrown into that “self-same fire.” I guess that doesn’t leave much time for a trial….
• If you’re a priestess and you own or enter a tavern, you’ll be burned to death.

The punishments for minor offenses weren’t as severe… but you could have your hands cut off if:
• You’re a surgeon who kills someone during surgery.
• You hit your father.
• You steal plants from a farm owner you work for.

You could have your ear cut off if:
• You’re a slave who says to his master, “You are not my master.”

Apparently the Babylonians weren’t much for swimming, or even knew much about it. If a crime couldn’t be proven, the accused would be thrown into the water. If she (it was usually a she) floated, she was innocent. If she didn’t she drowned.
Crimes for which you would be thrown into the water:
• If your husband accused you of being unfaithful, but couldn’t catch you in the act.
• If you quarreled with your husband for no reason, then left him or neglected him.

There was another level of punishment when you wouldn’t be given the option of trying to stay afloat. You would be tied up and thrown into the water if:
• Your husband surprised you with another man, or if you were the other man with the wife when the husband surprised her.

At first, these laws seem a little harsh — in fact it doesn’t appear the Babylonians were doing anything that doesn’t happen every day in our society. But — then there’s the goddess Ishtar, a.k.a. “The Great Whore of Babylon.”
Ishtar was the goddess of war and sexual love, and the most powerful goddess in the Mesopotamian religion. If you wanted to be part of the cult (and everyone did) you had to participate. Every female citizen was expected to go at least once in her life to the temple of Ishtar and offer herself to any male worshiper who paid the required contribution. There was no shame attached to being one of Ishtar’s prostitutes — in fact, it was considered a sacred means of attaining divine union between man and goddess.

I read some time back, that in 1901 a team of archeologists, led by a French scholar, found the fairly well-preserved column we call the Code of Hammurabi, in Persia. Besides its importance as a historical find, it gives us a pretty good look into the customs of ancient Mesopotamia. The column is on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris. If you visit, you can verify that there is no Law #13. Apparently the Babylonians were superstitious, too.
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Today is Cinco de Marcho — not Cinco de Mayo — that’s on the 5th of May. This holiday has been around since 2007 and is celebrated annually on March 5th.
This “made-up” holiday was invented by a man that goes by the name of Carlos Fantastico. But his true identity is a mystery. 

Cinco de Mayo simply means “the fifth of May” in Spanish. It marks the anniversary of May 5, 1862, when the Mexican army won the Battle of Puebla. It’s recognized in Mexico, but mostly celebrated in the United States. And that’s true of Cinco de Marcho — it’s a mostly U.S. “holiday.” 

The idea behind Cinco de Marcho is that on the fifth of March, Carlos Fantastico was in a Mexican restaurant and realized that St. Patrick’s Day was right around the corner. So why not have a holiday that would celebrate both cultures? A holiday with a Mexican name, celebrating the drinking associated with St. Patrick’s Day — a way to simultaneously celebrate both cultures — what a great idea.

However, contrary to popular belief, Cinco de Marcho isn’t about excessive drinking. Carlos Fantastico views the day as training for light drinkers. Those with low alcohol tolerance can start building their alcohol tolerance starting on Cinco de Marcho to prepare their liver for the upcoming St. Patrick celebrations.

So if you’re out and about today, remember that Cinco de Marcho is a combination of the traditions of both St. Patrick’s Day and Cinco de Mayo. You may see sombreros, margaritas, four leaf clovers and glasses of Guinness all mixed together — just remember it’s March 5th, and you’ll remember why.
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There’s a lot of indicators that I’m getting old, but one of them kind of came as a surprise to me — when I listen to the news, some of the words they use don’t make any sense. This is especially true when I try to understand political “news.” I realize politics has a language of their own, but some of the words they use nowadays apparently have taken on a whole new meaning than when I “learned” them in school.

One word that puzzles me is “woke.” Watching the news the other night, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, pretty much indicated that all the current problems that America faces mostly stem from “wokeness.” 
I think woke means, or at least used to mean, socially aware, or empathetic. Apparently, not anymore.
Governor DeSantis recently signed a Stop Woke Act into law and bragged about it during his “midterm victory speech.” In Washington, there is talk in the House of Representatives of forming an “anti-woke caucus.”
It seems like woke is the blame for everything from deadly mass shootings to increased medical costs.

My extensive research found that “woke” was once used largely by black people, encouraging them to stay mindful of racism in America. Its use was fueled by black musicians, social media and the #BlackLivesMatter movement and the term only entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017 — by then it had become more of a fashionable buzzword than a set of values.

The term is now mostly used by political figures — maybe because it doesn’t actually mean anything. That might be part of its appeal — one can slam “wokeness” to oppose various issues without spelling out any specific objections. 

So after all my extensive research, I’ve decided that “woke” is interesting, but, at least for me, it’s just kind of an unusable word — because it doesn’t actually mean anything. Actually, it obviously means something — I just don’t know what….
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Today is a day I always look forward to — the first day of March. No matter what the weather turns out to be, I just seem to feel better knowing it’s March. I realize it’s not quite spring, but winter is certainly in the rear-view mirror. 

March is named for the Roman god of War, Mars. This was the time of year to resume military campaigns that had been interrupted by winter.
Lots of thing happen in March….
The vernal equinox, the return of Daylight Saving Time, St. Patrick’s Day, “March Madness.” Cinco de Marcho, Pi Day, and of course, the Ides of March.
March’s full Moon is called the Worm Moon and reaches peak illumination on the morning of Tuesday, March 7. 

I’ve always heard that if March comes in like al lion, it will go out like a lamb — which means that if the month starts off stormy, it will end with mild weather. However, there is another interpretation of the lion/lamb proverb. The constellation Leo, the lion, rises in the east at the beginning of March and thus the month “comes in like a lion,” while Aries, the ram, sets in the west at the end of the month, and hence, the month “will go out like a lamb.”

The vernal, or spring, equinox occurs on March 20 and marks the start of spring (in the Northern Hemisphere.)
The “Ides of March” was a day in the Roman calendar equivalent to March 15th. It was considered a deadline for settling debts. It was also the day Julius Caesar was assassinated.
Every year, March and June finish on the same day of the week.
St Patrick’s Day occurs every March 17th and is celebrated in many western countries to commemorate the day Saint Patrick died.

Statistically, March is the most unproductive Month of the year in the U.S. It’s said that this is the result of “March Madness,” Some companies lose up to $1.9 billion in wages paid to workers who were not productive and instead spent company time betting on the games.
On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell made the first-ever phone call. It was to his assistant and he said, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.”
The Eiffel Tower was ascended for the first time during March. Eiffel himself led a group of government officials and members of the press to the top. The elevators were not in operation yet, so the journey was made on foot and took over an hour. 

So I don’t care how March comes in, I’m just glad it’s here….
Goodbye February — Hello (and welcome) March.
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Yesterday, I talked about Edgar Allan Poe kind of being the “inventor” of the modern detective story. So I guess it’s only fitting that when he died, his death was kind of “mysterious.”

Most people agree that Poe was a literary genius, but much of his writings were disturbing because his stories were gruesome and involved death and/or injury. His life was short — and mostly unhappy. 
He was alway known as a “hard drinker,” but when his young wife got tuberculosis and died five years later, Poe regularly hit the bottle even harder.

In the late summer of 1849, he was in Richmond, Virginia and he proposed to an old sweetheart, Elmira Shelton. On September 27, 1849, Poe left Richmond, bound for Philadelphia. What happened the next few days is uncertain — his actions and whereabouts are not known. But on October 3, a passerby noticed Poe slumped near an Irish pub in Baltimore. When Poe’s friend, Dr. Joseph Snodgrass arrived, he found Poe in what he assumed was a highly drunken state, wearing cheap, ill-fitting clothes — very different from his usual mode of dress. He was taken to Washington College Hospital, where he slipped in and out of consciousness. He died early on the morning of October 7. He was 40 years old.

Poe’s death left a mystery that hasn’t been “solved.” No death certificate was filed and a Baltimore newspaper reported his cause of death as “congestion of the brain” — a polite way of saying alcohol poisoning. Aside from alcoholism, historians and biographers have suggested alternative causes of death ranging from lesions on the brain, epilepsy and tuberculosis, cholera, syphilis and even rabies. Another popular theory is that Poe may have been a victim of so-called “cooping,” a common practice at the time in which Baltimore’s notoriously corrupt politicians paid thugs to kidnap down-and-out men, especially the homeless. The victims were drugged, disguised and forced to vote over and over at different polling places, then left for dead. Those that support the cooping theory point out Poe’s unfamiliar and ill-fitting clothes, as well as the fact that citywide elections were held in Baltimore the day he was found — and — the Irish pub near where he was found functioned as both a bar and a voting place.

The mystery surrounding Poe’s death would have made a good book to add to his “detective series.”
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