I just back from a Math Conference in Westfield MA (very near my hometown). The Conference was great. My University payed for the rental of the van to get down, and for rooms in the Marriott in Springfield. I heard some great papers on Game Theory, Number Theory, Set Theory, Probability, and the History of Mathematics. One of the talks was on Phi. Now, Phi is a really, really, really cool number! Look at this, how can anyone not find this cool:
It is the most irrational number. Pi has nothing on Phi.
And Phi has this other cool property called the "recurrence relation."
or for the special case of n=1,
It also works for n=2, but in that case, it is:
(PHI)^2=(PHI)+1 (sorry, no image)
So, yeah, Phi is cool. Want to know what else is cool? The shirt for the conference! I have one ordered, I should get it in a few weeks.
I am going to try and sleep now. I haven't gotten too much in the last few days. I will get the blogging I meant to get done, but it will be tomorrow.
Yours in Christ,
Thursday
7 comments:
Ok, the equations and numbers sort of make my eyes glaze over, but that's a hilarious t-shirt. Glad you had fun.
Well, I am not sure that phi is the "most irrational" number and "pi has nothing on phi".
Yes, phi is irrational (its decimal expansion neither ends nor repeats as it is not a fraction of integers) but it is NOT transcendental, for phi is a root of:
x^2-x-1=0
which is an algebraic equation with integer coefficients, and thus is NOT transcendental, whereas both pi and e are transcendental as well as irrational.
But you are right that phi is VERY cool, and it does indeed have many wonderful and interesting and useful properties. It comes up in computer science with trees, the Fibonacci sequence, and Pascal's triancle, and also in biology and architecture. And there's a great book on it called The Divine Proportion by H. E. Huntley, available from Dover.
It would be fun to go to a conference and get a shirt... thank God the Chesterton conference is coming up in June!
w00t! I'll be there in June! I can hardly wait.
Hey, I'll be there too! I know I can't wait for it.
Yours in Christ,
Thursday
Excellent! I look forward to meeting you... Perhaps Thursday evening? hee hee!
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