Monday, April 18, 2011 Lethbridge

6:30 am

The temperature is -7 C, with a high predicted of 0 C.

From the Environment Canada website:

Today A few flurries ending this afternoon then cloudy. High zero. Tonight Clear. Increasing cloudiness near midnight with 40 percent chance of flurries overnight. Low minus 7. Normals Max: 14°C Min: 0°C

6:35 am tag: Morning Musings

Looking out the windows this morning reminds me of winter - snow on the ground and cold temperatures. With the high cloud the same color as the ground, it is a dreary beginning to the week. What hurts is that the forecast for the next 5 days shows little change.

On the plus side the coffee is hot and tastes good.

Doing anything with the back yard landscaping is now on hold, together with geocaching. I may try a little birding to see if the migrating waterfowl are on any of the lakes, now that they seem to be open. But I will have to dress warmly (gloves, toque, winter jacket, boots). I'm not sure this makes much sense.

Indoors, the primary activities appear to be Mathematics (Linear Algebra) and Technology (Dreamweaver CS5). Both activities require an alert mind.

I could start building a structure for my model train layout but the trains themselves cannot run until my throttle and base station are returned from MRC. That may happen this week, but maybe not. I have no way of knowing.

And then there is leisurely reading. Mark Twain's autobiography fits this bill nicely. So does the James Gleick book on information. And the book "Three Cups of Tea" is now in the headlines as there are claims that some of the details in the story did not actually happen.

Time for a second cup, and a look at "Introduction to Linear Algebra". The front cover is more than a pretty picture. The back cover describes the front cover. But at the moment I do not understand the back cover.

I will be delighted if I reach the point where this makes sense to me.

10:50 am tag: Mathematics

A very good session. There is an aspect of 2 steps forward, 1 back. Or maybe 2 steps forward and 2 steps back. Anyway I made a few notes on sections 1.3 and 2.1 and am now beginning to appreciate Strang's emphasis on thinking in terms of linear combinations of vectors.

I then went back to the MIT web site for this course and realized that it included transcripts of the lectures as well as the video file. I printed the transcript for lecture 1 and then marked this up with red ink while watching the video. This worked very well. I now feel that I genuinely understand the lecture.

I also noted that the website specifies a set of problem set assignments. Although there are only two problems identified for each of the textbook sections, they tend to be near the end of the section and often include challenge problems. There are pdf files that give solutions to these problems so one can decided for oneself whether it was done properly. It may also be a good strategy to try some of the earlier problems as warm-ups.

I now feel that I have completed the basic material for chapter 1 Introduction to Vectors. It has been an eye-opener as it has introduced me to some totally new ideas involving the linear combinations of vectors. Great!

But I still need to try problems 23 & 28 from section 1.2 and problems 4 & 13 from section 1.3.

I am progressing rather slowly, but am feeling comfortable with what I understand at this point.

7:30 PM tag: Photography

Here are 4 photos taken earlier today.

No sign (yet) of the crocuses from a few days ago.

9:30 PM tag: Technology

This is a short entry. As soon as the hockey game was over on tv, I picked up the iPad and began browsing the ebooks that were available. Within a few minutes I discovered that a new book on Richard Feynman had been published. A quick scan of the description and reader reviews and I was soon out another $9.99. I have now read about 48 pages (out of 320) and am enjoying it, very much. The emphasis is on the physics, and the descriptions Lawrence Krauss gives are very clear.

I have only had the iPad a short time and have already purchased 3 books from Kindle and read 1 free one from iBook (Apple). The iPad is having an immediate effect on my time (and wallet - although nowhere near as much as it would be if I were buying all of these in hardcover format). And I delight in the yellow highlighting!