Wednesday August 30, 2006 6:30 am Williamsburg, Virginia. Day 15 of our trip to Virginia.

A. Morning Musings

6:30 am The time we will be spending in Williamsburg is now beginning to take shape, and as with most good things, it is not what we had anticipated. This is truly a very large and very well planned and executed tourist and information center. One could easily spend a couple of weeks here and still only scratch the surface of all that is available. We now have a 2-day pass to see Colonial Williamsburg area and will be on site by 9:30 am. We expect to be spending much of today and tomorrow touring this area with a little genealogy work in the late afternoon and evening. Friday is still the target date for beginning the return trip home.

The entire day yesterday, as well as today and tomorrow should be classified as History learning even though I have no notes on the day. Yesterday we were in the early 1600's. Today we fast forward almost 200 years to the 1780's.

B. Plan

Visit to Colonial Williamsburg.

C. Actual/Notes

8:00 PM Bob drove me over to the William & Mary university bookstore this afternoon where I spent two good hours in the math and science sections. Here is a list of damages:

• Common Errors in Statistics (And How to Avoid Them) (2006) Phillip Good & James Hardin.
  • This looks like an excellent book on some of the difficulties encountered when one actually tries to conduct research and analyse data. It should be a lot of fun.
• Prime Numbers (2005) David Wells.
  • This looks like a great elementary introduction to the topic. Much of this is older number theory where one stays close to the numbers rather than the newer field of analytical number theory which involves functions and approximation approaches. Another book I can hardly wait to begin reading.
• Fearless Symmetry (2006) Avner Ash & Robert Gross
  • The subtitle of this book is Exposing the Hidden Patterns of Numbers. It looks like a good supplement to the book on prime numbers.
• Entangled World (2006) Jurgen Audretsch (Ed.)
  • The subtitle is The Fascination of Quantum Information and Computation. I am looking for a good book that explains the concept of entanglement and this may well be it.
• Categories on the Beauty of Physics (2005) Hillery Hugg
  • This looks like a unique book that blends contributions from physics, art and literature. Superb!
• The Singularity is Near (2005) Ray Kurzweil
  • This looks like a speculative vision of the future when people and computers become one integrated organism.
• Divine Proportion: Phi in Art, Nature and Science (2005) Priya Hemenway
  • This looks like a book that combines many of the ideas of the above symmetry and categories books.

D. Reflection