Rationals, Cantor, ALEPH August 30, 2006
Posted by trmurphy in Books, Life and Ramblings.add a comment
The Mystery of the ALEPH, Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Search for Infinity. by Amir D. Aczel.
I picked up the book on one of Barnes & Nobel’s elCheapo bargain tables for only $7.99. It was a real buy as I thourghly enjoyed the entire read. The central theme was infinity and it’s place in Mathematics History from Greek times through the present. Brief descriptions of the contributions of many important mathematicians are woven together with emphasis on basic principles, and especially the contributions and tribulations of Georg Cantor. The author makes a good case that “the intensity of actual infinity” caused Godel, Cantor and perhaps others to descend “into madness from the intense introspection that studying the continuum hypothesis entailed.” I had never understood that there were multiple orders of infinity.
I liked the review of classifying numbers (and their understanding through history): integers, reals, irrationals, etc. I was particularly taken with the ideas on pages 111-113 where he talks about the countablility of integers and rationals. Cantor’s Diagonalization Proof of the Denumerability of Rational numbers. For the hell of it entered the “infinite” “table” of rational numbers on page 112 to an Excel spreadsheet. It helped me see the relations between some fractions and “repeating decimal” numbers… (I’ve always been taken with the fact that such very common fractions (eg. 1/7 (.285714….) have a small number of digits that repeat for ever) )
I will be amazed if somebody both reads this esoteric Blog entry AND takes the trouble to look at this spreadsheet. Ah, the journey of it all….
Proposed Help….. for this Blog August 18, 2006
Posted by trmurphy in My Links.add a comment
I thought I’d try and make a HELP page. Then I thought, I might as well blog it first. Somebody might critique it… It is meant for those new to blogs. Don’t know whether I succeeded. Let me know.
Help Using This Blog
I’m not sure how to fix some quirks .. eg. some stuff is highlighted as though it is a link, but it’s not. I think the best advice is: let the cursor (the little hand/index finger) hover over colored text. If it IS a link, it will react in one of two ways: 1) Turn from black to blue or 2) Removes the underline and shows a comment in a little box. If it is blue, but not a link, it might react with a big I, but nothing happens if you left-click on it. In the case of 1&2, a left click uses that link to take you someplace. For example, under Categories, click on the link Tomside, that will take you to ONLY my blog articles which I tagged as being Tomside (stuff on my side of the family; vs. Liz’s). That’s the way all the Categories work. They help you avoid the stuff you’re not interested in….
Most of the links in the sidebar (the column on the right), work the same. Hover on “On Tap Too” and it should bring a little box that explains:”Recent Photos”. A left mouse click will take you to the Photo Gallery.
Underneath the Title of each Blog entry is a blue text line with links of type 2: For example, “1 comment so far”. Hovering over it will remove the underline; left click will take you to the “1 comment so far”. Click on the blue date……….and you’ll go NOWHERE. Sorry, about that, I only write the content, NOT the programming… 
Search: Sorry about that too. I just tried it… and it doesn’t seem to work. More later.
MORE on the SIDEBAR: Recent Comments and Archives are pretty self-explanatory. Meta can safely be ignored. and now FEEDS.
Feeds are one of the newer fads on the internet; and kind of hard to figure out. Most of the other “links” take you some place. Try ‘em; can’t hurt… the worst that can happen is you have to hit the green BACK arrow on the top line of your browser. Feeds are a little more involved. A feed from a site is a way of letting you know when something new is put on the site. It can save you from having to visit the site and see if anything changed, and whether it’s of interest to you. What you first do is pick an “aggregateor”. That’s a site that will keep a lookout for changes and make a list of them for you when YOU want to look at them. MyYahoo is what I use. It’s free. There are many more. But, of course, you have to tell the aggregator. What you’re interested in monitoring. That’s where the little orange icons come in. Usually it has RSS inside the orange background. On a WordPress blog, it is orange with some quarter circles inside; look down at the bottom of the righthand sidebar on my Blog. One of them, FULL, is for monitoring posting of any new post to the log. The other is just for comments. So…….. what you do is “copy” the link (RIGHT click on the orange icon), go to your “aggregator” eg. Yahoo’s MyYahoo!, or whatever. On their page, you’ll find a little blue icon (link) “Add Content”. Click on it. You get a sort of form labeled “Find Content”. Press the “Add Content” once more!!! NOW Paste the link you copied earlier into the white space. Click “Add RSS by URL”. That’s it!! You’re done. Now anytime you go to your “aggregator”, eg. MyYahoo!, you’ see the stuff you asked Yahoo to show you, AND any NEW stuff from your RSS feeds; be they my blog; or whatever. As RSS grows up, I’m sure it will get much more friendly. But for now, that’s what it takes…
Links & Leaps August 17, 2006
Posted by trmurphy in Genealogy, TomSide.add a comment
It’s curious how your mind makes links & leaps in exploring a topic. The guest priest at St. Patrick’s in East Hampton, Ct. this Sunday was from the Phillippines. This reminded me of my Uncle Harold, a Jesuit Missionary in the Philippines from 1937 to his his death in 1970. Relooking at this 1945 artical
yesterday, for the first time I realized he must have been in the Army. I’d read the piece a number of times, but never caught the implication of “Chaplain” Murphy. When did he join? How and where did he serve in the Philippines? And most important, where is he buried? So I collected most of the material I had into a webpage. There is always something new in the Genealogy Hobby to explore; and the net makes it much more possible for an amateur
WordOn Flather August 9, 2006
Posted by trmurphy in Machinery.add a comment
This was made up so I could ask for help on a few questions about operating a Flather lathe. They are in the text next to the pictures… I tried to used the same names which Don England used.
1. How is the HW (Hand Wheel) Coupler used?
2. Knurled Knob 1 is used for ??
3. Knurled Knob 2 is for ??
4. How are the 3 positions of the Lead Screw Engager used?
5. The motor and transmission are obviously addons to the original belt driven Flather. Any body seen such a transmission?
6. I’ll edit this with the serial number._____. What’s yours?
7. If I can get some useful comments, I’ll make up a “Flather User Manual” for general availability. Care to help?
8. Sure would be nice to locate a Flather user manual. Did one EVER exist?
