Robert A Nowlan
Biographic Data
| ID | 8754732 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert A Nowlan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert A |
| FAMILY NAME | Nowlan |
| SIGNATURE | NOWLAN R A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Southern Connecticut State University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 38 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 38 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
All About ‘e’ (Well, Almost All)
Leonhard Euler identified the base of the natural logarithm system with the letter ‘e.’ “Why did he [Euler] choose the letter e? There is no consensus. According to one view, Euler chose it because it is the first letter of the word exponential. More likely, the choice came to him naturally, since the letters a, b, c, and d frequently appeared elsewhere in mathematics. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is e…
Doing the Impossible
Would not the world be a far better place if humans could somehow control the weather? Not just better tracking of storms and disasters hurricanes and tornados, other natural disasters, the never ending snow or rain; drought conditions, starvation but preventing them or minimizing them. Don’t fool with Mother Nature we have been warned – but we must. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the…
Everything has Causes
It has long been that the human race considered themselves to be the center of the universe, and everything is meant to be at their disposal to do with whatever they desire. Is that no longer the case? Don’t be so sure. How often do you think about the cause and effect of things? For a long time, humans felt no need to consider such questions, since God was the cause of everything and the effects were to dealt with not to be understood. These key…
Islamic Golden Age and Beyond
The gods were lazing around Mount Olympus, complaining that they got no respect anymore from human beings, who once feared them so much they went out of their way to appease the immortals. “It’s all your fault,” Hera says to her husband Zeus, king of the gods. “If you hadn’t given that silly jar to that female human Pandora and tempted her to open it and let out all the evils of humanity.” “I remember her she was a lovely woman, the first female …
Master and Student
In Europe, during the middle ages, without knowledge of Latin and Greek, you probably would get only a rudimentary education. Whatever your European nationality if you were not a member of the upper-class or a novice monk, the riddles would mean nothing to you. With the invention of the movable type printing press by German Johannes Gutenberg (1450), more books became available to people. However, they were still written in Latin and Greek. Books…
And, Yet it Moves
Is there anything on which everyone can agree? That’s the trouble with ‘truth.’ Everyone seeks it, and controversy occurs when it’s found. Can there be contradictory truths? If something is believed to be true, can it be replaced by a new truth? Is there anything that is an absolute truth unaffected by any changing conditions? Are controversies about truth arguments about relative truths, that is, ones that are so subject to certain circumstances…
The Man Who Loved Only Numbers
What follows is a fictional introduction to an itinerant mathematician whose life was so devoted to number theory that he did without all the things that people usually desire. It could have happened this way. Twins Jack and Jill are at home when the doorbell rings. Opening the door, they find a little elderly man, who looks a bit like Woody Allen. Without identifying himself, he announces “My mind is open.” “What does that mean,” Jill inquires. …
Streaker
Have you ever felt that you’ve been cheated, but have no proof? What can you do about it? It’s what King Hiero II of Syracuse who reigned between 263 and 215 BCE was wondering. He’d commissioned a crown of pure gold to be fashioned into a laurel leaf wreath to be a votive crown for a temple. He’d supplied the goldsmith with the exact weight of gold he’d asked for, and the crown weighed exactly that when tested, but there were the reports that the…
Gematria/Numerology
A young man is escorted into the office of an editor for a famous publishing house. He declares he has an idea for an entirely new story plot. The significant, a woman in her mid-forties, looks across her mahogany desk and makes a quick character study of her visitor. He appears to be about twenty-five, handsome enough, red-haired, with many freckles on his face. He has an eager and confident look about himself. While she’s making her inspection …
Mathematics as a Labor-Saving Device
How far and how fast do the planets move? What are the paths they follow? To find answers, we need to multiply some enormous numbers, say 3578126785 by 64532164 (don’t worry, you won’t have to), or divide some humongous quantities, say 1246038849 by 269181. These problems are found in The Progressive Higher Arithmetic for Schools, Academies and Mercantile Colleges by Daniel W. Fish, published by Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Co. in 1876.1 Clearly; t…
No Mathematical Work is Ever Wasted
It often happens that in seeking a solution to one problem leads to unanticipated discoveries. Scientists in the late 19th century sought means of describing atoms. Among these was the famous Scottish physicist and mathematician Sir William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, he of the temperature scale. The atomic theory was first proposed around 460 B.C. by the Greek philosopher, Democritus. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This p…
A Short History of π
A verse in I Kings of the Old Testament of the Bible reads, “Also he made a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and five cubits in height thereof; and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.” 1 That is, the molten sea was round, 30 cubits in circumference and ten cubits in diameter, giving a Biblical calculation of π as 30/10 = 3. 2 At the beginning of recorded history people saw circles in nature, both great…
Large and Small
It’s a sunny spring Sunday afternoon in New Jersey in the 1920s. Three people are taking a walk: a couple of boisterous boys, Milton and Edwin Sirotta the former around nine years old, the other slightly younger; and their uncle, Edward Kasner, a happy-go-lucky professor of mathematics at Columbia University. The professor invented a game for the boys to play to see who can spot the extreme examples of things; the largest tree and the smallest on…
Logic and Diagrams
Each of the previous represents a fundamental fact about logical reasoning. Here’s the problem The primary interest of mathematicians is not to discover truths, but rather to develop valid proofs. In geometry, there is a theorem; you might remember from high school geometry. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Doubter
How can you communicate with aliens from a different solar system? The most likely means of communicating with aliens elsewhere in the universe will be through mathematics, something to which any intelligent life form is liable to have access. 1 Suppose you discover that some aliens know about numbers, but can’t visualize shapes. How can you describe simple shapes such as a straight line, a curved line, a circle and a square in ways they can unde…
Sable Genius and Creating Washington D.C.
The fact that few Black Americans were noted for their contributions to mathematics and science is apparent. They were given few opportunities to do so, considered of inferior intelligence by the majority of whites. Without opportunity, it’s hard to fulfill one’s promise. In this episode, we acquaint readers with one of the earliest blacks to make contributions to both mathematics and science despite having to cope with a lack of much formal educ…
Computer Pioneer
In the insurance industry probabilities of events must be determined, so that rates are established. These differ for policyholders contracting same insurance policies depending on several analyzable rating factors. As part of the analytical procedures, Actuaries use statistics to estimate and manage risk when evaluating policy applications and setting premium rates. Based on probability, some individuals pose a higher risk and are more probable …
What Else Did Euler Do?
On Sundays after church residents of the city of Königsberg in Prussia (Kaliningrad, Russia) in the 18th-century promenade around the city and greet friends as they cross paths. At that time, the city was set on both sides of the Pregel River (Pregolya River) and included two large islands which were connected to each other and the mainland by seven bridges.
I Have Never Done Anything Like Others
‘How Long Is the Coast of Britain?’ is the title of a 1967 essay authored by Polishborn mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot (November 20, 1924–October 14, 2010). Think about the question and other queries are bound to occur to you. Just exactly what is to be measured? How is it to be measured? Will the answer have to be an approximation? What accuracy is sought and are there instruments to perform the measurement. These keywords were added by machine…
No Saint
The screenwriter sat in the office of a producer to pitch an idea for a movie. "A mathematician!" the latter shouted. "Who wants to see a movie about a mathematician?" "Well," said the writer, "The Movie, A Beautiful Mind, was very successful." "Oh, yeah, that was the biopic of John Nash, who won a Nobel Prize in Economics. But he was touched in the head, and that made him interesting." 'The guy I have in mind makes Nash look like as normal as a …
Rabbits & Patterns
Mathematics are the result of mysterious powers which no one understands, and which the unconscious recognition of beauty must play an important part. Out of an infinity of designs, a mathematician chooses one pattern for beauty’s sake and pulls it down to earth. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Magic Squares and Art
For centuries, people believed there is magic in numbers. Many still do, including numerologists and their clients. Others enjoy testing their skill in solving math challenges. At present the game of Sudoku, a logic-based combinatorial numberplacement puzzle is extraordinarily popular. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Proof
We have danced around the notion of ‘proof’ throughout this book, not to avoid it, but to delay discussing it in a way to advance readers’ mathematical literacy. Those, who have been exposed to proofs in their school days may have come away with very little understanding what constitutes a ‘proof’, and why proofs are necessary. In most cases, other fields must depend upon mathematics to provide proofs of their theories. These keywords were added …
Nurse
More than six times as many soldiers died in a hospital than in battle. These deaths are avoidable. However, raw data seldom inspires people to do something about problems. It must be compiled in a way that the problem is clear, and the solution is suggested. Figures must be presented in such a way that it will make people stop, think, and act. How do you convince the powers that be to make certain that soldiers who are wounded fighting for the i…
Puzzlers
The tangram (“seven boards of skill”) is a dissection puzzle game. It originated in China’s Song Dynasty. Each tangram puzzle has seven pieces, called tans, cut from a single large square. The pieces are two large triangles, one medium-sized triangle, two small triangles, one square, and one parallelogram (1). They can be fit together to form shapes. The objective is to form a particular shape using all seven pieces (2). These keywords were added…
No prominent works on this page.
All About ‘e’ (Well, Almost All)
Leonhard Euler identified the base of the natural logarithm system with the letter ‘e.’ “Why did he [Euler] choose the letter e? There is no consensus. According to one view, Euler chose it because it is the first letter of the word exponential. More likely, the choice came to him naturally, since the letters a, b, c, and d frequently appeared elsewhere in mathematics. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is e…
Doing the Impossible
Would not the world be a far better place if humans could somehow control the weather? Not just better tracking of storms and disasters hurricanes and tornados, other natural disasters, the never ending snow or rain; drought conditions, starvation but preventing them or minimizing them. Don’t fool with Mother Nature we have been warned – but we must. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the…
Everything has Causes
It has long been that the human race considered themselves to be the center of the universe, and everything is meant to be at their disposal to do with whatever they desire. Is that no longer the case? Don’t be so sure. How often do you think about the cause and effect of things? For a long time, humans felt no need to consider such questions, since God was the cause of everything and the effects were to dealt with not to be understood. These key…
Islamic Golden Age and Beyond
The gods were lazing around Mount Olympus, complaining that they got no respect anymore from human beings, who once feared them so much they went out of their way to appease the immortals. “It’s all your fault,” Hera says to her husband Zeus, king of the gods. “If you hadn’t given that silly jar to that female human Pandora and tempted her to open it and let out all the evils of humanity.” “I remember her she was a lovely woman, the first female …
Master and Student
In Europe, during the middle ages, without knowledge of Latin and Greek, you probably would get only a rudimentary education. Whatever your European nationality if you were not a member of the upper-class or a novice monk, the riddles would mean nothing to you. With the invention of the movable type printing press by German Johannes Gutenberg (1450), more books became available to people. However, they were still written in Latin and Greek. Books…
And, Yet it Moves
Is there anything on which everyone can agree? That’s the trouble with ‘truth.’ Everyone seeks it, and controversy occurs when it’s found. Can there be contradictory truths? If something is believed to be true, can it be replaced by a new truth? Is there anything that is an absolute truth unaffected by any changing conditions? Are controversies about truth arguments about relative truths, that is, ones that are so subject to certain circumstances…
The Man Who Loved Only Numbers
What follows is a fictional introduction to an itinerant mathematician whose life was so devoted to number theory that he did without all the things that people usually desire. It could have happened this way. Twins Jack and Jill are at home when the doorbell rings. Opening the door, they find a little elderly man, who looks a bit like Woody Allen. Without identifying himself, he announces “My mind is open.” “What does that mean,” Jill inquires. …
Streaker
Have you ever felt that you’ve been cheated, but have no proof? What can you do about it? It’s what King Hiero II of Syracuse who reigned between 263 and 215 BCE was wondering. He’d commissioned a crown of pure gold to be fashioned into a laurel leaf wreath to be a votive crown for a temple. He’d supplied the goldsmith with the exact weight of gold he’d asked for, and the crown weighed exactly that when tested, but there were the reports that the…
Gematria/Numerology
A young man is escorted into the office of an editor for a famous publishing house. He declares he has an idea for an entirely new story plot. The significant, a woman in her mid-forties, looks across her mahogany desk and makes a quick character study of her visitor. He appears to be about twenty-five, handsome enough, red-haired, with many freckles on his face. He has an eager and confident look about himself. While she’s making her inspection …
Mathematics as a Labor-Saving Device
How far and how fast do the planets move? What are the paths they follow? To find answers, we need to multiply some enormous numbers, say 3578126785 by 64532164 (don’t worry, you won’t have to), or divide some humongous quantities, say 1246038849 by 269181. These problems are found in The Progressive Higher Arithmetic for Schools, Academies and Mercantile Colleges by Daniel W. Fish, published by Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Co. in 1876.1 Clearly; t…
No Mathematical Work is Ever Wasted
It often happens that in seeking a solution to one problem leads to unanticipated discoveries. Scientists in the late 19th century sought means of describing atoms. Among these was the famous Scottish physicist and mathematician Sir William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, he of the temperature scale. The atomic theory was first proposed around 460 B.C. by the Greek philosopher, Democritus. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This p…
A Short History of π
A verse in I Kings of the Old Testament of the Bible reads, “Also he made a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and five cubits in height thereof; and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.” 1 That is, the molten sea was round, 30 cubits in circumference and ten cubits in diameter, giving a Biblical calculation of π as 30/10 = 3. 2 At the beginning of recorded history people saw circles in nature, both great…
Large and Small
It’s a sunny spring Sunday afternoon in New Jersey in the 1920s. Three people are taking a walk: a couple of boisterous boys, Milton and Edwin Sirotta the former around nine years old, the other slightly younger; and their uncle, Edward Kasner, a happy-go-lucky professor of mathematics at Columbia University. The professor invented a game for the boys to play to see who can spot the extreme examples of things; the largest tree and the smallest on…
Logic and Diagrams
Each of the previous represents a fundamental fact about logical reasoning. Here’s the problem The primary interest of mathematicians is not to discover truths, but rather to develop valid proofs. In geometry, there is a theorem; you might remember from high school geometry. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Doubter
How can you communicate with aliens from a different solar system? The most likely means of communicating with aliens elsewhere in the universe will be through mathematics, something to which any intelligent life form is liable to have access. 1 Suppose you discover that some aliens know about numbers, but can’t visualize shapes. How can you describe simple shapes such as a straight line, a curved line, a circle and a square in ways they can unde…
Sable Genius and Creating Washington D.C.
The fact that few Black Americans were noted for their contributions to mathematics and science is apparent. They were given few opportunities to do so, considered of inferior intelligence by the majority of whites. Without opportunity, it’s hard to fulfill one’s promise. In this episode, we acquaint readers with one of the earliest blacks to make contributions to both mathematics and science despite having to cope with a lack of much formal educ…
Computer Pioneer
In the insurance industry probabilities of events must be determined, so that rates are established. These differ for policyholders contracting same insurance policies depending on several analyzable rating factors. As part of the analytical procedures, Actuaries use statistics to estimate and manage risk when evaluating policy applications and setting premium rates. Based on probability, some individuals pose a higher risk and are more probable …
What Else Did Euler Do?
On Sundays after church residents of the city of Königsberg in Prussia (Kaliningrad, Russia) in the 18th-century promenade around the city and greet friends as they cross paths. At that time, the city was set on both sides of the Pregel River (Pregolya River) and included two large islands which were connected to each other and the mainland by seven bridges.
I Have Never Done Anything Like Others
‘How Long Is the Coast of Britain?’ is the title of a 1967 essay authored by Polishborn mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot (November 20, 1924–October 14, 2010). Think about the question and other queries are bound to occur to you. Just exactly what is to be measured? How is it to be measured? Will the answer have to be an approximation? What accuracy is sought and are there instruments to perform the measurement. These keywords were added by machine…
No Saint
The screenwriter sat in the office of a producer to pitch an idea for a movie. "A mathematician!" the latter shouted. "Who wants to see a movie about a mathematician?" "Well," said the writer, "The Movie, A Beautiful Mind, was very successful." "Oh, yeah, that was the biopic of John Nash, who won a Nobel Prize in Economics. But he was touched in the head, and that made him interesting." 'The guy I have in mind makes Nash look like as normal as a …
Rabbits & Patterns
Mathematics are the result of mysterious powers which no one understands, and which the unconscious recognition of beauty must play an important part. Out of an infinity of designs, a mathematician chooses one pattern for beauty’s sake and pulls it down to earth. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Magic Squares and Art
For centuries, people believed there is magic in numbers. Many still do, including numerologists and their clients. Others enjoy testing their skill in solving math challenges. At present the game of Sudoku, a logic-based combinatorial numberplacement puzzle is extraordinarily popular. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Proof
We have danced around the notion of ‘proof’ throughout this book, not to avoid it, but to delay discussing it in a way to advance readers’ mathematical literacy. Those, who have been exposed to proofs in their school days may have come away with very little understanding what constitutes a ‘proof’, and why proofs are necessary. In most cases, other fields must depend upon mathematics to provide proofs of their theories. These keywords were added …
Nurse
More than six times as many soldiers died in a hospital than in battle. These deaths are avoidable. However, raw data seldom inspires people to do something about problems. It must be compiled in a way that the problem is clear, and the solution is suggested. Figures must be presented in such a way that it will make people stop, think, and act. How do you convince the powers that be to make certain that soldiers who are wounded fighting for the i…
Puzzlers
The tangram (“seven boards of skill”) is a dissection puzzle game. It originated in China’s Song Dynasty. Each tangram puzzle has seven pieces, called tans, cut from a single large square. The pieces are two large triangles, one medium-sized triangle, two small triangles, one square, and one parallelogram (1). They can be fit together to form shapes. The objective is to form a particular shape using all seven pieces (2). These keywords were added…
Mathematics (19 works) · Computer Science (18 works) · History (15 works) · Art (13 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · History and Theory of Mathematics (10 works) · Art history (8 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Epistemology (6 works) · Aesthetics (5 works)