Play With Numbers in Ancient Rome 11 December 2025
One of the things that the writer opened this book with is a list of things that maths can be used Play With Numbers in Ancient Rome 11 December 2025
One of the things that the writer opened this book with is a list of things that maths can be used for, and that list is extensive, from building, to music, to waging war. In fact, for what seems to be a boring subject involving the manipulation of numbers, the use of this skill is extensive. Ironically, people seem to think that accounting and law is where money is made, as well as computer science, but it turns out that it is actually maths. Well paid jobs on Wall Street await those who are good at maths.
Okay, this tract seems to involve the relationship of numbers, particularly with what he calls prime and secondary numbers (a prime number is a number that can only be divided by one and itself), and he also explores factors (that is the prime numbers that make up secondary, or composite numbers – and those are ones that can be divided by other numbers and returns a number that is not a fraction).
So, this dude apparently came from Palestine, though the dates that the introduction gives date after the fall of Jerusalem, so it is more likely that he is a Greek as opposed to a Jew. I was going to say that the Jews only wrote theological stuff, but I suspect that Jewish literature extends somewhat beyond the Old Testament. Then again, the number of mathematical/scientific texts even from the Greeks seems to be limited – I suspect that a lot of the stuff was passed on by word of mouth and there wasn’t much in the way of text books. Then again this is the Ancient World, so yeah, schools didn’t exist the same way that they exist in our world (which honestly is just an extension of the factory).
It is a rather interesting book, and does give an idea of how the ancients views numbers, as well as their understanding. Then again the Greeks were pretty sharp mathematicians, though a lot of that stuff actually came out of Alexandria. This book, though, seems to have a lot more to do with how numbers relate to each other, the patterns that we will see, and how they can be divided and arrange. Rather interesting to be honest....more
So, I do actually like cosmology, which is basically the science of where the universe came from, and how itWhere Science Meets Faith 7 September 2025
So, I do actually like cosmology, which is basically the science of where the universe came from, and how it came about. However, as I was reading this I sort of wondered what the point is. Like, who cares what atoms are made out of, and the nature of how it can be impossible determining the position of an electron when you have to work in a toxic workplace every day, and are struggling to make ends meet (not my situation at the moment, by the way). This gets worse when you literally can’t afford a decent meal, and are being crushed by the rising costs of rent.
Is this important? Well, the author sort of addresses this in this book, namely that certain ideas eventually enabled us to build the modern world in which we live. However, we need to remember that a lot of these ideas came from the upper class, from the few people that actually were interested in trying to understand how the world worked, while the rest of us were struggling to make ends meet.
Sure, these days we are much more educated, and that we have access to much more learning. There was a time when if you were working class there was no way that you were going to go to university. Sadly, it appears that the whole concept has flipped in that just by getting a degree isn’t a guarantee for a high paying job. Like, when I was studying arts years ago the other degrees would laugh at us, until I realised that a lot of science degrees produced similar results (though as a chemist you could always start cooking illegal stuff, and botany means that you could grow certain plants). I remember a friend who completed a science degree majoring in aquaculture, and lasted a year at his job before quitting and becoming a teacher.
So, it sounds like I am bagging this book, but the thing is that I’m not, really, I’m just raising issues with the state that our world has become. Like, I would love to have enough money to give my job the flick (and I like my job), and spend some more time exploring this, or just reading in general, but even then I can’t help but think of the people who don’t even have this luxury. Like, back in the era of the Ancient Greeks, such learning was essential (though like today you had a lot of people that would teach you rubbish for a lot of money), but only for the male citizens. If you were a slave, you probably wouldn’t care about Plato’s theory of forms (and I suspect that it didn’t apply to them either).
The thing with this book is that it does explore the idea about how if you drill down in science you will eventually reach an area that is inexplicable. Okay, this does raise the problem of the God of the Gaps, which is the idea that if there is something that we aren’t able to explain then we just say that it is god. The problem is that as we begin to understand more and more the god of the gaps gets smaller and smaller. However, I still feel that the fact that the universe is ordered and random things, such as the entire atmosphere of Earth turning to chlorine, doesn’t happen then there is obviously some order behind the creation.
This creates the idea that we might actually be living in a computer simulation, but that is where things get really weird, and that is why I raise the question of ‘who cares’. In my mind it is not whether there is a god or not, and whether we live in a simulation, but if there is a god, then is this god a good god, or are we governed by beings like the Great Old Ones (which would suggest that the universe is chaotic, but then again that is how Lovecraft viewed the universe).
Look, I’m not going to become a god botherer here, or say anything beyond this. However, this book is interesting, and does explore the intersection between god and the world, religion and science. In fact, this was a much better book than some of the crappy Christian books that I have read on the subject (and these authors just seem to churn out crap – it is amazing how many Christian teachers that I have heard that are writing books). As for application, I have to admit that there really is none. Interesting, but in the end things will simply be the same as always....more
I remember a section in my maths book from year 12 called Conic Sections, and that was the chapter that was afteMore Ancient Greek Maths 28 June 2025
I remember a section in my maths book from year 12 called Conic Sections, and that was the chapter that was after calculus, so it my mind at the time, anything that comes after calculus must be hard. Of course, years later, I discovered why conic sections came after calculus and that was because calculus is the maths behind measuring curves and integral calculus involves obtaining the area of a curved shape. So yeah, I now understand why conic sections came after calculus.
Mind you, while this work involves dealing with cones (or conics, which I suspect means pertaining to cones, or conic shapes) it has nothing to do with calculus. The reason behind this is because calculus didn’t exist (and wouldn’t exist until Isaac Newton, though the Arabs were probably playing around with something). What this work does, and is similar to a lot of the other works that was in the volume on Ancient Greek maths is that is uses ratios to measure sections of cones, and how to work out these measurements.
So, the guy who wrote this book actually wrote it in response to another book on cones, and when he sent it to somebody to review it, they thought that he was simply being a smartarse, namely because the person whom he was criticising happened to be an expert in his field. I would say it would sort of like Stephen Hawking (the late) publishing a paper, and me coming along and correcting it (though, to be honest, in the age of the internet we have a lot of people doing just that). Though, a part of publishing a paper is actually sending it to a group of people to review your paper and is part and parcel of getting a paper published because, well, that is what a peer-reviewed article is all about.
Also, as some academics have suggested, people citing your paper is the academic equivalent of likes (well not really, more like sharing your content) but as my Dad pointed out one of the easiest ways to get lots and lots of citations is to write rubbish. Mind you, writing crap with the intention of getting citations probably won’t do all that much for your academic career, but then again we also live in an age where people post stuff on line with in intention of creating controversy and becoming incredibly famous because of that. It’s sort of like Libs of Tik Tok – she is basically posting rage bait because she knows that it boosts her profile. Mind you, the last time I posted rage bait was loudly declaring to the film society that 2001 A Space Odyssey was the most boring piece of crap I have ever watched in my life. I was excommunicated, though twenty-five years later I still hold to that opinion.
So, I’ve spoken about rage-bait, Libs of Tik Tok, and 2001 A Space Odyssey and little about this book. Well, that’s probably because there isn’t all that much to say about this book. It’s basically 200 pages of proofs regarding cones. Then again, I wish I could sit down and write 200 pages of proofs (or other things because as much as I like maths, writing proofs is sort of a little beyond me – and the proofs that are worth anything are really really hard). Then again, it’s basically like the nobility from the early modern era, who had so much time on their hands that they ended up studying stuff. Well, not all of them, but some of them did. This was no doubt the same thing in the Ancient World, though we should remember that the Eastern Mediterranean was actually much more philosophically and scientifically astute – the Romans to the west were just a bunch of boys playing soldiers....more
The odd thing with this work is that there seems to be some reference to the centre of gravity. This intrigued mDealing with Gravity 30 November 2024
The odd thing with this work is that there seems to be some reference to the centre of gravity. This intrigued me because I know that our modern understanding of gravitation, namely that it is a force that is exerted by objects with a mass, was developed by Isaac Newton. However, it turns out that the idea was around for a lot longer than that, though the theory back then was that gravity existed because the Earth was at the centre of the universe and that objects would automatically fall towards the centre.
Anyway, that is beside the point because this is another work that is full of proofs. Like, it is always interesting to see how they conducted maths back in those days, and how that proved things, despite the fact that they were based on flawed premises. However, this work also seems to involve mechanics, though it turns out that maths plays a very important role in mechanics, so of course the ancients, particularly Archimedes, who is well known for his mechanical inventions, would do a lot with maths.
These works are somewhat interesting, though I end up finding them rather hard to follow. They are certainly not something for casual reading (which is basically what I am doing, since I’m not doing any work that involves reading and interpreting the works of ancient engineers – then again I suspect that there would be very few jobs involving that out there, particularly since I suspect that everything that is known about Archimedes is already known).
Okay, if you do happen to be a maths geek, and an ancient history geek, then maybe this book would be worth reading. I suspect it really isn’t for everybody though. However, I will still continue to read the rest of the entries in this volume, since I do happen to be a sucker for punishment. ...more
I’m sort of wondering what I can actually say about this work namely because it just seems to be a collection of proofMore Shames & Areas 10 June 2024
I’m sort of wondering what I can actually say about this work namely because it just seems to be a collection of proofs and a couple of new shapes that we are probably never going to use. Well, I could see a use for it because apparently, people who work with computer graphics do need to use a lot of strange and funky shapes – it’s just that I’m not one of those people.
Anyway, apparently this book was attributed to Archimedes, but there isn’t much evidence to say otherwise. From what I gathered it surfaced in the Middle East in the possession of an Arab mathematician who made the claim. Like, he could have actually written it and claimed that it was Archimedes, except that the Arabs were quite a lot more mathematically advanced than the ancient Greeks.
Mind you, reading the book does seem to suggest that it could be one of his works because it pretty much seems to have the same style that he wrote with (not that I was reading the Greek version, only an English translation, and a lot is lost in such translations). Anyway, I’ll continue plodding through these books, not that I can really get all that much out of them....more
I’m not really sure whether this is that eureka moment that Archimedes seems to be so famous for, though this tract iProbably About Boats 9 April 2024
I’m not really sure whether this is that eureka moment that Archimedes seems to be so famous for, though this tract is about bodies that float. The thing is that he seems to be focusing mainly on speculation and on observation, but as we know from our time the reasons he gives for bodies floating are much different. Like, he has this idea that water is a sphere where the centre of the sphere is the centre of the earth. Well, that technically isn’t wrong mind you, especially when you notice that water is flat.
However, I don’t think his conclusions are quite correct. Like, he suggests that the reason objects float is based upon their weight compared to the weight of water. That probably seems to be the case when you put a piece of wood on water as opposed to putting something like, say, a sword, or a brick. Also, they certainly knew that wood floats, and they certainly knew that ships float, and this would have been obvious to Archimedes since he lived on an island (that being Sicily). However, I’m not sure if you can say that a boat is lighter than water (though if you tried to pick up the amount of water that would be needed to hold a boat you would have a lot of trouble).
I’m not sure if the diagrams in the books were included in the original manuscript, though they could have been (a quick read of the Wikipedia page suggests that they were, but the palimpsest has been through several hands, and apparently diagrams were added over the original text to increase its value – it is now rumoured to be owned by Jeff Bezos). The diagrams do seem to suggest that there are references to what could be ships, and not only how they float, but how they tip. Mind you, this is a mathematical text, not a physics text, so the whole concept of flotation seems to be written in light of maths.
Oh, and there is also a suggestion that they may have had fractions (which, come on, I’m sure the Greeks had a concept of half a pie) but as we know, decimals didn’t come over to Europe until the writings of Mr Algebra....more
It looks like the whole premise of this book is to prove that there is more sand in the world than there are staGetting the Maths Wrong 7 January 2024
It looks like the whole premise of this book is to prove that there is more sand in the world than there are stars. We might think that that is absurd until we dig a little deeper into this work to find out what they actually believed. Like, we are told that some dude published a work that proved that the sun was the centre of the universe, not the Earth, but that theory was soundly rejected.
However, the interesting thing is that this seems to be mathematically proven. Namely, Archimedes seems to prove, mathematically, the distance of the sun from the Earth. Mind you, this is based on some flawed logic, being that the sun orbits the Earth, and that it orbits in a sphere to which the fixed stars are placed (which is opposed to the planets, which were also considered stars, however they were not fixed).
I was going to question what happens if they travelled to South Africa (and Herodotus does suggest that some Greek did manage to circumnavigate Africa), but then I realised that the Earth is set at the centre of the sphere, then if you moved to the south, the reason that the stars would change was because your position on the sphere had changed (and it is clear here that Archimedes knew that the Earth was a sphere).
The problem is that much of this is speculative, and based on a false hypothesis. Sure, we know the size of the sun from observation, but we don’t know the distance that the sun is from the Earth based on that observation. The size is really only relative to where we are looking at it from. So if it we set the distance based on assumption, then the size will be wrong, ditto if we set the size based on assumption, then the distance will be wrong (and I’m not even sure if we can work it out using trigonometry, but I don’t think they actually had it).
I have to say though, it is fascinating reading this and seeing what the ancients understood to be true, and that it was just as difficult then to get the scientific community to accept an unpopular hypothesis....more
Well, I have finally gotten back to reading some of the tracts that appear in the book on ancient mathematics. In faMore Ancient Math 12 November 2023
Well, I have finally gotten back to reading some of the tracts that appear in the book on ancient mathematics. In fact, it is a collection of a lot of books that contain works of literature (namely philosophical works, though there are some stories). I can’t remember the name of the collection at hand since I’m not home. Anyway, they were given to me by a lady at church who felt that it wouldn’t be appropriate to send to a bible college in Africa. I disagree, especially considering the books that I have seen in Bible College libraries, but hey – free books – and who am I to force my opinions onto her.
Anyway, this tract (for want of a better word) basically proves equilibrium on various planes. That is namely where objects are in balance. Actually, come to think of it, it is probably more physics than maths, but then again physics is technically applied maths (and engineering is technically applied physics). Another thing is that a lot of these concepts seem to be pretty straightforward, however I guess it is the nature of academia to provide proofs to things that are pretty obvious (which is why Newton came up with the theory of gravitation despite the fact that everybody knows that if you are sleeping under an apple tree, and an apple falls off, it is likely to hit you on the head).
One thing that I was wondering as I read this though was whether this tract was actually Archimedes’ lecture notes. It actually seems that he is explaining to students how to come to certain conclusions. On the other hand, he is probably sitting in his bath writing out his theories on clay tablets, and even though things are straightforward, he puts it down on paper (or clay tablet – though I believe it was actually paper) afterwards. Actually, come to think of it, this could be the notes of one of his students – this is the belief of the origin of some of Plato’s tracts – whether he was present and wrote it down afterwards, or he was teaching his students, and they were writing it down.
Mind you, I somehow doubt my lecture notes will find themselves being used by classical scholars two-thousand years in the future....more
The Tragedy of the Lovesick 23 Aug 2022 – Strasbourg
Well I’m sitting on what is sort of a high-speed train heading into Switzerland, though I don’t thThe Tragedy of the Lovesick 23 Aug 2022 – Strasbourg
Well I’m sitting on what is sort of a high-speed train heading into Switzerland, though I don’t think it is high-speed in the traditional sense since I didn’t have to pay for it, which is the case for the high-speed routes in France. However, this one does feel like it is going pretty fast. Anyway, I’ve just left Strasbourg, and while I could be sitting on the train reading, I felt that it might be an idea to actually write a review instead, especially considering that I finished reading this play last night.
They refer to this as a domestic tragedy namely because it takes place in a petty kingdom in Italy. From what I read of the introduction, this play was written during a period of German history when there was a distinct rise in the interest of plays, particularly those of Shakespeare, which had started going around Germany. Their tragedies took on the context of involving kings and queens, classic stories, or, like this one, the domestic tragedy. When I think of a domestic tragedy, I usually think of the works of Chekov or Ibsen, where the action is taking place in a middle class household, however at the time this was written, while the middle class existed, it hadn’t become the dominant class that it would in the 19th Century.
This play is based on an Ancient Roman story from Livy where the Roman Virginius killed his daughter rather than let her be ravaged by the decimvur Appius Claudius. Having not read Livy I’m not familiar with the story, however I understand that this play was based more on other dramatisations of the story rather than the story itself. So, we have the Prince who you could say is a hopeless romantic. He meets Emilia at church in the morning (the action of the play takes place over a single day) and immediately falls in love with her. The problem is that he is engaged to be married, as is Emilia, and not to each other. Also, adding insult to injury, Emilia is pretty creeped out by the prince.
So, the prince gets his chamberlain to arrange something to happen to get Emilia into the Princes’ house. So, the chamberlain arranges for her coach to be attacked by some ‘bandits’, and then have some of the princes’ men save her. Of course, everything goes wrong, including Emilia’s fiance being killed, and when Emilia lands up in the princes’ house, it become evident to everybody that she is basically a prisoner. So, based on the Roman story above, we can pretty much guess was happens.
In a way this is a tragedy of a lovestruck individual pursuing unrequited love, and attempting to manipulate the situation to make them look like a hero. Actually, it makes me realise how even today there are people that will outright abuse women, with some deluded attempt to force them into submission, or to make it seem that they are the hero, and if the woman sees her knight in shining armour coming in to save the day, they will fall madly in love with them. The reality is that this never goes well. In fact, it generally goes pretty badly. The reality is that if love is unrequited, then that is never going to change (generally, though it does happen, I would prefer to not get people’s hopes up). The sad thing is that I have heard stories from the pulpit where the pastor is forever chasing the woman that eventually becomes his wife until they give in and acquiesce. Yeah, that happens occasionally, but I don’t think it is all that helpful to tell that story to an audience of love sick romantics.
The problem is that I don’t think there is anything that can help love-sick romantics to get over it. That’s what they are told, but in many cases they simply do not want to hear the words “she’s/he’s just not in to you”. What the bigger problem is the person that is good for them (as in the case with the prince and the contessa) might be right before them, but because they are blinded by love, then they simply don’t see it. Unfortunately, there isn’t a way to be able to control human emotions, particularly if that person displays no emotional intelligence. That is what I really struggled in the customer facing roles that I had because I’d take too much of the abuse to heart. Well, from what I have read on the internet, I’m not the only one, and there are a lot of people out there that face situations that are much, much worse, and get paid quite a lot less that what I was getting paid.
Anyway, my take home thoughts on this play is the tragedy of how human emotions can cloud reasonable judgement. Sure, it is clear that the prince is an emotionally immature individual – not strictly evil, but immature – however the fact that he has power means that this can, and does, cause some serious problems in his kingdom. In another sense, this could easily be transplanting into the modern world, even into a highschool, however I would probably end it somewhat different, where both Emilia’s father, and the prince, and of course the chamberlain, also suffer from the consequences of their actions – namely a stage littered with dead bodies....more
This is a rather short text, though that might have something to do with most of it being missing, however it is a very siThe Birth of Pi 9 April 2022
This is a rather short text, though that might have something to do with most of it being missing, however it is a very significant work namely because it introduces the concept of pi, that being the ratio between the diameter of a circle, and it’s circumference. The interesting thing is that ratio basically never changes, and for those who don’t know, the number of diameters that will fit around the circumference of the circle is roughly 3.14. I say roughly because the number is actually irrational.
Mind you, it isn’t as if Archimedes came up with the concept, it had been known for quite a long time before then, namely because it has been used in architecture. Also, he doesn’t actually give it a name, he just outlines what it happens to be. However, what this text does is that it provides us with proof as to what the ratio is mathematically, to as close as it is possible (though he uses a fraction to describe it here, possibly because they didn’t have a decimal point - which came from the Arabs, as quite a lot of our maths did).
The thing is that this text is pretty heavy on the maths, which probably shouldn’t be surprising because this seems to be the case with a lot of Archimedes’ writing. In fact, it can be rather difficult to follow for the uninitiated (such as myself). Okay, I don’t mind maths, and have played around with it in the past, but there is basically a limit that I reached when my brain started to explode – and that limit was basically my computer science degree. Sure, I could probably work things out if I really needed to, but fortunately these days I don’t.
Honestly, one of the good things that arose out of the covid pandemic was that I didn’t have to take exams at university, which meant that I was actually able to pass these subjects as opposed to facing an exam that could quite easily drag my marks down significantly, if I didn’t end up failing that is. Anyway, this probably isn’t the type of tract for anybody to read, and I only read it because I wanted to see how the Ancients approached maths....more
So, I was sitting in a pub up in the Victorian town of Beechworth, reading this book when somebody leaned over tThe Original Maths Textbook 1 Aug 2021
So, I was sitting in a pub up in the Victorian town of Beechworth, reading this book when somebody leaned over to me to asked me what I was reading. When I told him, he laughed and made a comment that it seemed to be an appropriate book to read before going into lockdown – our fifth of the pandemic. Okay, I suspect that a lot of you out there will laugh at the fact that we are complaining about a lockdown considering that our case numbers, and our fatalities, are ridiculously low, but I guess we Australians really don’t know, or even appreciate, how good we have things.
Mind you, it does raise the question as to why anybody would want to read Euclid considering it is basically no different to reading a mathematical textbook, and more so voluntarily as opposed to being instructed to by your school/university teacher. Mind you, I don’t particularly know all that many people who would read a textbook even if instructed to. Sure, I did, to an extent, but then again I’m something of an oddity, and I’m always looking for another book to add to my Goodreads list of books read, and to write a review on it.
Anyway, if you can handle something like the following:
Let ABCD be the given circle. It is required to inscribe a square in the circle ABCD. Draw two diameters AC and BD of the circle ABCD at right angles to one another, and join AB, BC, CD, and DA. Then, since BE equals ED, for E is the center, and EA is common and at right angles, therefore the base AB equals the base AD. For the same reason each of the straight lines BC and CD also equals each of the straight lines AB and AD. Therefore the quadrilateral ABCD is equilateral. I say next that it is also right-angled. For, since the straight line BD is a diameter of the circle ABCD, therefore BAD is a semicircle, therefore the angle BAD is right. For the same reason each of the angles ABC, BCD, and CDA is also right. Therefore the quadrilateral ABCD is right-angled. But it was also proved equilateral, therefore it is a square, and it has been inscribed in the circle ABCD. Therefore the square ABCD has been inscribed in the given circle.
Then maybe Euclid’s Elements is a book for you, otherwise I suspect that your eyes will end up glazing over with boredom, as is prone to happen when you basically end up reading a mathematics textbook. However, there are quite a few interesting things relating to those works beyond it being little more than an ancient Mathematical textbook. For instance, apparently it was the second book to ever be printed by Gutenberg, with the Bible being the first. Also, it was the only maths textbook right up until the 19th Century, though I do sort of suspect that this might be an exaggeration considering that there was much more to maths than just Euclidean Geometry (and number theory – he goes into Number Theory in this book as well, and spends quite a lot of time exploring the concept of Prime Numbers).
Mind you, it isn’t as if Euclid came up with all of this stuff. In fact, it is generally accepted that Pythagoras’ theorem was floating around for quite a bit of time before somebody decided to attribute it to Pythagoras (who apparently wasn’t a mathematician). Like, the Egyptians used it (how else do you think they were able to come up with Pyramids), and the Babylonian’s used it. There is also the Golden Ratio, which was used to build the Parthenon, which was constructed around 50 years prior to Euclid’s birth. As such, much of what is contained in this book was already known, it is just that Euclid did what pretty much many of the other writers of the period did, and that codifies all of the knowledge into one work. Also, considering that he was born in Alexandria, the place with the Library, it is probably not all that surprising that he ended up codifying mathematical knowledge of the time.
The other interesting thing is that Euclid seems to use a primitive form of algebra, which is something like 1300 years before Mr Al Jebra (al-Khwarizmi) condified the concept in his book ‘The Science of Restoring and Balancing. However, Euclid’s version is basically discussing numbers based on lines, and how the lines happen to relate to each other. Even in the section on Number Theory, all of his concepts revolve around the use of lines, which shouldn’t be too much of a surprise considering most maths in those days generally involved building stuff (or lobbing rocks, but mostly building stuff), though I’m sure the merchants also used numbers to calculate their profit, and how much stock they happened to have on hand (yeah, we do have quite a lot of accounting work from the ancient time).
Mind you, like a lot of textbooks, particularly one’s dedicated to maths, this is probably not the type of book that you would read cover to cover. Okay, I read it cover to cover, but that is probably because I wanted to read one of the classics, and one that has had a huge influence upon our society, and in fact the world. Sure, it certainly isn’t an easy read, but it is really rather interesting to see the source from which the mathematical foundations were developed.
The other interesting thing that I picked up is that this book is probably the type of book that people in the medieval ages would have considered a ‘spell book’. The reason I suggest this is not that it is used to actually cast spells, but it is a book that gives us an insight into how the universe comes together, and it gives us insights into how we can build things that not only won’t fall down, but will actually stand the test of time. The fact that there are many buildings still standing that have stood for thousands of years goes to show how much the ancients knew, and how influential the contents of this book were....more
These Usborne books are certainly getting rather interesting, and complex as well. In fact, I just visited their All About the Microchip 23 April 2020
These Usborne books are certainly getting rather interesting, and complex as well. In fact, I just visited their website where I discovered that they have released some more of the books from the 80s to download, and there certainly does seem to be some interesting ones there (including one on creating your own robots). Anyway, this book, as you probably have already worked out, is about the microchip, and we are certainly starting to get into some rather complex things here.
A lot of the things that are mentioned here we once again touched on in first-year computer science, and of course while the computers have become more powerful, and faster, and the components becoming much smaller, many of the concepts are still pretty much the same. Okay, let’s ignore quantum computing for a sec and consider that computers still operate on signals of 0s and 1s (or on and off). Of course, I wondered why computers had to work on binary, but apparently, they experimented with other concepts and it really didn’t work – binary does, and they simply ran with it.
However, I do find it rather fascinating how electronic circuits that simply operate on 0s and 1s can actually produce what computer enables us to do these days. Then again, as you work your way down the layers of abstraction it really does begin to make sense. For instance, computers count using binary, which consists of 0s and 1s. We count using the decimal system, but the thing is that you can easily convert a decimal number to binary using a simple mathematical formula. As for what appears on the screen, it is basically a bunch of cells, when turned on or off, produce the text you see on your computer screen. Colours operate simply by giving each of the colours a number, and that number is sent to the computer to produce a coloured light on your screen.
The interesting thing is that it all comes down to a bunch of logic known as Boolean algebra and logic gates. I won’t go into detail on what they happen to be, but Wikipedia not surprisingly has an article on it, and there are also a number of tutorial sites as well that explain the concept. What I found interesting is that this book actually covers the concepts as well, and does it in a way that a child can understand. What I thought was even better was that they not only showed you how to create one using electronic components, but they also gave instructions on the basics of building electronic circuits. Mind you, I don’t remember ever seeing any books that they released that focused entirely upon electronics.
Okay, this book is definitely quite dated these days, but it is still quite interesting, and rather fun as well. Mind you, it certainly won’t substitute for a textbook for university, though as I mentioned, while the book itself is old, the concepts really haven’t changed all that much, as much of what it says is still true today as it was back when it was first released (though I’m sure many of you don’t know what a daisy wheel printer is)....more
Everything You Need to Know (From the 80s) 16 April 2020
Just before I started this year I was tempted to take a photo of this book, and a few others tEverything You Need to Know (From the 80s) 16 April 2020
Just before I started this year I was tempted to take a photo of this book, and a few others that I have in my collection, and post it onto Facebook saying that I had got my textbooks for the year. I ended up not doing it because, well, it’s Facebook, and I’m just so over stroking my ego by trying to garner as many likes as possible, but that’s another story for another day.
Anyway, I decided to read this book, as a break from all of the CoVid-19 related books that I have been reading of late, such as The Plague (which I’ve noticed that an awful lot of people on Goodreads have been reading this book as well), and also because I wanted to clean off my little table that I sort of stacked with so many books that it is impossible to find a place to put my cup of tea in the morning, as well as other things.
Anyway, as I was reading through this book I was somewhat surprised at the number of things that they covered that we were taught in first year. Yeah, stuff like Boolean algebra and all of that. Mind you, this book is pretty dated, yet it is fascinating to see the number of things that are still taught in our universities that were in kids books back when I was young. Mind you, our course was a little bit more in depth than what this book covered, but they did have a decent sized chapter on binary numbers, and the two methods of how computers determine negative numbers (such as the Two’s Complements method).
It sort of makes me wonder whether there is the Usborne Guide to Machine Learning, or the Usborne Guide to deploying apps into Google Cloud. Mind you, I wouldn’t be all that surprised, considering that my Machine Learning course has less to do with writing Machine Learning algorithms and more about analysing which is the best algorithm to use for the problem that we are facing (and before you jump up with excitement, no, Machine Learning can’t accurately predict stock price movements).
I would also mention the Usborne guide to writing in Python, but from what I understand, Python is the programming language that kids are learning to write in these days. I guess that is why I don’t actually like the language, though there are other factors as well, such as that it really isn’t all that good for object-orientated programming, and the security, at least in my mind, is pretty bad. Yeah, it seems as if you have to go to extraordinary lengths to actually hide the code (though deploying it into Google Cloud seems to be one possibility).
Anyway, as I mentioned, this book is pretty dated, especially since Dot Matrix and Spool printers seriously don’t exist anymore. Mind you, they did talk about machine code, which while we aren’t taught that in our course, other people that I have spoken to have had to write programs using that language. As for me, I prefer C++, even if it is only because it makes me actually feel like a proper computer programmer as opposed to a code monkey....more
Okay, this is a book, but it also contains quite a number of electronics projects inside. It is sort of supFun, but somewhat confusing 10 January 2020
Okay, this is a book, but it also contains quite a number of electronics projects inside. It is sort of supposed to go hand in hand with a kit that you purchase in-store, but the reality is that you can probably do without the kit (and it is probably cheaper as well, particularly since you can buy all of the components online). However, I’m not really going to suggest that this is one of the best learning tools out there for electronics, namely because I found the descriptions to be a little difficult to follow.
Granted, these days pretty much all electronics come as components – that is you can basically buy a chip that does what the things in this book do, however, the purpose of the book is to help people understand basically what goes on under the hood. The problem is, as I mentioned, that it can be pretty hard to follow not so much the projects, but the description as to why the project does what it does.
My dad suggested that this is probably one of those kits that you give teenagers who, when they finish putting the project together can then jump up and down and cry ‘it works’. While that is sort of fun, I’m at that age where I want to try to understand why the thing does what it does, and while they attempt to do that, a part of me feels that it really doesn’t go far enough, and explains it at a significantly simple level – which I must admit when it comes to electronics that can be a pretty hard task in and of itself.
The other thing, at least with the kit (which, as I suggested, you don’t need to buy) is that the board that they provide you with is pretty shocking. While I got the first few projects to work, as soon as I started working on more complex projects I found that the board, or at least the springs that they provided us with, really weren’t all that capable of holding the components. As such, my Dad recommended that I use what is called a ‘breadboard’ and sure enough, it made getting the projects to work much, much easier.
Oh, and this book is available for free online as well, so, I guess that is another reason not to buy the kit....more
Oh, to be a Software Tester 18 November 2019 - Echuca
Yeah, this is a text book, and it is probably a pretty important textbook if you are wanting to pOh, to be a Software Tester 18 November 2019 - Echuca
Yeah, this is a text book, and it is probably a pretty important textbook if you are wanting to pass the ISTQB exam so as to become a certified software tester. Honestly, after having to sit through a semester of this course where I would read each of the chapters twice and then only scrap through on the multiple choice tests that occurred every fortnight, it is something that I really want to put behind me, for good.
Yeah, the ISTQB (the International Software Testing Qualifications Board) sets a test that you need to get over 60% to be able to become a certified software testing. The bad news is that the test is all multiple choice. The good news is that you basically need to just get over 60% and no more – you are certified. This isn’t like university or anything, where the higher a mark you get, the better opportunities that you have before you. No, in the real world it is either a pass or a fail, and a fail basically means that you are out something like $300.00 – I believe that you can take the exam as many times as you like.
Anyway, there is also the question about multiple choice – I was always under the impression that multiple choice questions were easy, namely that there are two ridiculously stupid answers, and two possible correct answers, and it really, in the end, came down to a fifty-fifty chance of getting them right. Well, guess what, in the real world that isn’t the case – the only thing easy about multiple choice questions is marking them. Mind you, what is even worse is that some lecturers have cottoned on to this idea that you can get correct answers simply by guessing, so they apply things like negative marks or some complicated calculation that means that you need to get over something like 65% to actually pass. Fortunately, the university has decided that setting multiple choice questions in an exam is going to be discouraged.
So, what about software testing? Well, it is sort of one of those things that needs to be done, but nobody really wants to do it, because if something goes wrong then it is more likely than not that the software tester is going to get the blame because the tester ‘should have found the fault’. Yeah, let’s just say that trying to find a flaw in a huge computer program can literally be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Then again, as suggested, not testing something properly can lead to all sorts of problems – just ask Boeing.
Mind you, that is probably why people end up throwing heaps of money at software testers, not so much that they can make sure that a product works as expected, but that they also have somebody to blame if something goes wrong. Well, not quite, because you can be assured that customers generally don’t like their service providers passing the buck, so yeah, they might blame the software testers for doing a pretty dodgy job in attempting to find a bug that simply does not want to be found, but they still in the end have to take the blame.
As for this book, well, it does try to cover an incredibly huge topic, but honestly, it really isn’t one of those books that I would recommend basing your entire assignment on (though to be honest with you, one of the guys in my team based his entire assignment on a Wikipedia entry, and he only did that to show off in front of everybody – I’m not sure how well he managed to pull it off mind you, considering that we were all marked individually). Still, as I suggested, it is a good starting point, but in the end, nothing beats the internet when it comes to looking for answers to an assignment – just stay away from those multiple choice exams....more
I’m not really all that sure if I’m supposed to be reviewing text books on Goodreads, but then again since it is a When Computers Talk 9 October 2018
I’m not really all that sure if I’m supposed to be reviewing text books on Goodreads, but then again since it is a boom (albeit an ebook, but apparently they still count) then I guess it is okay. The other thing is that I am not sure if I am supposed to read a text book from cover to cover. Okay, I didn’t exactly do that, though I have basically read the whole thing, namely because chapters were assigned as reading material throughout the semester, and once the teaching part of the class finished, I decided to read the three extra chapters that hadn’t been assigned. Then again, I suspect that I may have been the only person in my class to have actually read the book, especially all of it.
Yeah, this book is pretty technical – we were warned about that at the beginning of the class. In fact, it was suggested that we read the chapters after the lecture, which me, being the good student that I try to be, did so (though once again I suspect that I am the only person who did so). Well, to basically describe this book I would say that it pretty much covers anything an everything that deals with the way computers talk to each other, and the thing is that this book is just an overview – there is so much that this book doesn’t cover that it is mind boggling. Then again, since we had two written assignments to hand up over the semester, it became pretty clear that you simply could not rely solely upon this book to be able to successfully complete them (though I suspect that a number of students did attempt that).
The interesting thing is that after finishing this course, and reading this book, though I won’t say that I was able to fully digest everything it is, is that all these things the computer does is not longer magic. In fact, I now have a lot more understanding as to how we are able to play our favourite Iron Maiden song off of the hard drive, and how all of those saucy pictures that we collect are converted into electrical pulses. Okay, the whole image digitising part of the course was an addendum at the end, but sound was a core component, particularly since data communication basically started off as converting sound into electrical waves, and then transferring them over long distances.
Still, I do wonder whether it is all that necessary these days to actually purchase the text books. Honestly, I still feel much more comfortable with them than without them, though that may have a lot to do with also having a law degree – if you didn’t purchase the text books then you were basically stuffed. Then again, Law textbooks are nothing short of ridiculous. However sometimes it feels as if pretty much everything that you need for a computer science degree is basically on the internet. Then again, this semester I did discover that simply going to www.howdoesitwork.com doesn’t quite cut it with the markers as being a legitimate source for your assignment. The text book helps, but unfortunately, it isn’t going to give your all the answers.
Anyway, my operating system finally gave up the ghost, so I guess I better go back to reinstalling it, and getting the computer to pretty much do everything that it did before the reinstall, which honestly is the most painful part of a reinstall. Oh, well, everything except for the thing that made me want to go and reinstall it, namely because then I would have completely wasted my time....more
When I walked into my lecturer’s room to go over one of my assignments I noticed that a computer monitor was supporteAlready Obsolete 10 November 2018
When I walked into my lecturer’s room to go over one of my assignments I noticed that a computer monitor was supported by a number of books, one of them being PHP 3. This is a problem with these bricks – after a certain point the only use they have is as a door stopper and a means to raise a computer monitor. Sure, one might be able to throw them into the recycling bin, but the amount of money you actually have to fork out for these books sort of means that you are not going to be all that keen on doing so. There is another problem, and that is while this book may actually help in putting you on the right track, you will eventually get to a point where using this book as a reference is no longer an option and it ends up being better to simply go onto the internet and use that as a resource, such as the webpage that just happens to be the PHP manual, or if that doesn’t work then Stack Overflow (though the guy behind the idea indicated that this is more a website for professionals as opposed to beginners).
So, what did I make of this book? Well, I managed to read it from cover to cover, which in part is surprising, but considering that there is a lot of code and sample programs in the book, which I have to admit I simply glossed over, then you could easily cut down on the amount of actual readable materials. The thing with sample code is that it is useful, and if you know what you are looking at you can quickly work out what they are trying to do, but after studying computer science for a year now, I seem to prefer to be given a problem and then having to work out how to solve that problem as opposed to simply copying code straight out of a book. Mind you, he does actually include some practice problems at the end of each chapter, though not to the extent of some of the books that I have seen.
I’m sure we’ve all heard of PHP. It is what is known as a server side language, and originally stood for ‘Personal Home Page’. From that title the idea was to develop a language that people can use to develop their own webpages. That is all well and good, except that you really need to know what you are doing to be able to use PHP – it really isn’t a language for beginners – and there is the added problem of having to develop your site using a server. Sure, there are servers that you can download onto your computer, but the fact that they create open ports that hackers can exploit sort of puts me off using that method. Actually, I guess it was fortunate that I could use the university server to build my assignment, and also that Ubuntu allows me to mount the server on my computer so that I don’t have to fiddle around with downloading and uploading it excessively. Oh, I should also point out that there are a number of websites that you can use to test out your code.
It sounds as if I haven’t said much about the book though, other than to indicate that I have basically read it from cover to cover. Gee, I’m not entirely sure if that is something that I should really be admitting. The thing is that I can’t necessarily say that it was all that useful. Sure, the lecturers do try to encourage us to buy the textbooks, but the thing is that with the internet being all pervasive these days, I sort of wonder what the use of the text books actually are. Okay, there are probably subjects, like Law, where text books are imperative, and a part of me still feels that I maybe need to at least purchase them because I don’t really want to be caught in the situation where I need them but don’t have them. However, the fact that they become obsolete so quickly, and that new editions appear almost annually, with minor changes mind you, is also incredibly painful. Oh, and second hand bookshops (if they still exist) simply will not touch them with a 10 foot barge pole. Is there a text book scam out there? Yeah, there probably is, and in many cases it is just another burdern that students have to shoulder in their attempt to obtain marketable skills for the future....more
A Not So Basic Programming Language 8 September 2018
The first book in this series was pretty easy going, but it turned out that this one really wasn’tA Not So Basic Programming Language 8 September 2018
The first book in this series was pretty easy going, but it turned out that this one really wasn’t the case. Then again when we come to Javascript we are basically dealing with a computer language, and when it comes to computer languages they can be pretty complicated. Honestly, reading a book, particularly with the speed that I read it, really isn’t going to give you a good idea on how the language works. Well, there are some people that probably can, but in reality, when it comes to learning a computer language, it really comes down to practice as opposed to simply reading a book and hoping that you can take off from there.
The thing with computer languages is that rarely, if ever, are you going to write the perfect program right off the bat. Okay, maybe if it is what they refer to as a ‘hello world’ program, namely a program that simply prints the phrase ‘hello world’ to the screen, but even then I suspect that a beginner may even have issues with that. Honestly, at first I thought the whole ‘hello world’ thing was stupid, but having now done three quarters of a year of computer science, it basically seems to be part and parcel of the whole community. Mind you I’m still the type of person who would get the computer to tell the user to piss off as opposed to saying hello.
Look, in all intents and purposes, Javascript isn’t actually a hard language to learn, though this book goes into a lot of detail, namely because there are so many aspects to Javascript that it would be very, very difficult to adequately explain all aspects of it. The title mentions something called Jquery, which is still Javascript, but it is what they refer to as a Javascript library, namely a collection of routines that have been written by other developers that can be used so that we don’t have to go to all the heartache of writing them ourselves.
Javascript is what they refer to as a ‘client-side’ language, namely it is a computer language that runs off the user’s machine. You might actually be aware of it, namely because it is one of the major languages used in web programming. In a way it is a language that is executed by your browser, which is why I consider it to be a relatively easy language, namely because all you need to do to test out the code is to fire up your browser. I guess the whole idea of writing a program, compiling it, and then running it to see if it works can be sort of frustrating, though IDEs (integrated development environments) sort of take all of the hassle out of that.
As for this book, yeah, it was okay, though honestly, I am still wondering why I actually forked out the money to purchase it. The thing with web programming is that it is really one area that I am not all that interested in getting into. Sure, there are probably lots and lots of jobs out there for web programmers, but in a way I am more interested in server side applications, and programming. Then again I have only started my degree, so I still have a couple of years to go before I see where I end up landing up. As for learning Javascript, well, there are plenty of resources out there on the interweb that I’m not entirely sure whether it is all that necessary to purchase a book anymore....more
Another university text book, and honestly, I probably shouldn’t go on a rant about university text books, partMake Your Website Pretty 18 August 2018
Another university text book, and honestly, I probably shouldn’t go on a rant about university text books, particularly since that everything these books tend to contain can pretty much be found, for free, on the internet. As you can probably tell, this book is basically all about web development, though this book is more about how to make a website look pretty as opposed to actually making the website do funky stuff. Yet, in reality, our lecturers and tutors never seem to refer to this book in particular, but rather refer us to w3 schools, namely because pretty much everything you need to know about web development is located there.
However, as a book, it is laid out pretty well, and isn’t anywhere near as dense as some of these other text books that I have landed up with are. Mind you, like all university text books, I highly doubt that I am ever going to actually look at them again after I finish my degree, particularly since web development really isn’t a field that I want to get into. Anyway, with content management systems such as Wix, among others, one wonders whether there is going to be a job for web developers in the future.
Actually, that is probably a silly question, because of course there is going to be work for web developers, though I do get the impression that while there is an awful lot of work out there for them, having an university degree isn’t something you really need to actually create web pages. In fact, there are a bunch of students (post-millennials mind you) that have been writing web pages since they were 12 years old. Honestly, that isn’t at all surprising, considering I technically fall into that category, though when I was 12 years old the internet as we know it today basically didn’t exist – it was all dial up modems and bulletin boards. Actually, it was the era of the Commodore 64, and the shady back room deals at high school where we would exchange disks containing pirated software.
The thing is that I’m one of those people that learn not so much by reading, but rather by doing, which is why I’m actually enjoying university – what we are learning we pretty much have to put into practice with regards to our assignments. Mind you, I’m dreading my web programming assignment, particularly since design really isn’t something that is my forte, though I’m going to do my best to produce something that is really, really pretty. However, the catch is that while you can work in pairs, team work in first year can be really hit and miss, particularly with the number of people that actually drop out of university in their first year. I would provide a link to the website, just so you can see how bad it is, but unfortunately it is password protected, so I guess I’m just going to have to leave it for my lecturer, and fellow students.
Oh, and one thing that I have learnt about web development is that there are a lot of no no’s out there, and a lot of things that I have no choice but to do when I am writing something on, say, Blogger. Well, I could create my own website, but honestly, Google (and Wordpress) have done all of the hard work for me so all I have to do is simply write stuff, so I won’t bother. Still, I do wonder what I can get away with Javascript on those sites. ...more
Well, what do you know, a university textbook that doesn’t actually break the bank. In fact a University texPlaying with Numbers 22 June 2018 - Sydney
Well, what do you know, a university textbook that doesn’t actually break the bank. In fact a University text book that actually costs you absolutely nothing. I’m definitely going to give this book some good marks for that. Yeah, I remember the last time I was at Uni and the most expensive aspect of it was the books (well, yes, the fees, but the government technically pays for that). In fact when I did Law you could be assured that the yearly book bill would run into the hundreds of dollars. Arts wasn’t as bad, since half the subjects I did involved reading novels (though they would always want you to read a specific edition of the novel, namely an edition that the university would get a kickback for if a copy was sold, and there were those text books that the lecturers would write, and then conveniently put on the reading list every semester). Well, not so with this book, or at least the digital download edition, so well played.
Now, as one reviewer pointed out, a book entitled ‘The Book of Proof’ isn’t the type of book that is going to assist you with winning an argument with your wife because, well, that’s never going to happen. In fact, this isn’t even going to help you win an argument with an idiot because, well, this book relies upon arguing logically, and since when did idiots follow logic. In fact since when did idiots actually follow any structural form in their arguments, except for attempting to shut you down through the use of some fallacy, and then proceed to employ that fallacy in their own arguments. No wonder I simply don’t have time for some people.
Anyway, this is actually a mathematic text book and is all about how to do mathematical proofs. Now, I actually don’t mind maths all that much, namely because once you understand how to do something the numbers literally work themselves out. Well, sort of, I’m probably more of a pure maths guy as opposed to an applied maths guy, namely because when it comes to applied maths you sort of have to not only find the numbers, but also work out where to plug them. Fortunately this isn’t strictly applied maths but rather it falls into a category of maths call discrete maths.
So, once you had thought you pretty much had a good grasp on anything and everything mathematical you suddenly land up at your first day at uni only to discover that the maths you thought you know has become incredibly insane. For instance, graphs aren’t what you thought they were in High School maths, now you encounter a completely different kind of graph, and also discover that mathematicians plant their trees upside down. Oh, and don’t get me started on Infinity. You know, I always thought that infinity meant ‘to go on forever’, or ‘to be uncountable’. Well, it turns out that there is more than one type of infinity, and you can have a ‘countable infinity’.
Like seriously, more than one! That’s insane. Well, that’s what all the mathematicians told Georg Cantor when he first proposed the idea, and he ended up dying in a mental asylum. Yeah, seriously, maths really does mess with your head. Then again, if Cantor had read his history, he would have known all about this because everything somebody attempting to break the mold and introduce something a little different, there would be a huge reaction. You know, like the number zero, which European mathematicians avoided because it was, well, an Arab concept. Yeah, they were like that, but then again this was why they called it the Dark Ages, particularly since arguments centered around the idea of how many angels could dance on the head of a pin (I’m going to stick with one).
So, I’m not entirely sure how this is going to help you win your next argument, unless of course that argument is of a mathematical nature, and you are arguing whether the square root of two is irrational or not, but then again that’s sort of an argument that you shouldn’t be having because if somebody tries to argue otherwise basically has absolutely no idea what they are talking about, and it doesn’t matter how much mathematical proof you throw at them, if they don’t realise that the square root of two is irrational, then it’s probably not one of those conversations that you really should be having in the first place. ...more
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