Author: RTNM

Random Thoughts from a Nonlinear Mind, Volume 2 The Athena Chapters, Chapter Two: Can you Hear me now? The End of One Long Strange Trip (and what a long, strange trip it’s been)   I prefer counting from the emergence of one integral anomaly to the emergence of the next, in which case this is […]

Boaty McBoatface Not long ago, I came across a piece of news that severely tickled my funny bone.  It was my kind of story, a tale that doesn’t come across my desk nearly as often as I would like. A few years back, England built a new scientific research vessel, a fantastic ship designed to […]

Random Thoughts From a Nonlinear Mind, Volume 2: The Athena Chapters, Chapter One: Athena From Athens   I am sure that every mom in this country learns early on to check the pockets of her kid’s clothes when she is doing laundry.  I am confident that the same holds for all the dads out there, […]

Quin Houff is Causing Problems! This is a short post about the relationship between practice times and average green flag speeds for drivers in The NASCAR Cup Series.  The question is: Do practice times translate to the race?  Can you predict how fast a car will be during the race based on 10 lap practice […]

Random Thoughts from a Nonlinear Mind, Volume 2: The Athena Chapters, Chapter Zero: The Zeroth Chapter of this Book   “Excuse me, isn’t that supposed to be a negative one (-1) in line 16?” Phillip “The Yeti” Frank   *****   An anxious and fresh-faced Buford Lister sat at the center of the head table.  […]

Random Thoughts from a Nonlinear Mind, Volume 2: The Athena Chapters Preface   Do you have any idea what a Preface is as opposed to an Introduction?  I have read thousands of books, and I must admit that I was not clear on the distinction, so I hit my favorite search engine (Google) and got […]

“Write drunk, edit sober.” Ernest Hemingway never said this. “If you are going to do a Mathematical Deep Think, it is best that you be sober…and around 22 years old.” Buford Lister (personal communication) I am not that big a fan of Ernest Hemingway or his writing.  That said, there are a couple of quotes […]

An Average Tennis Essay This post is about Rahul and his tired right arm.  One night, not long ago, he couldn’t sleep.  At around 5:00 a.m., he got up and decided to head down to the tennis courts to hit some serves.  He got all his electronic equipment together (speed gun, camera, etc.) and fired […]

How About Some Tennis Math? I have been thinking a lot about probability, especially the probabilistic nature of tennis. Why have I been on a probability kick lately? It certainly is a tricky and slippery subject, perhaps the hardest I have ever studied, and I guess I am just trying to keep on top of […]

An Average Post…(harmonic, that is) Sometimes I sits and thinks…and sometimes I just sits… A.A.Milne Sometimes I sits and thinks…and sometimes I sits and thinks about thinking… Buford Lister, personal communication I remember reading somewhere a long time ago, that what made humans unique in the animal world is that we can think about thinking.  […]