Author: RTNM

An Interview with Warren Andrew Slay, Part 4

In this section, Warren talks about his experience during what historians and philosophers have called “The Science Wars.” He had a front-row seat; consequently, he has much to say about postmodernism’s short-term and long-term effects on scientific theory and society at large.

RTNM:  What was the deal with The Science Wars?

WAS:  Well…I don’t know where to begin.  I think you need to get a little more specific with your questions.  Didn’t you prepare?  Do you even know what The Science Wars were?  You disappoint me.

RTNM:  I was trying to give you a wide berth.  I know you have a lot to say about it.

WAS:  OK.  Let’s start at the moment I realized something curious was happening.  Harvard University has a bookstore called The Coop.  The books for the classes are all shelved and categorized as they would be in any university bookstore.  Every semester I would buy my books, and I always took time to look around at what was on the shelves.  I was confused by how many courses in multiple departments were reading Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

RTNM:  Tell me more about that.

WAS:  There were thousands of copies of Kuhn’s book on the shelves.  When I looked at the courses teaching Kuhn, they were all in the humanities.  The English department taught Kuhn’s book in nearly every class they offered.  At this point, I was a newly arrived hillbilly from Ashtabula, Ohio, and had never heard of Kuhn and his book.  Now, of course, I understand completely.  They were using Kuhn’s ideas to preach their postmodern deconstruction and relativism.

RTNM:  I have heard you say that Kuhn’s book is one of the most important ever written.

WAS:  Yes, it is.  Kuhn made science a human enterprise.  His sociological view of science was highly influential.  And, yes, it did herald in our postmodern, post-truth world.   Kuhn’s Structure is a seminal work, a bible for the anarchists and postmodernists.

RTNM:  So, Kuhn set the stage for The Science Wars?

WAS:  In my mind, yes, he did.

RTNM:  That is quite the legacy.  What happened next?

WAS:  Sigh…let’s start with Jacques Derrida and Deconstruction, a sloppy line of thinking that gave us a world of “alternative facts” and the death of respect for science and scientists.  Along with Paul Feyerabend, Thomas Kuhn, and Bruno Latour, Derrida deserves a big chunk of the blame for where we are now in The Western World.

RTNM:  And where is that?

WAS:  We are living in a Post-Truth world.  COVID is considered a liberal conspiracy, along with climate change, evolution, and the efficacy of vaccinations.  I could go on and on.  Derrida and his crew started all this nonsense.  They tried their best to devalue science and the role of scientists in a civilized society.

RTNM:  Why would they do that?

WAS:  I believe there is a simple academic answer.  As a Harvard University student, I heard and read a lot about “Physics Envy.”  Other academic disciplines were deeply concerned about how effective the hard sciences are at getting to the fundamental nature of reality.  The social sciences and the humanities certainly couldn’t make such claims.  A seminal moment in this story is the 1960 publication of a paper by Nobel laureate Eugene Wigner.  His “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences” was a brilliant paper.  It angered academics in other disciplines because Wigner stated the case that mathematics, as the language of physics and the other hard sciences, has done much more than any other line of inquiry to add to human knowledge.  Mathematics had done more to give us control over our natural surroundings than any other form of investigation, and he was right.  Because of mathematics, we have space shuttles, MRI machines, particle accelerators, GPS devices, microwave ovens, and countless other technological marvels.  When people fly, they get to their destination because someone has added and subtracted correctly.  The contributions of literary criticism pale in comparison.

RTNM:  Derrida had no respect for mathematics, did he?

WAS:  All postmodernists, notice I didn’t say postmodern thinkers, as I try to avoid oxymorons at all costs… They think that all mathematics, and all knowledge in general,  is socially constructed.  They believe all science is socially constructed, that it is created out of the ether by balding white men whom all have political agendas.  It is really very depressing.

RTNM:  So…

WAS:  Let me say that postmodernists, with Derrida leading the charge, believed that science was just another way of thinking about the world and that the results were no more valid than what anyone else thought.  Sound familiar?  We live in a world where the president of the most powerful nation can deny science when it suits him.  If he doesn’t want climate change to be true, it is not.  Suppose he believes that there were 10,000,000 people at his inauguration when photographic evidence refutes his claim.  In that case, he has “alternative facts” that are just as valid as any so-called evidence people may point to.

RTNM:  Postmodernists…

WAS: Certain people, the mighty Deconstructists in Derrida’s Army, were calling for Harvard to become open admissions.  They wanted to do away with academic rigor; they believed it to all be socially constructed nonsense brought into existence by people wishing to keep power.  In their opinion, science wasn’t discovering any truths.  It really was an astonishing time.  I remember talking to one such person, and I brought up DNA and how helpful its discovery has been to humanity.  She looked at me angrily and said, “You believe in DNA?”  That is a true story.

RTNM:  Why were you exposed to this?  You were studying archaeology, right?

WAS:  My first graduate degree is in The History of Science, my second is in Anthropology/Archaeology, and it was in the anthropology department that I got a front-row seat to all this nonsense.  Postmodernists forced their way into anthropological and archaeological debates.  It was a mess.  In the 1960s, there was a revolution in archaeology that led to what is called “processual archaeology,” which, to gloss over it, was the introduction of scientific methods into the discipline.  It really did change everything about archaeology.  Archaeologists were no longer about the discovery of objects; they became interested in discovering the laws that govern human behavior.  Processual archaeology was well established from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s when I was in Cambridge.  Then came what was termed “post-processual archaeology,” along with all the deconstruction and other nonsense proposed by the postmodernists.  The postmodernists suggested that the archaeological record be read as a text and criticized and analyzed as any other text.

RTNM:  I recall you telling me that your advisor was very interested in these ideas.

WAS:  Bob Preucel, yes, he was.  We had many long talks about this stuff.  He took a deep dive and had many interesting things to say about postmodernism.  I am not sure we ever agreed about one thing, but he is a great guy.  I always enjoyed talking to him about the processual versus the postmodern; he was (and I am sure still is) a deep thinker.  He was genuinely interested in what was happening in what was then our increasingly postmodern world.  That said, I kept telling him that if we did away with rigorous academic standards and valued the irrational as much as the rational, we would have nothing more than tribes running around clubbing each other over the head.  I was right; for a long time, that is what happened.

RTNM:  And then along came Alan Sokal…

WAS:  Yes, thankfully, the universe conjured up a brilliant mathematician and physicist named Alan Sokal.  I encourage everyone to research The Science Wars, and when you do, you will come across something called “The Sokol Affair.”  Many people believe that Sokal put an end once and for all to The Science Wars.  Victory, of course, belongs to the rational, the mathematical, and the academically rigorous.

RTNM: Take us through what happened.

WAS:  Sokal wrote an article called  “Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity.”  He sent it to a journal called Social Text which was affiliated with Duke University.  The journal, a product of postmodernists (notice again, I did not say postmodern thinking), was not peer reviewed and, in proper Derrida-inspired form,  had no explicit standards.  Of course, the journal published the paper.  Shortly after, Sokol revealed that the article was a joke, a string of nonsense that he pasted together that had no logical structure or meaning.  He scammed the journal to illustrate that standards based on reason were preferable to anything the postmodernists offer.  As I recall, it was a beautiful day when I read what happened.

RTNM:  Many people who read this interview will not be familiar with postmodernism.  Can you give a brief overview?

WAS:  I always quote Homer Simpson when asked about postmodernism.  I say that postmodernists live in a world where people throw ducks at balloons, and nothing’s the way it seems.  That sums up their position perfectly.  I know, I know, you want a little more.  Postmodernists believe there is no discoverable objective reality.  All knowledge is socially constructed and is biased in favor of the constructor.  Therefore, there is no scientific “truth” to be discovered.

Moreover, any historical truth is also an illusion.  That was why they attacked archaeology (at least partially why) during The Science Wars.  They are dubious of mathematics and logic and believe there is no objective truth to be discovered.  They are very suspicious, no make that downright hostile, toward science.  They believe scientific knowledge does not describe reality; it is merely political in nature.  Old, balding white men use it to remain in power.  As I said, they throw ducks at balloons.

RTNM:  Anything more you would like to add?

WAS:  One thing always struck me about the radical, deconstructionist, postmodern adherents I have known.  They passionately spew their thoughts and act like they believe everything that they say…until they get sick.  Everyone I have known runs as fast as they can to find the best practitioner of Western Medicine available.  They don’t go to psychics, they don’t have their tarot cards read, they then instantly believe in the power of science when their life or the lives of their loved ones are at stake.  I have always found that interesting.

RTNM: Final thoughts?

WAS:  The postmodernists did their best to devalue science and were successful.  We are now living in a post-truth world where fewer and fewer people believe that scientists have any authority to speak on scientific topics.  Climate change has become nothing more than a liberal conspiracy.  People who are against using vaccines are running for Congress and winning.  The situation is dire, and I am not optimistic about the future.

Of course, Warren has given a broad overview of this topic.  He stressed that the arguments are sometimes very subtle and peppered with nuance.  The average person need not care about the details.  The important thing, he said, is that postmodernism is nearly dead, but its legacy of science denial is growing stronger.  The stakes, he said, couldn’t be higher.  He mentioned that he thinks it is probably already too late to do anything about climate change.  It will take a technological intervention of tremendous magnitude to fix things.  He just hopes that people will be willing to fund the science necessary to get the job done.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

 

Tara Westover Is Educated

Educated, the memoir of Tara Westover had been on my reading list for several years.  I had heard all the good things, everyone, except her parents, had to say about it.  I finally got around to reading it.  I suggest you do the same.

Westover’s story is compelling.  I will not review the book or relate what happened to her.  I am going to write about how I reacted to her story.  She was very fortunate; she broke free from the ignorant hillbillys that raised her.  I have known many who did not.

Whenever I write about hillbillys, I preface my remarks with the following.  My mother was a coal miner’s daughter.  My father was not only the first person on either side of the family to graduate from high school but also the first to attend high school.  Now that my hillbilly bona fides are revealed, I can feel free to write what I think.

Reading Educated brought up many deeply buried memories.  I once dated a woman whose parents were ignorant hillbillys.  At the time, I was teaching at a university in Ohio.  Many of the courses were based, at least in part, on evolutionary theory.  The woman, let’s call her Sandy, let her parents convince her that if she married me, she would go to hell because I was obviously a “tool of the devil.”  That was one of the kinder things they had to say about me.  Hillybilly ignorance runs true and deep.

Whereas the wrath of Westover’s parents was directed at her, I got it from the parents of a woman I loved.  It was outrageous.  Westover’s book is filled with stories that remind me of how Sandy’s parents acted.  Kindred Hillbilly spirits, one for all and all for one.

Sandy wasn’t strong enough to break away from her parents; somehow, Westover was.  The last I heard, Sandy was in a mental institution.  Westover is working at Harvard University, my favorite place on earth.

Westover’s parents are Morman survivalists.  Sandy’s parents are high school dropouts, one a Pentecostal holy roller, the other some kind of Catholic.  All four think like they do and believe what they believe due to the historical accident of their birth.  If they had been born in The Middle East, they would all be Muslim, and they would have been dancing in the streets when the twin towers collapsed.  Think about that for a bit, and you will realize I am right.

I am very happy for Tara Westover.  I am also proud of her.  She did something astonishing; she broke away from the chain of ignorance and set herself free.  Sandy chose to make her mother happy by accepting The Bible as a science textbook.  On and on it goes.

I was affected by Westover’s book much more deeply than I anticipated.  I highly recommend that everyone read it.  It is even better than the best reviews.

Alcaraz

Richard Gasquet is a French professional tennis player with a beautiful backhand.   He has been as high as number 7 in the world.  He has long been one of my favorite players.

At 16, Gasquet became the world’s number one junior tennis player.   Many thought he would become number one in the world with time, good coaching, and a bit of luck.  Andre Agassi was not one of those people.  Agassi hit with Gasquet when the Frenchman was a teen, and Agassi was asked about the young man’s prospects.  Agassi was quick to say that not only would Gasquet never reach number one, but he also would never win a major championship.  Why?  Foot speed.  Gasquet didn’t have enough.  Talent becomes irrelevant when a player’s feet don’t move fast enough.  That is a simple fact.

That brings me to Carlos Alcaraz, a Spanish teen who just became the number one tennis player in the world.  The ATP rankings say so.  I have heard about Alcaraz for a while now; the reports have been unbelievable.  People have been saying that Alcaraz combines the best attributes of Roger Federer, Raphael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic.  I had a hard time understanding this…until I saw him play.

Alcaraz is a tennis prodigy, Mozart in shorts.  He is clever, tough, and, yes, fast…very fast.  His movement around the court is astonishing.  I am still trying to process what this teenager can do on the tennis court.  He is unlike anything I have ever seen.

Perhaps the most impressive attribute Alcaraz has is his ability to wave off pressure.  The big points seem to mean very little to him; they are treated the same as any other.  He plays with joy and a sense of purpose.  He is creative and confident.  I suspect he will win many, many more major titles.

The best athletes in the world can get tight during big moments.  We all have seen great tennis players choke and shrink during critical points in a match.  Alcaraz appears to do the opposite; he embraces the challenge.  His calm and coolness under pressure are astonishing.  I am a little confused by how good he is at his age.  He is something special.

Not a tennis fan?  Couldn’t care less about sports in general?  If this describes you, I recommend you follow the career of Carlos Alcaraz, a Spanigh teenage who has the chance to become one of the greatest athletes ever.  The reincarnation of Mozart has arrived, but not in the guise of a guitar-slinging punk rocker.  This one wields a tennis racquet unusually and provocatively.  I have never seen anything like him, and I can’t wait to see where his inexplicable talent leads him.

An Interview With Warren Andrew Slay, Part 3

In Part 3, we talk about academic topics.  We get a little more insight into Warren’s history and what his future might look like.

RTNM:  You were on the faculty of a state university in the Midwest at one point.  What can you tell us about that?

WAS:  Not much.  It was a terrible experience.  The standards were low for the faculty and the students.  One guy, a full professor who had been brain dead for decades, was a mean drunk, a very mean drunk.  That would have been fine if he wasn’t drunk all the time.  The other archaeologist was the media whore I mentioned earlier.  He was the most self-centered person I have ever known.  Those two made my life miserable, so I left.

RTNM:  I have it on good authority that they were jealous of your background and abilities.  Did you get that sense?

WAS:  I learned many things at Harvard; it was the best time of my life.  One thing that impressed me was that all the professors were lifelong learners.  They were machines; they gobbled up everything new in their chosen disciplines.  The other place was very different.  Most professors lectured from the notes they took when they were students.  They carried in yellowed legal pads and pontificated on the merits of 40-year-old topics.  That is not an exaggeration.  At Harvard, the professors constantly talked about throwing the notes away from a course they had just taught.  They did this because they knew the course would be an entirely new one the next time they taught it.  The other place was a 7^th-rate institution at best.  I didn’t want any part of it.

RTNM:  You had a site in The Bahamas, correct?

WAS:  Yes.  The brain-dead drunk was the primary investigator, meaning nothing would get written up unless I did it.  That guy had a long history of digging and never writing.  That is a well-kept secret among archaeologists.  There are tons of artifacts in university labs that will never get adequately analyzed.  Archaeologists generally love to dig but don’t love the lab work.  At least, this was true of archaeologists in the past.  I hope that has changed, but I have been a little out of the loop.

RTNM:  You had real issues with what was happening in The Bahamas, didn’t you?

WAS:  Yes, the drunk was destroying the site.  He had no idea what he was doing.  At Harvard, I was told repeatedly that if you are ever going to put a shovel in the ground, you must first read everything that has ever been written about that area.  You must learn that language if things are written in a language you do not understand.  The drunk guy didn’t read anything.  Not only that, he was giving away artifacts to the female students to win their favor.  He was a real piece of work.  The fact that the administration did not care one bit about what was going on down there made the situation even worse.  I was not going to participate in the destruction of an important archaeological site, so I left.  I had no interest in spending more time at a 7^th-rate school.

RTNM:  Are you doing any archaeology now?

WAS:  I haven’t done fieldwork in a long time, but I am working on a big project.   I have always been interested in a technical thing called Middle Range Theory.  I am working on that now.

RTNM:  What is Middle Range Theory?

WAS: I doubt anyone is interested in that, but seeing that no one reads your blog, I’ll be happy to elaborate.  It has to do with the integration of theory and empirical research.  Archaeologists find things buried in the ground.  From there, we are supposed to build models of human or cultural evolution.  The process of going from the shovel to the theory has always interested me.

RTNM:  That seems very broad?  What specifically are you working on?

WAS:  Site formation processes.  Specifically, water’s impact on how archaeological sites are created.   It involves lots and lots of engineering math.  Also, I am trying to master QGIS, a powerful software package to help with my analysis.

RTNM:  How is that working out?  I know older people can struggle with learning new things.

WAS:  That is very true.  I am constantly learning new things.  I take many online courses and always have a book I am reading.  I have noticed that I do not have any trouble understanding anything new, but retention can be an issue.  The days of being introduced once to a topic and quickly mastering it are over.  The other problem is how tired I get when I am thinking hard.  Everything considered I am doing fine.  I haven’t come across anything that is beyond my abilities.  I just have to work harder to retain it.

RTNM:  Learning anything else?

WAS:  Yes, I am learning R, an open-source statistical package that has taken over.  When I was younger, I mastered SYSTAT, but everyone and I mean everyone, is now using R.  I also am learning Python, the programming language.  R and Python are used in QGIS, so everything fits together.

RTNM:  Why aren’t you relaxing more?  At your age, lots of people are slowing down.

WAS:  I have lots I need to get done.  Blood clots tried their best to kill me twice in the last 6 or 7 years.  Going forward, I should be fine, but you never know.  I do feel a sense of urgency.  I really need to get some work done.  Some of it is related to archaeology, but most will be fiction.  One novel in particular that I have been working on for decades.  I really need to get that project done.

RTNM:  What can you tell us about that?

WAS:  Not much.  It will be written under a pen name and, if all goes as planned, it will represent my life’s work.  And no, I am not worried that it won’t be widely read.  I guess I am writing it for myself as an experiment to see if I can impress the narrator, the implied author, the person represented by the pen name, and the real author.  If all goes as planned, that novel will be the first line of my obituary.

 

NOTE:  I have much more from my interview that I will be posting as soon as possible.  This interview was conducted remotely, and I had trouble deciphering a handful of words here and there.  I sent the transcript of the entire interview to Warren for clarification.  I am waiting for his reply.

An Interview With Warren Andrew Slay, Part 2

Here is Part 2 of my increasingly contentious interview with Warren Andrew Slay.

RTNM:  Can you tell me why you never write under your real name?  Why all the different pen names?

WAS: Many writers will tell you that if they had to do it all over again, they would never publish under their real name.  There are a lot of advantages to remaining anonymous.

RTNM: Yes, but wouldn’t you raise your chances of meeting some interesting people if your readers knew who you were.  Perhaps some interesting women might even come out of the woodwork.

WAS: If there is a downside, that would be it.  It is not a big concern of mine.  I am way too old to meet someone, anyway.  It makes no sense to start a relationship with a new person at my age.    The only thing I would do is waste a lot of time.  I certainly would be writing and working less if I met someone.  I really have no interest.

RTNM:  Tell me more about why you use pen names.

WAS:    My academic training is in the sciences, archaeology specifically.  At Harvard, it was drummed into all of us that a serious scientist never seeks publicity.  Becoming a “public intellectual” was always considered a bad idea.  It was frowned upon.  I knew one guy, a professor I had as an undergrad, that constantly went out of his way to get publicity for himself.   He didn’t want it for the university or even the department.  He was all about himself.  He was an archaeologist who never met a newspaper or television he didn’t love.  I was embarrassed for him.  He was a proper media whore.  I swore I would never be like him.

RTNM:  Scientists, in general, do not like it when their colleagues write popular books or seek publicity for their research.  Why is that?

WAS:  That is a complex and fascinating topic.  The great Stephen Jay Gould had trouble getting tenure at Harvard because he wrote many popular books for a general audience.  On the one hand, we need scientists willing to engage the public for educational purposes.  On the other hand, scientists, especially at places like Harvard, demand that their colleagues conduct basic research.  And, of course, professional jealousy can play a big part.  The late great Carl Sagan was denied admission into The National Academy of Sciences for a long time due to his popularity among the general public.  In fact, he was denied tenure at Harvard because many felt he was spending too much time becoming famous and not enough time writing technical papers.  The bottom line is, for me, all publicity is bad publicity.  I want no part of it.

RTNM:  And yet you agreed to this interview…

WAS:  Yeah, you don’t have any readers, so I am not too worried about blowing my cover.  Your blog is so unpopular that you would be the only one to notice if it ceased to exist.  I am sure the company hosting it would probably care that you didn’t keep paying your bill, but you get the idea.  Your blog is anything but relevant.

RTNM: Harsh…

WAS:  The truth can be a delicate instrument or a machine gun.  I hear that automatic shotguns are a thing now.  Ask me another question.

RTNM:  I want you to talk a little more about why you use so many different pen names and refuse to give them out.  Why so cryptic?

WAS:  If a writer uses a pen name, they create another layer of elusiveness.  For example, most novels have a narrator that might or might not be the author.  The narrator might be trustworthy or might be unreliable.  Then there is what I call the “implied author.”  This person is what a reader might come to think of as the person who typed the book out.  That writer is implied by the text.  Of course, the actual writer is buried deep in there somewhere.  The use of a pen mane creates even more nuance.  In my estimation,  the original, or real, writer must now be understood through another layer of nonsense.  If a writer wishes to remain anonymous, this is how I recommend it be done.

RTNM:  I see…

WAS:  The reader must first examine the characters through the narrative framework.  If the narrator is unreliable, that helps the writer create more ambiguity.  From the narrator, the reader goes to the implied author, and then the one represented by a pen name, and only then might they get at the real author.  In my estimation, the person typing out the story is buried so deep that their true intentions and actual identity remain out of reach.  That is how I like it.

RTNM:  I take it you will never write a memoir?

WAS:  Funny you should mention that.  I have been reading a bunch of memoirs lately.  Tara Westover’s Educated was on my list for a long time, and I recently got through it.  I highly recommend it.  Her story is riveting.  As for me, I feel that the greatest truths are told through fiction.  So, no, I will never write a memoir.

RTNM:  What about Buford Lister?  Isn’t he basically a fictional representation of yourself?  Your true self?

WAS:  Not at all.  He is much more interesting than I am.  His life has been extraordinary.  He had a book written about him, right?  The Lister Affair, if I recall correctly.  His story is more tragic than the average person’s, and it certainly is more heartbreaking than mine.  In fact, there is an excellent chance Buford Lister will one day write his autobiography.  I know he remembers his story differently than it has been told in print.

RTNM:  Kurt Vonnegut had Kilgore Trout…

WAS:  Sigh…  Vonnegut wrote under his own name; he wasn’t worried about anonymity, was he?  Some writers excel at exposing themselves to a bunch of people they will never meet.  Others do not.  Just as no one reads your blog, no one is breaking down my door demanding to hear about my unique experience as a human being.

RTNM:  You appear to be fixated on how many readers I have.  Why is that?

WAS:  If you write something great and no one reads it, does it matter if you ever wrote it?  Seriously, that is an interesting question.  Do you go to sleep satisfied that you wrote a couple good sentences in paragraph after paragraph of mediocrity?  What are you doing?  Can’t you find something more useful to be doing with the limited time you have left?  Isn’t there a contribution you could make to humanity, regardless of how small?

RTNM:  I feel that my blog is a small contribution, but a contribution nonetheless.  You know, Mozart was only the 7^th or 8^th most performed composer during his lifetime.  It wasn’t until after his death that his music really took off.

WAS:  Unbelievable.  Are you actually comparing yourself to Mozart?  He was a stone-cold genius.  I have never heard anyone say as much about you.

RTNM:  Of course, I am not comparing myself to him.  I am only trying to make a simple point.  I believe it was Socrates who said there is no correlation between popularity and quality.  Because an idea is popular does not make it correct.  And the opposite would be true.

WAS:  Yes, the opposite would also be accurate, but I am generally unimpressed with your work.  I am surprised every once in a while, but most essays contain no original ideas.  Yes, I know original ideas are very hard to come by, but if you are out of intellectual ammunition, what are you doing?

RTNM:  You should worry about yourself; you just turned 60, right?  Good luck punching out anything clever and novel.  Most 60-year-olds are spent, brain dead.  They can be found playing out the string along the path of least resistance.

WAS:  Sigh…  That is not going to be me.

 

An Interview With Warren Andrew Slay, Part 1

I have been trying to get an interview with Warren Andrew Slay for decades.  Never heard of him?  I am not surprised; he keeps a low profile.  My talk with him will be presented in multiple posts.  We covered a wide range of topics; most are interesting, some fascinating.  I hope you enjoy this interview with a most elusive character.

RTNM: Hello, welcome.  Thank you very much for agreeing to this interview.

WAS: Sure, I hope your preparation proves adequate.  I will roast you if you ask me a bunch of uninformed questions.

RTNM:  I did extensive research.  I know you better than any other person, living or dead.

WAS: Fascinating.  OK, I am here.  Wow me.

RTNM:  I want to start off with a discussion about music.  You are a fan of Mozart.  Tell me about your fascination with him and his musical abilities.  How did that happen?

WAS: I know that Isaac Newton was most likely the greatest genius the world has ever seen, but I like to think of Mozart as 1A.  The biggest Cosmic Ripoff in the universe’s history is that we lost him young.  He was just coming into his own.  He was on the cusp of reinventing music when he died.  I don’t understand what good came from his death.  That is because nothing good did come of it.  We are all so much poorer; we will never fully know what we were deprived of.

RTNM: Do you have a favorite Mozart composition?

WAS: The Dissonance Quartet (String Quartet no. 19 in C major, K. 465).  That might be the first great punk song.  All due respect to The Stooges, Sex Pistols, and Ramones, but the movement, at least in my estimation, started with this piece.   When everyone who looks at the sheet music thinks it is riddled with mistakes from the publishing process, you know you are dealing with something novel. Novelty, most certainly, is the true hallmark of genius.  I only wish that I could hear the music through the ears of one of Mozart’s contemporaries.  Our ears are not trained to pick out the dissonance that the listeners and musicians experienced in the late 1700s.  I only hear the genius, not the angst.

RTNM: So, Mozart was the first punk rocker?

WAS: It depends on how you define punk music.  If it is merely the standard chord progression known to all kids who pick up a guitar, then no, Mozart certainly was not a punk.  If the punk rock movement was about attitude, I claim that Mozart was his generation’s Iggy Pop.  Of course, Mozart was much more sophisticated musically than any practitioner of punk.  Still, for me, it is all about attitude.  Mozart looked around and didn’t like what he saw.  The best way to get ahead in his day was to have wealthy parents.  He knew he was infinitely more talented than people much more affluent than he was.  He didn’t like that.  I think there is more than a little social commentary flowing through the notes he wrote.

RTNM:  Where is the modern-day Mozart?  Why are we still listening to classical music that is hundreds of years old? Shouldn’t someone nearly as talented as Mozart have shown up by now?

WAS: Stephen Jay Gould asked this question decades ago.  He wanted to know where all the great classical composers were.  Why did we have so many of them hundreds of years ago but none now?  There may be only so many notes that can be combined in so many ways, and no more novelty can be found.  Sort of depressing but a possibility nonetheless.  Of course, the best answer might be that today’s great composers are not working in classical music; they most likely are writing rap and rock songs.  And of the two, it is probably rap because guitar-driven rock and roll is on life support.

RTNM: So, what about modern music?  I agree that guitar music on dying a not-so-slow death.  Does that impact the music you are listening to now?  Do you have a favorite band?

WAS:  I must admit I am a little curious as to why you chose to start this interview with this line of inquiry.  I wouldn’t have guessed you would ask me any music questions, but here we are.  Yes, I do have a favorite band.  They have been my favorite for the last 15 years or so.  Have you listened to Arctic Monkeys?  I think Alex Turner is remarkable.  He is extraordinarily talented, and I have been following his career very closely.

RTNM: What about The Last Shadow Puppets?

WAS:  Yes, I am interested in everything Alex Turner does.  He has created some great music with his side project.  I like that group a lot.

RTNM: I want to do a bit of a slow burn with you.

WAS: Yeah, good luck.  You know, I can walk out of here whenever I want.  Tread lightly…

RTNM: Right.  Can you tell me about your relationship with Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino?  Is it true that you have listened to the entire CD hundreds of times?

WAS: Oh boy.  When the CD came out, I was excited to listen.  It is always a big event for me when Arctic Monkeys release new material.  My curiosity was piqued due to a few reviews I had read.  The critics loved the new CD, but they all made sure to warn the fans that the CD was very different from their previous music.  When I got the CD, I played it and scratched my head.  I played it again and got even more confused.  I bet I have listened to the entire CD 400 times and still don’t know what to make of it.

RTNM: How is that possible?

WAS: I love the first two albums (Whatever People Say I Am, I Am Not and Favorite Worst Nightmare).  The music was so energetic.  The boys were young then, and the music reflected that.  Then they grew up and matured.  As they grew, so did their music.  Even though I am not the biggest fan of where their music has gone, I will follow them to the end of the line.  I am very curious to see where they go next.

RTNM: Is this a loyalty issue?

WAS: In many ways, yes.  I think that Alex Turner is an unusual cat.  His approach to lyrics is different than the average person’s.  I attached my cart to him when I heard the early music, and I had no intention of ever jumping off.  Even if he has decided to ditch the guitars, his music is still fascinating.

RTNM: Another example of the death of rock and roll?

WAS: Yes.  And I’ll tell you, I am not optimistic about any resurrection.  Maybe a hundred years from now, who knows?  I know acoustic guitars are outselling electrics and young girls buy them.  The guitar heroes of my generation have been replaced by Taylor Swift.  On the face of it, there is nothing wrong with that.  If you look a little deeper, it speaks to the death of the electric guitar.  And if the electric guitar is dying, so is rock and roll.

RTNM:  Yes.  So, tell me, have you been to any concerts lately?

WAS: No.

RTNM: Why not?  Coivd issue?

WAS: Certainly, Covid has put a damper on things like concerts, but no, I haven’t been to any in a long time.

RTNM: Yeah, I seem to recall you wrote a book about the last concert you attended.

WAS: Uh…you wrote that.  It is on your blog.  The Athena chapters, right?

RTNM: Yes, so sorry.  It is easy to get confused.  What can you tell me about limerence?

WAS: I only recently read about it.  Before that, I had never heard of the term.  You seem like you might know more about it than me.

RTNM: I came across the term while reading a review of some book on Amazon.  I saw the word “limerence,” and I had to immediately look it up.  I had never heard of it.  I took a deep dive.

WAS: I’ll bet you did.  Learn anything?

RTNM: Just because a phenomenon has a name does not mean we understand it.  Ever heard of Dark Matter or Dark Energy?

WAS: Ah, that is true.  Do any academics have a handle on what limerence is or is not?

RTNM: Not that I have seen, and, like I said, I took a deep dive.

WAS: I hear you suffered through a pretty bad case of limerence through much of your 50s.  Is that correct?

RTNM: Wait a minute, I am supposed to be interviewing you.  I am the one asking questions.  The answer to that question is none of your business.

WAS: You started off this interview asking me about music.  Of all the subjects you could have chosen, you chose music.  A little transparent, don’t you think?  You wrote that what happened to you at that concert all those years ago was a defining moment in your life.  You turned a few hours of your life into a book.  Sure, no one cares to read it, but that doesn’t matter.  You aren’t asking all these questions for my benefit or the benefit of any readers.  You are asking for yourself.

RTNM: Well then, tell me… Do you think there is anything to this limerence nonsense?

WAS:  If true, if limerence is a thing, then we are all nothing more than slaves to our DNA.  If certain aspects of our brain chemistry make us more susceptible to something as unfair and inexplicable as limerence, then the battle is over, and individual humans have lost to the genes that comprise us.  Maybe Richard Dawkins was right all along.  All of us are nothing more than vessels that carry collections of genes.  If so, we are all along for the ride.

 

 

Calculators

I came across a math problem on YouTube the other day.  Apparently, it was asked during a high school math competition somewhere in Europe.  The problem is as follows:

The student is tasked with finding the area of the newly created figure.  I am not a big puzzle guy.  I usually only pay attention to puzzles that address more essential questions, such as our failing intuition regarding probability.  This test question did get me thinking about another topic that is of some interest.  Namely, the use of calculators in high school and college math classes.

I have a software program built for analytic geometry, I use it often.  When I looked at the test question, I immediately knew how to solve it.  That is if I were to use the computer.  A programmable calculator would also prove helpful in quickly solving the problem.

My question is this:  Is it essential that I know how to solve that problem with just a piece of paper and a pencil?  That is the debate math teachers have been having for as long as there have been programmable calculators and sophisticated software programs.  I remember hearing many differing opinions about graphing calculators used in math classes, especially during tests.

As I sit here today, I know how essential it is to understand the programming of “black box” programs, especially those used for statistics.  Back when I was a student, we derived all the equations to prove that they were legitimate.  After that, we all hit buttons on the computer and let it do all the work.  Never again did I calculate any of the answers myself.

Do I think it is vital that I solve the problem with just my brain and a pencil?  Maybe a few times.  As long as I, or anyone else, understand the logic of the problem, I see no harm in letting the machines do the work.

Here is the answer to the problem, it took longer to import the image than to create it.

And there you have it.  I rely heavily on my computer and its software.  Of course, I understand what is going on in those lines of code, which is probably the most important thing.  Let the debate rage on.  As for me, Three Cheers and a Tiger for Team Calculator.

A Little Birthday Math

You say it’s your birthday
It’s my birthday too, yeah
Birthday by The Beatles, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney

It is about time I drew my attention back to an interesting math problem.  This post is about The Birthday Problem, sometimes referred to as The Birthday Paradox.  Fair warning, your brain may hurt a little if you go along in this fascinating deep think.

So, the problem is easily stated.  If you have a random group of people, what are the odds that two will have the same birthday?  Of course, the usual disclaimers apply.  The math we will be doing assumes no leap years, no twins (or triplets), and the birth year is ignored.  One other implied assumption is that it is equally likely that a person is born on any random day of the year.

What does your intuition tell you?  Let’s start here, how large a group would you need for there to be bigger than a 50% chance that any two of them have the same birthday?  Most people say that there are 365 days in a year, so the answer must be around 180.  You and I both know that answer must be wrong, and it is.  As always, there is an inverse relationship between human intuition and probability theory.  In this case, a solution of 180 is way off.

The correct answer is 23.  Yes, I said 23.  Now it is time for a bit of math.  I have previously written posts on the “n choose k” method.  This tidy formula will tell us how many different combinations of two people we can get from a group of 23.  And sure, you can type in “23 choose 2” into Google, and it will give you the answer.  Google just told me there are 253 combinations of two that we get from a group of 23.  That is a lot more than most people expect.

The “n choose k” formula does not help us arrive at the answer of 23; it simply provides a little background for what follows.  To answer the question, we will do what mathematicians often do.  Instead of calculating the odds that two people have the same birthday, we will do the opposite.  It so happens that it is much easier to calculate the odds that the birthdays are different.  This is done with the following equation.  Once we have that number, we subtract it from 1 to get our answer.  After all, the probabilities have to add up to 1, or 100%.  For example, if 53% of the people in a group do not have the same birthday, we know that 47% do.

Once the equations are solved, the following chart and graph are easily produced.

People     Probability of same birthday
3                0.8%
5                2.7%
10             11.7%
15            25.3%
20           41.1%
21            44.4%
23           50.7%
30           70.6%
40           89.1%
50           97.0%
60           99.4%

You will probably find the results surprising.  Once you have a random group of 50 people you can be 97% certain that two of them have the same birthday.

If you study the curve for a few minutes you will see that as you approach 60 people it is virtually certain that two of them will have the same birthday.  As is usually the case, our human intuition fails when probability theory is involved.  Before doing the math, I wouldn’t have believed this result.  It is truly fascinating.

 

 

It has been over ten years since I met Athena.  You know, Athena… I wrote a book about meeting her.  The chapters are posted on this blog.  I have to admit that some inspired writing is found on those pages.  This post is not inspired, and I want to write about why that is.

I still think of that night at the rat-infested venue when she introduced herself.  Though I can’t prove it, I imagine more vermin were wandering around than humans.  And, of course, the club has since been shuttered.  I can only imagine what is crawling around in there now.

Yes, I still think of her every day (if you are wondering and simply too shy to ask).  That night remains the strangest of my life.  Meeting her was the…(after all this time, I still can’t put it into words).  I don’t have many theories; I remain confounded.

I guess the most logical explanation is that I was unexpectedly set upon by a dump truck of charisma.  Before I understood what was happening to me, the tire marks were on my back, and I was left to deal with the aftermath.

I mention logic in the face of the illogical.  There was nothing logical about my reaction to meeting Athena.  I have studied logic, I worked very hard to get an A in a logic class at Harvard.  Nothing in my class notes relates to my current state.  I never even bothered to look because I knew it was a waste of time.

All I know is that something extraordinary happened to me between the time she said “I’m” and “Athena.”  And I use the word, and even the concept of time, very liberally in this context.  I didn’t experience time as I had come to know it; I was moving through space in a fashion that was unique to my experience.

That “extraordinary thing” was the flipping of a switch, one I never knew existed.  Unknown to me when the sun came up that day was that I had an Inspiration Switch installed at some point, either before or after my birth.  The default position was apparently “OFF.”

Some hours after she introduced herself (and faded back to the dimension from whence she came), I sat down to type.  I am very good at pounding away on the keys if the proposed assignment explicitly askes for half-baked nonsense.  That is directly in my wheelhouse.  Much to my surprise, the ideas were coming faster than I could type them out.  Sentence after sentence, and then the master sentence, one that made me pause to wonder exactly where that one came from.

She inspired me like no one ever had.  The magic switch that she manipulated stayed on for years.  It is only recently that I have felt the recoil.  I am probably back to my pre-Athena days, inspired enough to get out of bed in the morning but with severely muted expectations for where the day might lead.  I will know something is seriously wrong when the only reason I have for getting up is morbid curiosity.

Inspiration, I have written that it is the most powerful (and rarest) force in the universe.  I don’t believe a person can fool themselves into being inspired like many do when it comes to love.  People are constantly talking themselves into love, easily done when children are involved or economics dictate two people staying together.  Inspiration is immune to that game.

Have I seen her since that night?  No, I did hear from her once, but that was a very long time ago.  I tried my best to see her; I wanted to know if she was a Perpetual Inspiration Machine.  My guess is that our meeting was nothing more than the vagaries of our atoms moving through space.  As I suspected long ago, meeting her meant nothing.

I will be telling this tale for as long as I live.  The experience has been nothing but odd, perplexing in an existential and mathematical way.  All I seem to be left with is the sincere hope that nothing like this ever happens to me again.

 

A Mathematical Monster

The Mathematician slowly turned to see if Alexa was toying with him. Was it really time to get up already? He was having a lucid dream about Danica Patrick. They were eating lunch at a picturesque sidewalk café when he was rudely interrupted.

“Alexa, good morning. Thank you for waking me up at the exact moment Danica was about to tell me some sort of secret. She waved me closer to her and was about to whisper in my ear when…”

“Sorry, I’m not sure about that.”

“Yeah, you and me both.“

The Mathematician slowly sat up. His feet found his slippers, and he trudged into the bathroom for his morning ritual. He looked closely at himself in the mirror. Have I aged a day or perhaps more? He pressed his fingers against the skin near his eyes and moved in closer. I guess a day is about right, don’t look much different than I did yesterday.

At that moment, a ghoul appeared in the upper right corner of the mirror. Its countenance was that of a determined and poised demon bent on havoc. It shook its head in disappointment when The Mathematician did not react.
The ghoul came through the mirror and took a more or less human form. It tapped its cane on the bathroom sink and looked The Mathematician directly in the eye.

“I know you have many questions, but I do not care to address those at this time. All you need to know is that my colleagues and I have come to an understanding. Unfortunately, our decision impacts you in a most severe way.“

The Mathematician shook his head and turned toward the shower. “Do your worst. I have been dealing with specters like you for a long time. You don’t scare me.”

When The Mathematician pulled back the shower curtain, the ghoul was in the tub, pretending to wash his face with a bar of soap.

“Well, you are the first of your kind I have ever seen who could manipulate material objects like that. What are you, exactly?”

“Oh, I assure you, you have never come across anything like me. I am what you would call a higher-level apparition. Entities of my ilk only reveal ourselves for momentous occasions.”

“What is so special about this visit?”

“Ah, I am afraid that I have an unwelcome message for you. It has been determined, not without thoughtful debate, that the human race has one month to resolve The Riemann Hypothesis or else.”

“Or else what?”

“We are going to take your home for our own. You and all those like you will be tossed into history’s garbage bin. There won’t be any evidence any of you ever existed.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Resolution or extermination,” said the figure as it glided back to the sink.

“Wait…”

With that, the ghoul retreated back into the mirror. The Mathematician, confused and disoriented, reached for the sink to balance himself. He was reeling as he lost his bearings and fell, his ear cut by the sink corner. He collected himself and tried to stand. He made it to his knees before his energy gave out, and he landed back on the floor. He pulled a piece of toilet paper out of the garbage can and pressed it against his bleeding ear. He sat silently, his brain working hard to try to figure out what just happened.

The Riemann Hypothesis? Well…that was unexpected. The most brilliant people in the world have been trying to resolve that problem for what, 150 years or so. It can’t be done in a month, probably can’t be done at all.
The Mathematician thought back to when his brain was nimble, and the possibilities were near limitless. He still had a box of all his failed attempts to prove the Riemann problem. He kept a hard drive, somewhere, documenting all his elusive tries at a counterexample.

As he struggled to get up, he called out, “Alexa, what just happened in here?”

“Sorry, I couldn’t understand.”

“I know. I don’t understand either.”

He walked back to the bedroom and sat down on the bed. He grabbed his phone and immediately noticed the messages and the calls. As he scrolled through the texts, he quickly realized he wasn’t the only person to get a strange visit. Friends and colleagues from around the world were texting similar experiences, all dealing with an apparition and a request concerning The Riemann Hypothesis.

He turned his phone ringer on and immediately got a call.

“Hello.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“I don’t understand any of this.”

“OK, what time? Send me the link, and I’ll jump on. I don’t have to tell you, but if this is real, we are in an awful situation.”

The Mathematician set the phone down on the bed and leaned back.  I wonder if I go back to sleep will things be different?  Can I wake up to a different day? Will the ghoul choose not to appear?  Is there a different reality, maybe of the parallel variety, waiting for me if I go back to sleep?  He considered the possibilities and then got back up.

Later that morning, an online meeting was held with many of the top mathematicians in the world. All of them had been visited by the mysterious entity, and the warning was consistent, resolve Riemann or go extinct. For reasons not entirely clear, everyone intruded upon by the apparition took the threat seriously. As for the others, the non-mathematical types who were not paid a visit, not so much. No one believed the mathematical community when press releases were issued and pleas made through various media outlets. The mathematicians needed help, and all they got was ridicule. I suppose it is reasonable to understand why no one took them at their word. After all, the story does seem a little far-fetched, especially for those with a scientific mindset.

Of course, there were people worldwide already working on The Riemann Hypothesis. They were of no help. No one had a clever or novel approach to the problem. Even so, many tens of thousands were put to work to prove the veracity of the conjecture. It was the opinion of the vast majority that the hypothesis was indeed true. The problem was coming up with a logical, mathematical proof.

Thousands of mathematicians were tasked with trying to find a counterexample. They coded the Riemann Zeta Function and used as much computer power as they could muster in search of a result of zero where it should not be. No one was optimistic such an answer would be found.
Only a few days had passed when the mathematical community pleaded with world leaders to find the threatening ghoul and kill it. Some of the best minds in existence thought this was our only chance. The problem is too elusive for a rigorous proof, and finding a counterexample could take decades if one even exists. They were met with silence, then skepticism, then outrage.

“You would have me believe this ridiculous tale from a group of liberals?” The television announcer smirked into the camera as a third-rate mathematician sat across from him.

“Believe what you will, but I was also visited by the demon. I received that same message the others did. Either resolve it or face extermination.”

“Right, of course, you did.”

“If I may, what is the mathematical community’s angle here? If you think this is a big lie, why exactly are we lying? I know that the only thing you and people at your network can think about is money so let me ask you, how are we making money from this supposed lie?”

“Money has been pouring into math departments the world over, sent by delusional people that believe such an outrageous thing can be true. There was no demon, there is no demon, and one month from now, the sun will come up as it has every day since the creation of the sun and earth.”

“Well, the horror of all this is that you will not know if we are right. You, along with the rest of us, will simply die. It will be hard for you to understand why you are dead if you are dead. It will also be difficult to know that you are dead when you are dead.”

“If this is so important, why aren’t you working day and night on the problem? Why are you sitting smugly across from me with your little bow tie and dark glasses? Shouldn’t you be in your office scribbling away?”

“Math, especially this kind of math, is a young man’s game. I cannot offer any help or guidance. I, like many mathematicians, do not have a clue how to solve the problem. It is well beyond my diminished capacity.”

“Explain it to us. Tell us about this Reimann Hypothesis.”

“Well, I imagine if the problem could be understood by a person like you, its answer wouldn’t be valuable enough to the power that wants to destroy us. It is entirely possible that the enemy does not have the answer and needs it for some reason. Threatening us, apparently, is their best bet to achieve a mathematical resolution.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“None of this does.”

Exactly one month after the demon’s arrival, the sun came up, and people the world over shook their heads and mocked the disgraced mathematical community. Clearly a case of mass hysteria, some said. Others wondered why such a cruel prank would be played on innocent populations.

As the sun started to set, people began to disappear. Those still alive did not believe what was happening on the other side of the world. They laughed. Most were smug. Some prayed. The majority of the mathematicians were resigned to their fate. They had done all they could do, they worked as hard as they could, they gave maximum effort. There is nothing else they could have done. In the end, it was of little consolation.