God's Eyes
During Geometries class, I just felt like stepping outside and bursting into sunlight. It was incredible.
Last night, I had my Intro to Philosophy class and we saw the movie Invisible Children. Dr. Benton mentioned that this dude who abducts kids to train them into child soldiers claims to be Christian -- although his views are terribly skewed. He asked us a poignant question.
"What is good?"
If you try to define good, you'll find yourself going in circles very quickly. Try it for yourself :).
The conclusion I came to (as I obsessed about this while the classroom dialogue moved forward) was that you need some initial building blocks. You need some sort of foundation. We can't create or define anything out of a vacuum -- we're incapable of that.
As an aside, this morning I had Numerical Analysis with Dr Rockwell and he showed us how to do a homework problem using the computer software Maple. The problem asked us to use pi approximated to 75 digits and asked something about finding a close approximation using Taylor polynomials. My concept of math has been blown out of the metaphorical sphere I held to be the contained universe. Math is so huge -- even the greatest computer (for all computers are finite) could never contain the infinite numbers that exist even between the numbers 0 and 1.
Dr Rockwell is a great mentor. For a moment, I felt taken back to the times of the Renaissance, and I was the apprentice of a great scholar, who was investing himself in my development as a budding mathematician. And that's just how I felt with Mr Best this afternoon in my Geometries class.
Mr Best has been an incredible lecturer these two class periods. I am incredibly excited about my Geometries class.
Today, he captivated us with words of abstract logic. He began asking us how to define a right angle. I said an angle with a measure of 90 degrees. He said that in order to define it as such, I would now have to define what an angle is and what degrees are. He went on to give an example that he uses in his lower division Geometry class. You grab a dictionary, choose a word at random, and write it on the board. You then read its definition and find the key word in defining it, and write that on the board. You look up that other word and do the same. Eventually, you'll find yourself in a circle, perhaps not with the word you started, but before long you'll find a key word already on the list and be stuck in a loop.
These loops are known as axiomatic systems. In each axiomatic system, you are going to be left with undefined or primitive terms. There are certain building blocks you simply have to take for granted, or take by faith.
Best used this example as he mentioned friends that he had in college trying to prove their belief in God through logic. Eventually, you find yourself going in circles and must simply take something by faith. We have circumstantial evidence that can assist our faith, but we will never have proof without having to establish the laws of that axiomatic system.
As I was being told all of this, I was overjoyed and incredibly stimulated. I felt like God was telling me "There's more to me than you'll ever know. Welcome to the world, through my eyes."
I've been struggling with the thought that I shouldn't be here living a plush life learning mathematics while all this terror is happening in Kenya, Sudan, Uganda... all over the world. Today I felt like God was wanting to feed me so much more, wanting me to get to know Him better, through the world of mathematics.
We're all like clay in God's hands. Each ceramic work serves a different purpose. Perhaps He's molding me into a mathematician.
Last night, I had my Intro to Philosophy class and we saw the movie Invisible Children. Dr. Benton mentioned that this dude who abducts kids to train them into child soldiers claims to be Christian -- although his views are terribly skewed. He asked us a poignant question.
"What is good?"
If you try to define good, you'll find yourself going in circles very quickly. Try it for yourself :).
The conclusion I came to (as I obsessed about this while the classroom dialogue moved forward) was that you need some initial building blocks. You need some sort of foundation. We can't create or define anything out of a vacuum -- we're incapable of that.
As an aside, this morning I had Numerical Analysis with Dr Rockwell and he showed us how to do a homework problem using the computer software Maple. The problem asked us to use pi approximated to 75 digits and asked something about finding a close approximation using Taylor polynomials. My concept of math has been blown out of the metaphorical sphere I held to be the contained universe. Math is so huge -- even the greatest computer (for all computers are finite) could never contain the infinite numbers that exist even between the numbers 0 and 1.
Dr Rockwell is a great mentor. For a moment, I felt taken back to the times of the Renaissance, and I was the apprentice of a great scholar, who was investing himself in my development as a budding mathematician. And that's just how I felt with Mr Best this afternoon in my Geometries class.
Mr Best has been an incredible lecturer these two class periods. I am incredibly excited about my Geometries class.
Today, he captivated us with words of abstract logic. He began asking us how to define a right angle. I said an angle with a measure of 90 degrees. He said that in order to define it as such, I would now have to define what an angle is and what degrees are. He went on to give an example that he uses in his lower division Geometry class. You grab a dictionary, choose a word at random, and write it on the board. You then read its definition and find the key word in defining it, and write that on the board. You look up that other word and do the same. Eventually, you'll find yourself in a circle, perhaps not with the word you started, but before long you'll find a key word already on the list and be stuck in a loop.
These loops are known as axiomatic systems. In each axiomatic system, you are going to be left with undefined or primitive terms. There are certain building blocks you simply have to take for granted, or take by faith.
Best used this example as he mentioned friends that he had in college trying to prove their belief in God through logic. Eventually, you find yourself going in circles and must simply take something by faith. We have circumstantial evidence that can assist our faith, but we will never have proof without having to establish the laws of that axiomatic system.
As I was being told all of this, I was overjoyed and incredibly stimulated. I felt like God was telling me "There's more to me than you'll ever know. Welcome to the world, through my eyes."
I've been struggling with the thought that I shouldn't be here living a plush life learning mathematics while all this terror is happening in Kenya, Sudan, Uganda... all over the world. Today I felt like God was wanting to feed me so much more, wanting me to get to know Him better, through the world of mathematics.
We're all like clay in God's hands. Each ceramic work serves a different purpose. Perhaps He's molding me into a mathematician.