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| April 23, 1997 |
Get It: 105 |
Vol. 1, No. 71 |
NEW MATH: There I sat ... doin'
my business ... leafin' through the day's mail ... I picked
up the latest issue of the "Journal Internacional
de Mathematica" for some light readin' ... perused
the list of authors to see if anybody I knew had written
anythin' ... (not that anyone I know would, mind you ...
I'd be more likely to find 'em on one o' the tabloids
at the checkout stand) ... when an article titled "Rounding
Pi Up" caught my eye ... I was stunned! ... all those
years of schoolin' ... all the formulae memorized to deal
with geometric figures ... 'n finally someone's startin'
to make it simpler! ... I can't believe it! ... a group
of mathematicians at the Bony Ridge Institute of Dysfunctional
Engineers drew a startlin' parallel between circles 'n
squares ... they were able to come up with a simple constant
that allows most (if not all) of the formulas used for
circles to be used for squares also ... can you imagine
what this means to school kids in the future? ... one
less set of formulas to worry about! ... things'll be
so much easier ... they've named the new constant "cake"
... I won't bore you with all the details that led up
to this marvelous discovery but I've got to share some
of it's properties ... first of all ... cake is equal
to 4 ... that's it! ... no messy, infinite repeating decimal
like it's cousin, pi ... jes' a simple number ... I can't
do the Greek symbol for cake in the e-mail so you'll jes'
have to imagine what it looks like ... the formula for
the area of a square becomes cake-r-squared ... the formula
for the circumference becomes 2-cake-r ... now I know
some of you are probably askin' yourselves "so what?"
... but that's prob'ly 'cuz you ain't got no more math
classes to take ... 'n it's implications are even farther
reachin' ... wait'll the International Brotherhood of
Vaudevillians get hold of this ... they'll probably sue
to stop it from comin' out ... what'll happen to the joke
about little Johnny 'n the teacher? ... "How do you
find the area of a circle?" ... "pi r square"
... "no it's not!" ... "pi r round!"
... that jes' won't work in the new math ... "How
do you find the area of a square?" ... "cake
r square" ... where's the punch line? ... but that
brings to mind another curious thing ... did you ever
notice that all pies are round? ... but all cakes aren't
square? ... there are round cakes ... rectangle cakes
... but we still call 'em cakes? ... soon as you make
a pie square it ends up bein' called cobbler!
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SPEAKIN' O' SHRIMP: I remember
a long time ago ... when I was a kid ... we'd go out to
this neat Chinese restaurant on Friday nights ... they
had the best fried trout or shrimp dinners ever ... we'd
save up the shrimp tails 'n take 'em home ... one of us'd
walk back to the bedroom where the cats were sacked out
on a bed ... stick our fingers under their nose ... they'd
jump up screamin' like you'd hit 'em with an electric
shock! ... go racin' down the hall ... crunch down the
tails like so many Cicadas on a hot summer night ... we'd
heard that the tails contained a lot of trace elements
that were good for ya ... last night I had some fried
shrimp (I know ... the insanity hasn't stopped yet) ...
I remembered 'bout the trace elements ... knowin' that
our dogs couldn't care less ... I ate a few tails myself
... then the second part of the memory hit ... cleanin'
out the cat box ... seein' the tails again ... oops ...
well I guess ya can add shrimp tails to the "corn"
list!
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"They were so busy counting
the peanuts, they didn't notice the elephants walking
past." - Wifey-poo, Dream States
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| Mikey's Muse(tm)
is published weekdays as a commentary on stuff. Editor,
Michael T. Rusk. Copyright © 1997 by Michael T. Rusk.
Printed in the U.S.A. This publication may be distributed
freely as long as there is no charge. Commentary is loosely
based on actual events and may contain embellishments,
bits of fiction, and editorial liberties (lies) under
the guise of poetic license. All characters portrayed
in my writing are purely fictional and any resemblance
to any person, company or animal is purely unintentional.
If you don't get it, you just don't get it. Don't blame
me for anything I say and don't do anything I say, either.
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