Who Doesn't Love Games...

 Well, look who has a new book on the way (it could even be a game-changer... so to speak):

https://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2022/01/19/math-games-with-bad-drawings-2/

Poetry Combinatorics

 So you say you always wanted to write sonnets, well....

https://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2021/09/30/a-hundred-thousand-billion-poems/

Fightin' Words (perhaps) From Blasphemer Ben Orlin

 Blasphemies about mathematical proof versus explanations, courtesy of Ben Orlin:

https://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2021/05/12/against-mathematical-proof/

Recommending a Podcast Sight Unseen... or Heard

 I haven't even had time to listen to this yet (sometime this weekend though), but Ben Orlin recommends it (ohh, and he happens to be on it), and that's good enough for me:

https://infinitelyirrational.podbean.com/e/the-strange-case-of-sir-newton-and-mr-leibniz/

As Sean Connery Might Say, "Orlin, Ben Orlin"

While he works arduously putting just the right smirks onto the faces of his round-faced buddies for his 3rd book of mathematical fun-fare, I figured it might be time for a little retrospective of Ben Orlin, for anyone new to the math world, or who has otherwise somehow missed his meteoric (or perhaps asteroidal) rise to some prominence in the math-o-sphere (pretty sure he’s the most sought-after cartoonist of bad drawings who currently roams the math-landscape). And heck, for all I know, there's even about a 1/365 chance that today is his birthday.

So anyway, here are the main pieces I’ve written on Ben over the last few years, for any who wish to acquaint themselves with him:

2 interviews I’ve done with him:

https://math-frolic.blogspot.com/2018/08/ben-orlin-author-to-be-with-bad-drawings.html

https://mathtango.blogspot.com/2015/02/ben-orlin-math-bloggings-bill-watterson.html

...a further “profile” I did of Ben last year:

https://math-frolic.blogspot.com/2019/08/ben-orlin-mathtoonist.html

...and “reviews” of his first 2 mediocre books:

( IF by “mediocre” one means incredibly fun, unique, entertaining, engaging, and instructive volumes):

https://math-frolic.blogspot.com/2019/10/im-through-praising-ben-orlin.html

https://math-frolic.blogspot.com/2018/10/good-math-bad-drawings-great-book.html

Complexity and the Role of Math (...and Toddlers)

"Physicists can predict what atoms will do.  But gather enough atoms, and the calculations grow unwieldy. We need new, emergent laws -- chemical laws. Then, gather enough chemicals, and complexity overwhelms us again. We need biology to step in with new theories and rules. And so on down the line. At each tipping point, the role of math evolves: from certain to tentative, from deterministic to statistical, from consensus to controversy. Simple phenomena (like quarks) follow mathematical rules with slavish fidelity. Complex phenomena (like toddlers) less so."
                                                    -- Ben Orlin from "Change Is the Only Constant"

 (incredibly here, Ben almost succeeds in stringing together 9 sentences without a joke being involved... but, then he had to throw in "toddlers" at the end  ;)

I’m Through Praising Ben Orlin…

If you live anywhere in MathLand you likely know that today is the day that a new Ben Orlin book hits the streets (creating similar anticipation to the first Tesla!).

I’ve written so much and often about the creative mind, writing, humor, of Ben Orlin that it's time to STOP it!… stop sounding like a broken record (and as we all know broken records can only be right twice a day… er wait, nevermind, that’s clocks). 

Anyway, some smart-aleck genealogist will probably discover that Ben and I are 17th cousins thrice removed, and claim that that alone explains my incessant, redundant praise. So I shan't be telling you anything about the marvelous fun and insights of Ben’s newest fantabulous, beautifully-produced, sparkling opus, “Change Is the Only Constant,” the 713th book this year (so it seems) on the subject of calculus... BUT the the only one with page-after-page of cartoons (conferring that rare privilege of laughing at the term “Weierstrass’s function”). The book is not a novel, though it IS novel; it’s not a textbook, but it will explain some calculus, even to the phobic — it’s almost what you might expect if Dave Barry ever wrote a volume about calculus… but no, not really (zero mention of "boogers" for example). My only review of this, and all future Orlin volumes, therefore will be, “BUY and laugh along, and be eternally thankful that his wife and first epsilon are willing to share Ben so generously with the rest of the public!" (also, do eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom on occasion).

So, sorry, I WILL NOT describe to you any of the joyous, meticulous bits this volume contains from beginning to end! (or even in the middle). Why spoil your fun.

Just buy, read, learn, laugh… and, wait patiently for Ben’s third book to come out, the one where, at long last, I expect round-faced buddy #2 will prove the Riemann Hypothesis -- I feel certain Ben secretly has a proof, but it's too long for this blog post.

p.s…. be sure to read all the book's interesting endnotes as well: Class Notes, Bibliography, Acknowledgements (where, interestingly, Ben divulges that the book “collapsed” at one point before he salvaged the “wreckage”).

Meanwhile, I'm absolutely committed to leaving the waaay-overused phrase** "Ben Orlin" out of all future posts (uhhh, wish me luck).


** needless to say, this promise doesn't hold for any other commonly over-used phrases, like "shit weasel"*** for Donald Trump

*** or, "Putin Puppet"

Ben Orlin…. Mathtoonist!

Ben Orlin has a new book coming out soon (October). I’ve already interviewed him twice here, and mentioned him ~1729 other times as well, so didn't feel I could justify a third interview and let him pull that far ahead of others (I mean I didn't get to interview Grothendieck even once!), so instead I’ll offer up a brief “profile” of Dr. Ben… America’s math-Cartoonist-In-Chief.

First off, ya know how when you hear someone's voice on the radio for awhile you develop a picture in your mind of what they look like — and then when you finally see them, they are utterly different from what you expected!  Well, that was sort of me and Ben. From reading his blog regularly I formed a very clear picture early on of this Orlin guy in my head:

  48 years old, about 5’11,” receding dark-grey/light-black hairline, 165 lbs, trim athletic build,    conservatively-dressed, golfer, married with 3 children and a collie or labrador retriever.

…And then I finally saw video of Dr. Orlin… or else some impostor making off with his speaking fees, and my image shattered: 

Nobody who looks this young should have any right to be so brilliant… and funny… and perceptive. After-all, some of us take 65+ years to attain one troy ounce of such wisdom. And surely, his wife must disdain him… I mean when she is 60 years old and looking 39, he will probably be 63 and looking 29… such is life, unfair and illogical! …But, I digress.

Anyway, Ben’s new book is sure to be another boring, wordy, eye-rolling, gobbledy-gook volume of… er, no, wait, that’s Bill O’Reilly’s next piece of ghostwritten crapola… Ben’s book will be a delicious cornucopia of the current math topic du jour, calculus (which was allowed to leap ahead of Bayesian probability this year). Steve Strogatz has already given us a lush history and overview of calculus, and now I expect Dr. Orlin will flesh out some of the nuts-and-bolts in a way that only he and his li’l round-faced amigos can do. Calculus with laughs! Who’d a-thunkit… certainly no one in my generation.

But enough about Ben’s coming attractions; a little bit of his background:

I could not find his birthdate (but I think he was raised in Boston, and he has that Red-Sox-fan sort of naive look about him). So, maybe he's a Sagittarius and maybe he ain't. In fact I couldn’t find much at all about his personal life, siblings, or upbringing. It’s as if he just showed up one day, fully-formed, plopped on planet Earth from some galaxy far, far away. Hmmm… (I don’t wanna know what happens if he ambles into a room with kryptonite). He did graduate from Yale, but I suspect many extraterrestrials may have matriculated there.

Ben has taught middle/high school math in Oakland, California, and Birmingham, in the UK (where his wife did a math postdoc), and thus knows how to speak both English and British fluently. He also briefly taught biology, psychology, English, and earth science, and for some fully explicable reason has yet to be assigned to teach Drawing 101… a near-Renaissance Man in the age of emojis. He admits to being very 'liberal artsy,' while his wife is more the specialist or purer mathematician. I can imagine that while his wife is in the living room solving some equation in fluid dynamics, Ben is in his man-cave figuring out how to deftly capture just the right combination of surprise and smirk on one of his hand-scrawled faces.

He has said that his “academic interests run a mile wide and three feet deep” which is probably part of what makes his work so fun and fascinating, and somewhat unpredictable… I’m trying to arrange with the Dept. of Education to have Ben cloned (because no child should have to grow up, like me, without a Ben Orlin to teach them math), but thus far Betsy DeVos has not returned my phone calls... the fact that I sign my emails to her, "The Resistance" may not help.

For now Ben is taking up residence in Minnesota (and teaching), so please everyone, send him blankets, ear muffs, and hot cocoa; I’m not sure that he knows what he’s in for.

Ben has freelanced various venues along the way and started his now must-read blog “Math With Bad Drawings” in 2013 -- my original 2015 interview with him is here:

https://mathtango.blogspot.com/2015/02/ben-orlin-math-bloggings-bill-watterson.html

He says he always has “a folder of half-baked ideas-in-progress” from which he seems to draw a never-ending supply of fresh, fully-baked material — it’s almost like a magician who just keeps pulling rabbits out of a hat, one after another… except it’s not always a rabbit, but may be a raccoon, possum, chihuahua, or lemur.

Of course today Ben is rich and famous… or at least readily-employable and better known than he was a few years back. In fact, I bet he can barely walk the street (...immediately outside of the Museum of Mathematics in New York city) without being stopped by autograph hounds and fans wanting to take selfies. Being able to pass as Paul McCartney’s grandson probably doesn't hurt his math rock-star status either.

I could not find a single picture of Ben ever wearing a tie (further earning my immediate, deep, and abiding respect!)… I used to have a line on my resume, that stated my “Life’s Goal” was: “To make a decent living without ever wearing a tie” — indeed, just about the only life goal I actually accomplished.

Here was my overview of his fantastic first book, “Math With Bad Drawings,” which, against stiff competition, became my math book-of-the-year for 2018:

https://math-frolic.blogspot.com/2018/10/good-math-bad-drawings-great-book.html
We're all anxiously awaiting the big-screen movie version, starring James Grime.

And gee, it’s possible his new book, “Change Is the Only Constant,” could end up as my 2019 book-of-the-year, an unheard of back-to-back two-fer, at which point I think Ben can retire to a life of doodling and let his wife support him henceforth.

A couple months ago Ben wrote about the new book… AND another small volume that he co-authored with his wife ;))

https://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2019/06/26/change-is-the-only-constant/

Yes, Ben had a new daughter (first child) just a couple of months back. By now no doubt in her spare moments she is exploring the Riemann zeta function while learning to say first words like “derivative” and "epsilon."

Jim Propp also has a daughter (whose name, by the way, is NOT Kurt) who will probably be getting her PhD. at MIT at just about the same time that Ben’s daughter is applying for admission either to there, or alternatively (if she’s reeeeally bright) to Pomona College (assuming no earthquake has sent California into the Pacific Ocean by then). But I digress… again.

You can find Ben on Twitter (where he often posts material additional to what ends up on his blog):  https://twitter.com/benorlin
He also has a Facebook page, but I refuse to link to FB pages until Mark Zuckerberg fires himself and apologizes to the world-at-large.

You must of course buy Ben's upcoming book (and all future books), subscribe to his blog, and if you ever have the opportunity to see him speak, take it. Other than that just ignore the guy. As funny as he is, he's not as funny as Ben Stiller:

—————————————

Prior math profiles have been of: 

Matt 

Evelyn 

David 

Sean

Cathy

Al

Tadashi

Holly

Erik

Danica

Marcus

Sunday Night Ramble…

"If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motion of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to believe that my beliefs are true... and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms."--- J.B.S. Haldane, "Possible Worlds" (1927)

“The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning.”— Eugene V. Wigner

(longish ramble ahead....)

Last Friday was one of those oddly serendipitous days in some ways — and that’s despite the fact that I was stewing over missing Ben Orlin’s night-before presentation at our local University. ARRRRRRRGH!! — had planned for weeks to attend, but for a whole series of reasons didn’t make it. Luckily, someone had posted his hour-talk from a previous stop (which I assume was the same as here), so I went online later and viewed that.

A couple days prior, a mathematician/blogger had sent along something to read for any comments, and parts of it reminded me of a favorite quote I’ve used here previously from provocateur David Berlinski (for those who’ve seen me employ it multiple previous times I beg forgiveness, and indeed apologies for all the long quotes coming below):

"Like any other mathematician, Euclid took a good deal for granted that he never noticed.  In order to say anything at all, we must suppose the world stable enough so that some things stay the same, even as other things change. This idea of general stability is self-referential. In order to express what it says, one must assume what it means. Euclid expressed himself in Greek; I am writing in English. Neither Euclid's Greek nor my English says of itself that it is Greek or English. It is hardly helpful to be told that a book is written in English if one must also be told that written in English is written in English. Whatever the language, its identification is a part of the background. This particular background must necessarily remain in the back, any effort to move it forward leading to an infinite regress, assurances requiring assurances in turn. These examples suggest what is at work in any attempt to describe once and for all the beliefs 'on which all men base their proofs.' It suggests something about the ever-receding landscape of demonstration and so ratifies the fact that even the most impeccable of proofs is an artifact."-- D. Berlinski (from "The King of Infinite Space")

The interplay of language, meaning, abstraction, perception… and, mathematics/science is an ongoing interest of mine. Another quote I’ve used elsewhere is from venerable Bertrand Russell toward the end of a frustrating career (1957) trying to formalize all of mathematics:

"I have come to believe, though very reluctantly, that it [mathematics] consists of tautologies. I fear that, to a mind of sufficient intellectual power, the whole of mathematics would appear trivial, as trivial as the statement that a four-legged animal is an animal."  

Again, I think this reflects on the complex interplay of language and human thought — hmmm, all of mathematics as tautologies?… maybe all of meaning is tautological, just substituting one set of human scratchings or sounds for another… is all of knowledge just one gigantic Thesaurus? ;)) No, I don’t believe that, but a lot of “knowledge” does seem illusory or mirage-like and certainly changing. Often meanings, metaphors, analogies and the like simply refer back on themselves within an enclosed bubble.

Later on Friday afternoon I stumbled across this new essay at the Scientific American site, “Proofs and Guarantees” (actually reprinted from “The Mathematical Intelligencer”), which seemed to hit some of the same notes, questioning assumptions. It ends accepting the “fallibility of the initial axioms or other first principles” of math, and thus acknowledging an evolutionary nature to mathematics, as something that is not necessarily fixed over time (just as science is not static and self-corrects over time):

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/proofs-and-guarantees/

In arguments between math Platonists and non-Platonists it’s often contended that even (philosophical) non-Platonists ARE Platonists-at-heart when it comes to their livelihood… i.e., a pure mathematician must presume math exists out there to be discovered, in order to carry on their daily work. That may overstate the case, but on-the-other-hand one of my favorite volumes is by non-Platonist, retired mathematician William Byers, “How Mathematicians Think.” The subheading to the book title is: “Using Ambiguity, Contradiction, and Paradox to Create Mathematics” and that succinctly sums up what he argues in the volume, that mathematics is “created” out of the very things that most people presume run counter to it.

Interestingly, a second major influence in Byers’ life (besides mathematics) is Zen Buddhism, known for its mystical focus on contradictions. Here is one passage where he touches upon it:

“The second strand in my life was and is a strenuous practice of Zen Buddhism. Zen helped me confront aspects of my life that went beyond the logical and the mathematical. Zen has the reputation for being antilogical, but that is not my experience. My experience is that Zen is not confined to logic; it does not see logic as having the final word. Zen demonstrates that there is a way to work with situations of conflict, situations that are problematic from a normal, rational point of view. The rational, for Zen, is just another point of view. Paradox, in Zen, is used constructively as a way to direct the mind to subverbal levels out of which acts of creativity arise.”

Later in the volume he writes:

“…every human being lives in a bubble. This bubble contains all their perceptions and cognitions. What exists outside the bubble is not knowable. Radical constructivists 'do not make claims about what exists in itself, that is, without an observer or experiencer.' This is a point that I also made earlier when I claimed that there exists no mathematical knowledge that is completely objective. Mathematical knowledge and truth must be considered as a package with both objective and subjective aspects. The belief in ‘objective mathematical knowledge,’ that is, knowledge that is independent of the beings who know it, is itself a belief and therefore nonobjective. There is no knowledge that is independent of knowing. There is no absolute, objective truth.”

And finally, here’s Byers, at length, in another book, “The Blind Spot,” hitting the same theme:

"It is certainly conceivable that the clarity we perceive in the world is something we bring to the world, not something that is there independent of us. The clarity of the natural world is a metaphysical belief that we unconsciously impose on the situation. We consider it to be obvious that the natural world is something exterior of us and independent of our thoughts and sense impressions; we believe in a mind-independent reality. Paradoxically, we do not recognize that the belief in a mind-independent reality is itself mind-dependent. Logically, we cannot work our way free of the bubble we live in, which consists of all of our sense impression and thoughts. The pristine world of clarity, the natural world independent of the observer, is merely a hypothesis that cannot, in principle, ever be verified. To say that the natural world is ambiguous is to highlight this assumption. It is to emphasize that the feeling that there is a natural world 'out there' that is the same for all people at all times, is an assumption that is not self-evident. This is not to embrace a kind of solipsism and to deny the reality of the world. It is to emphasize that the natural world is intimately intertwined with the world of the mind. In consequence, the natural world is a flow just like the inner world. By stabilizing the inner world through language, logic, mathematics, and science, we simultaneously stabilize the outer world. The result of all this is the recognition that the clarity we assume to be a basic feature of the natural world merely masks a deeper ambiguity. One of the functions of mathematics and science is precisely to deny this ambiguity. This is really the motivation behind the science of certainty." 

Anyway, finally coming back around to Dr. Orlin’s talk, which is all about the relationship between mathematics and science, Ben concludes that they share a symbiotic relationship — two quite DIFFERENT activities feeding off one another (as opposed to the more common conception of math being foundational to science). I couldn’t help but think that perhaps that viewpoint might be broadened out to describe the relationship/interplay between language, thought, and math… entities that are separate but very much feed off one another (though many mathematical aspects of language may not even yet be understood/appreciated).

Give Ben's entertaining, thoughtful talk a watch if you’ve not seen it:

David Chalmers famously talks about consciousness as the “hard problem” of philosophy and psychology, left untouched by resolving the other “easy” or soft problems. How do subjectively-felt  experiences arise out of the conglomeration of matter that is our physical brain? Or, in Thomas Nagel’s famous take, what does it feel like to be a bat?

In recent years there has been a lot discussion and competing theories over “consciousness.” Certainly some of Doug Hofstadter’s past writings touch on these matters, as does Joselle sometimes over at her Mathrising blog… and many many more [including, if you haven't seen it, John Horgan's latest 'free' volume on consciousness, where he speaks to several major thinkers on the topic, HERE].

But then another favorite quote of mine (from Emerson Pugh) is, “If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn’t,” implying that  we will never be able to turn the brain on itself to reveal its own deepest secrets. That’s a sort of “Mysterian” viewpoint (and I’m in the mysterian camp with Colin McGinn, Martin Gardner, Roger Penrose, and others, but plenty of folks oppose it, believing the brain can be fully understood, even duplicated).

Anyway, similarly, I think mathematics has a ‘hard’ problem (philosophically-speaking). It is the one made famous by physicist Eugene Wigner (quoted above). How does one account for the exquisite fit of abstract mathematics with the physical world as we interpret it? How indeed! Max Tegmark’s tempting answer is that fundamentally, mathematics is all there is… mathematics IS the core foundational structure/component of the Universe, or of reality; an intriguing notion, but difficult to flesh out, and not one I see a lot of others gravitating toward. Even if you're a full-out Platonist (like Gödel) and believe mathematics exists in the world, independent of humans, the question remains where did it come from and how are we humans able to access it so successfully? Or has some alien civilization, a million years more advanced than us, recognized mathematics as a truly tautological illusion, and moved on to something else more fundamental by now?
Finally, there's been a lot of emphasis in recent years on "beauty" in mathematics, but now even that view is being drawn into question, with a lot of buzz in particular around Sabine Hossenfelder's recent volume, "Lost In Math" (on modern physics), where she argues the myopic focus on beauty simply leads us astray. Is nothing sacred anymore!... first taking away certainty and truth, and now even our wistful love of beauty. ;)
More and more, I find pieces I'm reading connect somehow back to these interests in language, cognition, consciousness, recursion... maybe some day our grandchildren's grandchildren... or, Ben Orlin... will actually make sense of it all! 

Well, I've let the atoms in my brain (assuming they exist) bounce around a bit too much tonight... time to put them to bed, and perhaps go flying -- something I do quite splendidly in my dreams, but, frustratingly, can't seem to do upon awakening (...though, as Chuang Tzu might ponder, perhaps my flying is real and it's this blog-writing that is just a dream....)

----------------------------------

==> Enough of my stream-of-consciousness, IF you want to hear from a real mathematician, I listened to Numberphile's maiden podcast earlier today with Grant Sanderson (of 3Blue1Brown), and it's quite good:
https://www.numberphile.com/podcast/3blue1brown

Good Math + Bad Drawings = Great Book!

   At some point awhile back I wrote that Ben Orlin’s mind was either a marvel or a mutation… and I wasn’t sure which. Having finished his marvelous new book I’ll now opt for the former (though a final check with his wife and 23-and-Me might still be in order).

Won’t do a full review of “Math With Bad Drawings” but just make some comments/blurbs about the volume. The first of which is simply, BUY this book, if you enjoy math… or, want to enjoy math. It is suitable for a wide swathe of readers, from young people to college professors — all will gain insights from it, just different ones depending on your age and knowledge. Younger folks can be introduced to a lot of real life math, while adults/teachers/profs can learn new ways/examples with which to approach or think about topics. Its broad possible appeal reminds me a bit of Steve Strogatz's "The Joy of X," another sort of everyman book.

Despite only 5 sections (comprising 24 chapters) the volume touches on an impressive array of topics… with consistent wit, insight, humor, clarity. If you’re not already a Ben Orlin fan you’ll be one by the time you finish these 350 grin-inducing pages. You can figure on 4 chuckles per page (OK, so maybe 7 chuckles on some pages and 1 on others). Ben is simply one of the cleverest writers of math content going… you know this already if you’ve followed his blog for some time.
Amazingly, the book is all NEW material. When he originally announced the volume I assumed it would be a compendium of the best stuff from his blog — something surely to look forward to. Then he said it was all fresh material not from the blog, and I was amazed, even skeptical… and sad to think that so much great prior content would not be included; BUUUUT, it does not disappoint!  I especially like the middle parts on probability and statistics, which represent a large percentage of the book, and which are frequent/vital topics these days, that Ben still manages new ways to present.

Indeed Dr. Orlin seems incapable of writing bad or boring content; you get a feeling of precision, quality, tight control throughout this volume, despite the ever-present quirkiness… and bad (or, deceptively good) drawings. And the publisher, Black Dog & Leventhal, has simply done a fabulous job of presentation here — seriously, one of the best publishing feats in popular math I’ve ever seen, with, shall I say, oddball material. When I interviewed Ben back HERE, he mentioned the publisher did a great job, noting:

“…they make gorgeous, colorful books so luscious you want to eat them. Having seen the final product I am 300% sure it was the right call.”

I thought he might be exaggerating… but, no, he wasn’t. The book is luscious (initially I had an urge to slather it with whipped cream ;).

My only beef at all with the volume is that there is no index provided. Dr. Orlin covers a rollicking range of topics, but if you want to look one up to see if it’s included and go directly to it, you’re out of luck (though the table of contents at front gives at least some guidance).

I’d be hardpressed to think of any math volume as original and creative as this one. And the best news may be that Ben is working on a followup volume, introducing calculus… with, of course, deliciously bad drawings. Pass me the derivatives and gravy!

Insure THIS!

I found Chapter 14 (on “Weird Insurance”) of Ben Orlin’s delightful volume “Math With Bad Drawings” to be one of the most fun (of so many). It falls within an overall section on probability, and describes several non-standard insurances I’d never given much thought to. One of them he calls, “Oh No, My Employees All Won the Lottery” Insurance. We’ve all read stories in recent years of employees at a workplace banding together to purchase many tickets in some multi-million dollar lottery and then if one person wins, splitting the proceeds… and, then turning in their job resignations en masse.  As Ben puts it, it’s “like some kind of natural disaster” for the manager/proprietor of such a business. Oy.

Ben goes on to report that “In the 1990s, over a thousand British businesses invested in the National Lottery Contingency Scheme. If your staff won the jackpot, insurance payouts would help to cover recruitment, retraining, revenue losses, and temporary labor.”

Ben also points out that the employer could potentially self-insure by simply joining the employee pool and being one of the winner recipients (of course that assumes the employees even let the boss know what they're up to: "hey Boss, we're all joining together to win the lottery and quit this blankety-blank, friggin' workplace!").

…And if that’s not weird enough for you, shortly thereafter comes a section on “Alien-Abduction Insurance” :)  [...where Ben reports that a British company that sold 37,000 such plans hasn’t made a single payout yet (go figure!), and one of the managers involved says, “I’ve never been afraid of parting the feeble-minded from their cash”... so much for British understatement.]
Yeah, insurance is an interesting, creative business (selling you something you hope to never have to use).

Anyway, Ben’s book is a chuckle-a-minute, so if you want to insure against boredom, get it!

[The sections on probability and statistics constitute close to half the book and are especially fantastic, but the entire volume is a joy ride!]

Ben Orlin…. Author-To-Be, With Bad Drawings

Math-Frolic Interview #45

  ______________________________________________________________________

"Orlin's ability to masterfully convey interesting and complex mathematical ideas through the whimsy of drawings (that, contrary to the suggestion of the title, are actually not that bad) is unparalleled. This is a great work showing the beauty of mathematics as it relates to our world. This is a must read for anyone who ever thought math isn't fun, or doesn't apply to the world we live in!"                        ―John Urschel (blurbing for Ben Orlin's new book)

Up to this point, Keith Devlin is the only person I’ve interviewed twice here… but, that all changes today!… DR-R-R-R-UMROLL… as I present a second interview with the wonderful Ben Orlin, who, as most readers likely know, has his first book coming out in about a month! “Math With Bad Drawings” -- not to be too hyperbolic about it, but I dare predict a volume UNlike any other math book EVER! ...combining Ben’s deep thoughts, wit, mathematical insights, and lovably badly-drawn (but expression-filled) characters.

If somehow you’re unaware of Dr. Orlin and his blog you may want to check this page first, where he gives links to many of his favorite or most popular posts:

https://mathwithbaddrawings.com/authors-choice/

You can also follow him as @BenOrlin on Twitter.
[I last referenced him on the blog a bit ago HERE.]

My first interview with Ben was over 3 years ago, HERE, and I highly encourage all to read or re-read it since it gives more delightful background on the man/teacher. For this interview, I wanted to focus more specifically on his first-time authorship and with that said, here goes:

**************************************

1)  When did the idea of doing a book begin to form in your mind?

Rough timeline:

1993-2014: Idle daydreams of writing book someday.

2015: Contacted by two great agents; begin developing book proposals.

2016: Contacted by a great editor; I put her in contact with my agents; the three of them figure out a plan while I twiddle my thumbs.

2017: I write a book!

And if I can ask, how many publishers did you have to go to to find a taker?  Is there any interesting or special backstory behind ending up with Black Dog & Leventhal, a publisher I’d not heard of?

We did an exclusive deal with BD&L rather than shop around -- my editor Becky Koh had a great sense of vision, and they make gorgeous, colorful books so luscious you want to eat them. Having seen the final product I am 300% sure it was the right call.

...geeez, you make it all sound too easy (…the poor schleps who suffer through 37 rejection letters are going to hate you ;)

2)  Can you give us a little outline of what the book covers?

There are five sections:

1. How to think like a mathematician

2. Design: the secret geometry of things that work

3. Probability: the mathematics of maybe

4. Statistics: the fine art of honest lying

5. On the Cusp: the power of a step 

3)  I’m just curious if in your own head you ever have names for your little round-headed buddies?

Never, actually! To me they are just nameless, noseless folks.

Also, have you ever considered adding a Snoopy-like dog (or cat or other animal) to your regular cast of characters?

Not until this moment! That's a pretty compelling thought.

(…and remember, when you do it, 10% of the royalties can be deposited directly into my off-shore Grand Cayman account, OK)

4)  Who are your own favorite cartoonists of any type, living or dead?

I grew up on Garfield and Dilbert. Later realized that Calvin and Hobbes is the greatest achievement of the 20th century. These days xkcd and Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal are my two staples.

Sorry, The Far Side is the Grand Prize winner, but you have named the 3 runners-up!

5)  Is your wife involved in mathematics, and what does she think of your comic proclivities? Does she help edit you?

She's a harmonic analyst — by far the more serious mathematician in the marriage. She is enormously patient with all my foibles, cartooning included.

6)  Any chance you’ve already given thought to a 2nd volume?

Yes! We did a two-book deal with Black Dog & Leventhal. The follow-up is a playful, reader-friendly tour of calculus.

…Why-ohhh-why were there no playful tours of calculus when I was growing up!???

7)  Any details yet on a possible book tour?

I've got tentative events in PA, MD, DC, VA, NC, and NY. Plus I'll schedule some stops in New England soon. Details by the end of the summer!

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Thanks Ben; so many of us looking forward to this unique treat (and great to know there's a second one coming along as well!)....

Of Cartoons and Rorschach Tests (...and Pillows)

Ben Orlin has been on fire lately both on Twitter and his blog… cracking me up with his amateurish-seeming drawings and accompanying thoughts… who knew math could be THIS funny! (let alone funny & deep at the same time!).

But with that said, from time to time one of his scribbles doesn’t strike such a chord with me and I think to myself “mehh, not up to his usual level”… then I go read the comments to him and almost invariably there are some folks just rolling on the floor praising said cartoon as one of his best ever! It’s almost as if each cartoon is some sort of Rorschach test of people’s perceptions and funny bones — partitioning readers into groups.

Some decades ago I worked in a lab with a female colleague who like me, broke up at Gary Larson’s “Far Side” cartoons (…but then who didn’t back-in-the-day). Anyway, again the thing that struck me was how often cartoons that she found absolutely hysterical (like this one) I thought were kinda dumb, and ones that slayed me (like this one), she thought were pretty lame.  Again, Rorschach test or what? I wonder if that ‘baby’ cartoon appeals more to females and the dog/cat especially to pet-lovers (or is that completely off the mark???) — I don’t know what’s going on, except of course senses of humor are highly variable.

As a youngster there was a joke that cracked me up and has ever since… it’s completely stupid, yet something about it inexplicably tickles my fancy even as a rational adult:

“I had the weeeirdest dream last night. I dreamt I was eating a GIANT marshmallow… and when I woke up, my pillow was gone.” 

Go figure??? (I’m embarrassed to say I love it!)

Or to get at least a little more modern, here’s one of my absolute favorite (of so many) Steven Wright lines:

“I installed a skylight in my apartment.... The people who live above me are furious!”

Yet I rarely see it make lists of his top jokes. C’mon people, that’s pure gold! (...but, honestly I don't know why these delight me so, though there has been a lot of study of what makes something funny, HERE, HERE).
I've always been a sucker for the quick one-liner, Henny Youngman-Rodney Dangerfield-Steven Wright style of jokes; more bang per word. I have a friend who loves to tell long, involved, story-like jokes that try my patience, even when the punch line is good.

My mother used to say (semi-seriously) that there was no accounting for peoples’ tastes in mates or wallpaper! I might add to that, humor.

Almost two decades ago British psychologist Dr. Richard Wiseman famously ran a year-long experiment attempting to discover the best joke in the world! If you’ve never read about it, it’s worth a gander for sheer entertainment:

http://www.richardwiseman.com/LaughLab/introduction.html

Here verbatim, in the final analysis, are the top two chosen jokes back then (by now, most will be familiar with them):

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1)  Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, "My friend is dead! What can I do?". The operator says "Calm down. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says "OK, now what?"

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2)  Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson were going camping. They pitched their tent under the stars and went to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night Holmes woke Watson up and said: “Watson, look up at the stars, and tell me what you see.”

Watson replied: “I see millions and millions of stars.” 

Holmes said: “and what do you deduce from that?” 

Watson replied: “Well, if there are millions of stars, and if even a few of those have planets, it’s quite likely there are some planets like earth out there. And if there are a few planets like earth out there, there might also be life.” 

And Holmes said: “Watson, you idiot, it means that somebody stole our tent.”

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Funny? sure, but best two in the world… I don’t think so; I mean neither one involves eating a pillow!

OK, so none of this has much to do with math, other than to say, Ben, keep up the great work… for the benefit of those of us who astutely recognize and appreciate which of your scrawlings are truly the funniest.

Ohhh, and a reminder to readers that this is on the way in September:

Ben and Jim Deliver (good Wednesday stuff!)

These are both toooooooo good to hold them until the Friday potpourri, so passing them along now:

1) Ben Orlin, a bit more serious than some Wednesdays, on “the three phases of the mathematical life” (competition, mentorship, and collaboration):

https://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2017/05/24/the-three-phases-of-the-mathematical-life/ …

2)  Jim Propp on “Math, magic, and mystery” in this 36-min. video describing math being “liberated from (physical) reality”:

A couple of pieces I think might also make good adjunct readings to Jim’s talk are this Evelyn Lamb piece from a couple years back on epsilons and deltas:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/the-subterfuge-of-epsilon-and-delta/

…and this old Terry Tao piece on rigor and intuition in math:

https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/there’s-more-to-mathematics-than-rigour-and-proofs/