Saturday, August 17, 2024
I have been interested in Calculs since high school. I was pretty good at algebra, geometry, and calc – in high school. In college I took Calc I my freshman year and I did okay, but things alluded me. I think the difference was in high school I had a really good teacher who gave us homework and went over it the next day. In college, it was a lecture three times a week and if you didn’t keep up – too bad. I think too there was this attitude of giving you the toughest problem they could find and if you got well then you obviusly understood. If you didn’t get it – well – there was no help.
But the ideas behind calculus I’ve always liked and toyed with mentally.
I had seen a book on differential equations at my daughter’s home and liked how it was written. It connected the real world to the mathmatical one.
For my birthday she gave me a small thin volume Lectures on Ordinary Ditterential Equations by Witlold Hurewicz. Here is the opening page of the book:
Last September sixth was a black day for mathematics. For on that day there disappeared, as a consequence of a accidental fall from a pyramid in Uxmal, Yucatan, Witold Hurewicz, …
in front of
The Pyramid of The Dwarf
Uxmal, Mexico
Uxmal is a wonderful site. It has a massive pyramid called “The Pyramid of The Dwarf.” Alledgedly, a dwarf built it overnight. This pyramid is unlike any other pyramid in the Mayan world. I has smooth sloping sides. I assume Dr. Hurewicz must have fallen from it. Climbing is now forbidden. I think for good reason.
The year of his death was 1956.
I loved Math too! Maybe that is why we click!