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stoutfellowTomorrow is Summer Convocation, and I've been assigned as one of the marshals. Joy... At least my post is on the far side from the parents, so I won't be involved in crowd control. I'll just have to shepherd students, remind them of the alphabet, remind them to take their name-cards up with them, capture any loose beachballs, etc. Fortunately, Summer Convocation has fewer students and a larger proportion of graduate students than, say, Spring.
I finished reading The Rise of Statistical Thinking, 1820-1900 today. It's an interesting book, if you like that sort of thing; I have a fair grip on the history of mathematics, but statistics, not so much. The biggest eye-opener was the following sequence of events. (I'm vastly simplifying a complex story here.) In the first half of the 19th century, social scientists - what we'd call demographers today - noticed the regularity of vital statistics such as marriage rates, death rates, crime rates, and the like. Eventually this led them to the conclusion that seemingly random behavior by individuals could yield regular and predictable behavior en masse. One of the leading proponents of this view was the historian Henry Buckle, and it was reading his work that inspired James Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann to introduce statistical methods into physics. This is a striking case in which the physical sciences took their cue from the social sciences; I don't know of anything else quite like it.
I also finished Song for the Basilisk, and I've started on The Tower at Stony Wood.
Alan Keyes? Should be interesting...
I finished reading The Rise of Statistical Thinking, 1820-1900 today. It's an interesting book, if you like that sort of thing; I have a fair grip on the history of mathematics, but statistics, not so much. The biggest eye-opener was the following sequence of events. (I'm vastly simplifying a complex story here.) In the first half of the 19th century, social scientists - what we'd call demographers today - noticed the regularity of vital statistics such as marriage rates, death rates, crime rates, and the like. Eventually this led them to the conclusion that seemingly random behavior by individuals could yield regular and predictable behavior en masse. One of the leading proponents of this view was the historian Henry Buckle, and it was reading his work that inspired James Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann to introduce statistical methods into physics. This is a striking case in which the physical sciences took their cue from the social sciences; I don't know of anything else quite like it.
I also finished Song for the Basilisk, and I've started on The Tower at Stony Wood.
Alan Keyes? Should be interesting...
no subject
Date: 2004-08-07 09:02 am (UTC)That's interesting about the interactions with physical scientists & social scientists; that's the sort of show I like to watch on the History or Discovery channels.
So..how did Alan Keyes go?
no subject
Date: 2004-08-07 09:54 am (UTC)He hasn't gone anywhere yet, and I rather doubt he will. Despite the fact that he's a resident of Maryland, he's been asked by the Illinois GOP to run for the Senate against Barack Obama, and signs are that he'll accept.
As I said, it should be interesting.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-07 07:03 pm (UTC)