Dog Mountain- Washington

@jennisbaum

#TellAJokeDay….As you wish

https://wolfr.am/f0d8tarc

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Milford Sound by Tim Jordan Photography on Flickr.

In the creative mathematics, the role of proof is in no way restricted to its function of carrier of conviction. Otherwise, there would be no need for Carl Friedrich Gauss to consider eight (!) different proofs of the law of quadratic reciprocity. One metaphor of proof is a route, which might be a desert track boring and unimpressive until one finally reaches the oasis of ones destination, or a foot path in green hills, exciting and energizing, opening great vistas of unexplored lands and seductive offshoots, leading far away even after the initial destination point has been reached.

Yuri Manin, Foundations as Superstructure (Reflections of a practicing mathematician)

Fifty years of space exploration. Well, American space exploration at least. Originally published by National Geographic back in 2008, a few things have changed:

Several new missions have embarked to our Moon since 2008, including the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, GRAIL (mission complete, RIP) and LADEE, just launched last week.

The Mars Curiosity rover, duh!

Juno, launched in 2011, is only halfway to Jupiter today. That big planet is far away.

The Solar Dynamics Observatory has given us beautiful solar spectra to stare at.

New Horizons is set to be the first spacecraft to fly by Pluto and its moons in 2015. It rode on the fastest launch vehicle ever in order to begin its epic journey.

And Voyager has left the building …

Embigginate this beautiful piece of work here.

You know, many people think that mathematics is so complicated. This is wrong. Mathematics is an extremely simple approximation of the world. The world itself is more complicated than anything we can think of.

Cédric Villani, 2010 Fields Medal winner for “his work on developing equations to describe the movement of gas and plasma” [Science Show] (via we-are-star-stuff)

Vic Elford Porsche Targa Florio 1969

Illustrations from John Stillwell’s Classical Topology and Combinatorial Group Theory