Lies You Learned at School by Michael Powell

A pick up from a dollar book sale. This book attempts to factually dispute the myths and legends we've been taught in grade school. It's kinda like a textbook version of TV's Adam Ruins Everything, without the abrasive, whininess of Adam Conover.

When author Michael Powell talks about how George Washington really didn't lie about chopping down a cherry tree, much less actually cut such foliage down to sizes, Powell is great. I learned a lot of inside detail about the midnight 'ride' of Paul Revere, that Mount Everest is NOT the tallest mountain in the world and baseball wasn't invented in the US of A. However, I felt completely lost when Powell attempted to explain how certain mathematical theories such as '2+2=4' have been taught in error.

You know, that's kinda the danger when you write a book that covers a myriad of all topics. No matter how well you might understand a subject, that doesn't mean that you were meant to explain it to others. I think if Powell had stayed away from the complexity of the sciences and focused more on the human element, (and general fun facts debunked) I would have enjoyed this book more thoroughly. He had me when talking about how that apple probably never fell onto Sir Isaac Newton's crown. But when the author tries to explain the science behind the theory of relativity, I was begging for a chance to turn the page.

There will probably be some of you readers who prefer Powell's explanations of equations instead of the truth behind whether Mussolini made the trains on time. However, if you are like me and you can't visualize math without a step-by-step graph on how to solve for X, then you may not enjoy this book completely. This is a book that has a little bit of everything. I just don't think it's a book that will appeal to everyone.

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars.

Young Katherine Johnson (Family Comic Friday)

This is the second of humorous volumes on the lives of notable figures from history during their youth I've recently read by the French cartoonist Augel. This selection was chosen for Black History Month as it features noted math genius Katherine Johnson. Her work as a 'human calculator ' for NASA helped the space program win the race to the moon with the Apollo 11 landing in 1969. She was even personally requested by John Glenn to confirm his contradictory calculations during his historic Friendship 7 orbital mission in 1962.

Just like with the Agatha Christie volume, there's interactive activities for readers. Instead of solving mysteries, your tasked with solving mathematical word problems. Math not being my strong suit, I prefer solving a crime over doing algebra any day. Though I will begrudgingly admit that if I had paid a tiny bit more attention, I would have correctly solved more of those problems than I did. Though let's be honest, Augel cheated a little in that problem involving the blocks!

You explore both humorous as well as thoughtful situations in this look at Katherine Johnson. You'll experience her life as a young black girl in the segregated mountains of West Virginia as well as the stigma of being a female who's life interest were in the male dominated fields of science and math. Katherine also explored the limits of her imagination with her beloved pet chicken Luncinda, and her celestial friend, the Moon. 

Young Katherine Johnson was an adorable book. Another success by Augel. Teachers will love this book as the last 10 or so pages are a lesson guide for Black History Month, science and math and astronomy and physics. Parents and guardians will love how the young readers in their lives will learn and be entertained through reading. And maybe they'll want to do some of the extra activities and science experiments in the back of this graphic novel! There's potential for fun for the whole class AND family!

Worth Consuming!

Strange Attractors

E=NYC Squared

    New York City. The City That Never Sleeps. What if the key to understanding how such a complex microcosm works is based on a simple equation? If such a formula existed, could the Capital of the World be saved from itself in times of trouble and tragedy?

    According to disgraced professor Spencer Brownfield, the answer is yes! Not only could New York be rescued from imminent threats with a slide rule and a calculator, it’s been done by before by Professor Brownfield. Or so he claims… However, age is catching up with the de facto savior of the Big Apple. To maintain the city in running order, a replacement must be found soon. Will Dr. Brownfield be able to find the right man for the job before the next forecasted disaster strikes? If it strikes at all.

  Manhattan Tourism Authority

     Charles Soule’s (Letter 44) look at the five boroughs through the realm of mathematics is an excellent read. It does start off very slowly; like putting a puzzle together without a box for reference. Yet as the disjointed segments started to come together as beautiful mosaic of the American melting pot. Building a mystery from the ground up is really Soule’s style. Thankfully, he’s got a great foundation in the metropolis that is New York City.

Helping Soule on visuals is native New Yorker Greg Scott. His flowing sketches capture both the good and bad elements of NYC. Scott is also the creative genius behind the flow charts that Brownfield and his colleagues use. The artist takes painstaking care to make each equation match the personality of the characters who draft them. Together,  Soule and Scott are the perfect guides to the Empire City.

    There’s so much to this amazing story. To reveal too much would be a disservice to the reader. One must really explore Strange Attractors with as little knowledge of the plot as possible. But if it helps, I will at least reveal the source of the enigma behind this Boom Entertainment work. It can all be traced back to the music scene of Gotham.

     Unlocking the Music Box

     Soule references New York based bands such as Blondie, the Talking Heads and the Paper Clips extensively throughout this book. The patterns Professor Brownfield notices throughout New York looks almost like sheet music. Now I can’t read music to save my life. But I am sure that at least 1 pattern is this book is actually the musical bridge to Blitzkrieg Bop!

    Math, music, and New York. Thrown in a dash of the Magician’s Apprentice with a smattering of Minority Report and you will have deciphered the mystery of Strange Attractors.

      Worth Consuming!

      Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

1977: A Madman Turns 40: 2017- Day 4

Gas prices from a Speedway in New Jersey 12-20-16.
Just before the holiday bump, which could be due to
gas protests in Mexico.

    What the heck happened over the holidays? Gas prices have been steadily creeping back up over the past few days. I've seen prices recently at $2.35/ gallon and considered myself blessed when I found a station with gas for $2.12/ gallon.

    For today's look at the year 1977, I decided to look at what gas prices were like. Short answer, gas was 'cheap.' Meaning I would love to only have to pay about $.65/ gallon for gas. But in 1977, the average minimum wage was about $2.30. That's a total of $8.54 in 2012 dollars (US DEPT of LABOR).

I wonder if paying for full service impacted the average price for gas....
I'd be more than willing to save the 4 cents and pump for myself.

     I remember by the early 80s, gas was just under a dollar a gallon. When I started driving, it was about $1.50 a gallon.  I don't think in the 17-18 years I've been married that I've paid less than $1.80 for gas. 
    So was gas really cheaper in 1977? Let's do some math...

  Let's go with gas in 1977 as being $.65/gal divide the price of 1 gallon into 1 hour of minimum wage:

    .65/2.30= 28% of income spent on gas

Now let's do the same for 2012. According to AAA, gas average was $3.60/ gal. Honestly, I don't remember paying that high ever in North Carolina. But I'll go with it for this example.

3.60/8.54= 42% of income was spent on gas.

So, comparatively, gas in 1977 was cheaper than it was just 4 years ago.

(NOTE: I can't find an average minimum wage for a year later than 2012. But if you take the standard minimum wage for 2016 which is $7.25/hr established by the Federal Government and divide it by the 2016 Average gas price of $2.16, the percent of income is 30%. It's lower than 2012 but still a little bit higher than 1977's averages.)

    So there you have it, it's perfectly fine to wish for the gas prices of 1977. But in no way want  do want the minimum wage from that year. I might be nostalgic but I'm not stupid...

    

The Sherlock Holmes Puzzle Collection

  When I found this book, I was so excited. I have been on a Sherlock kick recently having discovered the Benedict Cumberbatch series on PBS. So when I found this puzzle book, I thought I would get to be like the famous detective and solve some crimes.

  The book is setup just like the original novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with Dr. John Watson as the narrator. This time, the prose is in the form of Watson's notebook containing some of Holmes lesser known ( and so extent, less exciting mysteries- unpublished of course!) With the answers in the back, I thought that this would be like Donald J Sobol's Encyclopedia Brown series that I adored as a kid. (who am I kidding, I still do!) Yet I would have to venture that about 75% of this book reads like the SATs!

   With complicated word plays, lengthy math problems, logic puzzles, and blasted fractions, this book was hard. It didn't help that these puzzles get more and more difficult as the book progresses. Plus, some of the more tricky puzzles unfairly require the reader to have a general knowledge of life in Victorian England in order to solve them.

  By the end of the book, these contests were so difficult to even comprehend that I was pretty much rushing through them. I was that flustered with this book. I think you've got to be a member of MENSA to enjoy the second half of this book. And if you aren't, you’re going to need a pen, paper and possibly a calculator and dictionary to solve them.

  I enjoyed the artwork, some of which were original pieces by Sydney Paget, illustrator of Doyle's stories when first published in London's The Strand magazine. This is a lovely little book for serious Sherlock enthusiasts but for a comparative novice of Holmes and Watson like me, it's going straight to a used bookstore for trade credit.

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars.