🚀 go-pugleaf

jtant@nospam.exis.net (jbt) wrote:

>world.  Where do they learn how?  The ancient Greeks thought it was
>in the formal geometry.  So did Lincoln and many of the Founding
>Fathers of this country, who often worked through the Elements on
>their own or with a hired tutor.
>
>             John

Yes, learning Mr. Euclid's system was critical to those
all-American daddy-o's, given the challenges then facing a 
nascent nation (or one on the verge of complete disintegration, 
in Lincoln's case).  

According to Ralph Abraham [1], well-known math prof, chaos 
expert, and something of an authority on Euclid, the Elements 
were a formal course of study for gaining entre into the more 
mystical aspects of reality ala the Pythagorean School, where 
maybe you'd find some tricks for keeping your government on 
track. At least that's a view John Dee, advisor to QE1 
espoused.[2]

If we reconnected our Euclideanism to its mystical roots (using
provable history) that might rope in some kids not especially
perked by the 'woman mud wrestlers' intro -- though, come to
think of it, that _does_ do the trick in junior high, at least
for the boys.

In the meantime, it falls to my Synergetics on the Web[3] to 
get a lot of traffic from kids into Robert Anton Wilson and
Company[4], many of them your students during the day 
(rocker rollin' mystic legions by night).

If I'm leading them astray, by not harping strongly enough on 
this or that aspect of the current wisdom, feel free to offer 
your pointers and criticisms.  I'm not trying to monopolize 
the geometry curriculum or anything, just some days it feels
like I'm getting all your best students.

Kirby
owner-synergetics-l

PS:  this concludes my series of interconnected postings to
k12.ed.math.  I've found the conversations engaging, the posts
relevant and entertaining.  I invite any of those interested
in the threads I've started to follow them back to my neck of
the woods on the interet, where I have plenty more info and
links to talented others with overlapping interests.  In case
you missed my earlier stuff in this newsgroup and are curious,
I recommend searching on 'pdx4d' in DejaNews.[5]

NOTES:

[1] http://152.175.1.205/NIAbraham.html

[2] for more on Dee, see:
http://redwood.pacweb.com/rha/professional/courses/math181/math181.S90.html

[3] http://www.teleport.com/~pdx4d/synhome.html

[4] my hit logs show a large percentage of browsers finding my 
site by way of Orbit, an online ezine, attractive to a younger 
set, where Robert Anton Wilson links have frequently featured
(not finding any today though). 

See http://www.tcp.com/~prime8/Orbit/

[5] http://www.dejanews.com/

----------------------------------------------------
Kirby Urner  "ALL realities are 'virtual'" -- KU
Email: pdx4d@teleport.com
Web:   http://www.teleport.com/~pdx4d/