The Joy of x: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity

The Joy of x attempts to demystify math so that "the rest of us" can gain some of the excitement that mathematicians do. The author succeeds fairly well in relating complex mathematics to the real world.

The Joy of x starts simple and takes nothing for granted. An example from Sesame Street calling for "fish fish fish" begins the introduction into numbers and counting. Subtraction begat the need for negative numbers. Square roots gave us the need for imaginary and complex numbers. Parabolas and other conic shapes have the ability to concentrate and amplify due to their structure. Geometry, calculus and algebra all help us explain real world phenomena.

"School math" often focuses on isolated equations or contrived story problem. Connecting it to the real world does a good job of making things alive. There are always the assumptions in word problems that we are asked to take to solve them. In high school, wind resistance always drove me crazy. Riding my bicycle, I knew that the wind and hills made a huge difference in speed and effort. Yet, all word problems seems to assume that all travel was done in a flat vacuum. The math to account for those details was "too complex" for the moment, but important for the real world. Even acknowledging those factors helps increase the "joy" in math.

A Mind at Play

A Mind at Play deifies Claude Shannon as a renaissance-type genius who is able to make contributions to any field he desires, yet is likely to leave his greatest ideas unfinished. You would have a tough time finding any criticism in this work. He grew up a tinkerer in small-town Michigan. He was super smart, and was great at understanding and applying math. He was also able to pick up domain knowledge of other fields and made great contributions to genetics research (that were only recently "rediscovered"). However, his primary contribution was the theory of information transmission. Alas, only briefly discusses what this theory is, leaving us wondering why he is so important. (Though this may be in part because it seems so obvious today.) He made some of the earliest "thinking machines", such as a "maze running mouse" and chess computers. He lived to see the dawn of the information age, but was suffering from Alzheimer's at the time and was thus barely able to comprehend it.
While I found the book to be a excessively laudatory, I did enjoy the descriptions of the time at Bell Labs. Having a bunch of people turned lose at doing whatever they wanted seems to be one of the advantages of monopolies. Any research that could be tangentially related to phone company business was fair game. The huge number of innovations that arose from Bell Labs validates its value. Imagine if we allowed more researchers the freedom to investigate ideas rather than spend endless hours writing grant proposals or helping the companies short-term bottom line? We see some of that with the big tech companies like Google and Facebook these days. Alas, a lot of the innovation today is in the small startups, and that funding is driven by the ability to appease the venture capitalists.

Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don’t Know What You’re Eating and What You Can Do about It

The United States is all for intellectual property - as long as it benefits its businesses. When US businesses benefit significantly from flouting IP, the US is more than willing to ignore other countries' rights. Thus is the state of "fake food" in the US. In Europe names are used to identify food and wine from specific regions that adhere to strict standards. The names are protected to ensure customers are getting what was promised. In the US, these same terms could be slapped on anything. Champagne is a bubbly wine from the eponymous region in France. "Parmesan" is the Anglicization of the name of the cheese made in Parma. Each of these was well known for its excellence. In Europe or many other places in the world, the name is a guarantee of a certain product. In the US, it means just about nothing. A product called "Parmesan" cheese is likely a cheese. But, those green cans barely even make it that far. The wedges at least are a hard cheese - but not up to bar with the real thing. An argument could be made that these names help people identify things similar to what they were seeking. However, by that view, a Russian software house could call something "Microsoft Office" because it is an office productivity suite. The US would have nothing to do with that, but they let food get away with it.
In addition to the intellectual property violations, we also have food faked through more nefarious means. Much of the fish we eat is "faked". In processed fish, cheaper fish is frequently substituted for more expensive fish. (In Seattle, only 18% of fish was found to be different than what it claimed to be - making it the most "accurate" fish city in the US.) Things are especially bad with expensive fish like Red Snapper, which is almost always fake. The US will often ban products from certain countries (such as China.) However, those countries will export them to other countries where they will then be exported legally to the US.
Labeling of food can also be an exercise in trickery. 100% may mean 100% of a specific ingredient, not that the product contains only that ingredient. Packaging can predominantly display secondary ingredients. ("Blueberry Pomegranate Juice" may be primarily apple juice.) Many names like "natural" have no official meaning. Even those with meanings may be different than what we expect them to mean. We really have to research what the real stuff is in order to find things that are not fake. And then, we need to hope that the labeling is in fact accurate. (Even if it isn't, the USDA and FDA are often in no hurry to enforce.) If something is a great deal, it is more than likely to be fake. (Even something as simple as honey may be doctored with additional sweeteners.) Even expensive products can be knockoffs. However, the real stuff is generally pricey - though it also tastes better and is better for you and the environment, making it worth the effort.