Feeling like Valentine’s Day is a little too cutesy for an intellectual heavyweight such as yourself? Nonsense; the heart may have its reasons, but reason can certainly figure them out, given sufficient grant funding and some diligent graduate students. Jennifer Ouellette points to a talk by Mary Roach that is safe for TED but arguably not safe for work, and shares some brain scans to prove that love is really blind.

If all that biology is a bit too squishy, Sarah Kavassalis does the math. Here you will find the right functions to use to draw hearts — my favorite is the fourth heart curve from Wolfram|Alpha, shown at right — and how to construct topologically nontrivial versions out of construction paper and scissors. Who says mathematicians aren’t practical? Nor are they above venturing into the realm of the literary. Roses are red. Violets are approximately blue. A paracompact manifold with a Lorentzian metric, can be a spacetime, if it has dimension greater than or equal to two.

Shakespeare, maybe not. But the course of true science never did run smooth.

I almost forgot that I am a Math teacher. My bad. So here’s an entry to remind you (and probably myself as well) that I used to teach Mathematics. As a Math teacher, I stressed the importance of defining the variables at the beginning of each solution. Of course, I was used to using the standard variable names x and y, to be consistent with the notations that students will encounter in their higher math courses. But I always remind them that they can use any variable name that they want, as long as they define it at the beginning. Upon seeing this link from College Humor, I am inclined to rethink my policy on variable names. See for yourself. What amazed me is that the student knows what he was doing. But it takes a bored mind to use drawings instead of letters to represent the unknowns in this problem. If I saw a paper like this, I probably would have the same reaction as the professor who corrected this quiz. I now accuse my former students of being too boring. Not one of them thought of using this tactic. Weak. Haha.

I think this web cartoon by Abstruse Goose is hilarious! (Thanks to DB for sending it to me :-)Who is the artist? I did a quick search and didn't find anything -- is he/she deliberately anonymous (other than the Chinese characters on the upper left)?For the perplexed: see earlier post path integrals.

This is my new blog. Created exclusively for my attempts at poetry. http://tina-inspired.blogspot.com/

Well, since my adviser gave me two hours break from work, I’d better do something worthwhile now. Must do something utterly pointless while I let my brain cells regenerate. I present to you… a personality quiz! Courtesy of QuizBox. Your view on yourself: Other people find you very interesting, but you are really hiding your true self. Your friends love you because you are a good listener. They’ll probably still love you if you learn to be yourself with them. The type of girlfriend/boyfriend you are looking for: You are a true romantic. When you are in love, you will do anything and everything to keep your love true. Your readiness to commit to a relationship: You are ready to commit as soon as you meet the right person. And you believe you will pretty much know as soon as you might that person. The seriousness of your love: You are very serious about relationships and aren’t interested in wasting time with people you don’t really like. If you meet the right person, you will fall deeply and beautifully in love. Your views on education Education is less important than the real world out there, away from the classroom. Deep inside you want to start working, earning money and living on your own. The right job for you: You’re a practical person and will choose a secure job with a steady income. Knowing what you like to do is important. Find a regular job doing just that and you’ll be set for life. How do you view success: You are afraid of failure and scared to have a go at the career you would like to have in case you don’t succeed. Don’t give up when you haven’t yet even started! Be courageous. What are you most afraid of: You are afraid of having no one to rely on in times of trouble. You don’t ever want to be unable to take care of yourself. Independence is important to you. Who is your true self: You are mature, reasonable, honest and give good advice. People ask for your comments on all sorts of different issues. Sometimes you might find yourself in a dilemma when trapped with a problem, which your heart rather than your head needs to solve.