After Iranian President Ahmedinejad’s controversial visit to Columbia University, an Iranian University in the northeastern city of Mashhad reciprocated by inviting President Bush to talk about the Holocaust, terrorism, and human rights.
In math, to get the reciprocal of a non-zero number just divide it into 1. Six is the reciprocal of one-sixth. Three-fourths is the reciprocal of four-thirds. These are reciprocal partners. The problem with zero is that no number times zero equals one. Zero has no reciprocal, no partner.
It doesn’t look like President Bush will be reciprocating Ferdowsi University president Alireza Afshour’s invitation: a White House spokesperson said they weren’t “taking it too seriously.”
So from a math standpoint if President Bush doesn’t reciprocate it’ll either be because President Ahmedinejad’s visit to Columbia was worth zero or because he didn’t want to be a partner with Iran or its President.
Showing posts with label President Bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label President Bush. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Friday, August 10, 2007
Bush tick
Last year around this time, President Bush got Lyme Disease after developing a tell-tale circular rash. The infection, delivered by a deer tick to his left shin, disappeared after antibiotic treatment.
Named after a sleepy but deer-infested town in Connecticut, Lyme Disease is often misdiagnosed and therefore often mistreated: One JAMA study found that 57% of patients originally diagnosed with Lyme Disease never had it.
Concerned about getting Lyme Disease in the US? Although cases have been reported in all 50 states, most occur in the Northeast, upper Midwest, or Northwest. And even if a tick discovers you, all is not lost: it has to bite and stay in place for 24 to 48 hours before you’ll get infected.
Here are the numbers: one percent of deer ticks are infected with the Lyme Disease bacteria, and just over 21,000 - less than one-hundredth of one percent - of Americans are diagnosed each year. Don’t have a bulls-eye rash but have Lyme Disease symptoms of fever, headache, body ache, fatigue, muscle pain, and swelling of the knees? You might be one of four people who don’t present with rash but still have the disease. Or you might have been bitten by another one of the 82 species of ticks in the U.S. that account for nine major diseases. Ouch!
President Bush didn’t disclose the disease at the time because he didn’t believe that it affected his performance. But maybe now we have an explanation for those low poll numbers he’s had for the last year!
Named after a sleepy but deer-infested town in Connecticut, Lyme Disease is often misdiagnosed and therefore often mistreated: One JAMA study found that 57% of patients originally diagnosed with Lyme Disease never had it.
Concerned about getting Lyme Disease in the US? Although cases have been reported in all 50 states, most occur in the Northeast, upper Midwest, or Northwest. And even if a tick discovers you, all is not lost: it has to bite and stay in place for 24 to 48 hours before you’ll get infected.
Here are the numbers: one percent of deer ticks are infected with the Lyme Disease bacteria, and just over 21,000 - less than one-hundredth of one percent - of Americans are diagnosed each year. Don’t have a bulls-eye rash but have Lyme Disease symptoms of fever, headache, body ache, fatigue, muscle pain, and swelling of the knees? You might be one of four people who don’t present with rash but still have the disease. Or you might have been bitten by another one of the 82 species of ticks in the U.S. that account for nine major diseases. Ouch!
President Bush didn’t disclose the disease at the time because he didn’t believe that it affected his performance. But maybe now we have an explanation for those low poll numbers he’s had for the last year!
Friday, June 8, 2007
Putin makes a proposal
As Presidents Bush and Putin met the press after their G8 summit meeting, the Russian President proposed working with the US to use a radar base in Azerbaijan for missile defense.
I was reminded of an old math joke.
An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician have to build a fence around a flock of sheep, using as little material as possible. The engineer forms the flock into a circular shape and constructs a fence around it. The physicist builds a fence with an infinite diameter and pulls it together until it fits around the flock. The mathematician thinks for a while, then builds a fence around himself and defines himself as being outside.
Putin’s proposal took Bush and the US government by surprise. True, the Russians have in the past considered NATO to be a potential security threat. But Russia recently ratified an agreement for Russia and NATO member states to do joint military training and exercises, develop interoperability of armed forces, and cooperate on common security.
Regarding NATO, Putin may have felt fenced-in. But like the mathematician, Putin has redefined the problem by moving the fence. Even President Bush said, "It's much better to work together.”
Just about everyone would like to see a solution to the contentious US-Russian dispute over missile defense. Even though during his visit to Crawford High School in Texas a few years ago he requested no math questions, Putin may have just used a neat math trick to come up with a clever answer.
I was reminded of an old math joke.
An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician have to build a fence around a flock of sheep, using as little material as possible. The engineer forms the flock into a circular shape and constructs a fence around it. The physicist builds a fence with an infinite diameter and pulls it together until it fits around the flock. The mathematician thinks for a while, then builds a fence around himself and defines himself as being outside.
Putin’s proposal took Bush and the US government by surprise. True, the Russians have in the past considered NATO to be a potential security threat. But Russia recently ratified an agreement for Russia and NATO member states to do joint military training and exercises, develop interoperability of armed forces, and cooperate on common security.
Regarding NATO, Putin may have felt fenced-in. But like the mathematician, Putin has redefined the problem by moving the fence. Even President Bush said, "It's much better to work together.”
Just about everyone would like to see a solution to the contentious US-Russian dispute over missile defense. Even though during his visit to Crawford High School in Texas a few years ago he requested no math questions, Putin may have just used a neat math trick to come up with a clever answer.
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