neuroscience | Yan's One Minute Math Blog

Common sense has returned to Thailand, when the present government admitted before the Year of the Dragon ushered in that the recreational use of cannabis or marijuana is wrong, which was decriminalized in the kingdom in 2022.

Mr. Chonlanan Srikaew, Thai health minister, said that the government will soon be moving a new bill that will allow the drug to be used only for health and medicinal purposes.

Indeed, a big blow to hundreds of marijuana dispensary owners, and to millions of tourists who’re planning to visit the “Land of a Thousand Smiles” to get a kick out of marijuana.

And to a small extent, the ban will also affect recreational math educators who’ve started working on new and fertile questions that incorporate the legalized use of marijuana recreationally.

Should “Thailand math” questions be allowed in recreational math classrooms?

Marijuana Math

In an earlier post on “Marijuana Math” under “Math Word of the Day,” on LinkedIn, I poked fun that in tourism the “fine” city of Singapore would likely be losing out against Thailand. I mentioned tongue-in-cheek a few positives of Thailand being a “marijuana mecca” for adventurous or uninhibited tourists, especially those who come from conservative countries that criminalize the use of the drug recreationally.

With the new cannabis law in the pipeline, the number of tourists bypassing budget-unfriendly, family-friendly Singapore for wallet-friendly, pro-same-sex unions Thailand should be expected to be far lower than initially feared.

Math on a High

Let’s indulge in some recreational Thai Math questions, while there is some time to be on a high. The window of opportunity to enjoy these soon-to-be-banned word problems is closing in fast, unless the power-hungry military stages another coup to put in place a new pro-cannabis government.

1. A MAGA patriot, who recently visited Thailand, was caught with 24 cannabis candies and chewing gums in his locker at Mar-a-Lago. The fine is $80 for each candy, and $90 for each chewing gum. If the judge sentenced the culprit for a total of $2,010, how many candles and how many chewing gums were seized?

2. Which has the higher chance of occurring in the next quarter century: Singapore qualifying for the World Cup, or Singapore allowing tourists (but not locals and permanent residents) to use marijuana recreationally?

3. If the medicinal use of marijuana debatably proved to be a quasi-effective cure in treating math anxiety, mathophobia, or other mathematical disorders in a-not-too-distant future, would the “fine” city condone its use among its oft-self-professed semi-innumerate citizens?

Like the days of the legalization of recreational cannabis in Thailand, the days of the recreational use of Thai Math questions, too, look numbered.

Recreationally or restrictively yours

References

Thai government plans to ban recreational cannabis use http://tinyurl.com/mt6fhs2m

Number of young children who accidentally ate cannabis edibles jumped 1,375% in five years, study finds http://tinyurl.com/2mwb55d9

A while ago, I tweeted the following math or language or brain question, hoping for a layman answer from math educators or linguists or brain specialists, who might offer a quick-and-dirty explanation to that puzzle.

Another nontrivial question is: “For a number of us who’d no choice but to learn or master a few languages or dialects to survive, why do we feel at home decades later still vocalizing or reciting numbers in the (foreign) language we used while we’re growing up rather than in our mother tongue or lingua franca?”

Personally, I find it easier to recite or utter a sequence of consecutive numbers, or to work with mathematical symbols, in French rather than in English or Chinese—or in my Hakka dialect. I find it puzzling because French has now been relegated to my third or fourth language, and I hardly ever use it in my daily communication, or in any tête-à-tête meetings, other than occasionally dropping some French jargon in my writing to appear like a faux Francophone.

Although today English is my second language and lingua franca, French remains my language of choice when it comes to self-talking (or maybe even daydreaming or dreaming) in numbers or numerals.

It looks like if we learn numbers and symbols in a certain language or dialect in our formative years, we’re brainwired to recall or recite numbers in that particular language later in our adult life. This occurs especially when we’re on our own, even though we may be equally versed or quasi-fluent in other languages or dialects.

Like cycling, driving, or swimming, it appears that reciting numbers in the language of our childhood days in later years is something that stays with us for life.

When self-talking about numbers, do the majority of you who’re forced to be bilingual, trilingual, or multilingual to survive (or thrive) in school and in the workplace also share my experience? Sounds like it’s a neuro rather than a numero question we’re trying to address here!

Linguistically yours

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