Few agnostics and believers would disagree that the rainbow is enchantingly and mesmerizingly beautiful to the naked eye.
To faithful believers, the rainbow reminds them of its spiritual connection to their existence — it’s more than just a pretty arc of color.
A rainbow, which doesn’t exist in any particular part of the sky, is an intangible interaction between the natural world and our eyes and brains. No two people see or experience the same rainbow in their mind’s eye.
While there is a tension between poetry/beauty and science/physics, that unease shouldn’t destroy the wonder (“magic”) of the rainbow vis-à-vis its technical side (“math/geometry/science”). More often than not, science helps us better appreciate nature’s beauty.
The Magic and Math of Rainbows
Below are four tanka that imperfectly capture the many perspectives on a rainbow.
ScreenshotScreenshotScreenshotScreenshot
That God established the rainbow as the sign of His covenant with Noah (and all living creatures) after the flood comes from Genesis 9:13:
“I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”
Nearby verses (12, 15–16) reveal that God promises never again to destroy all life on earth with a flood.
The rainbow serves as the visible sign and token of that covenant and reminds Him of His promise.
Last July, millions across Asia competed for just 300,000 tickets to see Taylor Swift in the “fine” city of Singapore, which will host the only stop in Southeast Asia for the singer’s Eras Tour. Organizers said 22-plus million people registered for pre-sale tickets while online registrations passed the one million mark.
And last night, even pop singer Swift, who kicked off her six sold-out shows at the 55,000-seat National Stadium, couldn’t avoid creating some light-hearted political rift or jealousy among some ASEAN members.
Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 2023
Last month, after Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin “complained” that Singapore had brokered a deal to “pay the pop star up to US$3 million for each of her six concerts—in exchange for keeping the shows exclusive to Singapore in Southeast Asia,” the Singapore Tourism Board admitted it “supported the event through a grant,” sans revealing its size or any conditions attached to it. Guesstimate the amount of grant that was given to stage these coveted events.
Even one unhappy politician from the Philippines said “this isn’t what good neighbors do” and called for his country to register its opposition with Singapore’s embassy. Go ahead, Mr. Joey Salceda.
Cartoon by Shannon Wheeler. #NewYorkerCartoons
Political instability, radical ideology that threatens violence to Western values, and poor infrastructure are oft-unspoken key factors for concert promoters to convince the pop superstar to give regional hubs like Bangkok, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, and Jakarta a miss as part of her “Eras Tour.”
Mathin Pop Culture
With so much excitement (and concern from conservative or puritan parents) about Swift’s six-show tour in Singapore, how could math educators seize the opportunity to excite otherwise mathematically indifferent or apathetic students with some Swift-related math questions or activities?
For instance, what about coining some math or dismal science terms like Swiftematics and Swiftonomics to promote some creative problem posing?
Posing real-life Swift-related math questions is only limited by our imagination. Below is a nontrivial question that was posted on Facebook, whose solution is anything but straightforward.
Posted by Judy Smith Hallett on “Maths Jokes Daily”
Swift’s Carbon Footprint
In 2022, Swift topped the list of celebrities with the highest private jet CO₂ emissions. If her jet pollution were about x times more than the average person’s total annual emissions, estimate x.
The next item is a Swift- or math-friendly question posted by news anchor Peter Busch.
A Math-Friendly Question for Swifties
The Numerology of Taylor Swift
Last month, after reading about Swift’s serial infatuation with her “lucky” number 13, I made an attempt to define Swiftie Math, which is based on the numerology (or pseudoscience) of Taylor Swift.
Since I’ve yet to receive any approval or rejection of the term—whether the editors see it fit for publication—I’d skip posting it online for now.
The Swift-Biden Conspiracy
Theomatically, MAGA evangelicals (or MAGA Xtians, where X ≠ Christ)—a subset of Christian nationalists—in red-pilled states haven’t failed to warn netizens about the “satanic” influences of Taylor Swift’s songs, but have hypocritically or selectively remained silent about the fraudulent, criminal, and sexual activities of their “political savior.”
Does Taylor Swift CAST SPELLS On Her Listeners?!
Conspiracies about the singer’s alleged support for President Biden have been rife in political and religious circles to paint Ms. Swift as an “ambassador of Satan,” who’s shown zero sign in supporting Trump and his cult.
Puritan Trumpublicans are hell-bent to warn millions of Swifties from unknowingly becoming witches lest they and their idol lose their souls, but, interestingly, hardly anything from these patriots calling for a nationwide corporate prayer for the soul of their beloved un-Christian ex-president.
For math-anxious or mathophobic folks, mathematics is more terrifying than being attacked by an army of vampires, werewolves, and zombies. For the health-conscious, Covid-19 is a thousand times deadlier than Halloween and Donald J. Trump combined. And for those on the far-left of the political spectrum, Trumpvirus is a googol times more lethal than the product of the coronavirus and Halloween. So, it looks like it depends what really matters to you to rationalize which is more frightening: Halloween, Covid-19, or Trump-45.
For conservatives or evangelicals, who recognize the dangers posed by the dark spiritual forces, Halloween is a festival of the devil, because ghosts or evil spirits are real and dangerous. How do math educators navigate through the occultic maze to leverage on a spookacular festival to promote numeracy and creative problem solving?
When Halloween is a multi-million-dollar fear-and-fun business in secular societies like China, Japan, and Singapore, math educators regardless of their religious affiliations have to recognize that Halloween is here to stay.
Yellow Halloween
When Asians too feel like celebrating a Western fright-wear festival like Halloween—the spooky business worth millions of dollars is too good to give it a miss.
The yellow Halloween provides an opportunity for rich Chinese and Japanese participants to show off their creative elaborate costumes, bringing much joy to organizers and dozens of tailors cashing in on the event.
by MathPlus November 03, 2016
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Yellow+Halloween
Let's look at a sample of Halloween math questions.
1. A Horror Movie
Thou shalt not dabble in numerology!
The screening of Covid-19 v. Trump-45 ended at 1:19 AM. If the horror movie lasted for 1 hour 31 minutes, what time did it start?
A poster outside a Singapore bookstore
2. The Ghostly Time
What is the acute angle measure between the hands of a clock at 10:31 p.m. on Halloween?
3. Horror-scope & Bat-man
#PumpkinSpice from Edel Rodriguez (@edelstudio on 19/10/17)
Today is Friday, and Trump’s numerologist tells him that he will have to drink the blood of a bat 666 days from today to continue to lead a “normal life” after he leaves the White House. What day of the week is Donald expected to do that task?
4. TrumpMath, Anyone?
5. A Grave Calculation
Not all sins or bad habits are treated equal!
Assuming that most people would live up to three scores and ten years, how long will it take before the whole world is covered in gravestones?
6. Operation Vampire
The Power of the Cross
If a vampire were to feed once a day and turn each of his victims into a vampire, show that the entire human population of the planet would become vampires in just over a month.
The Ghost Month and Halloween
Long before the East imported Halloween from the West, superstitious Asians have been celebrating their one-month-long version of Halloween, known as the “Ghost (or Seventh) Month”—a far more scarier festival than a mere evening of horror fun.
My hypothesis is: Halloween is no more than one-seventh as frightening as the Ghost Month, a festival celebrated in many parts of Asia every August or September, depending when those spiritual vagabonds from hell decided to descend on earth.
The coronavirus pandemic and the Seventh Month provide math teachers with new math terms to coin, and allow them to pose a number of deadly guesstimation problems. Below are a few of these Covid-math terms.
On August 8, 2020, @SingaporeLite tweeted the following:
Covid-👿
Corona Math: What are the odds that hungry ghosts from Hell who’d roam Earth during the Ghost or Seventh Month—Aug 19–Sep 16—are corona-proof? Besides instilling fear on superstitious folks, aren’t they also a source of infection? todayonline.com/node/8269421 #Singapore #Covid-19 👿🦠
On July 1, 2020, @SakamotoMath tweeted the following picture and text.
Happy Math-O-Ween! from @MrHonner
Corona Math: Given that the coronavirus is empowered to infect both earthlings and celestial beings, guesstimate the no. of infections among the fallen angels that colluded with Lucifer to challenge the Throne of God in the heavenlies. #Covid-19 #heaven #hell #angel #math #humor
Halloween vs. Coronavirus
Which is scarier to you: Halloween or Covid-19? How are you remembering those who would still be around if not because of the coronavirus? Is fake political leadership responsible for their premature departure to the other side of eternity? #Halloween #Covid-19 #death #leadership (@SakamotoMath on 30/10/20)
Covid-19 Goes Green
The coronavirus doesn’t discriminate against believers, nonbelievers, or agnostics—it infects or kills people of all religions or philosophies with the same intensity.
From Paranormal to Trumpnormal Distribution
Q: What do you get when you cross Covid-19 and Statistics?
A: The Trumpnormal distribution.
A “ghost distribution” from @wilderlab
Political Engineering: Stop flattening and start trumpifying the curve to open up more businesses across the US—more testings and tracings don’t win an election! #statistics #coronavirus #Covid-19 #business #lockdown #distribution #Singapore #math #infection #death #curve #humor
Coronavirus’s Nineteen Names
Just as President Trump has been conferred so many notorious titles, the coronavirus has been given all kinds of racist labels.
7. Not All Corona Prayers Are the Same!
A Shaolin Buddhist abbot can pray for a Covid-19 patient to be healed in 8 days and a Baptist bishop in 2 days. How long would it take them to get a patient who is twice as sick to fully recover, if both leaders prayed together?
Selected Answers: 1. 11:48 PM 2. 129.5° 3. Saturday 5. Over a million years 7. 3.2 days
References
Correl, G. (2015). The worrier’s guide to life. Missouri: Andrews McMeel Publishing.
Lloyd, J., Mitchinson, J. & Harkin, J. (2012). 1,227 QI facts to blow your socks off. London: Faber and Faber.
Santos, A. (2009). How many licks? Philadelphia: Running Press.
For the majority of us who aren’t born or blessed with a mathematical or symbol-minded brain, but nevertheless appreciate the austere beauty of mathematics, writing about mathematics and math education is the second best thing we’d do to console ourselves that we needn’t be first-rate mathematicians to enjoy the language of science and technology, or to appreciate the science of patterns.
Some mathematicians write novels under a pseudonym to avoid any suspicion from their faculty bosses; others compose limericks and haikus as a creative outlet to showcase their hidden poetic talents. And for the rest of us who are neither novelists nor poets, maybe submitting some definitions to Urban Dictionary, by coining new mathematical words, or redefining old ones, could be the first step to activating that atrophied right part of our brain, which is allegedly responsible for creativity.
On this Pi Day, let me share with fellow math educators eleven approved definitions related to the irrational and transcendental pi. Don’t ask me how many times I got rejected and needed to resubmit some of these definitions again, before the Urban Dictionary editors decided to approve them.
Pre-Pi Day
Pre-Pi Day seems to have been serially downvoted and subsequently deleted to prevent digital abuse, because the approved entry can no longer be accessed.
Rejection isn’t failure. We keep refining or redefining any rejected definitions until the editors have zero excuses to reject the resubmitted entries. I wished I’d share some recipe for these approved pi definitions, but any attempt to offer some tips to increase a math educator’s chances of getting these math words or terms approved would probably be futile, to say the least.
Over time, although I’ve managed to reduce the odds of rejection, however, some submissions inevitably end up in the little red book of the mean editors—maybe these word doctors had a bad day, or simply because I was submitting some “mathematical crap” that caused me to receive emails like the following:
Urban Dictionary – Pi-rated was not published
Thanks for your definition of Pi-rated!
A few volunteer editors read your definition and decided to not publish it. Don’t take it personally!
Pi-rated The term to describe any faux facts about the irrational number pi.
On Pi Day, our teacher tricked us with some pi-rated math: pi is a rational number (22/7); pi has a different value on the moon that on earth; pi has a value of three in the Bible.
It’s never too late to be mathematically playful, by playing your part in submitting some irreverent mathematical definitions to enliven your math lessons.
Thousands of students around the world celebrate Pi Day today, but local math students in Singapore can only dream of being part of this annual mathematical event. Singapore math students, teachers, and parents don’t (and can’t) celebrate Pi Day, as long as they officially follow the British style of writing their dates (DD/MM/YY).
What makes matters worse is that this year, Pi Day falls on the first day of the one-week school break, which makes it almost impossible for hardcore math teachers, who want to buck the calendrical trend, to get their students excited about the properties and beauties of the number Pi.
Until Singapore switches to the American style of writing dates (MM/DD/YY), which may not happen, at least during my lifetime, however, this shouldn’t prevent us from evangelizing the gospel of Pi among the local student population.
Here are seven e-gifts of the holy Pi, which I started musing about 314 minutes ago on this Pi Day.
Composing some Theomatics-related haikus may prove therapeutic for stressful math educators, who are prone to overusing their left part of the brain. Why not let these 17-syllabled verses reactivate some atrophied part of your grey matter? Who knows? This right-brained activity may indirectly help rekindle your mathematical creativity!
The Trinity
The True Living God
Ever Three and ever One
A mystery, indeed!
Christ And Mathematics Education (C.A.M.E)
Come to worship Him
Christ and math education
Join ACMS
Theomatics,Anyone?
Teach math Christianly
As an act of true worship
It sure honors Him
Two Conference Proceedings of the Association of Christians in the Mathematical Sciences (ACMS)
Pi in the Sky
The Biblical pi
Is a rational number
From the Book of Kings
π = 3.14 and John 3:16
So close, yet so far
Rational and eternal
The union is null.
The X-tian Pi
The true Christian life
Is like the contextual pi
Constantly changing
