Square Root of 3
Posted by mike on March 25th, 2010
Last weekend, Emily and the kids travelled to Evansville and left me at home to fend for myself. I was on-call for work, which is why I couldn’t join them. I also had to get some things done around the farm and the house, such as dismantling the kids old swingset in preparation for the new one to be installed.
Honestly, I don’t usually handle this well. When left home alone, I tend to stay up way too late, eat too much, and accomplish little. However, I did pretty well this time! I generally went to bed around 12:30 each night. On Saturday I went riding (horse), and then spent about 4 hours moving hay and cleaning up stuff around the farm. Sunday I spent most of the day taking apart the swing set, cleaning up the litter box, and doing some laundry. I also managed to watch three movies I have wanted to see but Emily did not… they were “2012″, “Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanomo Bay”, “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider”. As for eating too much, well, we won’t discuss that…
Fortunately I watched 2012 first, because it was fairly depressing. This is not a movie I would recommend to anyone who has fears about the “end of the world”, but the effects were pretty cool. Tomb Raider was much better than I anticipated, even though I’m not a big Angelina Jolie fan. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad. Think “Raiders of the Lost Ark” meets “National Treasure”. Finally, Harold and Kumar did not disappoint! Yes, the movie is lewd and crude, but I was still laughing. And I even discovered a “math poem” in it that I had never heard. Perhaps had math been like this when I was a kid, I would have enjoyed it more…
The Square Root of 3
by Dave Feinberg
I’m sure that I will always be
A lonely number like root three
The three is all that’s good and right,
Why must my three keep out of sight
Beneath the vicious square root sign,
I wish instead I were a nine
For nine could thwart this evil trick,
with just some quick arithmetic
I know I’ll never see the sun, as 1.7321
Such is my reality, a sad irrationality
When hark! What is this I see,
Another square root of a three
As quietly co-waltzing by,
Together now we multiply
To form a number we prefer,
Rejoicing as an integer
We break free from our mortal bonds
With the wave of magic wands
Our square root signs become unglued
Your love for me has been renewed