Dec 12 2020 - My Infinity is bigger than yours

 

TVO has a series on Mathematics and last night they covered the topic of infinity.  It turns out that there are a lot of answers to the question: "How big is infinity?"   An article that explains this says:  "Infinity is an extremely important concept in mathematics. Infinity shows up almost immediately in dealing with infinitely large sets — collections of numbers that go on forever, like the natural, or counting numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on. Infinite sets are not all created equal, however. There are actually many different sizes or levels of infinity; some infinite sets are vastly larger than other infinite sets." The explanation takes more than this page.  You can read about it HERE. It explains the theory of infinite sets, developed in the late 1900s by Georg Cantor.  He showed that there are many infinites. But this is all a premise to find good infinity jokes:  I was going to tell a joke about infinity But I don't know how it ends. I love the concept of infinity. I could talk about it forever. To the guy who invented infinity. Thanks for everything, Why can’t the Infinity car company trademark ∞ ? The legal battle would be endless. What's infinity minus one? A sideways seven. And here's the best for last: Dictionary namesake Noah Webster's funeral Noah Webster was an important man in the field of lexicography. So when he died his wife, Miriam, decided to have a large funeral. Many people came out. Near the end, after the eulogy, Miriam asked if anyone else wanted to say something about her late husband. A man comes up to her and says, “I would like to say a word if that is acceptable.”  Miriam says, “Of course!” The man goes up and says, “Plethora.” The widow Webster smiles and says, “Thank you, that means a lot.” Another man comes up to her and says, “I, too, would like to say a word if that is acceptable.”  Miriam says, “Of course!” The man goes up and says, “Infinity.” The widow Webster smiles and says, “Thank you, that means more than you can know.” Lastly, a woman comes up to Miriam and says, “I, too, would like to say a word if that is acceptable.”  Miriam says, “Of course!” The woman goes up and says, “Aorta.” The widow Webster smiles and says, “Thank you, that warms my heart.” Here's the start of our 2021 Calendar images.

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Tracking Santa

Did you follow Santa on his journey around the world? NORAD tracks Santa on Christmas Eve. Tracking began by accident in 1955.   Before NORAD was formed, when it was still the Continental Air Defence Command (Conad), a newspaper misprinted a Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement containing the phone number for children to call in to talk to Santa. Instead of reaching Santa, children reached Conad operations in Colorado.  "A colonel by the name of Harry Shoup picked up the phone and assured children who called in that Santa was safe and CONAD, at the time, would be tracking Santa on his progress through North America," she said. The tradition continues and NORAD trackers are finished for this year - he was spotted over the great wall of China, over Christmas Island, Vietnam, India, Afghanistan, Moscow, London, South America, and then Canada and finished in the U.S. There are many articles identifying Santa's workload, speed, and route.  The Atlantic narrows it to "Christian kids" - 526,000,000 of them under the age of 14 in the world.  So he delivers presents to 22 million an hour. That's about 365,000 kids a minute, about 6,100 a second. The dailymail.co.uk also has an article on the science of Santa -  Mr. Claus will eat 150 billion calories in milk and mince pies.  He will need to walk 1.3 billion miles, which is 54,000 times around the circumference of the earth, to work off the extra weight.  More at dailymail.co.uk Enjoy Christmas Day!