#Current Events - Why was the decision Roe v. Wade important for feminists?

While I normally do a "Socratic Sunday", where I bring over a Q&A from Socratic.org that I worked on and found interesting or important, today I'm doing one that is vitally important given the hearings for the proposed new Supreme Court justice. While the question starts out by asking a rather limited question, the answer is quite expansive.

Question

Why was the decision Roe v. Wade important for feminists?

Answer

Specifically, the decision granted the ability to women to legally obtain an abortion. However, in the larger view, I believe this paragraph sums up my view: 

"When government dictates how someone should treat their body, it strips away a basic human right. It strips away a piece of our humanity. And when government dictates how some people should treats their bodies, it strips away a bit of humanity from all of us."

Analysis

There are basic human principles that collide on occasion and it's up to the Supreme Court of the US to determine how those principles should be applied. And in my view, there is no bigger principles that collide than:

• the right of a person to determine what they do with their body vs
• the right of a person to live

These two principles collide in the case of a woman who is pregnant but doesn't want to be. Can that woman legally terminate her pregnancy?

• If she does terminate the pregnancy, she has exercised her right to do what she wants with her body, but has terminated a fetus - which is arguably a life
• If she isn't allowed to terminate the pregnancy, her right to do what she wants with her body has been violated but the fetus will probably (it could be stillborn, etc in later stages of the pregnancy) survive

In Roe vs Wade, these two principles were interwoven. It states that as a fetus grows older, it becomes more and more likely that it will be a child. And so for the first trimester of gestation, abortion is legal - that is, a woman has the absolute right to terminate her pregnancy. As the fetus develops through the second and third trimesters, individual states have the right to restrict abortions.

So why is this important - and not just to feminists, but to women in particular and to humanity in general? Because it grants a person power over the use of their own body. It takes away the power of others to make determinations as to how someone uses their own body.

The right of women to make this choice for themselves has been under constant attack from those who view this debate in terms of "terminating a pregnancy = murder of the unborn fetus". Those people believe that a fetus is imbued with life at conception and that a woman is morally, ethically, and should be legally responsible for giving birth to the fetus and that after the child is born, it can be given up for adoption and the woman can have her life back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade

And now I'd like to share my view on this issue - it's pragmatic and some may not agree with it and that's ok.

The decision to end a pregnancy is a big decision and is one that each and every woman needs to face in her own way and on her own terms. For government to get involved and force a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term is to violate that woman.

Different sides on this debate will rephrase the issues in different ways to try to emphasize their own views. And I'm about to do the same here! For me, it's about the:

• humanity of the woman, vs
• the potential life of the fetus

When government dictates how someone should treat their body, it strips away a basic human right. It strips away a piece of our humanity. And when government dictates how some people should treats their bodies, it strips away a bit of humanity from all of us.

And this stripping away of humanity is, for me, a bigger issue than ending a pregnancy. We are told by various sources that life is sacred and that therefore the life of the fetus trumps the humanity of the woman. But I don't think that way at all - the fetus has no knowledge of its life and its termination - it loses its potential to what it could possibly be. But a woman losing her humanity is done with her full knowing. That to me is the issue that should prevail.

 ~~~~~

Questions and comments always welcome!

#English - Socratic Sunday - looking at an e e cummings poem...

Every Sunday I like to do a post called Socratic Sunday - I take a post I worked on while a contributor with socratic.org (it's a read-only site now) and bring it over here (sometimes verbatim and sometimes reworked). I really enjoyed this next question and I think it'll add a new, and rather nice, element to the blog:

Question

What does this quote mean: "Life's not a paragraph and death, I think, is no parenthesis"? 

Answer

I don't think there is just one meaning. I explore some ideas below:

Analysis

 e e cummings, an American poet, author, etc (see the wiki article for a full list), wrote roughly 2900 poems - and this quote is from one of them. The poem is since feeling is first. It's a love poem (he wrote quite a number of erotic poems and works as well) and explores the fact that he sees love and the emotions surrounding it as far exceeding the rational and logical of the brain/mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._E._Cummings

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

http://coming2terms-fiction.blogspot.com/2013/05/for-lifes-not-paragraph-and-death-i.html

So what does it mean? Especially the ending, which is where the quote is pulled from? This, of course, is one of the purposes of poetry - to make you think, to consider what is being expressed and to engage you with it. So these are my thoughts and ideas, not "right ones" - because there aren't any.

First off, we see that he is talking to a woman (which makes sense, it being a love poem). So he is talking about how much more he values love and love's expression than anything of the mind.

Life's not a paragraph - I take this to mean a couple of things. First, he's already established that he values "the flutter of her eyes which shows that she loves him" over anything his brain can produce - and since he's a writer and poet, he works in paragraphs and pages, he states clearly it's far better to have "her in his arms".

Another way to understand this statement is to see that in terms of life, he could express it within a paragraph but instead chooses to express it physically with her.

And I think a third way to see it is that he views the rational part of life as being like a paragraph within the work, the book, the novel of life. There is so much more to life than what the mind can create.

And death i think is no parenthesis - Parentheses are usually used to help explain something, to give an aside or a comment that isn't necessarily important to the story or whatever all is being written. So he is saying here that death is not simply an explanation for life, not something that explains what or why we're here.

Life is meant to be lived and not commented on afterwards. He clearly has far more interest in loving and being loved than in anything he can express with paper and pen - and doesn't care a whit about what future generations will get from his work.

~~~~~

Questions and comments always welcome! 

#Science - Socratic.org Sunday throwback - Why are arteries thicker than veins?

As I've mentioned before, I used to be quite active on Socratic.org, a free-to-use question and answer website. However, the powers that be at that site decided to turn it into read-only (it actually went read-only this past week), and so I highlight past questions and answers that seemed to catch people's attention. Today's question is:

Question

Why are arteries thicker than veins?

Answer

To withstand the high pressure of blood coming from the heart.

Analysis

The "heart" of the circulatory system is the heart. It pumps blood through arteries (starting with the biggest one of them all, the aorta). The blood runs through smaller and smaller arteries until it gets to a capillary, where the blood drops off oxygen and nutrients to cells and receives carbon dioxide from the cells. 

Also at the level of the capillaries, a bit of plasma "leaks" into the space between cells, becoming interstitial fluid (which is recaptured in a main vein just above the heart through the lymphatic system).

On the return trip, blood flows through veins and ends up back at the heart (there is activity with the lungs but we'll ignore that for now).

The whole system is under pressure - a high pressure on the outflow from the heart and a lower pressure on the inflow. Because of that high pressure on the outflow from the heart, the walls of the arteries need to be thicker.  Veins, which are under far less pressure, have thinner walls. In order to help the blood flow back to the heart, veins have "check valves" - blood can flow through towards the heart but can't flow backwards away from it.

~~~~~

As always, questions and comments welcome!

#Admin - A bit of admin...

Math Fact-orials has been up and running for roughly 3 weeks and already been hitting milestones I didn't think would be possible so soon, including having nearly 1,000 page views!

I owe much of this success and exposure to two audiences: former users of Socratic.org (which is now a read-only site) and the art community of Sketchbook Skool.

Socratic.org is where I cut my teeth on answering questions online, where I found my love of all things factorial, and saw in action how topics such as budgets, household math, finance, accounting, and so many other topics that are important to people are ignored by academic math sites. One of my main goals is to bring household math into a place where people can use math as a tool and not regard it as a nightmarish exercise in frustration (I feel like I can hear people, whether consciously thinking or unconsciously feeling something like: "Please... whatever we do... whether we choose to buy the new car or lease it... don't make me figure out which one is actually better! Make the numbers stop dancing in my head!").

With that ideal in mind, I've been posting here and there about budgeting and will be adding a few more posts to that conversation. There are already a few posts about household finances and more will be forthcoming (both from me and from you - my readers!)

Sketchbook Skool's response to the post about the numbers of trade items and also the number of unique trades has been nothing short of phenomenal. A thousand and one thank you's to Aleesha, my artistic wife, the source of many of the questions on the blog, and the inspiration for the blog post about Sketchkon and who put the post onto Sketchbook Skool's Facebook page.

Looking ahead, I've found a way to satisfactorily put equations that look like equations onto the blog (thanks to latex.codecogs.com) and so that is what I'll be doing over the course of the next few days. I'm really looking forward to seeing math rendered the way it should look! 

I'll also keep on with Socratic.org Sunday throwbacks, where I'll grab questions and answers from a host of different topics that seemed to grip people's attention. This week's question will be Why Are Arteries So Much Thicker Than Veins?

I'm extremely grateful to my current, past, and future readership and I hope that as the readership grows and develops, the blog can do so alongside so that it is always meaningful and helpful. And the best way to help make that happen is to send me emails, leave comments, and ask questions! 

#General Science - Timezones! - A Socratic Sunday throwback...

One question that generated a huge number of views was one I did on timezones - if it's This Time here, what time is it There? For anyone who's reading this and not in ICT (Indo China Time), it can be a good exercise to figure out what time it is here in Thailand...

Question

If it's 3pm in the following cities, what time is it in Bangkok, Thailand?

London, New York, Chicago, Vancouver (Canada), Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Dehli, Beijing, Melbourne, Brisbane,  Cape Town

Answer

London = GMT +1 => +6 hours => 15 + 6 = 21:00 => 9pm
New York = GMT -5 => +14 hours 15 + 14 = 29:00 => 5am the next day
Chicago = GMT -6 => +15 hours 15 + 15 = 30:00 => 6am the next day
Vancouver (Canada) = GMT -8 => +17 hours 15 + 17 = 32:00 => 8am the next day
Paris = GMT +2 => +5 hours 15 + 5 = 20:00 => 8pm
Berlin = GMT +2 same answer as Paris
Moscow = GMT +3 => +4 hours 15 + 4 = 19:00 => 7pm
Dehli = GMT +5:30 => +1.5 hours 15 + 1.5 = 16.5 => 4:30pm
Beijing = GMT +8 => -1 hours 15 -1 = 14:00 => 2pm
Melbourne = GMT +10 => -3 hours 15 - 3 = 12:00 => noon
Tokyo = GMT +9 => -2 hours 15 - 2 = 13:00 => 1pm
Cape Town = GMT +2 same answer as Paris

Analysis

The globe is divided into 24 timezones, each one labeled with a different time adjustment, plus or minus, from GST, or Greenwich Standard Time.

Here's a map showing the different timezones (courtesy of gifex.com):

The different colours, running vertically, represent areas within the same timezone (so New York and Peru are in the same time zone).

It's hard to see details on this map, so I'll use a different online tool to get the timezone adjustments:

Bangkok = GMT +7

London = GMT +1
New York = GMT -5
Chicago = GMT -6
Vancouver (Canada) = GMT -8
Paris = GMT +2
Berlin = GMT +2
Moscow = GMT +3
Dehli = GMT +5:30
Beijing = GMT +8
Melbourne = GMT +10
Tokyo = GMT +9
Cape Town = GMT +2

When doing timezone problems, something that can help greatly is using a 24-hour clock, and so 3pm is the same as 15:00.

Let's do London first. When it's 15:00 in London, it's 6 hours later in Bangkok (GMT +1 vs GMT +7). And so 15:00 in London is 21:00 in Bangkok (or 9pm).

How about with New York? New York is at GMT -5, and so the difference is 14 hours (it takes 5 hours to get to GMT and then another 7 to Bangkok). And so 15:00 in New York is 29:00 in Bangkok. But there are only 24 hours in a day! So we subtract 24 but add one day, to get 5:00 (or 5am) the next day.

Let's do this for all the cities:

London = GMT +1 => +6 hours => 15 + 6 = 21:00 => 9pm
New York = GMT -5 => +14 hours 15 + 14 = 29:00 => 5am the next day
Chicago = GMT -6 => +15 hours 15 + 15 = 30:00 => 6am the next day
Vancouver (Canada) = GMT -8 => +17 hours 15 + 17 = 32:00 => 8am the next day
Paris = GMT +2 => +5 hours 15 + 5 = 20:00 => 8pm
Berlin = GMT +2 same answer as Paris
Moscow = GMT +3 => +4 hours 15 + 4 = 19:00 => 7pm
Dehli = GMT +5:30 => +1.5 hours 15 + 1.5 = 16.5 => 4:30pm
Beijing = GMT +8 => -1 hours 15 -1 = 14:00 => 2pm
Melbourne = GMT +10 => -3 hours 15 - 3 = 12:00 => noon
Tokyo = GMT +9 => -2 hours 15 - 2 = 13:00 => 1pm
Cape Town = GMT +2 same answer as Paris

~~~~~

Questions and comments always welcome!

#Science - What are human bodies made of? Cells? Molecules? Atoms?

As part of the blog, I'm going to occasionally pull over an answer that I wrote for socratic.org (it turns into a read-only site in less than 2 weeks). Sometimes they'll relate directly to the initial idea of the blog (that of focusing on math) and other times I'll pull them over for other reasons.

This question and answer has been, without a doubt, the most popular of all the ones I wrote over the 2+ years I was with socratic. I hope you find it interesting!

Question

What are human bodies made of? Cells? Molecules? Atoms?

Answer

The human body is made of all of the above

Analysis

To answer this question, I'm going to start by talking about bigger things and moving us down into smaller things.

Let's start with the human body. The body is a whole bunch of stuff covered in skin. So let's focus on skin for a moment.

What is skin made of? The simple answer is skin cells (I'm ignoring the structures and levels of skin because it's quite complex and we don't need to consider it here). And other structures are like this - muscle is composed of muscle cells, bone of bone cells, nerves of nerve cells, etc.

So we know that the body is made of cells.

What are cells made of?

Cells are made of proteins, which are a type of molecule, and water, which is another molecule, and other things which are all made of molecules. Within the centre of the cell is DNA and RNA, both extremely complicated molecules.

So we know that the cells of the body are made up of molecules.

What are molecules made of?

Molecules are collections of atoms. Water is made up of oxygen and hydrogen atoms. Proteins are made of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and other elements.

So we know that the molecules that make up the cells of the body are made of atoms.

In the end, it is correct to say the body is made of cells. And it's correct to say it's made of molecules. And to say it's made of atoms.

~~~~~

Questions, comments, and feedback are always welcome and appreciated!

#Admin - A new blog, a new beginning, a new conversation on math-y topics!

Hello one and all and welcome to Math Fact-orials!

In this post, the first of this blog, I'll talk quickly about me, this blog, what I hope to achieve, and all that.

About me

I love thinking and learning and sharing what I'm thinking and learning. Most recently, I was a Hero and Featured Answer Reviewer (Algebra, PreAlgebra, English Grammar) with www.Socratic.org, with (at the time of this writing, with roughly 2 weeks of life left in Socratic):

- over 890,000 views,
- 2400 answers, and
- 700 edits of existing answers.

But since that website is currently scheduled to be shuttered mid-August 2018, I've decided to start my own Question and Answer site (i.e. this blog) that will focus on things I find important/interesting/fun/etc.

Some more things about me:

- Formerly a Certified Public Accountant (in the USA) and a Chartered Accountant (in Canada)
- Holder of a Life Coaching certificate
- Spent a few years in the US Navy as a Supply Corps officer

About the blog

While I don't want to set anything in stone (this is a living blog after all, so it will morph and change as I do), there are a couple of areas I'll tend to focus on at the start: Combinametrics (or the number of ways of doing/arranging/organizing things) and something I'll call Life Math - this will encompass things like Business Math, Budgeting, Investing, Accounting, Financing, and all those non-sexy math topics that academics tend to shun. Life Math, by its very nature, is a bit more "squishy" than academic math - there typically are more "squishy" answers than in academic math. For instance, is a 10% discount on a shirt a good discount? It might be, but then again it might not be - it's up to the reader to decide. But in these kinds of questions and answers, I'll do my best to lay out some things to think about.

I intend to right about how to approach a problem as the first part of any blog post, and then to have an "Answer Key" below, which will show the various answers with changes in the starting facts. For instance, if a shirt that costs $30 has a 10% discount (with a final cost to the customer of $27 before sales tax), the same process will work if the shirt is $40 and there's a 20% discount (with a final cost of $32 before sales tax).

Questions are very welcome!!!

If you have math questions, please do ask! Post a comment (I approve all comments) and I'll be sure to respond and write on the blog in response. No names/specific locations will be used and so don't worry about anonymity!

And I think that just about does it - so Welcome! and I hope to hear from you.

Parz

Update, 22 Aug 2018

Through editing and updating the organization of the blog, I'm hoping it'll be more useful (and easier to find the information you are interested in!). Links, labels, and subjects are all being edited, reworked, and otherwise made better. Get ready for Math Fact-orials 2.0! (or maybe just 2!... - factorials and decimal points don't get along very well...)