Dysfunctional Math

A defining characteristic of our age is the unusual math. Today's unprecedented numbers and figures are matched with graphs increasingly exponential in nature--especially the hyper-exponential, purely vertical Profusion Curve. What makes this disconcerting is that plotting the math into the future leads to dysfunction in nearly all directions. Simply stated, the math no longer works in a variety of critical settings.

This math problem arises inevitably from the process of progress. Progress always gives us more and more of everything faster and faster. In the past, when more is what we needed, it was glorious to receive such profusion almost automatically. Now, however, progress is mathematically uncontrollable and volatile. Modern progress has a math problem, and in many ways it will dominate our future. When history decided to explode, it chose to do so on our generational shift.

Following is a representative list to help illustrate this profound mathematical growth. It's important to realize that this is but a partial list and that any single number is not the problem. It's only when all the dots are connected through integration that the true picture of dysfunction comes into view.

• More video is uploaded to YouTube in 60 days than all 3 networks created in 60 years.
• Google scientists counted over 1 trillion URLs (resources, documents, domain names) on the Web.
• The average American is exposed to 10 hours of media per day.
• Half of this is television at 34 hours of TV per week on average.
• Go to college and you can choose from over 500 baccalaureate degrees.
• Get a satellite dish and choose from over 1,000 movies a month.
• The average grocery store has 30,000 different products.
• There are 55,000 configurations of coffee at Starbucks.
• We each must learn to operate 20,000 pieces of equipment in our lifetime; In the next century, we'll have a million times more technology than we do now.
• 400,000 books per year are published in US and Great Britain.
• Amazon.com offers 24 million consumer products of all kinds, and has sold over 7.5 million unique titles.
• WebMD, with 22 million visitors per month, has a privacy statement link at the bottom of their home page. Click and read their 30-page explanation of how they'll use your personal data.
• "There are 35,000 publications a year in neuroscience, and no single researcher knows even 1% of that."
• Artificial intelligence is increasing ten million times faster than human intelligence.
• Knowledge workers check email 50 times a day, instant messaging 77 times a day, and visit 40 websites per day.
• The average desk worker starts something new every 3 minutes.
• Information overload costs businesses $650 bil/yr and stress costs $300 bil/yr.
• Information is increasing at a compound annual 60%.
• One third of us live with extreme stress and 48% believe it has increased over past 5 years.
• There was more change in the last century than in all of recorded history prior to 1900.
• There will be a thousand times more change in this century than the last.
• Apple offers 225,000 apps in its Apps Store, and ten billion were downloaded in just two years.
• The new Fiat 500 subcompact has one-half million combinations to choose from.
• Malicious spam (daily) jumped from 600 million to 3 billion during a recent six-month span.
• 3.5 million words of legislation and 8,694 bills introduced in the 2009 Congress.
• There are 90,000 governmental bodies in the US.
• U.S. businesses and households will spend 7.5 billion hours complying with tax laws this year.
• In 1800 there was just one city with a million people; now there are 381.
• The percentages of households in the US that are married couple households: 1950 - 79%; 1960 - 74%; 1970 - 70%; 1980 - 61%; 1990 - 56%; 2000 - 52%; 2010 - 50%
• CERN, the new particle accelerator on the border of France and Switzerland, is the largest information generator in history, generating one billion particle interactions/sec and creating one trillion bytes/sec of information. This must be algorithmed down in 3 microseconds by a series of computers to a few hundred bytes which are saved for future examination. All other bytes must be immediately jettisoned forever, to make room for the next second's worth of data.
• Economist Mary Meeker, a securities analyst and venture capitalist with Merrill Lynch, Salomon, and Morgan Stanley, and "One of the ten smartest in tech" according to Fortune 2010: "I took a deep dive into these questions a little more than a year ago, and I'm finally up for air....By our rough estimate, USA Inc. has a net worth of negative $44 trillion. That comes to $143,000 per capita. Negative." (Business Week, Feb 2011)
• USA Today, 6-7-11: "The government added $5.3 trillion in new financial obligations in 2010, largely for programs such as Medicare and Social Security, to bring the total of unpaid financial promises to a record $61.6 trillion."

Healthcare Math dysfunction

• Healthcare costs are now $2.6 trillion/yr. In 1970, when I began medical school, this was $74 billion/yr.
• Healthcare as a percentage of GDP: 1960 - 5.2%; 1970 - 7.2%; 1980 - 9.1%; 1990 - 12.3%; 2000 - 13.8%; 2011 - 17.6%
• Doctors graduating from medical school owe an average of $155,000, while a quarter of new med school grads owe over $200,000. It's not uncommon to hear of med student debt over $400,000.
• Medicare expenditures last year reached $523 billion but with income of only $486 billion--a gap of $37 billion in one year.
• 10,000 baby-boomers will become eligible for Medicare every day for the next 19 years, causing the Medicare fiscal discrepancy to widen rapidly and unsustainably.
• The PDR (Physician Desk Reference) has 3,300 pages; when first created in 1948, it had 300 pages.
• If I read two healthcare related articles every day for a year, next year at this time I would be 1,000 years behind in my reading.
• The 1965 Medicare/Medicaid bill was 137 pages; Thirty years later, there were over 130,000 pages of rules to comply with.
• The 1993 Clinton Healthcare Reform Act had 1,432 pages, called by one Democratic Senator "overwhelmingly complex, almost frighteningly complex."
• The current healthcare reform act (Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act) is twice as large, at 2,800 pages, and will be the most complex and expensive issue in U.S. history--and, if the multiplier holds, will result in millions of pages of regulations.

We should be both alarmed and assured.

Alarmed, because there's no way we can handle numbers like these--particularly when they'll only continue to increase vertically. In the past, the math was mild, manageable, and comprehensible. Now, none of these descriptors apply. The math has gotten away from us, the numbers have gone rogue. Dysfunction? You want to see dysfunction? Stay tuned.

Assured, because God is particularly good at math. Oxford's mathematical physicist, Roger Penrose, has calculated that the precision of the created universe is on the order of 10 to the 10th to the 123rd. "This is an extraordinary figure," he writes. "One could not possibly even write the number down in full...Even if we were to write a zero on each separate proton and on each separate neutron in the entire universe, we should fall far short of writing down the figure needed."

"The Great Architect of the Universe now begins to appear as a pure mathematician," said Sir James Jeans, a contemporary of Einstein. "The universe can be best pictured, though still very imperfectly and inadequately, as consisting of pure thought, the thought of what we must describe as a mathematical thinker."

"Such as say that things infinite are past God's knowledge," wrote Augustine, "may just as well leap headlong into this pit of impiety, and say that God knows not all numbers...What madman would say so?...What are we mean wretches that dare presume to limit His knowledge?"

As for me and my house, we'll stick with the One who knows all numbers.

Did you know?

• That the number of electrons that pass through a filament of a light bulb in a minute equals the number of drops of water that flow over Niagara Falls in a century?
• That the number of electrons in a single leaf is much larger than the number of pores of all the leaves of all the trees in the world?
• That the number of molecules in a pint of water placed end to end would form a chain encircling the Earth over 200 million times?
• That of the 1030 snow crystals necessary to form an Ice Age, each snow flake--comprised of a hundred million trillion water molecules--is unique in all the universe?   

Source: http://www.richardswenson.org                                                                                                            

The Virtue Behind The Word

 The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?  ~Chuang Tzu

First of all, by this quote, as though I am reminded that sometimes we should capture the meanings behind the words. Eventhough in fact we doesn't always get it but for the positive thing it can be a useful to catch quickly the meaning that be contained in our friend's words...Yes, I should learn it more and more...

Second thing, It is reminded me also to learn the words seen incisive and rude but the truly meaning in it are to reminded, awaken and resuscitate us from something wrong....sooo once again we have to wise to deal with this kind of words.....reserve it first...serach the meaning....if it is to awaken us...transform it for our virtue...and otherwise to blame us with no reason....reject it as soon as possible.....continue your way to live the life...That is..... 

Complete Solutions: Classic Exercises On Lateral Thinking

1. There is a man who lives on the top floor of a very tall building. Everyday he gets the elevator down to the ground floor to leave the building to go to work. Upon returning from work though, he can only travel half way up in the lift and has to walk the rest of the way unless it's raining! Why?

This is probably the best known and most celebrated of all lateral thinking puzzles. It is a true classic. Although there are many possible solutions which fit the initial conditions, only the canonical answer is truly satisfying.

2. A man and his son are in a car accident. The father dies on the scene, but the child is rushed to the hospital. When he arrives the surgeon says, "I can't operate on this boy, he is my son!" How can this be?

3. A man is wearing black. Black shoes, socks, trousers, coat, gloves and ski mask. He is walking down a back street with all the street lamps off. A black car is coming towards him with its light off but somehow manages to stop in time. How did the driver see the man?

4. One day Kerry celebrated her birthday. Two days later her older twin brother, Terry, celebrated his birthday. How?

5.. Why is it better to have round manhole covers than square ones? This is logical rather than lateral, but it is a good puzzle that can be solved by lateral thinking techniques. It is supposedly used by a very well-known software company as an interview question for prospective employees.


6. A man went to a party and drank some of the punch. He then left early. Everyone else at the party who drank the punch subsequently died of poisoning. Why did the man not die?

7. A man died and went to Heaven. There were thousands of other people there. They were all naked and all looked as they did at the age of 21. He looked around to see if there was anyone he recognized. He saw a couple and he knew immediately that they were Adam and Eve. How did he know?

8. A woman had two sons who were born on the same hour of the same day of the same year. But they were not twins. How could this be so?

9. A man walks into a bar and asks the barman for a glass of water. The barman pulls out a gun and points it at the man. The man says 'Thank you' and walks out. This puzzle claims to be the best of the genre. It is simple in its statement, absolutely baffling and yet with a completely satisfying solution. Most people struggle very hard to solve this one yet they like the answer when they hear it or have the satisfaction of figuring it out.

10. A murderer is condemned to death. He has to choose between three rooms. The first is full of raging fires, the second is full of assassins with loaded guns, and the third is full of lions that haven't eaten in 3 years. Which room is safest for him?

11. A woman shoots her husband. Then she holds him under water for over 5 minutes. Finally, she hangs him. But 5 minutes later they both go out together and enjoy a wonderful dinner together. How can this be?

12. There are two plastic jugs filled with water. How could you put all of this water into a barrel, without using the jugs or any dividers, and still tell which water came from which jug?

13. What is black when you buy it, red when you use it, and gray when you throw it away?

14. Can you name three consecutive days without using the words Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday? (or day names in any other language)

15. This is an unusual paragraph. I'm curious how quickly you can find out what is so unusual about it. It looks so plain you would think nothing was wrong with it. In fact, nothing is wrong with it! It is unusual though. Study it, and think about it, but you still may not find anything odd. But if you work at it a bit, you might find out.



Solutions

1. The man is very, very short and can only reach halfway up the elevator buttons. However, if it is raining then he will have his umbrella with him and can press the higher buttons with it.

2. The surgeon was his mother.

3. It was day time.

4. At the time she went into labor, the mother of the twins was traveling by ship. The older twin, Terry, was born first early on March 1st. The ship then crossed a time zone and Kerry, the younger twin, was born on February the 28th. Therefore, the younger twin celebrates her birthday two days before her older brother.

5. A square manhole cover can be turned and dropped down the diagonal of the manhole. A round manhole cannot be dropped down the manhole. So for safety and practicality, all manhole covers should be round.

6. The poison in the punch came from the ice cubes. When the man drank the punch, the ice was fully frozen. Gradually it melted, poisoning the punch.

7. He recognized Adam and Eve as the only people without navels. Because they were not born of women, they had never had umbilical cords and therefore they never had navels. This one seems perfectly logical but it can sometimes spark fierce theological arguments. (Just what a HUMOR list needs!!) ;

8. They were two of a set of triplets (or quadruplets, etc.). This puzzle stumps many people. They try outlandish solutions involving test-tube babies or surrogate mothers. Why does the brain search for complex solutions when there is a much simpler one available?

9.. The man had hiccups. The barman recognized this from his speech and drew the gun in order to give him a shock. It worked and cured the hiccups--so the man no longer needed the water. The is a simple puzzle to state but a difficult one to solve. It is a perfect example of a seemingly irrational and incongruous situation having a simple and complete explanation. Amazingly this classic puzzle seems to work in different cultures and languages.

10. The third. Lions that haven't eaten in three years are dead.

11. The woman was a photographer. She shot a picture of her husband, developed it, and hung it up to dry.

12. Freeze them first. Take them out of the jugs and put the ice in the barrel. You will be able to tell which water came from which jug.

13. The answer is Charcoal.

14.. Sure you can: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow!

15. The letter "e," which is the most common letter in the English language, does not appear once in the long paragraph...

Alternate Solutions

4. Because one of them did not necessarily celebrate their birthday on the day they were born, but celebrated later or earlier. Much simpler than having Mom giving birth while crossing the International Date Line and tossing in a Leap Year and the like. Needlessly complicated.

6. Because he was the one who put the poison in the punch. Of course he wouldn't drink any *after* he poisoned it. Who goes to the effort of making poison ice cubes, except Bond villains and those bad guys in the "Encyclopedia Brown" mystery stories we read in elementary school?

8. Because they were adopted. It's a coincidence they were born on the same exact day. OK, so Occam's Razor could be applied equally to both solutions...

Once Again About Judgement - A Deep Thought

Judgement means a stale state of mind. And mind always wants judgement,because to be in a process is always hazardous and uncomfortable.

This story happened in the days of Lao Tzu in China, and Lao Tzu loved it very much:

There was an old man in a village, very poor, but even kings were jealous of him because he had a beautiful white horse. Kings offered fabulous prizes for the horse, but the man would say, "This horse is not a horse to me, he is a person. And how can you sell a person, a friend?" The man was poor, but he never sold the horse.

One morning he found that the horse was not in the stable. The whole village gathered and said, "You foolish old man! We knew that someday the horse would be stolen. It would have been better to sell it. What a misfortune!"

The old man said, "Don't go so far as to say that. Simply say that the horse is not in the stable. This is the fact; everything else is judgement. Whether it is a misfortune or a blessing I don't know, because this is just a fragment. Who knows what is going to follow it?"


People laughed at the old man. They had always known he was a little crazy. But after fifteen days, suddenly one night the horse returned. He had not been stolen, he had escaped into the wild. And not only that he had brought a dozen wild horses with him.

Again the people gathered and they said, "Old man, you were right. This was not a misfortune, it has indeed proved to be a blessing."

The old man said, "Again you are going too far. Just say that the horse is back...who knows whether it is a blessing or not?" It is only a fragment. You read a single word in a sentence - how can you judge the whole book?"

This time the people could not say much, but inside they knew that he was wrong. Twelve beautiful horses had come.

The old man had an only son who started to train the horses. Just a week later he fell from a horse and his legs were broken. The people gathered again and again they judged. They said, "Again you proved right! It was a misfortune. your only son has lost the use of his legs, and in your old age he was your only support. Now you are poorer than ever."

The old man said, "You are obsessed with judgement. Don't go that far. Say only that my son had broken his legs. Life comes in fragments and more is never given to you."

It happened that after a few weeks the country went to war, and all the young men of the town were forcibly taken for the military. Only the old man's son was left because he was crippled. The whole town was crying and weeping, because it was a losing fight and they knew that most of the young people would never come back. They came to the old man and they said, "You were right, old man - this has proved a blessing. maybe your son is crippled, but he is still with you. Our sons are gone forever."

The old man said again, "You go on and on judging. Nobody knows! Only say this, that your sons have been forced to enter the army and my son has not been forced. But only God, the total, knows whether it is a blessing or a misfortune."

Judge not, otherwise you will never become one with the total. With fragments you will be obsessed, with small things you will jump to conclusions. Once you judge you have stopped growing. Judgement means a stale state of mind. And mind always wants judgement, because to be in a process is always hazardous and uncomfortable.

In fact the journey never ends. One path ends, another begins: one door closes, another opens. You reach a peak; a higher peak is always there. God is an endless journey. Only those who are so courageous that they don't bother about the goal but are content with the journey, content to just live in the moment and grow into it, only those are able to walk in the total.