Language Barrier

An orca whale in an aquarium in France has been taught to squeak sounds that mimic human words and to give them on cue.

"Wikie" doesn't actually speak in the sense of knowing what the sounds she makes means, of course, but the researchers are keen to explore what her learning the sounds might mean about whale communication and how bright our seagoing mammal friends might be.

There are already hints that the lessons have improved Wikie's appreciation of how human beings communicate, as after-hours microphones have picked her up humming this rather appropriate tune.

Doing Your Sums

Ordinarily math shows things fitting together in a predictable and orderly fashion. One object added to another object makes a pair of objects. Our intuition and experience of the world suggest the outcome of this operation, and when we apply math to it we find out that our intuition was right.

Except when it isn't. Mathematician Julian Havil offers several scenarios in which the "usual thing" produces the exact opposite of what intuition and experience suggest in his 2007 book Nonplussed! He also outlines the mathematics behind events that should be impossible -- like, for example, why a cone can roll uphill, unaided by outside forces.

Oddball things like these generally involve much more complicated math than simple arithmetic. Havil, who taught math at Winchester College for more than 30 years, is quite well equipped to lay out the various formulas that show why, for example, the 13th of a month is more likely to be a Friday than any other day of the week. Or why a bad sports team can improve its performance by adding worse players than its opponents do.

Nonplussed! is, in fact, pretty formula heavy. Havil has written on this topic in some other books and also on other numerical and mathematical topics, but this particular volume is aimed at readers with a basic working knowledge of calculus. He sets up the problems verbally, but in explaining how the counterintuitive results come about he leans much more heavily on equations that will make little sense to those without such knowledge. It doesn't really harm the book but it does significantly limit the potential audience.

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Very broadly speaking, there are two kinds of math problems in the world: Ones which can easily be solved by a computer and one whose solutions can be easily checked by a computer. "Solved" in this sense means "proven to be true for any value of the variable." Checked means that if a number is plugged into the equation, it can be seen if the equation still makes sense or if it produces an impossible answer.

The set of solvable equations is called P. The set of checkable equations is called NP. And one of the biggest questions in mathematics, one whose solution could make the world a completely different place, is does P = NP? Georgia Tech computer science professor Lance Fortnow has spent much of his career considering this problem and writes about some of the history of its investigation in 2013's The Golden Ticket: P, NP and the Search for the Impossible.

Current mathematical thought suggests that P ≠ NP, although it can't yet prove that to be true. Fortnow outlines what kind of solutions to world problems might happen if P = NP, such as a wide range of cures for cancer not now possible. It would also make some things significantly more difficult, such as online security. Current online security relies on equations that can't be easily solved because of the number of digits they use and immense number of possible number combinations. But in a P = NP world, those equations could be solved and so computer security would become much more complicated.

Fortnow also describes some of the history of different attempts to determine whether we live in a world where P = NP or where P ≠ NP. He offers some thoughts on what the development of quantum computing, which is projected to be immensely faster than current computing, might mean about getting a definitive answer either way. He keeps the formula and equation use to a minimum, saving much of it for appendices for the readers interested in that part of the story.

The Golden Ticket is a great introduction to a math problem that few people know about and even fewer understand, and a good way to try to start thinking about it and its implications. Although Fortnow doesn't delve much into the philosophical implications of the P, NP problem, he provides enough of the basic tools for the curious to begin that part of the journey themselves.

Still Burning

I missed this appreciation of the 30th anniversary of Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities, published in the long-ago world of 1987. Bruce Bawer notes how Wolfe's first novel after a career of long-form journalism occupies a unique place in 20th century American literature. He measures it against some similar efforts by budding writers of the time and finds it still excels them, useful and productive to read in spite of its paleolithic pay phones and green-on-black CRT computer monitors.

Wolfe published three more novels. A Man in Full's exploration of class and race in the New South of Atlanta also drew praise, although Bawer noted that a few writers were less happy with it than with Bonfire. The third novel, 2004's I Am Charlotte Simmons, took aim at the culture of political correctness and hedonism that decorates many modern universities. These were cows too sacred for a lot of modern writers and they subsequently downchecked Charlotte Simmons and Wolfe's abilities as a novelist entirely. He would return to fiction in 2012 with Back to Blood, a novel that revisited a lot of themes he'd already covered and sold poorly. Whether he went to the novelist's well once too often or, perhaps, without the fully-formed ideas that fueled his earlier three fiction books is hard to say. Since then he's stuck to nonfiction -- which is still often a more fun and challenging read than a lot of literary stuff decorating perfectly good blank pages today.

The Time Approaches

Yes, it does. In a shade over two weeks, Rogers Hornsby is freed from his lonely window vigil, as are the rest of us who follow humanity's highest sporting achievement. Pitchers and catchers report for spring training Feb. 13 and 14.

In the meantime, here's an article about how the stadium for next week's Super Bowl is so energy-efficient that it will offset 100 percent of the energy used to heat it. Scientists were unable to determine whether apathy generated by this year's contest between the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles had any effect on that energy use figure. Not because the amount was small, of course, but because they could not determine if the immense amount of apathy surrounding the game added to the overall energy use by requiring more energy to counter it or if it subtracted from the energy use by being basically negative.

Darned Statistics

The Democratic majority leader in the lower house of the California legislature, Ian Calderon, wants restaurants to cut down on their straw usage, so as to reduce the amount of waste plastic introduced into the environment.

If the law he introduced passes, then the unfortunate wait staff person who offers you a straw without you asking for it could face a fine of up to $1,000 and up to six months in jail. Were I resident of California, you know of course what I would do. Yes, get the hell out of there as lickety-durn-split as I could, of course, but in the meantime I would ask every server I had for two straws and mail one to Assemblyman Calderon.

Is the reduction of waste plastic a worthy goal? Sure. Are straws a source of that? Well, probably. I've tried to get myself in the habit of not getting a lid at a fast-food restaurant unless I intend to take the cup with me. It's been a long time since I was prone to spilling my soda and it's not really needed, and that way I can trim some of my own plastic waste creation. Would it be a neat idea if servers started giving out straws just when patrons asked for them, or asking before handing them out? Sure it would, and it would probably help trim that amount of waste.

But a law, with a six-month jail term and a $1,000 fine? The bill is rock-solid evidence that someone has taken the business end of a straw, inserted it deeply into Assemblyman Calderon's cranial cavity and switched the Dyson on full. It is, frankly, a wonder that his head has not collapsed due to the unequal pressure between the atmosphere outside and the hollow, echoing vacuum within. That someone on his staff managed to figure out they should remove the fines from the bill is no credit; this is not an idea you should walk back from as much as one you should never have had. Zapping restaurant servers with six-month jail terms and $1,000 fines when most of them make less than minimum wage is like citing children for illegal lemonade stands.

As the article at Reason notes, the ultimate fun of this entire episode of "Who Votes for These People?" comes here: The only printed source for the amount of waste generated by thrown-away plastic straws is a phone survey done by Milo Cress. Mr. Cress called straw manufacturers and surveyed them on straw use back in 2011.

When he was 9.

Keep on Truckin'

Someone missed out an opportunity by not licensing Robert Crumb's "Keep on Truckin'" cartoon and stenciling it on the side of the Mars Opportunity rover, which marks 14 years of work this month.

Opportunity began its mission in January 2004 and is currently exploring the appropriately-named Perseverance Valley and the Endurance Crater. It will apparently cease its work when you pry the Martian soil from its cold dead manipulators.

Sayin' Grace

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, the poet of Scotland. I don't know if you marked this event, or if you are wont to say a grace before you dine, but let me offer this suggestion if you're in such a mind. From 1791, and according to Burns scholars, extemporaneous:

O thou who kindly dost provide
For every creature's want!
We bless Thee, God of Nature wide,
For all Thy goodness lent:
And if it please Thee, Heavenly Guide,
May never worse be sent;
But, whether granted, or denied,
Lord, bless us with content. Amen!

I don't usually do so well when given the same opportunity. Bless ye, Rabbie.