Issue 2

In this issue:

• First Word
• An Evening with Alan Ashton
• The Woes of Calculus
• Why I’m So Good at Computer Games
• The Choir of Choirs
• Ancient Scripture
• Last Word

First Word

This issue of Sparks is, in part, an attempt to share some of what I’ve learned lately. Elder Russell M. Nelson said, “The difference between hoping you could do something great for society and doing something great for society is education.” Elder Nelson, being one of the pioneers of the heart lung machine and open heart surgery seems to know what he is talking about.

An Evening with Alan Ashton

On Tuesday, the 23rd, I had the chance to attend a fairly small and informal meeting with Alan Ashton, president of WordPerfect. WordPerfect is the world leader in word processing software, and is based just next door in Orem. To give you an idea of how well the company is doing, a couple of years ago they sent all of their employees to Hawaii as a bonus for having doubled their sales that year. But Dr. Ashton clearly doesn’t take himself too seriously. He welcomed all questions and comments from us, shared some experiences about his family and gave away baseball caps while he related some of the history of his company. He also gave M&M’s to everyone present because two M’s are significant to his accomplishments. Mathematics, firstly, since he was a professor at BYU teaching math and computer science, and also Music, because his partner was the director of the Cougar Marching Band (in addition to being a talented programmer.)

The Woes of Calculus

Despite the delightful news that my CS152 class (discrete mathematics) has nothing to do with calculus, my Math 113 class has everything to do with calculus. So what’s wrong with calculus anyway? Well, all through my math related education I simplified expressions and solved equations and stuff like that. Calculus has this general tendency to complicate expressions. You start with a somewhat complex but nicely arranged rational function with an integral sign in the front and through the wonders of calculus turn it into a loathsome mathematical monstrosity. I have been able to apply a calculus principle in a more general sense, though. This is the technique of substitution. When I’m working on a particularly grueling problem, I simply substitute my homework from other classes in the place of my calculus homework and I feel much better. Discrete mathematics, we refer to affectionately as the Mickey Mouse dot-to-dot class. It is a little difficult to explain exactly what I mean by that, but there is one thing of interest we learned that I’d like to share. Suppose you want to color a map. Any map. But you want each region to have a color different from all the colors of the regions that are adjacent to it. At most, how many colors will you need? Just four. And there is a systematic way of doing the coloring, too. So that’s a sample of what we learn In that class.

Why I’m So Good at Computer Games

Years ago, Kerry used to get really mad at me when we would be playing Atari because he was sure that somehow I was cheating by talking to the computer. But really, in those days, I didn’t know how to talk to a computer. Only now am I learning the language. When you program a computer in BASIC or Pascal, you are only communicating with the computer by way of an interpreter (just like if you were speaking to a person who doesn’t understand English). But now I am learning a little machine language to be able to actually communicate with a computer in its native tongue. It is very interesting. So now Kerry can have grounds for suspicion…

The Choir of Choirs

On Sunday I had the privilege of seeing live the weekly installment of the longest continuous broadcast in the free world. It was the 3,153rd broadcast of “Music and the Spoken Word.” What a great feeling to be in the Tabernacle and hear the choir sing. In attendance were the Governor of Utah and his wife, as well as several general authorities of the Church. John Longhurst, for an organ solo, played “Toccata” from Ave Maria by Charles-Marie Widor. It seems like that is a favorite of Dean’s, as I remember.

Ancient Scripture

It’s a strange thing how numb you can become when not studying the scriptures like you ought to. Numb is a good word because you don’t feel the lack. There was a letter in the priesthood manual that I found interesting in this regard:

“Dear Edgar You told me of an experience you once had with a deer-hunting companion in the high Uinta mountains late one fall in bitter cold and stormy weather. Your companion had become lost, panicky and exhausted from running over the mountainside. He had finally lain down under a pine tree, and by sheer luck you had come upon him before he froze to death. He was still conscious and could talk to you but in his numbed condition, claimed he was not cold at all. No amount of coaxing on your part could persuade him to get up and move around. He begged to be left alone, insisting he was perfectly comfortable and got sore [angry] when you dragged him to his feet and made him move. He really cussed you plenty, you said, when you at last in desperation picked up a stick and laid one or two across his back until he moved to get out of the reach of it. You had to drive him more than a mile like that, for every time you got sympathetic and eased up with the stick, he’d lie down again. Finally, however, you got him moving faster and faster to get out of the way of the stick and his blood warmed up and began circulating so when he could think clearly again he thanked you with tears in his eyes time and time again for using the stick and saving his life.”

I’m glad right now to be able to take two religion classes so that I can overcome some of the numbness that I had. Last semester I was really overpowered by the secular, but now I’m trying to get some more balance, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his soul?”

Last Word

I actually sat down today with the intent to only write a little of the text for this issue. But the substitution method seems to work pretty well with this to avoid doing my calculus homework until the last possible moment (or later). I’d love to hear from you all!