ADD and the Law of Averages

I ran across the most interesting idea today, I had a buddy my mission who referred to it as ADOS (attention deficit-OH SHINY) but, if one is to apply the law of averages to the realm of thought, then shouldn't the ability to think of many things at once lead to a far greater likely hood of one of them being a stroke of genius?  Now there are still a few questionable aspects to this theory (does a thought need to be taken beyond the first half of a sentence to be considered useful to society?) However,  as one who is most likely suffering from a carefully shaped and entirely undiagnosed case of ADD, I like to think that it makes me more inclined to strokes of genius (and not just new ways to use rubber bands and paper clips)

Citrus burns and thoughts of Genius

To address the first issue, oranges are good, but a juicy orange may get on your fingers, and at times fingers may rub your eyes. And it burns us.

So, today as I was pondering things discussed in my classes, it occurred to me that everyone has the opportunity for thoughts of genius. (writers being one of my favorite examples because they are among the most prevalent of the recognized great thinkers) However, the great limiting factor seems to be having something to think about in the first place. No matter how much of a genius Einstein may have been, had the concept of relativity not wandered across his mind, it could never have been developed (I'm still curious what he may have been pondering in order to bring that one into existence) Or on another front entirely, Philo T Farnsworth invented the television, what gave him the idea of shooting an array or precisely aimed electrons at a phosphoressing screen. Sure, now that its been done, it doesn't seem that big, but neither does calculus (Isaac Newton goes home on a break from college and creates a new branch of math, how often does that happen?)

So what now, I know its harder to recognize these ideas as they happen, but they must still be happening. Are we too distracted to notice them? Are we so busy with TV and Facebook and all these amazing things right at our fingertips that we're missing the next Beethoven or Shakespeare, or Einstein?

And I know that this may seem haughty to some, but I would like someday to have developed my mind to the point where I can be the outlet to ideas beyond our current imagination, to put something out into the world that is so fundamental that in 2 or 5 or 20 years, people think of it as common place.

To Carpent and other such things

Today as we were discussing hyperbolas in my calculus class we touched on the concept of the suffix -ix as used in latin, meaning "to do", such as the determinix of a parabola (the imaginary line which is the same distance at every point from the parabola as the parabola is from its focal point) which acts to determine the direction in which a parabola faces. This led to the discussion of the english equivalent, "er". For instance, a brick layer is one who lays bricks, this led me to wonder however, what does one carpent, for obviously a carpenter is one who is "to do" carpentry, which would be the act of carpenting. As of yet, it would seem my query will remain unanswered as to what has happened to the lost word "carpent"

Its a start

School starts today, at 7:45 I was in a room full of engineers (plus a geologist, a chemist, and a physicist) discussing the value of things such as multi-variable calculus and a better definition of what limits are and their value in determining the continuity of a function. I know to most people, thats gibberish, but its what I enjoy. I think its sad sometimes the fear people show for a good calculus or physics class (I'll see about the physics for myself later this afternoon) The secret is that its all just one big grammar class, if you know what the words mean, math isnt all that bad, its just that there are a LOT of words to remember. Funnily enough, the class I'm most worried about is not the Multi-variable calculus or the mid level physics, or even the engineering programming class I start tomorrow. The class I truly fear is Family History.