A Book about Back to School

This morning's New York Times business section ran a story about a guy who left his journalism career to pursue a Harvard MBA.

Philip Delves Broughton wrote "Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School." I haven't read the book, but the Times story said, "In 2004, dismayed over the gloomy state of newspaper journalism and his own career prospects. Mr. Broughton, then 32, quit his job as Paris bureau chief for The Daily Telegraph of London and enrolled in Harvard Business School."

Being a good journalist, he wrote a book about it. It's now (Aug. 17, 2008) at 129 on the Amazon rankings. That is a spectacular accomplishment in itself. My book, "Race and Class on Campus: Conversations with Ricardo's Daughter,"made it up to the low 400,000s. Now it's at 1,699,074. Those kinds of rankings (mine, not Philip's) are great for humility. Not too great for launching a writing career.

O.K., so I'm not gloomy about the state of newspaper journalism or my own career prospects, I'm not quitting my job, and I'm going to Pima Community College rather than Harvard Business School. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens. And perhaps writing about it.

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Tomorrow I plan to call Pima College's math department to try to get contact info for Professor Gerald J. Lapeyre. There has to be a story there, and I need to figure out how to get the textbook for less than $150.

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I'm still working on paperless, calculator-free addition. The exercise I'm on consists of 15 sets of 12 two-digit numbers in columns. My lack of accuracy still surprises me. I'm working on the first five sets only and I haven't yet got all of them right.

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I think I want to find other people who have learned math late and learn about their stories. If you've done that or know anyone who has and who might be willing to tell me about it, please pass along my email address (rochlin@arizona.edu) and ask them to drop me a line. Do people under 50 say, "drop me a line?"

It All Adds Up!

So I can finally add well enough to move on beyond exercise 13 in "How to Calculate Quickly." I keep asking myself, "Why can't I add the numbers right every time. They're just two digit numbers and it's just addition."

So, this morning, for the 25 columns, I made myself slow down and I allowed myself to re-do a problem if I wasn't confident that it was right. A couple of times I got four different answers. I can't be that dumb or careless. But I was. So if I got the same answer twice, or in a couple of instances, three times, I went with it. Even with all that, I still got two wrong, but that gave me 92 percent and personal permission to move on.

The next exercise was to add 19 to randomly arranged numbers 1 through 99. I sailed through that. Next up, exercise 15, more two-digit addition with longer columns. Way longer. I'll report later.

I put my book purchase decision off for a little bit. I decided to email the professor to verify the name of the book and ask whether an earlier edition might work.

The instructor is listed as Gerald J. Lapeyre. I couldn't find a bio on the Pima College Web site. On Google, I found a retired physics professor from Montana State. Looking deeper I found some minutes from a Montana Board of Regents of Higher Education meeting from September 21-22, 2000/ One entry said:

"Authorization to Confer the Title of Professor Emeritus of Physics upon Gerald J. Lapeyre; Montana State University- Bozeman." Cool. An old guy. Like me.

Turns out that Professor Lapeyre also has authored several physics research papers.

I was curious about his academic interests and found this on the Montana State Web site:

"Professor Lapeyre's research in the solid state and surface science laboratory focuses on the electronic states and electron interactions in solids and at surfaces. A strong emphasis is placed on quantum properties of MBE grown III-V semiconductor surfaces. The principal spectroscopies used are polarization dependent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (PARUPS) in the far and extreme ultraviolet spectral range and high resolution low energy electron loss spectroscopy (HREELS). LEED, ESCA, and Auger are used for multiple sample analysis. Two sources of photon flux are available. In the Montana State University laboratory, gas discharge lamps and x-rays are used. The MSU lab group is also a user group at the Synchrotron Radiation Center at the University of Wisconsin, where the group has its own beam line which covers the spectral range from about 5 to 1000 eV."

I didn't understand a word of that either.

I wonder if my teacher will be his son? Or by amazing coincidence, another human named Gerald J. Lapeyre. Or, did professor Lapeyre retire to Tucson and decide to teach a community college algebra class just to keep busy.

I sorta hope it is him. I've been wanting to engage in a discussion with a physicist about the big bang, that they all believe it. My question is basically: Is there a word for the circumstance where all assumptions are apparently correct and all the math is done correctly but the entire process proves a phenomenon that is absurd on its face? Like the big bang theory.

Are You a High School Graduate?

The Pima Community College downtown campus offers assessment tests on a walk in basis every day until 7 p.m. I decided to give it a try and see where I stand.

When I decided to begin this number journey, part of my reason was to experience new things and new worlds. Little ones, and perhaps big ones. I got my first little one quickly.

I marched up to the testing center and said I wanted to take the math assessment test. The first question the (very nice) person behind the desk asked me was, "Are you a high school graduate?" That was new. I don't recall ever having been asked that ever, even as an 18 or 19 year old. I might have blinked at the question. In an instant I wondered whether I wanted to mention my MBA or Ph.D. or that I was a professor. I caught myself and said, "yes."

That person was kind enough to look up my Pima College ID number. I had one because I had taken first year Spanish and two classes about Dreamweaver, the web design program. She then asked what test I was interested in. I said algebra.

In moments I was directed to a computer in the testing lab. There were three sheets of scrap paper, a pencil, and a calculator on the desk. The screen give directions about getting started.

After the first three questions I walked back to the nice lady at the desk and explained that I needed an easier test. I was already over my head. She told me not to worry -- that the test was programmed to work me into easier questions if necessary and because the program was created by the folks who designed the ACT, it will accurately place me in the appropriate level of class. But, she said, I needed to answer each question, to get to the next one.

I slunk back to the computer and soldiered on. I guessed the answers to the next several questions -- pretty much in fear that I might guess right, and would make the computer place me in a class that I had no business being in. Finally, I got some answers right and then some more. I guess I worked my way down to my level. Soon, in fact in only 16 minutes and 49 seconds (it said on the print out of my results) I was done.

My score was 49. That, of course meant nothing to me.

The woman who I was becoming more familiar with, told me that score placed me in "intermediate algebra."

Yikes! I was sure I should have landed in beginning algebra. But no, she assured me, I was right in the middle of the intermediate algebra range on my score and I should do fine. I did take some reassurance in the fact that you don't get college credit for what I now learned was officially math 122.

O.K. Next task: Find a class.

Wondering about Math

Thanks for landing here. This blog is about my new adventure with numbers that will start in earnest in about two and a half weeks.

Math came easy to me as a kid. One of my best teachers ever was Miss Cronin for seventh grade math. She taught me about the magic of logarithms and how to use a slide rule to multiple digits. I thought I wanted to be an aeronautical engineer, partly beasue of a great eppisode of "My Three Sons" with Fred McMurry. And I really liked my slide rule. For the last 15 years I've wanted to write a New Yorker Article about the person in the world who made the last ever slide rule. I also wanted to write a book interviewing famous scientists about their first or favorite slide rules. I probably won't get to that because they are all starting to die.

My eighth grade math teacher wanted to talk about poetry. We learned about inspirational poetry. He wanted to form "the whole human being" rather than teach math. Well, I formed as a human being. My math talent didn't.

I made it through college, for all practical purposes, without ever taking a math or science course. I learned how to work the system, and a ton of other good stuff. But not math. Seth, my 22-year-old son passed me in math when he was in about sixth grade. My wife was a math minor in college. They both know all kinds of things I don't. I'm not competitive, but I still wonder what I'm missing.

Truthfully, I can't think of a time in my life where I've actually needed math. I can't think of a time where any of my friends, other than the engineers, have ever needed math. But, still, for some reason , I'm drawn to it.

I tried to read a book about calculus. Not how to do calculus, just about calculus. Couldn't get through it. I just finished a book about infinity. It was called A Brief History of Infinity. Got through it and loved it.

I was having a drink with a history professor today. He said he was very happy thank you being a math illiterate. I'm happy also. But still curious. What do those squiggles mean? The weird looking E? The elongated S. Do people really make sense of those formulas all over blackboards in movies like "A Beautiful Mind? How do smart guys use math to prove something as nutty as the big bang and actually believe it? Is math, once you actually do it, less fun today because computers do it, or more fun because you can do more stuff and ask more questions?

Right now, I can use a calculator and find square roots and percentages and all that. I can sometimes figure out one x but not if there is a y in the hood. I like the idea of a "pure language" like I imagine mathematics is. But I also wonder whether, the more you get into it, the less pure, or more grey it gets, like so many other things.

I'm 58 and I work with words and pictures. Right now I teach journalism at the University of Arizona. This coming semester I am taking a cut in my course load to pursue a "creative activity." I am choosing to pursue math.

Next, I'll tell you about my trip to Pima Community College to take the math assessment exam.