Students are present

Some with presence of mind

Students naturally groan when their teachers whip out a pop quiz. Mine are no different, except perhaps that they're a bit more jaded. There's not a lot of “pop” in a quiz when it's anticipated as a routine part of the class. I prefer short in-class quizzes as an alternative to collecting and grading homework. The results show me whether my students are following me and the degree to which they're mastering the material.

Eventually, many of my students figure out that keeping up to date gives them a major edge in quiz-taking. Some begin looking forward to quizzes as opportunities to rake in some fairly easy points for knowing basic material. They begin to anticipate quizzes and even ask for them. (By no means do all students do this!) This recently reached a fever pitch when we were approaching the end of the class period and no quiz had been given. I was disappointing them. We got down to five minutes.

“We're down to five minutes,” I said, displaying my gift for the obvious. “What can we do with only five minutes?”

“Let us out early!” chorused a few—always a crowd-pleasing response.

“Give us a quiz!” cried another group (quite distinct from the first, I might add).

Most of my quizzes are more than five minutes long and I had not prepared one.

“How can I give you a five-minute quiz? That's not enough time.”

“Make it easy!” they sang out.

Good answer.

“Well, I did once give a one-minute quiz,” I admitted.

Consternation and curiosity appeared on their faces.

“It was an attendance quiz,” I continued. “The quiz was ‘Write down your name.’”

I don't actively take roll after the first few days of a semester, but the frequent quizzes do a good job of tracking attendance. I expect my students to show up and I'm disappointed when they don't. I also like rewarding good attendance and had not yet taken any special steps to do so that term. The students (even the ones who wanted to leave early) brightened at my suggestion.

“Yeah! We can do that!”

“Okay. Deal. Take a piece of paper, write your name down, and hand it in.”

There were ripping sounds as paper was torn from notebooks.

“Is it okay if we share paper?” asked one green-minded student.

“Sure,” I said.

He and two other classmates used one sheet of paper to submit their names.

Another student strolled up and handed in his paper. He had written “your name” on it.

“I thought it might be a trick question,” he said with a smile. “You said ‘Write your name.’”

He had also written his actual name across the top of the paper.

“Thanks,” I said. “Now get on out of here.”

The next student had drawn a box around her name, like the answer at the end of a calculation.

“Nice,” I said.

Jonathan then handed in an odd piece of work:

Jessica Jones


Jonathan Smith

“I started to cheat off Jessica's paper,” he said, “but then I figured out how to do it on my own.”

“That was good of you,” I replied.

Then Ian sauntered up and placed his paper on my desk:

Ian Doe.0000

"You didn't say how many decimal places of accuracy you wanted, so I assumed four.”

“Uh, thanks. It's true that your name would go on forever if it's irrational.”

The next student had quadrille-ruled graph paper. He had written his name in block form by tracing grid lines.

“You didn't provide equations,” I pointed out.

He grinned and handed it in.

My students are a curious lot, but I'm sure I'm not responsible for this condition.

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A Teddy Bear Thought

Many friends of mine used to call me ‘teddy bear’. No one can escape from these kinds of nick names. Most of them may sound stupid. But this one I found it cute. In fact I loved some friends calling me so. My friend who has three teddy bears, in which one is of my size, once commented, “I got three, but none can match you”.

Teddy bears are made to give company. It is meant to console (though in silence) those who are lonely. It is always a symbol of warmth and affection. All these qualities make teddy bears popular around the globe. And so there is no wonder how it became a symbol of friendship.

Most often my gifts for my friends will be teddies. Still I would say, I don’t have a teddy of my own. Whenever I buy one, I feel I should gift it to some one.

In my cousin’s house, there is one which is snow white. When I’m in her house, I sleep holding it tight with a wish to have one just for me…

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Where's my money?

Teaching for dollars

San Francisco's KSFO, bastion of right-wing talking points for the poor out-numbered arch-conservatives who live in the Bay Area, has been cutting back. High-priced hosts like Melanie Morgan and Lee Rodgers have been shown the door and their erstwhile sidekick, Brian Sussman, has been elevated into the anchor chair. His feet may not be able to touch the floor as he sits in it, but Sussman is now KSFO's monarch of the morning drive time (although actual traffic reports come from “Officer Vic,” who now gets to be Sussman's yes-man).

My inner masochist occasionally takes over when I'm driving and tunes the radio to KSFO, just to see what the crazies are promoting at the moment. On Tuesday, July 27, 2010, listeners were treated to yet another paean to the wonders of running government “like a business.” This shows remarkable resilience in right-wing ranks, especially after the debacle of George W. Bush's “MBA presidency.” Yeah, another dose of the business acumen that destroyed the world economy is just what government needs these days!

During the 7 o'clock hour, Sussman started a little rant about the Obama administration's shocking lack of business people in its top ranks. While Reagan and the two Bushes had over fifty percent of their appointees coming from the world of business, the current administration's tally is only eight percent. Shocking! (While the numbers may be true, they came from one of Sussman's devoted listeners, so a block of salt might be indicated.) With Officer Vic providing sycophantic punctuation, Sussman began to rail against academia—the reputed source of the bulk of President Obama's political appointments.

By itself, this is no surprise. Right-wing talk-show hosts really don't like higher education and its purveyors. We tend to be too liberal for them. (Funny how education tends to make people more liberal, open-minded, and opposed to right-wing radio bigots. No doubt Beck University will fix that.) Nevertheless, Sussman managed to surprise me, a jaded liberal listening to a usually predictable spewing of right-wing talking points from KSFO. You might not guess, however, just how he managed to surprise me.

Check it out:

Sussman: Herein lies the problem. These people live in a parallel universe. They don't understand. How do you get ahead in academia? It's not about being the best. It's not about being— There's no competition.

Officer Vic: No.

Sussman: Basically you go out there and get a degree and maybe another degree and another degree. And then you work your way into— You get a job at a university and you publish papers that no one reads and you publish books that are unreadable and you speak [Officer Vic: You get tenure.] and your speaking can be completely boring and you teach and you can be the worst teacher on the planet but you get tenure.

Officer Vic: Yep.

I begin to suspect that Sussman has never been on a university campus. Good thing tenure is so easy to obtain, though. Practically automatic.

Sussman: And then, you're in! That's it. You're in the club. It's nothing about being the best. There's no competition involved to move up the ranks of academia. It's not like in the real world. And that's who Barack Obama's surrounded himself—a bunch of propeller-heads, who have never produced anything. They've never produced a job. They've never managed large numbers of people. But it's all unraveling for these guys.

It's true. Competition is anathema in academia. We don't compete for choice assignments, office space, grant money, promotions, or anything else. Never, ever. It's contrary to our communitarian nature.

Officer Vic: Payroll.

Sussman: Never had to make payroll, never had to balance a budget. Never had to manage a profit-and-loss statement. Oh, they'll write about profit-and-loss statements, they'll write about how to manage people, they'll write and write and write and write, they conduct all this research. And again, I think it's hilarious. You read some of the books that these people write and they are unreadable. You hear some of the speeches that they give and you can't listen to them. You go to their classes and you listen to them teach and they're awful. But they've got their jobs and they're millionaires.

I don't think Sussman actually goes into classrooms to listen to professors and deem them awful. He strikes me as a class-skipper. But that last sentence? Yeah, that's the part when Sussman took me by surprise. Millionaires? I think I need to talk to my union rep. I may be getting cheated! (Of course, I'm not a university professor, so perhaps I shouldn't quibble—except that I know plenty of university professors who earn less than me.)

So Sussman thinks professors are millionaires who never have to make payroll, never create jobs, and never balance a budget. What an ignoramus. One of the problems at universities is the management of research teams, the budgeting of grant monies, and the allocation of lab space. One jumps through all kinds of hoops to get the funding the first place and then gets to do further mountains of paperwork to document its expenditure on personnel and resources. We even have similar challenges at my community college, even though on a smaller scale. (We seek external funding more frequently now that the state budget is such a mess, but it all comes with strings.) Maybe we have to deal with the NSF instead of the SBA, but many of us can commiserate with the entrepreneurs who deal with the latter.

KSFO's morning oracle continued:

Sussman:I get a kick out of— You go to UC Berkeley, you go to Stanford, you go to these various campuses and these students are out there protesting, “We need more money for our schools!” And standing next to them are the professors. “We need more money for our schools!” Hey, have you ever asked that professor how much money they're making every year? These professors are all millionaires. They're millionaires with big, big salaries and big, big retirement packages. And yet they dress like little schmoes, you know, with their crummy jackets [Officer Vic: Patches on the elbow.] that are twenty years old, yeah, and patches on the elbow. And their ties are askew and their hair's kinda crappy and they drive crummy little cars and they're millionaires. They're all millionaires! And they actually have the gall to stand next to the kids who are protesting because their fees are too high. “We need more money for our schools!” So you can pay these millionaires!

Oh, good. Fashion advice from a radio jockey. Nice hair, Brian. What training academy does it for free just for practice? As a millionaire professor, I shell out $14 for each of my haircuts.

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In search of Five Fingers

A bunch of friends,

A loving family,

A few good teachers,

A fine life…

Still can I call this happiness?

Does it make glory?

I would call it external,

I’m in search of internal.

To love and to be loved

The greatest gift in earth!

I loved everyone selflessly,

All left me in darkness…

I don’t want many now,

I need a hand to hold.

Just five fingers,

But I don’t find any!!!

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One Year without Thangal

Usually when a famous person dies, it’s a celebration for media for at least one week. But when Panakkad Muhammadali Shihab Thangal passed away last year, major Malayalam dailies filed news stories with an emotional touch, seemed like even they mourn for his death. If you check Mahesh Guptan’s report in Malayala Manorama, you could really make out his attachment with Thangal.

Yes! Panakkad Muhammadali Shihab Thangal was a true all rounder. There won’t be many religious leaders like him who talks not only for his own religion but also for others as well. He stood for religious harmony which kept Malappuram district away from communal conflicts. Every one respected him and valued his words.

The doors of Panakkad house were never closed. Any one can enter at any time in this house and meet Thangal. There is no religious or caste bar for him. Though he was the head of Muslim League, for him, politics always held second position below social service.

One year passed without him from which natives of Malappuram has not recovered. They still go to Panakkad house to seek blessings from Thangal. It may sound awkward, but they say they could feel his presence that itself gives them peace and satisfaction.

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Hit bottom, kept digging

Conservapedia finds new lows

When P.Z. Myers shared the happy news that Conservapedia honored him with its article of the week, I naturally had to see for myself how he was being celebrated over at Andrew Schlafly's Fortress of Ineptitude. It was a fun-filled visit, punctuated with peals of sudden laughter at the many pages of inadvertent humor.

These guys are funny.

While I was there, I had to revisit the Conservapedia entry on President Obama, which I cruelly mocked in a post last year, just before the presidential inauguration. Naturally, I was curious to see whether it had been improved in any way.

The answer depends on whether your metric involves laughter.

Here is the opening paragraph:

Barack Hussein Obama II (birth name Barry Soetoro,[1][2][3] allegedly born in Honolulu August 4, 1961[4][5][6][7][8]) is the 44th President of the United States, and the first President who is biracial. He previously was associated with several radical causes[9] and served less than four years as a first-term Democratic Senator from Illinois (2005-2008).

Try to remember that this is supposed to be a source of reliable information (“The Trustworthy Encyclopedia,” they claim). Were you able to spot any mistakes? I admit I wondered how the president's birth name could be “Barry Soetoro” given that Lolo Soetoro was his step-father and was nowhere on the scene when Barack was born. Both birth announcements in contemporary Hawaiian newspapers reported that the father was Barack H. Obama. The president's birth certificate (I know, I know; Schlafly and his crew refuse to accept Hawaii's official document) gives his name as “Barack Hussein Obama II.”

No Soetoro.

After a flub like that, I'm surprised that Conservapedia got his presidential number right. Yes, it is 44. They also noticed that he did not serve out his term as U.S. senator. Good catch! (Getting elected president does that to you.)

Upon taking office Obama promised relief for unemployed workers and warned failure to pass his proposed stimulus scheme would turn a “crisis into a catastrophe.”[10][11] The unemployment rate has hovered in the 10% range throughout his presidency, up significantly from the 7.8% rate in January 2009. Since passage of the president's stimulus package, 2.4 million Americans have been added to the unemployment rolls.[12]

Conservapedia loves post hoc, propter hoc insinuations. The stimulus package passed and then unemployment soared. There are two reasons for that which most sane people are able to identify: (1) the stimulus package wasn't big enough (and Paul Krugman warned us, too!) and (2) the collapse of the U.S. economy under the Bush administration still had plenty of momentum in January 2009, right when its chief enablers scrambled out of town. Who knows how much worse off we might be without the cushioning effect of the stimulus package (which, once again, was not large enough).

After the “War on Terror” was abandoned during his first year in office the rate of terrorist attacks on the United States has gone from zero per year during George W. Bush's last year, [13] to at least four.[14][15][16][17][18].

Such careful choosing of time periods! (Cherry-picking, anyone?) Why not compare Obama's first year with Bush's first year. Oh, yes. September 11. Too bad about ignoring terrorist threats until it was too late (and then exaggerating them for political benefit and war justification). I will admit, however, that I like the quotes around the “War on Terror.” Is Conservapedia admitting that the president is merely avoiding some of the cant phrases and reducing the bully-boy rhetoric that characterized the Bush-Cheney years? That's certainly a relief. In the meantime, in terms of reality, Obama is aggressive against terror in ways that may or may not pay off. You know, little things. Little things like tripling the number of drone attacks against targets in Pakistan. I have my doubts about it, but the Conservapedists should be yelling their heads off in support.

The president is not anything close to a pacifist, but his actions are not loud enough or indiscriminate enough to please the troglodytes who live in the dark caverns of Conservapedia.

President Obama authorized offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico[19] and has been widely criticized for mishandling the “worst environmental disaster in US history.”[20][21] Obama declared, “oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced.”[22][23][24]

Well, generally they don't cause spills. There's only one that really causing trouble right now. Of course, it's a doozy. That's the catch. One big spill can do gigabucks of damage. That's why many people reacted negatively to the president's comments about authorizing more oil drilling. However, the drill that spilled was in place long before Obama said anything. The disaster was a legacy of Bush administration neglect and lack of enforcement of safety standards and procedures.

The Gulf spill might, of course, have been mitigated if the Obama administration had promptly ramped up safety inspections and enforcement of maintenance regulations, but I can easily imagine how Schlafly and his minions would have reacted. “Anti-business!” (I think it was Stalin—or was it Hitler?—who was really keen on state enforcement of safety regulations.)

Did you notice the sly post-hoc implication of the paragraph's initial compound sentence? (1) Obama authorized drilling. (2) Worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

Sentences like this don't get constructed by accident. Schlafly really wants readers of Conservapedia to think that BP's Gulf of Mexico disaster was the direct consequence of Obama's statement about offshore oil drilling.

The president's words are powerful.

The initial paragraphs of Conservapedia's entry on Barack Obama is all of a piece. A piece of propaganda. The article deliberately misleads. That's curious, isn't it? The overtly religious perpetrators of such mendacity are evidently so full of good intentions that they regard themselves exempt from the commandment about bearing false witness.

The morality of the people at Conservapedia is very much like the God they purport to follow. There's damned little evidence for the existence of either.

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Judging a book by its author

Something I don't need to read

Nepotism poster child Tori Spelling is on a signing tour to promote her new book. The formerly reputable McClatchy Company is helping out with breathless little stories like an interview article in The Sacramento Bee:

There's an anecdote in it about you contacting the late Farrah Fawcett.

It was during a reading on the phone with (celebrity psychic) John Edward. We have the same publicist. I thought, “Oh, this'll be cool, maybe my dad will come through.” Instead, John said, “Farrah Fawcett's coming through.” He was really surprised, too. She wanted me to let her family know she's happy and OK. I wrote a letter to Ryan O'Neal, explaining the story. I said, “Please don't think I'm crazy, I'm simply passing on a message.”

Gosh, Tori? Think you're crazy? Never! Think you're gullible and maybe just a little bit stupid? From now till eternity!

Perhaps I am being too mean. After all, she shares a publicist with John Edward, famous for being “The Biggest Douche in the Universe.” It may be that Tori is just a good little trouper who cooperates with her p.r. person in trying to gin up some press coverage for a fellow celebrity from the same stable. I can't tell, though, if Tori is being cynically manipulated or just cynically playing along.

In a way, of course, it doesn't matter. The stupid is right there on the page for us to see.

Let's look the other way.

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Lucy Van Whitman runs for governor

The campaign budget is peanuts

The insight was not mine. It was a friend's daughter who said, “You know who Meg Whitman reminds me of? Lucy Van Pelt!”

Suddenly it all became clear. That's right. Whitman is exactly like the self-proclaimed fussbudget from the Peanuts comic strip. She promises faithfully to hold the ball steady while California—in the guise of Charlie Brown—runs up to give it a good kick.

We all know what's going to happen if we fall for it, don't we?

Speaking of boys named Brown, Meg is both eager to remind us that Jerry Brown is one of California's historical figures and hopeful that we remember none of the historical details. While she labels him a failure, his eight years in the governor's office seem like the good old days relative to the current political and budgetary environment. In particular, Whitman wants us to think that Jerry Brown was such a profligate big-government spender that he broke the bank:

His big spending turned a surplus into a billion-dollar deficit.

Actually, Meg, the voters broke the bank with Proposition 13. Brown was an exceedingly frugal governor. So frugal, in fact, that the tax increases enacted under Governor Reagan (that's right, Reagan) were creating a surplus.

Perhaps Meg is not aware of Brown's penny-pinching history. Back in those days she was far away from California, going to school at Princeton and Harvard. More likely, though, Meg and her people are consciously distorting Brown's record. That's what politicians tend to do during campaigns and Meg has certainly become a politician, complete with a well-funded propaganda campaign.

The truth about that era of California politics is difficult for right-wingers to swallow. I remember being called a liar in 1980 during Reagan's unfortunately successful campaign for president. A Reagan supporter blew up at me when I pointed out that California budgets had grown more rapidly under Reagan than they were growing under Jerry Brown. Knowing that Ronnie was the patron saint of tight-fisted budget-slashers, the Reaganite told me quite emphatically that I was either a fool or a liar.

It's easy, however, to check the numbers for yourself. The California state treasurer's office in the spring of 1986 put out the Annual Long-Term General Fund Forecast that I still have on my shelf. It's replete with historical data. In 1967, Reagan's first year in office, state expenditures totaled approximately 2.939 billion dollars. By 1974, the last year of his two terms, expenditures had reached 7.245 billion dollars. On a point-to-point comparison, that's a 46.5% increase. It amounts to an average increase of 13.8% each year.

In 1975, Jerry Brown's first budget came in at $8.264 billion. Three years later, his 1978 budget (before Proposition 13 passed) was $11.612 billion. His budget increases were averaging 12.0% per year, nearly two points less than those of supposedly fiscally conservative Reagan (who would soon be running up a deficit as U.S. president).

People couldn't help notice that Jerry was spending less money than the state was taking in. The state surplus ballooned to nearly four billion dollars, an awesome amount. It helped spur Californians into voting for Proposition 13 on the June 1978 primary election ballot, slashing property taxes to the bone and putting the Golden State into a fiscal straitjacket.

The state government had not exactly stood idly by while the surplus grew and the voters got antsy. The governor's office supported a reduction in property taxes. However, a concerted effort to enact property-tax relief for California's homeowners was consistently opposed by conservative legislators who wanted it to fail. They wanted things to get worse so that middle-class voters would support an initiative written to principally benefit corporations and owners of commercial property. It worked, and California took a quick tumble into the fiscal frailty from which it has never fully recovered.

The 1979 state budget incorporated major subventions to local governments and school districts to soften the blow of the gutted property tax. As a result, that budget totaled $16.174 billion, a dramatic one-year increase of 39.3%, largely at the expense of the rapidly shrinking surplus. As the surplus dwindled and Brown reasserted his fiscal frugality—now underscored by the draconian Proposition 13—the governor ended his final year in office, 1982, with a budget of $21.522 billion. Compared to 1975, that was a 60.4% increase. Averaged out, it represented a growth of 14.7% per year.

Thus the impact of Proposition 13 pushed Brown into a position where he exceeded Reagan's overall growth rate. Nevertheless, his average ended up less than one point higher even after absorbing the 39.3% kick in the teeth occasioned by Proposition 13. It strains credulity to portray Brown's record as governor as one of irresponsible spending. As a budgetary manager, he did a good job. In light of his successors, he did a damned good job. It is endlessly regrettable that Brown and the contending forces in the legislature were unable to forestall Proposition 13 by coming to terms on a reasonable and timely property-tax relief measure. The Golden State still suffers the scars of that battle and that proposition's enactment.

Now here comes Meg Whitman to save us! She presumably knows how to solve our state's problems because she's cut from the same cloth as the people who imposed them on us. How much irony is there in her free-spending quest for political office? She spent $76 for each vote she got in the state primary. And now her general election campaign trail is carpeted with the greenbacks spilling from her deep pockets, much of that money going to a statewide media campaign that smears Jerry Brown as a big spender.

Good grief!

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It's just another day

Irrelevant ancient history

Today is July 20. Remember when Olin Teague kept trying to make a national holiday of it?

Of course you don't. In fact, you're probably saying, “Who the heck was Olin Teague?”

That's okay. He's been gone awhile. U.S. Representative Olin Teague held a congressional seat from Texas for a big chunk of the 20th century. He chaired the Select Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration. The Apollo moon program occurred on Teague's watch. You could say he was a big space booster.

By now you've recalled (or figured out) that July 20 is the anniversary of the first Apollo landing on the moon, the Apollo 11 mission that took Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin down to its dusty surface. Sometimes, in a fit of nostalgia, I bother to mention it to my summer school students (if I'm teaching summer school that year, of course). Their reaction is usually dispiriting.

The last time I did it, I wrote “July 20” on the board and left it there for a while. Since I don't normally bother writing the day's date on the board, it was anomalous behavior. Successfully stifling any curiosity—intellectual or otherwise—my calculus students did not ask the date's significance.

So I did.

“Does anyone know what today it?”

A couple of my more insightful students said, “July twentieth!”

I gave them a sickly smile.

“Thank you for the obvious answer. Can anyone dig a little deeper than that?”

“It's my niece's birthday!”

“Okay,” I said, with great forbearance. “I hope you got your niece an appropriate birthday present.”

“I don't know. I'll find out this afternoon when Mom gets back from shopping.”

Things were not developing in an encouraging direction. I abandoned subtlety.

“Today is the anniversary of the first moon landing,” I said.

They looked at me, mostly blankly. A couple of students said “oh” without much enthusiasm in their voices.

“Yes, I realize we're talking about ancient and boring history,” I said. “No doubt you've heard of the Apollo program and seen photos or videos of it, but it's probably difficult to imagine how exciting it was to see it all occur in real time. We saw the lift-offs and moon landings on live television, just as it occurred. It was a thrilling time to be a witness to history.”

“My father said he actually got hives on the day of the moon landing,” said one student, a small smile on her face. “But he's an electrical engineer.”

“Oh, an engineer. That explains it, of course,” I replied.

Students nodded their heads as if everyone knew that's the way engineers are. They're easily susceptible to hives and other allergy-related afflictions. It's possible—or even likely—that they were dutifully humoring me, having no particular opinions of their own. One should always encourage a teacher who is off-topic and telling stories instead of lecturing.

“The space program was a great motivator when I was in high school. It was exciting to all of us who were interested in math, science, and engineering. The Apollo moon rocket generated seven and a half million pounds of thrust to lift a six million pound vehicle from the launch pad. It began painfully slowly, but the final stage reached speeds of seven miles per second as it left earth orbit. That's about twenty-five thousand miles per hour. Residents of Hawaii actually got to see the third stage of Apollo 11 light up overhead as it pushed the spacecraft toward the moon.”

Some of my students goggled as I reeled off the numbers. I had either captured their attention or they were good at feigning interest. (Either—or both—is entirely possible.) I turned to the board and wrote “F = ma.”

“What does that mean?”

Many students were ready to blurt out the answer.

“Force equals mass times acceleration.”

“Indeed. As I was watching the moon rocket take off on live television, I saw how slowly it rose during the first moments of its flight. It took several seconds to clear the tower. Since I knew its mass and the force of its rocket engines, I could compute its acceleration. Only one problem, though.”

I paused for a long moment, waiting.

“The mass wasn't constant!” a student proudly announced.

“Exactly!” I said. “The first stage was burning off fuel at a rate of fifteen tons per second.”

Even some of the more jaded students were a bit slack-jawed with wonder now.

“So, what to do? Well, I broke the time interval into short segments.” On the board I wrote t₀, t₁, t₂, and so on. “Since I knew the rate of fuel consumption, I knew the mass of the rocket at the beginning of each subinterval. I could compute the acceleration for that interval and calculate the rocket's change in altitude. The computations were simple, but there were a lot of them. How could I get my results to be even more accurate?”

“Do even more calculations,” they said. “Use shorter subintervals!”

“Quite right! And how does that compare to something you've learned in this class?”

“Smaller intervals for more accuracy in Simpson's rule. Or in Riemann sums!”

“Indeed,” I agreed.

“Hey, you were giving a math lecture after all!” cried a student.

“Gotcha!” I admitted.

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Friendship Day History

Friendship is one relation that has survived on earth since its existence. Even when there was no understanding of a lawful marital relationship, the feeling of companionship always existed. This feeling of companionship is actually the feeling of friendship. It is not merely a relationship rather a unique blend of affection, trustworthiness, care, respect, and loads of fun. In present time, when people do not get enough time from work, the importance of friendship is being understood. This is the reason why people decided a special day to reciprocate this special relationship on a special day in a special way. To know more about Friendship's Day history, read on this article.

The tradition of celebrating Friendship Day has been prevalent since a very long time. However, you may not find much written literature about the history and origin of Friendship Day as for a long time no formal date was assigned top this occasion. Humans have been friends ever since civilization came into existence. As a social animal, a human being needs companionship and friendship. Thus one can say that friendship has existed even in pre-historic times. So, the celebration of an occasion specially meant for friendship is really special.

In the year 1935 the United States Congress announced the first Sunday of August as the National Friendship Day. From then on it has caught up with the rest of the world and today everyone celebrates Friendship's Day with much enthusiasm and joy. A special day dedicated just for friends is something that everyone looks forward to. The beautiful idea of honoring one of the most pious relations of all, i.e. Friendship, is appreciated by people all over the world. It has assumed the proportion of being celebrated as a festival. Friends all over the world pay tribute to their chums by giving those gifts and other tributes. The best way to celebrate this beautiful day is by spending the entire day with your special pals.

Though till last few decades, this celebration was popular with people of western countries. It is only with the phase of globalization that people in the other parts of the world came to know about this wonderful celebration. This occasion has been commercially much promoted and now, even the smallest suburban area of a third world country is aware of this occasion. The celebrations are also more or less the same everywhere. People go out with friends and celebrate this occasion by having a gala time together. Exchange of gifts, flowers and cards are popular trends of this occasion. It is estimated that this is one of the most commercially benefiting occasions for the gift and card galleries as millions of gifts, cards and chocolates are bought on this occasion throughout the world. Once started as a small event, this occasion has become as grand as a festival.

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Friendship Day Gifts

Express the love for your friend and show that you care with friendship day gifts. Nothing other than a heart touching wonderful gift can convey the true emotion of love to your friend. Celebrate the bond of friendship and honor your friend with the best friendship day gift ideas. Surprise your friend by sending him/her cute online gift for friends and let the gifts do all the talking on your part.

A gift is something that evokes memories of good time, something that lets you cherish the strengthened bond of your friendship. Shower your friends with gifts on friendship day to show that you love and care. Let us have a look at some of the friendship day gifts:

• Friendship Bands: Friendships bands have almost become synonymous with the celebration of friendship day. A band of love tied in each other's wrists signifies the strengthened bond of relationship. A friendship band is like a token of love that epitomizes the feelings for friends in each other's minds. You can also opt for stylish friendship bracelets or wristlets that come in sleek design.
  

• Flowers: Say it all; say it through flowers. When it comes to gift and expression, nothing other than a flower bouquet can do full justice to the emotions and feelings of the special day. A flower bouquet comes up as one of the most wonderful gift as it exudes your love and warmth in the right way. However, choose the flower that is liked by your friend for best results. In other cases, a yellow rose does the right job.
  

• Chocolates: How can you forget on chocolates, when it comes to presenting your friend with delightful gifts? These as a gift melt the heart in the most beautiful manner and are an all time favorite with every friend. You can also opt to decorate a chocolate gift basket to your friend to witness that beautiful smile on your friends face. Candies and cookies also melt the heart beautifully.
  

• Soft Toys: Another great friendship day gift will be to present her with soft toys. If it is a she then, a soft toy can act as the best gift ever. Girls love and adore soft toys and a soft toy as a gift will anytime bring than smile on her face.
  
  
• Show Pieces: These are cute and attractive and are one of the most preferred gift ideas on friendship day. You can choose glass, metal, wood, or paper as per your friends liking. Another great idea will be to personalize a showpiece and present it to your friend. Handmade friendship day gifts like, cards and other artifacts are also much preferred when it comes to friends and friendship day.
  
  
• Books and CDs: If your friend is a bookworm or he /she is a music lover then nothing other than books and CDs can come up as the best friendship day gift. However, while presenting a book or a CD, it is very important to keep in mind the choices of your friend or else you might end up losing the whole fun of it. If your friend is a game lover then, you can opt to present him/her with game CDs as well.
  
  
• Photo Frames and Photo Albums: Capture your sweet and loving memories, frame them up and present it to your friend. Nothing other than a photo album can evoke the memories of good times. To add a bit personal touch, you can even pen down some words of love on the photo frame.

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Friendship Day Greetings

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Happy Friendship Day Wallpapers

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Friendship Day Pictures

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Friendship Day Ideas

Friendship Day Gifts play a significant role in strengthening the relationship you share with your loved ones. Friendship Gifts must therefore be selected with love and care. A friendship present need not be precious and expensive ones but it must definitely exude love and warmth you feel for your friend. In case you are finding it hard to decide a perfect Friendship Gift for your best friend, here some popular Friendship Day Gift ideas just for you.




Friendship Band is one of the most popular Friendship Gift. Many colorful friendship bands hit the stores much ahead of Friendship Day. Instead of the conventional wristbands, one can go for the friendship bracelets which come in attractive designs for both boys and girls. This way your Friendship Day can stay longer with your friends besides it works as token of your love.



Fresh Flowers are the best and the easiest way to convey emotions and hence they make a wonderful gift for friends. If you are invited for a Friendship Day do, carry an attractive bouquet of pretty flowers for that heart touching impact. Ideally, you must choose your friends favorite flower. In case your friend does not have a specific choice, you may safely go in for Yellow Roses as these are officially recognized as the Friendship Day flowers.



Cute and attractive show pieces are another extremely popular Friendship Day Gift. Depending upon your choice one can go in for glass, metals, wood, paper mache or crystal show pieces. Besides, making a delightful Friendship Day Gift, decorative pieces help to create beautiful memories.




Chocolates makes a yummy and delicious Friendship Day gift for foodies. Go in for a hamper of your friend's favorite chocolate to bring that million dollar smile on his/her face. A zestful idea would be to make a decorated friendship basket consisting of your friend's favorite gift items like chocolates, candy, cookies, a bunch of flowers, etc.

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Friendship Day

Friendship Day?

Celebrate Friendship Day 2010 on August 1, Sunday

Human beings are social creatures and have always valued the importance of friends in their lives. To celebrate this noble feeling it was deemed fit to have a day dedicated to friends and friendship. Accordingly, first Sunday of August was declared as a holiday in US in honor of friends by a Proclamation made by US Congress in 1935. Since then, World Friendship Day is being celebrated every year on the first Sunday in the month of August.

This beautiful idea of celebrating Friendship Day was joyfully accepted by several other countries across the world. And today, many countries including India, celebrate the first Sunday of August as Friendship Day every year. Celebrating Friendship Day in a traditional manner, people meet their friends and exchange cards and flowers to honor their friends. Lot many social and cultural organization too celebrate the occasion and mark Friendship Day by hosting programs and get together.

It may be noted that some associations celebrate Friendship Day in an entirely different time of the year and with different customs. For instance,

• National Friendship Day is on the first Sunday in August.
• Women's Friendship Day is on the third Sunday in August
• International Friendship Month is February
• Old Friends, New Friends Week is the third week of May

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