Not a callout, just felt you were the most qualified to answer this question really.
There's a commercial here on the radio that helps to promote teaching math and science skills to girls at an early age. Sponsering site is www.girlsgotech.org
In this commercial the girl asks her dad why teh sky is blue, and he answered " because mother nature wanted to match the color of your pretty little eyes." and she replies "nope not even close." She goes on to explain about light being diffused by oxygen and nitrogen, and how blue has the shortest wavelentgh so it's seen by the human eye more.
At the end of the commercial she asks her dad why the concept of odd and even is a philisophical illusion, but never goes on to answer this question.
Could you posibly shed some light here?
Ok, I am not bbarr (of which I agree, he is likely to be more qualified to answer), but I did a search which might be helpful.
http://www.higherpi.info/2004_12_26_archive.html
Perhaps the question the girl is asking relates to whether
- 'oddness' and 'evenness' is an innate property of nature which humans have discovered, or
- humans have largely invented the concepts of 'oddness' and 'evenness', which have little relevance to nature.
I am often tempted to argue that a lot of mathematics is a philosophical illusion in this sense, but in this case, it is quite clear that a concept of 'evenness' is quite useful if you ever aim to pair things up - let's explore that.
Nature does pair things up - for sexual purposes... but this doesn't contribute to an idea of evenness.
Sexual 'pairings' tend to be so diverse, adaptable and chaotic that the idea that an even [multiple of 2] number of people/creatures will pair up is ridiculous.
Although the "Fibonacci Series" does exist in nature which has an odd and even pattern (first term does not count as zero is not really odd or even).
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 etc. follows the pattern odd, odd, even, odd, odd, even etc.
http://www.mcs.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/R.Knott/Fibonacci/fibnat.html
EDIT: Words in italics are quoted from first URL.
Originally posted by NyxieEverytime I hear that commercial I just want to say, "Go ask your mother since she's so damn smart."
Not a callout, just felt you were the most qualified to answer this question really.
There's a commercial here on the radio that helps to promote teaching math and science skills to girls at an early age. Sponsering site is www.girlsgotech.org
In this commercial the girl asks her dad why teh sky is blue, and he answered " because mother nature wanted ...[text shortened]... illusion, but never goes on to answer this question.
Could you posibly shed some light here?
Originally posted by NyxieConsider counting under modular arithmetic, say under modulo 3.
Ok anyone?
0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, ...
Now do it vertically, alternating even and odd labels:
0: even
1: odd
2: even
0: odd
1: even
2: odd
...
Under some moduli (call them the odd ones, if you wish), each number is both even and odd, when even and odd are defined as alternating labels.
Originally posted by NyxieAlternatively, even and odd labels can be defined as labels that distinguish numbers that 2 divides. But there's nothing special about 2. Even and odd could just as arbitrarily denote numbers that 3 divides:
Ok anyone?
0: even
1: odd
2: odd
3: even
4: odd
5: odd
6: even
...
The point of these two examples is that however you define even and odd, it seems there will an abstraction on that defintion that you can perform to change the evenness of the integers from the original definition.
If even and odd were truly innate properties, then there would exist a definition for them for which this could not be done.