Monday, December 10, 2007

Mathematics will save the world!

Mathematics will save the world someday…I just know it!
Isn’t it sad though, that I’ve always hated this magical savior, thought it absolutely stupid…
But that’s probably because I was never any good at it!

I was watching this documentary about Apollo 13, the other day, and it said that the astronauts on board, knowing that they were only minutes away from destruction, frantically attempted to solve some complicated math problem, which was there only shot at survival…then they called base to have their answers checked!!

I understood nothing of the complex math problem they were talking about (yeah, that’s how thick I am when it comes to math!), but turns out, they did get it right!
And it saved Apollo 13!! Woohoo for math!

So you see, math will save the world…eventually…and I’ll have nothing to do with it!

8 comments:

Rhea Silvia said...

Nor I. Nor, I suspect, The Soliloquist.

cyber monkey said...

sad though, isn't it?!

Rhea Silvia said...

meh...nah! Do we want to likemaths? Cause,m'dear most mathematicians do.

CheshireCat said...

So you see, math will save the world…eventually…and I’ll have nothing to do with it!

me neither. thank goodness!

Anonymous said...

The complex maths problem was that they had to convert the readings of their positions from the gyroscopes in the command module to readings of their position for the gyroscopes in the lunar module. Since the gyroscopes in the command module would give a position relevant only when they were in the command module. Once they shifted to the lunar module, those readings would be wrong. Hence they had to convert it. And since they had to conserve power they had to do it manually.

cyber monkey said...

and here's someone who'll have something to do with saving the world...eventually!! :)

Rhea Silvia said...

@Neelakantan,
*gulp*

Anonymous said...

What? That was the problem.