Did he really say that?

The kind of humor I like is the thing that makes me laugh for five seconds and think for ten minutes = GEORGE CARLIN...Stained glass, engraved glass, frosted glass–give me plain glass = JOHN FOWLES...Music is the mathematics of the gods = PYTHAGORAS...Nothing is more fluid than language = R.L.SWIHART

Monday, March 12, 2012

L.A. Times Typo

On March 16, 1987, I was anointed "Godfather of Arithmetic" by the Los Angeles Times but "Godfather of Math" is easier on the keystrokes. While being treated to burgers & fries at a San Diego Carl's Jr., I was interviewed by Tom Gorman. He naturally asked how I got interested in Math. My reply appeared in print as
"Instead of counting sheep at night, I counted factors of two up to eight digits."
I said every word of that quote with one exception. What I actually said was
"Instead of counting sheep at night, I counted the powers of two up to eight digits."
At your own risk, you can do the math but if the printed quote were completely true, I would have developed better sleeping skills. The only "factors" of two are 1 and 2 but Jefferson High School would never have hired me if Mr. Gorman hadn't interviewed me.

You can read this article by clicking on the photograph of me by Don Bartletti. It is sub-headed "Have a Nice Link."

You can ignore the following but just for the record:
16,777,216 is equal to TWO raised to the 24th power.
Of course, you may have already known that or, at least, feel free to tell me that you did.

Have a nice day and come back soon.

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