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Showing posts from April, 2017

Pohnpei cultural ceremony with Piper methysticum

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This term the cultural ceremony was held in Paies, Kitti, up on the side of the mountain just to the southeast of the campus. I started off from the campus at roughly 15:30 with a few students. By 15:42 we were in lower Paies inbound St. Barnabas. The climb was slow and it was 16:02 by the time the students were gathered at Lepen's nahs. More detailed information on some of what follows is in the course text. Jayleen, Sonya, Nagsia, Regina, and Francina Soumas in place Sakau comes in with the stems intact, they are cut in the nahs. Donovan and Frankie volunteer in along with the author to pound the sakau. Shirts are removed to show respect.  We pound happily, the stone playing a tune. Or we should be pounding happily for our Soumas.  Brady, Kanoa, Jaynard. Menindei on the far right. Sonya, Junida. Suzanne and Jayleen had the camera during the sakau pounding Keidihd (koaidihd) is called, time to flip the sakau Menindei Four is

Mathematical models of reality and site swap mathematics

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Laboratory 15 has seen a number of different prefaces. Originally I started lab fifteen with "the mathematics stack" starting with counting and moving up through addition, algebra, and into calculus. I then note that there are other fields of mathematics that are not "in the traditional stack" such as statistics, fuzzy math, chaos theory, and site swap notation. Maygen   For a couple terms I shifted to presenting site swap notation abstractly on the board, deliberately obfuscating the connection to juggling. I then ask the class if they understand. Someone usually says yes, although everything I have said is devoid of any possible comprehensible meaning. Regina Pelep On April 10 I showed Morgan Freeman's Through the Wormhole Is Reality Real?   This was followed by Neil deGrasse Tyson's Science in America and the episode on the Higg's boson Is There a God Particle?  on April 24. On April 26 I ran Is Gravity an Illusion? , in keepin