Philosophers in Rags :: We dive deeper, and come up muddier.

Holden,

While I was solving some exercises dealing with [classical] trigonometry, I caught myself becoming slightly disgusted.  I mean, even though it is cool how we can compute certain lengths and such using the angle measure and trigonometric ratios, I could not help but think of Wildberger and his Rational Trigonometry.

When you asked me where do I think you ought to start, I always steered you in the direction of the classical and the standard methods.  I di not want you to become confused.   I figured you would have your hands full just with that.

Then I wondered if it might be worthwhile for you to learn Wildberger's Rational Trigonometry AS OPPOSSED to the trigonometry the rest of us learned.

Eh, it was just a thought.

Maybe it's not such a great idea as it would only intensify your OUTSIDER status.

I suppose you will want to know about angle measurement even though I suspect Wildberger is correct in surmising that "squared distance" is more central and that all the focus on angles and trigonometric identities might have been a wrong path which no one ever had the courage to call out.

Maybe just save the PDF of the book, Rational Trigonometry for the future if you are curious.

Myself, I have put it on hold for awhile.

I don't need to remind you that you are free to ignore these suggestions.  I will not take any offense in the least.

I know you are not too crazy about Camus, but there is something he wrote in The Myth of Sisyphus which now reminds me of you.  He had written something about how the logic of triangles and such do not speak to the heart at all.   

I am sincerely sorry that I can offer you no guidance when it comes to getting through this life, how to deal with issues caused by your employment, etc.

I have long since given up trying to make any sense of our world. 

I value leisure even if this excessive leisure gives me too much time to think.

If I have banished myself from the workforce by accepting the diagnosis of rapid-cycling manic-depressive "disorder," then I am one of a growing legion who have, at some point, found it nearly impossible to act as if we want to submit.

a warm place

One day I might have such a deep understanding that I would probably make an effective educator of some kind - and yet, you and I both are well aware of the laughable impossibility of the gorts ever putting me in any kind of position to "instruct the youth."

I would never be so naïve as to ever think such a thing would happen.   It's not like I would ever even want to be put in such a position.  Nothing but trouble.  As a matter of fact, fuuck that, I would prefer not to anyway. 

burn

Dead Reckoning: Calculating Without Instruments, circa 1993 by Ronald W. Doerfler at Library Genesis.