Trim & Shift

Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true - Niels Bohr

Monday, March 20, 2006

Coincidence or Pi

This morning, at one of the corners of the engineering center courtyard, I had my usual cup of coffee and cigarette before my number theory class. As I refreshed my body with liquid caffeine, my brain began to reach a normal processing speed. Looking around the courtyard, I became mesmerized by the snow fall ... fairy tale like. Thoughtless, I looked towards my feet and found something in the snow, an oddity. What I found was the mathematical symbol Pi written in the snow. At first I thought, "What a geek thing to do!" Then I realized that it was not written by any "geekie" engineering/math student but from what I guessed to be twigs that belonged to the branches above me. From a quick scan of the area, my conclusion seemed the most obvious .. that falling twigs fell to create the image. The closest any footprints were to the symbol were mine; and I was at least 5' away. I was so amazed at how the symbol was so prefectly embedded in the snow and simply created by nature. Then I began to think, "What if I decided to have my coffee elsewhere? Would anyone else be a witness to the suspicious character?" Coincidence or not?! Immediately after, I realized that I was late for class .. doh. "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does the tree make a sound?" "If a tree falls on your head and you're deaf, do you hear it?"