Too Much the Mathematician

Two events this weekend made me realize that something on my blog-profile page probably should mention being a mathematician. It's just part of how I think, and there's no escaping it.

Husband and daughter decided we needed to watch the movie "The Lake House" with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. It's a love story, but it's also a time-travel story. No, not time-traveling, but maybe time-warping? I was struggling so much to figure out what was supposed to be going on with the communication back and forth between these two people who lived two years apart. How could they talk to each other? Or could they only write? Whenever my 14-yr-old would ask these questions during the movie, he was shushed by his sister and told that he was just going to have to "suspend belief" and accept this "communication-through-time thing" as part of the premise of the movie. But I didn't get it either! And all through the movie, I kept trying to figure out how this could work, because if he or she knew what happened, and took action to change it, then those actions would've changed the future, which would've changed the story, which meant the actions couldn't have taken place which would've gone back and changed the other actions. And .... and .... ohhhh, my head was spinning. I think (?) I liked the movie, but the only one of us who "understood" it was the one who is vehemently anti-math. She claims that enjoying that movie is just one of many benefits that result from being a literature person instead of a math person. Just proves she has no logic! Ha!

A conversation between the kids was the other incident that betrayed to me how very very mathy and nerdy I am. Someone in the house mentioned "the Golden Rule" to a selfish little twerp. Selfish little twerp hadn't heard of that and asked what it was. My immediate reaction was to try to explain Fibonacci numbers and how the number 1.61803... shows up in nature and in art. Oldest son said, "Mom! The Golden Rule. You know, 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.'" Ohhhhh. That! For some reason, the golden ratio was what had been dragged out of my memory banks. Ratio; rule; both are math words; both start with R. I think it's a perfectly reasonable mistake. Yes, I do. That's my story and I'm stickin' with it!