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February 22, 2005
Real Food
Last night I made pasta for dinner, which takes relatively little culinary effort but produces a type of food that I haven't had in weeks. As you can tell, I am very excited for my newfound freedom as a result of our (rather small) kitchen. Feel free to post any recipes that don't take much prep work (I'm sharing the kitchen with 15 other students at the moment) and that are yummy for vegetarians to eat!
So, I have a question: why is it called a "Combination Lock" and not a "Permutation Lock"? Because a combination would imply that the numbers would work in any order, whereas that is obviously not the case. It seems to me like whoever named the Combination Lock didn't take a Combinatorics class... Either that, or I'm being rather dense and overlooking something fairly obvious. Unfortunately, that happens more than I'd like to admit.
Posted by rgutwin at February 22, 2005 02:40 AM
Comments
Walk up to a random adult. Have the following conversation:
"Excuse me, ma'am -- do you know what a permutation is?"
"Is that what 'perm' is short for?"
"Hmmmm, no... do you know what a combination is?"
"Sure, like putting things together."
"Right. By the way, do you remember what a square root is?"
"No."
"A cosine?"
"No."
"A logarithm?"
"No."
"Thank you, ma'am -- I have learned the secret of the combination lock!"
The lock is using "combination" in the regular sense, not in the mathematical sense, I think.
Posted by: Diana at February 22, 2005 09:30 AM
Everything should be in the mathematical sense...
Posted by: Rebecca at February 22, 2005 01:14 PM
i like how both you think and write! you are "cut from the same cloth" - are you sure you are not related?
Posted by: sharon at February 22, 2005 09:11 PM
I don't think we are related.
Becca, are we related?
Or rather, Mrs. Gutwin, are we related? Mom?
:)
No, I really doubt it.
I think that reading a lot of each other's writing for several years may have something to do with the observed similarity. We've observed it, too. At least, I have.
Posted by: Diana at February 23, 2005 12:40 AM
:) ... well... doing the math...I think I couldn't have had the time btw Becca and Anna to create another "middle child". Although had I - it would have taken the burden of being a "middle child" off Becca a bit... now that's an interesting thought...
Posted by: :) mom :) at February 23, 2005 07:25 PM
Nope, there was time. Becca is just under 10 months older than me, and Anna is just under 11 months younger. In the psychological/physiological sense, true, no time between babies to have another middle baby, but as Becca points out, everything should be in the mathematical sense, and here is the math.
Posted by: Diana at February 24, 2005 12:33 AM
:) - can't argue with you there!
Posted by: mom at February 24, 2005 10:03 PM