Perfect Form

I spend too much time on Facebook.  But every time I'm about to cancel my account there, something pops up that demonstrates to me again that Facebook really does add value to my life.  This happened most recently six weeks ago, the day before our family vacation, when my friend Doug Tygar made a post recommending introductory books on the calculus of variations.  I had never even heard of the calculus of variations before, but I know that Doug has impeccable taste, so I used my Amazon Prime membership to have his top-ranked book shipped to our vacation destination so it would be waiting for me when I got there the next day.  It turns out that the calculus of variations is really interesting, and something I wouldn't normally have come across.  More about the calculus of variations in a future post, perhaps.

Our vacation, by the way, was at my parents' house on Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia.  And the book that Doug recommended was Perfect Form by Don Lemons.

I really liked Perfect Form.  It explains how light takes the quickest path and moving objects take the path of least work.  The examples along the way were interesting, such as why you see a mirage in the desert and how fiber optics work.  I was impressed with the simplicity and elegance of the approach, and Lemons's exposition was a model of clarity.  Sadly, it's a bit too advanced to have been covered in my freshman physics classes in college.  And since I didn't continue on in physics, I never had occasion to learn about this stuff -- or even learn about the existence of this stuff -- in the 24 years since.  I turned 42 on our vacation.

My wife Phyllis and I have two kids.  Benjamin is 6, and Cassandra is 2.   Benjamin is developing a strong interest in science.  He dissected a squid in a tide pools class he took this summer at the UC Berekeley Academic Talent Development Program.  A few nights ago, he couldn't get to sleep because he was anxious about something, and I calmed him down by showing him pictures of leaf veins and explaining what purpose they serve.  I think having kids has given me a renewed interest in learning a bunch of stuff about the world that I missed the first time around.  This blog is going to be about that journey.

This brings me back to Facebook.  Reading books and learning things takes time, especially in a two-career two-child household.  Facebook was sucking up too much of my time.  So, courtesy of my colleague Max Poletto, I added these entries to my /etc/hosts file yesterday:

127.0.0.1    facebook.com
127.0.0.1    www.facebook.com

For anyone reading this who isn't into computers, this will effectively block me from accessing Facebook.  I feel better already.