Comments on: Encounters

By: Show and Tell - Asymptotia

Show and Tell - Asymptotia — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 07:02:25 +0000

[...] Of course, this is a very good thing overall (see earlier discussions here, here, and here -including the illuminating sometimes depressing discussion threads- (and more recently here, here and here, for example) about increasing the number of times that young people are made aware of a career choice that they can make that society, through the media, etc, tells them that they can’t make), and I’m very willing to help where I can. [...]

By: Cosmic Variance Goes To Church | Cosmic Variance

Cosmic Variance Goes To Church | Cosmic Variance — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 03:58:42 +0000

[...] He seemed stunned that I was not only receptive to his opening gambit, I was fluent in it myself! I reached over and shook his hand and said “I write about this issue all the time! How can I help?!” (You, dear reader, know that I write about this, of course. See for example my posts entitled “Black Scientists“, “Encounters“, and “The Black Middle Classes“.) [...]

By: Black Scientists | Cosmic Variance

Black Scientists | Cosmic Variance — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 04:49:24 +0000

[...] Of course, this is a very good thing overall (see an earlier discussion here , here and here -including the illuminating sometimes depressing discussion threads- about increasing the number of times that young people are made aware of a career choice that they can make that society tells them that they can’t make), and I’m very willing to help where I can. [...]

By: Clifford

Clifford — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 05:17:04 +0000

Thanks Citrine! -cvj

By: citrine

citrine — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 17:06:09 +0000

Oops. wrong url.
Here’s the right one.

https://logon.merrickbank.com/

By: citrine

citrine — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 16:49:28 +0000

Soon after reading Clifford’s post, I checked one of my credit card accounts online.

http://www.merrickbank.com/

When I saw the first pic after the Merrick Bank header, I couldn’t help smiling yet again, thinking of Clifford’s encounter.

By: robert

robert — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 13:07:11 +0000

Tales like yours always lift the spirits. I’ve a couple, more or less in the same vein. The first is of a colleague who was reviewing a laptop animation of hydrodynamics results on a trans-Atlantic flight. In the next seat was a young boy who, after some minutes, chipped in with ‘Here mister, your game’s not that good is it, do you want to try one of mine’. And the other, of a wild child who dropped out from conventional education for a year or two, then decided to get back on track. I helped her out with a bit of math and science tuition. I remember her Eureka moment, when she realised that maths really did make contact with the real world. Four year’s on she contacted me, with a first class honours degree in econometrics and a ‘proper’ job in the bag. A happy ending? After one year she packed it all in to devote herself to the joys of surfing.

By: JoAnne

JoAnne — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 05:33:19 +0000

Indeed, these small things can make a huge difference to a child. I distinctly remember when my father’s cousin taught me (at an early age) the powers of 2: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc. I grasped it immediately and was thrilled beyond belief. I made a point of rattling it off to my friends (geesh, I must have looked like a total geek!). She was the only relative who bothered to teach such facts, and perhaps it stands out that she was a *she*.

By: Clifford

Clifford — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 05:01:59 +0000

Hmmm, interesting idea there. Bit heavy to tote around though…..
-cvj

By: Sean

Sean — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 04:53:07 +0000

Very nice story. Kids are naturally interested, we just have to feed the interest rather than scaring them off or boring them to tears. I remember my first intro to Pythagoras’s theorem — an eye-opener.

But Clifford, don’t you carry around signed copies of D-Branes to hand out on just such occasions?