March is the month of spring and, while spring may mean different things to different people, without fail these various notions of spring have one thing in common – a sense of lightness and whimsey.  Don’t believe me?  Why else would the annual men’s college basketball tournament be called March Madness?  Why else would Alfred Lord Tennyson have written that famous line “In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love”?  Why else would we entertain that most barbaric modes of time keeping the losing of an hour of sleep in the name of ‘daylight savings’?

It is with a most profound sense of whimsey (can whimsey be profound?) that we present the hundred‑eleventh issue of Blog Wyrm.  111 is a fine number.  It has a nice symmetry to it being comprised of only one single digit which itself is 1.  And it reads the same forwards and backwards; a numerical palindrome.

Palindromes are some of the most whimsical components of speech.  Perhaps the most famous example is the ever trite statement about Napoleon that reads “Able was I ere I saw Elba!”  The writer/illustrator Jon Agee has produced the most delightful books presenting interesting palindromes accompanied by engaging illustrations – just the thing for young and corruptible minds.  His book So Many Dynamos brings a smile to every face we’ve ever seen reading it.

Our own favorite palindrome is ‘animal lamina’, which the attentive reader has already noticed is a kind of meta palindrome.  Not only does this two-word description of road kill read the same forwards and backwards but it also can me juxtaposed to form ‘lamina animal’, yet another palindrome describing organisms such as the flatworm or the Surinam toad.

That sense of whimsey, engendered by Spring, has crept into our columns as well this month.

In our first example, consider this month’s Aristotle to Digital.  Some may say that category theory is a little dry, especially when trying to navigate through the essential details of mappings between finite set.  But not true if the sets in question deal with the gritty world of street gang crime in New York City.  Mappings between gang members, their weapons of choice, and the targets of their wrath, all inspired by the cult movie classic The Warriors, serve to bring a big dose of whimsey to an otherwise sedate philosophical/mathematical pursuit.

For our next example, consider the whacky world of Theodore Geisel Seuss – aka Dr. Seuss.  It is hard to get much more whimsical than a truffula tree, Whoville, or the Grinch; that is until the dust up about Dr. Seuss book’s being banned (‘Oh the books you can burn’).  Of course, both sides of American politics overreacted to what was, as Common Cents clear shows, a really clever marketing ploy by the Seuss estate.

Finally there is this month’s installment of Under the Hood on heat and partial derivative.  There is not much in the way of whimsey in this practical description of how to use Maxwell’s relations in thermodynamics (how could there be?).  But the attentive reader will notice the use of spring colors highlighting the various sides of the thermodynamic square.  These beautiful shades of blue, yellow, and green are perfect hues for decorating Easter eggs.

Enjoy! (And get outside and enjoy the nice weather as well)