It’s hard to believe that 2021 is winding down.  And while the superficial signs seem sadly to indicate that it hasn’t been much of an improvement over the previous year, we at Blog Wyrm are cautiously optimistic.  There are definite pockets of common sense that have sprung up, perhaps as a backlash, to much of the tribal stupidity that emerged in 2020.  True that the purveyors of that “you’re either with me or against me” nonsense have doubled down but equally true sensible voices raised in opposition have emerged.  On many fronts, ordinary, live-and-let-live people seem to be summoning their courage to say that some things simply can’t be tolerated.  For that, and for the amazing blessings we have in this country, we at Blog Wyrm are truly thankful this Thanksgiving.

Now onto the columns.

Aristotle2Digital continues its exploration of the Monte Carlo method.  Particular focus for this installment is on estimating the error involved with the method and tracing it back to the central limit theorem of statistics.  This powerful idea makes it possible to use a random sample to not only characterize a population but also to have a quantitative feel for how accurate such a characterization is.

The introduction spoke of the tribal stupidity that’s been crawling out of the woodwork over these past several years.  No place is this type of stupidity seen more often than around the Thanksgiving holiday.  On matters both of colonialism and economic ‘equity’, the crazy ideas flow that the holiday is not worth celebrating.  But as this month’s CommonCents discusses, the underlying concept of Thanksgiving is economic freedom, which is always worth celebrating.  It is the competing ideas of socialism and Marxism that should be shunned.

This month, UnderTheHood completes its two-part presentation of the ‘curvilinear mantra’.  This mantra, designed to be a guide to student and practitioner alike, explains the origin of certain exotic-looking terms that arise when solve partial differential equations in curvilinear coordinates.  The first act dealt with how the omnipresent scale factors that arise in such coordinates have their ultimate root in units.  This installment demonstrates that the additive terms that arise come from how the basic vectors change as a function of space.

Enjoy!