|
Portrait by C. Dey Prescott
D. R. Prescott has written a novel, short stories, a nonfiction book, a collection of essays, a full-length-three-act play, planetarium show/display scripts, two family histories, technical articles and business plans as well as written for and edited several newsletters.
-
Recent awards and published work include Writers' Journal, Long Story Short, Taj Mahal Review literary journal, The Orange County Register, Writer's Digest and Writing.com among others.
-
Prescott currently writes and explores life in Orange, California.
"Sentience can be annoying."
-DRP Abt. 1990
________________________
My fifth contribution (BENGAY AND PROMISES) to The Taj Mahal Review
Literary Journal December 2010 is available: http://ning.it/ggarW6 ________________________
Don Prescott appears on Episode 7:Colonizing the Cosmos and 8:The God Question of D. Wayne Dworsky's Alpha Centauri & Beyond Blog Talk Radio.
________________________
________________________
|
Available today in most eBook formats from these fine people:
 Apple iBookthrough Apple iBook App on your iPad or iPod Touch
Barnes & Noble Books
Diesel Book Store
IS THERE TIME: http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/item/SW00000027236/Prescott-D.-R./Is-There-Time/1.h...
LAYMAN'S LICENSE: http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/item/SW00000040155/Prescott-D.-R./Layman-s-License/...
Kobo Books
Smashwords
Sony Reader Store
And, COMING SOON at Amazon.com
***
O R D E R T O D A Y !
****************************************************
Nature's Handbook
|
By D.R. Prescott
"The book of nature is written in mathematical characters. It is a code by which we may separate the non-essential and get to the truth." - Galileo Galilei
Numbers, numbers, everywhere and not a one that thinks. Everyday, we are assaulted by numbers. We use numbers to buy things, cook things, count calories, pay bills, dial phones, change channels and check our pulses. Numbers are a part of most everything we do.
Galileo recognized that numbers seem to be a part of nature. Yet, by itself, a number is just a number. Numbers don’t think. Animals and other living things think, especially people. Put numbers and thought together and you have tools to start breaking the code of nature. Many people shy away from doing the math beyond what they absolutely need to get through the day.
Most people can add, subtract, multiply and divide. As a consumer, you have to have some skill at basic math to get along. Using these basic everyday skills and adding in just a few other little concepts you can begin to unlock some of the mysteries of nature, getting rid of the non-essential and coming closer to the truth. A little math helps!
Numbers have a rich history. About 30,000 years ago, ancient humans used tally marks on bone and ivory to keep track of things. Clay tokens were used 10,000 years ago in the Middle East. People began unraveling nature’s secrets with mathematics in Sumer, Egypt and Greece. The first geometric proofs by Thales were around 580 B.C. followed by works of Pythagoras of Samos, Eudoxus of Cnidus, the Mayans, Euclid, Archimedes, Eratosthenes, Omar Khayyam, Kepler, Galileo, Newton and many others, gave us the foundation on which to build greater understanding of nature through its mathematical beauty.
There are constants in nature that make us think, for example, a thing known as in Greek as pi or 3.14156… or another digital mystery called the Golden Ratio 1.618… These are known as a transcendental numbers, meaning that there is no apparent pattern to the numbers following the decimal point. In fact, the numbers seem to go on forever, even randomly, after the decimal point. A Japanese calculation of pi in 2002 went on for 1.2 trillion digits showing the power of a new computer, supposedly correctly. Of course, who was checking?
© Copyright 2010 D. R. Prescott (UN: donprescott at Writing.Com).
All rights reserved.
D. R. Prescott has granted InkSpot.Com, its affiliates and syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.
|
|
