Random sightings

A few things have caught my attention in the last few weeks. Individually, I only had a velleity to write about them, but collectively I should be able to manage a few words on each on the last day of my holidays.

One Apparently Terence Tao, a genius Aussie mathematician working in the US, was a finalist in the Australian of the Year awards. Apparently John Howard asked him in what part of the world he was born. This provoked the ire of two SMH letter writers for being ignorant of Mr. Tao. Scoffed Greg Bowyer: "In its breathtaking ignorance and monocultural myopia it was vintage Howard."

Methinks they complaineth too much. Mr. Tao occupies himself with mathematics so advanced that few other mathematicians in the world are likely to understand it. Most of his work, by my judgment, for what it's worth, will probably not see any practical use in his lifetime. These comments are not criticisms; they are sincere praise. However, even I (as one interested in mathematics) was unaware of Mr. Tao's existence until he won a Fields Medal last year. How then is John Howard supposed to be so clued in about this fellow?

As for "monocultural myopia", puhlease. If you can't politely ask a person of foreign appearance where they were born, then what's the world coming to?

Two The brown stuff hit the fan recently when a video entitled lebothugs appeared on YouTube containing just the kind of material its title suggests, including a homage to that gang rapist and devil spawn Bilal Skaf. Its main theme was that Australia is "under new management" by the high school gang that produced it. It is no doubt disgusting, and has thankfully been withdrawn.

John Howard immediately cited this as evidence that a small minority of Lebanese Muslims in Australia are wholly intent on refusing to properly integrate into Australia. While I can't fault his argument, or rather his statement of the bleeding obvious, for once I wish the Prime Minister of Australia could be a little more level-headed and say something like "Yes, I've been made aware of the video. I wish the police all the best with their investigation." His needless chest-thumping diminishes his credibility on these issues at a time when a lot of credibility is needed.

After all, isn't he aware that videos by white supremacists idolising the Cronulla riots are also out there on the Internet?

Three The brown stuff really hit the fan when Ken West, organiser of the Big Day Out, asked patrons not to bring flags to the event this year, because of a significant amount of anti-social behaviour involving the Australian flag at the festival last year, shortly after the Cronulla riots. The festival used to be held on Australia Day (in Sydney), but this year was moved forward one day to avoid any suggestion that a mere music festival was somehow a patriotic flag-waving event.

Anyway, West's misguided but well-intentioned and reasonable request turned into a media and political shitstorm with one wanker after another stepping up to condemn the "ban" (it was no such thing) and insult the organiser by twisting his words and mangling the issue. I was very disappointed at the quality of reportage and comment on the issue. It was tabloid hell, with few exceptions.

The predictable result was that flag usage rocketed. This is a good outcome, as the racist dickheads who caused trouble last year now didn't have a monopoly on the Australian flag. Ken West should have aimed for this outcome by encouraging flag use, rather than discouraging it.

As for me, I think flags should be left to flagpoles, Australia Day celebrations, and international sporting events.

Four A car-parts company, Tristar Steering and Suspension, copped a lot of the brown stuff this month. John Beaven, a sick and dying employee of 43 years, was refused a voluntary redundancy while 20 of his workmates got paid out. Basically, the company was waiting for him to croak, which he now has, so they wouldn't owe him anything. Perfectly understandable from a business point of view, but a bit slack, one would think.

Fortunately, though, one didn't need to waste time thinking about it. The media covered his story long and loud, with gutter reporters and a gutter radio personality invading the company's premises to demand a fair go for the sick man. Ultimately, after a visit by a government minister, the company relented and awarded the payout, which will be handy for his three kids who are now orphans.

Amazingly, though, amongst all the media I consumed on this issue, there was exactly one mention of this fact: the employees who got redundancies were all working in mechanical operations, whereas Mr. Beavan was in accounting. I'm not saying this undermines the case, but it's a shame to see salient points get lost in the froth.

Apple's iPhone looks just amazing

When I see shows like 24, where they have really cool (imaginary) technology that does just what the users want almost before they've asked for it, I think about the amazing technology of the future versus the largely mundane technology of the present. Clearly imagining the future and making it happen are skills that very few posess.

Apple has, ever since the first Macintosh, continually stretched my imagination of what can be done with technology, and how beautiful it can be. It's ironic that I'm not a paying customer. It's incredible that after all this time they still amaze me. Most innovators take the state of the art and advance it one step at a time. Apple ventures into the future and brings us back a souvenir we can use.

After much speculation, the iPhone was announced at MacWorld this morning. It won't be launched for several months, but videos of it in action can be viewed now.

Simply. Phenomenal.

In our lifetime, every four years is a leap year

I wonder how many people know what a leap year is, when they occur, and why. Everybody knows the poem "Thirty days hath September...", and from that poem, everybody "knows" that every fourth year is a leap year (1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, ...). That's what I "knew" too, until my first year of university.

As an aside, I didn't know how our state and federal elections worked (i.e. preferential and proportional voting) until my third year of university, studying Computer Science...

But it's not true, at least not anymore. From the first century to the 16th century every fourth year was a leap year, but that calendar – the Julian Calendar – was too fast: the calendar date gradually lost its synchronisation with the natural seasons (the equinoxes), the lunar cycles, and most importantly Easter. Now Easter may not be that important to you or me, but it was important to the Catholic church, and Pope Gregory XIII initiated calendar reform to solve this problem.

With a leap year every four years, there are 365.25 calendar days per year, on average. However, a solar year (the amount to time the Earth spends completing one revolution of the sun) is 365.24219 days, to five decimal places. The difference between 365.25 days and 365.24219 days is 0.00781 days. Thus the Julian calendar "gains" 0.00781 days per year, which means it gains one whole day every 128.0409 years.

Julius Caesar introduced the Julian Calendar in 46BC. Thus by 1500AD, approximately 12 days had been gained. What effect did this have? Well, as mentioned earlier, it meant that Easter (and solstices and equinoxes) were not being celebrated at the correct time according to the position of the sun and the stars in the sky. While it's impossible to create a human calendar that perfectly matches the Earth's movement around the Sun, when you're celebrating Easter 12 days early, it's probably time to review your calendar.

And that's why we don't have a leap year every four years anymore. Although he didn't design it, Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian Calendar in 1582, and various countries adopted it at different times, from Italy/France/Spain/others in 1582 through England in 1752 to Russia in 1918, making it difficult to compare dates between certain countries during that 336-year period.

The rule governing leap years in the Gregorian Calendar is this: every fourth year is a leap year, but every hundredth one is not, but every four-hundredth one is. Thus, 1900 wasn't a leap year; nor was 1800 or 1700. But 2000 was. And 2100, 2200 and 2300 won't be. But 2400 will be. And so on.

I think it's unfortunate that 2000 was a leap year, because it meant that we'll never experience an exception to the rule "every fourth year is a leap year" unless we live to 2100, which means that many people will remain ignorant of their own calendar.

See the Wikipedia page on the Gregorian Calendar for a lot more fascinating information.

So if a Julian year is on average 265.25 days, how long is a Gregorian year? Well, the Gregorian Calendar repeats every 400 years, so we'll need to average it out over that period of time. Instead of 100 leap years, there are only 97, so the number of days in 400 Gregorian years is 365 × 400 + 97 = 146097, making an average of 146097 ÷ 400 = 365.2425 days per year. And how long is a solar year? 365.24219 days. So it's close, but still one calendar day will be gained every 3225.8 years. Sir John Herschel proposed in the 18th century that one leap year in 4000 years should be cancelled so the calendar would be even more accurate, but this wasn't adopted.