A Game Of Numbers

[dr_phil_physics]

27 0 0 0

A perfect game in baseball -- 27 outs, 0 hits, 0 runs, 0 men on base. On Thursday 23 July 2009 Mark Buehrle of the Chicago White Sox pitched a perfect game, as the Sox beat Tampa Bay 5-0 at Bill Veeck Field in Chicago. In celebration, we watched one of my favorite baseball movies, For Love of the Game.

Ping-Pong

Gas prices earlier in the week jumped from $2.24.9/gal to $2.45.9/gal. Then dropped to $2.36.9 for Thursday, up to $2.55.9 on Friday and is now $2.49.9/gal on Saturday. I think Adam Smith's "unseen hand" has gotten the tremors...

Cooler Heads Rarely Prevail

The cool July continues. While the last couple of days have drifted up to 83°F and 85°F, it's still been in the 70s for much of the day. Lows in the upper 50s and mid 60s, though, shifted to nearly 70°F and the humidity has shot up. Naturally there are letters in the Grand Rapids Press pointing to the cool summer and either mocking the concept of global warming or, as in one case, claiming that efforts to alleviate global warming have worked too well. I'd be happy if I thought these were written in jest, but these letters all have a tone about them, an edge, which suggests that the writer is utterly opposed to global warming existing.

Sigh. The lack of science literacy in the general populace scares me sometimes.

Away

I'll be scarce myself over the next couple of days. The American Association of Physics Teachers Summer Meeting is all the way over in Ann Arbor MI -- so I have a talk to give on Monday. Probably need to spend some time putting together the PowerPoint and distilling my story down to eight minutes. (urk!) Then pack sometime, wander over sometime, etc.

OAS Project

Due Date: Thursday 20 August 2009

Dr. Phil

Comments

[anothernathan.livejournal.com]

It's amazing to me how rare the perfect game is. Every time a game starts, there are two pitchers who have the possibility of achieving it. This is the 18th perfect game in all of MLB history. That means it happens roughly once every 10,000 games.

AMAZING. SIMPLY AMAZING.

[dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the Wikipedia article states, "In sum, a perfect game occurs once in about every 11,000 major league contests." It also breaks the 18 down to 16 in the modern era. Also a whole interesting pile of near-perfect or oughta-be-called-perfect games. But not many of those, either.

I mean, even a no-hitter is a rare event.

What fascinates me is that with the exception of special events, such as weather, a game is going to go to 27 outs for the losing team one way or another. Statistics are not causes. (grin)

Dr. Phil

[steve-buchheit.livejournal.com]

Adam Smith's hand is more likely to have palsy.

[dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com]

Actually I figure it's pretty "brittle" at this point. (grin)

Dr. Phil