Psycho logy Club hosts famous skeptic
By kathy Sung
Staff writer
Michael Shermer, author, publisher and self-pronounced skeptic, explained the
foundation of and urged caution regarding many popular beliefs at his
presentation “Why People Believe Weird Things,” before a sold-out crowd at the
NUMMI Theater last Friday.
The talk, sponsored by the Psychology Club, covered a
diverse range of topics, including miracles, the theory of intelligent design,
de termining perceptions and an explanation of why people may conclude that a
miracle has happened.
In order to be a true skeptic, Shermer recommended looking
for the abnormal, relaxing one’s mind and trying to see the situation from a
different perspective . He also advocated being aware of confirmation bias,
having peer reviews and inviting constructive criticism.
Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic magazine, where
they’ve gathered several weird claims and tried to debunk them. Some of the
popular issues include pseudo-history investigations and explanations about why
9/11 could not have been a plot devised by the Bush Administration. Highly
entertaining, Shermer created a special circumstance, joking that he was hit by
a Bible in the chest and was saved by the nine millimeter bullet in his pocket.
With this attention-grabber, Shermer demonstrated that people are apt to believe
weird things.
According to Shermer, we are not al lowed to invoke the
supernatural by definition because there is no way to take a miracle back to the
lab and test it. Shermer further explained away some of the weird phenomena that
have been popular each century because certain miracles have fads.
Sleep paralysis makes people feel like they are floating
or falling. Shermer explained that the explanation today may be a poltergeist
while a hundred years ago, it may have been attributed to suc cubi . Shermer
talked about near-death experiences coming from
Continued on Page 6
Math connects to art, nature
By Eric dorman
Editor-in-chief
Jeff O’Connell spoke at last Friday’s Brown Bag Seminar
about the Golden Ratio. The talk included ties between the ‘Mona Lisa,’ the
Volkswagon Beetle and even how the properties /ratios-and-proportions.html">Ratio can be found in nature.
Life, imitates art, imitates...math?
If you thought connection between math and art—or even
math and real life—seemed sketchy before you walked into Math Instructor Jeff
O’Connell’s Brown Bag seminar on the Golden Ratio last Friday, you probably
weren’t alone. But after O’Connell’s hour-long presentation connecting square
roots and the quadratic formula to the Mona Lisa and sunflowers, the link
between math and art was a hard one to ignore.
Whether you look in your favorite math tome or simply look
at yourself in the mirror, the Golden Ratio appears, O’Connell explained before
a standing-room-only crowd in 3201. Though derived through math, the Ratio lies
at the heart of art, architecture, graphic design , nature and even the human
body. “The Golden Ratio is everywhere,” said O’Connell.
O’Connell began the presentation with math. The Golden
Ratio, he explained, can be arrived at in a number of ways . The ratio itself is
simple: it describes the ratio between two lengths whose sum, divided by the
length of the longer one, is equal to the larger sum divided by the smaller one.
O’Connell first evaluated the equation using the definition; calling the shorter
length 1 and the longer one x and then evaluating the fractions using the
quadratic formula . He also demonstrated how the ratio could be arrived at
independently using certain infinite series—for example,an infinite number of
square root 1’s, summed and nested within each other. Either way, the answer for
the Golden Ratio was the same: 1 to an irrational number, about 1.618.
The Golden Ratio first appeared in written form in the
mathematician Euclid’s 300 B.C. work Elements, the “best-selling math book of
all time,” said O’Connell. Even after its discovery, though, the Ratio kept
cropping up in unexpected places. The Fibonacci sequence, discovered by a
mathematician of the same name in the 13^th Century and made up of a sequence of
numbers in which each number is made up of the sum of the two before it, also
has a curious connection to the Ratio: as the sequence progresses, any given
number divided by the previous one grows progressively closer to the Golden
Ratio.
Interestingly enough, along with the Ratio’s numerous
mathematic properties, it has incredible aesthetic qualities as well. Several
scientific
studies, one as early as 1876, have established that the vast majority of people
prefer the look of the Golden Rectangle (a rectangle proportioned according to
the Golden Ratio) over rectangles of other proportions.
Not sure what the Golden Rectangle looks like? Take a look
at your driver’s license or credit card. Because of its aesthetically pleasing
quality, the Golden Ratio has provided a template for artists, architects and
other designers throughout history. The face of the Parthenon in Greece is a
Golden Rectangle, and the profile of a Volkswagen Beetle fits within a Golden
Ellipse (an ellipse
Continued on Page 6
Board approves follow-up report
By Zuhal Bahaduri
Staff writer
The College Board of Trustees unanimously approved the
accreditation follow-up report at their meeting Wednesday.
The report, which is due March 15, out lines specific ways
the college aims to improve its program review process and employee evaluations.
The accreditation commission, which determines whether colleges can maintain
their accredited status, praised the college for its planning process and
programs when it visited Ohlone last spring, but recommended that program review
be better linked to general college planning. The report was approved by the
College Council on Monday.
Ohlone is currently on “warning” status from the
committee, meaning that the college must turn in this report, as well another
sent last fall, to maintain its accredited status.
Also during the meeting, California School Employees
Association (CSEA) President Linda Evers expressed frustration concerning the
CSEA contract. After returning from sick leave, Evers said she discovered six
negotiable issues in the contract, three of which could result in unfair labor
practice. She asked the Board to help her schedule a meeting with management,
who she said had thus far been unresponsive
Spring Break
So, got any interesting plans for Spring Break? Going
anywhere fun? Beach, mountains, tourist spots?
If so, take pictures and tell us all about it when school
resumes. If enough people share their adventures with us, the Monitor plans to
do a two-page spread – something like “What I did on Spring Break.”
Of course, we are looking for “appropriate” material, if
you know what we mean, and we think you do. Send jpegs and stories under 100
words to . Or drop by Room 5310 for show-and-tell.
