Wednesday, October 22, 1997

From movies to math and volcanos to Star Trek

By Doug Williamson / Abilene Reporter-News

This week's 'Net journey takes us from the movie theater to a math class and from a volcano to Star Trek.

-- Want to impress your math teacher? Look at http://scidiv.bcc.ctc.edu/Math/MathSnips.html/ for brief snippets on half a dozen mathematical concepts. The folks at the math department at a college in Bellevue, Wash., give you the history, an explanation and illustrations of the Pythangorean theorem, the Koch Snoflake Curve, Counting to Infinity and three other familiar concepts.

-- Thought we were the only place talking about new libraries? The University of Kentucky's Library and Information Commission has posted a report enumerating what a new library should be. At http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/lic/newlibrary/ you will find the conclusion that the new facility should be the "communications backbone of the information society."

-- What are the 100 best films? Timothy Dirks of the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, Calif. has his ideas and shares them with the world at http://www.filmsite.org/. Among the 100 are "The Graduate," "The Godfather" and "The Grapes of Wrath." My personal favorite -- "The Odd Couple" -- failed to make the top 100 or next 100 lists.

-- I found a great volcano site -- http://www.learner.org/exhibits/volcanoes/. It is part of the Annenberg/CPB Project. The site utilizes Quicktime videos to illustrate its educational features.

-- Ever wanted to convert dollars into inflation-adjusted real dollars? You may go to http://www.orst.edu/Dept/pol(underscore)sci/sahr/sahr.html/ to find those conversion factors. For example, if I were given $100 on my birthday in 1950, you would have to give me $666.66 today to have the same buying power. (Anyone willing to give me $666.66, please call.)

-- In the same realm, ever wondered how much you would have to make in New York City or Istanbul to have an equal living style as you have in Rotan? Go to http://www.homefair.com/homefair/cmr/salcalc.html/ and figure it.

-- I hate to call anything "the ultimate whatever site," but there's a pretty good Star Trek site at http://www.stratec.ca/startrek/.

-- Want to take a survey about the Internet? Go to http://www-survey.cc.gatech.edu/. This is the eight annual WWW user survey by the Georgia Institute of Technology. We'll keep looking for the results and let you know.

-- With last week's 50th anniversary of Chuck Yeager's Mach 1 flight, you might check out http://www.capstonestudio.com/supersonic/ for a little more on this historic moment.