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The Math of America.

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W. Christopher Epler (Bill)
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However, the limit thing is so beautiful and powerful; I'm determined to make a connection between it and the world we wake up to in the morning.

 

Here's an "intuitive" definition of the limit.  It's giving you an exact description of a place you'll never reach, and even though that should be qualified, let's run with it anyway.  For example the limit of 1/x as x goes to infinity, is zero (we never said what it was before).  Think of it like a plane in a science fiction movie that "approaches" the runway, and indeed gets unimaginably (literally) "close" to the runway, but never makes contact. 

 

You see, that is what is happening to 1/x as x keeps getting larger and larger.  1/x will NEVER "equal" 0 (in fact, 1/x = 0 is a contradiction because it has no solution), but the LIMIT of 1/x as x gets huge is zero.  When x equals a billion, you can take it to the bank that 1/x is very, VERY close to zero -- even though it is not and never can be zero.

 

Finally, the limit concept is the soul of calculus and since calculus was the supreme mathematical tool of science for a couple of centuries, it is clearly a very "deep" concept.  Sometimes I tell my students the limit is not the Cheshire Cat; it's more like the "smile" of the Cheshire Cat.  For those of you who know calculus, you also know that differentiation and integration are simply two different applications of the limit.

 

Hence, all roads in calculus lead to the limit -- which, notice involves infinity ("infinitely close") which is the real reason it is such a profound intuition.   

 

OK, time to relate the "limit" to human, social existence.

 

Arguably, politics is not only more part of the problem than the solution, it IS the problem, since it promises much, but always delivers next to nothing.  Said more exactly, "politics" is the social/political game created by the elites to seduce and control the human race, and thus it all comes down to two choices:

 

(a.)  We can "play" this game (and ALWAYS lose, since all the game rules were created by the elites). For example, for many (most?) of the people who elected Barrack Obama, it looks very much like the cards were stacked (again!) and we're getting, not the campaign rhetoric Obama, but an elite bought and paid for Obama.  However, he gets his hundred days, and then we will know everything.

 

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A liberal American, PhD mathematician, bipedal Earthling.
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