Robert A. Black, Mathematical Storyteller

Imagine a TV show with no sex, no violence, no guns or explosions, just engineers designing new things, figuring out how to make them and then landing the contracts to sell them. It would never work, right? Well, not in this country. But elsewhere...? Shitamachi Rocket returned to Japanese TV screens this season for a second run, telling the story of a little factory (about the same size as the ones I've worked for) where they build tractor engines to pay the bills, but where they also build parts for rocket engines, prosthetic heart valves, and other neat stuff. There's a bit of silly melodrama about corporate politics with their customers, but for the most part the story is driven by the quest to overcome the technical and manufacturing challenges they're presented with. Thanks to the internet, I watch far more Japanese scripted programming than American these days. Not all of it is like Shitamachi Rocket , of course, but real-world math and science turn up a...

When the Trumpocalypse gets to be too much, when climate change seems beyond all hope, and when it seems like people of color can't do anything at all without drawing excessive police attention, it's good to get a reminder of why we keep on persevering. I felt the same way last year , when I first did the Career Fair at Monte Vista Middle School. This year, it was renamed the "Community Interest Fair," and included groups like the local high school's German club. It also moved to the Camarillo Community Center, where we wouldn't get chased off by the basketball team wanting to practice afterwards. Last year, I brought my books with me, but ended up talking about being a Quality Manager as well. This year, I decided to present both careers side by side. When I left the office that afternoon, I packed up my trusty calipers, one of our ASME stamps and some failed parts I keep in a "rogue's gallery" on my desk. I also got a display table a...

My weekend had a bit of craziness to it, and not just because I was getting over a cold. I took an unexpected loop around my brain and ended up with some renewed writing motivation. And it was all thanks to my Number One Anime Nerd Girl of Science . Okay, some background. Kemono no Sou-ja Erin or Erin the Beast-Player was a 2006 anime fantasy series about a girl growing up in a world with giant lizards called "touda" and giant wolf-headed eagle creatures called "beast-lords." We follow Erin from her days as a curious ten-year-old in her home village, through various adventures until she ends up as a twenty-year-old teacher in her kingdom's beast-lord refuge. What struck me about Erin was that she's a passionate scientist through-and-through. She may be dealing in made-up science about made-up creatures, but her methods of scientific inquiry and deduction are real-world solid. As I've said before, if we had more characters like Erin in our f...

Doctor King wasn't the first one to say it. He heard it from a young woman named Prathia Hall , who used "I have a dream" several times in the opening prayer of a service commemorating a church that had been burned down by the KKK. Preachers often borrow from each other (just like writers, I should mention), and Doctor King borrowed it from her. I didn't know that before yesterday. I heard it from the Rev. Traci Blackmon , who was our guest preacher for Martin Luther King Sunday. This is our second MLK Sunday with our new Rector, and I've got to say he brings in some pretty amazing guests. Last year's had a profound effect on me, too. (Yes, you can see me in the background. My seat in the choir always puts me in the sight-line of the live stream camera.) Rev. Blackmon's sermon was titled, " Where are the Dreamers? " and she pointed out that "Prophetic resistance is only possible for those who can still dream." It's ...

The America of today is a lost cause. Don't believe me? Then just watch the Trumpy Bear commercial. Fortunately, what I saw this afternoon gave me hope for the future. A day of making author visits to various classes at Park Tudor School concluded with a middle school genealogy group, about twenty kids who have been digging into their family histories. I was there to talk about the way I used my own family history in both Liberty Girl and The Eyes of the Enemy . They were impressed with what I had to tell them, and they liked the family artifacts I had to show them. But I was pretty impressed with them as well. I don't know whether Park Tudor has been making a push for greater diversity or greater diversity is something that's just been happening naturally - maybe some of both. Whatever the reason, the group in front of me was a markedly richer mix than we had forty years ago. And yet, they were all running into similar obstacles in their research. A whit...

Whew! I really needed this weekend. Three days of Leadership Skills training followed by the first day of an audit to renew our Chinese export license will do that to you. I still have Audit Days 2 and 3 coming up tomorrow and Tuesday, but it's been nice to have a break before those came along. A few weeks ago, I started writing the first of my Mathematical Biographies, the project my publisher pitched to me at last year's California Homeschool Conference. While I was wrapping up The Eyes of the Enemy over the past year, I was also researching mathematicians, trying to find the right mix of people and mathematical ideas. An overarching theme began to emerge as I explored the possibilities, one that came from watching the world around me as much as it did from my research. I knew I wanted a diverse set of subjects, and my publisher did too. Various news events have convinced me it was the right decision. My current plan covers thirteen subjects over nine books. Of ...

My sixth grade teacher liked to have fun. We did improvised comedy skits, played math games and had a camp-out in the Headmaster's back yard. It was a fairly snowy winter, and on several days he took the class out to go sledding on some of the campus's hills. The whole class, except for me. I don't remember exactly why I didn't want to go at first, but I do remember why I continued staying in as the days went on. I was having too much fun reading. In particular, I'd started reading ahead in our history textbook, because I was fascinated by the story it was telling. One part I remember especially was when Cortez met the Aztecs at just the right time for them to think he was their god, Quetzalcoatl. I remember thinking how great a plot twist that would have made if the story had been fiction. I've always loved history, be it world history, family history, sports history or whatever. I've always loved digging through libraries and resource documents...

I'm not sure I've ever gone this long without a journal update. The week-long audit I've spent more than a year preparing for begins tomorrow. Getting ready for it has been hampered by other craziness in the day-job world, and I haven't had the mental energy to do much else. I've gotten so out of my writing mindset that I feel like I can't even put a decent blog post together, let alone anything else. So today I'm going to do something low-pressure and fun, to get my momentum going again. I give you... The Anime Nerd Girls of Science! Five female anime characters I've come across who take science more seriously than their American counterparts. That is, if they even have American counterparts. #5) Senomiya Akiho, Robotics;Notes The "Science Adventure" series of visual novels and anime series had to have at least one character on the list. My first thought was Makise Kurisu from Steins;Gate , but she's too much of a male ...

Okay, it hasn't happened yet, but that hasn't stopped kids from wondering what space is like, and it hasn't stopped teachers from wanting to teach them. In the latest edition of the internet radio program, The Space Show , host David Livingston talks to the authors of a new book, Kids to Space Mission Plans: An Educator's Guide . As the name suggests, it's all about how teachers can put more space-related materials into their classrooms. I picked up a copy of the first Kids to Space book at Worldcon a couple of years ago, and it would have been really handy when I was writing Lunar Pioneers . The broadcast is available for download, so be sure to check it out. And what will those kids do when they grow up and become astronauts? Space.com has a new article describing ideas currently floating around for the first permanent lunar station. The forerunner to Clementine Colony, perhaps? Be sure to check that out, too.