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Between Series, an Actress Became a Superstar (in Math)
The New York Times (via National Review's The Corner) ^ | 07/19/2005 | Kenneth Chang

Posted on 07/22/2005 12:02:04 PM PDT by GreenLanternCorps

On her Web site, Danica McKellar, the actress best known as Winnie Cooper on the television series "The Wonder Years," takes on questions that require more than a moment's thought to answer.

"If it takes Sam six minutes to wash a car by himself," one fan asked recently, "and it takes Brian eight minutes to wash a car by himself, how long will it take them to wash a car together?"

"This is a 'rates' problem," Ms. McKellar wrote in reply. "The key is to think about each of their 'car washing rates' and not the 'time' it takes them."

Ms. McKellar, now a semiregular on "The West Wing" playing a White House speechwriter, Elsie Snuffin, is probably the only person on prime-time television who moonlights as a cyberspace math tutor.

Her mathematics knowledge extends well beyond calculus. As a math major at the University of California, Los Angeles, she also took more esoteric classes, the ones with names like "complex analysis" and "real analysis," and she pondered making a career move to professional mathematician.

"I love that stuff," Ms. McKellar said last month during a visit to Manhattan after a play-reading in the Hamptons. Her conversation was peppered with terminology like "epsilons" and "limsups" (pronounced "lim soups").

"I love continuous functions and proving if functions are continuous or not," she said.

She may also be the only actress, now or ever, to prove a new mathematical theorem, one that bears her name. Certainly, she is the only theorem prover who appears wearing black lingerie in the July issue of Stuff magazine. Even in that interview, she mentioned math.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: danica; math; mckellar; wonderyears
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To: Constitution Day
She's pretty cute now, though

All hail CD, Master of the Understatement! ;o)


41 posted on 07/22/2005 12:18:55 PM PDT by TheBigB (How in the blue hell did Kelly Leak bat three times in the Astrodome?)
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To: gridlock

LOL, exactly what I said. I'm an engineer, and now do estimating (SWAG, scientific wild ass guess to 2 decimal places)


42 posted on 07/22/2005 12:19:15 PM PDT by Fierce Allegiance (This ain't your granddaddy's America)
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To: gridlock
"An engineer will answer that question in two seconds with "3 and a half minutes". And that is the right answer, because it is delivered in two seconds, and it is pretty darn close."

The engineers who designed the Tacoma Narrows Bridge?


43 posted on 07/22/2005 12:20:43 PM PDT by GreenLanternCorps ("Dude, you've got some... Arzt on you..." - Hugo "Hurley" Reyes)
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To: mnehrling; gridlock
A consultant would say this question does not have all the necessary information because of missing variables such as how well the two people work together, the overlap variable, the car was supply limitations if two people are using the same supplies.. etc.. You'll need to pay a consultant about $75 an hour to calculate in all those factors.

Actually, you make a profound point. There's a *classic* book which covers this topic (and others) called "The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering", by Frederick P. Brooks. He points out that real-world projects seldom work out as neatly as implied by "man-month" calculations and other common management concepts, precisely because of complicating factors such as the ones you mention.

As he says by way of illustration, "it takes nine months to produce a baby, no matter how many women are assigned to the task."

44 posted on 07/22/2005 12:22:10 PM PDT by Ichneumon
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To: Ichneumon

Sorry, what did you say, I was distracted by Post #41.


45 posted on 07/22/2005 12:23:07 PM PDT by mnehring (Fourth Estate, Fifth Column Dis-Infomers)
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To: TheBigB
Shes a little stick of dynamite!


46 posted on 07/22/2005 12:23:37 PM PDT by gopwinsin04
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To: Moral Hazard; gridlock
If it takes Sam six minutes to wash a car by himself . . . and it takes Brian eight minutes to wash a car by himself, how long will it take them to wash a car together?

My first response was three-and-a-half minutes, since one guy can do half-a-car in three minutes and the other can do half-a-car in four minutes. But that would require them to divvy up the car just right, so the fast guy does a little more than the slow guy. But if they divvied up the car exactly in half, the answer would be four minutes. The fast guy would be done in three minutes, and then have to stand around for a minute waiting for the other guy to get done with his half.

47 posted on 07/22/2005 12:24:14 PM PDT by Charles Henrickson (Better yet, go to the car wash.)
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To: TheBigB
Oh, *MY*! All that and a math nerd too? Sold.

Now if I can just get my wife to approve...

48 posted on 07/22/2005 12:24:23 PM PDT by Ichneumon
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To: TheBigB

Oooh, I like.

I am suddenly feeling like I need to learn about ferromagnetic Ashkin–Teller models on Z2.


49 posted on 07/22/2005 12:26:19 PM PDT by Constitution Day (I am the Sultan of Oom-Papa-Mow-Mow.)
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To: GreenLanternCorps

I'd gladly examine her surface integrals.


50 posted on 07/22/2005 12:29:07 PM PDT by ThinkDifferent (These pretzels are making me thirsty)
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To: Jersey Republican Biker Chick
You know, you have a real double standard.  I didn't brow beat you when you put up that thread about how cute you though Josh Savino was.
 

Owl_Eagle

(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,

 it was probably sarcasm)

51 posted on 07/22/2005 12:29:38 PM PDT by End Times Sentinel (In Memory of my Dear Friend Henry Lee II)
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To: GreenLanternCorps

Yeah,.......... but can she do a tax return that won't come back to haunt.


52 posted on 07/22/2005 12:29:38 PM PDT by fella (In law nothing is certain but the expense. - S. Butler)
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To: RightWhale
There is a kind of peer pressure that forces them out early, otherwise there would be twice as many mathematicians in the world.

Probably not twice as many, because Larry Summers has a point. But yeah, there's definitely a large social factor. Ditto for computer science and IT in general.

53 posted on 07/22/2005 12:31:01 PM PDT by ThinkDifferent (These pretzels are making me thirsty)
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To: GreenLanternCorps

3min 45sec unless they belong to a union; then it would take 14 minutes.


54 posted on 07/22/2005 12:31:58 PM PDT by Old Professer (As darkness is the absence of light, evil is the absence of good; innocence is blind.)
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To: Ichneumon
As he says by way of illustration, "it takes nine months to produce a baby, no matter how many women are assigned to the task."

Which is a canard, because it takes (at least) 81 months for one woman to produce 9 babies, but it takes only 9 months for 9 women to produce 9 babies.

It's all in the division of labor, so to speak...

55 posted on 07/22/2005 12:32:08 PM PDT by Yo-Yo
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To: bummerdude
She's also a math tutor. Fercryinoutloud, she proved a new theorem...I'd say that's pretty impressive.

Of course, I'm completely hopeless when it comes to mathematics, so perhaps I'm too easily swayed. (Since I'm a chick, pics of her in a bikini aren't going to cut it for me!)

56 posted on 07/22/2005 12:32:16 PM PDT by exnavychick (There's too much youth; how about a fountain of smart?)
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To: Ichneumon

So did that librarian ever have to give you an "F"?


57 posted on 07/22/2005 12:33:11 PM PDT by GreenLanternCorps ("Dude, you've got some... Arzt on you..." - Hugo "Hurley" Reyes)
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To: GreenLanternCorps

I learned the other day that Jeff "Skunk" Baxter is also a defense department consultant regarding missile defense systems, or something like that. Apparently, he's self-taught. Some guys have all the talent.


58 posted on 07/22/2005 12:35:33 PM PDT by Aquinasfan (Isaiah 22:22, Rev 3:7, Mat 16:19)
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To: tfecw
Punky Brewster


59 posted on 07/22/2005 12:37:25 PM PDT by Lost Highway (I don't know what the world may need but a V8 engines a good start for me)
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To: Owl_Eagle; Fierce Allegiance; Constitution Day

Did you guys know that Ashton Kutcher majored in biochemical engineering at college?


60 posted on 07/22/2005 12:37:44 PM PDT by TheBigB (How in the blue hell did Kelly Leak bat three times in the Astrodome?)
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