Mathematics, Art Shows and Such

I started off my celebration of the month with a Thursday. It was pretty chill.

Today I met with Caltech game theorist Jacob Goeree to discuss a project that he conducted last year and wants to conduct again: at Westridge he diagrammed the social networks of the fifth and sixth grades, and then presented them with questions based on those networks. For example, he would ask a student, if given $6, how she would split it between herself and a friend; between herself and a friend of a friend; and between herself and a person whom she didn't consider a friend.

Then the girls actually get paid the amount that they were willing to share times two, or something like that, so they end up profiting from their generosity. Sweet mind game.

Anyways, I'm pretty psyched because I'm back on the Caltech campus after years, and doing something fascinating in the same area of study that my dad was in; and in fact Jacob Goeree met my father and me, while on sabbatical to Caltech about ten years ago! He works at Caltech permanently now, but at the time he was visiting from the Netherlands, I believe, and he came over to our house one night for dinner. He said he remembers three things: first, that my dad gave him the wrong address, so he couldn't find our house for ages; second, our sweet solar cooker; and third, our weather station. What can I say, my parents are geeks.

Aaand, I returned to Altadena to go to the local art show with Elise, and had an absolutely splendid time. There were two memorable parts to the evening, one bad, one good. The first is that I saw someone whom I'd previously met and liked a great deal - not at the art show - but rather at work. This is the third time I've sort of randomly run into him, and it's getting kind of uncomfortable. The first time I met him I liked him a lot; the second time I started to think that there must be some amount of serendipity on the air, because I hadn't expected ever to run into him again. And after that I kept expecting to randomly run into him somewhere, but since I never did, I certainly didn't expect to find him up in Altadena at the Gallery at the End of the World. It was something of a shock, and I spent quite a bit of time hiding from him, which I don't think I've actually done since the middle school dances...

But as for the fun part, Elise and I rather out of the blue met a wonderful batch of people. All smokers and drinkers, alas (we politely refrained), but brilliant and thoughtful and motivating. Our conversation quickly moved to politics, and it was one of those satisfying political conversations where everyone has really interesting and varied things to say, but nothing that you strongly disagree with. I'm guessing there were few conservatives at the art gallery. It strikes me as that kind of place that attracts mostly liberals. But unfortunately being liberal and artsy also seems to entail smoking, and so now, even though I've never touched a cigarette, I smell ridiculously like smoke. Good thing my mom didn't stand by to smell me when I came in the door...

posted by Holly @ 11:42 PM