Sunday school teaching
I have recently signed up for a First Day (Sunday) school teaching post in my congregation, the Monthly Meeting of Friends (Quakers) on Arch Street. I would be assistant teacher in one session and head teacher in another. The topic of both sessions would be the "nature of God." As teachers, we would be given great flexibility in designing our curriculum, which will then be ratified by the Meeting.
This is going to be fun! Teaching the nature of God to elementary school kids!
Pacifism and Martyrdom
It's time for First-Day (Sunday) worship soon. Before I leave the computer lab of my college house, I wish to make brief remark on Christian pacifism.
Pacifism is not, and should not be, a consequence of acquiescence of evil. There is what Immanuel Kant termed 'radical evil' in this world, which is covered by what George Fox termed 'a sea of darkness.' It is out of His love for the world that God gave humankind the Christian religion as a free gift, so that all who dwell in this temporal and material world that is full of strife may experience trascendence and become one with the living God, through the eternal Christ, the Light that enlightens 'every man that is born into the world.' Hence, Fox also saw a sea of pure Light above the sea of darkness.
It is thus self-evident, as witnesses to the True Light, Christians must stand up against injustice whenever they shall encounter it. Yes God is full of grace, yet He is also full of truth. As Christians we must bear witness to both.
This set true pacifism apart from what I would call spineless pacifism, or soft pacifism. Many liberal Christians, from churches that are not historically pacifist, claim to be pacifists today. I do not know if they really are. Neither could I refute them, since I do not have a window to look into other people's soul. Yet I think I could draw a clear line between true and spineless pacifists. Spineless pacifists are those who practice what I would call a "feel good religion." They essentially believe that Truth is relative, and that it is wrong for us to kill one another not because of the illegitimacy of killing, but because of the fact that we could never be so sure that we are right and our "enemies" are wrong.
Not so with true pacifists. No I don't think one could bargain with God regarding what constitutes Truth at all. Truth is truth and there could be no compromise. The first and foremost reason violence is illegitimate is because God said so. Both in the Sermon on the Mount and in Christ's rebuking of Peter in Gethsamane. The reason why God commanded so was because we are all made in His image and likeness, and we all have the same inherent worth. How could we as Christians possibly claim that we love our enemies when in reality we torture and murder them with the most advanced weapons available to us?!
It is this insistence on upholding the Truth that true pacifists are willing to accept martyrdom if the only other alternative given to them is to serve in a worldly army and kill. Many have suffered and died, both in ancient Rome, and in Puritanic England, for refusing to serve in the military. These martyrs have preferred torture and death over the taking of their fellow human beings' lives. It's almost comic to ask, but do you think a "feel good" "Christian" would prefer martyrdom over the draft?
Interesting website
Here's an interesting website.
http://www-db.stanford.edu/~wangz/home/link/wangy/
It is the website of Professor Yuan Wang, one of the most distinguished graduate students Professor Loo-Keng Hua supervised. Prof. Wang, like his mentor, is a number theorist, and his major interest lies in the proving of the Goldbach Conjecture (as formulated by David Hilbert) (on the application of the Sieve method, to be more specific), Diophantine equations and approximations, and the application of number theory in areas of applied mathematics, such as numerical analysis.
He has authored and co-authored several textbooks, including a highly "unusual" (to quote a reviewer in Amazon) treatment of college calculus (with Yuen Fong, Springer-Verlag, 1998). Other than freshman calc, he also writes graduate texts with attractive titles like "Diophantine Equations and Inequalities in Algebraic Number Fields" (Springer-Verlag, 1991)
Loo Keng Hua
Professor Loo-Keng Hua was one of the leading mathematicians in the world during his lifetime (1910-1985) as well as one of the two greatest Chinese mathematicians of his generation, the other being Professor Shiing-Shen Chern, the great geometer. It would be inconceivable how far Chinese mathematics would have gone had he not returned to China in the early 50s.
Professor Hua's major contributions were in number theory and the theory of functions of several complex variables. He also did important work in numerical analysis, publishing a textbook (Springer-Verlag, 1981) on the application of number theoretical methods on numerical analysis; and in optimization theory. Towards the end of his life, he developed a keen interest in mathematical economics.
The most amazing things about this man was that he had never received any formal education beyond that of junior high. By the time he was elected (in 1936) a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, he did not even possess a high school diploma. Nevertheless, unlike that great yet unfortunately short-lived genius, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Hua did make the transformation from a self-taught genius to a professional mathematician familiar with concepts in meta-mathematics. One could reasonably attribute this to Hua's longevity.
Here is a detailed obituary of his, written by Professor Heini Halberstam, Ph.D., of the University of Illinois-Urbana Champagne:
www.numbertheory.org/obituaries/AA/hua/
And here is a shorter online bio, also written by Professor Halberstam:
www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Hua.html
A Concise History of Mathematics
I have also finished Professor Dirk Jan Struik's
A Concise History of Mathematics recently. It was a very concise account of the mathematical developments humankind has made in the past 50 centuries. There are many things in it that I was not aware of beforehand.
For instance, the ancient definitions for trigonometric functions are terribly clumsy, for sines and cosines really are defined in terms of chords and half-chords in a circle. It wasn't until the great Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) that mathematicians started to use the trigonometric proportions definitions that are used today by middle-school kids.
Another example would be that of the complex numbers.It is mildly amusing for modern readers to note that in not-so-modern times, people really had problems dealing with more abstract ideas in mathematics. For instance, in ancient Greece and China, negative solutions to a system of linear equations are called "false solutions" while complex solutions are given the name "impossible solutions!"
Aside from these factoids, it is also very interesting to observe how ideas are developed. If a modern student of mathematics were to read the original treatise on differential calculus written by Sir Isaac Newton, he or she wouldn't understand a word in it. The reason is simple: It wasn't clear to me at all that Sir Isaac himself knew exactly what he was talking about.
For instance, he did not understand the concept of infinitestimal. He also found the idea of a limit to be terribly confusing. A century and a half had to elapse before French and German mathematicians like Karl Weierstrass would lay down the foundations of analysis, when concepts like metric space, continuous mapping and derivatives, etc. were introduced.
So you see, we, as human beings, almost always acquaint ourselves first with how things work, not what things are. We learned how to use differential and integral calculus before we looked into their foundations.
Finally, I feel obliged to comment on what I would perceive as an unavoidable flaw in this book. Frankly speaking, one ought to have at
least a sound undergraduate mathematics education to understand most of the concepts covered by the author. This is especiallly true in the case of the last two chapters, in which mathematical advances made in 19th and 20th centuries are covered. I call this flaw unavoidable since most ideas in 20th century cannot be explained at all without using some technical terms, etc.
At any rate, reading this book proved to be an immensely gratifying experience for me. I recommend it to anyone who's interested in learning how mathematics have progressed to the opulent art and science it is today!
Letter to R. Albert Mohler
I recently read an article written by a certain R. Albert Mohler, who happens to be President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky. I am very much offended by his warmongering message on his blog, especially when he hinted that all who oppose the war did so due to their anti-Christian worldview.
http://www.crosswalk.com/news/weblogs/mohler/?cal=go&adate=9%2F24%2F2003
I don't know, but the last time I looked at by Bible (last night), it seems to me that Jesus is exactly the type of "peacenik" Mr. Mohler is targeting.
So I decided to send him a message, challening his unfounded, wild accusations:
Dear Professor Mohler,
Having read some of your online articles, I must say while some of your
arguments are valid and well made, I cannot agree with many of them. Here is
one of your arguments which I feel I am obliged to challenge.
"Americans are not [yet] as secular as the Europeans. Most Americans claim to
believe in God, and the residue of the Christian worldview still informs the
American conscience. Americans--along with their president--believe in the
reality of good and evil. They also believe that evil must be confronted and,
where necessary, confronted with force."
Also, "most Christians are convinced that force must often be exercised, lest
human sinfulness be set loose."
Your are essentially right in pointing out the different worldviews of the
Americans and the Europeans, and right again in pointing out how postwar
European ideology is essentially dominated by cynical critical theorists and
existentialists (please, no more blanket terms like postmodern intellectuals!).
Furthermore, you are right in highlighting the fact that more Europeans are not
religious (at most 10% maybe?).
Nevertheless, you conclusion that the main reason Europeans did not wish to go
to war with Saddam was because they are "un-Christian" is groundless. Your
implication that all Christian must accept war against Iraq as the only
legitimate means to confront the former Iraqi regime is also without support.
If you insist that the support of (this) war be a test that divides "true"
Christians like yourself and false Christians, then you must conclude that the
Quakers, the Mennonites, the Amish and the Brethren to be anti-Christian in
their teaching, when they chose (unlike you and your denomination) to pay
attention to our Lord's command on "resist ye not evil."
Whereas I am not attacking war-supporting people as anti-Christians, you surely
are accusing religious pacifists for being un-Christian. I am a born-again
Christian, and a member of the Religious Society of Friends. I do believe that
Christ has explicitly commanded us not to resist evil with force. For they who
hold the sword shall perish with the sword.
You may disagree with me on this, and I am not sure how the Judge will judge
your and my behavior during the war on that final Day of Judgment, for both
Baptists and Quakers believe in "Bible freedom." But it would be very wrong of
you to accuse whoever chose not to support the President for his war-effort as
un-Christian. "For if you love only your friend, what reward have ye?" If you
smite he who smite you, what difference are there between you and a "publican?"
"Force must often be exercised," eh?
Best regards,
James Chang
LSAT results back
Dear friends,
I am glad to inform you that I did relatively well on my LSAT, held on Oct 2, 2004. It seems that I could finally stop preoccupying myself with academic studies, etc., since my forseeable future is pretty much determined. Nevertheless, I will continue to work hard, given my intense interest in the subjects I major in, mathematics and political science.
Love,
James
Lunch
I have also had the honor and pleasure of having lunch with a remarkable elderly gentleman and a fellow Quaker this past Wednesday.
He's name is Dr. Hugh O'Neill, and he's what Friends would call a "birthright Quaker." Dr. O'Neill is a most gentle and knowledgeable man. After serving in the field artillery during the Second World War and a sound undergraduate education at Princeton, Dr. O'Neill worked for a few years at the publishing house in Philly. He later attended and graduated from Penn Medical School in 1954 and started his fruitful career as a psychiatrist at Norristown State Hospital, one of the largest mental asylum in the United States. It is very interesting hearing him describing the usual treatments patients used to receive during the early 50s.
He currently lives in retirement with his wife in the Society Hill area, a lovely 18th century neighborhood, and his son and daughter are in Boston, Massachusetts. It should also be mentioned that his father was also a loyal Pennsylvanian, being salutatorian of the College of the University of Pennsylvania in 1901. (Back in the old days Penn was such a small school that students were actually ranked as in high school.)
A Mathematician's Apology
I have just finised reading G. H. Hardy's An Mathematician's Apology (1940). Interesting book, I must say. I will post my review of this book together with others after I'm done with my law school application process.
Also, I have recently joined the Go Society of Philadelphia. Go, known as
Wei Qi in Mandarin Chinese, is one of the oldest chess game in the world, and, combinatorially speaking, the most complex of all chess games. Numerous mathematical treatments of the game have been written. It seems that Go first emerged as a teaching tool for military commanders in Ancient China. Here's a link to wikipedia's discription of this game:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_%28board_game%29
It seems to me that the organizer of the Society, a certain Dr. Matthew Bengtson, is a very versatile man. A staff pianist at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, and a harpsichordist, Dr. Bengtson received his first degree in computer science from Harvard. I have not had the pleasure of meeting him yet, but I'm sure we'll see each other next Wednesday, when games are held in Houston Hall at Penn.
Recovery?
I think I have somewhat recovered from my examination fatigue this weekend. Aside from catching up with my regular studies, I have also started to read
A Concise History of Mathematics, written by the late Professor Dirk Jan Struik (1894-2000) of MIT. So far I have covered the chapters on ancient Oriental and Greek mathematics, and I must commend Professor Struik for his lucid presentation.
I will post a book review on this book together with another one on Bob Heilbroner's
The Nature and Logic of Capitalism some time in late October and early November.
Exhaustion
I'm finally done with the LSAT! It turns out that this happened to be the most tiresome event I have attended in my life. For a straight six and a half hours I maintained more or less the same posture, scribbling on my test booklet...I was naturally exhausted afterwards, and even today, two days after the exam., I still feel the fatigue.
Hopefully I'll recover in a few days, and be able to post stuff on this blog.
