So far the semester has been off to a rough start. There has been one highlight however: my calculator has come back to life.
The last time i had used it was in my discrete math class. I pulled it out one day to run some numbers. Then, when i tried to use it the following week, it wouldn't turn on. Nothing happened. I tried resetting with no luck (which involved removing a battery, holding down [ - ] and [ ) ] as you reinstall it, and then continuing to hold it for 5 seconds - that's not easy to do). I don't remember the screen going dim on me or anything else i would associate with low batteries. Of course this happened just weeks after my limited warranty expired. Eventually i pronounced it dead and went back to my TI-92.
Knowing that i would be soon starting my Calc 3 classes which would be computationally intensive, i thought i should take one last try at powering the thing back up. While out buying other school supplies, i picked up a new pack of batteries. I swapped them in and, surprise, the thing came back on. I remember when i shared my dead calculator story in my math classes, Lynette asked if i had tried changing the batteries. I answered "of course i had" but i realize now that maybe i never did. I may have just convinced myself i did. That diagnosis just didn't fit the symptoms i was experiencing so maybe i never gave it full consideration.
The main problem was that i had formed such a strong mental image of what i thought was going on and that image was flawed. Because i didn't experience any screen dimming or flickering as i had with previous calculators, i figured that couldn't be the case. Normally, when solving i problem, i try to use the scientific method by forming a hypothesis of what might be wrong and then proving or disproving that hypothesis. When one's hypothesis is way off; this method doesn't do any good. When you give up on educated guesses, it doesn't hurt to make random ones. After all, as Sherlock Holmes said, when all likely explanations are ruled out, the remaining possibility, however unlikely, must be correct.
Posted by Matthew at September 6, 2005 10:41 PMHey, did you know that 5 + 9 actually equals 21? Think about that one.. heehee
I'm sorry I missed out on seeing you again!! How are classes? I'm frickin exhausted. There will be a lot of sleeping this semester, I just feel it. But I'm in a much nicer part of town. Did we ever go to Union Square? I live near there.
Keep me posted. Or I will send my crazy man-eating monkeys to play skittles with your kidneys.