Perhaps my life could be described as 'Escheresque'...

Marie is getting married tomorrow, at an outdoor ceremony in the desert. In recent years, it has rained only 5 days each year. Unfortunately, the weatherman has predicted rain for tomorrow. When it actually rains, the weatherman correctly forecasts rain 90% of the time. When it doesn't rain, he incorrectly forecasts rain 10% of the time. What is the probability that it will rain on the day of Marie's wedding? (Answer at bottom; however, you might have to turn your display upside-down or stand on your head to read it.)

Drawing Hands by M.C. Escher, 1948

Back from Thanksgiving with the distaff side of the family in Michigan...nice visit (by car, this time-- no trains, planes, or buses), watched the Boys make it 10 in a row (woo-hoo!), but still feeling a bit under the weather (this insidious cough is hanging on for dear life)...

I think I slept for 8+ hours last night; my wife for nearly 10. We went to bed last night at about 7:30pm. I was up around 4:30am and had a chance to watch the 2nd installment of National Geographic's Mars docudrama that premiered last week. If you haven't watched, you should! I have a very childlike grasp of the science behind a human leap from Earth to Mars; however, the episodes contain a healthy dose of space exploration factoids and footage as the saga plays out. It's knitted together very well (Ron Howard is part of the production team) and the thought of moving to a new planet is, in a way, a refreshing break from the post-election rip tides, police shootings, and holiday season gluttony. (It even has a cool theme song on its Mars-y soundtrack.)

After watching Mars, I looked out the front window and Lo and Behold! my paper was there, actually a tad early for once (we have THE worst carrier in home delivery history, this grizzled 130-year old guy who is late more often than not). I happened upon an interesting article about another space story, the new film Arrival (which I'd really like to see; it's based on the short story Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang) and the linguistic challenges behind communicating with extraterrestrial life that show up without a universal translator. (The science behind this story is a smidge easier on my synapses.) If nothing else, after reading the article I think I'm able to use the words heptapod and logogram in a correct sociocultural context at the next party. Not only that, I tripped and fell over Escheresque (you've probably seen some of Escher's work in a book or on a poster somewhere), Sapir-Whorf (a theory about the influence of language on culture, explained thusly: "Because the Inuit language has so many different words for snow...Eskimos may see snow differently from the rest of the world. They may even think about snow differently."), Fermat’s Principle of Least Time (too complex for my peanut-sized brain, but I was able to shoehorn it using this good analogy involving a lifeguard and a drowning swimmer), Snell’s Law (the law of refraction), and Bayes’s Theorem (applied, so I learned on a site called Stat Trek, to conditional problems like the one at the top of this post). Maybe over Christmas break I can convince the missus that it would be worth whatever the king's ransom is that it costs to see a movie these days...

And, speaking of movies, there's a new one coming out next month: Silence (based on the 1966 novel of the same name), with Liam Neeson. The Guardian reports that the film will be premiered at the Vatican. I read the book in August and really enjoyed it! (And posted about it...) Extraordinary story about the fragility of faith and courage, both gifts from a loving God that should never be handled carelessly. Hmm... I wonder if I could get in two films over break? (The last movie I saw in a theater was Life of Pi.)

So we're both lying low today, with nowhere to go (yea!). Perhaps we'll put up the tree this afternoon... 'Tis the season. On Monday it's back to class as the winter quarter begins. I'm looking forward to it!

I'm going to try to finish Dean Koontz' novel from last year, The City, this weekend (I'm on chapter 67 of 108). It's pretty good, so far-- I think there's a faith angle developing.

Until next time... С Богом, ya'll!

P.S. A plausible answer to the problem (yes, of course I cheated):