Boltzmann's entropy formula is S = k log W. I ran across this somewhere, and decided I wanted to understand it.
I failed to understand it, but I read about it for quite a while, skipping over the equations for the most part. Then I found some new blogs about various things and then I found this video about God and Nature instead, a blog called Preposterous Universe.
A while back in my young ones class I was doing a lesson where I have the kids draw their own version of the story we’re working on. I call this lesson “making a book” and normally when I do this type of lesson the kids enjoy it. But this group of kids was a little bit restless and feeling whiny that day.
“Too hard!” one of the girls moaned.
“못해” [I can’t], another whined.
They seemed to be overwhelmed with the idea of replicating the story that appeared in our story book on blank paper.
So I took matters in hand.
I said, “Look, I can make this book in 5 minutes.”
“Five minutes!?” the kids chanted together. “Nooo.”
“I can. Watch.”
I began to sketch rapidly, and lettering the story from memory.
“Waa. that’s funny.”
I stopped after about 4 minutes. The kids were inspired, now, and began doing their own rapid-sketch versions happily.
The story was “The Scary Dino.”
I was going through some papers on my desk today and found those first 5 pages of my version.
I was actually pretty surprised at how far I got in making the story in 4 minutes.
