Pony Tails and Braid Theory · 11:43pm Nov 22nd, 2016
Continuing my scholarship of all things science writing and pony related, I have to report a chapter in the book Falling for Science (MIT Press). This is a collection of short accounts by scientists and engineers describing a particular toy, or random object, from their childhood, and how it led them, in a Cutie Mark Crusader fashion, to their special talent. Among the tales of Lego bricks, gear wheels, and home computers, Christine Alvarado (now a computer scientist) writes about her My Little Pony, describing memories of braiding the vivid pink mane of a bright green plush, and becoming fascinated with the underlying relations. To prepare a braid, you first split a tail into three parts. To do something more advanced, split it into nine, and make three braids, before braiding those together. With nimble young fingers, you can take this up a level by starting with any power of 3. Thus her young mind figured out the mathematics of division and recursive relationships.
This is one of the more memorable accounts in the book, which the editor highlights in the introduction. Perhaps because it beautifully illustrates how children learn through play, and how scientific innovation is just an extension of the same thing.
To throw in my experience:
My parents got me a picture book about black holes.
I also had ninja turtles fight my sister's barbie dolls, but I don't know that that's science-related.
I may take a look at that book if I happen across it in stores.
Awesome!
I find a tinge of irony in her wanting to check out the real world versus pretend, when programming can be so incredibly abstract and at times totally divorced from even the computer's underlying hardware… but anyway, I'm in the Legos crowd. I built spring-loaded rocket launchers, water pumps, electric generators, and pneumatic oscillators all because the instructions in the box (and all the sets in the catalog) left me wanting more.
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There's a certain contradiction there...
Falling for Science is interesting to flip through. You can read a lot of the stories with the Google Books version.
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I imagine the irony goes unnoticed when you're eight years old
Hmm, I never found out about the recursion in braiding as I never go as far as 9. I was working my way up one by one, and when I started getting tangled at 4 an 5, I gave up and went to build the Empire state building, Saturn V, Impact Punch out of Lego instead. Still cant remember if I manged to break the single brick at the tip, but part o teh base melted slightly after being propped up against the fire.
Unexpected experiments have intresting consequences.
Never could afford any of the hydraulic or electric Lego kits.
4314343 Heh, true. You've seen the drawings of a 2-D projection of a black hole geometry, though. Did more on that. Was more on the potential sci-fi stuff like wormholes and how you could make a time machine that way, I think. I wonder where that book went?
I also played with legos and lego-like things but I dunno that that made quite the same impact.
Then there are those of us who came to ponies through science, and to play through learning.