Today evening, over pizza, Dr Hofstadter combined his Poetry class and his Group theory class and explained to the combined audience how Al-Khwarizmi visualized the solution to quadratic equations and how Tartaglia visualized the solutions to cubic equations. Using these simple visual models, he derived the solutions to the general form of the equations. He then went on to explain Tartaglia's 1534 AD poem that details his solution to cubic equations written in terza rima, the style of Dante Alighieri's La Divina Comedia. Needless to say, it was a fun class.

But what caused me to burst out laughing was this conversation I overheard where two students were discussing Group Theory and its application to Physics. Apparently there is a textbook by approximately that title and the university bookstore mislabeled it as "Group Therapy for Physics".

As I burst out laughing, something from my own ignorance struck me. Being somewhat culturally limited, I tend to think of some Chinese foods as "strange". Today morning I was trying to prepare some packaged Chinese food that I had purchased, when I noticed that the instructions on the cover said "Mix in the Soap Powder with constant stirring", and my instinctive reaction was "Oh, that's another strange thing that they'd eat". It was only several moments later that the awkwardness of of thing struck me. I went back and looked carefully at the instructions again. I had misread it, it really said, "Mix in the Soup Powder with constant stirring".