A while back I was out for a nice lovely jog around the neighborhood. On this jog for some strange reason I went with the intention of coming back with something cool thought up. Whether it was to spawn a new small theory about the world or fester an interesting idea, whichever it was I was going to think up at least of one of these on my run.
Generally when I go for runs my mind is clear as my body can only focus on my working muscles. This gave an ever present complication to the fact that I wanted to come up with an idea. However oddly enough, this time around a mantra of "perspective, perspective" was ingrained into my head.
As I looked at a small tree in the distance it all clicked. If I was aware of how far I was from the tree, I could calculate the height of the tree. The method? Utilizing similar triangles.
Similar triangles are a fundamental trigonometric idea that is taught in high schools. It is the concept that if you have two triangles both with the same internal angles, you could write a ratio for Triangle A in terms of a ratio for Triangle B.
Part 1: Learning a Little Math Before
Using words to describe mathematical concepts is difficult so I drew some helpful diagrams to describe what similar triangles are. But first you must understand what cosθ and sinθ are. cosθ and sinθ are trigonometric functions that relate the angle of a triangle to the length of the adjacent side and hypotenuse or the length of the opposite side and hypotenuse, respectively. That is a little heavy to digest if you have no math backing so here is a picture:
Satellites are a very unique thing in this world. The sole idea of an object orbiting a planet is just astounding to think about. But really how can this happen?
If you are not floating away into space right now you may be aware of the concept of gravity. Gravity is an attractive force cause by mass. Large masses like planets have large gravitational forces, this is why it's so tough to jump off the surface of earth and into space.
Satellites are also effected by gravity, so why don't they come crashing down into earth?
Well, if you notice satellites are moving through space quite quickly and there's a reason for this. Technically speaking satellites are always being pulled towards earth (by gravity) but they move fast enough so that they are always falling over the "edge" of earth.
It's almost like a small game. Gravity pulls the satellite in but the velocity keeps it from touching earth. A quote that I just made up to summarize what's happening is, "For every 1 mile the satellite falls it travels enough distance around earth place the earth back 1 mile. This works because the earth is a sphere." Take a look at the amazing diagram that I drew to potentially help you see what's going on.
The arrow pointing towards earth in this diagram represents the force of gravity. While the arrow that is tangent to earths surface is the velocity.
A cool thing to note is that when a satellite is closer to earth it must be going faster. This is because the closer you are to earth the stronger the force of gravity is. Which makes - in this case - the satellite fall faster so it must have a higher velocity to compensate for this extra gravitational pull. In other words the satellite must fall over the "edge" of earth faster.
If the satellite was further away the opposite would happen. As the gravity is much weaker so the satellite doesn't need to orbit as fast.
Last cool note:
Because satellites are in space they don't slow down as there is not air resistance. I.E. Once you're up to speed no fuel is required.
For many years people have always toyed with the idea that one day humans will be integrated with technology. With people like Elon Musk pushing towards neural link - a device integrated in your brain to link your thoughts with databases of information - it seems that we are almost at that stage of man and machine.
But, what If I told you we are already at this stage. Introducing the smartphone.
I don't know one person that doesn't own a smartphone, well, my grandma but she has a different computing device on hand a computer (basically the same thing). Since smartphones were released into the market they slowly started slipping there way into our pockets and never leaving them. Smartphones have become another appendage of the human,24/7 humans have their phone very close to them. This makes sense as the uses we have for them are too good to put it down.
We sleep next to them and set an alarm, we use them to communicate, we use them to browse and stay connected on social media, we use them to check the news, we use them to play games in the washroom (cause reading shampoo bottles are not good enough anymore), we use them to check the weather, we use them to stay fit, we use them to look up new baking recipes, we use them to learn in school, we use them to take pictures, we use them to read mysillyblog, we use them to navigate, we use them to plan and schedule out life, we use them to the point that WE CAN'T FUNCTION ANYMORE WITHOUT THEM. Humans are addicted to their smartphones but the justification for using them make sense. However at this level of use they are a technological extension of the human body.
Look around you there are colors everywhere. Right now I'm outside and I am surrounded by a field of bright green grass that glisten in the sunlight. Flowers of all color are sprouted from it, bright pink, deep purple and a nice baby blue are just a couple of them.
I bring this up because we see color everyday but really what is it? Well if you read the blog post where I talked about whether galaxies are moving away from us (Click Here to Read It) you'll have an small idea of how to answer this question.
To summarize the post briefly, light is actually a wave (wow!) and at different frequency of the light wave different colors of light appear.
At this stage of learning if you think really hard you'll actually be able to come up with your own answer to this question. So if you really wan't to pause and ponder, now is a good time to do that.
Okay, I'll set it up simple for you, read carefully. Because each color of light we see has a unique frequency, each colored item we view emits light solely at that frequency. For example, green grass only emits light at the frequency related to the color green.
The way that the item emits colored light is by having white light shone onto it. If you don't know white light is light from the sun that contains all the colors. What happens at this stage is that most of the white light gets absorbed into the object except for the color of light which the object is.
For example, picture a beautiful orange flower next to you. White light is shone onto it from the sun (doesn't only have to be the sun that makes white light, light bulbs do a decent job to). Almost every color from that white light is absorbed into the orange flower. The only color that isn't absorbed is the color orange, which gets reflected off and back into the world. Specifically back into your eye if you were looking at it.
Pick something around you that's colorful and ponder on this thought for a big. It's quite interesting.
I want to preface this post and state that I am just an average guy wanting to provide some average advice to some other average people on how to get started with investing.
Part 1: Essentially What Is Stock Investing?
Most of what you need to know is displayed in this example below. Follow along and reference back to this picture when prompted to. This will provide you with deeper understanding (hopefully).
This Image depicts the stock data for the company Apple over the last year.
What investing means - in the simplest layman terms - is the act of purchasing a portion of a company on the stock market for an agreed upon price. This portion of the company has another name and that name is a stock. So when you hear someone say that they bought a stock in a company they mean they have essentially purchased a portion of the company. Stock can be sold back at a later date when desired.
Using the image above you can visually see how much the stock of the company Apple is worth. Glance up to the picture and look near the top left, you should see something that reads "$203.26 USD." This means that at this time of viewing Apples stock (Jul. 19 3:42 p.m. EDT) the price of one stock was $203.26 USD. Look at the Nov. 2018 marker. You are able to see that at this marker a stock of Apple was worth around $220 USD.
So, stock can fluctuate. Take a glance at the highlighted point. In the past year the lowest price of this stock was about $142 USD. A hypothetical that could have happen was that someone may have bought ONE stock in apple at the $220 USD price, then after sometime the stock fluctuated and dropped down to the to a lesser value. I.E. They could have sold their ONE stock at $142 USD instead of the price they bought it for ($220 USD) losing $78.
Tim lived in a small suburban house on 7th street. You knew it was Tims house just by looking at it. The front lawn to the naked eye appeared as a velvet green sheet and the shingle on the house were ever so minty fresh. And don't even get started about the ever lasting gobstopper machine on Tims front lawn.
"Ahgghh another morning, another day," Tim belched as he go out of bed. "I love going to my job, it's just so much fun." Tim. He was an alcoholic. While the whole world viewed him as this amazing neighbor that nobody deserved Tim was actually suffering on the inside. To the point that he felt like he had no purpose in life.
But alas Tim got in his car after shotgunning a nice morning beer and drove off to work. Tim jived to his favorite artist along the way he sang "Cause baby you're a firrreeeework!" Katy Perry was his idol.
At work Tim did nothing except drink more beer. After all, he does work as a beer taster. You may think the job might be exciting - which it was - but the job fueled Tims alcoholism even more. Very unfortunate.
After work this one particular day Tim felt exceptionally sad he had no idea what he wanted to do with his life. "WHAT DO I DO?!" He yelled at the top of his lungs during his walk back from work (Tim forgot he drove).
It was at that moment that Tim realized how to turn his life around...he bought a dolphin.
*10 years later*
Tim was now the CEO to Tesla, SpaceX, Amazon and Google. When asked in an interview one day on how he managed to turn his life around Tim spoke, "So I bought a dolphin, then my life had a porpoise."
Cheers.
(P.S. I know dolphins are not porpoises don't @ me)
Any second of the day you are surrounded by a countless number of statistics. When you cross the street there's a __% chance that you would get hit by a car. Or when you eat food there is also a ___% chance that you would bite your lip or choke.
For instance right now where you are sitting there is an actual statistic for a ninja coming out from above you and landing right on-top of you. Highly improbable but it could happen.
Because of the nature of the phrase "could happen," the statistic for anything to happen cannot be completely 0%. Just like that ninja flying out of the air, the percentage of that happening would be extremely low like 0.00000000000000000000000001% (I just made up that number). I am trying to say that it would be very low but never 0%
This is occurs in every aspect of your life at any given instant. Statistics are happening all around you. Yes you can influence them to make it more probable or less probable.
If you really wanted a ninja to go fall on you go bug your friend and pay him 5 bucks.
Okay, okay if you were looking for a full researched article you've come to the wrong place. This is a discussion on the thoughts I've had thinking about this topic and what I think it is to be the answer.
Humans have 5 major senses. Touch, sight, taste, hearing and smell. These five senses literally make up the world around us. Without them we'd be a blob solely existing in space and time.
You don't have to have all 5 senses of course, blind people prove that statement to be true all the time. Ever seen a blind person motoring around the world? Impressive. I know. Most of the time their other senses grow stronger which enables them to interact with the world better.
Take a look at this quick video from BBC Earth where this blind man can "see" with sound.
This video proves in one perspective that our other senses work harder when we are limited to less. The blind man Dan is this video I can only guess sees a sort of map in his conscious of the world around him but it is displayed not through his eyes of course but through his ears.
This idea of being 1 sense down from the 5 leaves me thinking what would happen if you had no sense. To that I say there are two different perspectives you can look at the question. One: Were all your senses lost after you already lived life for a bit? Or Two: Were you born without senses?
I'll answer Two for the sake of this blog post as I feel it's easier to take a stab at.
So what would happen if you were born without senses?
I think you wouldn't have a conscious .
One of the best evidence I can give that supports my answer is the our thoughts themselves. When you think, there are words or pictures and other things that flow through your brain. You can feel the brain think. Every thought you have is because you experienced something before.
Like when you have a thought in words, for me that thought is in English. If I never learned English before I wouldn't be thinking in it. Or when you are about to stick your hand in fire, then your brain is like "bro, that's hot. Don't do that," so you don't.
Your senses are the input center and your brain is the interpreter.
Because your thoughts in your head are made up of past experiences - to one who never had any experiences they would have no thoughts. And who is that one person that would have had no experience you may ask? The person that's born with no senses are unable to provide any input into the brain. All the organs may be working fine the the art of thinking is completely in shambles.
And maybe I am wrong, maybe people born with no senses do have thoughts? My only question to counter that is what would they be?
Something interesting to take note is that when using a calculator the key pad is reversed to that of a phones key pad.
Example:
Here is my dusty old phones key pad. The numbers go in the order "0,9,8,...,1" from the bottom up. Take a look at the picture it's easier to show.
Phones Keypad Example:
Now take a look at the calculator on my phone. The keypad is orientated differently. It counts "0,1,2,3...9" from the bottom up.
Calculator Keypad Example:
The 0 remains in the same place in both cases. The only thing that different is that the bottom of the row (not the 0) is switched with the top row.
Now I know I used my dusty old phone as an example but this is even true on your smartphone! Go on go check right now! Go into your phone app and calculator app. They are different! Isn't it just amazing how our conscious brains don't recognize (maybe you have) such a crucial thing. But our sub conscious is at work helping us through our life. Cool.
Ever had that one teacher that could make what ever you were learning exciting and easy? Or the one teacher that brought experiments to life in-front of the class. Well I had one in high school, for the sake of this blog he was named Mr. L.
Mr. L was my Math teacher and could teach math to anyone. He could teach it to the point that your dogs dog could even understand. But the most important aspect of Mr. L's lesson plans were that he promoted a growth mindset. Mr. L made it more apparent to me than anyone that in order to truly learn this growth mindset needs to be adopted.
The growth mindset is where the title of this blog comes from. "Learn to Learn," to me that's what the growth mindset is all about. The growth mindset means that you ask the question why, challenge yourself and try new things. By doing these 3 things you are not only growing your brain to even a bigger brain but you are doing what I like to call deep learning.
Learning to learn, deep learning or growth mindset's - whatever you want to call it - are what these rare teachers are trying to show us. You don't have to memorize to be good at anything, it's all about the set up to what you are trying to do.
Let's use mathematics as an example; perfect because I love math. If I hadn't used a growth mindset while learning math I don't think I would love it as much as I do. To learn math to a good understanding you need this growth mindset.
