Trego's Mountain Ear

"Serving North Lincoln County"

Category: Community

  • The Density of Water Explains When Dickey Lake Freezes

    Water reaches its maximum density at 39.2 degrees Fahrenheit. Then it sinks, displacing less dense water that then moves to the surface. Out in the middle, Dickey Lake is about 70 feet deep (74′ at the deepest point). My shallow pond quickly cools to 39.2 degrees F throughout, then further cooling at the surface makes the water less dense, so the surface water stays in place and ice forms quickly across the pond.

    The same process exists in Dickey Lake – but the greater depth and volume of water challenges a warm winter to chill the entire lake to 39.2F. The water escalator continues to move the dense water toward the bottom, releasing warmer water for the surface – while ground temperature doesn’t warm the water significantly in the summer, it does provide a small amount of warming in the winter, but not important.

    The ice across Dickey Lake, and which day the lake freezes is basically controlled by the simple fact that water reaches its maximum density at 39.2 degrees Fahrenheit. As the ice melts in the spring, that heavier, warmer water sinks away from it.

  • Watching Iran

    I’ve watched Iran since I first read the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam – though Omar’s lines stressed Nishapur and not Tehran. I watched those 444 days of the embassy takeover – an event that left Jimmy Carter tarnished and ended with Reagan’s inauguration. I listened to people who explained the long shot nature of sending Navy helicopters across the desert for a hostage rescue.

    I’ve dealt with a few radical Islamists disrupting classes – and many more decent Muslims. Because of the balance of people, I’m hoping that the ordinary Iranian in the street somehow overcomes the ayatollahs. Yet bare hands against machineguns seems like trying to overwhelm radical Islam with bodies – and it reads like they may do it.

    Airpower and cruise missiles seem like a poor choice of weaponry to support street demonstrations – asking Donald Trump for help is good, but he doesn’t have the tools where they are needed.

    Yet I remember reading of Terence MacSwiney – Lord Mayor of Cork, arrested for sedition in 1920. Sinn Fein all the way.

    My hope is that he is still correct.

  • The Quality of Numbers

    Not all numbers are suitable for math, yet we can still use them. Section, Township and Range allow us to find a location on a map, or travel to a specific location. It’s usually expressed in terms Like T37W R25N S19 – which translates to Township (36 Square Miles) 37 W (west of the point of origin) Range 25 North (of the point of origin, section 19. That’s a numeric system that has been with us since 1785 – we have had the rectangular coordinate system longer than we’ve had the Constitution. At the northwest corner of the state, it’s pretty easy to use. Down by Virginia City, around the point of origin, you have to be real careful about the N,S,E and W. I found myself off by six miles a couple times when I got careless there. For those who can’t handle that system, we have street names and numbers. There are still some advantages to street numbers – on Fortine Creek Road, the street numbers show distance from the railroad track crossing at Trego.

    In some cases – social security numbers, for example – the number exists only as an identification. When I couldn’t get decent data on migration, I started using U-Haul rental rates as a substitute. For example, renting a U-Haul 15′ truck from Los Angeles to Eureka shows up as $4,817. Taking the truck back from Eureka to LA is $1,112. I can’t turn that into precise migration data – but I have no problem inferring that there is a lot more migration from Los Angeles to northwest Montana than the other way around. It’s valid – but I have had people dismiss the conclusions because the data is not adequately precise for them. For me, U-Haul provides a great resource on migration. I can find more specific numbers – but not as current. So we have numbers that are only useful as identifiers, and we have numbers that are useful in determining locations, and I can even use U-Haul prices to determine migration trends (and in this application I have had the mathematically illiterate question my conclusions).

    Ordinal numbers show position in a list – or first, second, third in a contest. My street address shows not just my position on the street, it also shows the distance from the railroad crossing at Trego. The U-Haul prices show that there is a lot more migration from Los Angeles to NW Montana than vice-versa. There are a lot of times when I can’t get perfect data – but I can get usable data. Usable data beats non-existent data.

    In the movie “Tombstone” Doc Holiday describes gambling: “Poker’s an honest trade – only a sucker bucks the tiger.” There are different significant numbers in various forms of poker. In draw poker, where the hand is not seen until the end of the game, the odds have been calculated, published and frequently memorized. In five card stud, where a single card is concealed and the next four are dealt one at a time, face-up, you can develop a rough estimate of each hand’s statistical probability. Draw poker is an honest trade – stud poker even more so – it is a statistician’s game (I ignore the psychological aspects of the game). The numbers have a different quality when four cards in each hand are visible.

    There are people who think they aren’t good at math – I think that they were taught by people who didn’t share all of the wonderful ways to use numbers. Of course, I am the guy who used a rather large set of loaded dice to help teach statistics. One of my former students asked where the dice were when he visited campus, and I explained my daughter had taken them with her when she moved to study at USD. His comment still puzzles me – “I guess that she doesn’t call home for money very often.” Language can be as confusing as numbers – and, as Doc Holiday said, “Poker’s an honest trade.” Dice usually are – but I guess most teachers don’t use loaded dice.

  • Robert Treat Payne Had Traveled To Greenland

    You probably don’t recall Robert Treat Payne, but most of us have seen his name, high among the signatures on the Declaration of Independence. So far as I can find out, he was the only man who signed the Declaration who had been to Greenland. I suspect that one out of fifty-six stood as the highest proportion of American legislators who had been to Greenland for some time.

    Robert Treat Payne – entered Harvard at age 14, graduated in 1749, just as his father went broke. He spent a year working as a teacher, and by 1750 went to sea – where he reached Greenland, Europe and the southern colonies. He decided a sailor’s life was not for him, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1757. I cannot connect Payne with any efforts to bring Greenland into the United States – though I can show a convoluted connection with an attempt to claim Tasmania for France. (The connection is there, but no argument that convinces me Payne was involved in the untimely attempt) In 1770, he was one of the prosecutors in the Boston Massacre case.

    If you look at Paine’s biography, it seems obvious that he favored independence for the United States . . . and equally obvious that he didn’t want to return to the sea or to Greenland.

  • 75 Years Ago in New York

    I spotted this copy of an American Labor Party political flyer from days gone by on a Canadian blog:

    Congressman Marcantonio was first elected as a Republican in 1934 from Harlem. He lost the next election, then switched to the American Labor party and won six more terms. He ran for mayor of NYC in 1949, lost, and in 1952 the Dims, Repugnants and Libs backed a single candidate to beat him and succeeded in voting him out. The American Labor Party, lacking any representation in Congress died shortly after Vito (d. 1954).

  • Recovery Time for a Retiree

    I went through hernia repair surgery on the second of January. A skilled surgeon, using a special robotic tool, made for minimally invasive surgery. So I have a 15 pound limit until Valentine’s day, and after about ten days I feel like getting back to work. The package says you should be able to go back to work a couple-three days after surgery. For any job I have held in the last 35 years, I could have gone back to work.

    But I’m not employed – I’m retired. And most of the work for a retiree doesn’t include other people to do the lifting and toting. I have a shower repair that is being put off until mid-February. No big thing – there’s a second shower upstairs, and with my new knee I handle the stairs well. I’d like to be working on the service station remodeling tasks – but the lifting limit makes it too easy to do something stupid. There’s a bunch of blowdown that needs cleaned up – but again, it would be all to easy to do something stupid. I need to re-level the sawmill, and mill more boards – but a 2×8 is probably about at the limit. Sam came by with the little goats – I offered to take a lead rope, and the answer was “They can exert a lot more that 15 pounds worth of effort. I realized the Talon had been parked too long and needed to charge up the battery – and, after I had the hood up, I realized lifting the hood was more than 15 pounds. I carry firewood onto the porch one piece at a time, instead of pulling a loaded cart up. Taking groceries in to the house takes so many trips that I bless the new knee.

    Finally, I looked at the snow free yard and realized I could grab a shovel and start cleaning up the winter’s supply of dog droppings. It isn’t a flashy task – but at least it’s something that I can do within the lifting limit. Old retired guys need to do a lot more lifting than old professors.