Just bought this "record book" at Staples, 11 a.m. approximately, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2013. A regular journal costs about $10 to $15, but I didn't see any of those I really liked. While I was standing there an employee kindly asked if I needed any help, and I asked him, "Do you still have ledgers?" He thought for a second then took me to a different aisle and I found this, priced at about $45. But it's really what I was looking for, so I'm glad he (Darryl, I believe) asked if I needed help. This ledger book has 300 numbered pages, but is otherwise like a normal blank journal with ruled paper, except maybe has a better quality binding.
Yep, tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination, which is (tomorrow is) also a Friday like it was in 1963.
This morning I was half asleep, probably around 4 o'clock, and found myself wondering if there's a type of average where the order of the numbers--increasing or decreasing--matters. I turned on the light and wrote the thought down. Now I'm back to thinking about it, here at 11:45 a.m. (still 21 Nov.), sitting in my dining room, having escaped work to run errands and eat lunch. It's not really the increasing versus decreasing (well, maybe it is, who knows?) as much as just changing the order of the numbers that are summed in doing a calculation of the average or mean value.
For just regular numbers, rational, or real, or complex, it doesn't matter. Are there situations--as usual, I'm thinking of physical situations and not just math--where either the summing order matters or the--what? All that's left is to divide by the number of numbers that were summed, right? But there are two steps involved, the summing and the dividing.
The property of noncommutation in the realm of multiplication is well known. Matrices, for example, don't commute under multiplication, or however you're supposed to say it. So is there a mathematical operation, based on a physical situation, where noncommutation under addition occurs?
You all could be laughing like hyenas out there in the future, but I don't know if that's because I'm overlooking or forgetting some example of addition not commuting, or because the idea is an absurdity. But laughing is good for the soul, so long as it isn't at someone else's expense. And you're not bothering me one bit, so don't worry about it.
I'ts a dark, cool but not cold, and not yet rainy, day today. I'm writing in the semi-darkness (no lights on) of the dining room at 807 W. 12th Ave, old Pine Bluff. Jessie (the dog) is asleep on the couch in the adjacent living room. I just called David Peyton at work to tell him that with running errands, eating lunch, and having to meet the heating and air guy at 1:30 so he can check the furnace and replace my air filter, it's unlikely I'll be back until about closing time. Then I can get some paperwork done.
