Feb 23 2007
Prev/Next Posts: « 20 years ago today || More about Supernova 1987A »
Scientology nuttiness part dy/dx: calculus
I thought this was a joke at first, but it appears to be true: the founder of $cientology, L. Ron Hubbard, thought calculus didn’t work.
Now, I know a lot of my readers may not like calculus, and may even hate calculus, but to say it’s wrong is, well, lunacy. Of course it works! Trying to come up with ways it works in everyday life is like drinking from a firehouse, but let me just make a list based on astronomy.
Calculus is used in:
1: determining planetary positions
2: sending spacecraft to those planets (and there are a zillion ways it’s used in this, from calculating how much fuel you use to knowing how much air the astronauts need in space)
3: determining how stars are born, live and die (something we understand pretty well)
4: calculating the tidal force of the Moon (and other planets and moons on each other)
5: calculating the gravitational field of an object
6: understanding basically anything that changes
7: understanding anything that moves
8: Newton’s three laws (and his Law of Gravitation) which are the foundation of classical mechanics
9: all of quantum mechanics too, for that matter
10: ad infinitum.
To say that calculus doesn’t work is, well, stupid. It’s also arrogant, a feature I see a lot in the field of antiscience. An arrogant person doesn’t understand a subject and therefore declares it doesn’t work. Creationists do this with biology, flat earthers do this with relativity, and Moon Hoax proponents do this with rocketry. Maybe they feel threatened by intelligence.
I am not a genius. I’m pretty well educated, and maybe even smart, but there’s still a lot of stuff out there I don’t understand. But I don’t say it’s wrong because I don’t understand it, not if there’s evidence it works. I will never understand the intricacies of biological development, or the detailed electronic analysis that goes into semiconductor physics, or even the minutiae of many of the fields of astronomy. That just means there are people out there smarter than me, since it’s clear this stuff all works. But that doesn’t threaten me. I rejoice in it! I love smart people. They help us all understand the world better, and that’s one of the best things there is.
Speaking of which, go read what Jennifer Ouellette wrote about calculus. You’ll see why I love this stuff.
Tip o’ the mortarboard to Kage at the JREF forum for the heads-up on this.
How does one drink from a firehouse? Drinking from a firehose would be difficult enough…
Have a great weekend!
Phil,
Your last two paragraphs sum it up perfectly. Just like the hard working scientists that fuel my desire for knowledge, your ability for communicating my exact sentiments is an ability I greatly respect. That is why I often return to your site.
The only thing left is to convey to our youth the rewards of scientific endeavor; instead of wasting their minds on consumerism and the likes of L Ron Hubbard and Creationists seeking to close their minds and turn them into followers.
Jef
I’ll admit it, I’m a math retard. Algebra and higher and it just doesn’t stick with me.
So I’ll take the word of it of the people that are good at it that it works. Seems to have worked out so far.
Calculus was always the BIG C! Worse than TRIG! OMG!
Once I got over my math phobia (thanks to a guy who taught 8th grade algebra and who taught me college algebra) math wasn’t as scary. I went on to take Trig and thought it was pretty neat. Then I had a 7:30am calculus class… I knew I was screwed. It turned out to be one of my favorite courses (and I’m a biologist for pete’s sake). It was totally amazing to me and I had fun with it and copped an A out of it.
And I’m NOT a morning person.
So screw Hubbard! Calculus works and it’s way cool.
Calculus doesn’t work!
(At least the way I do it.)
BTW, why is the indefinite integral of 1/cabin a good thing to take on vacation?
Because you get ‘log cabin plus sea’.
R-dr-r
Wait…
I don’t understand loony people - they just don’t make sense to me. Does that make them…gasp…right?!?!
No, I’m just joking. That would be a logical fallacy.
Wow, a guy who used calculus once in six years got the wrong answer? That proves calculus doesn’t work!
As for me, I got through calculus OK and just barely made it through differential equations!?!
However, if I had been exposed to Dr. David Goodstein and CalTech’s “The Mechanical Universe”, I might have done better. That series of lecture really does a good job of visually and mathematically explaining the roots of calculus and why it works!
Apparently ‘Dr’ L. Ron needed something like this since his career as a university student was short lived!
There doesn’t seem to be a Conservapedia entry for Calculus yet. Maybe it just doesn’t exist!
Christian Burnham, I find your integral joke to be very derivative. But then, I guess there are limits to math room humor. (I hope my wife — a math teacher — doesn’t see this comment!)
There doesn’t seem to be a Conservapedia entry for Calculus yet.
No, but it’s mentioned in the Newton and Liebniz articles. Of course, the bulk of both articles deals with their heretical religious beliefs.
Reading the linked item, I’m thinking that Hubbard was put off by some of the notation, which is understandable. While I try to read it, I must say that the whole thing is rather incoherent, especially the bits about “present time” and “havingness”. Of course, this is even more to be expected than usual for Hubbard since he’s speaking in ignorance. It almost sounds as if the third paragraph is speaking wistfully of the concept of related rates, which (in the real world) really does exist and is typically used in a whole class of problems between the middle and the end of a first course in differential calculus. Sadly, it appears Hubbard never realized that “you could establish existing rates of change in relationship to each other” using calculus.
Aside from that, though, of course calculus “works” insofar as it’s claimed to work. Unlike scientists, we don’t even have to make observations, though there is the disadvantage that we aren’t talking about anything “real”, just abstract models that can be used to describe reality. There are definitions and proofs that certain theorems follow from those definitions.
If a particularly motivated and patient student asked me “Why does the chain rule work?”, I could proceed from the definition of the derivative to present and explain a proof. During the summer, I was shopping for groceries and asked myself how I’d prove the mean value theorem, so I worked out the main ideas of a proof. Later, I read a text’s proof and found that I’d made it way too complicated, but part of the fun in math is looking for a clear and simple proof out of many possible approaches.
Christian, cute puns. Part of why those amuse me is that I don’t readily see those mathematical objects as a string of words instead of what they represent, so I don’t expect it (and can’t compose my own). I trust, of course, that you were integrating by cabin itself (however a person’s supposed to do that) rather than some variable on which cabin depends.
I think I’ll stick with just the firehose instead of the firehouse, thanks.
This takes me back to college. One of my classmates had a girl friend taking entry level physics non-calculus, (phil do you know the class?) basically a class for those that were never going to get beyond higher algebra. A few of us who had just finished regular old second semester physics were trying to help her with some homework and she kept giving us the same answer.
“no i’m not allowed to solve it that way! you guys keep trying to use calculus… we need to do this with algebra.”
MY GAWD if calculus didn’t work i would have had to go into history for a major. Way to turn a three step problem into a page and a half of algebraic nonsense.
He didn’t understand anything about algebra. His last paragraph explains that in a rate dx/dy are two variables, thus you can not solve for two variables (unknown items) with one single equation, then calculus is wrong. He is (was) very stupid on that since in calculus lot of cases of differential equations solving the result is another equation but not a number.
Another example is the people who claims that HIV does not exist as a cause for the AIDS disease since they do not understand all research for that
So can a Scientologist claim that learning calculus is against his/her religion.
Hugh, I can understand your frustration. I teach high school non-calculus based physics and fortunately most of my students are currently learning calculus so I can quickly show them the derivations of some problems.
Well, speaking as a Scientologist, I’ll say this:
1) I had never heard of this
2) Scientologists do not blindly follow every word that came out of the founder’s mouth. The man was brilliant in the humanities, but he also expressed a lot of opinions on politics, history, math and other subjects which each individual agrees or disagrees on based on his/her own judgment
3) In terms of Calculus itself, I honestly can’t make much sense of what Hubbard’s point on this is, even being a Scientologist. But then again, math was never my thing.
What all these posters don’t seem to understand is that Scientology is not dogmatic, it is empirical - based on personal observation and personal results. And that a man’s opinions are nothing but just that - even if that man was the founder of Scientology.
best,
Greg
Scientologist and proud of it
http://www.liveandgrow.org
sems to me it’s based on lunacy
IT’S BEEN MY OPINION FOR A LONG TIME THAT MATH APPREHENSION AND ATTAINMENT IS DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO THE QUALITY OF THE TEACHER. I WAS MOST FORTUNATE IN HAVING DR. WOLFGANG RINDLER AT THE UNIV. OF TEXAS AS MY TEACHER IN DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS, SO I PASSED IT FIRST TIME THROUGH, AN ACCOMPLISHMENT MY MORE INTELLIGENT AND FOCUSED BIG BRUDDER NEEDED TO TRY THREE TIMES. BUT HE DIDN’T HAVE DR. RINDLER,,,
I think most people who don’t understand something immediatly either become apprehensive about their own intellect or derisive about the subject. They just don’t understand that sometimes it takes a LOT of brain sweat to get a handle on something.
Not a genius, Phil? How do you know that? Genius is like being cool. It’s not a lable you get to assign to yourself,,,
I keep wondering when you have the time to sleep, between family, work, personal apearances and this Blog. Or is it that you’re like Issac Asimov, with 300 clones running around???
Gary 7
Trust me, Greg, if math were your thing that would make even less sense, except to show that Hubbard wasn’t reluctant to talk about something he utterly fails to understand. A bit of poking around at your link leads me to such “definitions” as “Communication: the interchange of ideas across space.”, “Control: positive postulating, which is intention, and the execution thereof.”, and “Havingness: that which permits the experience of mass and pressure.” Apparently that silly made-up word “havingness” doesn’t even have a meaningful definition! Why mass and pressure, but not force, area, acceleration, energy, or other physical quantities?
My comment and almost all the other comments didn’t say anything one way or the other regarding Scientology itself, but I wouldn’t take as gospel anything said by a man capable of such ridiculous and incoherent statements. It seems you’re claiming that’s not a problem by asserting that it is supported by empirical evidence rather than the teachings of Hubbard and his most prominent followers. Scientology, then, would be scientific rather than claptrap abusing the name of science?
Pray tell, where is this evidence? Since these bizarre notions of thetans, Xenu, “clears”, “engrams”, “assists” (magical finger-pointing) and so many others differ so profoundly from our present understanding of the world, it would be a revolution in science to prove them. Why haven’t any amazing findings been produced by Scientologist academics?
Sure, Scientology likes to present itself as improving lives with the “science” of Dianetics, which unlike real science is based on axioms, most of which seem to be nonsense about such undetectable notions as “theta”. But where is the empirical evidence to show that Dianetics is effective? Observing “personal results” through confirmation bias doesn’t count. Sure, whatisscientology.org presents me with lots of testimonials, but if I had a dime for every testimonial every quack has, I’d be as wealthy as Buffett and Gates.
And, if Scientology is empirical rather than dogmatic, why is it that whatisscientology.org tells me “The Logics were written by L. Ron Hubbard from a summary of information which began in November of 1938 and were published in 1951. They have never varied since that time.” at http://www.whatisscientology.org/html/part14/Chp41/pg0744.html ?
One could claim that this is because these are claimed to be “the basic common denominators of all education” and therefore fundamental, but the foundations of mathematics are still being investigated.
“Another example is the people who claims that HIV does not exist as a cause for the AIDS disease since they do not understand all research for that”
I note in passing that many of the people voicing that opinion have PhDs in biochemistry and other related fields. Doesn’t make them correct, but saying they don’t understand the research is at best flawed reasoning.
I actually like my calc. class (maybe because were using calc. through pizza!) it’s a cool book and I have a good teacher.
“I’ve never been able to make head nor tail of it. It must be some sort of a Black Magic operation”
That part shocked me. Just because a person doesn’t understand something doesn’t mean it’s wrong, or a joke, or “a Black Magic operation.” I’ve been using calculus in nearly all of my classes now and the idea of someone saying calculus doesn’t work just blows my mind. I’m sure if that person actually took the time to read that calc book and have someone explain it to them, they would realize that it DOES work! Sheesh.
I loved calculus in my college days, and I still do. Solving integrals was a passion making the integrand as difficult as possible and still being able to integrate it. Nowadays programs like Mathematica and the like make it much easier. Try integrating Sin(Sin x) dx. It can’t be done. No elementary functions can express the integral.
JJM
Interesting. The Integrator (http://integrals.wolfram.com/index.jsp) fails to come up with anything for sin(sin(x)), so I doubt any expression is known.
I assume it’s not too difficult to expand sin(sin(x)) as a Taylor series- which would lead to a series solution. (Exercise for the reader)
How could that not be a joke??!! Anything L. Ron Hubbard said IS funny, how the religion was founded WAS (IS) funny.
since 1+1=2 then funny+funny=hilarious unless Mr Hubbard is going to tell us that basic arithmetics doesn’t work.
My calculus teacher (a math grad student, of course) had a t-shirt that said:
2+2=5
for large values of 2
I still don’t get it, but I love to see people wearing in jokes in their field on their chest.
Microbiologists do it on slides, by the way… heeyyyyy….
Greg
with all due respect L. Ron was a BAD science fiction author with no knowledge of actual science, after all Incident 1 was supposed to take place 4 quadrillion years ago which is just a tad longer than the age of the universe.
Gosh. Maybe I’m the uber math geek here. I’ve actually used Galois Fields in my job. They figure prominently in error correcting codes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_field
>> What all these posters don’t seem to understand is that Scientology is not
>> dogmatic, it is empirical - based on personal observation and personal results.
So what are thetans really like?
Considering the so-called physics in “Battlefield Earth”, I’d say this is on par for Hubbard…
Christian Burnham
Good idea. Turning Sin(Sin (x)) into a Taylor Series and integrating. I’m sure it can be resolved that way but it underscores there is no elementary expression for a solution.
Of course if a numerical solution is required then resorting to Simpson’s rule (parabolic rule) for an approximation would be in order.
L. Ron Hubbard was a tragic case, a 3rd rate scfi author who decided to make money by inventing a religion and who finally went off the deep end when he started to believe it himself. That his grasp of math was this poor is no surprise since he wasn’t that hot on science either.
I read Battlefield Earth when I was young and it had just been released. At the end of it I remember thinking that, somehow, Hubbard had managed to squeeze a short story into 1064 pages.
I believe the integral of the normal curve can only be represented as the sum of an infinite series. I think that is the most well-known and useful such function.
Calculus could be used just to have fun, too. At least if you love maths, like me.
This has been a most entertaining thread, from the original post through a number of interesting and funny (bordering on hilarious) responses. Hubbard sounds like a moron. That said, perhaps surprisingly, the remark that I liked most was Greg’s.
To paraphrase Greg’s introduction to himself, speaking as someone who is NOT a scientologist (note my disparaging refusal to capitalize “scientologist”), I am more interested in results than reasons. Greg says that his respect for scientology is “based on…personal results.” That’s what we want - personal results. That’s why we do a lot of the things we do - to have fun, to enjoy ourselves. If I like the food at a restaurant, who cares if the chef flunked calculus? Please, though, do not mistake me for a scientologist - I try not to be weird or crazy.
I loved Calculus! I took four semesters of it when doing my undergrad. It’s very insulting for some retarded scientologist to proclaim it doesn’t work; what, they didn’t pay enough to understand it, just enough to get those pesky thetans out? BTW, dy/dx does not mean two variables, it means the derivative of y with respect to x. Just wanted to clarify that, I can’t recall which posted said something about it being two variables, but looks like an honest mistake. Maybe xenu planted that in there?
Hubbard spoke about calculus many times, and this is one particular instance taken out of context by not showing what was said before or after. He talked about calculus in many lectures. My understanding what I read is that not only did he say calculus was good, but even gave ways of how to learn it, referencing books by well known authors on the subject that could be used by people who had a hard time learning it. So rather than taking one quote of what someone said, portraing it out of context, and then writing about it, it would be wiser to follow the code of journalism. It is hanging in the news room of the School of Journalism in the University of Missouri Columbia. I am not a Scientologist, but I heard so much about Hubbard that I decided to find out for myself and I find that such quotes as you found here are taken out of context. And calculus happened to be a subject he knew much about, since he studied engineering or math (I am not sure) at the University of Washington or some place like that. All I am saying, there is more to it than people’s twisted way to potray others who they don’t like. Other than that btw: I do like your blog.
Am I the only person outside of Scientology that enjoyed Battlefield Earth, the book?
It was goofy space opera. If you only saw the movie, I can understand. The uranium reactive atmosphere was a bit of a MacGuffin, but the idea of a species so paranoid that they encrypt their mathematics down to even the +-*/ level was a funny idea. And the whole thing is a straight Campbellian tale of humanity overcoming impossible odds.
I even liked the first four and last two books of the Mission Earth series. I enjoyed the idea that human culture is so toxic that a promiscious teenager and a PR man from Earh can almost single-handedly bring down a multimillion year old alien empire.
Then again I’m a bit of a misanthrope.
>>> L. Ron Hubbard was a tragic case, a 3rd rate scfi author who decided
>>> to make money by inventing a religion
And was very successful. How many others can make that claim? I think Scientology is silly rubbish, but I have to admire it as a brilliant scam. I’m curious to see what sort of legs it has.
I just love a good hoax, I guess.
Makes ya wonder how many other religions possibly started as a bet between two fiction writers. Looking at the fantasy material available i’d say it’s entirely possible.
I have always wanted the following auto license plate derived from calculus, but was afraid that most would not understand it.\
U ds3/dt — Nothing personal of course.
It bothers me immensely that someone couldn’t “get” the relationship between differentiation and integration.
sin(sin(x)) has no closed-form anti-derivative; i.e., the best you can come up with is a series solution. If you play around a bit, you’ll find it’s pretty easy to come up with lots of functions like this.
My favourite application of Calculus was made by Johannes Kepler. He used a form of intergral calculus to determine the optimal shape and form of wine barrels. Now that’s what I call practical mathematics.
Ever tried arguing with objectivists (radical Ayn Rand fanatics) about non-euclidian geometry? They not only think it doesn’t work, they think it’s an EEEEEVIL plot to subdue and subjugate our precious bodily fluids, along with relativity. (I’m really not making this up, see the life and works of Howie Katz, Massachusetts libertarian party). Typical argument goes like this: (me): “Ever navigated? They use spherical trigonometry all the time” (Howie): “That’s not geometry, that’s trigonometry”
The most fascinating part of Mr. Hubbard’s complaint is the suggestion that he would be more interested in calculus if it could be used to relate two changes simultaneously “so that you could establish existing rates of change in relationship to each other“. I guess he missed the part about dy/dx being the rate change in “y” with respect to “x“.
It takes a special sort of man to complain that something is flawed because it doesn’t do the very thing it does best!
Very provocative. Sometimes, when I read quotes like the above, I think that LRH was just horsing around. In a cynical way: his man-made “scientific” religion even had a “scientific” “bridge to spiritual freedom”. I’ve never been able to understand his point, except the $$ and power aspects. Kick the entire human race in the butt? No wonder he had become an outlaw.
I was a Scientologist back in 1955 to 1963, from 12th grade to just after graduating. I was initially attracted by an article on Dianetics in Astounding Science Fiction magazine. Dianetics was essentially a school of psychoanalysis based on survival rather than sex as the main driving force, with a mechanistic/electronic/computer view of the mind to go with it. Dianetics gradually evolved into Scientology, but that is a whole other story.
Hubbard frequently came up with jokes and nonsense in his lectures. For example, one of the goals of Scientology processes is exteriorization, the ability of the consciousness to leave the body and roam freely through space. So when lecturing on the Route 2 series of techniques, he came to R2-45, a sure-fire method of achieving exteriorization, and he produced a Colt-45 revolver.
Dianetics/Scientlogy promised many things - a perfect memory, control of one’s emotions, a cure for psychosomatic illneses, recall of past lives, exteriorization.
When I decided I had not seen any evidence for these claims, I took it up with the Scientology organisation. They then branded me a “suppressive person”. They instructed all my Scientology friends to have nothing more to do with me, and to seize any opportunity to do me dirt. Fortunately my friends just laughed this off. At that time Scientologists weren’t so cult brainwashed. Most of them were “seekers after truth”, studying Theosophy, Yoga, Sufiism, and all sorts of esotericism.
I think Hubbard started off as sincere but misguided, and was brainwashed by his own techniques (If a technique works, then Hubbard is proved a genius; if it doesn’t work, then YOU are at fault and better come in for an ethics rundown.) He certainly ended up a nutter, believing the whole world (and the tax man) was out to get him. He spent his last years in hiding, attended by a hoard of young lasses who would do his every bidding.
Mike
Quiet Desperation:Actually, it’s experential and anecdotal,,,,kinda like REAL mystical experiences,,,hmmmm,,,
I read Dianetics in 1956, when people were telling me “Reading that’ll make ya CRAZZZZZY.”
The last chapter in that first edition was all about raising children. Even as a 13 year old, I knew what he was saying was so far off the mark, he had to be a batchelor.
Later editions had that chapter removed. Gee, I wonder why,,,
What really blows me away is that, even though his reasons for starting scientology were well known, a large number of people still swear by its validity. So, I wonder, why are WE still working for a living?
Gary 7
When stydying calculus later in life I realized that I was using a rudimentary form when I did landscaping projects that involved patios and grass plots that had irregular curved borders. I just broke the areas into successively smaller quadrilaterals and triangles, accumulating the discrete areas, then ordering the sod and concrete. I was usually right on with the amounts ordered. This was no time-consuming process as a typical backyard here in suburban CA was calculated within ten minutes.
In the early 60s, I asked a friend who was attending UCB what practical application he could think of for calculus, and got this reply: To calculate the volume contained in the intersection of two (or more) pipes. Wow!
You’re so sued, I going to sue you buddy, I will! I’ll sue you in England!
p.s. I love Katie!! really I do! I swear!
Reading that quotes page (apart from making my eyes hurt) shows me that he just doesn’t understand calculus. I avoided calculus until I had to take it, and only then because I wanted to do physics. It turned out to be far easier and more interesting than statistics. I wish I hadn’t avoided it for so long. This guy has obviously never studied it in depth. He says he talked to an engineer who said he’d used it once…I suspect the engineer was used to using a computer which was using calculus but never showed him an integral sign while it was working stuff out…he just took the answer as ‘gospel’ and when he tried it, it didn’t work because he got it wrong. And now he assumes that because he couldn’t do it, it doesn’t work. So that makes him arrogant. zjust my $0.02.
I understood Scientology to be wacky but THIS is just inCredible! Calculus not working? Man! This Hubbard is a thru and thru nut case. Crazier are those who follow this clap trap. (Excuse me Mr. Cruise). I’ve been living a sheltered life buddy, a sheltered life. Thanks BA for bringing this to our attention. mek
Mr. BA wrote, “Maybe they feel threatened by intelligence.”
No maybe about it, Phil.
Frank Says:
“Hubbard spoke about calculus many times, and this is one particular instance taken out of context by not showing what was said before or after. ”
Then please show us the context. Show the parts that came before and after so we can see it for ourselves (the actual text, not your summary or interpretation of it). If you are going to claim that this quote was taken out of context then you need to prove it. Your vague and unsourced “understanding” of what he said is not sufficient.
>Well, speaking as a Scientologist, I’ll say this:
>
>1) I had never heard of this
>
>best,
>Greg
>Scientologist and proud of it
You haven’t paid for that “tech” yet.
Flunk!
snap2grid said:
> I read Battlefield Earth when I was young and it had just been released. At the end of it I remember thinking that, somehow, Hubbard had managed to squeeze a short story into 1064 pages.
Sweet! I’ll have to remember that.
Brian said:
> To paraphrase Greg’s introduction to himself, speaking as someone who is NOT a scientologist (note my disparaging refusal to capitalize “scientologistâ€), I am more interested in results than reasons. Greg says that his respect for scientology is “based on…personal results.†That’s what we want - personal results. That’s why we do a lot of the things we do - to have fun, to enjoy ourselves. If I like the food at a restaurant, who cares if the chef flunked calculus?
Personal results are fine in matters of taste. What galls most of us is the claims to scientific validity, such as the “e-meter” and thetan nonsense. Scientology masquerades as science, or scientifically validated. But it is not. It is bad SF wrapped in the mantle of religion to give it respectability and then “justified” by fraud science.
Quiet Desperation said:
> Am I the only person outside of Scientology that enjoyed Battlefield Earth, the book?
I read it in Jr High, mostly because my brother and sister read it and I didn’t want to be left out. I enjoyed it to a degree. It did drag on a bit, and could have been two books - the story sequence could have been broken fairly easily.
TR said:
> The most fascinating part of Mr. Hubbard’s complaint is the suggestion that he would be more interested in calculus if it could be used to relate two changes simultaneously “so that you could establish existing rates of change in relationship to each other“. I guess he missed the part about dy/dx being the rate change in “y†with respect to “x“.
I think you misunderstand his comment. He is not talking about y changing with respect to x, he is talking about y and x both changing with respect to z, and simultaneously monitoring the change. Of course, calculus can do that.
Quiet Desperation said:
> Am I the only person outside of Scientology that enjoyed Battlefield Earth, the book?
No, I enjoyed it as well. It’s pretty high up on my list of favorite books. But it IS the only Hubbard book I’ll ever own or recommend to anyone…
Heh. Frank said that Hubbard understood that calculus was good, and that he even gave tricks on how to learn it.
Here is what is transcript from George Washington University says:
Plane Analytic Geometry: F
Differential Calculus (first semester): D
Differential Calculus (second semester): F
Integral Calculus: D
http://www.lermanet.com/L_Ron_Hubbard/mr142.htm
He was so gifted that he had to order his ‘diploma’ from Sequoia University, and lied about being an M.D., engineer, nuclear physicist. Some genius.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoia_University#Sequoia_and_L._Ron_Hubbard
[…] L. Ron Hubbard didn’t believe calculus worked. (Via) This entry was posted on Friday, May 18th, 2007 at 5:57 pm and is filed under Quickhit. You can […]
Enjoy getting sued…
It’s my theory that L. Ron Hubbard must have been joking the whole time, trying to see how many people he could get to believe the stupidest story ever written.
I mean, Xenu? Alien souls? DC8 Cruisersand Brainwashing Cinema?
It’s like a B Movie from Hell.
Go ahead and sue me Scientology.