algorithm and algebra

Flow chart of an algorithm (Euclid's algorithm)
for calculating the greatest common divisor 

In this time steeped in computers, the engine under the surface of this website and much of the technology we use is full of mathematics and computer science. That means it uses algorithms. I just read a story today about how facebook is tweaking its algorithms for what we see in our feed. What is all this about and where did it come from?

Without getting too complicated, an algorithm is a self-contained step-by-step set of operations to be performed. Algorithms can perform calculations, process data and automate reasoning.

The concept and origin of the word goes back centuries. The words 'algorithm' and 'algorism' come from the name al-Khwārizmī. Al-Khwārizmī (Persian: خوارزمی‎‎, c. 780-850) and from Algoritmi, the Latin form of his name.

He was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, geographer, and scholar. The importance of al-Khwārizmī's contributions to mathematics can also be seen in "algebra" (derived from al-jabr, one of the two operations he used to solve quadratic equations. His name is also the origin of (Spanish) guarismo and of (Portuguese) algarismo, both meaning digit.

Baseball's Dodgers

Of all the American baseball team names, the Dodgers may have the oddest nickname.

Today, they are the Los Angeles Dodgers, members of the National League West division of Major League Baseball (MLB), but their origin goes back more than a hundred years to Brooklyn, New York. But those beloved Brooklyn Dodgers went through a series of name changes.

Brooklyn Dodgers logo of 1910-1913

The Dodgers were originally founded in 1883 as the Brooklyn Atlantics, taking the name of a defunct team that had played in Brooklyn before them. The team joined the American Association in 1884 and won the AA championship in 1889 before joining the National League in 1890.

They promptly won the NL Championship their first year in the League.

They were called the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers in 1895. The nickname came from the busy streets surrounding where they sometimes played (they moved a lot) and the dangerous dodging of newly-electrified and faster trolley cars and traffic in general in that New York City borough. That name was still new enough in September 1895 that a newspaper could report that, "'Trolley Dodgers' is the new name which eastern baseball cranks [fans] have given the Brooklyn club."

They had played at a number of parks and were then at Eastern Park, where there weren't any trolley lines, only the elevated railway. The name was soon shortened to Brooklyn Dodgers.

But other team names were used by the franchise that would finally be called "the Dodgers" and the list included some really odd ones: the Grooms, the Bridegrooms, Ward's Wonders, the Superbas and the Robins. These nicknames were used by fans and newspaper sports writers to describe the team, but not officially adopted by the team whose legal name was the Brooklyn Base Ball Club.

In 1932, the word "Dodgers" appeared on team jerseys and the following year it appeared on both home and road jerseys.

In Brooklyn, the Dodgers won the NL pennant twelve times and the World Series in 1955.

The first major-league baseball game to be televised was Brooklyn vs. Cincinnati at Ebbets Field on August 26, 1939. Batting helmets were introduced to Major League Baseball by the Dodgers in 1941.

But Jackie Robinson's story may be the most famous Brooklyn Dodgers story. For most of the first half of the 20th century, no Major League Baseball team employed a black player. I the Negro Leagues, players were denied a chance to prove their skill before a national audience. Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to play Major League baseball in the 20th Century when he played his first major league game on April 15, 1947 as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

General Manager Branch Rickey was the key to Robinson's entry and his motivation was both moral (He was a member of the Methodist Church, the antecedent denomination to The United Methodist Church of today, which was a strong advocate for social justice and active later in the Civil Rights Movement.) and a business consideration.

Real estate businessman Walter O'Malley had acquired majority ownership of the Dodgers in 1950 when he bought the shares of team co-owners Branch Rickey and the estate of the late John L. Smith. He had been working to buy new land in Brooklyn for a new, more accessible and better ballpark than Ebbets Field, which was beloved but outdated.

He was offered a site in Flushing Meadows, Queens, but passed as it was planned to include a city-built, city-owned park. The site was the eventual location of Shea Stadium, home of the NY Mets.

O'Malley decided to look outside New York. Los Angeles officials attended the 1956 World Series looking to bring a team home and originally targeted the Washington Senators. (The Senators did eventually move in 1961 to become the Minnesota Twins.)

About the same time, the owner of the baseball NY Giants was also looking for a new ballpark and having a tough time. Their equally antiquated home stadium, the Polo Grounds was unsuitable for updating and, finding no NY real estate, the team moved to San Francisco.

The Brooklyn Dodgers played their final game at Ebbets Field on September 24, 1957, beating the Pittsburgh Pirates. But the Brooklyn version of the team still has fans, as is evidenced by the vintage and reproduction memorabilia still sold today - and especially popular in Brooklyn.

The team moved to Los Angeles and on April 18, 1958, the Los Angeles Dodgers played their first game in L.A., defeating the former New York and newly relocated and renamed San Francisco Giants, 6–5, before 78,672 fans at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. They played for four seasons at the Coliseum before moving to their current home of Dodger Stadium.

Though there were no trolleys to dodge in Los Angeles, there certainly was plenty of freeway traffic.

God Bless You and the Sneeze

God bless you (also "God bless" or "Bless you")is a common English response to to a sneeze.

The phrase has been used, not for sneezes, in the Hebrew Bible by Jews (cf. Numbers 6:24), and by Christians, since the time of the early Church. Generally, it was meant as a benediction, as well as a means of bidding a person "Godspeed," an expression of good wishes or good luck to a departing person or a person beginning a journey.

During the plague of AD 590, Pope Gregory I ordered unceasing prayer for divine intercession. Part of his command was that anyone sneezing be blessed immediately by saying "God bless you." Sneezing was often the first sign that someone was falling ill with the plague.

By 750, during a plague outbreak or not, it became customary to say "God bless you" as a response to one sneezing. It was once thought that sneezing was an omen of death, since many dying people fell into sneezing fits.

Not all sneezing had negative connotations. Later, the Hebrew Talmud called sneezing “pleasure sent from God.”  The Greeks and Romans believed that sneezing was a good omen and responded to sneezes with “Long may you live!” or “May you enjoy good health.” 

It is still seen as a sign of good fortune or God's beneficence in some cultures, as seen in the German word Gesundheit (meaning "health") sometimes adopted by English speakers, and the Irish word sláinte (meaning "good health"), the Spanish salud (also meaning "health") and the Hebrew laBri'ut (colloquial) or liVriut (classic) (both spelled: "לבריאות") (meaning "to health").

See also:  wikipedia.org/wiki/Responses_to_sneezing

Data

The word "data" has some controversy surrounding it. The controversial aspect is not its origin. In English, it is a mid 18th century word from Latin datum, meaning literally "something given,’" (neuter past participle of dare ‘meaning "give." "Data" is the Latin plural of "datum", and still may be used as a plural noun in this sense, but today "data" is most commonly used in the singular, as a mass noun, in the way that we use "information", "sand" or "rain."

There is some controversy on its pronunciation. Some people say day-tah and some sat dah-tah. But there is also disagreement about its usage.

Data is facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis.  But is data a singular, uncountable noun, or should it be treated as the plural of the now-rarely-used datum?

In most cases, even if the quantity of data is singular (one number, for example) we say "data" as opposed to datum.

Though I don't think I have ever used the word, "datum" is apparently used in some fields to mean "an item given". I found that "In cartography, geography, nuclear magnetic resonance and technical drawing it is often used to refer to a single specific reference datum from which distances to all other data are measured. Any measurement or result is a datum, though data point is now far more common."

The New York Times use "data" either in the singular or plural: "the survey data are still being analyzed" and "the first year for which data is available." The Associated Press style guide classifies data as a collective noun that takes the singular when treated as a unit but the plural when referring to individual items ("The data is sound.", and "The data have been carefully collected.").

We encounter data in many forms, including: in computer science, as an android in the Star Trek universe and a character in The Goonies and even as a non-governmental organization founded by Bono.

Seattle Baseball

Pitchers and catchers have been warming up since late February in warmer climes and the cry of "Play ball" is as sure as spring. In my continuing series of sports team names and specifically those for baseball teams, in this post I visit Seattle which has been the host city to a number of baseball teams.

The original Pacific Coast League minor league club in Seattle was initially called the Indians, as a reference to the Native American legacy of the area. That team was renamed the Seattle Rainiers. Though it obviously references Mount Rainier, it actually was named for the Rainier Brewing Company.

The Rainiers operated through 1968. At that time, the major leagues expanded and a new Rainiers ball club was formed and played from 1972–1976.


The Seattle Pilots AL expansion team in 1969 was named for the many marine activities in the Puget Sound area. The name references not airline pilots, but ship pilots who guide large ships into port. The Pilots' caps featured the "scrambled eggs" golden-leaf symbol of a ship's captain.

The team ran into financially troubled waters and and became the first major league club since the 1901 Milwaukee Brewers to switch cities after one year.

The Pilots moved to Milwaukee and became the new Milwaukee Brewers.

Ken Griffey Jr. Mariners #24 Hall of Fame shirt - via Amazon

The current Seattle baseball team is the Mariners who came about during another AL expansion in 1977. As with the Pilots, the name is a nod to fishing and other marine activities.

In a nod to the past, the Rainiers name has been used by the Seattle Mariners' Triple-A affiliate in nearby Tacoma since 1995.