Everything I learned from Hipparchus
Well, I’m off to a bad start already—because I’ve learned almost nothing from Hipparchus. Allow me to explain…
When I was in eleventh grade, as was the sad lot of most college-bound high school students, I was forced to take Trigonometry. I was no one’s notion of a good student and, as a student of mathematics, I was even worse (I did not develop a taste for the subject until long after high school—perhaps that says more about the teaching of math than the study of it).
But that’s neither here nor there. Suffice it to say that I did not do well in Trigonometry. Hipparchus did his best to make his creation understandable, but his lessons fell on my profoundly deaf ears. By the end of the third quarter, my report card listed my Trigonometry grade as “30.” As in “30 out of a possible—but extremely unlikely—100.”
My Trigonometry teacher was a foreign exchange teacher from England: Colin Something-or-other. He was incredibly nerdy, as in “nerdy as only a British maths scholar can be.” His hair appeared to have been ignored for several generations—possibly since The Norman Conquest—and his clothes were an absolute wonder to behold. While American teachers tended to wear business suits, white shirts, and conservative ties, Mr. Something-or-other wore an assortment of ill-matched patterns in tie, shirt, jacket, and trousers—often sporting violently-opposing designs. Whenever possible, his clothes were selected from a spectrum of colors ranging from compost to mulch.
From the way he conducted his classes, it was clear that he did not understand the way things worked in an American high school. That suggested a way out of my academic predicament. I told him that I wanted to drop the course, and would need to see the guidance counselor. He could see that—given my absence of aptitude for the material—my request was prudent, so off I went.
When I told the guidance counselor what I planned to do, he had only one thing to say: “You are college-prep! There’s no way I will allow you to drop this course. Get back to class!” Crestfallen, I took my time getting back to class. When Mr. Something-or-other opened the door, I just blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“It’s done. I dropped the class.”
He sent me off to study hall (the place for students who were not scheduled to be in an actual class). In place of Trigonometry, I had study hall—or free time to spend in the art room—for the rest of my junior year.
The next year, just before graduation, I was summoned to the principal’s office. One of the women behind the office’s counter told me why I’d been called. “For some reason,” she said, “there’s no final grade for Trigonometry in your record.”
“That’s because I dropped it.”
“Oh… that explains it.” Problem solved.
In retrospect, I believe I did retain a few lessons—lessons that have molded my life—from that Trigonometry class. Even if not from Hipparchus.
First (and this is one of my most useful life lessons): if you tell someone something, and if that something is even vaguely plausible—and (pay attention; this is the important part) if that something can be blamed on the neglect of someone other than the person you’re addressing—that person will, more-than-likely, believe you. Most bureaucratic employees are more-than-willing to accept any cockamamie notion that:
1) means less work for them,
2) is compatible with their experience of the bureaucratic system’s inherent fallibility, and
3) can be blamed on someone else.
Second: I learned how nerds are supposed to dress. It’s one of the ways they recognize their own kind in a crowd. Consequently, I have enthusiastically usurped Colin Something-or-other’s sartorial approach as my own.
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