Thursday, March 12, 2026

Martian Math

S3

The Martian Math moniker is multi-layered. In the full blown science fiction tale I tell, Earthling kids are being trained in ET math, but the ETs are here, not on Mars, and they want to learn from us about hydro-electric dams, whereas Earthlings have a lot to learn from them, so a 2-way street is posited. Lets build a dam together; a jumping off point into electromagnetics topics.

Synergetics is more coming from the ETs than from the Earthlings; ergo Synergetics seems alien, strange, weird (pedagogical positives when managed properly). The Earthling kids in our Martian Math class also learn how the ET kids learn Earthling math. TetraBook goes here. Tested at Reed College and other places around town c/o Saturday Academy.

And once we’re in the mood (mode) for science fiction: War of the Worlds and the Orson Welles reading thereof are important, as a fork to both H.G. Wells and his non-fiction (world between wars) as well as fiction (Time Machine), and to Orson Welles going forward into Film Studies (Media Studies). That War of the Worlds anticipates the virus (as yet unknown) in some dimensions (see web pages) is a jumping off point into biology, virology, crystallography, STEM in general.

Finally, Martian Math may be contextualized in its Silicon Forest context as one of four maths: Casino, Supermarket, Martian, Neolithic. The idea here is Martian is forward-facing futuristic (all the future), Neolithic faces back in the direction of prehistory (all the past), Casino covers risk and chance, probability and Supermarket is all about logistics, commerce and distribution. 

Martian - Neolithic is a time arc, whereas every age, every time slice (every now), has to compute in terms of possibilities, probabilities, and operate logistically using inventory (the BE DO HAVE of GST).

However it’s all supposed to stay flexible and optional. There’s no one right way, but when I do it I experiment and expand in specific directions, as would anyone.