PARADOX
Gabriel’s horn (the surface formed by revolving the curve 1/x around the x-axis from x=1 to ∞) has an infinite surface area but a finite volume π. This seems strange enough, but if one really wants a mental stretch, think about the following problem (posed, I can only assume, by a bored but brilliant house-painter of old). To paint the infinitely large surface of Gabriel’s horn, an infinite volume of paint must be required. Because the horn’s volume is finite, this infinite amount of paint cannot be contained inside the horn. Yet if the horn is filled with paint, the entire horn should be covered, with some additional paint not directly in contact with the horn to spare. One can thus coat an infinite surface area with a finite amount of paint (in which case, the aforementioned painter need only ever buy one bucket of paint to last the remainder of his career). Author’s note: The work below is based on the 11th and 50th-anniversary edition of Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry, by Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson. In my piece, I draw on rhetoric surrounding my high school’s new and much-resisted policy requiring all students to wear identification cards. Don’t regard the views I present too seriously, though, for I wrote this in a moment of poetic rashness. In no way do I intend to express my actual feelings, nor those of my teacher, nor those of the legions of suffering English students who agree with me.
―Dominic Surya “But all they want to do / is tie the poem to a chair with rope / and torture a confession out of it.” ―Billy Collins Published in the opinion page, as a member of the Community Advisory Board of the Holland Sentinel, the newspaper of Holland Sentinel.
Holland — Oh, what a wretch I once was! Poor, ugly and unmotivated, I wandered, desperate for direction. You too dream of beauty and brilliance, purpose and power, life everlasting, believing them impossible fantasies — but behold! Help is at hand! That’s right: In the next 580 words, I’ll reveal your personalized path to perfection — your truth, your light and your way — condensed into effortless reads after years of arduous self-improvement on my part. Prepare to be transformed.
Published in the opinion page, as a member of the Community Advisory Board of the Holland Sentinel, the newspaper of Holland Sentinel.
Last Friday I enjoyed the privilege of taking the 2011 Advanced Placement U.S. History examination. Serenaded by the pounding drum line and blaring trumpets of the Holland High School marching band, I frantically shaded in lettered ovals to regurgitate my knowledge of America’s past and then dashed off three essays, taking care to pick arguments that could be defended simply and concisely. My mission: to weasel in as many points as possible so that the College Board’s all-important scoring formula might deem me a bona fide student of U.S. history. This was a chance to prove myself. Yet amidst the focus on one standardized, official assessment, I cannot help but feel a hollowness. On my AP U.S. history exam — and indeed all standardized exams — we test-takers work solely toward a score, a result that requires minimal consideration of the meaning and impact of the knowledge being tested. For too many, I think, this makes history a dull drill, a monotonous marathon of textbook-reading and text-based test-taking too abstract to connect to real life. History becomes a game for professors. Published in the opinion page, as a member of the Community Advisory Board of the Holland Sentinel, the newspaper of Holland, Michigan.
I recently toured the cafeterias of two area schools with a group of fellow students from Holland High. Our mission: to learn about and comment on ideas for a new high school to be built as part of Holland Public Schools’ $73 million bond initiative. Excited by the prospects and new ideas I’d seen, I returned to school and boasted of the day’s adventure to a math teacher. “You’ve done what?” she whispered, incredulous. She paused, squinting directly into my eyes. “That sounds about as worthwhile as touring local bathrooms to determine the optimal arrangement of stalls.” |
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