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    The Binomial Man
    The Binomial Man
    The Binomial Man
    Ebook149 pages1 hour

    The Binomial Man

    By R. Paul Stevens

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    About this ebook

    In this rollicking memoir author Paul Stevens recounts his efforts to become an ocean going sailor (at 60), a surfer (at 65), and a skier (at 68), by compensating his complete lack of sporting talent with sheer determination.
    Along the way he gets a new body, and a whole new outlook on life.

    The inspiration to succeed at these sports springs from an experience early in life in which he mastered the binomial theorm.
    Funny yet informative this book on three sports which intersect at points also takes the reader on the inside track to longboard surfing in middle age by focusing on the journey itself to that first amazing ride.

    [Introduction - The Binomial Theorem - If Only You Were Here Yesterday! - No Way But Down - The Two Best Days of your Life - The Acid Test - Surfing is a Risky Business - Unfinished Business - So You Want to be a Sailor? - Quipping Up - Surfing Fit - Dubai - So You Want to Buy a Yacht? - Ski Lifts - The Jump Up & Drop - The Nature of the Beast - The We$t Coa$t Crui$e - It’s All About the Wind - Catching The Wave (& ) The Right (of) Way - Let’s Go! - The Nightmare Continues! - The Facts of Life - Can You Explain this? - Round the World - Again - No Way But Down (2) - Epilogue (1) - Have you Got Your Seats? - Epilogue (2) Murphy’s 10 Laws of Surfing]

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherR. Paul Stevens
    Release dateJun 4, 2012
    ISBN9781476477930
    The Binomial Man
    Author

    R. Paul Stevens

    There is a favorite line from my novella Dinner Party For Eight in which Angela asks Harry:“What do you think I am?”Harry considered this for a moment. What was she actually?“Well I suppose you are a very beautiful cook.”So if I have to answer the same question what am I actually? I would also need to consider this for a moment. I would like to say I’m an ex astronaut, have more degrees than a thermometer, have competed in the Tour de France without any EPO, surfed Teahupoo in Tahiti and emerged unscathed, sailed round the world, am an ace Alpine skier, am a member of Mensa, have a beauty queen wife and gorgeous kids, and started my own corporation which has listed on NASDAQ. I could go on but like Arnold Schwarzenegger I don’t want to boast.Well to be honest, I have gone some of the way towards all those things. I do have a letter from Wernher von Braun, I do have three degrees in Physics, I have flown in a jet plane (Emirates Air), I do cycle the mega steep hills here where I live but unfortunately can’t get EPO anywhere, I am a keen surfer who has almost managed to break his neck, I am an ocean going skipper and I did own my own yacht though if it was me I wouldn’t sail with me as captain, I do ski but you need to get out of the way, I do have a beautiful wife (though her agreeing to marry me has to be my biggest piece of luck ever) and two great kids, I do have my own software business but no stock exchanges alas and I would like to take the Mensa test but I’m pretty sure I would fail and then I wouldn’t be able to live with that so I would rather rationalize. I live in that sapphire city – Cape Town.

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      Book preview

      The Binomial Man - R. Paul Stevens

      The Binomial Man

      All Rights reserved © 2012 Paul Stevens

      Smashwords Edition

      Index of Contents

      Introduction

      The Binomial Theorem

      If Only You Were Here Yesterday

      No Way But Down

      The Two Best Days of Your Life

      The Acid Test

      Surfing is a Risky Business

      Unfinished Business

      So You Want to be a Sailor

      Quipping Up

      Surfing fit

      Dubai

      So You Want to Buy a Yacht

      Ski Lifts

      The Jump Up & Drop

      The Nature of the Beast

      The We$t Crui$e

      It’s All About the Wind

      Catching the Wave (&) the Right (of) Way

      Let’s Go

      The Nightmare Continues!

      The Facts of Life

      Can you Explain This?

      Round The World – Again

      No Way But Down(2)

      Epilogue (1) Have you Got Your Seats?

      Epilogue (2) Murphy’s 10 Laws of Surfing

      Author Page

      Introduction

      Do you have talent?

      That wonderful raw quality that means you can take up any sport and excel at it within days, weeks or a few months at worst?

      Well here is my story.

      It’s about a 10 year struggle to learn ocean sailing, surfing and skiing all in my sixties and going into my seventies.

      As you will see, not only have I been not blessed with much of a body but I also qualify handsomely in the innate talent-less category.

      So what I have lacked in sporting talent and physical resources I have had to make up with lots and lots of determination.

      I hope you enjoy this book as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. Heck, you might even find some parts of my anecdotal sailing and skiing efforts in this book amusing!

      Nothing like getting things off your chest!

      No, this is not a surfing manual. Plenty of excellent books you can buy that spell everything out in great detail. Rather it focuses on the inside story of the journey itself to surfing skill yet will nevertheless fast track you to your first amazing ride…

      If somewhere, anywhere out there, there is a middle aged person looking for a (surfing) leash (excuse the pun) of life and this book helps him achieve that, then I’ve met my objective.

      Enjoy!

      1

      The Binomial Theorem

      I know exactly what you are going ask.

      What on earth has the Binomial Theorem to do with learning to surf?

      Before I go any further let me reproduce from Wikopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_theorem) what the binomial theorem is about:

      In elementary algebra, the binomial theorem describes the algebraic expansion of powers of a binomial. According to the theorem, it is possible to expand the power (x + y)n into a sum involving terms of the form axbyc, where the exponents b and c are nonnegative integers with b + c = n, and the coefficient a of each term is a specific positive integer depending on n and b. When an exponent is zero, the corresponding power is usually omitted from the term. For example,

      The coefficient a in the term of xbyc is known as the binomial coefficient or (the two have the same value). These coefficients for varying n and b can be arranged to form Pascal's triangle. These numbers also arise in combinatorics, where gives the number of different combinations of b elements that can be chosen from an n-element set.

      Got that?

      It leads to the Pascal triangle of coefficients:

      I have a very special regard for the binomial theorem and its corollary, PASCAL’s triangle.

      Actually I can trace this right back to my earliest school years.

      In my country of birth, the schooling system consisted of two sub standards (A & B) then 10 regular standards leading to a school leaving certificate known as a matric. This pass would be rewarded in the first, second or third degrees, with a first class pass being necessary to gain entrance to University.

      Now for some reason my parents decided I should switch schools after completing sub A and go to a school which actually only started at Standard 2. Never mind that I couldn’t read or write or do basic math. I just had to learn it fast.

      The net result was I finished school two years earlier than everyone else, and somehow even scraped a university pass.

      There, I decided to do a degree in science. I had dreams of becoming a famous scientist.

      At the tender age of 16 I was now confronted with advanced topics on physics, chemistry, pure and applied mathematics.

      This was a tough workload on anyone especially an immature young boy.

      My initial results were terrible. I was failing everything, simply not coping. My parents got wind of it and were very concerned putting even more pressure on me.

      The worst of all was my performance in the monthly pure mathematics test. I was getting like 20%. In fact I was bottom of the class. Give up, said Peter my oldest friend, doing the same courses as me.

      Struggling on all fronts I knew I was facing a crisis.

      Sort of make or break.

      For some reason there had been a big intake of students in the pure mathematics faculty. So many in fact there weren’t enough seats and there were always a few rows of students standing at the back of the lecture room.

      Next up was the Binomial Theorem.

      For once I wasn’t alone in my struggles. Everyone in the class was having trouble with this theorem and trying to solve the fiendish exercises that accompanied it.

      A key quarterly exam was coming up and it was devoted entirely to the Binomial Theorem.

      I went home that weekend and promised myself that I would not move from my desk until I mastered it.

      Although it is now more than 50 years later, how could I forget the mental struggle this young boy faced?

      I sat at the desk, trying, trying to understand the baffling parameters of the theorem.

      Hours went by, nothing.

      Trying everything in a desperate to understand.

      Nothing.

      Then!

      Suddenly. At least 8 hours later of a massive effort, a flash of understanding!

      Could it be true that I actually understand this beast?

      Quickly I turned to some examples and worked through them.

      Yes!

      Even before I checked the answers I knew they were right!

      My brain had generated a new brain map specially designed to crack any obtuse question on the binomial theorem.

      The impact this breakthrough had on me was massive.

      I realized if I could do this, by extrapolation, I could solve anything they might throw at me in the future.

      I wrote the test the next week.

      Every single question right!

      Top of the class!

      In fact my name was announced by the lecturer with my results and there was a buzz of disbelief from the class.

      In a dramatic reversal I had turned myself from last to first!

      And the difference between these two placings can simply be put down to determination.

      This was a lesson I never forgot.

      It powered me through university where I ended up with a Masters degree in Physics with a few distinctions along the way though not without a physical cost.

      Throughout my childhood and teens I was constantly plagued with terrible earaches. It culminated in my final university years when the additional pressure of prolonged study actually caused parts of my eardrums to blow. I lost about 40 % of my left eardrum and about 25% of my right . The ingress of the slightest drop of water into my middle ear resulted in immediate intense earache and an automatic visit to an ear specialist where the ear, now infected, had to be cleaned out by vacuum pump and then treated with antibiotic eardrops. I guess with a disability like this I was pushing my luck trying to learn to surf...

      Now you may feel it’s a stretch to equate the binomial theorem with learning to surf.

      But the moral of this story is easy to see: if you have the determination you can sweep aside just about anything to reach your goals.

      So later on when we surf that first wave together, when I say Binomial dude, Binomial! you will know exactly what I mean.

      2

      If Only You Were Here Yesterday!

      Anyone, anywhere, anytime, who is a surfer, will know exactly what this phrase means, where it comes from, and will wish exactly that in fact he could have been there yesterday.

      This was the theme of the Bruce Brown’s cult surfing film Endless Summer, in which two young surfers toured the world looking for the perfect wave, which often eluded them by a single day.

      Sort of like the stock exchange, where you hang on to endlessly to a long or short position, then get fed up and sell it after months of patiently holding it, only for the share

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