Why do I wonder why? By Jeff Davis I watch a lot of programs on PBS, Nature, Nova, History Detectives, Antiques Road Show that kind of program. I like to read books about things. There are a couple books about cosmology that I have read lately. I seem to have a thirst for knowledge. But I wonder why. In the beginning, when I started going to school, information was the grist for my mill. I didn't know why I would need it but I was sure that I would. I was afraid that I would be called upon to know something, something that would save the world, and I wouldn't know it. This trait has always been with me. My greatest fear as a teacher was to be asked a question I couldn't answer. I was obsessive-compulsive about learning things. But now much of that information is out of date. The vacuum tube is now used only by some audiophiles. The mysteries of conic sections are no longer in the syllabus. Much of the mathematics that I worked so hard to master is now relegated to the back shelves of the library. The internal combustion engine that I learned to work on is being replaced by … I don’t quite know what to call it. We use unleaded gas and leaded gas; tetraethyl lead used to reduce ‘ping’ in premium gasoline is becoming an urban myth. But this is as it should be. I have been describing progress and progress happens, like it or not. But while I am not judging progress I do have to deal with its consequences to me such as being out of date. But being out of date means being a source of history, a walking, if but slowly, history book. I never tire telling young people about the “old days.” I tell them things they are unlikely to hear elsewhere. But the question remains as to why I am still trying to learn things I will never use. I don’t talk with anyone about the Poincare Conjecture. Why I am interested? Why do I care that one of the greatest mathematical problems of the 20th century, a problem that was one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems, a $1,000,000 prize, has been solved. Why should I read about Perelman, the reclusive Russian who solved the problem, who turned down the $1,000,000 and the most prestigious award in mathematics, the Fields Prize, with the interest I used to give Playboy? Is my remaining fascination with learning ‘just for the hell of it’ the residue of a habit acquired at a young age … like smoking? But at least it keeps me off the streets and out of the pool halls. Although I don’t know what’s so bad about streets or pool halls; I think it depends on the street or the pool hall. I know streets I like to be on and some pool halls have pinball machines. I know of people who want to spend their last years having fun and indulging themselves. This seems to me to be a trivial way to spend over 70 years of knowledge and experience no matter how outdated. Thus Spake The Old Fogy looking for something significant to do while waiting to die.