The trouble with woad.

Woad is a blue dye made from a plant, Isatis tinctoria. In ancient times, a tribe living in Britain, were called the "Picts" by the Romans, because "Pict" (Picti) meant "painted ones". The Picts were noted for their woad painted blue faces.

Yesterday, Tiarnan, four, was watching a film set in Roman Britain, in which a group of Picts were chasing a splinter of a Roman legion...at least, that is what I thought they were, in my glimpse of the film...through some woods. The Romans had lost many of their men and were running scared, from a numerically superior and, it seemed, tactically superior group of Picts. Whether this was historically accurate or not, is another matter.

The screen showed a scene in which all the Picts got together and painted their faces with blue woad dye, in various patterns. Tiarnan watched attentively.

Later on that day, the Picts caught up with the Romans, who were backed against a cliff fall into a passing river. Having no alternative, the Romans jumped down into the rapids below, even though the cliff was very high, indeed, and the fall was likely to injure or kill them. The Picts, however, thought better of this idea, and stood in frustration at the top, watching the Romans getting washed away downstream.

Tiarnan looked at their frustrated blue faces and opined:

"They don't want to jump, because they don't want to wash their make up off!"

You see, that is the trouble with woad, it just gets in the way of one's daily warrior hunting. Tiarnan had found the Picts' Achilles heel: they just loved being pretty too much!

I love the way my children see the world. There is always reason in their statements, even if those reasons are missing parts of a full knowledge of the world. Indeed, that is the charm of their observations: that they have about them, an uncanny sense, that may not actually be sense, from an adult perspective. Yet, it is a kind of sense all the same.

Tiarnan was left in no doubt, however, about how I thought of his observation, for I could not stop myself laughing out loud, in a great bellow of ongoing mirth. I was too busy laughing to look at his reaction, though I wish I had.

He didn't say anything more about the Pict's "make up".

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.htmlI also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Is the future Asian?

I had to ask. You see, very recent experience leads me to wonder where the future epicentre of the world will be. I have the inkling that it might not be in the West for much longer.

Now, the experience that leads me to wonder whether the future is Asian is one that offers the same chance to all nationalities, but then allows me to observe their differing reponses. It was not a deliberate experiment, but it has turned out to be most informative.

On Wednesday 13th October, 2010, Ainan and I, announced some of our scientific work together. Specifically, this was to announce Ainan's discovery of a novel human sense perception, which I termed Velociperception. This is a little complicated but, in essence, is the direct perception of angular velocity as a colour coded experience. It means that Ainan is able to recognize the angular velocity of moving objects, at a glance, in that his mind automatically categorizes them, by assigning a colour code particular to an angular velocity. We believe this arises as a new form synaesthesia. Anyway, this post is not one for too many details, at this time, of this discovery in perception. What is of interest to me here, is the differential response of media from around the world.

I sent out invitations to local and Western media alike. What happened was rather startling. The Western media responded very quickly indicating interest in covering the event (we said it was to announce a scientific discovery), sometimes within half an hour of mailing them. The local media, however, were rather slow to respond: only two RSVPed, at all. All the others remained silent.

On the day of the press conference, something unexpected happened. None of the Western media showed up, despite their having RSVPed their interest. As for the local media, almost ALL of them showed up, despite not having told me they were coming. I found this quite startling. It seems the Western media - at least, the ones operating in Malaysia - just don't keep their word at all.

Now, we presented rather a lot of information to those who came - perhaps too much. So, it was no surprise that only two papers had articles the following day (the conference ended about 3.30 pm the previous day). However, later on the day after, news broke on a Chinese language news agency...and electrified the Chinese speaking world. The news has been taken up by many Chinese language newspapers and portals, including Baidu and Yahoo in Taiwan and Hongkong. Almost all of the hits, referring to the new phenomenon of Velociperception, are Chinese. All of the rest are Asian. Nowhere to be seen, is the Western media world...

To me, this is most telling. It speaks of a differential willingness to acknowledge a new phenomenon. The Western media, have remained silent so far...or have actually failed to keep their word on attending the event. This includes all major Western news agencies, which have just ignored the development. The Oriental world, however, has embraced the novelty of this discovery and news of it is spreading fast. So, who, therefore, is the more forward looking society? The silent West...or the chattering East?

Frankly, I am very surprised by these results. I had not expected this, at all. I had always believed the West to be more open to new ideas, but this may no longer be so. It is, from this diagnostic situation, the EAST, that is more aligned to an open future. The West have stonewalled the new work, so far and even if they do eventually cover it, the coverage would have come very slowly. The East, however, has come alive with the news, in a quite excited manner. Many sites have labelled our news as a "hot topic".

This situation does not auger well, for the West. A society that is not receptive to new ideas, that does not invite new ideas to be considered by the masses, dwelt on, by them, given attention by them, is a society which will become brittle and fossilized...a society which will slowly die. I had thought that the East, would be more likely to be such a society...but no, it is my native West.

Perhaps, then, it is not so bad, that we live in Asia, over the Europe of my youth. Perhaps, here, we will be better appreciated and find more ready acceptance of our work. Perhaps, here, too, we will find a more open future than the one I left behind a decade ago, when I left London, for South East Asia.

I didn't know this, then, but perhaps I made a good choice after all.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.htmlI also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

The Fibonacci Boy

Ainan ushered me over to him, today. There was clearly something on his mind.

"Daddy, I have noticed something strange about my birthday."

My eyes attended to him, a little anticipation gleaming in them. Or, at least, I felt so - whether it showed in my eyes is another matter.

"If you write my birthday as 1123...it is the beginning of the Fibonacci sequence!"

Sure enough, the Fibonacci sequence is sometimes written without the 0 at the beginning and is seen as 1,1,2,3...which spells out my son's date of birth. He was, as many of you will know, born on November, 23rd, 1999.

Now, some people, inclined to reading meaning into such things, might see Ainan's peculiarly apt date of birth, given his scientific interests and leanings, as somewhat prophetic. They might see it as a foretelling of what was to come.

I see it differently. I see it as poetic. It is a form of mathematical poem, that his date of birth, should so reflect his nature and connect him, to another great mind of the past - and great idea, too. There seems, to me, to be a kind of conceptual beauty in that.

Ainan, too, felt some wonder that his date of birth, should be the beginning of the Fibonacci sequence. It is also the beginning of his life and all that it shall embody. It is as if one scientific idea, has given rise to a creator of scientific ideas. Fibonacci's sequence has extended itself into a new sphere, and is now found in the birth of a scientific child prodigy. There is a natural humour in that. For Fibonacci numbers are found throughout nature. Now, they signify a scientific birth, too.

Thank you for letting me know, my Fibonacci son...for I doubt that I would have noticed it, myself. Now, that I know, its elegantly apt poetry echoes in me. I don't think that a better date of birth could have been chosen for a boy, such as Ainan. It is so elegant, in fact, that had I not known it to be true, I would have thought it a fiction, chosen by an author, to reflect the character he had created. It is a funny thought. His very date of birth, suggests the intervention of an author, in his creation, so suited is it, to the boy he is and is becoming.

This leads me to wonder whether, in the very distant future, whether Ainan might be thought, not of as a real person, who lived, but as a legendary figure, of whom they don't know whether he lived or not. This can easily happen with the passage of too much time and the poverty of records. Might future scholars not spot such oddities as his date of birth and use that as "evidence" that his life story was a fiction? There are so many oddities in his life and the lives of his parents that led up to him, that he might easily, one day, be thought of, as an unreal, mythical figure.

In a way, that is sad. For it would be to say, that those future people doubted whether he had ever lived. Though Ainan's life may be filled with interesting coincidences, oddities, and serendipities, it is very real. Yet, I do wonder, at how his wondrously strange life might one day be viewed, by people too far from us in time, to be sure that he ever truly was. Will he become, one day, just a story told and retold for its inherent fascination and symmetries? Will it be a story for children or adults? What will people think of the story?

Of course, I will never know. I can only wonder. For now, I can enjoy being a father to my Fibonacci son, and his not so numerical brothers (in terms of their dates of birth) and a husband to my wife, who has her own kind of uncanny figures. It seems I live in a most mathematical world!

Have a numerical day, all.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.htmlI also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Ainan's special moment in history.

Yesterday, Ainan looked forward to a moment he identified as special.

"What if it were February 2nd, 2022, at 2.22 pm and 22 seconds?", he asked with a little smile, which seemed to say that he thought the idea more beautiful, than amusing.

"I hope you see that moment, Ainan...you should."

His eyes engulfed the future only he could see. The thought swirled around inside his head, warming him.

I understood why he wondered so, at that future moment. For Ainan, symmetry is beautiful, pattern is beautiful - especially in concepts, numbers and science. So, for him, an instant, that was basically all 2s seemed enticing. It had a numerical perfection about it that he could not resist.

"The question, Ainan, is when that moment comes, will you remember that, today, you looked forward to it?"

His eyes appraised me, enigmatically.

"Will you remember that today we spoke of it?"

He didn't answer me. Sometimes, he kept his thoughts to himself and I would, at such times, never pry or push, but just let him be.

Of course, the fact that I had asked whether he would remember, this moment, when he spoke of that moment, yet to come, would probably ensure that, when the time came, he would remember it. In asking, I would have created the memory I asked about.

I wonder, now, whether anyone else will see that moment as significant when it comes. Will anyone note its arrival? What will Ainan be, on that day? How will he be living his life? Will Ainan's special moment in history, be special to others, too? Will it be any more special because Ainan considers it so?

That day is eleven and a half years away. On Ainan's scale that is more than another lifetime. He cannot say what and who he will be, then - and neither can I. Nor can anyone say what the world will be like, either. Much may have changed, or much may be the same. I do not even know if I will be around on that day. A lot can happen in eleven and a half years.

I rather hope that Ainan does, indeed, remember this conversation and the moment he considered that future symmetrical time. Should he remember this day, that memory will connect for him, the adult he has become, with the child he once was. He will look inwards and see his younger self looking forwards to that moment, he has finally reached. He will feel the completeness of his life, its conjoint nature, with all moments, strung together as one. He will remember too, his Daddy, as I was, then - and his little siblings around the dinner table, as he had spoken, with his Mummy across from him. It will, I feel, be a flashbulb moment that will take him back to an instant of his childhood, an instant of wonder, at what was to come. He will hold then, in his mind, the wonder he felt then, with the knowledge he has, in his future, now. He will see the contrast of hope and remembrance.

I do not know if it will be good for him to remember that future looking moment, for I do not know what his attitude will be to the time he now lives. I know this, however: he is very likely to recall the day he wondered, "What if it were February 2nd, 2022 at 2.22 pm and 22 seconds?"

I hope that the life he lives then, is one he enjoys and finds fulfilment in. If it is so, then I shall have succeeded in my role as a father. After all, my role is to nurture in him, whatever is there, to become whatever he can be, in a way that leads to a positive life, that he finds rewarding. If I succeed in that, I shall be happy - whatever life it is, that he finally chooses.

Keep on looking forward Ainan - and one day you will arrive in the times that you now only imagine.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.htmlI also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)