Assignment 1 — Theodore

Regarding my name, you have at least six choices. In descending frequency, past teachers called me Theodore, Theo, Théo, Johns, and Édouard — but never my true first name, Jöns. That’s not surprising, as few non-Scandinavians pronounce it correctly the first time. While I don’t care what name you call me, I always write “Theodore Ehrenborg” on assignments.

I don’t dislike any subject in school — far from it — but I plan to pursue a career in only one. To find out which one, examine my Gmail account picture, which, at first glance, resembles a pyramid.

But it’s much more than that. It’s a Sierpinski tetrahedron, constructed by replacing a tetrahedron (a pyramid with a triangular base) with four smaller tetrahedra, then recursively repeating this replacement on the smaller tetrahedra. This object’s fractal dimension, calculated by — but if I don’t stop here, I will ramble on.

My interest in math extends to my favorite website, mersenne.org. If you and math never get along, why would you explore this website? In less than 10 minutes, you can download a program that runs in your computer’s background and searches for unimaginably large prime numbers (No numbers other than 1 evenly divide a prime, e.g. 7, 23, and 101). If your computer discovers such a number, you will become mildly famous — not front-page national news, but definitely before page five — and win $3000.

Personally, I rank mathematics on the same level as superpowers; it allows humanity to understand what we cannot see, such as the centers of stars and atoms. Most normal superheroes cannot solve the world’s real problems: extreme poverty, climate change, and terrorist organizations that spread through their corrosive ideas. Consider the stereotypical superhero, Superman. Although I lack space to list all of his powers, they only enable him to stop known individuals. Besides, if Superman existed, the ACLU would sue him until he didn’t; X-ray vision violates the Fourth Amendment’s requirement for search warrants. On the other hand, control of the weather benefits nearly everyone. Beyond stopping deadly and costly hurricanes and tornadoes, I could bring rain to stop droughts, eliminate heat-stroke deaths, and stop sea-level rise. During the same time period, Superman could slightly reduce Metropolis’s crime rate.

On a more realistic level, I’d like to improve my diplomacy: the ability to communicate opinions that change others’ minds, along with the wisdom to change my own when necessary. Perhaps this goal is unattainable; if everyone understood everyone else, politics as we know it would not exist. Academically, I value engagement with my classes. If information has meaning for me, I become a stronger, more balanced student. For example, in Physics, this would entail not just comprehending the equations, but knowing why they hold true.

When my family visited my Swedish relatives this summer, we toured the capital, Stockholm. I enjoyed Rosendals Slott (loosely translated as Rosendal’s Country House), which I found fascinating but not touristy. Sweden’s current dynasty’s first king, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, built and lived in it during the early 1800s. The nobility had imported him from France, hence his name. Despite his inability to speak Swedish, despite his wife’s refusal to leave France for Sweden, despite Napoleon’s request for him to betray Sweden’s interests, Bernadotte stayed committed to Sweden and died a successful monarch. His effort, not his natural talent or luck, counted.