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by Antonio Graceffo, PhD |
While teetering on the
edge, suffering from the mental torment of studying PhD level
econometrics, taught in Chinese, I
suddenly discovered a use for higher mathematics. The
management of the Chinese university where I teach informed us teachers
that the hotel where we live complained that our microwave ovens were
tripping the electrical breakers. I knew this wasn't true because, fist,
the breakers are in our rooms. If they went out, only we would know
about it, and of course the room would go dark. But that didn't happen.
Second, it's a hotel with electrical capacity for hundreds of guests.
Obviously, there are always some rooms left vacant, which means the
hotel hasn’t maxed out their power grid yet. And finally, our suites
each have two air conditioners in them, either of which draws much more
current than a microwave.
Obviously, there was something else the hotel management were angry
about, probably that my breakfast and lunch set off the smoke alarm
twice the day before. But in Chinese culture, you NEVER tell the truth
when you are upset with someone, because this would be seen as too
direct and confrontational. Instead, you make up an implausible lie, to
demonstrate that you are upset, and the party you are upset with becomes
embarrassed, and modifies his behavior...unless he’s me. Then he sees an
opportunity for a prank. At first,
I was going to counter their
argument, citing any of the above facts. Instead, I took a Chinese
approach, agreeing that our microwaves were the cause of the Phantom
power outages. I then posted in the teacher’s social networking group a
screen shot of a full page of nonsense Voltage equations and graphs with
a message which read “Good news! I calculated the current draw of the
ovens versus the load capacity of the breakers and made some small
adjustments. Now, I think there shouldn’t be a problem.” I followed this
with “It would be great if you could take a look at my calculations and
let me know if there are any mistakes. I am not always the best at maths,
you know.” The
university administrator responded with a “thumbs up” emoticon and
forwarded my message and picture to the hotel with a message reading
“Our ingenious teachers have solved the problem.” The hotel responded
with an emoticon which, I originally thought was a smiley face, but on
second glance, the face just looked blank and surprised like a sex doll. When this
problem first started, my knee jerk reaction was to disprove the
allegation. But, by taking this tact I have, created an “out” for the
university administrator who probably hated being stuck in the middle.
Additionally, this solution validated the feelings of the hotel (yes,
hotels in China have feelings), confirmed that they were right about the
cause of the problem, and lead them to believe that I feel they are
better at math than me. As long as I don’t set off the smoke alarm
again, this can all go down as a win-win in international diplomacy. And
I owe it all to higher maths.
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