If you look a bit foreign, don't do math on a plane

[micromass]

I doubt that a significant number of Americans have the slightest idea of how arabic may look like.

Really? Everybody who watches the news and sees all these "terror groups" has seen some arabic.

 

[fresh_42]

Really? Everybody who watches the news and sees all these "terror groups" has seen some arabic.

The Americans I know draw another picture of the common knowledge of the average American.
Edit: I doubt it's any better over here. Some special issues excluded for the rate of contamination is by the nature of our societies a higher one.

 

[micromass]

Well all of this is anecdotal anyway. I would be very interested in a serious study where american citizens need to distinguish different "languages" and where it turns out they can't distinguish math from arabic. Maybe you're right, and they can't. I doubt that. But until they seriously investigated it, I'm not going to pick a side.

 

[fresh_42]

In radio shows they sometimes do random street polls and ask people simple questions like: What's the highest position in the state? How long does it take the Earth to orbit the sun? What does <any latin originated word> mean?
I regularly have to change the channel because I can't stand the answers.
(Of course I know they cut in the especially stupid ones. However, they occur and are seemingly not hard to find.)

 

[Vanadium 50]

At any rate, how dangerous is someone with a pen, anyways?

The pen is mightier than the sword.

 

[Borg]

This discussion reminds me of a similar incident that I had in college. I was visiting a friend and was also working on some differential equations. I accidently left the paper at his house and by the time that I remembered a couple of days later, his babysitter had thrown it out. She thought that it was paper that the four-year-old had been scribbling on. I never did recover those warp drive equations...

 

[micromass]

This discussion reminds me of a similar incident that I had in college. I was visiting a friend and was also working on some differential equations. I accidently left the paper at his house and by the time that I remembered a couple of days later, his babysitter had thrown it out. She thought that it was paper that the four-year-old had been scribbling on. I never did recover those warp drive equations...

Differential equations again...

 

[fresh_42]

The pen is mightier than the sword.

 

[fresh_42]

This discussion reminds me of a similar incident that I had in college. I was visiting a friend and was also working on some differential equations. I accidently left the paper at his house and by the time that I remembered a couple of days later, his babysitter had thrown it out. She thought that it was paper that the four-year-old had been scribbling on. I never did recover those warp drive equations...

How could you? I assume it were a low energy solution ...
A friend of mine once cleared a table (economists at the table) in a crowded bistro by placing his book on differentials and integrals on it ...

 

[DrDu]

As a chemist, I have to say that it has become impossible to do even the most harmless experiments without getting suspicious and attracting interest from police. The paranoid regulations in the chemistry forum here don't form an exception. It is only consequent that doing math outside university premises is considered a possible act of terrorism. Soon practicing music without being a professional musician and outside a concert hall will be prosecuted, too.

 

[Ben Niehoff]

Algebra akbar!

 

[Ben Niehoff]

Really? Does something like $\int_1^2 \sqrt{1 - x^2}dx$ look similar to بشرية النفط الأعمال كل وتم. عن وبداية بالمطالبة وفي, تصرّف الأخذ جهة بل. وجزر شموليةً لكل ان, جسيمة الموسوعة ضرب عن, تم بحشد حلّت الخاسرة دار. لم أمام وانهاء وبالتحديد، تلك. تم تلك حادثة الإطلاق.

Even if you don't know integrals, I think the difference between math and arabic is pretty obvious.

She was probably using Arabic numerals!

 

[StatGuy2000]

As a chemist, I have to say that it has become impossible to do even the most harmless experiments without getting suspicious and attracting interest from police. The paranoid regulations in the chemistry forum here don't form an exception. It is only consequent that doing math outside university premises is considered a possible act of terrorism. Soon practicing music without being a professional musician and outside a concert hall will be prosecuted, too.

In the case of chemistry, I can at least see why experiments can arouse suspicion, given that ingredients used for experiments can also be used to create bombs (the same can be said for those doing experiments with microbes).

But math?? How can proving theorems or writing a math formula in itself lead to anything that is threatening?

 

[DrDu]

Theoreticians are always suspect and threatening to systems. They have strong analytic skills often also outside their speciality and use a language which is incomprehensible to most politicians. This did cost many lives e.g. in stalinistic russia.

 

[StatGuy2000]

Theoreticians are always suspect and threatening to systems. They have strong analytic skills often also outside their speciality and use a language which is incomprehensible to most politicians. This did cost many lives e.g. in stalinistic russia.

In totalitarian regimes, any intellectual (including mathematicians or those with strong mathematical skills) are strongly suspect, so it would not surprise me that those with such backgrounds often faced persecution or oppression.

But more specifically to the point of being suspected of being a terrorist -- how can writing something on a piece of paper (whether it be a letter in Arabic, or writing a math formula) be reasonably be thought of as being in any way threatening or suspicious, without knowing more about the individuals involved?

 

[Cruz Martinez]

Even if things like integral signs and perhaps some greek letters might seem like a strange string of symbols, i cannot believe that this woman didn't see an equality symbol or a plus or minus sign and then recognized it was math that the man was writing. This story is hard to take at face value.

 

[fresh_42]

Even if things like integral signs and perhaps some greek letters might seem like a strange string of symbols, i cannot believe that this woman didn't see an equality symbol or a plus or minus sign and then recognized it was math that the man was writing. This story is hard to take at face value.

Usually the WP is a reliable source, so it should be true.

 

[zoobyshoe]

After having mulled this story over for a few days, I end up thinking this woman was not merely stupid. I get the feeling there was a pathological need for attention motivating her. Something like this, maybe:

Munchausen syndrome is a psychiatric factitious disorder wherein those affected feign disease, illness, or psychological trauma to draw attention, sympathy, or reassurance to themselves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munchausen_syndrome

In other words, this was probably about her seeing and grabbing an opportunity to have the airlines, and maybe law enforcement, heaping attention and reassurance on her after the 'psychological trauma' of thinking she was sitting next to a terrorist.

On the other hand, it could have been a straightforward case of classic paranoia on her part. In any event, I don't take her motivation at face value. Like micromass said, everyone knows what middle eastern languages look like, even if you don't read them, and by the same token everyone has seen a thousand movies and TV shows where blackboards are covered with 'complicated math'. Everyone has a sense of what that looks like, even when you can't make heads or tails of it.

 

[Cruz Martinez]

Usually the WP is a reliable source, so it should be true.

I do not know that. In any case, I am not saying the incident itself did't happen.

 

[fresh_42]

I get the feeling there was a pathological need for attention motivating her.

An interesting point of view. It reminds me on something similar. It's been a short flight on a monday morning from Frankfurt to London. You must know that these two cities are basically the two financial headquarters of Europe. So on a monday morning there are almost all (please don't read this expression mathematically) seats taken by bankers and brokers. All in black suits, all with laptops and only a few with baggage. It's more like a bus trip to work than it is a flight of about 90 minutes. Next to me happened to sit a lady who was obviously nobody of the usual clientele. (She has been blonde, I can't deny that.) She started her day by drinking champagne the whole flight through. As we had landed in HTR, she started to clap her hands and applauded the pilots. Of course she was the only person in this full cabin who did so. I found it embarrassing but perhaps she suffered a similar ADH disorder.

 

[Monsterboy]

Perhaps she couldn’t differentiate between differential equations and Arabic.

So from now on airlines need a separate maths/science class in addition to the existing classes in order to avoid such incidents.

 

[fresh_42]

So from now on airlines need a separate maths/science class in addition to the existing classes in order to avoid such incidents.

That would delay boarding a lot. I mean, if you let everybody solve an ODE beforehand to be able to classify ...

 

[Monsterboy]

That would delay boarding a lot. I mean, if you let everybody solve an ODE beforehand to be able to classify ...

No, you just tell them that if they don't know math they shouldn't sit there , so that if they do sit there and make ignorant complaints , we can take action against them.

 

[Pepper Mint]

Greed and Ignorance are two social diseases that are incurable.

 

[Hornbein]

The American paranoia isn't just famous, it's also increasing! Must be very unpleasant to fear everybody you meet around the clock.

I guess they find it exciting.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Regardless of if it was equations or arabic I can't understand why writing in arabic would be considered suspicious or dangerous.

 

[Pepper Mint]

Regardless of if it was equations or arabic I can't understand why writing in arabic would be considered suspicious or dangerous.

So many people from Middle East (ME) have been terrorists. I sure never want to sit next to a hairy man from ME with a Quran book on his hand on the same plane.

 

[micromass]

So many people from Middle East (ME) have been terrorists.

The amount of terrorists from the middle east have been a vast minority among all people from the middle east. What you mean is that so many media portray middle eastern people as terrorist.

 

[Pepper Mint]

The amount of terrorists from the middle east have been a vast minority among all people from the middle east. What you mean is that so many media portray middle eastern people as terrorist.

I don't think so, I say most terrorists are descended from there, they may also be ME American, but are terrorists. I am talking about the terrorists' countries not that all people from ME are terrorists.

 

[micromass]

I don't think so, I say most terrorists are descended from there, they may also be ME American, but are terrorists. I am talking about the terrorists' countries not that all people from ME are terrorists.

I hope you are able to see the difference between your original statement "So many people from the middle east have been terrorist" and your statement now "So many terrorists have been from the middle east".