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For all sorts of comfortably complex reasons, yesterday was quite an auspicious day, one way or another...

For a start, it was the last day of Spring.  However delayed - and, in some cases, however half-heartedly - everything that should have burst forth with vibrant new life at this time of year has done so and is now ready to shimmer and burnish in the still, sultry heat of an English Summer, of which this is the first day.

Tonight is the shortest night of the year - a truly mystical and evocative time in the celestial calendar.  Timelessly awe-inspiring, in an ‘old religion’, Druidical kind of way.

But we Truckshunters have a much more important reason to don our stylishly sexy white sheets, place daisy-chain circlets around our heads, grasp our faggots, face the rising sun and chant incantations in Welsh.

As of yesterday, we have a published author in our midst….

As of yesterday, the awesome and wonderful Kev - he of wordplay, puzzles and mathematical wizardry - is famous.  Much more famous than all the rest of us put together, in fact.

If I seem to have been a bit too ‘jokey’ about Kev’s achievement - well, that’s only because he is a naturally modest kind of bloke who would be uncomfortable with any high-blown and fulsome acclamation or encomium I would want to write here on the blog.  (I’m fairly certain, for example, that he would find my use of words like ‘encomium’ to be particularly and gallingly embarrassing.)

Nevertheless, with the publication yesterday of Mathematics for Marine Engineers, Kev has hit both personal and professional heights for which he deserves our totally unreserved and overflowing applause.

Dammit - the man is a genius.  And if anyone can think of an appropriate way for the Honourable Company of Truckshunters to recognise this, I’d love to hear from you.

Here is what the Bloomsbury website says about him...

'Kevin Corner is Lecturer in Mathematics in the Marine School at South Tyneside College, UK. He has taught the subject for over 23 years and was commissioned in 2002 by the Norwegian company Seagull who specialize in providing educational material to the marine industry in the form of interactive discs to write commentary on HND mathematics to accompany animations.'

And this is what it says about Mathematics for Marine Engineers...

'This exciting new edition covers the core subject areas of arithmetic, algebra, mensuration in 2D and 3D, trigonometry and geometry, graphs, calculus and statistics and probability for Marine Engineering students for the Merchant Navy OOW qualification.

  Initial examples have been designed purely to practise mathematical technique and, once these skills have been mastered, further examples focus on engineering situations where the appropriate skills may be utilised.  The practical questions are primarily from a marine engineering background but questions from other disciplines, such as electrical engineering, will also be covered, and reference made to the use of advanced calculators where relevant.'

If that hasn't knocked your socks off, here is the Table Of Contents...

1  Indices and Logarithms
2  Algebra
3  Simple Equations and Transposition
4  Simultaneous Linear Equations
5  Quadratic and Cubic Equations
6  Graphs
7  Trigonometry and Geometry
8  Solution of Triangles
9  Mensuration of Areas
10  Mensuration of Volumes and Masses
11  Differential Calculus
12  Integral Calculus and Advanced Applications
13  Statistics
14  Specimen Exam Questions and Worked Solutions

And there are even Appendices, as follows…

I: the Basics
II: Complex Numbers
III: Laplace Transforms
IV: Fourier Analysis
V: Exam Standard Questions and Solutions
VI: Formulae

Pretty impressive, huh?

It all reminds me of a poem I half-remember from school.  It was called Naming of Parts, and I apologise for adapting it so freely...

Today we have Mathematics for Marine Engineers.
Not for Civil or Military or Aeronautical Engineers.
Or any other kind of Engineer, including Electrical ones, mostly.
No - today’s Mathematics is for
Marine Engineers.

Today we have Indices and Logarithms…
…Logarithms and Indices…
And tomorrow we have Equations -
 - Simple
 - Transposition
 - Simultaneous
 - Quadratic
 - Cubic
Simultaneous and Simple - like us.
Or perhaps the day after.

Today we have Mathematics for Marine Engineers.
We will learn what the Solution to Triangles is.
We will Mensurate Areas and Volumes and Masses -
 - Masses and Masses of Volumes
And tomorrow
Our Calculus will not only be Differential
But also Integral
And Advanced
And Applied.

But not today.
For today we have
Indices and Logarithms…
Well done, Kev - and congratulations from all of us.  You’re a star.

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CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or email me:  truckshunters@googlemail.com