Spinning was out of control yesterday. It is a really good workout so I will probably go back every Wednesday. The reason spinning is hard is because instead of riding the exercise bike while sitting, we STAND the whole time. We also simulate going up hills by increasing the resistance of the pedals by whatever number the instructor tells us to. At the end of the 45 minute class, we "sprint" on our bikes, meaning we pedal as fast as we can for a few minutes in intervals. It sounds easy, but it takes a lot of control. I am a bit sore, but not as bad as I thought I was going to be. The instructor says that biking is a good conditioning exercise without being hard on your joints (especially knees), like running does to you. I'm all for it :)
In one of my math classes today, my professor said that we will be getting a lot of questions from our high school/middle school students such as "where did the addition sign come from?" Instead of saying we don't know we all were assigned a mathematical symbol to find its origin. The signs ranged from simple signs (+,-) to more advanced ones such as the integral sign or "e." I got the equal sign so here's the interesting background on that:
The Equal sign, or =, which is used to indicate the result of some operation, was invented in 1557 by Robert Recorde. Recorde grew tired of writing out the words "is equal to" so he used the equal sign symbol in his work Whetstone of Witte. He chose this sign since the two lines used are equal in length, showing that the quantities joined together by "=" are also equal.
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_%28math%29
That's your math lesson of the day!
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