a geek in the garden

I didn't put these pictures on the main blog because they are very hard to see but i am going to put them here just for completeness. This is me doing the ellipse. The second thing i learned from this process is 'don't ask the carpenter to take a picture that is related to math'. Not that Randy doesn't know math -- you need alot of math to be a carpenter. But you see, for some reason it did not occur to him that the picture i wanted was the one where both foci were in the picture. Something like this, but with me in it.
If you recall, an ellipse is the curve that is traced out if you take a loop of string and two points (called the foci). Put two pins in your paper, loop the string around the points and pull tight with your pencil. If you then trace your pencil around the two points, you will have an ellipse. A circle is just an ellipse with the two foci in the same place, the center. Planets (and comets) rotate around the sun in ellipses, with the sun at one focus.

Now, the first thing that i learned from this process is something i know already -- always check your math. I carried wrong, twice in fact and it took me really a long time to get the length of the string right. The whole day was gone by the time i was able to dig the beds...