Path: netnews.upenn.edu!newsserver.jvnc.net!igor.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!kjc From: kjc@aramis [OLD RUTGERS ADDRESS] (Kelly J. Cooper) Newsgroups: talk.bizarre Subject: A cockroach in the parlor with the lead pipe Keywords: glowing melting suppurating flesh goo Message-ID: Date: 12 Apr 94 22:33:15 GMT Organization: LCSR @ Rutgers University Lines: 26 One can freeze a cockroach using liquid helium (or perhaps it was liquid nitrogen), then defrost 'em in the microwave and they'll survive. In fact, one can freeze them in liquid nitrogen (or liquid helium) a good three or four times, nuking them back to mobility in between, and they'll keep on surviving. No joke here... I was just reminded of these facts after a professor of mine was having difficulting getting some students to extrapolate an understanding of local and absolute minima from his explanation of local and absolute maxima. After a theoretical discussion of maxima, he tried to describe minima by explaining that if you nuke a cockroach on low, it appears to move deliberately within the confines of the nuker and then hunker down on some arbitrary spot. He suspected that it was finding the local minima of temperature (since microwaves do not occur uniformly within the box). But, he explained, that did not mean that the cockroach had found the absolute minima, because it was probably only making judgements based on areas of the microwave with which it came in direct contact, to move from the hotter to the cooler spot. Some students could not translate maxima to minima. I explained that similarly, when attempting to freeze a cockroach, it will move to the local _maxima_ of temperature, to avoid the cold and stay in the warm. The class was disgusted but enlightened. Kelly J. Cooper kjc@cs [OLD RUTGERS ADDRESS]