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Image Of Sunflower via Wikipedia Fibonacci (not a real name ), translates to "Son of Bonacci." This brilliant mathematician and philosopher was endowed with a natural (or perhaps supernatural) curiosity regarding numerical series and patterns. The Fibonacci Series or Sequence is perhaps the most amazing key ever discovered to the actual design of the world we live in. It is a numerical structure and relationship that somehow underlies the essence of virtually all living creatures and systems. A friend of mine ( a clergyman) once referred to this amazing string of numbers as " God 's own creation  equation . " My graduate school thesis advisor, himself a stunningly brilliant man, stated that [paraphrasing] " Fibonacci unearthed something every bit as important as the Watson-Crick Model Of Human DNA . " As for me, my feelings about this incomprehensibly enormous epiphany, and about the mind which was driven (or directed ) to find it, can be summarized ...

Every word has numerous meanings and may be used in numerous contexts. Knowing this, we create puns, spoonerisms ,  oxymorons , paraprosdokians , paradoxes, riddles and other recreational wordplay. One of the greatest benefits of this wordplay is the accessing and  exercising of multiple parts of the brain. This serves to strengthen our creative and associative abilities, to ward off senile dementia and intellectual degradation and to sharpen our analytic and verbal skills. As a side benefit, my beloved Braintenancers , we also entertain ourselves and eachother.  Here are some twisted definitions which will be of interest to all, and in particular, to those of us privileged to be Baby Boomers . Thanks to Ms. Jane Portnoy for her contribution to this article. Let's let 'em roll... ADULT: A person who has stopped growing at both ends and is now growing in the middle. BEAUTY PARLOR (if you remember this terminology, you’re showing your age) : A place where ...

We bloggers (and the occasional speechwriter) use dictionary.com for quick word definitions, etymological stories (there's one below) and for alternate word choices. For this last, we use the Thesaurus feature. It (" Dic ," as we chronic abbreviators and vulgar insinuators often call it... for short), is enormously useful, despite the fact that it is so laden with ads, pop-ups, pavilions, flash graphics and other distractions that the quick bit of information which you seek is often hidden (" obscured " would have been a snazzier word choice, but I'm in a rush) on the page. While some people (mostly 23-year old internet billionaires or Baby-Boomers taking a break from looking for an employment opportunity which they'll never find) think this " word search " or " improve your visual acuity "- type exercise is fun, I detest it, although I wouldn't put that in writing. Being the Baron Of Braintenance (my hobby) as well as the mo...

The number Pi is a mathematical constant . It represents the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter . If you divide the circumference of any circle (or perfectly-formed, hand-tossed pizza) by its diameter (the measure of a straight line cutting the pizza in half), you will get Pi, which is equal to 22/7, or approximately 3.14. Now let's review Fabian's quandary, from a couple of days ago... Background : Fabian Focaccia (not his real name, which is Sal Monella)  is a struggling 'artist' who is working at a neighborhood pizzeria in Brooklyn, New York (not his real location, as he is in the Federal Witness Protection Program , but which is still the best geographical location to make a pizza purchase if you/ youse should ever get around to it) to pay his bills until he can sell one of his paintings. He is faced with a decision and needs your help. He has cardboard boxes for 'take out' pizza (this pizza parlor does a big take-out busines...

Your mind is a muscle. You must use it to strengthen it. If you don't, it will atrophy and hasten your descent toward dementia (which is not the name of a town in the Midwestern USA ). Following are a pair of practical problems involving Pizza, Pi and Packaging . Try 'em. Background : Fabian Focaccia (not his real name, which is Sal Monella)  is a struggling 'artist' who is working at a neighborhood pizzeria in Brooklyn, New York (not his real location, as he is in the Federal Witness Protection Program , but which is still the best geographical location to make a pizza purchase if you/ youse should ever get around to it) to pay his bills until he can sell one of his paintings. He is faced with a decision and needs your help. He has cardboard boxes for 'take out' pizza (this pizza parlor does a big take-out business -- even for Arizona...oops!) which are each three inches deep (irrelevant for solving this problem) and measure exactly 20 inches by 20 inche...

Oxymorons have engulfed civilization like a moth-bitten shroud. I had dinner with a friend several nights ago, and he asked "What the h*ll (he actually used "f**k!" but I don't have the audacity to put that in writing) is a ' Jobless Recovery ' ?." As a trained economist (paper-trained at very least), I was being asked a real question -- not a rhetorical one. I replied, "It's political 'nonspeak' (an invented word or Lingovation) for a 'continued recession." The question which we are always asking ourselves: "Is that an oxymoron, or is it just me?" The following appeared on my Blogger screen this morning:  Free Online Advertising See What $75 of Free Google Ads Can Do For Your Business. Try It Now! www.Google.com/AdWords  Need I say more? Douglas E Castle "Braintenance - Now More Than Ever!" -DC Blog Links : http://Braintenence.blogspot.com http://Links4LifeAlerts.com http://TheGlobalFuturist.blogspot.co...

A riddle is a word puzzle which is designed to challenge (i.e., exercise) your mind. You use memory, associative intelligence, logic, vocabulary, semantics and a variety of other skills, all in motion at the same time in order to "solve" a riddle. I'll provide you with some mind-expanding (and highly-entertaining) riddle links at the end of this post. You sharpen your intellectual and verbal skill sets (together! yes!) every time you work through one of these cunning conundrums [ hey...isn't that alliteration he's using ?]. Douglas E Castle (my third-person, holier-than-thou-sounding eponymous alter-ego) prescribes at least one to five good challenging repetitions ("brain crunches," if you're Jared DiCarmine, or some other rising star in the fitness guru firmament) daily. Following are two horrific examples of genuinely groan-worthy mind-poppers {you may wish to have children and persons with cardiac conditions or a propensity toward seizures leave...