As part of my application of the importance of preparation that I wrote about recently, I began learning Mathematica, powerful and sophisticated software for mathematics of all kinds. In addition to studying a couple of books, I participated in a webinar where I was watching and listening using my tablet while typing commands into my copy of Mathematica.

Everything was going fine until we began to explore Mathematica’s free form expression capability. “Just tell it what you want, and it will figure it out. Watch!” So we typed something like “Plot the sine of x.” And up it came! Magic.

So I typed something I thought I heard him say: “Plot a sine-like curve.” But of course, being a mathematician, I automatically abbreviated “sine” to “sin” like we always do. Here is the result.

Oops! I wrote to the Mathematica folks asking something like, “Who is she and why is she here?” Amazingly, the nerds at Mathematica knew the answer: she is Sinthea Schmidt (goes by “Sin”), and she is an arch-villain for Marvel Comics. And her picture is certainly a “sin-like plot.”

But it’s OK. I’m pleased that June and I, in our 70s, are not afraid to try new things. And making mistakes is part of learning and being alive, actually.

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? (Isaiah 43.18, 19, NIV)

One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3.13, 14, NIV)