Ruby’s Reflections: Contributing to Science

Hi everyone, it’s Ruby! You’re never going to guess what happened. It has to do with being smart, and with helping mankind, and contributing to the greater good!

Do I have you on the edge of your seat yet? Good. Because this is big! Okay, drum roll please! (Okay, maybe not drum roll. I don’t really like loud noises. But you get the idea.)

I’m so smart that my photo was used in a scientific paper!

No, I’m not kidding. A couple of months ago, Mom got an email from a mathematician in Austria who was working on a paper titled “Automated reasoning in elementary geometry: towards inquiry learning.” Don’t ask me what any of this means – and don’t ask Mom, either. Math has never been her strong suit. Anyway, the researcher found my photo during a Google search, and asked Mom for permission to use it in his paper.

Apparently he’s using the example of a cat falling off a ladder to highlight whatever point he’s making in his paper. “A second task we highlight is the locus of a falling cat that is sitting at a fixed position on a ladder which is sliding down a wall. The task is to determine the geometric movement of the cat. This example is actually a reformulation of the trammel of Archimedes, also known as an ellipsograph, that produces an elliptic motion.”

Whew, lots of big words, huh?

But seriously, how totally cool is this!

Allegra: Just because your photo was used doesn’t mean you’re smart, Ruby.

Ruby: That’s Dr. Ruby, Ph.D. to you, Allegra!

Allegra: sighs. I knew this was going to go to your head, little one.

Ruby: And here you thought you were the smart one in this family!

Allegra: rolls eyes.

Ruby: Mom, this means I get tuna every day now, right?

Ingrid: I have to be honest, I’m just as tickled as Ruby about this. I certainly never thought I’d be cited in the reference section of a scientific paper, and most definitely not a math paper. I was a pretty good student, but my forté was languages, not math. I barely passed math in high school.

You can find the link to the full paper here.

Cat Ladder Feline Furniture

For more information about the ladder Ruby is sitting on, please read Cat Ladder Review: Catification at its Best. And stay tuned for a review of a new cat ladder soon!

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