V is for . . .

This month I'm posting Mad-Cool-Math Nuggets.

V is for Venn diagrams which are named for John Venn who dreamed these up around 1880. Today these pictures showing relationships between a finite number of sets are used in probability, logic, statistics, computer science, linguistics, and humor. (Wikipedia) Versatile little buggers, aren't they?

Here's your basic, 2 set model with a nonzero intersection (well, kind of):


Image courtesy: Mike Atherton

Each circle represents a set. Set A contains people who are alive. Set B contains people who are pushing up daises. The intersection (those alive and dead at the same time) contain zombies. But you knew that already.

Here is a Venn diagram with three sets. (Those of you who might take offense at irreverent humor, please skip past this image. If I could blot out the word "mindless" I would.)

Have you ever thought of the connections between popular supernatural beings in fiction and religious supernatural beings before? It's kind of interesting actually.


 Image courtesy: Frantisek Fuka





Okay, you're past the potentially offensive part. Keep in mind that sets do not have to intersect at all.



Image courtesy: Bernard Goldbach

It is also possible for one set to be entirely contained in another. Let A be the set of books you wrote. Let B be the set of bestselling books. In a perfect world, the circle represented by A would sit completely inside the circle represented by B. For those of us that are still aspiring, the intersection of A and B remains empty. Alas.

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Interested in a free story with a hint of the supernatural? You can download Ghosts of a Beneficial Place through Monday for free.

I got the idea for this story from biking by a gazebo sitting next to an abandoned restaurant and thinking about how a haunting in books and movies is usually scary. The haunted place is the site of a murder or perhaps an insane asylum. Strong negative emotions stick to the place like glue. Well, could you have a beneficial haunting in a place where the emotions experienced were ones of joy? Where would that place be? How about a gazebo that held hundreds of celebrations like weddings, baby showers, and birthdays over the years?