The latter part of what would have been my high school years were spent at a place known as TAMS, basically an excuse for me to live on a college campus when I was 15 amid people a lot smarter than I am. At TAMS, there were (and continue to be) people who were freaky good at and/or obsessed with math. People who would come up with equations with hidden jokes that would make other math-heads laugh hysterically, leaving me with a rather blank expression. People who did calculus for fun. Strange, sick people. I spent a lot of time climbing trees and blowing bubbles. How did I wind up there? God only knows.
Anyhow, this brings up Tim. Tim was a math guy. He had glasses of such potency that they magnified his eyes to twice their natural size, and he was not known for his social panache. He was often an ass. However, he was really good at Risk, and Risk is a game that I enjoyed spending countless hours on, usually defending Peru with a tenacity bordering on insanity. There was actually a term called "the Peru grudge" applied to this behavior among the TAMS Risk playing set, inspired by this. Many life-changing conversations would occur during these matches, or at least very strange ones.
The exact details of this particular conversation have been lost, but it went along these lines:
T: "You know that your name's an equation, right?"
G: "What?"
T: "Gigi. It can be broken down quite simply."
G: "You're talking crazy. Also, you know I suck at math."
T: "It's simple. You recall that i = square root of -1 (the imaginary number)?"
G: "Uhh... yeah."
T: "Putting it together, (G*G)(i*i) = -G^2"
G: "Hmm. You're right. And if I say that G = the gravitational constant, my name, numerically, would come out to be -44.528929 X 10^-11."
T: "Exactly. Want to go into binary?"
G: "No. My head's already hurting enough."
Thus, the origin of a numerical phenomenon, or at least a quirky online handle.
Random Link: A tale of friendship, explosions, and a murderous mini-lop bunny
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