<p>Find x</p>
<p>Here -> x</p>
<p>accepted EA. i did the “two kinds” prompt. structurally very academic (and unoriginal?) but i thought the theme and writing was unique, and rather tongue-in-cheek. </p>
<pre><code>Walking down the street, one may see a variety of people of all different sizes, skin tones, and hair colors; each is unique. Although I respect individuality, I can classify these passersby into two fundamental categories with ease. I do not see blondes or brunettes, but rather parties of Parisian persons and bright splashes of seemingly random color strolling the boulevards. There are resting women in gardens and fractal geometric designs, side by side and distinctively different. Indeed, there are two types of people in the world: paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and paintings by Jackson Pollock.
Tread lightly; we are about to enter the territory of the elusive Renoir. This creature tends to make its shelters among the pastel-dotted streets of France, its pensive smiles signaling its socially-acceptable levels of pleasure. Wildlife reality show jokes aside, the classic paintings of Renoir are a well-appreciate and clear bunch, mostly due to the fact that they portray solitary images. A viewer can see the desired picture, and because of that, they are pleased. This effect owes itself to the formulaic nature of a Renoir. Renoirs are calculated, logical beings, adding decoration and flair when appropriate. The creatures spend their focus perfecting their image, a representation of the social norms and culture at the time. Because of these formulas, Renoirs are often very popular and successful. People are willing to accept a Renoir, believing that they are so easily understood. The understanding taking place is most often a shallow one: people take the Renoirs at face value. One looks at such a person, and believes them to be as simple as the scene they depict.
Such a thin facade of accepted meaning forces a label upon the Renoirs. This label has many titles, most often intelligent, good, and correct. Every mother wants their daughter to bring home a Renoir, regardless of how the individual may truly be. Renoirs are not simple, one-track individuals. Despite their popularity, they are not restrained to professions such as doctors or lawyers. They are not immediately left-brained, either. These assumptions lead most to believe that the Renoirs are boring or superficial; even Renoirs themselves may be led to believe this. The painting of a Renoir may be precise and easy to look at, but what is often ignored is the complexity of each piece, and the subtle meaning inside. When looked at closely, a Renoir is composed of small strokes of individual colors, each representing a unique piece of the total personality of a person; one cannot be judged by their social appearance.
Consider Renoir’s Dance at Bougival. Many can easily see the obvious scene of two individuals dancing, just as someone may easily see a person conducing a surgery. Both can be considered shallow; how could a picture of two people dancing or switching around organs be complex or creative? Those in such belief would be surprised to see the intracacies possible and present in both. Renoir included several persons in the background, from which viewers could individually deduce hidden meanings, just as a surgeon could imploy new techniques, adding possibilities to the success of a surgery. Even further in detail, one may ponder the color choices Renoir made, noticing that the woman is dressed in white, and the man is dressed in black, allowing the presence of the topics of gender binaries, purity, and separation of sexes in the society present in the era. Similarly, a surgeon employs choices in the tools he uses, reflecting his own surgical teaching and unique beliefs. The Renoirs are not as simple as they appear.
The Pollocks, however, are bird of a vastly different feather. With a mass of color and no defined image to see, some may be intimidated to approach a Pollock, but they prove to be friendly enough creatures. The Pollock is a very distinct piece, clearly separate from paintings from other artists, but also lacks a defined image. This allows onlookers to decide the meaning for themselves. While they have their own purposes, they invite their peers to analyze their own speculations. Their appearances, chaotic splashes of color, lend viewers to believe the Pollocks to be a work of accident, but further inspection reveals that each brush stroke is unique, planned, and the result of intuition. The inexact order of the strokes and resultant image leads to both mystery and disagreement, which are natural environments for the Pollock. However, this creates a depth that is not hidden, but rather misunderstood.
This misunderstanding can lead to polar controversy: Pollocks are frequently branded with the label of either shallow and pointless, or some may claim that due to this common misunderstanding, the pieces are automatically brilliant. Such blind labeling forces viewers to say that the Pollocks belong in similarly-subjective fields such as art or literature. However, this false claim rejects the idea that creativity and nonconformity are not found in mathematical and social fields. In addition, Pollocks are not tied to their right brains. A final inaccuracy is that the Pollocks are a pompous breed, prone to being overrated; many believe it takes no work or skill to form one. However, this dispels the fact that, like Pollock himself, these creatures take pride in the concept and theory put into their actions, and the result is simply too personal to label. The Pollocks go beyond their confusing exterior to reach greatness in their own personal ways, refusing to adhere to any societal definitions of success.
Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm is reflecting of this. Viewers may look at this and believe it to be overdramatic and accidental, as they may an actor. Splashes of color fall together, as does someone reciting lines on a stage, these people may reason. This could not be further from the truth. The fractal designs hidden in the painting require complex calculating to determine, just as an actor must memorize each line and cue in a script. The work entailed in both of these acts rejects the idea that Pollocks are simply thrown together. Even closer, one notices that every splash is of similar width and length. This decision is like an actor making his or her choice in stylistically playing a character. These choices must be uniform, exact, and thoroughly formed, or the piece or play would fall apart. The Pollocks are as hard working as any other species.
Both Renoirs and the Pollocks should not be so easily judged by the public. Although they can be defined in very different formats and ideas, they are all unique individuals prone to prejudice. The genre-spanning abilities of each are also notable; not every piece is totally alike (Pollock painted a bowl of fruit at some point or another). Despite their troubles in labeling, both species take pride in their actions, and carry in strong in their own fashions.
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<p>Read this and learn from my mistakes, because this is the essay that will get you rejected. </p>
<pre><code> What is x, really? Through algebra and man’s inquisitive nature we have come to see x as the unknown, as the enigmatic veil that hides whatever answer that we so desperately seek. As such, x is usually viewed as the end, the final picture that is revealed when all of the pieces of the puzzle finally have aligned. However, when the whole picture is exposed, what are sometimes lost are the individual components, and when that occurs then the actual journey on which each part was discovered becomes lost; we, as people, may lose sight of how we got to where we are. When we are trying to find x, we are actually attempting to figure out how to find x, and as Dan Eldon had so tersely and eloquently wrote it, “the journey is the destination.” I believe that such a statement holds true to all of life’s unanswered questions.
If looking for unanswered questions, it is easier to begin from ones that we already know. The most common bit of a priori knowledge that we all have instilled in us is the simple one plus one equals two (1+1=2). How do we know this is true, if we have been told so over countless generations and just accepted it as plain fact. Could it be possible that our whole mathematical conceptual framework is wrong? Beginning from an unknown that they knew, Bertrand Russell and Alfred Whitehead proved with their massive, rigorous proof, Principia Mathematica, that one plus one does, in fact, equal two. How would such a enormous piece of work even be useful, if all it does is complicate a concept that most of us have known since grade school? By figuring out exactly how one plus one add up, Russell and Whitehead not only validated humanity's basis for all mathematical theory and proved that we perceive reality correctly, but also set the basis for the creation of the computer. It is because the Principia Mathematica proved exactly how a simple equation works that allowed the creation of binary sequencing, which led to the creation of the microcomputer and the dawn of the modern electronic era.
However, whatever x hides does not have to be solved or found with cold, hard numbers, it can be discovered through everyday actions and interactions in life. In today's technology saturated society, we, as busy individuals, seem to be accumulating a time debt, that is, there is a backup of things to do. In such time strapped situations, haven't we all, at one point or another, wished we could download an entire textbook of knowledge or novel straight into our minds? We have and still do. However, in the process of finding x (the novel's tragic end, the process of cellular respiration, ad nauseam), do we not lose something along the way? Do we not lose the opportunity to truly experience the ups and downs of comedy, or the catharsis at the closing of Oedipus the King? And in research, do we not lose the chance to ask more questions as we study, questions that would make our learning more comprehensive and ever more meaningful? We become too focused on knowing what happens, and unfortunately less as to how it happens.
A more stark analogy is that of life. In physical terms, the end result of life is death; the x of life is death. It is a bleak thought to imagine that the entire point of life is it's end. If all that we strive for is the x in life, then is not life pointless? However, more importantly, that we look at and experience all of the laughs, heartaches, and challenges that make life meaningful. We do not live life for the end but for the trip itself.
If looking at the whole of existence, how to find x is infinitely more valuable than finding x itself. Because if we know how to find x, or whatever x may represent, we will know x, since just following how to find x will invariably lead us to it. What Dan Eldon has written is held true, that setting towards a destination is just only setting for the journey en route. As for finding the actual x and what it really is, I have one thing to say: I shall find x -- as soon as I figure out how.
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<p>I was accepted EA and did “find x” for the extended essay.</p>
<p>Find x.</p>
<p>You find yourself at a subway stop. The Bach played by the young violinist clashes and harmonizes in equal parts with the squeals of the trains. A whoosh of warm air accompanies a train as it rushes to a stop in front of you. You step onto the train and sit down. Next to you, a nearly blank piece of paper covers an advertisement. The only words on this usually vibrant rectangle are What is happiness? </p>
<p>Call happiness x. </p>
<p>Happiness is an emotion and emotions are indefinable. You know which ones are positive and which ones are negative, and you think you know what causes each emotion. Yet youve also been caught in enough lunchtime, late-night, and anytime philosophical debates with your friends to realize that there are a million facets to everything and that anything you think you know may be turned completely on its head with a few well-chosen words. But, you think, all those friends are self-defined humanities people. They scoff at math, dismissing it as human construct. You decide to apply those mathematical principles to the abstract: happiness.</p>
<p>Equalize it to a memory. </p>
<p>Thomas Aquinas proved the existence of God with the argument that everything in the universe has a cause and that the first cause is God. You dont quite buy the argument, but you do agree that happiness must have a cause. You think back to moments of true happiness. Its funny, you think you are a generally happy person, but you have trouble picking out discrete moments of happiness. You idly wonder if perhaps youre going senile and your memory is fading… at seventeen years old. You shake off the thought with a laugh, ignoring the stares that the others on the subway train give you for laughing out loud for seemingly no reason, and settle on three memories: a moment of glory at science team, a moment of fulfillment while volunteering, and a moment of childlike joy while walking.</p>
<p>Subtract the hours of pain and frustration. </p>
<p>You know that memories are fallible. The details are forgotten and the good parts are exaggerated. You win the state science olympiad. You are up on the stage, laughing and cheering with the rest of your team. This is happiness, you think, but youve also forgotten what led up to this point. The awkwardness of joining a well-established, heavily-male, and close-knit team without knowing anyone else. The Saturday nights you gave up, all year, to build model bridges in a strangers basement. The resignation in watching the bridge you had just spent five hours working on snap under the weight of only ten kilograms and, with a sigh, going back to build a stronger, lighter, better bridge. It was all for this one moment. The funny thing is, youre not thinking about any of that as you hug your team members. Youre not even thinking of the next two months during which you will repeat the same routine as you prepare for nationals. There is only loud, overwhelming happiness. </p>
<p>Multiply by the number of smiles and divide by the moments of loneliness. </p>
<p>Hi, can I get you anything? you ask brightly, over and over again. You spend your summer volunteering in a hospital. Youre a little weird in that you love the cleanliness, the smell, and sense of efficiency of hospitals. You get a little rush every time a patient smiles and thanks you. You love the feeling of accomplishment when you remember to save the exact kind of granola bar a regular weekly patient likes and when you joke around with another patient who always makes a point to ask how you are, even when youre trying to make him more comfortable. Later, once school starts, those are the moments you remember, the moments of quiet, accomplished happiness. You disregard the fact that you ate lunch alone, every day, and volunteered with a much older lady who talked to the nurses much more than you. You forget the moments when the clinic slowed down and you found yourself twiddling your thumbs and vainly searching for something to do. Still, you can never think back to that summer without smiling.</p>
<p>Add a sense of wonder.</p>
<p>Its summer and youre walking in Boston, about to cross the bridge that will take you to Cambridge. You love the city; its loud, rude, full of concrete… and absolutely perfect. Suddenly, its raining. Its not wimpy drizzle, but a legitimate storm. You love these sudden summer rainstorms: the moments when the rains not cold, but cooling; when the puddles are the perfect size to jump in; when youre wearing a t-shirt and you can feel each drop on your skin. You close your eyes and smile up at the sky. Yet as you face upwards, the telltale golden glow of sunlight teases your eyelids, even as you feel the drops of rain on your cheeks. Opening your eyes, you realize that it is both rain and sunshine at the same time. The beauty of coexisting opposites stuns you for a moment: the sun and rain, the wonder of nature and weather in the middle of the concrete city. You laugh a little, ignoring the quick, suspicious glance of the dowdy businessman with his eyes glued to the ground and his head down to avoid the rain. </p>
<p>This is happiness. Happiness is memories, distorted through a funhouse mirror; the good becomes magnified, while the bad becomes insignificant, sometimes involuntarily. Happiness is moments of accomplishment, both the celebrated and the quiet. Its moments of elation with others or moments of inner peace and wonder by yourself. The subway screeches to your stop and, as you get up, you pause to look at that blank sheet of paper. You wonder if you should write your answer. You smile, shrug, and decide that its better for others to figure it out on their own and come to their own answers.</p>
<p>^happilyhelen, your essay made me smile numerous times :)</p>
<p>^ Congrats happilyhelen for an EXCELLENT essay! You totally deserve it.</p>
<p>^happilyhelen, what a beautifully written piece of work. </p>
<p>Congrats my fellow EAer!</p>
<p>Aww, thanks, you guys are so sweet! (Hope to see you all at Chicago next year! =D)</p>
<p>To echo what others have said, happilyhelen, that essay is fantastic. Very impressive.</p>
<p>My find x essay:</p>
<p>As far back as I can remember, math has baffled me, if not frustrated me. When I was four, my Pre-K teacher told us that two plus two equals four. I was extremely skeptical. But when I did the calculation on my fingers, I could not believe my eyes. Two plus two really did equal four. My little brain couldnt handle it. </p>
<pre><code>In second grade, stacked addition and subtraction taunted me; in fifth grade, long division was a nightmare; exponents were completely alien to me, and they stayed that way for several years. Seventh grade was the worst year of all; that was the year I took pre-algebra. That was the year I met x.
I hated x right from the get go. I hated x and all his little variable friends. I could never find them hiding in equations. It was like a game of hide and seek gone awry. I threw my hands up in the air and resigned to doing my math homework without actually understanding it. X and I went our separate ways.
In eighth grade, under the instruction of Mr. Jackson, the best math teacher in the world, I found x again, and that time, we were civil to each other. Our games of hide and seek turned playful. I gladly (and effortlessly) multiplied by the reciprocal and factored to find my missing friend.
Last year I fell in love with physics, which not only had x, but variables hiding in every crack and every corner, and every one of them was waiting for me to play with them. There was µ, β, Δ, λ, Ω, θ, K, J, I, E, F, Q, N, a, g, c, f, h, q, v, y I would never be alone.
I wanted to take AP physics, but it turns out you have to know calculus to take AP physics. For the first time, my love of math was greater than my ability to do it. What would I do without my physics? What if I fell off a cliff in a vacuum? How would I calculate when I would hit the ground? What if I found myself sliding along a frictionless surface toward a wall? How would I calculate the amount of kinetic energy I would lose on impact? I was beside myself.
Im still not over losing physics, but now Im used to it.
Now x and I have a playful game of tag. No more botched hide and seek.
X and I will probably never be some great function that stretches out to infinity, visiting every real number along the way. We might just be a few points on a plane, but thats okay. I dont need to be a part of a great function to be able to think about math romantically. I often wonder about life in a purely mathematical space. What do lines sound like when they go off to infinity? Do they make a giant, inescapable roar? Or is it a small, dignified hum? Do they make any noise at all? How do parallel lines feel about each other? Are they in love with each other, or can they just barely stand each other? How lonely does it feel to be a single point? Is it lonely? Is life on the Origin the same as life on any other part of the x-y plane? Does adding the z-axis make life more complicated? Or does it make it even simpler? My personal favorite is the romantic plight of the asymptote.
X and I are still close. I think about x all the time, even when its not for schoolwork. When I go for a run, x comes with me, and together we use the distance = rate × time equation to find my pace and speed. When I write music, when I sing, when I dance, x is in all of the rhythms and in every time signature. What I used to hate is a part of the thing I love. I understand that now, but I dont need to love music to love x. I can love x all on his own.
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<p>Wowww Helen, you should see if you can get that published somewhere. That’s really quite incredible. Here’s my find x. I got deferred:</p>
<p>X is the element that makes communities tick. It is that intangible yet very real characteristic that makes a neighborhood work. It’s the difference between vibrant streets and empty ones, between bustling sidewalk cafes and shuttered storefronts, or no storefronts at all. Although X is highly subjective, differentiating a “fun” neighborhood from a “dead” neighborhood, it is definitely present. Most of the time, people don’t even think about it, but it is vitally important: a neighborhood that has X will have less crime, healthier residents, and better-educated children.
Whenever I visit a city, I explore it. I’ll spend some time checking out the tourist attractions, but when I’m done with that I take the camera case off my neck and go far away from the guidebooks’ suggested itineraries. I descend into the subway or step onto a bus and sit down and observe. I get off at neighborhoods ranging from rich yuppie paradises to poor yet vibrant ethnic enclaves and walk around, taking notes in my head, comparing this one to that. Sitting on the public transportation, I pay close attention to what works best and what doesn’t: is the bus well-used? Is the subway efficient? Is the L as fast as driving?
I have been involved in politics since I was young. I started to write letters to elected officials when I was just seven or eight, and when I was eleven I worked with my State Senator to write and pass the bill that created the Washington State Legislative Youth Advisory Council. In my hometown of Seattle, as in most major cities, public transportation is a major political issue, so I was always aware of it. I gradually became more interested in transit as I got older, riding buses and trains around the Northwest and in other cities that I visited. Because of the close relationship between these interests and urban planning (transit is essentially an element of planning, and planning is inextricably intertwined with politics), I have recently become fascinated by urban planning, and I intend to study planning and politics in college.
So what is X? Jane Jacobs set out to identify elements of it in her tome The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which has become a fundamental text for urban planning since its publication in the early 1960s. She couldn’t find any one thing in particular, instead offering up a list of several elements that she had observed in most successful neighborhoods: short block lengths, mixed land uses, diversity in the age of buildings, and others. She also detailed some of the problems that happen to neighborhoods, especially the threat of gentrification: how can a neighborhood become great and exciting while not pushing out the current residents?
Jane Jacobs’ theories are valid, and quite important. She’s right that a vibrant, successful neighborhood usually has certain elements. But while she was looking for similarities between great neighborhoods, the similarities aren’t what attract us to neighborhoods. Great neighborhoods are not made great by any single physical attribute. Rather, X is the opposite of a similarity. The neighborhoods that captivate us have different people, different streetscapes, and different attractions than anywhere else. X, that element that must be present for a neighborhood to be vibrant and successful, is uniqueness.</p>
<p>I applied RD, submitted my app and stuff. I don’t want to share my essay, but I can give the basic jist:</p>
<p>Made my own prompt: “Now, release your anger.” - Darth Vader</p>
<p>Basically, my essay is a rant about how the History Channel is littered about with unhistorical shows like IRT: Deadliest Roads, Ice Road Truckers, and Ax Men. I also talk about how for once, a teenager seeks knowledge, but instead is awkwardly denied by random shows about chubby men cursing about their truck not working properly.</p>
<p>^Lol I think I love you wofbharatj.</p>
<p>I TOTALLY AGREE and it ****es me off so much. Can history channel go back to, you know, history???</p>
<p>Aww, you only think you love me? =[</p>
<p>Thanks for the support though haha, I was nervous about it. You totally made my day!</p>
<p>I am itching to post my Find X essay but I don’t think it’s completely safe at this time ):</p>
<p>^ I’m with solemnlyswear… I don’t want to risk any chance of getting my admission rescinded just to grow my CC rep haha. But after the RD deadline, mine’s on there.</p>
<p>This essay did get me accepted. It’s not nearly as good or creative as some of the others I’ve read-in fact, compared to them it’s pretty pathetic. I guess it worked. Don’t know how.</p>
<p>Limit</p>
<p>With both fear and confidence, the student marks the fifth answer choice: “x cannot be determined from the information given”.</p>
<p>Math class lies. We encounter there, just as in life, a seemingly endless string of problems. But the daily struggle we call life is never as simple as math, which seems straightforward by comparison. There is never just one solution to any given problem, and there is no assurance that, whenever a problem arises, we have all the materials required to properly address it.</p>
<p>“Find x”. The familiar command. Each student is practically guaranteed to be forced to find it at least once daily for the duration of his or her high school career. In no other subject is one question repeated throughout every year of study without fail. This is the single question which we have all had to answer more than any other.</p>
<p>X is vital. Allow us to push x past its limit, and outside of the familiar classroom setting. Is there an application? Outside of algebra, which occasionally fails to translate into adult life, what does x mean? The question stands on its own. Without a corresponding diagram or system of equations, what is x?</p>
<p>X does not exist.</p>
<p>X is the solution: the lone unknown variable which will allow the remaining parts of the equation to function as intended. X is the answer to each of life’s regular dilemmas, but it is not found so easily. X is volatile. Today x is the square root of seven. It was twelve yesterday and negative two-thirds the day before. Out of context, x may represent an extra hour to compensate for missed sleep, an umbrella to keep dry, or the wallet forgotten at home. In both cases x never seems to stay put. On the day when x is equal to negative two-thirds, the solution seven will not do; on the day when a driver’s license becomes necessary due to a set of red and blue lights, the umbrella is virtually useless. Practically, x cannot be assigned a single value in class or elsewhere, because there is never one solution to all possible problems.</p>
<p>The literal interpretation of the familiar variable fails. Though x will not solve all problems, maybe the concept of x can be approached from a different angle. Perhaps x can signify the things for which people live. After all, x’s importance is never minimized; for all the time devoted to it in study, it could possibly be argued that the goal of math classes is being able to find it. </p>
<p>Broadly, x becomes personal; it is existential. Asking to find the life’s x cannot be done because each individual stands for a different set of values. There could never be a single explanation. The religious man, who may argue in this case that x equals God, is no more correct than another. The answer varies; if x is approached as an ultimate solution, it would be impossible to select just one. </p>
<p>Life is never as math class would make it appear. For all of math’s relevance, the notion that there is ever a comprehensive or complete solution¬–x–is a gross oversimplification. Upon leaving school, reality sets in–a reality that will prove life far more complex and rewarding than school itself. X becomes inapplicable out of context. Life will never be as simple as marking A, B, C, or D.</p>
<p>Helen, that is the most masterful work of art I have ever seen on these forums.</p>
<p>@OxalisWombo - that was a beautifully written essay though!!</p>
<p>Oh, that’s very nice of you. But Helen and imdamoos win the “even more beautifully written essay” title here.</p>