November 11, 2017 Saturday
Bedtime Story
Removal and Degree in Cousins
Let us suppose that in a family there are
two individuals by the name of Sam and Nancy.
Now there is one very old man in the family
by the name of Mr. Martin.
To Sam, Martin is grandfather but to a very
young Nancy, Martin is her great grandfather.
In that case Sam and Nancy are cousins who
are separated by one generation and thus they become cousins who are once
removed.
The degree of cousins specifies the number
of generations prior to the parents before a MRCA is found.
The degree will depend, besides on the
number of generation, also on the earlier discussed removal of cousins.
So in considering the degree of the cousin
relationship, there are two conditions.
One on which the cousins are not removed
and in that instance the degree will be the number of generations prior to the
parents before a MRCA is found.
In case when the two cousins are removed,
the degree between them will be the number of generations to the MRCA in the
lesser one.
This again becomes clear with an example.
Let us say there are two boys in a large
extended family by the name of Tom and Jack.
Now both have them have a common ancestor.
For Tom this common ancestor is his great
grandfather but for Jack the same person is related to him as great great
grandfather.
Since Tom has to go just one generation
beyond his grandfather to locate the MRCA with respect to Jack, they are
separated by just one degree.
This one degree of separation makes Tom and
Jack first cousins.
If we keep on extending this concept of
cousin to more and more people, starting first from the micro family, to the
extended family, then to class, school, city and so on you will realize that
all the humans currently existing are cousins to each other.
(This obviously excludes close relationships
like parents, siblings, uncle/aunts and nieces/nephews who obviously cannot be
cousins.)
They have to be; only their removal and
degree will vary.
In most cultures, the term distant cousin
is often replaces with distant relative which I think is unhealthy in the sense
that it blocks one’s chain of reasoning or thinking.
Scientists and mathematicians always like
to extend any idea to larger numbers.
Biologists did the same with the idea of
cousin, applying it to species beyond humans.
When you do that, do you know what we land
up with?
The Tree of Life!
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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