Our THE EDGE Letter to the Edit I'm wali to comment on a letter in your recent issue... Amber v. Aniaide I am ack that such a March 28, 2007 potentialy hurtful letter would be published in over the edge, as the letter from Amanda was a personal at- tack against Amber, not a reply about the issues regarding black history which Amber wrote about. Using the newspaper as a forum for childish letters is just that, childish. - Rebecca Helkenberg Aosos Dicwacan Cran Wairsn This year, I thought I would try something new. I am not a strong believer in the religious area but this year, I tried to give up something for Lent. I tried giving up potato. chips. You are probably laughing now but you know, it has been really hard. I eat chips daily and yes I know it is so bad fot me and my skin. It was that craving that I got for those chips with the saltiness that got me hooked up to them in the first place that I couldn’t stop Lent! eating them. Eating chips just makes my day. Some days I just felt like a drug addict and couldn’t get enough of it and some days I feel like I can go longer, I have been this far, why give up now? I decided to try following Lent this year because I think I needed to show myself and others that I can go 40 days and 40 nights with- out eating something that I have everyday. So far, I almost crashed on day 23 out of 40 but I realized that I can go the rest no problem since I’ve hit that halfway mark. I know that some of my friends for Lent, they gave up all munchies or gave up sex, but I thought I would start off something small and if I want to decide to do lent next year, I will do something bigger! I might even give up sex. : Without eating chips, I have found myself eating more junk food compared to just one bag of chips every day. I found myself eating more chocolate and I rarely eat that, I eat more popcorn and I eat more things with a saltiness taste to them. No I am trying not to substituted chips with other snack foods, but you know, try giving something up for Lent yourself UNBC What Not To Wear AMBER RICHARDS STAFF WRITER Welcome to week two of UN- BC’s “What Not to Wear.” This week, we are going to talk about your wardrobe. When you wake up in the moming, you think “what should I wear today?” I know exactly what to wear and I know what you should wear too. You should wear clothes that match. I say this only because three different coloured greens as a top, dressed as a 60’s greased up leather man, and dressed all in pink are all examples of bad choices. You can wear green, pink and leather but try to match it up with something else, Lime green, normal looking green and a baby green don’t look good together. Wear one colour green asa nice top, nice pants, nice accessories and of course shoes; Hey! You’re set! If you want to wear leather, wait, don’t wear leather. Leather is not only cruel but, very ugly and of course it makes you look like you gained 15 pounds. Again, there is nothing wrong with pink but don’t wear a full | matching jogging suit. Go and | buy a nice pink top and match it with a nice long skirt. It’s not that hard. Please also don’t come to school in pyjama bottoms. I do realize that exams are fast ap- proaching but there is no excuse to not put jeans on. about fashion. Pi and e Make a Delicious Combination HAAKUN SULLISAN STAGOWRITER In the year 1618, a mathemat- ician named Jacob Bernoulli was trying to see what happens as the function (1+1/x) to the power of xX as X goes to infinity. What he found was that as x went to infin- ity, it was approaching closer and closer to a strange value he has never seen before. The number over time was seen to have many unique qualities that make the number useful for many applica- tions. This number of 2.71828... was dubbed “e” by Leonhard Euler and if you have taken basic calcu- lus, you have probably been intro- duced to e. But what is e and why is it important? As explained above, e is the function (1+1/x) to the power of X as x goes to infinity. However, e can also be explained by other functions as well. For example, if you have the sum of 1/n! As n goes to infinity, you end up with e also. This number is also unique in that if you have a function with e to the power of x and you wanted to find its rate of change, it would be e to the power of x as well. In general, the function of e to the power of x is represents its own rate of change as well: This qual- ity of e is unique of all numbers. The most famous of the ir- tational constants, Pi, was named by Leonhard Euler as well and it was researched as early as 19th century BC by the Babylonians. During this time however, they could only get Pi up to 3.160 and it wasn’t correctly estimated until the fifth century when Indian mathematician Aryabata estimat- ed Pi to four decimal places. From there to now, mathematicians are still finding decimals of Pi into the millions of digits. Pi is the result of having any circle’s citcumference divided by its diameter. If you wanted to find Pi yourself, you may think you can find the circumference by using the basic formulas but the formu- las use Pi. This means that you will have to do it the way Archimedes did by making the circle into a many sided polygon(and by many I mean with sides as small as pos- sible) and measure each side of the polygon. Add up the sides and there you have an approximate of the circumference. Divide the circumference by the diameter and you should get at least 3 or something close to 3.14. The best approximation of Pi I got | by using this method is 3.13 so try it yourself and see how close you get. Anyway, these two irrational constants have helped mathemat- ics progress with leaps and bounds since their development and their special qualities bring a strange sense of order to the universe. If you want to see as many digits of Pi as known, then ‘go to http://zen- werx.com/pi.php to see millions of digits. If you would like to see millions of digits of e, then you can go to http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa. gov/htmltest/rjn_dig-html. Hey, Prince George! 11 What’s in Your Water? ASBER RIcHARGS j STAGUWRITER To tell you something you probably already know, I would tell you that our air is polluted. Then I could say that Prince George’s. water has fluoride in it and you might either ask what that means or why it matters. To tell you the truth, there is fluoride in Prince George’s water system. There are various chem- icals that are in the water that are not harmful to us, however, fluor- ide has yet to proven to be one of them. There are manyitems we consume in our daily lives that have fluoride in them, to name a few- grape juice, baby vita- mins, mouth wash and chicken noodle soup and the more widely known, toothpaste. Dentists have been using fluoride in various fluoride treatments you receive from them, and with a bit of wat- er, listening to your dentist and not swallowing it, you are going to be fine. Dentists mix it with water be- cause if they put straight fluoride in the trays that go in your mouth, it could cause many antibacterial | effects and foster the repair of en- And that’s my weekly say | amel that has been demineralised by bacterial acids. Studies have shown that about one part fluoride to one million parts of water pro- duced maximal protection against dental decay and only minimal amounts of dental fluorosis. ‘Despite this fact fluoride’s dental benefits have also been linked to many problems involv- ing our health. It has been linked to causing such symptoms as weight gain, constipation, high cholesterol, accelerated skin gain, night sweats. Specifically, women show earlier stages of menopause at any age, recurring miscarriage, hair loss and sensi- tivity to temperatures. If you have thyroid problems, _ are pregnant or have babies/young children you should be staying completely away from fluoride water. If these issues have raised possible concerns within you, go to Costco and buy some bottled water but before you go and do that, more needs to be said. When you look at the label, make sure that the bottled water has the least parts per million (ppm) of fluoride in it. That means that the water is cleaned and the less ppm in it, the better it is for you. While some dental authorities may argue that bottled water is ac- tually less good for you because you need an adequate amount of fluoride in your water for optimal dental health, it is hard to say with all the controversy over fluoridin- ated water. Bottled water with re- verse osmosis or distilled water is best for you and your health. Also, if you have a Brita fil- ter, it does not clean the fluoride from the water. You could find a water filter that helps the fluoride removal from your tap water but they are much more expensive. It has been said that only 5% of all of BC has fluoride in the water, Prince George and Kelow- na are the top two cities that have it. Some cities take action on this problem. In Prince George, it has been a issue of debate for a few years and our council has turned it down several times to either fund- ing issues or that it was “ok” when they checked it. BC is very lucky that we have the smallest portion of fluoride in our water, but unfortunately Prince George does not follow that. Currently 66% of USA resi- dents have fluoride in their water public water supplies. Most of Europe does not have fluoride in their water but 10% of the UK population does receive fiuorid- ated water. Germany has rejected water fluoridation and France is another place in the world which does not have fluoride in its water supply. Prince George has fluoridin- ated its water supply for numer- ous decades now. The issue of fluoridinated water has caused much controversy, with oppon- ents arguing its linkage to numer- ous health concerns and advocates saying that its dental benefits far outweigh possible concerns, but the issue remains open to fur- ther debate. If the city of Prince George is putting fluoride in our water supply, what other chem- ical are they putting in there? Are we mass medicating the popula- tion of Prince George? What can you do to help this problem? You can help to get the ‘city of Prince George to get the fluoride out of our water, drink bottled water but make sure it has a really low ppm count on it, or buy unfluoridated toothpaste such as “Toms of Maine” especially if you have young children. This is just the beginning of “Hey! Prince George. What’s In, Your Water?” This just gives you a rough idea what is happening with the water system here. This is part one in a mini series. Part two will be published later. Thanks to Christie Schilling for all her help and hard research.