Latke? Hamantaschen?

[magid]

Thanks to an unexpectedly free Monday evening (er, last week; I am so lame. Though perhaps I can justify waiting this long as posting on Taanit Esther, rather than just laziness?) and a link in Chanaleh's journal, I got to go to the third MIT Latke-Hamantaschen Debate. Very impressive. Each team had three professors presenting arguments ranging from philosophical to pharmacological, nutritional to neurological.

I hadn't expected professors in suits, nor an SRO crowd.

The best description I can come up with is a cross among Purim Torah, filking, and a science class. The surprise focus of the evening: the president of Harvard, oft-invoked for his recent comment on women's lack of ability to do math and science, the comment appropriately reworded to discuss latkes and hamantaschen, of course.

There were some classic arguments, such as the perfection of the circle compared to the triangle, and some appropriately changed quotes (Plato, Lewis Carroll, et al.). And it was pointed out that there's even a holiday for the circle, on that very day.

And there were some much geekier discussions, such as showing that latkes make hydrophilic cavities ina lipid environment, leading to enhanced congitive funtion through greater numbers of ion channels, while the hamantaschen is isomorphous to certain protein-cleaving bacteria, which leads to degrading collagen and subsequent death, given enough time. Or showing that hamantaschen were used in Maxwell's equations (as a div operator). More details (and a photo of the science experiment) at the PDF of the MIT paper (pages 1 and 10) (Thanks to Dancingdeer for the link).

I thought that the latke team had stronger presentations, but didn't do a proper rebuttal, while the hamantaschen team seemed weaker as a whole (one professor seemed not to be on the same page as everyone else), but did rebut, and well, so perhaps the official declaration of a tie shouldn't be a surprise. Nor did the crowd mobbing the refreshments afterward show obvious partisanship. I suppose I shall have to wait until next year to see which food triumphs.

Comments

[wolfkitn.livejournal.com]

unclear if this was made clear at the debate itself, but this tradition began in 1947 at the university of chicago, and is typically held on the tuesday before thanksgiving (?!). (as a u of c alum, i am (of course) beget by the insecurity complex held by all chicago alums, and thus feel compelled to point out anything that we have done that has become perceived as "cool" by the greater populous. :) )

[magid.livejournal.com]

I don't remember if it was mentioned at the debate (though I was a few minutes late; it might've been said before I arrived), but I knew that Chicago was formative; I hadn't realized they did the first one. Kudos to U of C!

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving? What a stupid time. Everyone's getting ready to go home, and it's rarely near Hannukah. How odd.

It worked out well to have it on Pi Day, reasonably close to Purim (which is, statistically, more likely to be during the semester and not during finals :-).

[wolfkitn.livejournal.com]

agreed -- tuesday before thanksgiving was a ridiculous time, not near either purim *or* channukah. but it worked out for me, because my folks lived in the 'burbs. :)