[lit-ideas] juggling, algebraic combinatorics, camphor & altitude

Okay -- someone on this list understands this stuff.  Googling either  of 
these takes me to hopelessly complicated journal articles with impenetrable  
jargon.  There's a very neat article in this month's "Discover" called "The  
Cerebral Jongleur".  Apparently in the juggling world, there are number  
sequences 
which reflect how high a ball goes and how long it stays in the  air.  
Furthermore, there is a mathematical language called "siteswap" which  
describes 
various juggling routines (6-6-1-5-1-5-6-6-) and jugglers create  something 
like a 
choreographed routine using these.  In any event, there's  a sentence in the 
article which perplexes me.  Some mathematician type out  there can surely 
decode it .....  "Knutson is an authority on algebraic  combinatorics, which 
involves, among other things, the counting of intersecting  lines in 
multidimensional spaces".  I'm picturing counting all potential  intersecting 
lines 
through, e.g., a cube or a sphere and that looks to me to be  automatically 
infinite. 
 Can someone give me an example of an application  of algebraic 
combinatorics??
 
Second question -- I'm reading "The Mercury 13", a book about the first  
female pilots who fought to be astronauts.  In it I read "Cobb excused  herself 
from the clutch of reporters to concentrate on her final  checklist.  She had 
been up since daylight to smoke the barograph  drums.  Taking a stick of 
camphor, Cobb had held it near the barograph,  coating the surface with dusky 
smoke.  
The sharp point of a stylus would  scratch through the soot to register her 
precise altitude."  I'm missing  something in my visualization of this set-up.  
How in the world would the  scratching of a stylus through smoke grime 
indicate how high up a plane  is??  Anyone familiar with planes or ..... well, 
old 
planes...or altitude  instrumentation to 'splain what the little lady in high 
heels & lipstick  (yes) was doing?
 
Julie Krueger
 

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