Walmart

Today I went to Walmart and International grocery. Junghee gave me the ride. I also met two more of her friends. Eunjin and Pakiyong. Eunjin is doing graduation in teaching Preschool childrean and Pakiyong is studying social science. There was funny incident that happenned in IG. I was looking for Nougree Noodles and they had only 10 packets of it. So I asked the guy there to find out if there are more Noodles there. Meanwhile Junghee came in a suggested me another noodles. The guy at the counter was amused and said your wife is Korean, isn't it ? :)
In the past few days I have seen "Border Hindustan ka", "Hum Kaun hain", "Rakth", "Gayab" and "Dil Mangey more". I liked Dil mangey more . Its a light heart comedy which tells the story of a teen age boy. Rakth is ok because of Bipasha. Tommorow I plan to cook. I still have some homework to complete. Taking differential equation with Dr. Grimmer is fun. He is really good. The way he introduces an example and then change it to higher difficulty helps one understand it very well.

There was a snow fall on 22nd January. Here is Yuko and Sumant. Braving the chill. The same day I also went to Bill's house along with David, Tomei and Mark to help him move his stuff. This snowfall didn't last long. It wasn't even a inch though it did accompanied with wind speed reaching 40 miles :) 

Mersenne Numbers

   I got recently introduced to the books of Keith Devlin. Keith stands almost in the category of Stewart and Courant. Most of his books do talk about Mersenne Numbers. So what are these Mersenne Numbers ? These are actually Prime Numbers of the form 2^N-1.  Mersenne was a monk and he made some starting revelations like for N equal to 2,3,5,7,13,19,31,67,127, 257 are prime along with a bold claim that there are no other numbers less than 257 which are prime. However he was not all correct. It was found out that 67 and 257 do not give prime and there are prime numbers at N equal to 61,89 and 107. But isn't it still surprising that Mersenne who was born in 17 Century could predict about such big numbers (recall tower of hanoi problem that how big 2^64 is !!)when computers were not there. So does he had some algorithm. Prime number prediction is attracting a lot of people because of its usefullness in Cryptography. Here is the home page http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm of Mersenne prime number website. And as of today 41st number has been found and it shouldn't be far when someone finds the 42nd.  One thing about Prime numbers is that they are not distributed in a pattern (as of now, otherwise their prediction will be a lot more easy).

Till now on 26th January

Its 11:39 and I am in Library doing just waiting for my fourier analysis class. Today I learned more about Pythagoras proof. Dr. Kocik now has introduced to us 3 more proofs of Pythagoras theorem. There is one president of United states who also came up with the proof. Check this website http://www.cut-the-knot.org/pythagoras/index.shtml. It has some 44 proofs. The name of the US president is J.A. Garfield and he discovered this in 1876. His proof is based on Trapezoid. I still have to work on it.
In fourier analysis class we have discussed the history and the different ways of looking at Analysis and Synthesis equations. Complex number needs more effort on my part. Overall till now its smooth sailing. Advanced calculus with Dr. Hughes is going ok. We have covered much of the linear algebra and going to embark on the fascinating side of the subject.

Veer Zara, Lakshya, PhirMilenge

 Finally I have seen "Veer Zaara". Its trademark Yash Chopra movie with ample dose of tear jerking histronics. I am happy that now more and more movies are coming to bring together the people of India and Pakistan. Veer Zaara is a Hindu guy and Muslim girl story. Initially I thought it is more like "Deewar" movie which focussed on POWs. However Veer Zaara is altogether different. Its pretty long but I enjoyed it. So if you haven't seen it then thumbs up from me.  Other movie I have seen is "Lakkshya" talks about Kargil war heroism. "Phir Milenge" was a social movie on Aids Awarness. The direction was kind of Ad film type, I would have been more happy if Abhishek Bacchan had got married to Shilpa Shetty inspite of knowing that she had Aids. This would have been a better message. 

Foundling

I came across this word while reading the Stillwell's book. I was reading the biography of d' Alembert and the sentence in which this word popped up is

"His mother abandoned him at birth near the church of St. Jean-le-Rond in the cloisters of Notre Dame, and so he was christened Jean le Rond, following the customs for foundlings"

As usual a quick search on google gives

 

Dictionary.com gives the definition of foundling as

A deserted or abandoned child of unknown parentage.

Traipse on Complex Numbers

Origin of Complex Numbers does present a challenge to anybody. Most of us are introduced to the complex numbers in our grade 8 when we learn to solve quadratic equation and we encounter sqrt(-ve number). I am currently taking complex analysis so I am fortunate to read some books and broswe through websites, so here is an easy way to understand these mysterious, imaginary numbers in a concrete way.
Historically five people whose name comes up have an interesting story. These people are Del Ferro,Fior,Tartaglia,Cardano, Ferrari and Bombelli.Del Ferro was the first person who is known to have come up with the solution of the cubic equation, since he didn't published much infact none of his publication has survived. The legend is he revealed his work to one of his pupil called Fior. However he revealed only one part of the solution. Not realizing this Fior become overconfident in his mathematical ability and met Tartaglia in a mathematical duel. Tartaglia solved all the 30 problems posed by Fior and established himself a force in mathematics from being a simple self taught teacher. History doesn't pain Tartaglia in a very good light. He is said to have not published his results so that he could won more mathematics competition. Then arrives Cardano a person who was an illegitimate, genius mathematician. Whose story is from rags to riches and then dying in ignomity. He was an Italian who tried several times to gain entry into influential mathematical circle but couldn't gain it until he proved his mettle by writing books and excelling in treating his patients. Once he arrived in the mathematical scence he was a force to reckon with. He persuaded Tartaglia to reveal his formula for cubic equation but Tartaglia entered into a secret pact with him not to reaveal it to other. Cardano had a terrific protege whose name was Ferrari and they discovered that its not Tartaglia who first discovered the formula for solving cubic equation but it was Del Ferro. So Del Ferro thought his promise to Tartaglia was not binding to him anymore and he published the result in his celebrated text Art magna. Tartaglia was infuriated and challenged him for mathematical duel. After much deleberations Tartaglia finally agreed to take on Ferrari, Cardano's protege. Much to his chagrin he finds him very much familiar with the nuances of mathematics and Tartaglia fleds the very same day. Thus Ferrari comes out of the shadow of Cardano. He goes on to find the general solution of fourh power equation and lived on a happy life unlike Cardano. Who suffers ignominity because of his son's act to poison his wife and his name in that conspiracy. His son is decapitated. The other son is equally incompetent and that tears apart Cardano. Finally comes Bombelli who after looking at the formula sees what all had previously overlooked and dismissed as unimportant and that is Bombelli's wild thought. I hope to keep updating this theory of complex number in my blog "Traipse on Mathematics" so keep watching that blog !!

Sumant

I now know why -1 * -1 = 1 !

I just came across this theorem in what is mathematics ?
Why is -1 * -1 = 1 and not and not -1 * -1 = -1
Here is the proof !
Law of signs is not something that can be "proved" it is created by us to preserve another law, which we know as distributive law
Consider for example
a(b+c) = ab + ac
and assume that -1 * -1 = -1
Now if we choose a = -1, b = 1 and c = -1 then according to distributive law it LHS should be
-1(1-1) = -1(0) = 0
However RHS would give
-1(1-1) = -1*1+(-1)*(-1) = -1+(-1) = -2
and hence our distributive law fails
That is the reason we use -1*-1 = 1 instead of -1.
Got it !

Swades, Kal ho na ho

So finally I could see swades. One of the most talked about Hindi movie in recent times. I liked the movie because unlike most of the movies which focus too sharply on what is there and what is not there. This one is more mature. The story is simple an NRI visits India, get face to face with the ground realities and decides to stay on. But this is one of the few movies (I don't know if there is any other movie) where he (NRI) decides to concentrate on something instead of just blaming government and people. He builds a small Hydroelectric power plant. Here is some creativity. Infact India or for that matter any country could utilize the people of its origin who are living outside with this emotional string. Shahruk khan is superb.

Kal ho na ho is all sugary and melodramatic. Its good to promote bondness of Indianess but it goes overboard with the resturant promotion stuff. Which I found distasteful considering that these movies are now being watched with more and more people who are not Indian. Teaching hate for other people doesn't bind its own people. Yes I am talking about the song "Apni jeet ho, unki haar ho" and the video scence.

Holidays over

Its -12 degree outside and I spent the whole day in my room, did laundry and yes played foose ball with Pui. When I look back to these holidays the only consolation I will have is that I watched a lot of movies. Played Badminton and discovered that how vital is dal for a psuedo vegetarian like me. Infact I should suggest to people like David that instead of those tranquilizers he will be lot better off with one cup of Channa dal. Also I got a hair cut and discovered that I have more white hair than I previously thought. Which affirms that I am growing intellectually. Hehehe... I have got purchased all the required books for the semester and finally its decided that I will be taking "Advanced Calculus" with Dr. Randy Hughes. I took Calc II with Dr. Hughes and he is awesome. I may have to go with Dr. Grimmer for my Differential equation class otherwise I won't have any time in between my class and that mean I will miss Dr. Kathleen Pericack's class. Kathy is a remarkable teacher. I am impressed. Her dedication to help student understand the subject is uncomparable. I hope I can take some class with her in future. Dr. Grimmer specialize in Differential equation and I could sense his enthusiasm for this subject from his Calc I lectures. So I am pretty sure that it will be wonderful. Last semester when I took Linear Algebra with Dr. Sullivan I had one of the best time. He rocks !! This semester Dr. Kocik is also there so looks lots of fun ahead :-)

Knoppix Linux

I love Linux like growing number of people worldwide. The first time I got introduced to Linux was in 1997 when I installed the slackware version 4.0 of Linux on my home computer and it took it almost a two days to up my X Window running and three more days and a lot of help from my equally enthusiastic friends to get on the internet. For next couple of years we played a lot with linux and my final project was an improvement on GUI interface and we aptly named that EzlinuxGuru. For next 4 yrs I hardly get to work on Linux as my former company (STMicroelectronics) used Windows NT and my use of linux was very limited I was using Cygwin which is a unix emulator on windows. Few months back my internet service provider got friendly with me and burned a CD of knoppix linux for me. Today one of my friend came to me for help regarding the problem with his computer and I decided to showcase him the new linux and he was impressed. Why ? The knoppix version of linux is one of the coolest distribution of linux. One doesn't need to install it can be run from the CD itself. One doesn't need to configure anything. You can access your hard disk, Browse the internet, play your audio and video files (including mp3, xvid ,divx, DVD etc) Use can use open office. It even detected easily my usb mouse and digital camera on its own. It comes with mozilla browser too. I would suggest you to burn a copy of knoppix and keep it in a safe place it could act as a rescue disk when your window has crashed and you are in fix. I may even suspect that you might altogether give up your windows in favour of this distribution of Linux. If you have never used linux, I believe this could be your safest and most friendly introduction to Linux. It is as easy as putting the Knoppix linux CD into the CD drive and restart your computer and it will automatically detect everything all the devices connected to your PC and will configure it and the best thing is nothing is installed on your hard disk. Once you log off from knoppix linux you can safely boot to your windows. For more information you should visit thier website. Many vendors also sell knoppix CD for as little as $3 if you cannot download the iso image from thier website. The problem with other distributions of linux is that you have to bother about system partition, dual boot and getting familiar with tools like fips, rpm etc but knoppix has eleminated all that learning. Give it a shot you will find linux very friendly.

I went to Thai Taste again that makes 3 times in 7 days :-). This time with Ayako and Yuko. I ordered Red Curry, Yuko Ordered Green Curry and Ayako Ordered Thai noodles. 

Ayako, Showing her Birthday gift at Thai Taste given to her by Yuko 

Yuko threw a party for Pui, Sumant and Ploy. Here Ploy and Yuko busy deciding what to order and didn't realize that I take their picture :-) 

Dal bhat, Chana dal, Penang Curry and Kimchi

I love food. One of my uncle Dr. D.K Garg used to say that "Some people eat to live and some people live to eat". He was one of my Papa's best friend, he died some years ago and one major reason was his eating habbit. I sometimes do wonder what effect the food has on people. Here in US I see many people who turn vegetarian they do so just for the health reason, they still relish meat products. For them vegetarian food means eating salad or some boiled vegetables. Fortunately for me I never got addicted to the non vegetarian food and for me Daal Bhat Tarkari rule. The staple diet in India and Nepal. After living in Dorm which provided three course meal when I first started to cook I was wondering, Will I be able to survive eating my own cooked food ? Well its now close to 10 months and I am in good shape. The food I am eating is dal bhat tarkari. I discovered one more thing that how important is dal, when I played badminton last year I had terrible pain in my hand everytime I pick the racket and this year I realized that if I eat channa dal (I love channa dal with zera ka tadka) then I can hit like Tomei. So now dal is now firmly in my menu and I have started hitting the shuttle as never before. Other thing I really like is Korean Kimchi, bulgogi, bibimba, gamza thang. Kimchi stew is awesome and so is Thai Penang Curry. I always had a sweet tooth and Yuko has introduced me to so many Japanese Candies that I am eagerly looking forward to goto Japan and stash away all the great candies they make. Eating healthy could be fun if one uses spice and ofcourse vegetarian food rocks !! One of the best vegetarian meal I had was in Singapore. There is one Kerla resturant I don't remember the name but its close to Mustafa and thier Thali is the best. I was just talking to my sister about that and she too agreed. I guess those who cringe about vegetarian food should take a trip there and they will realize how good the food is. So why all this traipse from me. Am I cajoling you to become a vegetarian ? I can't say that because my fingers are typing and I am not going to edit what I am writing. Just pure, unadulterated train of thoughts. If you have seen "Sign" there is a dialogue when they say in future all people will be vegetarian ! I hope that day come soon. I don't like animals getting killed !

Hawaii (Lilo and Stich)

I finally finished off the remainning Lilo and Stich. The stich finally become more cuter. The DVD has got good extra features about the Hawaii for ex and here is what i learnt after seeing that movie.

There are 8 main island in Hawaii

Ohama means family and no one gets left behind
Hula is the traditional dance of Hawaii
Oahu
Has some of the best waves in pacific and the capital of Hawaii called Honolulu.
Maui
Name of Guitar is "Ukulele"
Luau is a dance of Hawaii Ahaina
IPu is a percussion instrument
Pahu Drum
Lei is a garland of flower, leaf, shell, paper.
Mu'u Mu'u is a bright colored dress

Kauai is also called as garden island
It grows a lot of fruits including pineapples. It has lot of rains and there are some spectaclular waterfalls here

Lana'i
It is also called pineapple island. There is warm water and one can see excellent view of hump bacck whale. There are lots of coral reefs and it sustain on algae. There are big sea turtules and are called honu. Also one can find 4 type of dolphines around this island.

There is 9th island being formed which will show up in 10,000 yrs

Molokai
South is flat and north has tall vertical cliffs and great waterfall. Residents are decendants of polynesians. It was discovered by Captain Cook. Hawaian cowboys are called "Paniolos"

Big Island
It still has two active volcanoes. There are two type of lava A'a and Pahoehoe. A'a is more type spiny and Pahahoe is smoother.

Aloha (means bye)
Sumant

Active World and 3 D homepage

I just stumble on a website called active world. The site is awesome. You can create a 3Dimensional homepage. It requires one to install an active x plugin which is around 2 Mb.
http://www.activeworlds.com/

Well worth a visit. I took the tour which requires one to supply a username and one's email and then you can get into the active world. The graphics are great. I was afraid that the motion of my character won't be agile however it is pretty good. You can dive into ocean, scale the wall. See the snow. Also the music. I loved it.

Sumant

Thai taste, Changing lanes, Lilo and Stich

Today after playing badminton we (David, Jialing, Lin, Tomey and Sumant) went to the new Thai resturant Thai taste. At the time of playing badminton I was thinking that I will have the Thai curry, so I was the first one to order my favorite Thai curry but after some time I got the reply that they have run out of all curries. I had to content with fried rice. It was good. I ordered 8 on a scale of 10 for the spiciness and it was pretty palatable for me. 

 

     I have been noticing that if I stop my intake of dal even for few days I cannot hit the shuttle hard. So I need to make sure that I have dal for everyday. After returning from the game I watched Changing lanes with Pepe, Ezania, Megan and I don't know her name. It was ok movie didn't bored me and I enjoyed. Pepe also let me her DVD Lilo and Stich. Its passable. I still have some 9 chapters to finish of that DVD.

Movie GirlFriend, Mujshey Shaadi karogi, Main hoon nai

My head is still spinning. I just watched another forgetable flick "Girlfriend". I am amazed at the pigheadedness of director Karan Razdan. The movie claims to be trendsetter in Hindi cinema. It deals with lesbianism. Razdan spares no effort in villfying lesbianism. Grow up Razdan, I wonder few years from now when gays and lesbian will not be frowned upon how these people will go down in the history. Coming back to the movie the characters are so shallow and dunce that you are outraged.

Mujshey Shaadi korogi is an above average hindi comedy movie but it drags in the end with unnecessary cricket stars. Salman plays a guy who has uncontrollable anger. Its funny and if you are looking for some good laughs you won't be disappointed.

Main hoon na is more melodrama. However I love the concept that unlike Sunny Deol's movie this one talks about peace with Pakistan.(Note I did like Sunny Deol's The Hero) Its good that the movie doesn't talk about the petty politics that goes behind. Sushmita sen, Bindu and Sharukh khan make this movie worth watching.

Overall I feel some Hindi movies are getting better with the status of woman in the Indian society. For ex characters like Julie and Rani Mukerjee in Hum Tum are good beginning.

Ecumenical

Ecumenical,
Today we learn Ecumencial. I got it right on the readers digest quiz today :-) The answer sentence at the web site was
The ecumenical meeting represented all major religious faiths.
What it meant is that the religious meeting represented all faiths.

Dictionary.com gave
Of worldwide scope or applicability; universal.

Of or relating to the worldwide Christian church.
Concerned with establishing or promoting unity among churches or religions

Some of the links google threw up
Journal of Ecumenical Studies
An ecumenical partnership working to promote human rights, justice and peace, viable human development
Welcome to the Arizona Ecumenical Council. We are Christians who pray and work together for the good of the Church and all people

Nonviolence

First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win."
Mohandass Gandhi

Xavier Naidoo

I am currently listenning to Xavier Naidoo's "Auf Herz Und Nien". Its in german. Its awesome. Just finished watching "Dhoom ". Its good. A rating of 3 and half out of 5. The production is slick. Its another hiest movie and my second since the winter vacation. The first one "National Treasure" was really good.

Traipse and Happy New year 2005

So finally 2004 is over and when i look back this year then this was a year with so many things happenning. For me some of the defining moments in history are

Reelection of George Bush -> Bush is back and it didn't surprise me inspite of all the media generated hype that he won't be selected. He came back and he came back strongly. Considering my views (I am a staunch supporter of Gay Marriages even gay couples adopting children, Stem cell research, Freedom of Speech, Non violence). I couldn't support Kerry. By the time of election I wanted Bush to win and infact most of the people in India were siding with Bush. One of the reason I believe is Kerry's economic policy. Inspite of being a liberal he didn't behave like a liberal wheras Bush was more open. The world economy is undergoing a rapid transition that many people have failed to take notice.

Congress back in India -> I definitely feel that to have a good leader at top can do much more sweeping change then a grass root politician. For long India had prime ministers who were more politicians than a reformer. Current Prime minister Manmohan Singh is definitely one of the best person for this job. His equally competent finance minister Chidambram and Montek Singh Ahluwalia make a perfect team and also we have a President who thinks and is a visionary. Dr Abdul Kalam is definitely a President we are proud of.

Technology and Cell phone growth -> Its good to see finally the telecom sector in India growing. Infact the government should liberalize this section fully. There should be no licensing fee, prices should be slashed down and let the people get a connectivity at the cheapest and easiest way. Infact government shouldn't look beyond formulating policies and making sure that they are implemented. The easiest way to do is to make more and more roads. Connectivity is a problem in India. Spend as much as on non polluting source of energy. Why doesn't it exploit the huge coastal line ? Unless a country becomes energy surplus its progress will be retarded. I don't believe in spending a lot of money on basic education. To me its a waste of money. Broad band connection is a crying need in India. Not using the latest communication technology is the greatest mistake any country can do. I remember there was a talk of DTH(Direct to home telecast in 1996) it never got implemented. There is now a resurgence of interest in it. Which i now think is too late and considering the policies that some people want the DTH operators to implement. So that people won't become morally corrupt ! Thats insanity and I believe and waste of money. In couple of years most of the television will be available through Internet and then you cannot restrict anybody from watching anything they want to.

Coming future -> More and more classes will be available through the internet. Current model of teaching will evolve in which teachers becoming more of facilitators instead of the only source of knowledge other than books. People will have access to the lectures of best teachers and these teachers will be helping their students understand those lectures. I am not saying that these teachers will become Teaching Assistants to those teachers but definitely the boundary between Teachers and TA will become blur. Teaching aids will be lot more interactive and standard of education will improve world wide.

Relgion -> More and more people will start to claim themselves as spritual dissassociating themselves from the organized religion.