Artist's walk, haunted house, thinking death, life long learning

Today I managed to wake up at 6 and got out of bed by 6:30. As a part of Artist’s walk, I took a 30 minute walk around my neighborhood. There is a trailer park across the road and some 200 meters from my apartment. It is called Roxanne trailer park. The first trailer is the area housing’s office and just left to it is an empty fallow open field. The only vegetation there is a tree. I should say couple of trees seems to be sprouting from one place on earth and among those one almost lying on the ground giving a very unusual view. To the right is the only house in the whole complex. It has a neat lawn carefully maintained by the owner and you begin to wonder how does its owner feel like living in such area? How does he tell his friend about the address? Ah.. It’s in the middle of the trailer park and you can’t miss it! Behind that house there is another trailer with a sign “open” dangling on its wall and it seemed to be the place for the maintenance workers. Then comes a very old house whose windows are all sealed but for one. It’s all dilapidated and the sign outside warning against trespassing. It’s a haunted house an inner voice cried. I have seen one more in Carbondale and I am sure this one is too. I start to imagine the long time in history when this house was built, Children playing on the front porch, adults sipping coffee, nice summer early afternoon and clothes making a fluttering sound on the cloth line. Any way I moved ahead and saw some empty trailers. My guess is around 20 percent of all trailers were empty. Behind few of the trailers on my right side was a verdant park and I am sure in evening people play soccer or Frisbee there. There was also a lake behind trailers on my other side; however I didn’t go there as I was afraid that I may be trespassing on someone’s property. I came back and had to sleep for a while.

After I woke up I finished several of the DVDs on time by anchor Kaku. Then I thought I should do a quick yoga and realized that 50 minutes passed by in that one quick session, yes yoga makes time fly by. Today I learned elbow-to-knee and balance posture (also called as “Natrajasana”). Some of my favorite asana I have are Sirshasana, Salabhasana, Halasana, Gomukhasana. So I try to start doing the one which I can do while lying and then I have gain some flexibility I move to one which requires one to sit. Anyway I am happy with the progress I am making.

I don’t know why but I do think about death a lot of times. My last moment and it is nothing in any depressing way. I think about things I would like myself to have finished by that time. I like the Buddhist way of believing that each life is a preparation for next life. So whatever things you leave unfinished you can start from there in the next life. I know it may sound unsettling but isn’t it fun to believe in. Instead of thinking you start over or you just waste time sitting in heaven doing nothing. Learning gives both pleasure and meaning to life and I want to keep learning my whole life till the very last breath. There have been times when people say go and step in to real world, academics is not reality. Then I looked at people who are getting paid to be teachers and enjoying. It’s easy to look into the history and see the people who lived a enjoyable and meaningful life and it invariably comes down to people who love to learn and help other people grow. I love teaching as I said before it’s a two way process where two individuals learn from each other. To me it’s a profession ideally suited. I like the curiosity and the learning part, the teaching also provides the feedback part.

Blue Ray my opinion, Non measurable set

I just finished watching Michio Kaku's documentary on time interesting documentary.It is one of the dozens of DVDs which my good friend Murat gave me during Christmas brreak. It tincludes all the Planet Earth episodes and documentary on time etc. I liked the kaku's demonstration of time as a unit of distance. It was impressive because his whole life of some 50 something years was within some foot of the table in his home in New York but its totally insignificant compared to the life of earth which stretches to distance between New York and San Fransisco.

I am surprised that Sony is still pushing DVD blue ray technology to me it just doesn't make sense. The two bulkiest part in computer are DVD drive and hard disk. With the falling price in semid conductor memory both of these can be eliminated with one stroke. DVDs use that mechanical technolog whih because of wear and tear is a big hindrance. Its a technolgy which is a spiced up CD technolgoy with better software and compact data but the concept is still the same burning land and pits to store the data. The falling cost of electronic memory makes them a viable contender. I know the hollywood will be a little reluctant to embrace this because it will make them open to being copied easily but then all DVDs are ripped the next day and distributed electronically. I envision a future in another 5 years when the need for lap top computer is eliminated because all the functions for which we need laptop can be done with the cell phone. The cell phone will make use of broad band internet and are off the hook of cell towers. They can be seamlessly connected to television and large screen devices with technologies like blue tooth

Today I woke up early and my mind was still buzzing with the analysis. I had a strange dream where I did see Dr. Feinsilver and Dr. Budzban. It was kind of some exam and I was carrying my ST. Microelectronics folder. I remember placing that on dusty floor. I entered into examination hall which has a huge sliding door and I pull it open trying to make as little sound as possible but then I had to confront with not knowing my seat number. It was a huge number and I was wondering whiy they had to have such a huge number. I don't know but at the back of my mind I thought they didn't have enough students taking the exam it was some 10 or 12 digit number and half way through I was fumbling and wanted to go out to check my name against the number. It was a early morning dream and that's all I can recount at this time.

I attended the Buddhist rso meet today. Today's session was conducted by Dr.Julie Stein and there was only one more person was there. We went over 5th precept of not being mindful, vegetarianism, avoiding alcohol and being careful with watching television. It's a series of lectures given by the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Titch nacht han and I tend to agree with lot of his vies. In the morning I had appointment with Letti at the Dental Clinic. Today she worked on half of the mouth, cleaning every tooth diligently. In the evening around 16 hrs I had another appointment when she too 18 X-Ray pics of my mouth. Letti being so generous used her coupon to get me the free X rays. Otherwise it costs almost $100 if I go outside. Thanks Letti I really appreciate that gesture. In my Business Calculus class today I taught more on different techniques of Integration. I also took my laptop to demonstrate Riemann Integral and its significance using Maple Example and Geogebra Applet.

In my Real Analysis. I covered the measurability of function. The definition has 4 equivalent forms. The easy way to state it that a function f is measurable if the domain E is measurable and the set {s belongs to E, f(x) > alpha} where alpha belogs to R. The other 3 sets are f(x) >= alpha, f(x) < style=""> then use the property of union and intersection is Lebesgue measure. Note the set we are looking for the function to be measurable.

One more thing I would like discuss is the idea behind the proof of non measurable set. First we take a set [0,1). Note its open on one side. The measure for this set is 1. Lets partition the set in such way that two elements are equivalent if their difference is a rational number and the difference between any two numbers of different equivalent class will be an irrational number . Its easy to notice that there will be one partition which contains all rational number and the other partitions will consists of irrational number. Now construct a set P by choosing one element from each of the partition. Now we know that rational numbers are countable. Lets take each rational number between 0 and 1 and add construct sets like Pi = P + ri. For ex P0 = P+ 0 when 0 is added. Now this addition is modulo addition 1 . So if P+ri is greater than 1 than we subtract 1 from the sum. As set of real number is translation invariant we see that the union of all sets will give us the set {0,1) Also all these Pi's are either disjoint or same. To prove that assume there is an element x which belongs to pi and pj, i.e x = pm = rm = pn+rn => pm -pn = rm -rn, but rm-rn = rational. Therefore pm – pn = rational however this cannot be possible because if two numbers differ by a rational then they have to be in same set. Thus two Pis cannot share an element. Now all Pis are distinct which means the measure of each of these sets is either zero or finite. Note all that each of these sets have the same measure and since rational numbers are countable. If we add the either we add 0 infinity times or some constant infinity times. In first case we get a zero and in 2nd case we get an infinity. However the set has measure 1. So we have a contradiction. The thing I need to convince myself is that the union of Pis gives us the whole set [0,1).

Atonement, No Reservation, Merudandasana

Yesterday was the first day I since my life style change of doing yoga and writing blog everyday, so it was imperative that I should get back to my schedule today. Today I learned one more asana called uditha merudandasana also called as side raise in Richard Hittleman’s book. Yoga keeps surprising me. After now doing for now over 20 days I thought I have become flexible and then you learned a new asana to discover that you haven’t exercised those muscles in eons. I have become much better now at posture clasp (‘Gomukhasana’) and so I know that I am gaining flexibility. I can do a better leg over too. I also tried the first step of back push up (“Kamdharasana”) but couldn’t summon enough courage to raise myself fully. I also realized that initially my position of hands was reversed compared to the book.

I am glad that yesterday I was able to go to bed at 21 hrs finally. Even though I spend more than 11 hrs sleeping it was a right step in my personal integrity account to go to bed early and I am very keen to do this life style change. I have been reading about Simple functions and Indicator function. The concept mirrors step function and we need Indicator function to give a definition for Simple function. The indicator function assumes value 1 where ever the domain of the function is defined.

In the past few days I saw two movies both given to me by my good friend Mei. It was the 3^rd DVD that Mei gave me. I saw “Atonement” and “No Reservation”. The Atonement is about a precocious young girl who loves to write and one day sees a couple from her bedroom and interprets something entirely different from the real situation. Her misinterpretation causes great suffering to that couple and in the end we realized that she changed the ending to make it happy so as to atone for her mistake. Atonement is very well shot and I am sure it will be nice to watch it on big screen. The other movie “No Reservation“ was a predictable romantic comedy about a successful, bossy, territorial, temperamental spinster cook who one day finds herself in a situation that left her to care for a young bereaved girl and you can guess from here how this little girl will change her banal life and help her open to life. The movie uses the show of her anger and even the little girl’s tantrum to inject humor in the film however hey both never recover from this and which might give the impression that such behavior is acceptable and I totally feel against that. It’s a romantic comedy and is peppered with some very foot tapping and hum able songs and I very much enjoyed those. Other than that I enjoyed going over the mountain episode of Planet Earth.

My Yoga and new ping pong paddle

Dear Sumant,

I am right now sitting on the 3rd floor of the newly renovated Morris Library and it rocks. The new looks is difinitely very pretty. Today Mei got me a Ping Pong Paddle. It's a very nice paddle and I love it. Thank you Mei, I really appreciate it. It's the 2nd paddle I have own in last 20 years ! We played for more than an hr at Rec Center and I loved it playing with the new paddle. I have serveral things to do. I have to finish my laundry. I have some pictures of the Yoga I did today, yeah kind of showing off, but my other goal was to document if I am doing correctly. So here are few of those pics me doing some of the asanas.

Best Regards

Sumant Sumant

March21 blog

Dear Sumant,

It’s March 21, 2008, 21:07 hrs. My goal is to go to bed early. Today I used alarm to get up at 6 in the morning. So that means I am getting back to my goal of early riser. I think I am very serious about early rising.

In school today, Dr. Porter went over more examples from Chapter 4 and the techniques he showed are pretty powerful especially the Transition Lemma. He also showed another way to do derangements, so I am pretty pumped up to learn this stuff. In analysis we went over two more propositions. One is the basic proof of homogeneity and Dr. Salah only listed the other proposition about measurable function which proves upper and lower bound in terms of simple function. In my math business calculus class that I am teaching, I went over the 2nd Exam. I covered almost all the problems on blackboard and tried to help them learn from their mistake. The homework for them is to do the whole paper at home once again! And this will count 2 quiz grades. I am of the firm philosophy that in teaching we should keep our students encouraged and interested in the subject by letting them know their gaps in understanding, making sure they always have a hope to do well in the class and ultimately mastering the concepts. I like the saying “Knowing how things work is the noblest joy”.

I cooked Rajmah Chawal today, my all time favorite food to cook. I tried Nestle wonka sweet tart squeeze and I am sure I won’t be trying any other of its flavor. It’s too artificial, too sweet. I have yet to do Yoga for today. So I might just do few asanas which help me go to bed. These include shoulder stand, bow and padmasana.

I was reading the 380 tips to make life simple and some of the ones I liked are “Keeping a torch, blanket and a pillow in trunk of one’s car”. “If you haven’t finished a book that is lying around than change it and get a new book” this could be a little difficult sometime, because right now I think I owe some 70 plus books from different libraries and there are few books I have owned for a little long time but I have finished many such books which have been with me for a while unread. You know that how much I appreciate the library system here in US. I have been blessed to read so many great books and which have further motivated me to read more.

That’s for now
Sumant Sumant

All in a day

Dear Sumant,

Well its another evening and I am sitting on my couch to update this blog. Today I couldn't get up early in the morning . In fact I got up at 11 am, so my resolution for tomorrow onwards is going to get up early at 4am. I did go over some Combinatorics problem as part of revision and I make a promise to go over analysis very seriously from now onwards. It's one class which can help me learn so much more about other math class that I need to put more focus.

I went to Charles's party today with Akina. As usual Charle's and Amber were awesome hosts. It was good food and good company. There were Zeb, Krista, Eric, Sarah and the couple I know their name but it's escaping now, Liz and two more people. Liz recounted that sin(x)/(x) = six joke and I was glad it refreshed my memory. I read that joke in one of Paul Nahin's book. In terms of fruits I am drinking right now freshly squeezed Juice of 2 Grape Fruits. I also had 2 green apple. I talked to my Mom for more than an hour on phone. I am glad that she thinks the way I do or perhaps I think the way she does. We talked about Yoga and she does it everyday and she gave me tips on Brahmini she learned from Mausiji who seems to know a lot more and is avid practitioner these days. To do Brahmini one close their ears with the thumb and eyes with the remaining fingers and as you exhale out you say the word Ohm. It seems pretty easy and I tried it before I wrote this line and seems very refreshing. I also read more of “The Story of Science” today. As I wrote before it’s a fascinating book with lots of history, pictures and exciting stories. I read about Michelson and Chandrashekhara Raman. Michelson's parents moved from Poland to United States during gold rush time and moved to Nevada during silver rush. Michelson was a gifted student who was among the first people to have taken Transcontinental train to go to Washington DC and plead his case for the scholarship and how he become the first American to win the Noble Prize. The story of Chadrashekhara Raman is equally fascinating. How this brilliant student of Math and Physics got into Cambridge and his encounter with Eddington, a brilliant physicist. How Eddington in spite of his brilliance and his shining research couldn't appreciate Chandra's contribution which ultimately coasted science 40 yrs. When chandra went back to his seminal research and wrote one of the classic paper in physics. The moral of the story is to be humble. Chandra one the noble prize in physics for one of his earlier work.

That's fr now

Sumant Sumant

Getting up early

Dear Sumant,

It's 21:42 and I am updating this from home. I am using my Linux Computer to write this blog. It has Fedora 6 on it. It's amusing that I still have such an old version of Fedora, whereas there used to be time when I would get the newest Linux Operating System as soon it used to be released. However this computer has so far served me pretty well. It's an old Dell Pentium 3 desktop computer. Once my sister had that and she shipped it to me. I just had dinner with Akina at John Taco. I had Vegetarian Salad and Bean Taco. Today two of my classes were canceled including the one I was teaching because of the power outage in Agriculture Building.

I am happy with one thing that today I managed to wake up at 4 am in the morning, so I had time to do Yoga and study. It's no wonder that one can accomplish so many things but just getting up early in the morning. As I have been able to include Yoga and writing into my daily schedule the next thing I need is the morning schedule. I also was able to finish grading for Dr. Wallis and play literati with Kathleen.

Since we have been talking about analysis on this blog. Let me continue that discussion today with (a.e) also called almost everywhere concept in analysis. A proposition is said to exist almost everywhere if the set {x belongs to R:P(x) is not true} has a measure 0. Now two things first what is a proposition, well in mathematics a proposition is just a statement which is either true or false. So what does this definition tells us that the proposition exists everywhere if for some value its zero. Thus two function f and g are said to same a.e if Lebesgue Measure ({x belongs to R: f not equal to g}) is zero.

The other important concept in Analysis I want to discuss is Little Woods 3 Principle.

1. Every measurable set is NEARLY a finite union of open interval

2. Every measurable function NEARLY uniformly continuous.

3. Every convergent sequence of (measurable) function is NEARLY uniformly convergent.

Note the word NEARLY. The 3 principle is also called as Egroff's Theorem. I will give the prove of these some other time.

That's for today

Sumant Sumant

Reading and Cooking

Dear Sumant,

It has been raining the whole day. Even now when its 23:17 its still raining. I am here sitting on my couch. I finished reading “Computer Investigation” by Elizabeth Baucher. It’s an elementary introduction to computer forensics with several studies including Enron, Dos (Denial of Service). It's an easy read. I also read part of “The story of Science” by Joy Hakim. It’s a kind of coffee-table book. Lots of neat pictures and stories, I enjoyed the section on the current efforts to discover gravitation waves. The book will appeal to anyone who is little curious with no mathematical background necessary. It’s a book about being fascinated by Physics than just physics itself. I must document that I did only some stretching as part of my yoga routine. So its imperative that I must complete my blog. Today I cooked only cauliflower Chinese style with Vinegar and soy sauce. I forgot to add turmeric powder, so it looks different but it tastes good. While buying grocery at Arnold’s market I noticed Pomegranate 7-up. The bottle said it’s a limited edition, so I had to try it, even though soda has lost much of appeal to me and I try to avoid it for health reasons. The taste is ok nothing spectacular that I would rush to buy one more of these.

That’s for now

Sumant Sumant

Borel Sets and Sigma Algebra

Dear Sumant,

Its 19hrs and I am in my office. I did some stretches as a part of yoga and meditation for over 15 minutes. The point is I want to study Analysis and I think staying in office is better than going home at this point. Anyway the purpose of this blog will also be to put my thoughts. So without wasting any further time lets get down to business.

Q1. What is Algebra ?

An algebra “a” over a given set X is a non empty collection of subsets of X and has the following two properties.

1. When set A and B belongs to this collection then so is their union.
2. When set A belongs to this collection then so is A complement.

Note: here X is a set of real numbers

Q2. What is Sigma Algebra? Is it same as Borel Field ?

An algebra “a” is called Sigma Algebra if every union of countable collection of sets in “a” is again in “a”. Yes Sigma Algebra is same as Borel Field.

Remark : Note the way Sigma Algebra is defined. It says that every union of countable collection of sets in “a” is in “a”.

Q3. What is about smallest Sigma Algebra concept ?

First there is a non empty set X. Then we create all its subsets i.e Power Set P(X). Let E be a non-empty subset of P(X). Now consider all sigma algebras that contain E and we say that this set is non empty because there is always at least one algebra (E,E’,X,phi). Take the intersection over all sigma algebra, which contain set E. The claim is the resulting set is also a sigma algebra.

Q4. How will you show that this resulting Sigma Algebra is unique?

Let M(E) denote the intersection of all Sigma Algebras. Let us assume there is another Sigma Algebra N(E) smaller than M(E). Therefore N(E) has to be inside M(E) ?? It’s because of closure property of sigma algebra, since M(E) contains E and N(E) also claims to contain E and being smaller than M it has to be a subset of M(E). Thus N(E) is a subset of M(E). However M(E) comes from the intersection of all algebras containing E. Therefore M(E) is a subset of all algebras including N(E). Thus we proved both M(E) and N(E) being subsets of each other. Hence M(E)=N(E) and therefore M(E) is unique.

Q5. M(E) is called ?

M(E) is called Sigma Algebra generated over X by E.

Q6. What are the two sets always present in any Sigma Algebra ?

The Empty Set and Set X itself.

Q7. What do you call the algebra formed by Empty Set and Set X itself ?

Trivial Sigma Algebra.

Q8. What is Borel Sigma Algebra ?

The Borel Sigma Algebra is the Sigma Algebra generated by all open sets.

Q9. What are the four equivalent definitions of Borel Sigma Algebra ?

B: Collection of all open sets

B1: Collection of all closed sets

B2: Collection of all open intervals

B3: Collection of all closed intervals

Q10. How will you prove B1 from B ?

Let A belongs to B1 ie A is a closed set => A’ is open => A’ belongs to B (as A’ is open) => (A’)’ =A belongs to B (as B is sigma algebra, so it contains complements). Thus we showed that any element of B1 also belongs to B => B1 is a subset of B.

Conversely let U belongs to B (i.e U is open) => U’ is closed => U’ belongs to B1 (as U’ is closed) => (U’)’ = U belongs to B1 also as B1 is a sigma algebra. Thus again we started with a random element of B and showed it to be an element of B1 ie B is a subset of B1 and hence B=B1.

Q11. How will you prove B2 and B are equal ?

First B2 is a collection of all open intervals and since the union of open intervals is going to be an open set. B2 is a subset of B. Let us take any element U from B. Now U is an open set so it can be written as countable union of open intervals but then it becomes just a element of B2. Thus every element of B is an element of B2. Hence B2 = B.

Q12. That means we have now B = B1 and B = B2

ð B = B1 = B2.

Q13. What will you show B3 equal to?

We see that its easy to show B3 equal to B1. Now B1 is a collection of all close intervals. But we only can say about intersection of close intervals is close set. Take A and element of B3, thus A is closed => A’ is open. Now A’ = union of countable open sets. => A = intersection of complement of all these sets (by DeMorgan’s Law) and then each of these open intervals can be written as semi open union of close intervals. Let me illustrate this with a fig : if (a,b) interval is denoted by the following fig

----------------------(---------)-----------------

a b

Then (a,b)’ is denoted by

(-inf,a]U[b,+inf) as below

(-inf------------------] [------------------+inf)

a b

now the –inf and +inf can be replaced by

U(n=1 to inf ) [-n,a]U[b,n] and run n from 1 to infinity. (Note U here is Union). So we now have closed sets and intersection of any number of closed sets is closed. Thus we started from a closed set and showed it to be equal to countable number of closed intervals. Hence B1 is subset of B3.

While writing this I did go to Jimmy John’s to grab a Vegetarian Sandwich.

That’s for today.

Sumant Sumant

Posting Blogs and yoga eulogies

Dear Sumant,

While posting the blog I realized that this might be the 405^th blog I am posting! Yeah! Not bad in three and half years since I started blogging. That means now if I read each posting each day it will take more than a year to read through all. I am not sure if it’s the correct number because I deleted a few of my posting but they may number less than 3 I believe. Most of the postings are there and tells what mood I was in and what I believed in at that point of time. So when I look back I can see if I am really improving as an individual moreover they are fun and can give you a glimpse of that particular day of our life which if not documented is surely go down in the history of my life as some day. So now I am trying to post each day to make them memorable.

I do think about the 15,000 letter Darwin wrote and 17,000 pages of Voltaire work and wonder wouldn’t it be cool to just past those numbers!! There are people on Amazon who have written product reviews for more than 10,000 items. However getting into number trap is easy and I must avoid it for my own balance and happiness.

I am seriously considering doing Vipasana Meditation at Rockford, Illinois. 10 days of no speaking, writing, reading just meditating sounds real good to me. I know of only two people in real life who have done this, one is Tulika in ST and other is Bob at shawnee dharma both gave a very positive feedback about the program.

Today was ok, I did study some 501 stuff, finished the grading and went to Roy’s house to ask some question related to measure theory. The 2^nd theorem on Measurability is that the measure of Union of countable number of set is less that the sum of the measures of each set. The way indexes were used were not clear to me and they are still kind of vague to me. Roy gave me some idea about similar kind of notation being used in Tensors. It is using the double indexes in union of sets. Other thing I learned that a function is continuous if its inverse image is continuous. Similarly a function is measurable if its inverse image is measurable. There are 4 sets of equivalent definitions are given for a function defined over an extended real value domain.

Other things I did today was to go to Carbondale library to return “Buddha in my backpack”. Somehow I missed it among the pack of books I returned last time. Fortunately this gave me time to finish the book before the due date which was today. I got few more books from library. Three things I am really happy about these days is my ability to stick to yoga, blogging and reading. Today I just exercises from day 14 instead of day 13 as I wanted to try the dhanurasana. I was able to do it as I followed the instructions from the book. I remember doing many of these asanas when in my childhood we used to watch Brhamchari’s yoga program in the morning but now I have a book which makes it easy to know which all asanas should be performed and how many I need to learn, before that I had a vague idea of yoga as some collection of exercises. The tree of life by Iyengar really opened my eyes about the spiritual connection of yoga. Even though I don’t watch television now the controversy regarding Yoga on CNN didn’t escape me. I saw the clipping on you tube. Already yoga is practiced by millions of people here and especially women and as the old adage goes “If you educate a man you educate only one person if you educate a woman you educate the whole family”. Yoga is just not an exercise it’s a whole mind body system and you cannot just practice it like another exercise because it’s not that fast. Each time you stretch yourself you have to feel the stretch in your body. You have to sit still to catch up your breadth and becoming aware of yourself. Whereas in other systems you try to remove your mind by inundating your consciousness with loud rhythmic music till you are tired enough to think of nothing else but a good nap. That’s enough writing for today

Best Regards

Sumant Sumant

Buddha in your backpack, Generating function

Dear Sumant,

I just finished the “Buddha in your backpack” by Frenz Metcalf. I had that from local library for now more than a month. I read it in bits and pieces until today when I saw it lying on heap of other books over a computer left by Nelson’s friend in my living room. I really enjoyed that book. Frank has made the book accessible to anybody who wants to learn more about Buddhism though the focus audience is teens. It starts briefly with the Buddha life then quickly teaches the 4 noble truths and eightfold path. It touches on various topics relevant to anybody and even goes into various Buddhist traditions and sects. It even has chapter on doing meditation and links to other Buddhist websites to get connected into local Sangha. The book is very practical and written in a good humor. The way Buddhism is practiced in US is different from many other parts where it may be the primary religion. Some great Japanese Zen teachers have been instrumental in bringing Buddhism to the current stage of acceptability and growth here. I read another book which talked about “Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism in America”. A wonderful book which tells about the way Japanese Immigrants helped spread Buddhism here. The one core concept that is so riveting and draws many people to Buddhism is its insistence on avoiding dukkha. A pretty simple philosophy isn’t it ?

Yesterday I wanted to sleep just after updating the blog and then I was getting productive with the solutions to the Combinatorics problem. I solved 4 problems, wrote them neatly using Maple. There are two more problems I could frame in my bed in the morning while I was lingering. The one uses exponential generating function and is “A poet has a daughter and she invites n number of friends to her daughter’s birthday party. They have small circular tables and being a good host she doesn’t want any of her friend to sit alone also those table cannot sit more than 6 people in a circle. What are the possible arrangements?” It’s easy to see that this is dividing into blocks and so can be solved by using exponential generating function and I verified it. If you want to try it the solution for case n = 2,3,4,5 and 6 is 1,2,9,44 and 265. The exponential generating function is e^((2-1)!*x^2/2!+(3-1)!*x^3/3!+(4-1)!*x^4/4!+(5-1)!*x^5/3!+(6-1)!*x^6/6!). Using the series function of Maple we find the coefficient of x^n/n! to be the desired value. The other problem I am now trying to construct is where I have to use ordinary generating function where again I have a bound on each interval. Like on previous problem the size of each subset has to be between 2 and 6. I thought that the problem might be like “The poet’s daughter each day writes n lines. Each poem of her contains either 2 or 3 lines (I know it’s more weird than a Haiku). How many possible poems she will have at the end of the week is she has written n number of them?” I tried to use the ordinary generating function here thinking that each poem is a continuous set of lines so my A(x) = x^2+x^3 and B(x) = 1/(1-A(x)) but the values I am getting doesn’t agree.

I think I have some clue now to have the generating function I should know for a given value of n what are going to be its subdivisions, for example in sitting around circular table we know that if there are n people we can sit them in (n-1)! ways. The same cannot be said for my above construed example. If there are n people who many ways you can divide into group of 2 or.

Anyway I think the closest question is question 18 on page 191. The semester of a college consists of n days. In how many ways can we separate the semester into sessions if each session has to consist of at least 5 days? I want it to be changed it if each session consist of at least 2 days and no more than 3 days ?
Well enough counting for today. I better get on to Analysis study. One more thing I today completed the 12th lesson from Richard Hittleman’s wonderful book. Today’s review took me almost 1 and half hr. The feeling after doing Yoga is always great. You see your spine getting straightened.



Cheers and Regards
Sumant Sumant

Some generating functions

Dear Sumant,

Its 23:16 and I am beginning to write my blog for today. I am sitting on my couch and there is this 1flouroscent bulb is glowing. I finished my yoga few moments ago. Today was day 11th lesson I finished but I am doing it for more than 13 days. I have skipped lesson few times but not the practice. Today I added three more asanas and variations to my practice one is head twist, modified chest expansion and modified cobra position. I have already added shoulder stand to my routine. I like that one and my goal is to also add the head stand too. Two of the most juicy positions. Tomorrow is day 12 lesson that means there will be a review of everything I have done today which is good. One thing I noticed that today for the first time I was able to do leg over, however the leg stand is by far the most difficult position for me. The objective is to keep my leg straight and point it towards the roof and I think I make an angle of like 60 degree at best. The moment I start to pull over it gives me a cramp like feeling. In the right leg I can actually feel my muscles snapping. Hopefully the continued practice will see me someday achieving the perfect poise and balance with this.

I spend all of the time today doing Combinatorics stuff. As you know there are two main models of generating function I am learning. The first is called Ordinary Generating Function and the second is called Exponential Generating Function. While the ordinary one counts unlabelled balls into labeled buckets. The exponential one counts labeled balls into labeled buckets. Miklos Bona’s book has some very neat examples on product and composition of generating functions. On products of generating function there are questions like you have [n] on which first k you do one sort of things and on the later n-i you do some other things then what is the total number of ways to do things over n. This I would call interval model. The other one is you make a subset and do operations on the subset. This I would call subset model.

Let me give you a brief overview of what interval model look like. Suppose there are n poles and there is a crew which finishes i poles in the day and paints a smiley face on one of the remaining n-i poles is an example of interval model. A composition model based on interval might look like There is a doctoral student writing her thesis and we don’t know the number of chapter however each chapter much contain at least one page of text and one page of picture also there is no page which contains both picture and text on one. If there are n pages on her dissertation how many ways can her doctoral thesis look like.

Let me also introduce you to some exponential generating models. One of the good thing is exponential generating functions give ordered stirling numbers. You know that stirling numbers are putting n different balls in unlabelled bucket so that no bucket is empty. When using exponential generating function it means that the buckets are labeled, so to get stirling number all we have to do is divide by n!, where n is the number of buckets. The composition of exponential function involves the classic model of making people sit around circular tables and for each table there is a choice of two different types of wines (red and white). The reason for exponential is we are choosing a subset of people to sit around table and we don’t know how many tables we have, all we know that we have n people. So there could be a case when one person is sitting by herself. The composition model helps us concentrate only on one particular subset thus in this case we know that if there are k people at a particular table we can make them sit in (k-1)! ways. If you put this in exponential generating function it will give ln(1/(1-x)). Also the number of ways one table can order a wine is 2 so there is 2^n ways for n subsets (or tables here). If we put this into its exponential generating function we get e^(2*x). To get the total number of ways seating arrangement and wine distribution takes place we compose it as e^(2*ln(1/(1-x))). Which gives 1/((1-x)^2 ) and the coefficient of x^n/n! is (n+1)!. Thus there are (n+1)! ways to serve 2 different types of wine.

Now compare the two composition cases in the first example it was about writing chapters so each chapter involves consecutive number of pages. A similar example in the book involves the session in congress where each session will have a preliminary and the rest of the days have two choices involve committee or subcommittee work. We only know that there are total of n days but no idea about the length of each session. This also gives rise to ordinary generating function model. Its easy to see that for each interval of size k can be deal with in k*2^(k-1). Which gives the generating function x/(1-2*x)^2. The composition will give 1/(1-x/(1-2*x)^2) and from there we can siphon off of the coefficient of x^n to be (4^n-1)/3 Thus the bottom line is if there is a session or chapter of a book where each block contains consecutive elements from the [n] to be a block then it’s a sequence if however you can randomly choose the elements of the block then it’s a block. Now think again how we choose the people to sit around a round table !!


That’s for now
Sumant Sumant

"The Graduate" movie and my views on news websites

Dear Sumant,

Its thursday evening and am in Morris Library updating this blog. As you know that I have stopped reading newspaper and visiting any news website. The most I would do is just sometimes sneak at the headlines on google or yahoo. For a change I decided to check the "Timesofindia" website and even the headlines they have are still bad news. Same with CNN or Fox news. I think I should now operate a website which only gives nice and positive news. I am sure there are lots of people like me who have given up on watching news because the only news they same to care is bad news.

I watched "The Graduate" today. It's one of those movie which were groudbreaking when they were realized, influenced and spawned a whole generation of immitations. I had heard the scarbrough sound before and didn't know that it was from the same movie and concidentally when I was driving here to library the radio station was blaring the same song again ! I came here to library to pick up the "Problems in Real Analysis" workbook with solution. Now I am done that I will return few books to carbondale library and the videos to blockbuster store. I may stop by at "Barnes and Nobles" to check what's the new release there.

That's for now
Sumant Sumant

Wine trail, Blue Sky, Owl Creek

Dear Sumant,

Its 22 hrs and I am ready to update this blog. Today I went out with Mary and Gary to two different Vineyards. First we went to Owl Creek and then we went to Bluesky. At owlcreek I bought Ruby Red wine, which is a kind of very sweet tasting wine. At Bluesky after trying several ones I settled for Riesling, again a sweet wine. Mary also ordered bread with olive oil as a side dish which was good. By 16:30 we were all starving so we drove to a Mexican Restaurant in Anna. I don’t remember the exact name but everybody calls it Dorra’s after the sweet rotund lady who owns it. It was good afternoon spend with great friends. I got two DVDs from Mary one is “The Darjeeling Limited” and the other is “The Graduate”. I just finished watching “The Darjeeling Limited”. It stars Adrian Broody, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman and Amara Karan. The amusing thing is it has nothing to do with Darjeeling in fact you never even going to see one shot from there. Most of the shooting seems to have taken place in Rajasthan. The film is marketed as – “Three American brothers who have not spoken to each other in a year set off on a train voyage across India with a plan to find themselves and bond with each other to become brothers again like they used to be. Their “Spiritual Quest.” However veers rapidly off-course and they eventually find themselves stranded alone in the middle of the desert with eleven suitcases, a printer and a laminating machine at this moment. A new unplanned journey begins and their friendship“. Well I don’t know what message exactly the director had in mind while making this movie. So I took time to look at the extra features on the DVD but other than making of the movie, it had none about the movie.

I did more yoga today and I was pleasantly surprised that I could do two more advanced asanas without any difficulty including “Sarvangasana” also called Shoulder Stand and “Halasana” also called Plough. I am enjoying Yoga more and more. I reason is there is not much preparation you have to do like for other exercises like warming up and cooling down. Yoga can be done anytime. Doesn’t require lots of space and its pretty much full body workout whereas in other you usually work on a particular part of your body till you are exhausted and its like something you must do to keep fit. Whereas in Yoga the movements are gentle and its relaxing. So if I am beginning to sound like a Yoga Fanatic then I am glad about this transition.

I didn’t sleep much yesterday because I want to get back to schedule of getting up early in the morning so I remained awake till early morning today. I did revise 449 stuff and went over the generating function models. The easiest way to distinguish between the two models when there is a product of generating function involved over [n] is to see whether it is an interval or subset. If its interval you probably will use ordinary generating function. Otherwise Exponential generating function model. Miklos Bona’s book is very well written and I am so glad that Dr. Porter is using it.

That’s for now time for bed

Sumant Sumant

Thanks Charles and some measure theory

Dear Sumant,

Its Tuesday evening around 16:30 hrs and I am sitting on my couch at home. The shades on my huge door are turned inwards and there is no other light but the reflected sunlight that has lit up the room enough that I can type without turning on one another lamp. I am writing this because I promised that I will write everyday. Yesterday I got my car fixed and I took time to walk all the way to Tom’s place to pick it up. It was nice sunshine and walking was great. After that I went grocery shopping and then to Charles’s House to pick up the last years 501 question paper. I just asked him once and I am very thankful that he not only remembered that but sent me a text message after he found it, so that I can pick it up. Thank you Charles I really appreciate that gesture. The time has changed by 1 hr, so when I woke up today it was already 11:30 and I had a missed call from Mary. She left me a voice message regarding going to winery tomorrow. Its nice weather outside and I am looking forward to that. One thing which I still have to work on this break is getting up early in the morning. So far I am able to do things which I planned like doing Yoga everyday, updating my blog everyday, reading books etc but getting up early has still escaped my doing. The plan for today is to go and do meditation for a while, finish some proofs on 501 and do at least 2 more models of Combinatorics problem. There are few 501 proof I want to get under my belt today. The one is about the extension of concept of measure to extended real numbers. When we define measure we start with 4 goals in mind. The first is if there is a collection of sets then we should be able to define measure on any subset of that algebra. The 2^nd is called Countable Additive i.e. if we have pairwise disjoint sets then the measure of the union of sets is just summation of measure of individual sets. The third is called translation invariance. I believe it means the measure remains the same no matter where we translate that interval to i.e at all the points the measure is kind of uniform. The fourth, I think it is 2^nd or 3^rd one which states that the measure of an interval is the difference of the end points. One of my favorite theorem in measure theory is that any “Open Set” can be written as a countable union of pairwise disjoint intervals. It has a 5 step proof. First we prove that there exists an open interval which is subset of the “Open Set”. Then we prove that the union of such open intervals is equal to the “Open Set”. The fourth step is showing that if the “Intersection” of two such interval is “Not Empty” than the two intervals are “Same”. The last step is showing that there exists countable number of such open intervals because each interval contains unique rational number and since rational numbers are countable therefore the intervals are countable.

I have more to say about being finite and countable in this course. A set is Finite if it is either Empty or a range of a Finite Sequence. Similarly a set is Countable if it is either Empty or an range of a Sequence. Note when we say here sequence we automatically assume that it has infinite number of terms.

The above definition leads to few more results that can be readily derived. The very first one is “Every subset of countable set has countable number of elements”

There is another cool result Roy showed me and it states that for any countable union of collection of sets there exists an equal countable union of pairwise disjoint sets and the proof involves a standard argument which I didn’t know before. It’s easy to see once you have seen it as Roy showed me.

I have to end here

Best Regards

Sumant Sumant

My Transition to National Public School, Bela Road Part 1

Well this happened a long time ago. I still vividly recall the day it was Monday 14^th April 1986 that I went to take my test for grade 6. I was made to sit and take that test in that chemistry lab. I remember I wrote fervently trying to answer every question that I could. I did make it but later I was told that it wasn’t so good. The very first day I met people like Abhilash Jindal and Rajeev Jain and Gautam. They inquired me about my performance in previous school and aptly cautioned that percentage here takes a nose dive. I was exposed to lot of things I didn’t know. From a relatively shy guy I became more asserting. There was this boastful Kapil Khanna with whom I used to take bus. I learned that ping pong is a serious game and its ok to spend Rs 500 for Marc 5 rubbers Rs 250 for Donics ply. I learned that Addidas, Reebok, Puma and Nike are the shoes one should wear. I learned all about pop culture and started grooving to latest music from Jackson, Madonna and Milli Vinalli. I learned how to break into clique and be a cool guy. I became a good ping pong player. Some of the friendships I forged are still fresh in my mind. Let me try how many I can recall Vikas Bansal, Atul Rathi, Naresh Arneja, Amit Jain, Amit Gupta, Suruchi Saboo, Smriti Khanna, Shobhna Gupta, Sheetal Jain, Vikram, Rajesh Grover, Abha Chiripal, Shalini Grover, Vinod Masih, R Dhanush, Rajesh Jain, Dinesh Jain, Monia, Meenakshi Razadia, Rajkumar Sharma, Shalini Sahdev, Robin Kapoor, Twinkle. We had a Physical Trainning Instructor Devdatt Sharma who had a red and white stick and many times we were punished for talking in class and had to endure beatings on palms. I excelled in badminton but I never played volleyball it was big boy’s game. I did play cricket sometime but only with plastic ball with leather ball I just watched these guys played. At the same time while I was learning in National School, I think I developed a complimentary personality at Mall Apartments. Here I become a good cricket player. I was a pacer. I was friends with everyone in the apartments. There were essentially 3 cliques here. One comprised of Amit Sood, Renoo, Deepak Batra etc. The other was Aditya Tondon, Girish Agarwal, Saket Singh etc and the third one was Malpani and other people we used to call Jamuna par people. I moved in and out with everybody and remember trying to bring these people together too. It was a wonderful childhood that I still savor. I will write more about it some other time.

Persnickety, Perdurable, Superannuated, Hailing Distance

Dear Sumant,

I just finished my 9^th day of Yoga from the Richard Hittleman’s book. Yesterday’s session was the longest. It was day 8^th , the review day. I did all 14 asanas and it took me over 1 and half hr to finish but again the surprising aspect was that I didn’t feel the time passing, as said before while doing yoga your concentration is fixed on your body so one doesn’t need distraction while doing yoga. I am feeling great after doing my Yoga today. It also means that I have finished 1/3^rd of the book so far. One of my favorite is scalp asana. Where you pull on your hair and massage your scalp. It’s funny when you are doing it but it is so very relaxing. The book is very well written with all the pictures and the commentary to help you know exactly how one can perform a particular asana. Today I woke up late but I did manage to utilize my time. I read several chapters from different books including “The Artist’s way”, Og Mandino’s book and a chapter from Covey’s book. I did some thinking on Combinatorics problem. I made up one problem and I tried to solve it with the ordinary generating function but I keep getting the wrong answer. I tried using Maple and it matched individual cases when you do by hand but when I was using Generating Function I was getting the wrong value of the coefficient. The problem was pretty basic “If there are two people and the first one eats only even number of sweet meats and the 2^nd one eats only odd number of sweets. How many different ways the two can eat n number of sweets”. You will readily discover that we should have only odd number of sweets (since even plus odd is odd). So the resulting generating function or the power series should have 0 as the coefficient for all even powers of x. It’s easy to see that the function will be (1+x^2+x^4+x^6+..)*(x+x^3+x^5+x^7+..) and the product of these two will give 1/(1-x^2)*x/(1-x^2) which leads to partial fraction of 1/(4(1-x)^2)-1/(4(1+x)^2) and the coefficient of x^n in this case will be 1/4*nCr(n+2-1,n)-1/4*(-1)^n*nCr(n+2-1,n). I was calculating the coefficient of x^n in a wrong way. The correct formula for x^n when you have something like 1/(1-x)^r is nCr(n+r-1,n) and I was doing nCr(r+n-1,r). So I went back to Tuker’s book on combinatorics and realized my mistake. The correct generating function once inputted gives the expected result when for any even number of sweets we get zero and for odd number it’s the right value and if you are wondering what’s that final value is, its (n+1)/2 when n is odd and zero when n is evern with my earlier approach I was getting the wrong result of n(n+1)/4.when n is odd and zero when n is even. So I learned a valuable lesson. My plan now is to study some 501 stuff. I have already written down the questions. There are 6 this time including question on Agroff’s Theorem etc.

Around 15hr I went to Tom to get my belt tensionner fixed. So I will get my car back tomorrow. I met there Mohsin and one another guy. Mohsin had a great news to share. He is blessed with a wonderful daughter and both the mother and child are doing great. I met Mohsin while I was in southern hill for a while. He was my next door neighbor. A very soft spoken person and he is doing his master’s in Economics.

Few new words that I recently learned includes superannuated, persnickety, hailing distance, Apoplexy and Perdurable.

Apoplexy : a fit of extreme anger or rage: “Alex had wrung himself dry over his paper for Professor Lopex, and his poor grade sent him into apoplexy”

Other meaning for apoplexy is “A sudden loss of consciousness resulting when the rupture of occlusion of a blood vessel leads to oxygen lack in the brain”. The word is nearest in meaning to stroke, another sentence “The adversary, a stock man in a checkered shirt, sprang to life. Arms spread, veins popping, he launched an oral bombardment that looked likely to end in fisticuffs or apoplexy. Communism versus Capitalism ? Is there a God ? The chainsaw buzz of their Spanish made it impossible for me to tell the stakes. “I turned to a sturdy youth who was also watching the debate .. “What are they arguing about ?” “Baseball”. By Christopher Hunt

Persnickety

“Walk on it” is good advice, whether the problem is a persnickety plotline or a persistent personality clash. Native Americans pursue vision quests, Aborigines do walkabout. Both of these cultures know that walking clears the head.

1． Used colloquially of one who is overly conceited or arrogant “they’re snobs-stuck-up and uppity and persnickety”

2． Characterized by excessive precision and attention to trivial details “a persnickety job”, “ a persnickety school teacher”

Perdurable

1. Very durable; lasting; continuing long: “The perdurable statues in the town square have remained virtually unchanged, even as the buildings around them have been renovated, rebuilt, and refaced”

It is an indictment of the hubris of our politically correct age that a film asserting this perdurable truth about mankind’s affair will strike many as offensive. But truth it is, and conservatives should be grateful to Maxwell, and Ted Turner, the film’s financier for daring to tell it”. National Review March 10,2003

The current installation at the Field Museum in Chicago- after previous appearances at venues in Rome and London- of a large-scale exhibition of ancient art centered upon the personality and historical role of the last Macedonian queen of Egypt testifies to the perdurable hold of Cleopatra upon the public imagination more than 20 centuries after her death”. Sheldon Nodelman

“I have professed me thy friend, and I confess me knit to thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness; I could never better stead thee than now”.

Superannuated

1. discharged as too old for use or work, especially with a pension: “a superannuated civil servant”

2. no longer in use or valid or fashionable; obsolete: “Shelly collects superannuated computers and adds their processing power to a growing supercomputer in her garage”. “superannuated laws”.

Hailing distance:

At the time I owned a 1965 Chevy pickup named Louise. Every afternoon I would load Louise with a half-dozen dogs and point the truck down a dirt road into the sagebrush. A mile into “nowhere”. I would park the truck on the roadside and signal to the dogs that they were free to roam- as long as they stayed within hailing distance.

That’s for now

Sumant Sumant

First day of spring break

Dear Sumant,

Today is the first day of the spring break. Yesterday I went out to Fusion with Alicia, Christian and Amber. Then I went to Alicia's house and we watched Bridget Jones Dairy back to back. I hadn't seen that movie before but I enjoyed both parts. So I went to bed pretty late. Somewhere around 5 am today morning. Which is not exactly I wanted to begin my break. I did do some Yoga yesterday and I plan to do it today. So far today I went to Indian Buffet with Akina and Mei and then Mei and I went to see the movie 10,000 BC. The only reason I wanted to see the move was because of the trailers I had seen and it did live up to its expectation on that front. I am updating this blog from the library where I picked up "The Artist's way". Thus its going to be my 3rd book by Julia Cameron. Other than that I will go home do some analysis, combinatorics and Yoga and try to sleep early.

That's for now
Sumant Sumant

Just a rant before spring break starts !

Dear Sumant,

Wow ! Its last day of school and I am done with my classes so I thought I should better update this blog. Today it snowed again !! I had two classes including measure theory and combinatorics. Its Friday and I am pepped up to make the best use of this vacation. Last time when it was Christmas and New Year Break, I read a lot and was very happy the way I was able to utilize my break. My main focus this break will be measure theory and combinatorics. I am beginning to get a handle on measure theory and I really want to do well in the first test which is suppose to be on Wednesday after the break. Three people showed up for the extra time I promised.
I today called my parents and we talked for a while. I again insisted on reading the 7 Habits but they don't seem to understand my point of you and I don't know how better to get my message across unless they make an attempt to read it. I am totally convinced that learning and reflecting should be made a part of everyday life. If we are not learning then we are unlearning and which is a root cause of many psychological problems We are all so concerned about the kind of food we eat but at the same time we have to be very careful about what kind of thoughts we let our brains be exposed to. That's why I have now become very selective about the kind of News I even read. As you know these days I am reading Iyengar's "Tree of life". It's a fascinating book and it has opened my eyes to Yoga as never before. So one of the next thing when I return home will do Yoga for the 8th consecutive day ! Yay.

That's for now
Sumant Sumant

Evening update

Dear Sumant,

Well I am updating this one from Faner lab, I came here to do two things one to order the pair of books on real analysis by Aliprantis and Burkinshaw and other to update my blog.Before coming here I was in Carbondale Public Library. I had to return few books including "The Road to Perdition". In spite of thinking not to get anymore books I ended up getting three more books. There is one on Bhagwad Gita, One by Steven Covey called "Everyday Greatness" and third by Og Mandino's "A better way to live". I think an interesting mix of titles. Like many times you see some people all the times and yet you haven't spoken to them. Today I introduced myself to a Vishal. He is from Kerela and I saw him at the Carbondale Library. Apart from that I came to school early and two guys from my Math class showed up. Hopefully tomorrow they will do good in the remaining 10 minutes of the test. One of my class on Continuum Mechanics is already canceled. I will now go to Ambassador Hall have pizza with Murat and them go home to do some problems for my combinatorics class plus at least 2 more proofs in 501 and of course some Yoga. Seems Murat has got my Pizza, I just got a call from him. So this blog ends right here :)

Best Regards
Sumant Sumant

Elmer Agudelo Rodriguez

Dear Sumant,

It's 23:52 by my clock radio placed diagonally across the room over the rack. I just finished the day 6 asanas of Hittlewood. I started around 23:09 so that means I spent almost 40 minutes doing yoga, which is to me kind of amazing. When you are doing yoga you are concentrating on the pulls of muscles and your breathe. The time just simply flies. You hold on to a particular pose usually for 10 to 15 second and then move to another pose. Sometimes relaxing for a minute. So one cannot do Yoga in a hurry. There is a peaceful relaxing feeling that lingers on after a session of yoga and in that euphoric mood I am updating this blog. My morning began with finishing off few problems of 501 and then I went to school on foot as my car was all iced and I couldn't manage to open the door even though I was able to unlock it.

Letti had arranged a dental checkup for me. By the time I reached there it was already 8:30 and she greeted me with a welcoming smile. I filled and signed four different forms and was accosted by her to the dental room. Apparently my gums aren't in great shape. I was looked by her supervisor and then by two other doctors. Her supervisor told me that now I am Letti's project and I will have to come for few more appointments and it may include some xrays before the cleaning. I am very grateful to Letti for getting me this appointment which costs $15 an amount peanuts if you go for dental hygiene anywhere. In total I was there for an hr being examined by her and her entourage. My next appointment is a week after the spring break.

I today gave my Math 140 class their 2nd midterm exam. I haven't graded it yet because I promised them that they all will get 10 extra minutes to finish it on Friday and in between they can ask me or work on the problems. While proctoring the test I read several chapters of “Right to Write” and I must say it has lot of motivation for anybody to start writing daily as now I am doing. Thanks Ms. Cameron I am glad that I found your book. On my 501 front, I am making more progress in understanding which is a good thing. Dr. Porter today started a new chapter on graph theory, we will be doing some interesting stuff on Hypergraphs.

For tomorrow, which has already begun, I will be in my office early morning by 10 am, so any of my student turns up could use my help. I really want them to succeed and hopefully they will make use of this opportunity. I have to return several book to Carbondale Library. By the time I will get up our good friend Elmer Agudelo will have left carbondale. He is going back to Columbia on Thursday. He is one fine gentleman and he bonded well with all people. Yesterday for his farewell several of us went to Thai taste for dinner. We will definitely miss him. However I am sanguine that I will see him sometime again in future.

That's for now

Sumant Sumant

Morning Page for March 4

Dear Sumant,

It Faner hall computer lab and time is close to 10 am. It iced yesterday and the lobby in front of my apartment was all slippery. I wook up around 7 am and took time to practice my yoga for almost half an hr. So that means it has been 6 days straight. I am off by one day however, as yesterday I just repeated what I knew from past 4 days. Today I learned about deep breathing in both postures, one while sitting down and other in standing position. I again spent around 15 minutes practicing piano. Yesterday I went to Gayan's place for some help on Math 501 stuff. He gave me many ideas regarding those questions. My plan for today is to complete those questions and also spend time on the stuff we are going over in the class, pick up the book from library, prepare for Math 140 test that I have to administer for my class. I hope they do well in this particular test too.

That's for now
Sumant Sumant

Quick blog

Dear Sumant,

This will be a quick blog as I am waiting for Mohan ji to pick me up. My car is at Arena parking lot and its been raining whole day. Tomorrow another rain and sleet. I haven't yet done my yoga for today. I also will need to cook something for dinner. I am going to give my Business Calculus class their 2nd midterm on Wednesday. I am excited about the upcoming spring break and hope it will be productive. In 501 my progress is on the up swing and I hope I will continue that because this is one of the most important class. In 449 today we discussed more exponential models.

That's for now
Sumant

Library System

Dear Sumant,

Its already March 3 but I want to make sure that my blog about March 2 is there as the part of that day's page. I spent today more than 12 hrs at Roy's house. I know it was way too much but I stayed there because he knows 501 and usually give me insights that for some one new to Measure Theory is not obvious. Roy is a brillant guy and a very down to earth too. I also met Abhijeet and Inderjeet also. They came to his house for dinner. As pointed in my earlier blog that I have an assignment due on March 3 for 501. I made sure that I did my hath yoga practice for day 4th in the row. I am getting more flexible because I could now do the Simple Twist "Ardha Matseyndrasana" now which wasn't possible the 2nd day. I also could do the full lotus too. I am really enjoying these yoga lessons and look that like fruit diet, I can incorporate this into my daily lifestyle. As I am writing this blog, I just flipped the book "The Tree of Yoga" by B.K.S Iyengar. I read the forward and seems very interesting. I am not really sleepy but its almost quarter to 2 and I better be taking some rest. Before I sign off, I must tell you that another book by Julia Cameron about writing is now available to me from Morris Library. I have tremendously benefited from the library system here. It's really neat, I have access to almost any book I can think of and I usually get it in less than a week. I remember in my naivety I once thought that library system should be replaced by making all books available electronically. I know this is going to happen already Kindle is one step in that direction, but visiting library, browsing books is another joy that I don't think so people would like to replace with the virtual convenience. The joy of going to an isle you seldom go and discover a book that you might not read at first glance but still go ahead and read it and wonder why you didn't go there before makes the trip to going library irreplaceable. Thank you Mr. Carnegie for popularizing this concept of library. It's a blessing.

Best Regards
Sumant Sumant

Giving up on reading News and feeling great !

Dear Sumant,

Today I didn’t go out so this blog when posted might have a different date. I am sitting on my couch after having dinner. I just ate dal, chawal tarkari. The tarkari was an assortment of fried vegetables. I did yoga today, may be almost 3 times. I am enjoying the way this book has structured yoga. It’s a series of asanas that you have to do with very clear instructions and revealing pictures. I also plugged back my piano today. It had been lying by my dinner table for quite sometime. I practiced fur elise today, right now I only know the part of this song (the first page and few more lines from 2nd page on Casio’s piano book song) but I was glad that I could play it again after having not practiced for more than 2 and half months. I added few more words to my vocabulary including Phalanx, Revelry, Recusant, Refractory, Factious and Restive. 0n 501 front I have a homework due on Monday. I been reading the functional limits and continuity for example we know that if a sequence converges to a pt then we can find arbitrary number of points close to it similarly we say a function is continuous at a point if the limit of functional values converge to that point. In class we proved an example of a set which is not lebesgue measurable. It took more than 1 day to finish with that example. One great news that Dr. Salah has won the Blackwell prize this year. I consider myself really fortunate to have this opportunity to take a course with him. I also took time today to read part of Julia Cameron’s book “Walking in this world”. It’s very engaging and readable. I am reading it slowly because it makes you think as you read along. I was reflecting on myself. There was a time when I used to call myself a news junkie and loved that title. I used to read most major news websites and was very proud of that fact. I think it was last year in june when gave up this habit and I must admit that I am really glad that I took this step. I have now more time to have my own opinion rather than being shaped by the opinion of those newscaster most of the time spewing bad news. I must admit that I was becoming biased towards people. So I was very glad that my predictions for recent elections fell flat which means I am getting out of the influence of current politics. I do check headlines sometime but I am trying to avoid all political or bad news. I prefer business or Slashdot type of news if I feel like reading. That’s for now its already 22:40 another page of blog done 


Best Regards
Sumant