Circle and various concurrencies

I was teaching Geometry to my students and there I came up with these pictures. The blue line is Euler line. You also see Incircle, Circumcircle, 9 pt Circle, Centroid, Orthocenter, and Incenter. I have shown here all 3 types of triangles

Martin Gardner's death

I was looking online and was shocked that Martin Gardner died on May 20th.

BP profits rises

One of the thing which future generation will wonder why there was never a collective will against using fossil fuels. Did our generation never realized that fossil fuels are still much more expensive to use than the current so called not do efficient renewable technologies. I remember when I was a kid I used to wonder why doesn't our government throws open sectors like power generation and insurance to foreign companies because after every budget we were told that wall street was not happy with the slow pace of reforms in India and it will slow down the expected GDP growth. Its only  safter living in United States did I realize that wall street profit has not much to do with the standard of living of the people.America did  shock me with their poverty. To an outsider it looks that they are the richest people but lot of them barely scrape by. Their wages might be higher but whatever they earn they end up spending paying bills.

French mass in Hanoi

I had the pleasure to witness the Sunday mass in Hanoi at this beautiful church. It was a catholic service in French so my understanding wad very limited but the choir music was foot tapping. Thanks yo Eric we all had a great time.

Read Polya

I was reading the biography of Polya. He was one of the most influential mathematician of the 20th century and curiously enough he was not the math prodigy. In fact he was quite an ordinary student and on top of that he majored in philosophy. His other interests were in biology and physics and he diverted his attention to math a lot later and yet did seminal work in both research and the art of teaching. I have read his other book "How to solve it" and it sure was an influential book in my mathematical career.
I am fascinated by the preface he has written for this book where he is making a distinction between demonstrative reasoning and plausible reasoning. "We secure our Mathematical knowledge by demonstrative reasoning, but we support our conjectures by plausible reasoning.
I am curious and very excited about the effect of reading these two volumes and will comeback and write another post in June about my tryst with these two books. Its like read Polya read Polya he is master of us all. A tribute to him on the lines of one attributed to great Euler.

My year 9 students

New friends

More pics

Haulong bay

Hanoi

Returning from Vietnam ( a trip to paradise)

I am here at the noi boi airport in Hanoi. Last two weeks were incredible. I loved Halong bay. The train ride was breathtaking and so were the Mekong delta trip. The Halu temple. I am now among people's who have seen uncle ho's mosoleum.

Morning

Cat ba island

Halong bay

Dinner at Tenfold in Hanoi

Pics from today

Incredible Vietnam train journey

Sleepstream

Ok so I now have sleep stream on my iPod and today was the first real test. I had a 2 hr commute on the visit to Mekong delta and on both ways I used the Sleepstream and amazingly Those two hrs were blissful. I didn't think about that I was sleeping on the chair. Had a wonderful time in Pnom Peng relaxing

Mekong delta trip

I am typing this while I am on my way to Hanoi from Saigon. It's a nice train and I am enjoying it. Today I did the tour to Mekong delta. It was truly fantabulous and for a price of $7 it included a commute to 2 hr place, a visit to coconut candy factory, food, boat ride, canoe ride and canoe ride it makes Cambodia seem like a very expensive destination. I loved that all the trips were so professionally organized with excellent guides.

Starting to use Springpad

I still don't know how it is going to ease my life but going by the number of people using such software I think it could be a good thing to learn.

I am reading a book and yesterday I watched a video by the author of the same book on TED. It was about the relationship between award and productivity. How things which require the use of Lateral Thinking and things which people do for passion are inversely related to productivity.

Another good video was about motivating yourself and it included things like gratitude, random act of kindness, keeping a journal, exercise and meditation. To which I should add is learning new things everyday.

Yesterday in Saigon

Yesterday I went to several places including war museum, Chinatown, Vietnamese restaurant, Chinese temple, Lacquer shop, Presidential palace, Catholic church and post office. Then dinner at Namaste India restaurant. Also got my laundry done at local laundry shop and had my ticket for Hanoi and a day trip to Mekong delta.

Fun things to do

I have to look at the complete solution of these problems but they all are fascinating. Trisecting an angle, doubling a cube, feurbach circle,castillon's problem, malfatti's problem, monge's problem, mascheroni's compass problem and steiner's straight edge problem

Breakfast at Blue Pumpkin

So it's Wednesday and I am here in Pnom Penh. It's really nice outside today. I am looking at some of the problems in the wonderful book by Prof. Steinhauss.
The first problem was about a variation of Pythagoras theorem x^n+y^n=z^n we had to prove that of n>z then no solution is possible.
The other nice problem was about given 4 random points (non collinear) a, b, c and d and it was asked to prove that if it is always possible to draw circle which can contain the 4th vertex inside the circle. We should recall that if there are 3 non collinear points they always define a unique circle.
Another fun problem was about dividing the circle into 19 triangles such that at each vertex of the newly formed figure (and also at the vertices of the original triangle) the same number of sides meet. Also if it was possible to divide the original triangle into less than 19 assuming the same conditions.

I usually don't like to get emotional. I just saw a girl about 4 or 5 yrs old selling stuff like cotton mufflers and you wonder about people who complain about their lives. Here is a child who is forced to earn her living because she has no choice. Learning to constantly being told that her products are not wanted. We go about living our lives as it is all do with their Karma

Breakfast at blue pumpkin

Today I think I will make one more attempt to have dinner at the Kerala restaurant. I am here at the blue pumpkin to enjoy a little breakfast

Dosa corner

I wanted to try the food at taste of buds so I went to wat lanka. However the place is closed on Monday. I tried this Does corner place and liked it. The day was productive. I did both maths and yoga and spent quite time. That's how i want to spend my vacation.

Dinner with Jackie, Pete, Jemima and moms