Curse

Few members of my life, sometimes bug me with my inabilities, my failures, my fears. They think of me as an immature, a child who knows nothing about logic and calculation. I don’t mind them thinking like that. But, adults from my life are there to not to realize that, they have forgot the delicate process for learning, feeling, thinking and rethinking. Adults do not realize that they will not be able to do anything new, anything innovative, anything great, if they remain an adult. Adults from my societies constrain themselves inside some illogical reasons, which prevent them to think the other way, they lose the sense of thrill, they lose their imaginations, and worse, they lose their dreams. Their eyes are full of dead dreams, the reason, their previous generations murdered the dreams of next generation. And any young mind dreams of something (a bit big it may be), they say, “You are young, that is why you cannot fully understand what you are saying”.

Grown ups from my community thinks that they are experienced and seasoned, they knows many things better than the younger ones; they are not totally wrong in this, but they fail to accept that there are few things that they will never understand. Viz. electronic gaming, no grown up really enjoy computer games (they say, “it is bad for your health”), and the young still like it. And when it comes to the RTS genre, “Is it really a game?”, they say. What we can enjoy, they cannot! That’s the difference! And they think, what we are enjoying is bad for us, funny way they think! They always give great words of wisdom, but they should not try to break beliefs. To me, a child is the only person able to learn.

And one funny thing, I must share to the reader, is that, in my society, they are real slow to adapt with technology, slower than the fluctuation of cosmic microwave background radiation. And the reason is that they hate to do a bit more for their own facility. They like the way it is.

Erik Weinmeyer is blind , he climbed the third pole. Alexie Mareseyev was footless, but he did flew fighter without feet, Reinhold was illogical, but he still climbed everest without oxygen alone, Michal Faraday was a book binder, but he did something that runs civilization end etc. etc. etc.

And the ‘Curse’ of my society, is that it is afraid. And since the day I know that my society is afraid, I laugh at them, as they once said that I am afraid when I was kid. Maybe, when a grown up will read this post, he will say, that I am thinking like this because I am still young. But I cannot understand a very simple thing; I am a human being, with the most complex algorithm (the human mind), which can create more algorithms. Why we should constrain ourselves inside our own dead walls? Why do we not take risks? Why are we afraid of future? Why are we afraid of trying new things? Why are we afraid of walk unexplored paths? Why are we afraid of sorrow? Why cannot we embrace uncertainty? Why afraid of a few simple truths? Why we cannot be ruthless? There is only one life! Only one! And why we don’t understand this damn simple truth?

Relish

It was about 8.45 PM when I bought two “Vegetable chop”s from a very well known “Chop-wala” for Rs. 6; his “chop”s are beautiful. The stall is situated just beside a street junction near the railway station. I wanted to relish my newly bought “chop”s, embedded with vegetable salad. But danger loomed near; few buddies were there, who saw me, and I smiled at them, but I didn’t dare to show that I have a package full of relish in my hands. I rode my bicycle looking for a safe place to relish the beauty of the thing in my hand. While I was passing beside “Shyamnagar Girl’s School”, I noticed the place, thought I should to stop there, and eat my way through the upper hard crust of the “chop”, to the spicy, saucy, soft veggies. But unfortunately my english teacher was there, talking to someone. He grinned at me, and I grinned at him, and obviously I didn’t eat the “chop”s. I considered to go far away, near my school. When I was near the Shyamnagar Kanti Chandra High School crossing, where the sodium vapour lamp struggles to illuminate a big area, I noticed our assistant headmaster taking a evening walk (his home is near his school). I failed to eat again. I was again in search of a new place, to relish me “chop”s.

And lastly I had to eat my “chop”s, under the clear sky, where the rustling banyan tree beside was there for me, giving me my long lost faith in myself.

Being Geek

Being a Technology Geek, and a serious physics-mathematics buff is really hard especially when you are in 18 yrs. of age, with your board exams very near. But as Geekdom is full of fun, you cannot ignore that, and thus you will fall in your career. This was my truth, until recently.

When I think I should talk about quantum mechanics with my friends, they literally scold me, as they don’t like it. Whenever I say, “Python is awesome, you should really try it out”, to my friends, they say, “I will think about that when I get time”. Whenever I talk about the OSS superstars, no one cares. When I talk about the GTK+ library, no one seem to try to know what I am talking about. When I try to think about tensors quietly, no one cares about my thoughts, they just come along and seduce me to play bridge, thus distracting me. When I try out apparently ridiculos things, no one supports me, even when I give them perfect logic, they just don’t care! But still I did those things, and screwed my exams, but still I am proud of my Geekdom.

Now, I know, that it is all about channelizing your geekiness through a proper channel. It is not that hard, I tried it out in some cases. I think everybody should be proud of their Geek status; Geek status is unique, and good as long as you don’t disturb others around you. A funny but very logical quote a friend of mine made, “A busy person finds time for everything.”. So you can be a geek a man, and a great student with great academics (I am definitely not a good academic).

I should share some of my cool geeky projects, all you geeks out there, try these out:->

1. Master Python, all by yourself, with the help of tutorials, books, and online references (Not so difficult, and very fun).
2. Find out the radius of a circular road or a curve, with the distortion of the oscillation of a hand made pendulum to one side while riding at the back of a bike, or a car (assuming the speedometer is fairly accurate)(Planning to do this).
3. Find long lengths in average by walking, and calculating the average length of every step (This wouldn’t be very accurate)(Done this many times).
4. Configure GRUB correctly, with Ubuntu, Fedora, and Windows installed, so that every one of them work correctly (Trying to do it).
5. Find the centre of gravity of any shapes that comes to mind, with the help of calculus and paper, or calculus and computer, and also Euclidian Geometry, trigonometry, symmetry arguments, and physics.
6. Get a fair grip on linear algebra (Only for 18 yrs. like me).
7. Configure a cellphone, so that you can access the internet connection of your PC from the cellphone using the bluetooth or USB (Needs a bit of programming I think, I will try it out, when I get my hands on a decent cellphone)(Found in DIGIT June 2008 issue).
8. Convince a female friend to listen to all your fantastic “Beauty of Science” lectures (Trying…).
9. Go to the carpenter to build a big cog wheel to find the velocity of light, how? You think/google it out (Planning to do).
10. If you use linux, forget GEdit, KEdit, Kate etc., go back to Vi, Emacs or Nano (Found in DIGIT June 2008 issue).
11. Build a model of Bucky Ball(C60) or a Dodecahedron from anything (Very bad one)!
12. Hack Ubuntu to enable the root account in GUI (Trying hard!).

Tensor Addiction

Ya, I am addicted to Tensors. Before I try to describe that addiction, I would like to say what Tensors are.

An nth-rank tensor in m-dimensional space is a mathematical object that has n indices m^n components and obeys certain transformation rules. You get it? Well, you may not, or you may, but you are free to try to feel the tensors, you may try to think of this abstract mathematical object, you may try to touch it with your mind.

I try to do those, and there is my addiction. When I start to to think about Tensors, I go completely drugged. It feels good to think about those abstract relations. Linear algebra is one of those mathematical topics which requires real human mind. I believe everybody has a mind, this post is an invitation for that kind of thinking, you don’t need to be mathematically trained to get addicted, just Google up some tensor articles, read them and get addicted (unlike any addiction, tensor addiction is safe, but a bit time consuming, it will have you sitting quietly on your chair).

To me higher mathematics is just learning the notations, and learning how to use the and where to use them, because it is the instinct of our mind to do mathematics. We need notations to express them, just like poetry. But you don’t really have to write down notations after notation on pages to do mathematics, that is just an aid to memory and a processing ground.

I pointed out tensors because I think it is a good place to start the addiction, and I think there are other topics at the heart of mathematics which are addictive i.e. category theory, complexity classes, symmetries etc. I didn’t move to Category Theory yet, when I do, I will inform my beloved readers.

And, lastly, get addicted to science!

I didn’t really describe that addiction of tensors I told I will. Well, the truth is; I cannot describe that, feel it yourself, and don’t try to make a complete meaning out of this post, because this post itself is abstract.

Learning and lost

Again, I am going to blow this thing out. I recently read in Scientific American that Blogging has it’s own therapeutic values. “Great”, I think. I am receiving that therapy pretty easily, without knowing. I think I learn from experience, I really cannot learn from somebody, if only he tells me that. I realize now; standing on the edge of breaking myself, I have to play harder, I had to play harder! I didn’t. And, the net result, “A very important person lost trust in me…”, I don’t blame him of course, I cannot, as it was me who couldn’t qualify in IITJEE. And now when I just shout out “I going for SAT”, obviously most of the people will consider me MAD. Maybe I am MAD, but I know that I learned, though a bit late. I really learned from life. I visited IACS for a summer school, there they reignited my soul for science; and now after the declaration of the results, I am lost again. They are saying, “You have be a good academic to get a considerable position in Science, and your past academics is really dull”. I know that, but I cannot tell them that I learned. If I am all wrong, that I didn’t learn this time too, then what is the meaning of life to me. I need not to live anymore, as I will never learn, I will go down down and down, and ultimately… and if this is the situation, then I can try the hard way, I am in no hurry for dying!

I am getting a bit depressed I think. And I really am very very confused, blogging a kind of precious hobby to me, I just cherish the thought that someone will read, and give me some words of wisdom.

And amidst all these thoughts, the girl is fading away, just as Physics is fading aways from my life, my mind and my soul. Both of those entities are important to me, Physics and SHE, BOTH! But both are getting out of my hands, I cannot impress her, I cannot do physics. What am I worth? Dammit!?