Fused Bulbs

hi there!! Happy New 2009!

2008-12-31T10:50:00.000+05:30

Hey there!

3^rd semesters over matey!! Seems like weve got plenty to do!!

Twas a very successful semester for me- I finished off the ten seasons of FRIENDS- although a meagre first viewing only! But 20X24X10=4800 mins=30 hrs of popcorn popping was not ALL I did!! I also passed a chemistry course in spectroscopy (having flunked the midsems by one point- but made up good time to claim 85% in the final assessment), passed a physics course in Quantum Mechanics which was over-the-line mathematical, loved a complex analysis course, proved myself a SENSITIVE scientist wannabe (humanities course in “Indian Heritage in sciences” baby!), and watched many more movies of my kind.

I also grew a goatee and shaved it, twice, notwithstanding my status as a bovine creature. There was also a great deal of growing up, yknow, philosophically and emotionally; but the present stand is to put all the growing up behind the linen!! We do need to grow sometime soon, mind our own business and manners- but give it a break grumpy; we aren’t 20 yet!!

New year is coming up, and the resolutions I take grow increasingly stupid!! Ahh , the time to start all over again!! We do need that now, don’t we? I wish I had a bunch of Donald Shimoda quotes to throw at you, but then do you know at all who he is?

Ayn Rand does write beautifully and she climbed into my hallowed unrankable authors list with Tolkien, Rowling, Richard Bach, Erich Segal- after I read only one chapter of “Atlas Shrugged” (talk of me being biased from the hype she has around people- but the factor is that she satisfied all my expectations- she could have let me down, like Rowling in “Deathly Hallows”- but AR didnt).

VARIABLE CHANGE from movie ‘21’

And last of all the insight into variable change that my musings revealed to me only this morning. You see, in the movie 21, the protagonist who goes by the name of Ben is a brilliant young student who gets into a ‘card counting’ club in MIT, and the subsequent repercussions on his lowly life. In my opinion, it is not a timeless piece at all, but enjoyable like all crap in this world is. There however Kevin Spacey stars as Miki Rosen, the MIT prof with a helluva gift of oratory and the leader of this card counting team who go into Vegas at weekends to beat the game of Blackjack using logic and cool head. So, Miki asks Ben an apparent paradox, also known as ‘Monty Hall Paradox’ which I will now proceed to explain.

Miki tells Ben to imagine ( I am trying my hands at my own version of Kevin Spacey’s inimitable style in this monologue) that he is in a game show; the host offers him three doors behind one of which is “brand new sports car” and two goats behind the others. Ben chooses door ‘1’ in this choice. Before declaring the result however the host spices things up when he undoes door ‘3’ behind which there is a goat. Then Miki asks Ben if he would switch his choice to ‘2’ or not.

Heres the key- Ben chooses to swich to door ‘2’.

This decision, he says, is propelled by cold hard logic, because the host knows everything and the unlocking of door ‘3’ changes everything; ‘1’ has a 33% percent chance of having the car, while ‘2’ has 66% odds of having the car and hence “thank-you-very-much for that extra 33%”, he says.

People are very confused by this explanation, as was I, because apparently the unlocking of the door ‘3’ redistributes the odds to 50:50 between ‘1’ and ‘2’. BUT what I forgot, and most people do, is that the choice to unlock the door ‘3’ by the host is a conscious choice, and in doing so he seals the odds to one-thirds and two-thirds respectively.

Lets examine the 33% case when the car is originally behind ‘1’; if Ben switches then, then he loses. Note that the host would not show ‘1’ and would not show the door with the car.

For the 66% case that the car is either behind ‘2’ or ‘3’, the host eliminates ‘3’ and now if one imagines that the car cannot be behind ‘1’ which IS our assumption here, one is 100% certain that it is behind ‘2’. If the host uncovers either ‘2’ or ‘3’, the response is the same, make the switch for a 66% chance of win.

Summing up quite, at the beginning:

‘1’=> 33%

‘2’ or ‘3’ => 66%

The host eliminates ‘3’, one is left with,

‘1’=> 33%

‘2’=> 66%

This required quite some thinking, but still people convince themselves that this is actually not a correct explanation at all; it requires one to keep track of the abstraction long enough to see the answer.

The Curse of the Evil Prof.

2008-07-19T02:51:00.001+05:30

Tuesdays have always been pretty hectic for me, at least ever since I entered college. The morning, as usual, was fully packed with classes on all slots, & after lunch, I head for my first physics lab. I'd always heard from my coaching teachers, the names of the experiments I was about to encounter & also done some reading about the practicals in IIT (Chetan Bhagat's 'Five Pt. Someone'!!lol). So, I was pretty confident. I've been forging readings ever since I went to my first science lab in school, so my confidence level was further boosted. Even made fun of a guy who said that my 1st experiment was to be in a dark room & he was totally frightened, after the experiment, to go to any dark room. That the room was cursed, the experiment was cursed!

So, I went inside, feeling how much I'd love doing all my experiments in there itself, for there was air-conditioning in the room! My first experiment-'Grating Spectrometer'. My instructor for the experiment- Prof. S.N. Bhatia, a name none of us from P4/2 batch would ever forget. I had known it to be a difficult experiment with sure shot time wastage on the set-up part (the exp. in itself is very small, only the setting up of the apparatus is time consuming), the first time. But, I had that the experiment is somehow completed in the given 3 hrs. Huh, were they all bluffing when they said the last line? It took me 2hrs to identify that I was to reach even till the Schuster's method. After 10 more minutes wasted, where the Prof. was shouting at me for being such a lousy bastard, good for nothing, bribed entry into the IIT, he came to check out my status.

I've always felt, though never actually done, that I have every right to shout & abuse, at least twice as much as he did, a Prof. if he himself is unable to do an experiment of which he is the instructor. Whatsay? I don't have even 30mins to do the experiment, & he says, "Maybe there is a problem here." What 'maybe'?? :-o You were trying for the past 20mins. There has to be a problem. Pair me up with someone else. Help, help!! This experiment has 6marks contribution in the total. Somebody plz call 911! Somebody do something. Oh God, I wanted to do well in this sem at any cost and this prof., he has made me a pauper before I could say 'any cost'! He has screwed up my 1^st experiment and with that my confidence level…

Well, that's how I felt. But, the prof. never did. I was still stuck up with the same apparatus, but was asked to bypass that step, for then. How incredulous…

But, then someone had called 911. Oh no, it wasn't 911, it was a Godsend, my guardian angel in the form of a lab assistant. He came, and with him, returned my life, which was going out of the Dark Room, like the light from the high powered bulbs, on our tables, on the click of a button. He came really as a savior, a messiah, and said, "Bhatia ko jaane de, fir paanch minute me tera Schuster's khatam kar doonga. Tu bas uske baad apna readings jaldi se le lena. Yeh Bhatia bada hi ghatia hai!". And we both stuck to our word. I took only 30mins extra time & completed my experiment, and got real poor marks, but in my own P4/2, it was an average score.

This was when I realized how that superb air-conditioning became the DARK ROOM, all in capitals, when it became the dungeon, the a/c & the darkness felt like I was in a drawer of the mortuary of AIIMS, and this was when I decided never to return to that room again, never to go back to that death chamber…

Thank God, I came out alive!

PS: I did go back for the last 2 experiments and actually cracked them, & got an overall AB in the course. Maybe someone had broken the 'curse of the evil prof.'!!

OSL- The “Coolest” Place After Midnight!!

2008-07-19T02:47:00.001+05:30

I'd never oppose any of you who say, "hostel life is the best", that you'd give anything to come back to the hostel. But, this article is for some of us, you may call spoilt brats, who are ready to forgo the best place… It is for those of us, who want to find the coolest place, literally, and not the best place. Being a Delhite, for me living without A/C is like a nightmare (I can assure you coz I have lived that way too), and Bombay, I'd say is much worse than Delhi, with the unbearable humidity combined with equally abysmal temperature conditions, which at some point even crossed that of Delhi! The only solution was to find an air-conditioned environment. And this is an article about that night, when I along with Twish, or Charsi, as we call him, made that extra effort for the greater good. It is about that night when the two of us, without even caring about the exam the day after went out and searched for THE HEAVEN, for the place which could satisfy the three basic necessities of ours, "the spoilt brats", A/C, WiFi, and Plug point!

We had been to the library once, but found out that even there the A/C is switched off at 9pm. 9 PM! That's precisely when a normal IITian even starts to think that he has books which should be utilized for studying rather than as laptop stands for the HP and Dell laptops! That's when we, after the 1^st course of dinner, think that we should plan the day's study! That's when it all starts and they end it then…why? L. Why should we then go to the liby, a place so far off, when the same condition is available even in the hostel. Maybe there is a bit of noise, with the 5.1 Bose speakers shouting for us to come and dance to those foot tapping tunes of some Punjabi singer, but then of there is no A/C why the hell will we travel so far? Just to get tired and spoil the "study mood", and sit in the staff canteen? We needed a place…a place where we can do whatever we want to do, study, play, chat, and everything, and also should have A/C. Comp Centre was an option, so we went there on that unforgettable night, loaded with enthusiasm and our laptop bags, just to be left high and dry…that place was nothing more than a teaser! You go inside, you have A/C, a nice shaant environment, but internet…you wont be able to connect your laptops though…we even tried using the lan wires there just to realize that we hadn't achieved anything, but surely had plugged out a couple of comps from the internet! And just outside what we found was no A/C, but a nice WiFi environment, and yeah, here also we had shaanti! A real teaser…high and dry…

From there, dejected though we are, we still do not give up on our search for that heaven of a place, and hop relentlessly, from MB to GG to KReSIT to where not, to only find everywhere that we, like the wildlife of today, are now in a place which ain't our natural environment. Our natural environment and our basic necessities were no longer available. We realized the bitter truth, that though we are in one of the top institutes of the world, we can't find even a single place that'd suit our comfort, and where we could study without that physical and mental discomfort caused but the unbearable weather. on our way back to the hostel, to become the laughing stock of the whole wing, we stop at the most unlikely of places-the Old Software Lab. It wasn't like we had never been there, I used to literally live there during our CS101 days. I used to study there, sleep there, and used to come back to the hostel only for the morn brushing and bath! But the moment they banned our logins there(after the CS101 got over), I never stepped back into that lab. I was standing there today, way past midnight(I think it was around 2.45 or 3 in the morn), waiting for Twish to switch on his WiFi and confirm that we as usual weren't in the right place. But, as all of you bollywood watchers would have realized, we struck gold this time, or as I can write now, with the rising inflation and the price of crude, we struck oil! We had everything we needed right there, in front of us. This was it…we had done it. This was our very own Terebethia, and that night, the 2 of us had found that magic rope and forged the bridge to Terebethia!

Every night since then, we were there unfailingly, after midnight, playing typeracer or NFS Carbon, or chatting or watching Chak De, & also, I forgot, studying during the free time, for our ongoing endsems!

Period three implies CHAOS!

2007-12-31T09:20:00.000+05:30

note on the title:this is the exact title to the 1975 paper by Yorke, an applied mathematician - who is credited with bringing back Lorenz' seminal work.Who was Lorenz?Read on!

We can relate pretty well to our intermediate school differential equations. And though they did not take as much toll as indefinite integration did - it all boiled down to some really frightening (and at times transparent) expressions that had to be moulded into a solvable form we knew of and follow the old techniques.

But we have heard of seldom-encountered-but-know-they-are-there type of UNSOLVABLE differential equations that cannot be solved. So? Some differential equations cannot be solved. We can take that in our stride right? Try this! Only some differential equations can be solved, a wider variety - infinite for all we know - are unsolvable. Its a bit like being at rest with the idea that our rational number system being infinitely dense and that makes the irrational numbers exceptions- and you get a proof out of the blue that irrational numbers are more dense on the number line, or metric space-technically speaking.

Since its inception in 1600+something , calculus has provided a novel way for studying continuous variations- infact it arose as a tool for physics (no offence to the mathematicians)- and has been the 'quantum leap' for sudy and modelling of physical systems in nature, otherwise known as PHYSICS.

An etymological observation here- quantum is a very small quantity right? so how does a 'big' leap translate to 'quantum' leap?- or is it a reference to the enormous paradigm shift the 20th century physics community had to undergo in order to accomodate the most successful theory of their time.

Returning to the main stream of thought, though the chaotic behaviour of systems (i am going to ask you to go by the 'feel' of the word here - a random unpredictable behaviour that refuses to settle down to any semblance of predictabilty) seems disorderly, it is actually deterministic-- that is you can predict, without any approximations, the outcome of some system. The science of 'Chaos'(the term was popularised by James A Yorke, an applied mathematician who is said to have rediscovered Lorenz, in his publication 'period three implies chaos') is essentially classical- there is no relativity or quantum mechanics involved here.

but people back then were being paid to find order in systems! why study disorder?

But considering its simplicity and comprehensibiliy, this science started producing papers only in the late 70s and 80s becase of the stagnantic (no such word- you DO get the sense!) set of invisible rules laid down by the scientific community-> to produce a paper that was RADICAL and DYNAMIC DEPARTURE FROM ORTHODOX was suicide! To get a grant and publish papers you had to, and still have to stay away from being too original.

You have to model physical, biological or chemical systems with the existing mathematical tools- who dares to explore systems that are random and defy modelling (read predictability). Regarding the unsolvable diferential equations we were talking of, imagine a system of two or three such equations that are coupled (meaning that in a system of x,y and z, all three can appear in any form, linear or nonlinear,in each expression.) - we are trying to gauge the amount of complexity that can be built in around these systems.these system of differential equations can, however, be approximately solved using computing algorithms. so we can get a stream of data with varying time in which given a set of initial conditions mark the starting points and the system of equations mould the path of the variables. this is all the insight we need to get into the story of Edward Lorenz

"Lorenz was born in West Hartford, Connecticut. He studied mathematics at both Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. During World War II, he served as a weather forecaster for the United States Army Air Corps. After his return from the war, he decided to study meteorology. Lorenz earned two degrees in the area from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he later was a professor for many years."--wikipedia. for all our purposes, edward lorenz was a meteorologist. during his days as weather forecaster he built a very primitive model of the climate system of earth, with a view to predict local weather. though the work was not very successful in terms of scientific design, it became famous in his department, the system of twelve interwoven differential equations churned out a stream of data on a long roll of paper (remember that this was around 1960, give or take one year on each side).people would bet on what the weather would be that day- windy, or sunny or wet. one day, so the story dictates, he wanted to start midway instead of starting allover again - putting in the same initial conditions and wait for an hour to go back where he left- instead he looked up the data in the previous sheet and fed it to the computer.this data seems to have survived for storytellers- he put in an approximation."One day in 1961, he wanted to see a particular sequence again. To save time, he started in the middle of the sequence, instead of the beginning.He entered the number off his printout and left to let it run. When hecame back an hour later, the sequence had evolved differently. Instead of the same pattern as before, it diverged from the pattern, ending upwildly different from the original. Eventually he figured out what happened. The computer stored the numbers to six decimal places in itsmemory. To save paper, he only had it print out three decimal places. In the original sequence, the number was .506127, and he had only typedthe first three digits, .506. "- http://library.thinkquest.org/3120/old_htdocs.1/text/fraz1.txt .

Although i would like to think that there was more than one variable in the calculations. this illustration does its job pretty well though, it shows that the pattern, or sequence if you please, was very dependant on the initial conditions. For practical purposes, an experimentalist prides himself if he can determine a physical quantity to the third decimal place. Here the absence of the fourth, fifth, and sixth decimals had erased all similarities to the original sequences within three-four cycles. What lorenz aptly demonstrated after this was that long term weather prediction was impossible. To do so he stripped down his system of equations for convection to their bare essence to three eqations.afterwards it was discovered that his equations mimicked a water-wheel- "At the top, water drips steadily into containers hanging on the wheel's rim. Each container drips steadily from a small hole. If the stream of water is slow, the top containers never fill fast enough to overcome friction, but if the stream is faster, the weight starts to turn the wheel. The rotation might become continuous. Or if the stream is so fast that the heavy containers swing all the way around the bottom and up the other side, the wheel might then slow, stop, and reverse its rotation, turning first one way and then the other. " (James Gleick, Chaos - Making A New Science, pg. 29).This is a system of equations of the same family, or perhaps the same set that lorenz used, you can try plotting the behaviour of this system at home.

(i)Dx=10*(y-x)

(ii)Dy=-x*z+28*x-y

(iii)Dz=x*y-(8/3)*z

for starters, D=> d/dt(operator);x*y='x' multiplied by 'y'
Whenever physicists encounter such a system they try to think of a quantity that is conserved, or in special cases, show predictable behaviour. Think of the simple harmonic equation D**2(x)=-w*x['**'=>raised to the power; here D**2=>d/dt(d/dt)]. in "phase space"- in which all possible states of the system is representable- this translates into a circle.Please note that lorenz was not aware of this terminology because this field of mathematics came in 1971. Say for turbulent flow in a cylindrical pipe, the elements of water that collide with the cylindrical wall, act as if it is attracted by the centre of the cross section of the pipe- THAT, thus, is the attractor in this system.Note that the elements that dont collide but are bound attractively to the surrounding elements also behave as if they are attracted, albiet by some different force law than inverse square. in lorenz' system, the attractor came out in the form of a double spiral.see picture.so although the momentary behaviour of the particle was seemingly random, in the long term, it was sketched out in the form of a ever-continuing, never intersecting double-spiral.sort of gives you insight into the butterfly effect- "The flapping of a single butterfly's wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month's time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn't happen. Or maybe one that wasn't going to happen, does. (Ian Stewart, Does God Play Dice? The Mathematics of Chaos, pg. 141)"
The bottomline in this first phase of insight into chaotic systems was that certain systems behave too sensitively to their their initial conditions and that Lorenz' work established that long-term-weather forecasting was impossible. Now comes the sadder part of it, his paper was published in a Swiss Meterological Journal that lay in obscurity waiting to be rediscovered.
The next story that defined birth of this new science was the work of Robert May, an ecologist in the 1970s. When one stands in the shoes of an ecologist and tries to model the population of, say fish in a pond, one inadvertedly realizes that the simplest model would be one in which there is unlimited food and the population of one year depends linearly on that of the previous year.i.e P(n+1)=a*P(n);P(n)=>population of the nth year.Now if you start taking into account the total food being constant,and the survival for existence, you arrive at :

P(n+1)=a*P(n)*[b-P(n)]

If we want to capture the essence of the equation in , x(next)=r*x(present)*[1-x(present)]- this is the logistic difference equation that can be used to model a biological system in a closed ecological system.Believe me when i say that this is only an approximation, and is probably arrived on by hit and trial rather than some deep insight into the factors of demography. Certainly, this is an accepted recurrence relation only because it yields the results, i.e. it can mimic, within permissible errors, the population of certain ecological systems like that of fish in a pond,instead of being the the factor for the population variation. The least we can do to explore this field of the logistic equation is to study the patterns that appear for certain values of r, or the characteristics of the demographic pattern that evolves with r:(courtesy wikipedia-'logistic map'): When r is between 0 and 1, the population heads to zero, independent of the initial population.

When r is between 1 and 2, the population quickly stabilizes on the value (r-1)/r.

When r is between 2 and 3, the population again stabilizes on (r-1)/r but oscillates around the value for a while.The rate of convergence is linear, but at r=3, the rate is excruciatingly slow - less than linear even.
With r between 3 and 3+(6)**.5[~3.45], the population oscillates between two values dependant on r.

With r within 3.45 and 3.54(approx), the population oscillates between 4 values forever.

With increase of r from 3.54 onwards the the population oscillates between 8 values then 16,32,64..... and on.The period of r with the same no of oscillations decreases rapidly, with the ratio between two such intervals approaching delta=4.669.... the Feigenbaum constant- whose story we shall come in with later. Now we can throw in the term period doubling cascade- think of infinitely branching arteries.

Beyond 3.57, most values exhibit chaotic behaviour, but again some values of r are there that show non-chaotic behaviour. Like 1+(8)**.5[~3.83], these are islands of stability. In fact the bifurcation map is a fractal, if you zoom in on certain areas they seem 'similar' to the whole map again.

Perhaps we got in too deep into this mathematical system than we intended to, but this isn't even starting to get technical.Robert May thus, showed how complex and beautifully simple systems like these can be at the same time.

The third story has to be that of Yorke who with Li proved that any one-dimensional system which exhibits a regular cycle of period three will also display regular cycles of every other length as well as completely chaotic orbits in 1975.Yorke's paper was named "Period three implies Chaos"- where he coined the term for use as we know it today.
For those attracted to abstract objects/theories of beauty, Smale's work on the mathematics of chaos was the first attempt that popularised the field of chaos to physics. His work can be, at its very basic simplification, be visualised by amazingly simple means. Consider a bar, bend it into a horseshoe shape and fold the whole thing overall again. the points that were initially distinctly apart originally, come together. The action of folding, however can represented by the difference equations operating on the variables. That's pretty much all a layman, like myself, can make of Smale's work.

But there is still one matter of importance in these regions and that is an insight into the true nature of chaos as we should know it. Chaos is NOT random, as the word sems to imply. What a chaotic system IS that it is very sensitive to initial conditions. So any approximations anywhere shifts the data wide off course. So once we have the precise set of initial conditions, chaotic systems ARE deterministic.

note: i attended a lecture by prof. gadagkar of iisc bangalore, on behaviour of insects, and there he said that 'simple algorithms CAN produce complex behaviour if some feedback relation is inbuilt'-- remember smale and his shape-bending difference equations...... poetic isnt it?

IISER up next!

2007-11-02T13:35:00.000+05:30

well well!!
post the iit exams this is going to be my first meaningful gibberish(_note that i can be quite comprehensible when i want to!).
sisters and brothers of the kvpy community! i am at iiser kolkata!
here we are taught, as we were all informed during the summer camp of last year, all the four disciplines of science... pcmb that is.
but what we are actually aiming at is fusing these lines together, and promoting the scientific community as a whole.(this was my version of the iiser brochure documents!)
now for the real picture, iiser kolkata has no hostel and campus of its own and we are the first of many future batches(technically 2nd, but egotising is an important skill these days!).
the hostel is pretty far from the institute and we reach there by bus.
the highlight though is that we have no restrictions on the noise level we make at hostels and ,this is important, no protocols for punishment.
so everything you do is a trend setter (applause!)
apart from that , all you get here is a bunch of marginally intelligent (modesty?maybe!) people packed up, and voila!!
the effects are quite satisfying!!
we have a fab physics course, lapping up the intricacies of mechanical systems in general and exploring whats been wrong with the high school matter.
the computing course(read mathematics practical) is complementing the same course- we learnt python and gnuplot and together they help us model novel mechanical systems and see how they behave-- visualization that is!
the chemistry and biology take their toll -- i am not intersted in either but still its nowhere near physics in fabricational capacity.
but our biology department is exceptional and contains both good human beings and pedagogues(they usually are.) and there is an overall interest in biology because of them.
the maths is the boring now, but i intend to take it up afterwards-- we are doing the cornerstones of calculus now.
i guess that it got a tad tooo long, but you have to give in to egoTism (egoism with a T for talk, that is) sometime!
thats it.
about other kvampyiians,
sunita panda is studying mech. in nit trichy,
abhijit awadhiya is in iiserpune or niser,
jyothi v nair (bangalore camp) is in iiser kol
......... uh thats all,
and i have material for a post or two now!

From IIT KGP with Love ...

2007-10-25T22:50:00.000+05:30

Hi KVamPYs,

me glad 2 be bak on the blog, and nice post somani, u just inspired the blogger in me, and here i am pushing aside all my work,..

IIT is all about the sprit, the soul of engineering and technology, a place where ppl eat, breath and drink tech... literally ...

We do all sort of things here (except study of course...;)) currently am in a the organizing of ROBOTIX 08, the biggest robotics fest in south asia ... appart from that, we have hacked into some really formidable places (well not me exactly, bt my frnds here... me nt that gud in programming - am better at embedded syetems ), making some real techie bots - like balancer bot, biped runners, stealth explores, etc, just to begin the list ...

and am working with my rock band as well "The StrinGbreaKers" ... expect our first release soon after our end sems...well no ragging here till now, but rest assured theres gonna be a lottt ...!!

And i hav turned my room into a small kind of an arthropodic santuary ... got some 500 species of insects living in harmony with humans and robots... well we r literally in the middle of a jungle .

And theres more, but i got little time ... gotta work with the god damn 8052 ...

will post more very soon, especially on my bots ...
Time signing off ..

HIBERNATION OVER

2007-10-11T19:48:00.000+05:30

hi guys,this is my first post
though i've regularly visited the blog i didnt get to post one so sorry about that!!!
i'm at iitkgp now in mech deptt(manfac sc branch)
sabhi hopefully peace(lingo starts here) maar rahen ho.!!!!
at kgp there is quite a bit of load but now peace prevails(midsem naam ka bhoot gaya).....
no ragging here(hoo hoo haa haa)..
regular bhaat ....
and timepass ke liye chem,electrical,maths chalta hai...

the makeover is really cool twish!!

may KVamPYians rule !!
we rock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

providing a platform ..................since 1988!

2007-08-26T07:11:00.000+05:30

its like arun once said, ppl really do have qualms about posting a little post, but hop on while writing massive comments(the list included me till yesterday!).
so at your service, and start typing on about where you are now and in which stream.
we do need to update ourselves!
and i sincerely do hope that the erudite discussions continue..and so do sul and tp posts.

i have got a new topic for discussion........... although it is more sociological and psychological than scientific. survival of the fittest has been a rule for evolution all over the history of earth. but now the mammalian life forms feel a duty to protect its peers, and the peak of culmination of this feeling is the human society as we see it today.
so is the sociey neccesary and if so, why?

first comment about your present whereabouts though.

SUL (Part 1)

2007-07-02T22:12:00.000+05:30

How many times have you encountered the language barrier? I have many times. Trying to explain the waiter in Bangalore that I want a glass of water, and he got me a glass of whiskey! This I suppose happens to all those non-polyglots. Isn’t there a way out of this? Why do we not have a universal language?

The Barrier

Try running the Google search with language set to all languages. You will find at least a few thousand Japanese, Korean and Chinese sites. Well you can always run the language filter. But see the amount of information blocked by the language bottleneck. And we still don’t have a good enough translator.

Let English Be

The most obvious question you might ask is why not make English the universal language? Some might even say that English is already the universal language. But I can assure you it is not. Of course half of the world population can understand it. But what about the other half? They might as well accept English provided America conquers the world. But lets finds a more peaceful i.e. a non-American (sorry ;)) solution.

La Universale

What is then the universal language? Let me put forward some points that the ideal language should have. But before that let me tell more about types of languages. Languages are mostly three types.

1^st is Symbolic language. Like English, Spanish, and all European languages. Now don’t ask me why. (Try to pronounce Rough, Cough as bough or Dough.)

2^nd is Phonetic language. Like Hindi, Sanskrit, etc. and I think all other popular Indian languages. This is superior to the one above for a very simple reason that, even any odd sound can be represented in it accurately, and the words are written and pronounced in the same way.

The 3^rd is a very special one and I will come back to it later.

What then is the aim of any language? Simple question isn’t it? To effectively exchange feelings, and of course information. The later is easier than the earlier. Our language or rather the scripts are utter failures in exchanging expressions and feelings and emotions. Think of online chatting. You never know the mood of the other one unless he/she uses ‘smileys’. How crude!

Well not all languages could become universal languages. The best test for a universal language is, if it can be understood and represented WITHOUT prior training in it. Impossible many will say. I say not. I will give one small example. Go to any where in the world and gesture ‘food’ (hand moving to an open mouth). Every one will understand. And such a language should be 100% efficient in expression of feelings. The lack of a script can be adjusted for the time being. So any ideas?

I have one.

You will understand the third type of language very well if you have read the book ‘Eragon’ by Christopher Paolini. It is very close to universalization of communication. What I mean is communication by images (the way Eragon and Saphira communicated). But the most important thing is that the images should not be contaminated by exposure to the outer world. Get it? Telepathy, Brainwave communication, you can call it whatever you like. That will be universal I think. A Bengali, a Marathi, a Spaniard all can of course recognize a cow when they see an image of it, unless of course it is polluted by the ever present human schemata (prejudice in a layman’s language).

The topic is open for discussion, so please join in and hope the 2^nd part comes soon. And before Time signs out let me ask one thing to everyone. (Alsotry to guess what SUL is.) Remember the attempt in 1980s to contact alien life forms in outer space by sending a magnetic disk, with images and sounds of earth (and simple human words in English)? O please don’t laugh. Let me put you in their shoes; tell me what could be the best thing we can send them? See how the lack of a universal language pinches?

Tough one

2007-06-23T19:54:00.000+05:30

The warden of a prison meets 23 new prisoners when they arrive. He tells them, "You may meet today and plan a strategy. But after today, you will be in isolated cells and will have no communication with one another.

"In the prison is a switch room, which contains two light switches labeled 1 and 2, each of which can be in either up or the down position. I am not telling you their present positions. The switches are not connected to anything.

"After today, from time to time whenever I feel so inclined, I will select one prisoner at random and escort him to the switch room. This prisoner will select one of the two switches and reverse its position. He must flip one switch when he visits the switch room, and may only flip one of the switches. Then he'll be led back to his cell.

"No one else will be allowed to alter the switches until I lead the next prisoner into the switch room. I'm going to choose prisoners at random. I may choose the same guy three times in a row, or I may jump around and come back. I will not touch the switches, if I wanted you dead you would already be dead.

"Given enough time, everyone will eventually visit the switch room the same number of times as everyone else. At any time, anyone may declare to me, 'We have all visited the switch room.'

"If it is true, then you will all be set free. If it is false, and somebody has not yet visited the switch room, you will all die horribly. You will be carefully monitored, and any attempt to break any of these rules will result in instant death to all of you"

What is the strategy they come up with so that they can be free?

My revenge on the previous puzzle

2007-06-16T22:31:00.000+05:30

Acting on an anonymous phone call, the police raid a house to arrest a suspected murderer. They don't know what he looks like but they know his name is Jack and that he is inside the house. The police bust in on a carpenter, a lorry driver, a mechanic and a fireman all playing poker. Without hesitation or communication of any kind, they immediately arrest the fireman. How do they know they've got their man?

A Simple question!

2007-06-09T22:08:00.000+05:30

Hi....

First Of all i must say u that the question given below is not a question of IIT level....or AIEEE level....or your state Entrance exam level...or the CBSE level....or class 5 level........Itz very very easy......And i am not underestimating u guyz...but the fact is that i liked this question very much(There is some reason for that)....i'll tell u later....n remember to post the answer in the Shout Box!!!

Best of Luck ..............
IF
1 = 5
2 = 25
3 = 125
4 = 625
5 = ?

Think.......

Gujjars?

2007-06-04T15:24:00.000+05:30

Guys, i know some of you will bash me for this...........for coming up with something so obvious on a site thats supposed to be 'kind of' intellectual. But let me assure you, i tried to pull off many times before sitting down to write it.
About ten days ago, i had never heard of the group of people called gujjars(probably, not many of you had either) and now they are all over the news channels(OK, the news people are known for highlighting the bad things more than the good ones - imagine seeing kvpy fellows on the front page of the newspaper........and now imagine seeing mr.telgi there- lets not take this further), ya....i was talking about the gujjars, or probably in a much larger sense about reservations. The basic purpose behind the agitations, the nationwide protest is not to get them reservations, but to remove them from the OBC category and put them into the ST category, sounds funny to hear that a backward class could gather so much support to burn buses and block roads.
OK, now before this turns into a news report, i'll come to the point. Just as the whole scene about reservations in iit has kind of initiated this revolt by a small section of our society(not small, if we go by the areas they are trying to destroy), there is a possibility that with the politicians looking to fan the feelings of caste division, this idea may travel places and a lot more of the local leaders may come up with similar demands. But before i sign off, i must appreciate Mr.Arjun Singh for his efforts and look - they are paying off beautifully. It seems quite obvious now, what his motives and his vision for India is like, and unless something really dramatic happens(like a young powerful PM(waise, 50 is young by IST) or something) my heart feels a little sad that things are not looking very bright for our country.

With all that useless talk having gone into your heads, I think the next time i post, it will surely be something more interesting and informative.....probably something on computer science.
Bye

KVPY Bangalore Photo!

2007-06-01T21:20:00.000+05:30

(NOTE: Click on the pic for a normal enlarged pic.)

Ok, curse me for taking so long, but its HERE!. As you can see, our group is quite a bit larger than yours (Nyah nyah!), and a lot of these guys are seniors (BSc dudes/dudettes). Now, I shall identify some people here.
Teachers/Student Aides:
They start from the middle 2nd row:
Red shirt: Anil Sir, really really nice guy. Coordinated the whole event.
?
The one and only Dipanker Chatterjee! Also an amazing person
?
?: I believe she is in the Bio department.
?,?,?,?
Girl with a light blue shirt and jeans: A very nice, and interesting student aide. She works in the Ecology department, and I believe she's doing a lot of interesting work relating to elephant conservation. She actually does her work on field. Also, she gave an amazing presentation on circadian rhythms in bugs, and their various calls.
There were several other very nice aides, but not in the picture apparently.

Students:
Guy on right edge, with a grey and red shirt, wearing a bag: ME!!!
Guy on my left: ? but he's a senior. We had an interesting conversation on relativity and laser cooling I think, along with the guy on the top row, 2nd from left (crossed arms).
Guy on bottom row, 3rd from right, light colored clothes and bag: Chinmaya (tagged: super smart cool dude)
Guy on top row, 4th from left, with "Dhoni" hair, and NO bag: Dinesh (tagged: also awesome guy)
Guy on bottom row, from 5th from right leftwards Amol, (guy who went to IMO national camp), Sisir
Guy on bottom row, 2nd from left: Atheendra
Guy on 2nd row, 4th from left, blue shirt: Ramkumar
Guy on 2.5th row, 3rd from right (beside Ramkumar), black shirt: Venugopal
Guy on top row, middle with a Google Code Jam shirt: ? senior who went to the National camp for Indian Informatics Olympiad.

That constitutes all of my memory. As you can see, I don't know many girls there, but if you were on that pic, you are constitutionally granted to come and: a) tell me so I can put that in, b) kick me, next time we meet.

IIT Results

2007-05-30T10:56:00.000+05:30

It's no secret that most of us (at least in the MPC branch) are IIT aspirants. So, how did we all do? Please post your results (and your expected marks) below.

Development

2007-05-25T10:14:00.000+05:30

Okay, so I know most of the people visiting this blog find biology awfully boring.
Well I can't seem to complain given that I hated it too during school. Anyway lets put all that behind and try to make things interesting.

Now Twish had some really interesting posts which definitely might have made all of you think about the brain in terms of circuits, processing, perception and a whole lot of other things. However before I put up a post about the workings of the brain, I have to first get everyone to know how the brain or for that matter any organ develops. (wait, it doesn't start getting boring here, I am gonna talk about circuits in a totally different way).

So lets start with two cells i.e the resultant of the fusion of the sperm and the ovum. So what happens next. How is it determined which cells become what in the course of division of these two cells to form the millions of cells that is us? How is it that the neurons are formed only in the brain and the spinal cord and other regions? What makes the heart not be in the place of the kidneys and the blood cells to be as they are? (No, this is something that isn't easily ascribed to the creations of a higher power namely God)

So what happens is a completely different branch of biology that is called Developmental Biology.
I can't promise you that I shall give you the answers to what makes the heart cells to not become neurons and vice versa but what I can say is that probably some of you might see the analogy between genetics and circuits.

So now lets get to the start of development. You have 2 cells and they divide something like 9 times over. Till this point none of the cells are in anyway different from one another (or atleast no one has been able to prove that they are). So these cells are called embryonic stem cells (ESC). Now once this stage has been reached what happens is that the embryo starts getting polarised, by polarised I mean to say that now you have distinct regions within the embryo which you can differentiate. Hence we now have an anterior (mouth) end and a posterior (anus) end. Similarly we have left and right sides and up and down distinctions.

But in turn how do two cells differ simply becuase of positions. This is due to a clever trick brought about by diffusion of protein products that have been passed on with the ovum(the sperm is a poor guy who contributes only DNA and no proteins).

So how do these circuits work?
Due to the proteins passed into the embryo by the ovum, these protein create a gradient by simple diffusion and the varying levels of these proteins at different areas "switch on" or "switch off" certain specific genes and these genes form certain other proteins and so on and so forth. Now the products of these genes are important for the activity of other genes and so forth. Thus what you have is a series of AND/IF/OR gates which function together in a highly complexical manner leading to different cells showing different reactions to the same stimulus.

Thus in most simple words, this is the basis of differentiation of cells to form neurons and muscle cells and liver cells.

I think this much is enough at one go, shall write more once I feel it has been adequately understood.

polarized light------- part 1

2007-05-20T14:37:00.000+05:30

read between the lines:- "this guy is so lazy that he posts on what he has been doing for his summer project."

the first part calls for a recapitulation of sorts----I've been reading a really lovely book on optics by hecht---i don't know who he is guys......but i am a fan!

so , we can start with the polarization states of light---
(i) natural / randomly polarized light(never unpolarized,no!)
(ii) plane polarized light (P - state)
(iii) circularly polarized light----divided further into right handed(clockwise)--R-state
left handed (anti-clockwise)--L-state
(iv)elliptically polarised light --can be right/left handed or horizontal/vertically polarized-depends which way it has a larger amplitude.

essentially every state can be generalised into the elliptical light category-- i mean plane polarised and circularly polarised light are but special cases of the elliptical category.

the mathematical treatment too is very general - assuming the polarized (or randomly so) radiation to consist of the orthogonal components -- horizontally and vertically polarized light respectively.

assumption: propagation of the ray is along z axis.

in the x-y plane, A(x)= acos(wt - kx)
A(y)= bcoswt(wt - kx+ 0) "sorry 0 for theta

adding up amplitudes , A(tot)= acos (wt - kx) + b cos(wt - kx + 0)
= a' cos(wt - kx + 0') where a'= ........ you know the drill

now,
apparently this represents the general elliptic equation, you know where the pricipal axes dont constitute the major and minor axes.
(my knowledge of gemetry and maths is seriously limited)

so when the phase difference in the orthogonal polarized states of light(0)is zero-
we get plane polarization
when 0= 45*(degrees) ,and the two impinging amplitudes are different the elliptic phase takes over,
while for 0=45* and equal amplitudes, circular polarization takes up.

i dont why i explained all this, but this is only the beginning............ most of you should know this but i started dutifully.

in the next part i will take in something that we dont know till now and expand on it.
this article actually deals wth mathematical methods of denoing polarized light.
but what makes it interesting is that we can treat polarization optics entirely through matrix algebra. i mean denote the incident light with a matrix, multiply it with a square matrix that is specific to the optical element to which the incident ray is subjected, and you obtain the emerging ray.
the simplicity of the whole process drew me in, and i perfomed my project on the same thing.

Turing And his Great Machine!

2007-05-19T19:54:00.001+05:30

This is a big comment on the prev. topic (TP II). Its just soo long, and more than less disconnected that I thought I'd post it out here.

Twish: I'm basing this on memory, so I may have a few gfacts sketchy, but what Turing proved was that there were functions/programs (algorithms) that could not be solved. Wait, thats what you said. Ok, let me go into a little histoire here:

Alan Turing made a theory for what is called the Turing Machine. The Turing machine can perform certain actions, and helped solidify what an algorithm is. It is a function that the Turing machine can perform. Now I don't know how he proved it, but Church and Turing made the Church-Turing Thesis for the Universal Turing Machine. Catch this very carefully: A UTM, can perform ANY action any machine can perform, albeit not very well. Theoretically, given the time, power, and memory, a UTM can perform any task a machine can perform, i.e. every single algorithm.
In exact words:
"Every 'function which would naturally be regarded as computable' can be computed by a Turing machine."

However, he also found the Halting Problem. An algorithm that could never be decided whether it halts or not. Remember that this machine can process any algorithm a machine can process... but it can't determine the halt-ability of this algorithm (note that it can still run the algorithm.) That means that the UTM, and any other turing machine (algorithm) can not find whether this halting problem will halt or not.

Once again, I'm sure to have confuzzled you all. So what do I mean by halting. Suppose you have a problem: find an odd number ending in 3. It halts very quickly (every number ending in 3 is odd). Suppose I were to switcheroo this question. Find an even number that ends in 3. It would never halt. Determining if a problem can halt or not is the object of the Halting Problem, but unlike us, it can't see the very obivious fact that an even number can't end in 3. More about this later. Bascially the program will have to continue trying for every single even number to see if one of them ends in 3.

WARNING: This is going to be *very* confusing. I've lost my sanity thrice while reading this (twice before, once right now). First some teaching of this kind of axioamatic functions. Axiomatic functions happen to be strings. That's what axiomatic systems are all about, strings. Now, a function operates on well... another string. So remember, everything is a string. Note, this may seem confusing, but I'd like to point out to say Twish or Rash, who program a lot, in OOP, functions are objects too!. If you've ever done ASM, you'll know that the functions that are called are binary too! There is not biggie here.

Lets have a possible (?) program called (Captial names are programs) Halt (str, in). This takes an axiom function string (str) and an input (in), and returns true if prg halts for input in, and false other wise. Now, this is precisely what Hilbert-garu wanted, but alas, he's going to be disappointed.

Now, lets create another function called Disappoint (t), and put in its argument (input) some string 't'. Now this Disappoint's function is evaluate Halt (t,t) (this is where Cantor's diagonal argument comes in actually), and to loop forever if the Halt returns TRUE, and stop if it returns FALSE. We can just represent it at Disappoint (t). Nothing very out of the ordinary really. These are all functions within the great UTM's scope. Now for the final blow, suppose we take the very input (t) to be nothing but the program string for Disappoint? This is again something to do with the quirk of self-action. Dissapoint is applying the program string upon itself! Now...

* Lets say that Disappoint(t) stops. That means that Halt(t,t) must have returned false! But that must mean that the program "t" didn't halt! But the prg "t" is nothing but Disappoint(t)! So, if Disappoint(t) stops, it must mean that Disappoint(t) did not stop!!! *zing* You have just gone insane ;)
* Now, suppose Disappoint goes on forever. That could only imply that Halt returned true, or it hasn't finished yet. If Halt stopped, then well that means that "t", i.e. Disappoint (t) stopped, but then again it hasn't!.

Now of course you will say, what if Halt(t,t) itself does not halt EVER, but then isn't a suitable function. That is to say, Halt(t,t) is a function that is supposed to find whether a given function halts or not. Now if it never halts itself, it can not tell you if the given program (t) halts. So it is insufficient to determine if a program halts or not.

The objective of the Halting Problem is to prove that there can not be a particular algorithm/program that can find out if *any* program will halt or not.

That's the proof. Now that you've lost your marbles, I'd like to profess that the first time around, I didn't get it, but this time I did! Yay! (Well to my defense, the first time around was with a much denser material, with a bunch of axiom maths in it too). So what have we learnt? Hilbert was twarted just like Russell. Just for interest, Russell spent a good 10-15 years I think, to come up with a system that he said was complete. Poor guy was gunned down by Godel. OUCH!

Well, what does this have to do with our lively discussion? To start with, our mind, can break through this barrier. How, I don't know, but it can. We can understand that there is no such thing as an even number ending with 3. BUT, that very same mind can also say that there no consecutive primes after 2. The very same system can do both. There is a slightly larger proof of this argument (Turings), that proves the same result for any (finite ?) set of methods (i.e. if you argue with me that we have two specialised methods for both the above problems). But, we are able to transcend that rule. Again, how, I have no idea, but that is the greatness of our mind. There are bits and pieces dealing with rebuttals that I've left out, but I think that this post is long enough as it is!

TP Part II : Insight

2007-05-18T13:04:00.001+05:30

I was more than pleased to see so many comments. It was a greatdiscussion. So why delay for Part II ? Of course the observations and "comments" affect the system ( A sleek example of Uncertainity Principle like effect is real life ) so now the posts I had thought of are no longer going to be the same. I was supposed to write about all this an year ago, but got lazy. To me, this is DAMN interesting ! I hope you all too would realize the importance, consequences, and implications of the ideas that follow.

Temporal Programming
Hats off to Time and all of you for mentioning this. For this ceratainly is a great field of current research. A hot field indeed where people fix neuro-networks with electric chips and try to control them and stuff. The aim of course is to combine electrical and biological systems to create "cybernetic organic matter"... sounds Terminator-ish ehh ? lol

However TP is NOT equal to Temporal Programming. If I were to mention it, it might sound 'dubious' and trivial/unimportant/crazy. But I'd insist, that if not of all the importance, it sure is what I began with. So more about TP on Part III. Till then I would like to have a time travel session ( yoh Time get the machine ready man ... ) back to history (a subject I hate from the core of my heart ) ...

Many of you ( Im sure Arun would ) would already know about many of these facts. However, please bear patience, for the others would be fascinated indeed. Countdown Time...
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
-1
...
(oops forget it)

Old Hilbert had Problems
In the early 1900s ( not early... infact the very year 1900 ) the great mathematician Hilbert listed out a few "good" "classical" problems in mathematics. Many of these have been solved now. What he emphasised further, was a need to organize mathematical reasoning. He said that a formal axiomatic system should be both `consistent' (free of contradictions) and `complete' (it represents all the truth). Further argued that a mathematical problem should be "decidable" in the sense that there exists an exact procedure or set of instructions (however complex) to decide whether a proposition is TRUE or NOT... an algoritm !

Around the same time, people were talking about unification of physics. This, in a sense, was a unification or generalization of Mathematics. But it's been tested ... that nature seldom appreciates such acts of (folly???). The 2 problems can be listed...

a complete system of axioms
an algorithm ( procedure ) to deduce a give proposition as TRUE or FALSE

But things have never been simple...

Everything is Relative
While other mathematicians were working, trying to formulate a standard set of axioms, the genius of Kurt Godel prooved (Boolean Algebra) that there can never exist a complete logical system, all by itself. For the daredevils and brave-hearts the two theorems of "incompleteness" can be found below :

Wikipedia - Incompleteness theorems

The exact proof ( With Godel's history and stuff )

PARENTAL ADVISORY is Required... click at your own risk ! (I'd advise not unless you have chewing gum for a brain cuz thats what is going to happen lol)

How to do it ?
People yet searched for Hilbert's second quest... the algorithm. But a wise guy called Turing was wise enough to show that this too was impossible. Now I am not explainging how because I take the liberty to post about it as a follow up, for its a favourite topic of mine and deserves special credit.

Implications
Hilbert's dream was shattered. My history is not good enough to tell you, whether he lived to see that day, but I guess not. The two quests were PROOVEN to be impossible. There could not be a self-consistant set of axioms. Hence mathematics must rely on (some) assumptions. Also, there was no set of algorithms. So there was no way to predict if a proposition was TRUE or NOT ... infact... you could proove it TRUE, but never FALSE. Its like Physics. U have a theorem. U keep experimenting. But cant proove it. Same applies to maths for some of these classical ones. An infamous example is Fermat's Third Theorem, which reamained unprooved for decades, and was finally prooven in the 1980s. Who who' s ? Maybe it could have been wrong. The point is, is it true that ALL THINGS TRUE CAN BE PROOVEN ?

Back to the Brain
Now most of you must be thinking " This crackspot ... last I knew he was talking of the brain and something wierd called TP ... and now he switches to abstract mathematics ... "
I empathieze with you (my brain does). But explaining all of the above was important. The implications are not small.

AI
This aint another TP... but Artificial Intelligence yeaah... So now Im talking about a field, which promised to change the world in the 1950s but over these many years, has been an utter failiure. When people expected to see walking talking humanoid robots, all they get is stupid toy dogs that act like pets. The technology has failed to deliver. Now Ill dismantle and disect certain subtle points of the subject.

Humanoid or not ?
An aim... one of them... has been to make machines "think". There are two basic problems. One - we hardly know what is "thinking". Two- The approach. By the approach, Ill bring out a certain result that recently, wierd looking robots have outperformed human-like (humanoid) ones for various tasks. They are as effecient, if not more, while imitations of humans have been unsuccessful. The point is, we are trying to COPY nature.
Switch to an analogy. Aeroplanes. ( Im sure TIME wouldn't agree but I still believe that conventional aerofoil based planes are better than ornithopters ). Initiall people fixed wings and tried to fly resulting into calaities. Most the designs they thought of comprised of moving wings. However imitations of nature failed. The flying planes we have today are based on different design principles.
So why IMITATE human thought at all ?
I mean... machines, lots of them, can do better than human at lots of things. Like... playing scrabble, chess, even football ... and I am not talking about humanoid ones ! So why make a humanoid thing at all ? I guess this has more to do with the curiosity and understanding ourselevs than imitating a birds flight. Ohkay now Im diverting from the topic ... ( but wats the topic ? )

My Doggie is Conscious
Forgive that subheader. I am getting wierder with each passing hour. Though my point is, can machines be conscious ? Back to the game eh ? Well to understand this, we must look into our own machines... our brain... Now how exactly our brain works is not known. Perhaps we can say (or we do) that it follows algorithms. Like a computer program or a computer. So a machine can follow algorithms too. Whats the big deal ? The deal is... that we have prooven... that there is no perfect algorithm. Infact for the set of all algorithms, there is another which is unbounded, or not an algorithm at all ! ( Turing did all this )
How exactly it says what it does would be clear only when we study Turing's method(s). But the result is... maybe our brain does not follow an algorithm !
Hah ! I can hear God laughing. "Do what you can *.......* you cant copy your own mind"
Now our kind of machines follow algorithms. What can be done if a thinking machine does not follow an algorithm ? Nothing. Hopeless. Maybe somewhat like, popping of the wave function! (Arun's comment - deserves a post on its own).

Wrapping Up
I mentioned ( or you did... ) yoga and hypnotism. I was to write about them, related to my own escapades(TP). However, my brain tells me its tired. So Ill let those two hang up.

Till then something to think about.

(1)
Is it the mind which carries out experiments or the world which provides inuput ? If its the mind... what about my mind and your mind ? Are u a figment of my imagination ? ( Ive tried conveying this message to ppl. The replies were not very positive so Ill not try it again hehehe )

(2)
This publish button I see below is ORANGE. This Save Now button I see is BLUE. Ohkay. I can differentiate between frequencies. But then... do you see ORANGE too ? Yes you would say you do. But do you see the SAME orange as I do ! ... I guess there is are no means to answer this, that I can think of. MAybe you see my RED as your YELLOW and my BLUE as your RED. Maybe its not of much importance... but will the beauty of the RAINBOW be the same for both of us ? If not... this could be a reason why things like art,beauty are subjective ... that is ... "lie in the EYES of the beholder".

(3)
I believe that the EARTH is conscious. Only it doesn't bark.

Ill quit writing before you book me for the asylum. lol.

Ill be Bak

~ Twist ~

T.P. - Part I

2007-05-14T16:01:00.000+05:30

If you toss a coin seven times to get seven heads, you know there is something wrong with the coin.

Introduction
This topic is going to be weird so please be prepared for it. It is a controversial topic. I've been thinking about it since long. It has literally "consumed" whatever little mind I had! I won't jump straight to the point and start with some background information.

Slaves or Masters
I had once written a long post about consciousness and its existence etc. This is closely related to that, yet very different. Consciousness, I guess we are all aware of. But my question this time is, other than taking lots of critical(maybe) decisions, what is the role of this 'consciousness' ?
Okay. You want to walk from point A to point B. So your conscious brain gives orders to your brain to walk/run etc to point B. And then you walk/run watever to point B. Apparently simple. But it certainly not so. Walking itself is a very complex thing, when you wonder about the nerve impulses involved, which muscle to relax, when to relax, when to contract, coordination, balance, destination, etc. But, the catch is, when we walk, are we aware of all these things happening ? No. All we say is WALK and a certain program gets executed in the BRAIN which makes us walk, by following various very very complex procedures.

The Brain and Us
From the last example, we could see that we(consciousness) have an important role in giving orders, but no role at all in following complex instruction sets. That is done inside our brain. Think of all the other tasks that we do and the skills we posess. How effectively, the brain is able to bring about these complex changes, and we are unaware.

Practice makes it Perfect
Back to the same example. How did this 'walking' program get executed? A possible mechanism can be this, that all these "programs" are stored in memory and recalled when we need them. To store them in memory, such automated programs, we practice a task. For example, any sport. When we play football, as a beginner, we try and get better. We try to dribble the ball, keep it in control, and try to aim it where we want. Then we practice. Resultantly, these skills come naturally to us. The next time we play the game, we dont have to think about doing all these things. It almost becomes a "HABIT". We take it for granted. This is an example of how our brain learns. We decide on something. Practice it. And a PROGRAM for the same is created in memory which gets exectuted when we need it.

Power of the brain
We hear it everyday that the human brain can be very very powerful. It is true indeed, if we notice the above examples. Well, maybe some of the processes are carried out by or in coordination with other organs as well, yet the capabilities of learning and then reproducing the learnt skill so effectively is impressive indeed.

The Question
I end this post, keeping it short and not touching my origional subject at all. Though the question I look forward to ask is, now that Ive given an example of how the brain learns these skills :

Can we TEACH our brain, a skill, which is seemingly impossible, yet possible in theory ?

I guess I framed a weird question.
Let me just ask,

CAN WE TEACH THE BRAIN ANYTHING WE WANT, if it is possible theoretically ?

I would also like to see if one one you could guess what the heading of this post stands for. HINTS: The Sub-headings.

See you soon with TP - Part II

~ Twish ~

isi lurking + an unrelated problem

2007-04-26T10:16:00.000+05:30

here is a sum that held me in due to oversight on my part.it has got only one twist- thats all!
here goes-

imagine a rubber string, fixed at one end, is streched linearly in a horizontal plane so that the free end always has a velocity 'v0'.if an insect at the free end starts moving towards the fixed end with velocity v1 , at T=0, and initial length of string is L, find the time at which the insect reaches the fixed end.
my question is that wat shud b the min value for v1/v0.

sorry for for the accccute wording though- cudnt help it.

u know i already feel like reading for college- i feel exhausted with this standard syllabus already.
if u ppl hav applied for isi-bstat admission,discuss in this thread.

Flap Flap ... Times Back

2007-04-23T13:21:00.001+05:30

So, ppl ... wonder where i had vanished all this time, been on some very distant time travel into the depths of future. Nah. busy with IITJEE. well tats gone so now i can do some thing closer to my heart. This is what i have been working on.

ORNITHOPTERS

Seems a very far fetched name. But wat lies within is even more weird. Ornithopter as d name suggests is 'flight like birds'. flapping wings. no propellers. The key difference between an ornithopter and an airplane is that the driving airfoils move up and down instead of rotating. For both the airplane and the ornithopter, most of the lift results from forward motion through the air. In the ornithopter, lift is produced by the flapping wings, often in conjunction with some additional fixed wings. Birds likewise use their body and tail as a fixed lifting surface.

Why Ornithopter ?
My sudden intrest in ornithopters can be attributed to the recent air mishaps- crashes. i was very upset. the current air plane designs are over a century old. fixed wings. high forward thrust, some thing new is required. Ornithopters are better in following ways:

Very high maneuverability
low noise
high lift
good fuel efficiency

Ornithopter isnt a new concept. the first ornithopter was built in early 1900s !! manned flights on ornithopters hav also been achieved. but considerable work needs to be done before u and i can ride one.
Now wat am i working on? am on a fold wing type model which will have a very strong downstroke, enabling it to 'climb'. i will write the details one i have made a successful model. But there is one problem. This isnt a basic science topic and hence i cant take it up in KVPY program. :(

Well then, i think 3d matrices will be good enough for the summer project ...
waiting for ur responses (and refueling my time machine)
TiMe

PANIC!!! New Blog Look

2007-04-19T23:45:00.000+05:30

First of all, I'd like to apologize my absolute disregard for all the hard work Rash and Twish did for the site. I thought I could play around with the site so that the comments page would be a bit wider (since we tend to have long comments), and just change the look a bit.
As a result I made a huge huge mistake of not saving a template backup. I thought that there would be a rollback option at the stage, but it seems that there wasn't. Again, I'm so so sorry that I screwed up all your hard work, and I'm desperately hoping that you have a few back up. If not, tell me what all you had, and I'll put in the work to make sure that its back.

I hope you like the new look. I feel its a bit brighter, and easier to navigate. If you've any objects, comment about it.

The KVPY Summer Programme: Discussion

2007-04-18T13:13:00.000+05:30

As I laid out in the 'above' thread, this is the discussion thread. Please abuse...

The KVPY Summer Programme

2007-04-18T13:06:00.000+05:30

All of us have been caught up in the exam, and I think its time for us to get back to the task at hand, the KVPY Summer Programme. I'm sure that each of us has some ideas if what to do in their bulbs, but really a lot of us haven't the least idea on how to do that. Then again, it could just be me, but I'd like to see you come out and prove me wrong, and then help me out.

So this is how it works, this first post is for each of us to list out what we plan to do, and possibly where we plan to do. You can be as descriptive as you like, and you can write a cute love story between you and quantum physics if you like. But, you get only one post, and you can edit it however much you like. (Copy the entire text and delete your old post if necessary). I want it like this so that we can keep it clean. Do post what you've done, plan to do, etc.

Now, there will be a second post following this one, where we shall discuss as freely as we'd like one what was written in the first post, as well as talking about penguins.

I hope you all pitch in and we're able to create enough volume to help each other out.

THE KVPY SCHOLARS

2007-04-10T19:21:00.000+05:30

[Click on the Photo to Enlarge]

As far as i remember the people in the photo are:

Bottom Line (L-R): Rasagy "RaSh/Gr81", Debasish, Priyanka, Abhinav Uppal, Mr. S Mallick (our cordinator of the camp), Another Coordinator, Debanjan "ObiWanKenoby", BhagyaShree, Sunita, Prateeti, Somani (Standing behind).
2nd Line: Sandeepan Parekh "Spidy" (2nd from Left) & Saurya Prakash "Time" (Blue Shirt, behind Debanjan)

3rd Line:Swetabh "Bhakt" (Behind Twish), Twishmay "Twish/Twister" (Red & White) ..... Lagnajeet (Yellow), Manish (Blue), Pravar D Mahajan, Ankit "Pandey" (Black).

Last line: Abhishek Bhatnagar (Red Shirt), Ankit sagwal (Orange Shirt), Tanmay and Ashish.

PS: Isnt that Arpit on extreme Top Right?

Any one else whom u can identify, plz comment....

(Updated last on 17/4/7 by Gr81)

MY PASSION

2007-04-10T17:42:00.000+05:30

This post is not about metaphysics as many of the posts on this page are.. It is something u must be knowing...

Every one of you must be having a weakness for something. Someone 's crazy bout programing in computers. some one likes bikes..etc..
Similarly my passion is "Airplanes".

Airplanes have always fascinated me from the beginning. When i was small i told dad to take me to the Bhubaneswar airport in the weekends to see the airplanes landing n take off.

FLYING.. Is what people "do" now a days. It has become a part of their lives. It's no more a luxury to fly as it was to hold a cell phone in the early nineties.
Over a century ago , when two ambitious cycle mechanics "The Wright Brothers" first shared the idea of flying with their friends .. they just laughed away at it. This made them more determined and they worked hard and succeeded in making a FLYING MACHINE " THE WRIGHT FLIER" from the scrap they had in their shop.It was a single engine aircraft which could fly at a height of a few meters . Though their first flight at Kitty Hawk on 17th December, 1903 lasted for seconds.. but it was enough to start a new era for the mankind. Within years the aeroplanes were used almost everywhere.. for transport, for rescue, for met studies..and for WARS.

WRIGHT BROTHERS
Coming to the actual point , today there are aeroplanes which are run by super computers. Super sonic airplanes have become a thing of past. You might be knowing of CONCORD which reached 1.9 Mach during trans-Atlantic flights in the late eighties. (Though it is phased out from active service now). Today there are fighter planes which carry laser guided fire 'n' forget missiles. Moreover there are aircrafts like the B-2 spirit bombers which can take off from the USA , bomb the "Tora-Bora" hills in Afghanistan and return home on the same day without the need for refuelling even once and without giving a single blip in the enemy's RADAR!! Planes have also reached Hypersonic speeds( greater than 5 mach) in some test flights. Within 100 years man could increase his speed from a mere 60 km/hr( on a horse) to 5 machs !!ALso there are fighter aircrafts like the F-22 raptor which have "Thrust Vectoring Technology" which moves the exhaust nozzle in the required direction for better acceleration and maneuvering. Now-a-days Airplanes completely made up of Carbon Fibre have been built. ( ex. LCA (Tejas) of India has almost 90-95% carbon fibre which makes it the lightest multi role combat aircraft in the world.)

LCA

F-22 RAPTOR

You also might have heard of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles(UAV). The "Predator" ( an UAV of US) was extensively used during the IRAQ n Afghanistan wars. These aircrafts are controlled by pilots sitting comfortably in their home land and these intelligent airplanes just come n bomb n go.. The enemy never knows where did the bomb come from? No radar signatures, no noise, no infrared radiations.. India too boasts of having a powerful fleet of UAVs ( The "Lakshya") . The " Lakshya" was first test flown in Chandipur(The Interim Test Range) in my home state(Orissa).
Here i would like to ask a question : Is there the need of Pilots in today's airplanes? Can we leave these intelligent flying machines alone in the battle field? Can we rely on these brainy planes to carry hundreds of passengers safely across the pacific? Can these planes take split second decisions in combat zone and rescue operations??
Here the discussion is directed towards : Artificial Intelligence ~ Human Brain
Here's the OPEN question ..
CAN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE EVER REPLACE HUMAN in some vital JOBS like flying aeroplanes and surgery?(to name a few). OR SHOULD THEY BE RESTRICTED TO MUNDANE JOBS IN THE OFFICE and leave the humans to take up these "more important" jobs??

What I Was Trying To Say

2007-04-10T08:44:00.000+05:30

Okay this is just a small post...

When I mentioned a Universe with multiple epicenters, you apparently took it in a way I did not mean. When I say "epicenter", I am NOT referring to "the point from which everything is moving away"; rather, I am talking about the "point where the event first took place".

In other words, I was talking about the mouth/neck of the balloon, not its "center" per se.

Contrary to what you might imagine, the idea of multiple co-existing universes does not contradict the "everything is moving away from each other" stuff. Think of a balloon with its mouth towards the north. Now think of another balloon within this one with the mouth towards the east. We can have many such balloons, but the condition is that each one must expand at a faster rate than the one within it.

If you will give it a thought, this does mean that each and every object (an object is like a point on any of the balloon's surfaces) moves away from every other.

Easy IITJEE paper

2007-04-09T15:11:00.000+05:30

Lovely!!!!You come after 3+2+3 hours of hard work

9-12 :- almost a shaky start, and some nervousness arising due to the need of getting the essence of the past two years (actually more) into one crucial day and to do all this in a place you have never been to , before.
12-2 :- might seem the easiest part of the day but is actually the toughest. Getting some food into your stomach and expecting to digest it without any oxygen supply coz the brain has taken it all, is as likely as ending up with JEE rank 1. And then the pressure of not looking into the first paper (you wouldn't like to have a depressed mind, or even an over-confident one - entering the second test)
2-5 :- Get back to work.And it doesn't really matter if the afternoon is hot and the electricity supply is, well ...... typically Indian. The exam is the most important thing during the three hours and a slight dip in concentration may spell disaster.

Ok, after having excerted yourself for the eight hours , you hear people saying it was an easy paper, and... and even though you know those speakers might actually never make it, you are literally forced to believe that you missed out.

Were the eight hours 'easy'? Definitely not. The questions might have been easier but the paper, it was by no means easy. Anyways, it doesn't really matter if the questions are easy or difficult , its going to be the same set of people (with minor changes) who actually make it.

IITJEE is never difficult. Its not the high level of knowledge, or the complicated theorems, its just plain application of what you know, how well you know it, and ofcourse how well you use it. The questions were tricky, no doubt. There were ocassions when the questions trapped me, and literally induced mistakes. Deadly 'match the following'. All in all an excellent question paper, trademark IITJEE.

I hope you'll leave comments, and also an estimate of your scores (the solutions are available at www.fiitjee.com - i know most of you already know it) . Any guesses for what the top score is going to be???

The Periodic Cycle of Construction - Destruction

2007-03-29T12:35:00.001+05:30

There are certain phenomena about which there is no doubt as to their existence, yet they are hardly understood by man. This is summarized in the epic struggle of chemists to place elements in a periodic table, with properties being governed by relative location. The fact I wish to emphasize is, there was knowledge that there is a pattern to the properties of elements, but this pattern was not understood.

Similarly, the magnetic north and south poles of the Earth are reversed periodically, while the exact reason remains unknown. Speculation and theories are rife, but the questions of why and how remain largely unanswered. (By the way, if this reversal had included a period of complete absence of the field, there would be no atmosphere on Earth)

Moving on, we come to the Universe. As I have just mentioned elsewhere, there is no tangible concept of the "birth" of the universe itself, but because the universe's boundaries are being defined by the points where the farthest celestial objects exist, the big bang is taken as the origin.

The big bang was something which propelled matter outwards from a concentration which may be taken as a point.

This might even be periodical. Like the ice ages, perhaps the big bang has a reverse phenomena which occurs after a period of time, to be again followed by the bang itself.

What could possibly reverse the big bang? Something like an object achieving the speed of light. Infinite mass would have an omnipresent gravitational pull, with an infinite force that would immediately begin pulling every object composed of matter towards itself. This, or something like it, may cause the "death" of the universe, just as the big bang caused the "birth".

And the bottom line is, there is nothing we could do to prevent it.

The Boards....

2007-02-26T11:28:00.000+05:30

Just a short post wishing you all...

BEST OF LUCK FOR THE BOARDS!!

If you ever come online between the boards period, do comment with your experiences (Not just about the paper, even about the center/ invigilator/ people around)

Lets see how the boards went throughout the country!!

;)

A post in a hurry...

2007-02-15T17:44:00.000+05:30

Well I apologize for not posting this yesterday!

And yes this is not about the Valentine Day... :p

Its wishing:
Lagnajeet Das a (Belated) Happy Birthday!!

Seems like the blog is becoming a Birthday Wishing Blog :p
So mayb everyone should leave their birthdays in the comments... :D

I wont be coming online often, so ALL THE BEST FOR THE BOARDS!!
:D

HaPpY BiRtHdAy TwIsHmAy!

2007-02-09T20:13:00.000+05:30

Well sorry got a bit late...
Its already Evening... :p

Today is a very important day for all the members of this blog (I know there are very few who take out time to read this... still!)

Because today's the Birthday of the FOUNDER of the blog:
Mr. TWISHMAY SHANKAR! (aka Twish aka Twisted!)

HaPpY BiRtHdAy!!

2007-01-22T17:02:00.000+05:30

Intro

Thats me, Dhrubajyoti Samanta a.k.a. DJ. Sorry for this late intro. Just couldn,t think of anything to write. I had joined the summer camp at Calcutta with all the others. I had also played football with others. So long for now. Waiting for your comments.

CALL FOR HELP

2007-01-19T20:13:00.000+05:30

Arun , or ne1 else, plz get me a DATASHEET for the Transistors TL - 188
and TL - 187 ... EMERGENCY !

Sorry for posting this but I really need this ASAP !

TWISH

( Soon get bak with a REAL Post )

HaPpY BiRtHdAy Mr. TiMe!!

2007-01-12T19:45:00.000+05:30

Happy Birthday Saurya (Time) Mishra!!

Hope you enjoy Your Day!

Time flies doesn't it?? Better come up with time travel soon....

H*A*P*P*Y* .* .*.* .* .* .* .*.* .* B*I*R*H*D*A*Y
*.* .* .* .* .* .() ().() () () () () .* .* .*.* .*
.* .* .* .*.* .* || || || || || || || .* .* .*.* .*
.* .* .* .* . *@@@@@@@@@@ .* .* .*.* .*
.* .* .* .* .*@/////////////////////////@ .* .* .*.* .*
.* .* .* . *@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ .* .* .*.*
.* .* .* .* @//////////////////////////@ .* .* .*.*
.* .* .* @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ .* .* .*
.* .* .* @///////////////////////////@ .* .* .*
.* .* .* @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ .* .* .*
.* .* .*.* .* .* .* .*.* .* .* .* .*.* .* .* .* .*.* .* .* .*

Keep Posting!!
:D

Basics of Electronics: Transistor Time!

2007-01-08T19:27:00.000+05:30

Woo! Transistors! Drool, drool. Ok, my childish reactions apart, transistors are the backbone of electronics as we know it. They represent a control structure, where you can control one part of the circuit with another (as a master-slave relationship). As an overview, a transistor has 3 terminals (I'm talking about BiJunction Transistors' (BJT) here), which are called the Emitter, Base, and Collector (EBC). By changing the potential difference between the Base and Emitter, the current between the Emitter and Collector can be varied. I'm going to use acronyms for EBC's from now on, because I'm lazy.

Generic NPN transistor diagram below:

Ok, we'll discuss the NPN (negative-positive-negative) transistor right now. The PNP transistor is nearly the same, except the polarities are reversed. So the NPN transistor consists of three regions, a N junction (see previous article for junctions), a P junction and a N junction. They are the Collector, Base and Emitter respectively. If you want to, you can look at the transistor as two diodes, with the P junction fused. You can take two PN diodes and try to make a transistor out of it, but it'd be really crappy, because the P junction must be very very thin for reasons we shall soon see.

Let's connect up our transistor to a battery, and try and understand how it works:

Firstly, note that the C is connected in reverse bias (i.e. the positive end is connected to it), with respect to the EC connection. The BE is in forward bias though. Remember the depletion zone (from the previous article) right? Well, its here too. By varying the potential difference between the BE, we are able to change the 'thickness' of the depletion layer. That allows more current to flow. Initially, the layer is pretty thick, and electrons can't flow from the E to the C, so there is no current in the EC circuit. Now, as we increase the potential between BE, the layer thins down. So now electrons are allowed to flow into the B region.

Remember that the EC in reverse bias? That means that the C can't give electrons because of the gap, but it does mean that it is very very eager to take electrons. Thus, it sucks up the electrons that enter the B region. The B region must be very thin so that the electrons are not absorbed by the B or taken away from the circuit.

There you have it folks, by varying the BE potential, you vary the depletion layer. This allows a current into the B region, which is taken up again by the C region (so the Collector collects the current). Through a model, the relation between the V(BE) and I(EC) is Ice is proportional to exp(Vbe) (exp is e power). There are other components called FET (field emmission transistors), which vary as Ice proportional to Vbe^2.

In the next article, we'll discuss Op-amps, Comparators and Logic Gates

(Did I catch yous in time for the PBs?)

Basics of Electronics: Diodes

2007-01-07T21:00:00.000+05:30

Well, this is going to be a lengthy specialized article. I don't know how many of you have worked with circuits (as in solder circuits), but I atleast can vouch for myself, and Twish. I'll just explain what goes on behind the diode, the transistor, and the op-amp. We've already covered the others, i.e., resistors, capacitors and inductors in our syllabus (technically, diodes are in my syllabus too, but we've not covered them). I'll then go on to explain a very very simple IC, the 555 timer. I'm not sure at this point whether do post them as parts or as a whole. But I resolved to finish the entire article today, so at least I can post the bits and pieces over a few days.

Diode:

First, lets look at the generic diagram of a simple P-N junction diode:

The 'P' junction is a semiconductor (generally silicon) doped with a trivalent element, like boron, so that it becomes an electron-deficient species. They have electron acceptors, or 'holes'. As always, the guys behind this liked to complicate their lives and ours, so by convention, we talk of the 'holes' moving, rather than electrons. The trivalent dopant atom (Boron), cannot properly bond with the neighboring Si atoms; one of the four bonds lacks an electron, which it readily will accept from any source it can lay its hands on.

The 'N' junction is a semiconductor doped with a pentavalent element, like Arsenic, so that it has an extra electron (as compared to the usual four). They give out electrons. The As atom has an electron, after using four of its electrons to bond with its neighbors. The bond energy of this electron is pretty weak, and the electron can easily be cajoled into leaving.

Let's move on to the function of this simple device. As soon as you join these two 'junctions', the electrons from the N junction immediately 'neutralize' the holes of the P junction. This creates a void space in the middle in which there are no charge carriers. Note that a conductor conducts only due to carriers, and hence the absence of them makes the void space an insulator (a very thin one though). This region is called a depletion zone.

Now, as with all insulators, and all materials in fact, if you force it enough, you can get electrons to flow. When the holes and electrons have met, they leave behind a positive dopant ion, and a negative dopant ion. Yup, you know where I'm going with this, a field is established in the reverse direction. So, if you establish a sufficient potential difference between the two ends, the electrons have enough energy to make it through this gap, and current can be established. In general, I've seen most references say that the gap closes, but I feel that is simply a convention established, to easily explain the phenomenon.

A good question to ask at this point is after the electrons jump the gap, shouldn't they fall into the holes again? In fact, they do, and that is why there is some potential drop across diodes. A key difference between semiconductors and conductors is the number of electrons/holes it has is finite. That means that you can fill them all, and go on with life. That is why the graph of the I-V of a diode isn't just a right angled line.

There are two ways a diode can be connected, forward bias and reverse bias.

Forward Bias: In this setup, the positive (or higher potential end) is connected to the P junction, and the negative (or lower potential end) is connected to the N junction. This will establish from P -> N. That means the electrons are pushed from N -> P, which is a good end. The N junction has excess of electrons anyway, and the depletion layer potential is in the P -> N direction. So the external field overrides the internal field, and the electrons merrily cross the depletion layer. Once the potential of the depletion layer is reached, the current jumps up to its normal value, from a meager trickle earlier.

Reverse Bias: If you were to flip the connections, and connect the P junction to the negative terminal, and vice versa, then you would create a field in the direction of the internal field, increasing the gap. You would get no current in this manner. However, if you increase the potential enough, the material of the diode breaks down, and suddenly allows a lot of current to flow. This is called avalanche breakdown.

Now you know how a diode works. I know most of you already know this stuff, but I had to clear the way for the other topics.

Coming Soon: Transistors...

Biology & Astronomy - Questions, not Answers

2007-01-05T19:24:00.000+05:30

Alright. Two things being tossed off my mind here.

1) Why February?

So when the calender was first made (gregorian), the months were given days according to the motion of the moon. Also, it was noted that a year is about 365.25 days, so a leap year was added every four years to negligate the approximation of 365.

However, it was noted that the days in one month had to be truncated to fit in 365. And then they truncated them from Feb. And now we can't rely on the day of the month to find the location of the moon.

But why were these days removed only from Feb? Why weren't the number of days in every month made equal?

2) Negative Half-Life?

Although a half life is negative, as in it is for decomposition, is there anything opposite to the phenomenon of exponential decomposition?

Take the example of Cancer cells. They divide, then the two cells again divide etc. The rate of reproduction increases over time. My question is, is there an accurate exponential formula for this? There really should be, according to physics, but there may be factors which inhibit the reproduction of a particular daughter cell of a cancereous parent...

3) Time travel

You will just have to wait for the release of my book.

Introducing...

2007-01-04T21:44:00.000+05:30

Hello, people.

I am not one of the "bright students of India getting the KVPY Scholarship". Nope. I'm just here for the absurdity of it all.

So let me introduce myself. I am Rohit Garg. Also called RG.
First off, I'm sort of obsessed with light and invisibility (and spinvisibility). Also studying the possibilities of time travel.

I also like blood as a colloid buffer. I am partially insane, but I believe you geniuses (or genii) can put up with that.

Also love computers.

Ponder

2007-01-02T00:02:00.000+05:30

So I am a newcomer here. Still to write my intro post. Shall write that alongwith the first ever bio-based post on this blog(hopefully).

Till then here's something for you to ponder over. To the nearest order could you tell me the number of electrons present in a human body? (For assumption sake, take the average weight to be about 50 kilograms...I know quite optimistic but its okay for science's sake)

Till next time. Take care.
Oh...this is Navneet by the way.

Strange wall-ball problem

2006-12-28T11:11:00.000+05:30

Okay I get it - the title is not that imaginitive.
Hi there! The organic post that was to be never came up because I left my copy back in school but its some pretty interesting isomerism nuts that I was shown by my teacher. For now its some physics- collision style!
In fiitjee and other study mats there is always this obscure thing that concerns a ball with a wall. (Wall=infinite mass, ball=m)When the ball collides with the wall having an initial velocity u it returns back with the same velocity provided that the collision is elastic. Now fix the ball, let the wall strike the ball with a velocity u.Whatt happens now?

Contrary to all common sense the ball lurches forward with a velocity 2u.why??
A friend of mine kaustav sengupta (never mind the too erudite tone of the sentence) made sense when he said that consider the first case as in figure1, the frame instead of being stationary with respect to the ground is having a velocity u to its right. then?/Â..we get the second case, fig2, minus the comment about not making sense.
Comment if u knew it
Comment if u did not
Comment if u think itÂs wrong
Comment anyway!

the return of sith :-)

2006-12-15T09:26:00.000+05:30

hi there! i came back from skool yesterday and went through the whole blog. the idea was great i think.to start a blog that lays importance to the subtle nuances of physics and maths(not much of a chemistry there).and i m rlly happy that the posts have not dried up.as per catching up - it was good to hear that ftse was actually a mess. u know wat? a friend of a friend of mine,mutual friend that is, reads in fiitjee delhi classroom courses and he told us that they were taught in advance in the discussion classes abt 80% of the sums - a leak if there ever was one.assuming of course that he wasnt, u know, throwing off.anyway i was down in confidence for weeks.sort of brings things into perspective, doesnt it?
anyway i will be posting one on organic pretty soon - its been neglected for long.
pss:i will be staying here till 27th.then i wont come back to home till march.

Whatz prooved & Whats not :: A DEAD END SUPPLIMENT !

2006-10-25T16:03:00.000+05:30

Hey all !

Hmm ...
Another Dead End ? Nope I'm saturated of those now. But this one's interesting enough to be brought to notice of the blog.

A seemingly remarkable proof indeed for prooving that all numbers are interesting !
But Can a subjectivity of the problem be discussed mathematically ? The answer seems to be yes !?!

Now lemme introduce you 2 a couple of DEAD ENDS :

(1)

To Proove : Every natural number N can be described within 15 words.
Assumption : Let there be a set S of number which cannot be expressed within 15 words.
Ordering the set S & pickig out the first element, say P we get P as :
P is the "the smallest natural number that cannot be unambiguously described in fifteen words or less".

:. P can be described within 15 words.
By Reductio Ad Absurdum ;
We herey proove the Statement that :
EVERY NUMBER CAN BE REPRESENTED WITHIN 15 WORDS.

(2)

I begin this one, relating to the THEOREM OF MATHEMATICAL INDUCTION as quoted by Arun in a comment to the previous post.

"

The principle of mathematical induction basically is a logical proof of extention. If you can show that:
1) The statement is true for the base case, i.e. 0 generally,
2) That if it is true for n, n-1, n-2, it IMPLIES truth for n+1.

"

Okay. Let there be a statement S(n) depending on n which can be either TRUE or FALSE.

I DEFINE S(n) as :
S(n): "In ANY group of 'n' blog-members, all have equal ages."
OR
"In a set of blog-members-ages from ANY particular blog, all values are equal."

Now proceeding on the lines of the above discussed theorem, lets discuss S(1).
: " In ANY group with 1 blog-member, All blog-members have equal ages ( Takin one member at a time since n = 1 )."
Clearly S(1) is TRUE.

Assume that S(k) is TRUE which implies that :
: " In ANY group of 'k' blog-members, all have equal ages."

Now to proove S(n) for all N belongs to (1,infinity), We must proove S(k+1).

So now we have a set of (k+1) blog-members. Of those, we can choose different combinations of 'k' blog members. In each of these combinations, all blog-members would have equal ages. Therefore, All blog-members in the (k+1) blog-member set are equal in age.
:. S(k+1) is TRUE if S(k) is TRUE.

S(1) is true. S(k+1) is TRUE When S(k) is TRUE.

:. by the THEOREM OF MATHEMATICAL INDUCTION ...

S(n) is TRUE.

Implying this for the blog KVPY2005 : Fused Bulbs... I hereby proove that all memebers in this blog are equal in age, which is conincidentally true within the limits of error. lol.

Ill leave the implications to be discussed by the blog members.

WAITING FOR COMMENTS

(desperately hehehe)

Twish

Boring Numbers?

2006-10-24T17:21:00.000+05:30

Hey. It's been a long time since I've posted anything, so I'll make a candid proof I saw on the net somewhere.

This deals with a really fundamental theory:

There is no such thing as a uninteresting number.

As we deal with the earth-shaking proposition, one must have a deep fundamental knowledge of sets. Let us limit our theory to the infinite set of natural numbers.

On with the proof:
Let N be the set of all natural numbers, of which X represents the set of uninteresting number. First let us order this set X in numerical order. Let us now analyse the first number of this set. Our understanding of what makes a number interesting is so fragile that to produce such an example is a great step forward. Thus this number being the FIRST uninteresting number is of vital importance, bringing our interest to it. Thus it can not belong to the set, and isn't the first element. Let X' be the revised set omitting this fraud. Thus the second term of set X is the first of set X'. We can apply the same reasoning here, and easily omit this element, and continue to do so for all other numbers of the set, making it a null set. Thus it is easily proved that there is no uninteresting number.

Lovely proof isn't it? But there does exist a very important logical consideration. If one considers ONLY the negative numbers, our present ordering is befuddled, but do not panic. Suppose we order them in REVERSE order, letting greatest come first. Thus we can proceed by the same steps as above.

Now, we come to a very important juncture. If we combine these two sets, and look at ALL integers, we're stuck. For sure the negativity is an important difference between '+' and '-' numbers, and we can't ignore it. A set of Z has no beginning or end, so we CAN'T order it, and use this lovely proof for it. So it seems that the interesting-ness of certain '+' or '-' numbers makes other numbers loose there interesting-ness. But I thought interesting-ness was an intrisic property of a number. I.E. that a number can be called interesting because of a property that it exhibits, i.e. primality (it being prime) or it's square-ness/cube-ness/n-power-ness, or a pattern exhibited by its digits (like 12321).
Appealing to this logic, we could either conclude two things: That there exist no uninteresting numbers, or that the interesting-ness of a number does infact depend extrisicly as well as intrisicaly, and that it depends on a negative counterpart (whether that is the negative of the same number or not can not be concluded though).
As much as I'd like to take the latter, for it's more complicated, and that it IS earth-shaking in its statement, I'll abuse Occam's Razor and say that the former is obviously true.
Occam's Razor is: All explanations are simple, and the more complex one is more probably wrong. Note the keyword: Probably. It's generally quoted with overexagerrations like:
When you see a reflection:
1) Light is getting reflected
2) There is an alternate reality, which can be entered through the window, and which is inhabited by people who look EXACTLY like you, and happen to do EXACTLY what you are in front of the mirror.
Sometimes I think that life would be a lot more fun if it weren't so obviously 1.
That's all for now. I hope to be back this weekend with a post on the brain.
Signing off and Id Mubarak,
Arun

BEFORE THE BEGINNING AND BEYOND THE END (PART 2)

2006-10-22T13:39:00.000+05:30

Hello again all of you. I am back, with a spicy second part of my article. The contents of this article as well as the one it follows is a collection of well laid facts cemented with the author's own ideas. Thanx 4 reading guys, enjoy. Please refer to the previous section wjenever in doubt.

Let us now extend our view of the symmetry about the big bang, we can go forth to say that the previous universe too must have originated from another big bang. Therefore, this brings us back to the concept of oscillating universe theory. However, the problem with oscillating universe is Entropic considerations. The problem is the following:

The oscillating universe theory says the entropy of all the singularity states of the universe have same entropy. Now let us assume the whole of the universe as one system. Suppose right here right now, I drop an egg and break it. I have thus increased the entropy of the universe. However, when our universe reaches its next big crunch, the entropy has to be same as that of the last singularity. There is the problem, entropy remaining constant although the system is experiencing an irreversible process. I will try to provide an explanation for it.

All of us know about supernovae explosions. Some parts of a dying star blows off as a huge explosion into the realms of the vast universe, and the remaining collapse into a tiny dwarf star. Let’s apply this logic to the entire universe.

Let S1 and S2 be two singularity states. A big bang at S1, expansion, and then contraction and finally a big crunch at S2 are the sequence of events. The change in Entropy is ΔE. According to Boltzmann postulate or the definition of Entropy,
ΔE = kb (ln Ω1 - ln Ω2) where, the sigma are the no of ways in which the same microscopic arrangements can be restored from a starting state.
So what we do now is very simple. We ‘transfer’ all the disorder in the whole of the universe to say a few moles of gas molecules. We outcast there molecules and allow the rest of the universe to move into singularity 2.

Let me make this more lucid. While playing billiards (or pool or snookers ... whatever), on a perfectly friction less table, we first break the triangular arrangement in the middle by a slow strike, the balls go a little haywire and keep moving and colliding with each other. As these collusions continue, the entropy is constantly increasing with time. But there is a remote possibility that say seven of these balls will again come back and form a tight arrangement. The remaining two will remain in a state of even increased randomness. Thus we can say that the entropy got localized to the two balls or got transferred from the other seven balls to the two.

This is one way in which we can satisfy both the oscillating universe theory and the second law of thermodynamics. But this too has a lot of problems of its own. First and the most important is that it is unable to explain the birth of the universe (I am talking about the real birth – the first big bang) and it too says that there has to be some thing beyond our universe.

It says our universe is constantly losing its mass into darkness (dark energy?). It predicts a very gruesome death to our lovely universe. A heat death scenario – a situation when there will be no energy gradients and hence there will be no process. (All processes require flow of energy.) But certainly it has done one good thing for sure, it has increased the life span of our universe to much beyond of what Big bang theory had proposed. It never says that the Big bang theory is wrong but it says that the big bang was not the beginning but only a phase change in the history of our universe.

I will not end this article with a conclusion as conclusions are for the readers to devise. It is a philosophical question and until we find a proof we can only speculate. We are like a child who presses its nose on a mirror, accepting it to be window. He knows it is not the reality. It is only the preconception in his mind. Reality lies beyond the glass- break it open. But he is afraid that in the process of breaking open the mirror and discovering the reality, he will destroy his well constructed sand castle.

Saurya Time Mishra

PS: Sorry if u couldn't c the comments before. Dunno y, but still, u can add them now!

~Gr81~

Diwali

2006-10-21T15:16:00.000+05:30

Hello Everybody!!

Well, my Exams are over and I'm enjoying this festive season. Hopefully u ppl are enjoying too!

So ppl:

दीपावली की ढेर सारी शुभकामनाएँ!!

____________0____00___0____________
____________00_______0000__________
_____________000000000000__________
________0______000000000___________
____000000000_____00!______________
_____000000000___________000000____
_____00______00_________000000000__
______________00_______0000__00000_
______________00_______0!______000_
_____________000___00000________00_
____________000__00000000________0_
0________0000000000000000________0_
0________00000_0000____00________0_
00________00____00_____00________0_
00_______________00____00_______00_
_00______________000___00_______00_
_00_______________00___00______000_
__00______________000__0000000000__
___00____________0000___00000000___
____000__________0000____00000_____
_____0000______00000_______________
______00000000000000_______________
________0000000000_________________

We all know that busrting crackers pollutes our environment. But who cares about the "E"-nvironment?

So blast as many "E"-crackers as you want, and "E"njoy this "E"-Diwali!!

E-Diwali!

And yeah, more important stuff HERE:

Now I have a few days time, so tell me what all do you want to change in the blog....
Like:
- Add Intro
- Decrease no. of Posts visible
- Change theme (to what?? plz suggest...)

Write any kind of suggestion (ANYTHING... even something like flashy links...)

So waiting for ur suggestions!

PS:
Are u busy? If not, mayb u should see this:

LOGAN's Mystery Of Time And Space Adventure [Mystery Game]
Pencilmation [Cool Stick Figure Animation :D]

--

रसज्ञ शर्मा
* Rash thegr81!! *

Modern physics and Vedanta.

2006-10-11T11:12:00.000+05:30

Ok, I agree the topic seems to be a turn-off but the ensuing article might just not be one. Actually I read a book of the same name by swami jitatmananda (a gem by all accounts –google him if u like). That along with a few observations of mine constitutes this post. So, back to the topic .Vedanta defines maya as sthana-kala-nimitta (ie space time causation). Without either one of these the other one has no meaning – nor does maya. Rings a bell –einstein’s space time continuum et all?-it should.
There is also the question of consciousness. It has already been mentioned in the Upanishads (or vedantas for that matter they are the same), that consciousness/awareness/opinion, whatever one may call it, affects the surroundings. And it has only recently been proved that the outcome of an elementary experiment (which can have only 2 outcomes) can be affected if the scientist conducting it has a biased opinion –all this is actually much more complicated than it sounds- but that’s that. There are similar mergers in oriental philosophy and occidental science that are increasingly evident even as we speak. Scientists like john a. wheeler have coined mouthful names for the phenomenon but I left the book at my hostel so I cannot quote. But this still might open avenues of thought open to many of u. and if u ask me, gita seems lifeless to me- Vedanta packs in much more excitement & cloudy aura. Issue a translation from ur library and go through it. Gita, on the hand was a part of Mahabharata which was purely a literary creation. Gita, once translated seems bland but yeah it uses devices and metaphors well. I don’t know that much Sanskrit but ppl seem to go gaga over gita – its just common sense! Or thus I think,well then each to his own.
How do u ppl like resonance though? For me some articles drive well, while most yield a tangent (vidyapith colliloquy for did-not-quite-get-that).
Now look here I am absolutely greedy on feedback so do comment.

latest intro

2006-10-11T10:59:00.000+05:30

My pic!

The first hi-mates. I know I am the last un, but cant help with being in skool can I?So here is my intro.
Name: debanjan basu
Nick: my classmates call me basu (with that inimitable undertone of contempt-u know the sort)- n I am fine with that.
Identification: Kept me thinking actually coz I did not do anything special(read stupid) over there but the pic may help. Oh yes......I am from Ramakrishna mission vidyapith, deoghar .that'll do, wont it?
So that's all , as twish correctly pointed out, we shall all get together nxt summer.

BEFORE THE BEGINNING AND BEYOND THE END

2006-10-01T13:47:00.000+05:30

Part 1

There was nothing at all, no space no time (not even me), then all of a sudden it all happened - The Big Bang. A theory we all have believed so blindfolded. A Theory that created a bigger bang in the world of science than the Big Bang itself. A theory that certainly could explain cosmic background wave and the red shift of the expanding universe, and even satisfies religious claims of things like God making everything. Everything is completely all right until we step beyond the beginning. People have asked numerous questions, “What was there before Big Bang?” The scientific community with a Godly authority turned all of these questions down. I will not repeat them.

But this was not all. This theory at last seems to be breathing it’s last (and thank God). The theory, which was once rejected, is now betting a rebirth – The Oscillating Universe theory. The General Theory of relativity, which so well explains everything regarding gravity, fails miserably in what we call Singularity – space and time condensing to one point – densities touching incredible values and distances reducing to about 10^-39 - the plank scale. And the reason? The same thing, which my dear blogmate Arun and I have been arguing upon – Calculus. We all know that charge is quantized, so is angular momentum of electrons, even mass. Let us take a step forward and extend quantization to time and space. Space is nothing but a fabric woven out of individual fibres. Calculus cannot be directly applied over discontinuous space. However applying it with a little modification allows us to end all problems. This theory is popularly known as the Loop Gravity Theory and interestingly but as expected originated in India.

The Theory was aimed at explaining the physics at plank scale which it did successfully. However, it led to another implication and directly counters the concept of the Big bang.. When all matter in the universe approach singularity, the theory says, there comes into play a force – one of tremendous magnitude, manifold greater than gravity itself and repulsive in nature. The situation is similar to a ball hitting a spring and bouncing back.

Certainly with this knowledge we can answer the most controversial question, “What was there before the big bang?” The answer is there was the countdown to a big crunch. We now have a universe that does not begin at the big bang, but only is symmetric about it.

What I want to say is here – Wasn’t it Obvious? We should have guessed it earlier. Let me explain why and how.

I would like to repeat the philosophy of a 2^nd century Chinese philosopher. Every event is preceded by another event. (The former is the cause of the later) Hence, the implication follows that there has to be some thing before the Big bang the cause of the Big bang, more specifically. (Speaking further, we can say that there should be no beginning to the universe, but we will see to that later) To further justify the statement, and denounce the creation of space-time at t=zero (and with it the Big bang theory), I will give the following argument.

Let us say there was a primeval atom, which exploded to create the universe, space and time. The question is why at all did it explode? This can be answered in two ways. Firstly there was some thing (or someone …say God) outside it who/which caused the Big bang to happen. That means, there was something – matter, energy or say a consciousness excluded from the Primeval atom. But this is against our Big bang theory. The second way is to use probabilistic mechanics. The primeval atom just like a radioactive atom had a probability of disintegration at any given time. (I am sorry, but using probability without the concept of time is just impossible.) So there has to be Time before Big Bang. This again violates the Big Bang theory.

I would love to write more but its not possible in a single blog. I will put it all in the second part very soon. So stay tuned, the sting is in the end, I assure you.

Saurya "Time" Mishra

The Great Relativity bomb plot

2006-09-17T20:26:00.000+05:30

Hi !!!
This is a comic strip based on the theory of relativity. Click on the links to see the pics.

When Albert Einstein advanced his special theory of relativity in 1905, he turned upside down everything that common sense and science had established about time. He said that time is not absolute, but is a relative quantity that could show one value to one observer while seeming different to a second viewer. The whole thing seemed preposterous.

Though most scientists came to accept the Einstein theory, its principles have continued to elude many of the less informed - including, to his lasting regret, the villainous felow at right. He is the sly and ruthless Agent X, an international comic - strip spy who is plotting a daring act of sabotage aboard the most fantastic train in the universe-the Relativity Express. The Express travels at a speed approaching that of light. At this velocity the extraordinary effects of relativity are apparent. Objects shrink in length. Past, present and future become wildly mixed. Moving clocks do not remain synchronized with those standing still; even man himself ages less rapidly. Such astonishing events will cause the downfall of Agent X. Shrewd and cunning he may be, but like all criminals he has committed a fatal error: he has failed to keep himself informed about the odd effects of relativity.

1. The notorious Agent X, beady eyes hidden behind dark glasses, gestures toward the sleek Relativity Express, the train that is to carry forward his fiendish plot to blow up the world's greatest nuclear power plant. Hidden aboard the express is a bomb, carefully timed to go off as the train passes the plant. At that moment the express will be traveling at its top speed of 140,000 miles per second, three quarters the speed of light. X is confident. He has calculated well and is certain his plot will succeed. But he is in for surprises!

2. "Everything depends on time," muses X as he sneakily watches the loading of an extremely accurate clock on the Relativity Express. The clock is the key to his dastardly scheme. Inside the clock Agent X has planted his bomb, set to explode when the hands point to 1:30, the very moment the train is scheduled to pass the nuclear power plant. Only this precise clock and this dependable train can achieve X's evil purpose-if either the clock or the train runs just one second slow, the bomb will go off 140,000 miles past target!

3. Agent X has prepared a map of the bomb plot. He knows that the train clock is due to be set in accordance with the giant master clock near the track; this, he assumes, will insure his bomb of split - second accuracy. Just to be sure, however, he plans to check the train clock once again as it passes the steeple clock near the power plant. Meanwhile, his lookout will be watching for the train; once it passes he will proceed in his jet powered getaway car to a meeting with X at the overpass-as the Express roars toward its rendezvous with doom.

4. "On time!" gloats the cunning agent as the Relativity Express passes by the master clock, at the very moment it sends a noontime signal to synchronize the train clock. Now the bomb must be correctly timed, thinks X smugly, proud of his wicked plot. But little does he reckon with the effect of relativity on time at the train's great speed. The strange shape of the clock tower offers a clue, but in his exultation Agent X fails to notice. The wily spy will suffer severly for his ignorance; he is about to learn about relativity the hard way.

5. But suddenly X sees that something strange is happening! The lookout is a broad-shouldered, heavyset man - but this fellow standing at trackside is incredibly skinny. What's more, the bench and even the trees are peculiar, pressed into narrow shapes. Only the recognition of a hand radio like the one that controls the getaway car indicates to X that this might be his accomplice. He waves frantically at the man as prearranged but he is not sure this is the right chap. His first encounter with relativity has shaken him badly.

6. The lookout, who is really as squat and sinister as Agent X remembers him, is equally stunned by what he sees. He was told the train would be streamlined - but instead it is like a string of squashed - up streetcars. And look-oval wheels! He, too, does not know that relativity makes an object shorter when observed in motion. At last the lookout spots a distorted man waving madly from the rear car. Shaking his head, he prepares to follow in the getaway car. He is not sure who the fellow is, but he proceeds on the hunch that it is his leader, Agent X.

7. Beset by doubts, Agent X turns again to his map for reassurance. The next landmark is the town with the steeple clock. "I'll check the clock on the train one last time when we pass that accurate steeple clock," he mutters. "If the two clocks agree-and why shouldn't they?-the bomb will be perfectly timed and the plan will succeed. Then I'll drop off the train." But now the once-cocky undercover man is gripped by fear. What could have made the lookout seem so unfamiliar? Something outlandish is interfering with the plot!

8. The first real evidence that something has indeed gone wrong is spotted by an innocent bystander, a little old lady passing near the steeple clock as the Relativity Express speeds by. The train is actually moving so fast that only in a comic book would it be visible, but the sharp- eyed little old lady can read the clock; it says 12:40. "How odd!" she remarks. "The steeple clock says 1:00 and it's been right ever since I was a little girl. The funny clock on the train must be slow!"

9. At the same moment Agent X spots the steeple clock, leaps from his seat in disbelief and rushes to the car door to check the clock on the flatcar. Sure enough, it says 12:40, although the steeple clock reads 1:00. "Ye gods!" he shouts. " That steeple clock must be wrong! It must be fast- or else it was set wrong! I know the train clock was correct back at the master time station." The whole plan is in danger! In near- panic, X looks for the conductor to tell him that the world has gone mad; the clocks are all wrong.

10. "Both clocks are right," smiles the knowledgeable conductor. "But each clock is running slow relative to the other. As you can see, the steeple clock, which is moving relative to us, has a second hand that ticks more slowly than the second hand of our train clock. But it depends on where you stand: the people on the ground see our second hand as ticking slowly. Furthermore, the steeple clock and the master clock were never really synchronized from our point of view- although they were from the viewpoint of someone on the ground."

11. There is only one hope for the desperate Agent X now: he must reset the terrible bomb to take into account the time change caused by relativity. He has tricked the conductor into telling him that they will pass the power plant when the train clock says 1:00. Now Agent X must change the bomb mechanism to explode then. He slips from the coach onto the flatcar bearing the clock. If he can only reach the clock without rousing the drowsy guard, he may win his battle with relativity after all.

12. Agent X creeps up to the clock stand, against which the guard is resting, slowly opens the door and reaches inside for the bomb. The seconds tick by as Agent X tries to adjust the bomb mechanism. But the noise of Agent X at work nearby awakens the guard, who leeps to his feet. Agent X hastily abandons his work and jumps to the top of the coach to try to make his escape. "Rats!" spits out the evil villian. "The plot is a failure; I must flee before all is lost." But the guard hangs onto his coattails.

13. As Agent X doffs his coat he shows he is well prepared: strapped to his back are rockets capable of propelling him at half the speed of light. Away he zooms! "Success!" he exults. "Since the train is traveling at three quarters the velocity of light, I must be going at one and one quarter times the speed of light- enough to escape any gunfire!" But if X really understood relativity he would know that no object can attain the speed of light, much less surpass it. X is going at ten elevenths the speed of light- and that will make a difference!

14. A railway guard with the eyes of an eagle notices the commotion on top of the crack Relativity Express. Since anything can happen in a comic strip, he is able to race up the overpass before the train, which is zipping along at 140,000 miles per second, passes by. His laser pistol is in his hand. With this weapon he will be ready to fire rays that travel at the speed of light when the train and its would-be saboteur pass beneath him. The relativity-crossed Agent X does not know it yet, but he is about to pay dearly for his wicked ways.

15. As Agent X rockets over the roofs of the Relativity Express, he is the target of both guards. At the instant the two guards come abrest they fire their laser pistols. The gun on the train is moving, the other is stationary on the overpass, but- because the speed of light is always the same regardless of the motion of its source- both laser beams reach their quarry simultaneously. The hapless X, receiving his harshest lesson in relativity, is struck not once but twice.

16. The great nuclear power plant is saved as the Relativity Express grinds to an unscheduled stop. After frantically searching the clock, a guard finds the bomb, disarms it, and holds it aloft jubilantly. "The bomb," he exults, "was set for 1:30 but it is only 1:00 on the Relativity Express now, for the train clock has been running slow relative to the ground. Thank Heavens for relativity; it has bested the evil Agent X." Meanwhile the benighted agent is stretched out on the ground behind him.

17. Foiled by relativity, the once-smug Agent X is hauled away. The train, stopped, measures exactly the distance between two telephone poles; at full speed it was compressed to a fraction of that space (8); its wheels are round once more. A guard says pityingly, "Don't take it so hard, X. There's solace for you. Since everything on the train happened slowly relative to the ground, you're actually half an hour younger than you would have been if you hadn't ridden the Express." And so, younger but wiser, X is dragged off to jail.

Want to know more about relativity?
Click Here.

ENTROPY has INCREASED AGAIN

2006-09-15T19:28:00.000+05:30

HEY BLOGMATES !!!

& Heyy Arun...
Your previous comment appeals to me big time for I'll share something with ya pal ! Even as I write this, therez a thought in my brain telling me to do it with adibatic & reversible processes as far as possible so that there is least increase in the entropy of the universe. When I walk, I think of taking the shortest route possible only because I don't want entropy to increase. Only that I realized it sometime last year that thinking to conserve entropy, I was infact increasing it ! The entropy I saved walking a hypotenuse-cut through a park was little compared to the effort I spent thinking about it. The heat released in my brain, the possible disorders etc etc.
Today it occurs it me, whether it was of any use ? Is entropy actually that bad ? Infact is a broken glass any worse than a not-so-broken one ? Well, science discusses the objectivity of a problem but what decides its subjectivity ?
Infact whats the definition of wrong & right ?
NOW ... thats too many questions at once ! That too very much varied.

Well. Okay. what about "" DISORDER "". Thats what ENTROPY if a degree of. But if ""DISORDER"" really that objective ? Or mayb we can define DISORDER in terms of entropy. Well, then is an act of murder a disorder or order ?
Im sure this is not a question answerable by science. Nor does science intend to adress such queries. But wat about them ?
I have a little piece of writing on entropy that I'll shortly post, something that I wrote an year back.

As for H U P , hmm... even I went through the same thoughts once! Though its intriguing to know that waves of particlas are considered to be waves only because there is to means to look into the wave !
Infact the de-Broglie thingy is pretty much the same thing as the HUP... just 2 ways to say the same thing. The same thing being that weather we say that there exists a particle which is smeared across a region in space, or there's a wave not a particle which is present, its the same thing !

Indeed theres a lot of similarity in our thinking Arun ... hmmm

Newayz.

Will try & be regular with some posts !

TWISH
PS: Sry Gawd for all this increase in entropy...

I Hate Capacitors

2006-09-02T23:00:00.000+05:30

Hi guys,
Some thing has been eating me for days. Its about capacitors and may sound trivial but I wil assure u it is not so. The question is: "what will be the capacitance of a parallel plate plate capacitor when it is filled with a conductor touching both plates."
All books I have seen so far say it will be infinite or tends to infinity, but i dont agree. I will put my view point.

let us go to the grassroots and define capacitance. The ability of a capacitor(or any object for that matter) to 'store' charge at a given pottential difference. Now once both the plates are connected the whole assembly is nothing but a conductor. Two statements here:
(i) Any conductor except a superconductor has some resistance, no matter how small, it is non zero. Thus there will be some pottential drop. V not= 0
(ii) No part of a conductor can accumulate any net charge, because of the presence of charge carriers (electrons). Q = 0
Thus the capacitance C = Q/V = 0/non zero = 0

Now some thing very very absurd(funny rather) is written in one of the books (Arihant Electricity and magnetism). It say since a conductor can allow infinite amount of charge 'though' its plates, Q>>>>V. So C tends to infinity. Wah bhai !! Listen to my analogy. Take a bucket, cut off its bottom and say u have a bucket of infinite capacity !! LOL !!

Intrestingly and disgustingly nearly all physics trachers disagree with me. i am the lone fighter for my cause. I have ddecided to conduct an extensive experiment on this starting from 25 Sept after the FIITJEE exam ;) So what do you people think? Am I wrong ?

Saurya Time

HaPpY InDePeNdEnCe DaY!!

2006-08-15T22:35:00.000+05:30

Just a filler post - to remember those who made it possible for us to celebrate
The 60th Independence Day of India.




          JAI H
           JAI HIN JA   JAI
            JAI HIND JAI HI
              JAI HIND JAI H
            JAI HIND JAI HI
             JAI HIND JAI
             JAI HIND JAI
               JAI HIND JAI
               JAI HIND
               JAI HIND J
              JAI HIND JAI H
            JAI HIND JAI HIN
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         JAI HIND JAI HIND J                               JAI HINDJ
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   JAI HIND JAI HIND JAI HIND JAI              JA     JAI HIND JAI
  JAI HIND JAI HIND JAI HIND JAI HIND J        JA      JAI HIND
   JAI HIND JAI HIND JAI HIND JAI HIND JAI HIND JAI HIND JAI HIN
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    JAI HIND JAI HIND JAI HIND JAI HIND JAI HIND  JAI HIND JAI
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                    JAI


Incase you have time, do see this:    
[Link to Flash Movie]

--
Gr81
I aM PrOuD To Be An InDiAn!

Time is back ...

2006-08-11T23:03:00.000+05:30

Okay okay,

i know ... u all r really relieved 2 c me at last. I was hell busy ... working on ambigrams (thanks to Mr Dan Brown), mirror writings(Da Vinci Inspration), flute playing(sparekh bhai zindabad- great flute player), trying (hoplessly) 2 solve the Reimann hypothesis, experimenting on 'conductor mediated variable capacitance',blah blah blah ...

Now the purpose of this blog... i have got two things to post ... tell me what i should post first
Theoritical analysis of 4th analysis (my original and first research work) or Ambigrams and illusions(i love it!)

Time is back (may vanish again)

The Chaos Game

2006-08-06T23:07:00.000+05:30

Here's about a lovely game I've been playing for the past week or so (it really screwed up my study schedule). It is just one of the pinnacles of the beauty of random processess. I hope you know I'm not talking about a computer game or sport.

I'll describe the basic process of the game now. It's very simple. Take a number of points (generally start with three, you can't do more without a program) on a piece of paper. Now supposing you've taken three (I'll assume you can all generalise it) points, considered vertices (A, B, C). Actually, these vertices need not be in ANY regular conformation. But again for aesthetic sense, consider them in an equilateral triangle. So you have three points in an equilateral triangle on a sheet of paper.

Now mark a point anywhere you like, inside the triangle, outside (even at infinity, but thats a wee bit impractical). This is your initial point, technically a seed. It really doesn't matter where its taken. Take a die (or create a random no. program). Assign two numbers to a vertex (if its a good die, which we assume it is, each no. has equally probability, so it doesn't at all matter). Suppose the following assigniations: A = (1,2) B = (3,4) C = (5,6). Roll the die, and mark your next point at the mid-point of your original point and the vertex indicated by the die. Roll the die again, and using the new pt. generate another pt. Continue doing it ad-infinitum (or till you go mad).
For example, let your initial pt be S. You roll a 4, then, mark X1 at the midpt of SB. Roll again, and get 3. X2 = midpt. of X1B. Roll:1. Mark X3 = midpt. X2A. Go on and on.

Honestly tell me what kind of figure would expect from such a random process. Some would say a filled triangle, and fewer a random figure that doesn't quite cover the entire triangle.

Time for some pictures eh?
Here is the plot for the above:
1. Plotted with just 10 points. No structure is inherent:

2. Plotted with 100 points. Some structure visible:

3.Plotted with 1000 points. Structure is glaringly obvious:

Just goes to show that the human intuition is extremely biased on its experiences. I've read two books about chaos, and a good portion goes in droning about how we've accustomed our minds to complex stuff can be achieved only by complex processes, and random processes bring out random results. The above figures tend to form the Serpienski Gasket, which is a figure that can easily be drawn through the process: Take a triangle, and exclude the triangle formed by joining the midpt of the sides. Do it for every single triangle you get. This is and example of a figure with INFINITE length but ZERO area. Another feature is that the figure is infinitely detailed, which means that it never lands onto the same spot, and no matter how deep you go into the figure, you will still see detail which is microscopic at that scale. It is also absolutely self-similar.

Either way, to extend the figures, we can take the points as 4,5,6, etc. (4 it comes out doesn't show anything, its and exception). We can also change the recursion to give:
X2 = (Vertex + X1)/R, where R is the ratio. Here we've taken R to be 2, and got the midpt. For different R, it doesn't exactly give us that.

So here are some more interesting pictures:

1) The same triangle, in much better detail (10^5 with a bettter plotter LabPlot, also freeware):
2) A skew triangle, just to show you the lack of need for regularity:
3) A hexagon with ratio 3. This is undoubtedly the most beautiful thing I've created (I don't draw very well):
Just some more notes, the figure in the center is a Koch Curve, which to people who've read it is an amazing revalation, because of the amazing shape that it is. Just to tell you, take an equilateral triangle. Take the middle third of each side, and split it open into two parts to form an equilateral triangle with the side = 1/3 of the base length. __ becomes _/\_, with better ratios of course. Keep on doing this. It gives you finite area, but infinite length.

Ok. One last note: You really should try to experiment with this. You'll come across a lot of interesting, and semi-obvious realizations. For example, by changing the ratio R to 3 for the triangle, you'll get a similar triangle figure but each triangle will be a bit spaced. If you do the hexagon, with a ratio of 2 instead, you won't be able to make up much. Extrapolating ,the ratio gives how far apart they are, with too small a ratio, they'll overlap and you can't make out anything.
For further reference:
MathWorld: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ChaosGame.html

Some graphs for sparekh

2006-08-06T14:15:00.000+05:30

I thought I'd plot the graphs that sparekh wanted (I was feeling pretty jobless at the time, despite a lot of work). I basically wrote a program (in Python, in case anyone cares) and used gnuplot (debateably to most powerful free plotting utility) to create the images.

-> This is the graph for N = 100

This is the graph whe N = 1000 ->

2006-08-06T02:24:00.000+05:30

ok. this thought has been bothering me for somedays. but at last i've shoved off my letharguc spirit and lighted my bulb.
so lets talk about the biggest subject of all: infintãs.
lets observe the set of square numbers. now how many square numbers are there? For each square number would have a positive square root. so there should be as many squares as the number of positive roots (we're talking about perfect squares mind you). And how many positive square roots do we find? As many natural numbers obviously. Thus there are as many square numbers as there are natural numbers.
But then, all natural numbers are not squares, so there should be more of natural numbers. And so there are, in finite set. But then, one could argue that when you observe the set of natural numbers and the set of square numbers, till infinte numbers, there should be as many squares as there are N numbers. So as you approach infinty the ratio of square numbers (S) : natural numbers (N) should become 1. ?
Lets see. For n=1 (observing the set of N) S=1, N=1, S/N =1
For n=2 S=1, N= 2, S/N =1/2
For n=3 S=1, N=3, S/N=1/3 (I'm just writing this to show you the trend)
For n=4 S=2, N=4, S/N=1/2

thus you'll see, for n=m^2 S/N is always = m/m^2 = 1/m
as n→ ∞, m→ ∞, so S/N → 0.
So infact when we're going up the number ladder, the S/N ratio is actually decreasing. So are we moving away from infinity or are we coming closer to it.
I think the crux lies in the realisation that we should stop thinking of infinity as a big number.
Notice that initially, the S/N ratio decreases, then when it encounters a square number it suddenly increases. (I would like to give a graph of it, but i dont know how to; i am just glad enough i remembered how to post)
Look at these numbers:
for n=m^2, S/N ratio has surged up a little. It was lowest at n=(m^2)-1. The previous peak was at n= (m-1)^2
So for n = (m-1)^2 ; S/N = 1/(m-1)
n= (m^2) -1 ; S/N = 1/(m+1)
n = m^2 ; S/N = 1/m
now obviously 1/(m-1) > 1/m > 1/(m+1)
now imagine the n corresponding to 1/(m+1) [say n2] be ∞ {just suppose it!}
now the n corresponding to 1/m [say n3] would be ∞ +1.
at ∞ the S/N ratio would become 0. But at ∞+1 S/N would leap up to 1 (i'm not supporting this mind you; i'm just trying to explain things). and then because we cant understand or differentiate which ∞ is which, we can see them separately by 1) mathematics and 2) logical analysis. But this doesnt make much sense does it? And I am stumped by the mysterious infintãs. But I hope I've set your minds whirring, so i'll be expecting posts.
Stay tuned for some more mind-boggling stuff on infinity.
spidy

... Thinking about Thinking ...

2006-07-06T21:32:00.000+05:30

Heyy Bloggies !!!

Oh I can't explain how my fingers are tickling to get busy typing an elaborate essay on a few really interesting topics I have in mind. But sorry for the dissappointment oh little fingers for due to lack of both time and patience, and a couple of exams on my head ( Skool + Coaching ), I'll have to part, with just a few words to say !

Arun and Ankit ! Welcome to our blog ! Arun, the post you wrote about what we are taught ( and what we are not... ) was nothing but true and I just can't help agreeing with it. In a way, I think you exressed a common feeling among all of us. But maybe they don't teach us how to solve the likes of Schrodinger Equation for two reasons that I can think of... firstly, to teach you need to get to know it yourself first ! And secondly, lets be honest here, how many 'general' kids around, do you think, would take much interest to actually learn to solve equations about quantum orbitals ?

Not to discuss the cons, lets think of the pros. Why don't we try learning the stuff we want to ourselves ? And I think this very blog would be a great medium or platform ! So any1 knowing howto solve second degree differentials with a couple of wierd vector calculus symbols in it, plz come up and help ! hehe kiddin lol.

Other than that. I'd like to share a thought. Let me clarify my stand by pre-rationalizing that what I'm going to say isn't SCIENCE for there aren't many things you can proove by experiment about it. Its something common to all of us though, whether we notice it or not. What would you people say about conciousness ? The very thing that gives us this unique ability to question the very laws of GOD ? How can you expalin something like it interms of Physics ? The very entity which keeps us thinking. Which makes us slaves of Time's direction ( not YOU Time ;-) ! ).
I think it has more to do with the laws of nature for in a sense, it is the very genesis of any experimental result ! If conciousness didn't exist ? Would this universe exist ? Or would it matter if it existed ? Or leave alone that, would things like the Uncertainity Principle still exist ?

Sumhow I have this intution that our conciousness, our power to think independantly, is not something which runs by natures laws ! It creates them ! It is the very creator of or universe, and sumhow in the backdrop, every conciousness is related.
I have this instinct that finding the mysterious nature of our conciousness would be a very major step to understand the nature of or create or discover a complete theory of everything !

I have my reasons for thinking so. I can share them, but for that, sometime later.
Till them you guyz n gals can wonder how you CAN wonder ...

Me Take Leave,

May KVamPYs Rule

~ Twish ~

COMPLEX POWERS: REAL OR COMPLEX

2006-07-03T19:25:00.000+05:30

I am extremely sorry for not being able to post anything. But I just can't help it. My college has reopened & I have absolutely no time. Well, got some time at last & here I am writing a post.

Alright, if I remember correctly there were some problems in the previous posts regarding raising a no. to a complex power. Well not too sure but doing so will result in a complex no. Take this for an ex.-

let y=(1+tanA)^(1+i)
(i is imaginary ofcourse)
taking ln of both sides

lny=(1+i)lntanA ---------(1)

let y=r*(e^if)
(let f=theta, don,t know how to type theta)
taking ln of both sides

lny=lnr+ if --------------(2)

equating (1) & (2)

lnr+ if= lntanA+ ilntanA
thus equating real & imaginary parts we get
r=f= lntanA
Now if ur wondering as to why r=f ,well it's simply bcoz I had taken the question like that.

Now the only problem I have with method is can we take the ln of both sides at the outset.
Well the way I think is that we have already gone out of real nos. so the question of violating the domain of ln function doesn't arise. What do make of of this? Let me know about what ur thinkin. Before I end this post here is a question I would like to share with u.

let f(r)= (x^r)sinrA + (y^r)sinrB + (z^r)sinrC
where x,y,z are real nos. , r is anatural no. & A,B,C are angles of a triangle.
if f(1)=0 , f(2)=0, then prove that
f(r)=0 for all r beongs to natural nos.
KEEP BLOGGING & POSTING.

Where Are We Going?

2006-07-03T18:37:00.000+05:30

I've slowly gained an immense (I can't encompass it) disdain for our academic syllabus. I'm preparing of the IIT's (as ya'll should know), but I still feel that lack of true persuance of the holy grail of knowledge. As a gentle warning, this is going to be a ranting post, so pardon me if any emotions are flared.

The main problem I have with what we are learning is: WHAT ARE WE DOING WITH IT??? Do we analyse, rip apart and reconstruct situations. What makes a parabola a parabola? There are like a thousand questions which give a very interesting results, GENERAL results. Why don't we deconstruct the situations and understand WHY things happen? I'll give a simple and not very good example: If you find the locus of points from a pair of tangents are drawn to a parabola, such that the intercept made by the pair of tangents on ANY line parallel to the directrix is a constant, it ends up being a parabola PARALLEL to the first one.

Especially in maths, we tend to take a lot of things for granted, that two parallel lines must be straight. If we analyse (which we don't) non-eucledian geometry we see that this is not a condition. We take so many things for granted, that when it comes to interesting new worlds (which represent our world better) we make those same wrong assumptions.

Physics too is becoming a bore. I love physics, and it is my forte, but we take a lot of things for granted again. We derive results for very simple cases, and push them off as universal things. We make horribly inaccurate simplifications of certain differentials. For example the expansion of a rod equation, (L_f = L_o (1+aT), the T is valid only for very small degree changes, in the order of 10^-5 to yield any degree of accuracy, but we use it for things with 40-50 degree differences.

Chemistry is the worst of them all. We were shown Heisenberg's uncertainty princple, without actually understanding WHY it is INESCAPABLE. And Schrodinger's Wave Equation is nothing but a jumble of symbols (though elegant and very professionalistically complex symbols). We are told that it is one of the most important equations there is, and that it can tell the electron density. But WHY? Leave why, how do we apply it? We surely haven't used it ever.
Organic chemistry is a funky subject, because a lot of things are not really known. But I know for a fact that there are good and consistent explanations for most things that we do. But most of the time we have so many exceptions and we have to consider simple rules of thumb: If the product is complex, it is right. If the probable yield of the compound is fractional, it is probably right (I've kinda made these, and they work well).

Why can't we leave this stuff behind? We are in our 12th, and that is definately old enough to understand what's going on. We should understand this world better, and most of what were doing doesn't push us in that direction. No matter what we do, we will have to analyse situations break them down, and there no time too soon. I don't know if it's just me going through these emotions, but knowing that most of you are scientifically orientated, I'm sure that you understand what I'm going through.

Little time, lots of confusion

2006-07-02T13:38:00.000+05:30

Let me clarify a few things first up. I am Ankit Sagwal,one of the guys from Dps Rk puram and not the immensly popular ankit pandey(by the way, where is he? still not found the time to join).I will post my photo as soon as i figure out how to do it(maybe that would work). I have not gone through the blog yet(its a lot of text) but i'll surely do it.
I think this space is meant for something more interesting rather than a general talk. Ok lets give you one of my favourites:-

The task is to fill 1cm diameter spheres into a box(cube) of 10cm edge.find the best pattern as well as the maximum possible no.

Short and smart!!

the next few lines might act as an apetizer for u guys(and gals-i can see a lot of them on the list). The question is not as easy as some of the first timers might think. Others might have done the 2d version of it(i should have given that first-comparetively easier)

a square of side 10cm is to be filled with circles of 1cm diameter. find the maximum no.

hint:- slightly more than 100

I think this should be it.Think over it.

Maths has always been a treasure (this is one of the gems)
I've got to rush, make my substitutions in the timesdreamteam(i wonder how many kvpyians know about it(fantasy game of football similar to super selector)) and then get down to study for my maths exam tomorrow(oh!! i have to start taking school exams more seriously).
byeoo

Posted by ANKIT SAGWAL

Miss you Blog !

2006-06-25T19:50:00.000+05:30

Hey Blogmates & Readers.

This is Twish. For those who're new to this blog, just check out my intro in the archive. Im the admin of this blog though I've been so much out of touch with it.

Looking at it today, I must say Rash has been talking alot of pains adding new things to the page! Its a great job ou've done man!

A welcome to so many of the new members! I can see a couple of friendz who went to IISc as well ! Isnt it a great idea to spread out blog link to them as well... ! At last we all deserve the KVamPY title! Watsay Arun...

Time, nice generator man. Though I think that picture you've posted is miserable similar to the one I sent you about my generator ! I think I deserved a mention for the help yaar ! hehehe newayz...

Sry pals, for not posting. Not blogging. Been busy. Though the new ones ...
DO CHECK OUT THE DEAD ENDS SERIES OF POSTS IN THE ARCHIVE ! IM SURE ULL FIND IT INTERESTING.

Take Care PPl !

MAY KVAMPYS RULE

~ || Twish || ~

hello

2006-06-24T20:24:00.000+05:30

Hi guys. This is Ankit
I guess i am a little late in joining.

Height measuring barometer

2006-06-23T18:20:00.000+05:30

How would you measure the height of a tall building using a barometer?

SIMPLE! Find the number of barometers the building is equal to and multiply with the height of one barometer!

Not scientific???

Go to the top of the building, drop the barometer, measure the time it takes to reach the ground and use formula h=1/2 gt². (But, poor barometer!!)

If you don’t want the barometer to be harmed
Find the weight of the barometer on the ground and that on the top of roof. Then use formula: g’/g = (R/R+h)²!!!

If you ask me, I’d simpy go to the designer of the building, and ask if he needs a new barometer then he should tell me the height of the building.

By the way, did anyone think of using P=hdg???

It's the IISc kid

2006-06-19T21:27:00.000+05:30

Hey,
I saw somebody ask for my intro, so I'll start off with that. My name is Arun Tejasvi Chaganty (call me arun), and I'm studying in 12th (along with most guys here i think), in FIITJEE (curses, lighting and gasps). Very very luckily, this place isn't as coaching centre-ish as i feared it would be, and I still have time for my on stuff (more like i don't really care for their work (not after the summer camp atleast)). As you would have seen, I like nested brackets a lot, so I'm sorry if that causes inconvinience to any one. I joined KVPY this very year, and along with most of the people down south (I'm located in Hyderabad), we got to go to the IISC campus.

I think this part is what more people are interested in, so I'll elaborate quite a bit. All the SP, SB and south-zone SA students had their centre in IISc. Please pardon me to mention that IISc is THE most prestigious campus in India (I don't think anyone can object here), and basically I'd like to rub that in your face. The only way you'll be able to counter is if you post a review of the campus where you went (This is an elaborate ploy to get you to do the same).

Ok the fact that there were students of varying graduation levels was good in a sense, and bad too. In most of the labs we visited, the explanations were never very satisfying for both of us at the same time. On the other hand, these guys are really great guys to interact with (not all of them, but a lot of them). A large number were from the IIT's and BITS.

I'll kind of give an overview of what we did. We mainly attended a lot of great (and a few not so great) lectures by great professors. These lectures were mainly on common ground, topics that were entirely out of stream so that both the SA and the SB+SP guys could understand whats going on. I'll give a list later. Then we had a lot of lab visits. We saw a lot, but I can't say we did too much. It was interesting, and exciting at times, but it's rather inconvinient when you have like 20 people stuffed into a small room with a lot of expensive equipment (You won't believe how seemingly disorganised some of the breakthrough research labs are). That was pretty much it. We were allowed to roam around the campus at our free will, and visit the library (heaven on earth).

The campus was just beautiful. Perhaps it was the real heaven, and the library was just a teaser. Either way, there were a lot of trees, and a lot of crows, and a lot of white patches on the roads (I hope you can put 2 and 2 together). The wild life and greener there made it a great place for the ecologists there, who were doing some really interesting experiments with social bug behaviour. A group also actively worked in a nearby (or not so nearby I haven't a clue), national park monitoring elephant populations and battling poaching. There was a huge library, a lot of departments and a supercomputing research lab (obviously the low of our lab visits. They can't show you much more than a LOT of computer terminals), an NMR research centre, a nano-research lab, and a cryogenics facilities. THe other high end equipment was in the departments. A bunch of spectrometers, sputtering devices, atomic force microscopes, electron microscopes, blah blah blah (the average guy would be watering by about now, but I'm sure youa'll have see this stuff too).

We were also taken to the Raman Research Institute, which is another amazing place. The most remarkable thing there was the laser-cooling lab, where they slow down electrons to nanoK temperatures. I'd suggest you read this stuff up.
As I said I'll list most of the lectures (everything I can recall):

Evolution of Social Behaviour: Do we form social groups just to ensure our genetic make up goes on? This professor (Prof. Nanjudaih V) was just brilliant, and mentioned quite somethings about chaos theory also.

The Many Forms of Carbon: As you guessed, it was lame lecture. The plus point was that the lecturer presented a new form of carbon which was researched in the campus: Super Carbon: an conducting amorphous form of carbon. It was interesting in how it was made using logical assumptions (better than fullerene which was a fluke)

Protiens and how the Work: A great lecture, though highly technical about how protiens are made.

Chemisty in Life: About how molecules work in life (to a lesser degree). It wasn't a very enlightening lecture, but the lecturer:Prof. Uday Maitra, was just mindblowingly good, so I guess we all fell in love with him, rather than what he was teaching

***Black Holes: This was undoubtedly the BEST lecture I've EVER EVER had (which isn't many, but still) by a professor from the Raman Research Institute, Prof. Srinivasan G. It explained in a very good technical manner about black holes. Great lecture again

Variations from the DNA Helix: A good lecture, but perhaps not great

Colours In Chemistry: Interesting demonstrations showing different reactions producing flourescent colours, interesting colours blah blah.

Virtual Experiments: Again by Prof. Uday Maitra. He showed a number of experiments performed somewhere else recorded on "tape" (nobody uses tape anymore). He did a good walkthrough through all the experiements. Again most amazing professor I've seen.

There were four more lectures which I missed because of a 103 degree fever (weeping hesterically). I wish I could have attended them, but bad luck I guess. I'll just have to pray that somebody posts a good explaination of these lectures. (they were the last four lectures).

Now if you haven't gotten sick of me, and the length of my post, I'll continue, but as I know that's not the case. Beam me up scotty (Star Trek anyone?)

Arun

Springy spring

2006-06-14T22:04:00.000+05:30

Fused Bulbs
SPRINGY SPRING

Consider the given situation.
The system of spring and the block has maximum potential but minimum kinetic energy

Let U be the potential energy at any instant

At the given situation, potential energy is maximum

: . dU/dx = 0

=> -dU/dx = 0
=> Force = 0

But the force at this position is maximum

Also, d2U/dx2 = k (spring constant) > 0

But the condition for maxima is d2U/dx2 < 0

WHY THIS ANOMALY?

Send your answers to my email address: pravar_isgr8@yahoo.co.in
Don’t post your answers here

WHICH ONE'S DEFECTIVE ?

2006-06-10T18:01:00.000+05:30

ALRIGHT. This is my 1st post . So let me start with a appetizer. This is a little brain teaser that I put to u.

There are 10 matchbox containing 10 matchsticks each. Each mathstick weighs 10 grams. One box is defective where each stick weighs 11 grams. Given an electronic weighing machine and one chance to use it how can u dertermine which bix is defective ? U are allowed to take out sticks from the boxes.

a spark of light

2006-06-08T19:45:00.000+05:30

Ok kvpyians! I'm spidy again with a new identity. I lost my password and was unable to post. Here's another of those 1=2s. This is a sort of general one for twish's first 1=2.

(n+1)^2 = n^2 + 2n + 1
or, (n+1)^2 - (2n+1) = n^2
subtracting n(2n+1),
or, (n+1)^2 - (n+1)(2n+1) = n^2 - n(2n+1)
or, (n+1)^2 - (n+1)(2n+1) + 1/4(2n+1)^2 = n^2 - n(2n+1) + 1/4(2n+1)^2
or, (n - 1/2)^2 = (n + 1/2)^2
or, (n - 1/2) = (n + 1/2)
or, -1/2 = +1/2
or, 1 = 0
or, 2 = 1 !!

All this while we have had maths and physics discussed in our blog. I feel the time has come for the budding chemists to make us feel their presence. So an open question: what is the fundamental reason behind the optical activity of enantiomers?
LeTs SpArK oUr BuLbS!

FROM JUNK TO VAN DE GRAFF GENERATOR

2006-06-06T12:02:00.000+05:30

Ciao everybody,
This was my new project (more of a fun than a project)… I have made a van de graaf high voltage generator out of junk. Total expenses u wont believe it … Rs 25/- and a few costly hours of mine.
As u fellows know better that a van de graaf gen generates a very high voltage of the order of few millions. Just refer an NCERT class 12 book and u have a very nice topic on it. The major change that I have done is that I have used ‘theiboelectric’ effect instead of a high-tension battery.

We have certain materials that lose electrons readily and some that gain them easily. Here they are glass and rubber and plastic. I will not bore u with my worthless writings u see the pictures and comprehend likewise. I was helped by one of my local friend ... Avinandan rout. He is as talented as any of us only he could not make it to the KVPYians. I will also attach a schematic diagram to help in the comprehension.
The gen takes a lot of time to charge fully but ur hair does stand up. I specially thank Mr. Samuel Q. Field 4 his help. The idea was his but I modified it in several ways to make it better.

The van de graff gen was presented in the ‘The Uranium camp 2006’.
Just tell me if u want a detailed description and I will do so. Also if u want 2 know more about the Uranium camp (and the fun: I would love to write about it) just tell me.

Saurya "Time"
(Time is back)

ASHIS err ZINX

2006-06-04T12:44:00.000+05:30

Hi, every1. Sorry for being so late. Anyways. this is my intro.
I am Ashis. call me Zinx. Now how can you recognize me. Alright, I playd soccer frm twish's side, joined in truthdare late,used to sit in 1st row with lionhunter. I thnk that's enough. Sorry, i've no photo to post. Nice to see every1(twish, rash, time n bravura ) active in the blog. I will come with something exciting soon. Keep sharing.

DEAD ENDS : Part III : Justified lies

2006-06-02T14:30:00.000+05:30

Here I am !
Bored of 2=1s aren't ya'll ? Here are some more of classic lies, told in the most decieving manner !

(1) *** classic *** ( Some PHYSICS for a change )
There in the figure, we have a ladder leaning against the brown wall. Its length is l & the two ends are labelled as A & B. End B is pulled in the positive direction of the x-axis with a constant speed V. The velocity of end A in the downward direction is U ( variable ). x,y are the respective coordinates of the two ends.

x² + y² = l²

differentiating w.r.t. time we get :

2.x.∂ x/ ∂t + 2.y. ∂ y/ ∂t = 0

2.x.∂ x/ ∂t + 2.y. ∂ y/ ∂t = 0
2.x.V = - 2.y.U(x)
U(x) = - x .V/ y

Now, when ladder falls completely, and becomes flat, then y = 0 & x = l.

To calculate the veocity of end A when ladder just becomes flat, we put the values in equation for U(x) getting :

U ( l ) = - l.V/0 = - ∞

So the velocity of end A becomes infinite when the ladder becomes flat ? !

(2)
We are all aware of the theorem of Mathematical Induction. However, none would have seen its misuse. Here is one such misuse which is horribly difficult to disproove !!!

Statement to be verified is :

S(n) : In any set of n people, all would have equal ages.

Now we proceed :

S(1) is true ( Since in a group(set) of 1 person, all have equal age. )

Let S(k) be true.

Now ;

In a group(set) of (k+1) people, we make all possible sets of k people. In all these possible set of n people, S(k) would be true (as per assumption) and hence all people in each of the sets would have equal members. Now since all such possible sets would have members of the same age, this is only possible if all the members in the (k+1) member be equally aged. Therefore All people in the set of (k+1) people have equal ages.

Hence S(1) is TRUE & S(k+1) is TRUE whenever S(k) is TRUE.

Hence prooved by mathematical induction , the TRUTH of statement S(n) for all n belonging to N.

Application of the above theorem for the set of BLOG MEMBERS "B" We conclude that All members of this blog are of equal age.
QED

(3) *** classic ***

ABCD is a square. BE = BC.
PQ bisects CD,AB.
OR is perp.bisect. of DE.
PQ, RO intersect at O.
∠ ABE is an OBTUSE ANGLE. ( clearly )

Δ ORD ≡ Δ ORE (SAS)
:. OD = OE

Δ OQA ≡ Δ OQB (SAS)
:. OA = OB & ∠ OAB = ∠ OBA

Δ OAD ≡ Δ OBE (SSS)
:. ∠ OAD = ∠ OBE
∠ ABE = ∠ OBE - ∠ OBA
= ∠ OAD -∠ OAB

But ∠ OAB - ∠ OAB
= 90 °

:. ∠ ABE = 90 °
However, we've assumed the angle to be obtuse. :. Every obtuse angle is a right angle. Similarly, It can be shown that every acute angle is a right angle.
QED

This is part III and I'll let ya'll know that 3's my lucky number. So hereby, I quit with this series. Not that the resources are over ! Infact they're endless. But today eve, I'm leaving for Delhi & I won't be able to be online so regularly. Though I'll surely stay in touch atleast twice a week !

A last message. I believe that us KVamPYs are special in some way. I also believe, that we can be a great strength when united ! So here's a request. Mayb you can't come online very often but do stay in touch by atleast going through the blog once a week !!!
This blog is for us KVamPYs, by us KVamPYs & of us KVamPYs.

So letz ROCK ... letz RULE !!!

& Ill borrow Rash's line...
SwItCh On Ur BuLbS !!!

~ Twishmay Shankar ~
( Twish ;-) )

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The World Cup Is In Town

2006-06-01T23:12:00.000+05:30

Hey every1,
I have got an idea. The world cup has finally arrived after four years. I think a lot of us ,including me, are really looking forward to this spectacle.
I would like to suggest that why not have some discussion and comments about the 'beatufil game'.
I would start this by stating that i am supporting England this summer and I think that they have a great chance of making it all the way. What say folks!
Swetabh

I HaVe ThE POWER!!

2006-06-01T16:58:00.000+05:30

Well, does the title remind you of the classic “He-Man” Cartoon series?? Well I’m not posting about cartoons but this has to do with “Power.” But that’ll come later.

First of all, I wanted to post my intro too but was waiting for Twish to mail me the pics from the camp. So that’s me saying: ”I have the Power!!”. You want a formal Intro? Here you go:

Name: Rasagy Sharma (a.k.a. ‘Rash’ The Gr81)

Residing in: Delhi

Interests: Dramatics (Done loads of TV and Radio Shows), PlayingSoccer (Some of you who played with me know that – It’s a second religion for me!), of course anything to do with Computers (I just luv Computers!) and last but not the least, making Friends (and continuing the friendship too!)

Enough about me. So after reading Bravura’s post, I was sitting in front of my computer wondering about what went wrong there. Got some ideas, but couldn’t join them all up. And then a short chat with Twish only raised my ideas to higher powers… Yes. It was powers about which I have been thinking all night. Well, most of such weird looking problems arise from the fact that what we have been taught about powers, multiplication etc. is too basic (coz we were too young to understand complex nos. at that time). And even now, we haven’t updated our information about such elementary things, though we do know complex nos. etc. And thus arise such ques.

Well here are some examples:

1. 1⁰= 2⁰

Then won’t 1 = 2 ?? (Say we have 2^x=2², then we say that x = 2, don’t we??!!)

2. To prove: 3 = 4
Proof:
Let a+b = c
4a-3a + 4b-3b = 4c-3c
:.4a+4b-4c=3a+3b-3c
:. 4*(a+b-c)=3*(a+b-c)
:. 3 = 4

Maybe most of you can find what’s wrong up there (I think you all Should find that out easily!). But ever wondered why even your computer’s scientific calculator can’t compute (-8)^1/3 ? Even though the answer is an obvious -2 ? (It says invalid input for the function: Got some clue??). Though its fine that it can't compute (-8)^1/2.

Another nice problem (which Twish told me during the camp) is the following:

We know that

4*4 = 4 + 4 + 4 + 4

:. 4*4= 4 + 4 +… 4 times.

:. x*x = x + x + … x times.

Differentiating,

2*x = 1 + 1 + 1 … x times.

:. 2*x = x

Hence 2 = 1!!!

All such problems arise because we forget our assumptions – the definitions of the functions – the domains of the functions and we tend to generalize a formula we learnt in junior classes here.

Now what I was thinking was this:

x = 1^1/3

Then x³= 1. And we get the solutions for x. So as this n increases, the no. of solutions for x also increase (which is n itself).

But if n-> infinity , we get only one value for x = 1. (Actually here we can’t replace n by infinity as n-> infinity but n is not equal to infinity.)

Also,

2 ⁰ = 1
1 ⁰ = 1
0 ⁰ = ?

Well infact 0 ⁰ an indeterminate form. So we can treat it as an exception.

But what if n is a complex no.?? According to Twish, it’ll lead to infinite solutions for x. I reckon that’s what messes everything in Bravura’s problem. So can some body explain to me what’ll happen with complex powers? (Do we have any physical interpretation other than just saying Z = 2 ⁱ finding Z??)

Sorry for writing such a Llllllooooonnnngggg post, but I think it'll compensate for my absence in the coming few days when I'll go out of station. So I hope to find many posts by then (posts by members other than Twish's Dead Ends - come on others plz post!)

And before ending, a bit of cheerleading… (yeah I’m at least good at that!) U ppl are doing a gr8 job posting stuff, but do visit the blog regularly (Too busy studying huh?) And do give more ideas as to what more to add in the blog..

So SwItCh On YoUr FuSeD BuLbS!!

~RashTheGr81~

DEAD ENDS : Part II : Burning Reality

2006-06-01T15:57:00.000+05:30

Hi Again
As promised, here is PART II ...
Bewarethough !!! I'd certainly say this one is more wierd, more interesting but still a LIE which has been imposed wrongly upon reality :

(1)
Every1 here knows the pretty little Binomial thorem going as :

(a+b)ⁿ = aⁿ + n*b*a^n-1 + ... + n*b^n-1*a + bⁿ

Observing we find that leaving the first and last term, all other terms are a multiple of n.

For some wierd results, let us put n = 0 ;

LHS = (a+b)⁰ = 1

RHS = a⁰ + 0 ... + 0 + b⁰

= 1 + 0 ... 0 + 1

= 2

:. since LHS = RHS

2 = 1

QED

(2)

Consider the integral :

I = ∫ 1/x ∂x

Intigrating by parts ;

I = ∫ 1*1/x ∂x

= x*(1/x) - ∫ x*(-1/x²) ∂x

= 1 + ∫ 1/x ∂x

= 1 + I

:. 0 = 1

or, 2 = 1

QED

(3) *** CLASSIC ***

Have a look at the figure. O is the origin. C is the centre of the circle. P a variable point (x,y).

t = OP ; R = CP ; a = OC

The equation of the circle would be:

x² + y² -2*a*x + a² - R²

Now, t² = x² + y²

Also putting P(x,y) in circles equation we get :

t² - 2*a*x + R² - a² = 0

:. t² = 2*a*x + R² - a²

2*∂t/ ∂ x = 2*a

Now for the point with minimum distance , The above expression equals 0.

For that to be possible, a = 0, that is O and C are the same points !

Hence Whenever O is not the center of the circle, there is no point on the circle from which the distant of O is maximum or minimum.

QED

There is still more to come. Before thinking about the faults, appreciate the beauty of these propositions, how decievingly they proove the unproovable !

This in not the end.

~ Twish ~

NOTE : Those having difficulty typing math visit this link for keyboard codes :

http://www.planetburrito.com/tb/alt_codes.html

This is Somani

2006-06-01T10:34:00.001+05:30

Hi ,
This is Somani,
Call me by any other nickname you please(just inform me about it )
For identification 'The girl whose hair stood up due to shock' should be enough.

I AM

2006-06-01T01:43:00.000+05:30

Hi Every1
I'm Sunita Panda from IIT Kharagpur campus
u might remember me as
-the girl who used to ask stupid questions during lectures.
-the self appointed guide at the science city (till my job was outsourced to 2 strangers)
I think that should be enough

DEAD ENDS : Part I : Spark to a Fire

2006-05-31T13:38:00.000+05:30

Hey Blogmates !

The last post reminds me of something I've been doing for years! Something, which I was avoiding to put up here. But now I've lost all patience so here I begin with a series of posts, which to me atleast are damn interesting !!! I hope you all enjoy it...

(1)

- 20 = - 20

or, 25 - 45 = 16 - 36

or, 5² - 5*9 = 4² - 4*9

or, 5² - 5*9 + 81/4 = 4² - 4*9 + 89/4

or, (5 - 9/2)² = (4 - 9/2)²

or, (5 - 9/2) = (4 - 9/2)

or, 5 = 4

or, 2 = 1

QED

(2)

The very interesting infinitie series :

0 = 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 ...

For those who don't find it so interesting, follow me.

0 = ( 1 - 1 )
:. 0 = ( 1-1 ) + ( 1-1 ) + ( 1-1 ) ...

Now all of you would have paid attention in primary school when we were taught the associative law of addition.
Interestingly applying that here,

0 = ( 1-1 ) + ( 1-1 ) ...
or, 0 = 1 + (-1+1) + (-1+1) ...
or, o = 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + ...
or, 0 = 1
or, 1 = 2

QED

(3)
- 1 = - 1
or, sqrt(-1) = sqrt(-1)
or, sqrt(-1/1) = sqrt(1/-1)
or, sqrt(-1)/sqrt(1) = sqrt(1)/sqrt(-1)
or, i/1 = 1/i
or, i2 = 1
or, -1 = 1
or, 2 = 0
or, 1 = 0
or, 2 =1
QED

___________________________________________________________
This is not the end. Its only a beginning ! Stay tuned for more of 1=2 syndromes ;-)
And you thought 1 + 1 = 2 huh ?

~ TwIsTeR ~

Bhagyashree: an intro

2006-05-31T12:54:00.000+05:30

hi everyone,

i had just forgotten to give my intro. sunita's reminded me of it.
i am bhagyashree from ranchi. i don't know what u would be remembering about me.
i was the quitest there (though all the girls stayed silent).
perhaps a photo would have helped but there's none good enough to put here.
i have not yet thought of how to shorten my 11-letter name...
anyone with ideas must write.

bhagyashree.

WIERD

2006-05-30T14:51:00.000+05:30

Hey folks,

Figure out the problem in this sequence of reasoning.

e^2π.i= 1
then for any x
e^ix = e^ix.e^2π.i= e^i(x+2π)

=> (e^ix)ⁱ = {e^{i(x + 2π)}}ⁱ
^{=> e^-x = e^-x. e^-2π
=> e^-2π = 1
=> -2π = 0

Swetabh}

Playin wid INtergals

2006-05-30T13:38:00.000+05:30

Hey Pravar !

Your post indeed looks puzzling at first sight though its nomore a fallacy than saying both ±2 square to 4! Let me elaborate!

The integrity(literal, not mathematical) of the solutions can be checked by diffrentiating both to get the same result sinX.cosX so where lies the fault ?
Take the two solutions to integral (without the constants mind you... )

I₁= (-1/4) * (cos2X)
I₂ = (1/2) * (sin²X)

There you go pal with a little of simple maths ...

I₁

= (-1/4)*cos2X

= (-1/4)*[1 – 2sin2X] =

= (-1/4) + (1/2)*(sin²X)

= constant + I₂

So there ...
The two differ by just a constant!
No wonder they are integrals of the same expression!
It would be better (& correct) practice to insert the constants & then show the result but the catch remains the same...

BOTH THE RESULTS DIFFER BY A CONSTANT WHICH HAS NO EFFECT TO THE INTEGRATION !!!

~ TWISH ~

INdefinite INtegral is INexplicable

2006-05-29T14:34:00.000+05:30

To integrate:
Sin x .Cos x dx

Let I=integral of sinx.cosx dx

(1) Let Sin x = y

Differentiating both sides:

Cos x dx = dy

:. I=integral of y dy

:. I = y²/2

:.I = (Sin² x)/ 2

(2) Sin x .Cos x = (Sin2x)/2

:. I = integral of (1/2)*(Sin2x) dx

=integral of (¼)*(Sin2x) d(2x)

I = - (1/4)*(Cos 2x)

HOW DO WE GET DIFFERENT RESULTS FROM TO DIFFERENT METHODS?

Intro

2006-05-29T00:25:00.000+05:30

Name: Swetabh Pathak
Nickname: Bhakt
I am sorry i should have published this before making a post. but anyway here is my intro.
I am Swetabh from Ranchi. I don't know what will u remember about me though!May be you will remember me as the guy with the long hair (though i have cut it now). Guys might remember me as the bhakt. Please tell me if u still don't recognise me. Anyways what do u guys think about my nick name. Isn't it really wierd. I wanted it to be so. It sounds really sinister to me.

The Reservation Issue

2006-05-29T00:12:00.000+05:30

Hey everyone,
As all of u must know throughout the country the reservation issue is making waves. But sadly it is quite obvious that the reservations are going to be implemented. I would like all of u to think a little and suggest some steps that could reduce it's after effects for the society and specifically for us. Only practical ones please.
Swetabh

The Lion MUST be caught ?!?

2006-05-28T00:53:00.000+05:30

Car pulls ( engine pulls rather ) with force F.
Car moves with constant velocity V.
:. Net force on car = 0
Force by dissipiative forces such as friction = -F.

Now ; P = δW/δt = δ(F.s)/δt = F.δs/δt
Now since velocity is always relative, δs/δt = u is always relative!

However, since there are two powers acting, one by friction & one by engine, & net F = 0 , the net power on car is 0. This is from ground frame.

If a cycle follows at velocity U, in frame of cycle, the cars velocity = V-U. It is wrong to say that cyclist would say the power delivered by engine is F.(V-U) because the cyclist finds the car not accelerating & hence he caculates the work done by engine to be 0. The cyclist has no direct means to find from his frame what the work done by the engine alone is. ( Cyclist can't measure F, the internal force )

Besides, whenever engine applies a POWER, it makes the car accelerate. And acceleration is independant of relative refrence frames.Both someone on the car and on the cycle would measure the same Acceleration & hence find out the engine's power ( in absence of dissipiative forces ).

To get my point, try to sit on a cycle & follow a car (running at constant velocity) & think of an experiment to determine the power of its engine! You can do so by guessing at its friction, but not directly! This is the key to the problem. Work done is relative.

Therez another realated interesting thought. WHEN WE CLIMB STAIRS UPSTAIRS OR DOWNSTAIRS, THE NET CHANGE IN POTENTIAL E IS THE SAME. THEN WHY DO WE GET TIRED WHILE CLIMBING UPSTAIRS TO A GRATER DEGREE ???

HELLO

2006-05-28T00:20:00.000+05:30

Hello everyone!
simply greeeeaaaaat to see you all up and about! I'm sandeepan parekh by the way, or spidy as you may remember me, or the crazy one who would crack eggs on the head!
something nice for you all: www.graphcalc.com
you can download a nice graphing calculator from here, plot ten graphs together and a host of other things.

Almost forgot to give my introduction

2006-05-27T14:20:00.000+05:30

Name: Pravar D Mahajan

Nickname: PDM

You could have frequently found me bunking lectures and playing RISE OF NATIONS at the computer lab with my friends

THAT PHOTO...

Well its of that time when I was in class 8th.

I would post the latest photo soon

a loophole in lion hunting

2006-05-27T14:12:00.000+05:30

Hey LION HUNTER!!

Ur ideas to catch a lion were gr8! But one of the methods, which involved that we run in same direction as lion, so that he runs faster from our frame of reference and gets tired soon is not a matter of joking at, there’s something serious in it.

There’s a related question:

Assume a small car with engine pulls at constant force F and the car moves with a constant velocity V. Power generated P=FV. But a cyclist riding at constant speed U observes power P=F(V-U). Petrol consumption is directly proportional to the power generated. Then the question is:

WHY THE RATE OF PETROL CONSUMPTION SAME FROM BOTH FRAMES WHEREAS POWER GENERATED BY THE ENGINE DIFFERENT?

It's Lion Man

2006-05-27T06:34:00.000+05:30

Hi

This is Lion Hunter speaking.
How r u guys??Well i hope all of u are engrossed in ur preparation for IITJEE 07. Wish u best of luck.If u have ne new ideas let all of us know. u can also send in ur comments to thezguy123@sify.com.

Lagnajeet
Bhubaneswar

Watz ur Wattage ?

2006-05-23T22:23:00.000+05:30

Herez a puzzle:

I hope every1 has seen those water sprinklers spraying water in a garden. Nice little things they are, for they rotate by themselves throwing water around! Its obvious that laws of momentum conservation are the secret behind the working of this interesting gadget. But here comes the catch. Imagine that water is not made to gush out of the sprinkler. Instead, it is dipped in a tank and by some means, water is made to flow inside it. There can be 2 such possibilities :

The pressure outside is increased
The pressure inside the pipe is decreased.

The question now is ... is water flows as shown in the figure, which way would the sprinkler rotate ? ( Aniclockwise or clockwise ? )

Plz don't post you answers here, email them to twishmay@gmail.com with a satisfactory explanation.

~ Twish ~

Thatz me !!!

2006-05-23T16:25:00.000+05:30

Hey blogmates !

Herez my info:

Name : Twishmay Shankar
Nickname: Twish, Twister, Twist etc.
Played soccer(my team against rash's team), asked lotz of questions during the debate, used to sing really bad along with Ankit! & maybe you'll remember my monster laughter !!!

Thatz enough about me, now about this blog, we are shortly going to have a shoutbox (a small window like thing where you can post messages) here. It would then be a request to all to post all their relevant messages to that box. The comments posted should be relevant to the post itself. However, till we don't get a shoutbox, you all can converse through the comments section of the very first post of this blog.

May us KVPYians RULE !!!

~ Twish ~

PS : Who introduced this KVPYians term ? It sounds a little funny! Any1 with any better ideas ???

identification photographs

2006-05-23T13:24:00.000+05:30

Hi all KVPYians,
your beloved time travel has a sugestion ... a very intelegent one at that. Lets post atleast as a comment in this blog:

one of our photographs
nick names,
full names,
some other event by which others can remember us

That will solve the identification problem. By the way who is 'Bavura'(or some thing like that)?

I will start with my self.
Me Saurya "time travel".
Thats enough ... yep. it is.

SOS to all KVPYians

2006-05-23T00:39:00.000+05:30

hey folks
i would like to call upon all of you to become members of the blog as soon as possible and start making some posts. And by the way who the hell is lagnajit das? I too need some nicknames.
Swetabh

Light your Bulbs!!

2006-05-22T18:23:00.001+05:30

Hey Welcome to our Blog!
Incase u r not sure of what do to next, well this post is just for u!
This blog is a medium to stay in contact with all your KVPY pals - and know whats coking in their mind. Its also a place for u to discuss the wildest or the weirdest ideas that u have - new theories, logic - well anything and everything!
So all u need to do is leave your name and email id in the comments section (Bottom Left of the Post). Since I'm not that good at remembering names, plz remind me with some nick name or something (I'm sorry for that!)
So what u waiting for? Lets start BLOGGING!!!

--
Rasagy Sharma aka RaSh

Neighbourhood-friendly Blog !

2006-05-21T01:38:00.000+05:30

Hey teammates !

On encouragement from friendz particularly from Rash, I've put up this blog Reality Quantized to create a forum where we can keep in touch with the latest developments in science fields.
People are most welcome to become a writer/member of the blog so that they can also write ova there. Just write me a email after creating a blogger.com account.

Take Care & Enjoy

~ Twish ~
twishmay@gmail.com

Here We Come !

2006-05-19T11:03:00.000+05:30

Tantara !!!

This post announces the official online journal for all the KVPY fellows selected under SA stream 2005. Stay tuned for more brainy stuff ...

~ TS ~