prakashaditya

[prakashaditya]

Dealing in infinities

August 07, 2020

ॐ पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदं पूर्णात् पूर्णमुदच्यते। पूर्णस्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते॥ 

That is complete, This is complete, from (that) complete emerges (this) complete. On separation of (this) complete from (that) complete, complete only remains.

This is from  वृहदारण्यक उपनिषद (vrihadaaranyak upanishad). In this context, I think, ‘that’ refers to God and ‘this’ refers to us. Let us not go into that. Just look at the logic here. I used to wonder how can this be. How on removing something from something complete can leave it complete? 

Yesterday, I was going through George Gamaw’s ‘One Two Three ... Infinity’. In there he has explained how to deal with infinities and how to compare them. There he has concluded that: 

In the world of infinity, a part may be equal to the whole! 

This may seem illogical to you same way the ‘mantra’ is sounding illogical. But let us delve into logic here. 

Many Hottentot tribes in Africa do not have names for numbers larger than three (According to Gamaw’s book). If they have to refer to a number greater than three, they use a word like ��many” in their language. Now if they want to know which of them in their neighborhood has more children, can they do that? 

Let’s say there are two Hottentots who has 7 and 10 children respectively. They do not know how to count beyond 3. How will they compare? If they are intelligent they can get the answer by comparing them one by one. They will place one child of one with the one child of other and another child of one with another child of another and so on. They will know who has more child when some children of anyone remains after pairing with children of the others.

In a similar way, while dealing with the infinities, we become analogous to the Hottentots. So for comparing infinities we should proceed in the similar fashion, i.e. by comparing the individual items. 

Let us have an example for this. 

We know that the total number of integers is infinite. We also know that total number of even numbers is also infinite. Now, if I ask you which among these two infinities is larger then your impression would be that the even numbers’ infinity is smaller and that of integers is larger. But let’s not go with the impression and follow the process here. 

We have to compare the elements one by one. Lets do that. Here I am mapping integers to the corresponding even number.

1 : 2, 2 : 4, 3 : 6, 4 : 8, 5 : 10, 6 : 12, ... , 101 : 202, ... , 1012 : 2024, ...

This can go on and on and on. So for every integer we have an even number. Thus we must conclude that both the infinities are equal, even if this goes against our impressions. It is because the properties of the infinity is different than normal.

This is what I understood in the book and it immediately connected the dots for me. I instantly remembered this verse which mean almost the same thing. Maybe it suggests that we too are infinite. Maybe it suggests we are whole on our own. Maybe it suggests Everyone is as complete as God himself. I don’t know. Maybe.

[prakashaditya]

Words

June 13, 2020

When during a discussion about something, someone said, “भावनाओं को समझो, शब्दों में क्या रखा है?”, a thought automatically came from within that the words are important too, apart from the emotions behind it. I formatted those thoughts into this:

                        “शब्द”  

शब्दों से हीं झगड़े होते, शब्दों से सत्कार;

शब्दों से ही ऊपर आते मन के सब उद्गार।

 शब्दों से हीं खुशियाँ होती, शब्दों से त्योहार;

शब्दों बिन हो जाएंगे सब जीवन-रस बेकार।

 शब्दों से हीं बातें होती, शब्दों से इज़हार;

शब्दों से हीं पूरा होता है आँखों का प्यार।

 शब्दों से हीं माँगे जाते अपने हक अधिकार;

शब्दों के हीं पेंचों से बदली जाती सरकार।

 शब्दों से आशीष भी है, शब्दों से है धिक्कार;

शब्दों से हीं रिश्तों में आ जाती बड़ी दरार।

 शब्दों की तलवारों से भी पैनी होती धार;

मुश्किल होता है शब्दों का खाली जाना वार।

[prakashaditya]

Engineering Vacation Over

May 30, 2020

I had been introduced to competition very early in my life. I had to prepare for the entrance exam of Ramakrishna Mission Vidyapith for class 6. In Muzaffarpur, where I  prepared for that competition in the coaching(yes, there are coachings for preparation of entrance examinations of various schools such as Military School, Sainik Schools, Navoday Vidyalaya , R K Mission, etc), these examinations are taken quite seriously. 

My teachers, in order to motivate us, used to say, "Work hard for a few months, and then after the selection, your life is set!". 

They lied, I believed. 

I cracked that exam and was admitted to RK Mission vidyapith deoghar. Life was still not set. The same life went on. Same classes, same exams, same expectations of better results. Anyhow, I came to class 10th. My parents said, "This is where your real test is. It will show what you have studied in these 10 years. Work hard and get good results now. Life will be great." 

They lied, I believed.

I got 10 CGPA in 10th and everybody was happy for some days as long as people kept asking my 10th board results. Life was normal afterward. I went to class 11th. Now I was told - "Work hard these two years, these results will be with you your lifetime." I remember my Mamaji saying after my 10th result, "This is not the actual exam. The real exam is in 12th". Everyone said, "Just get a good result in 12th and your life is set!". 

They lied, I believed.

I got 95.6% in 12th board. Then I went to Kota for JEE preparation. Everyone went real crazy this time, "This is the most important year in your life. This one year of preparation will make you or break you. This is the exam that can make your life." I was now slowly recognizing the pattern here. 

Still, they lied, I believed. 

I got admitted to the National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur. You can predict here, not so hard work was done. When I entered college, my subconscious might have known that probably this is the great life everyone was pointing to. I began to enjoy. No attention to any classes. Just doing what I felt like. Bunking classes. You won't believe, I got 2 marks out of 20 in maths in T1(our first examination there). Anyhow, I got 7.76 CGPA in my first semester.

My parents kept reminding me that these four years are the most important years of my life and I should work hard as they will decide my whole life after college. I assured them that I was working very hard. 

This time, I lied, they believed.

In the 3rd semester, I just passed in Mathematics, a subject which I used to love. I used to study only days before exams. One thing I did really well was to study programming because I liked it. I love computer science, but could not get into that department due to insufficient JEE rank. Anyhow, these four years have passed, quite easily and I did what I wished, literally! Now, I have a Software Engineering job and this vacation is about to end.

One thing that I have learned from this whole process is that 'the set life' is never going to come at any specific point in your life. You shall have to keep looking and keep moving towards it. But, it is not that you should not work hard. You should labor hard for the sake of work. Not keeping in mind that your life will be easier afterward.

You need to find easiness in your lifestyle with work. Because Life is Labour, Death only is rest.

[prakashaditya]

Manufacturing the ‘ideas’

May 26, 2020

Some time ago, I used to go restless when I had nothing to do. I used to check facebook timeline, instagram feed, whatsapp messeges, then the statuses of all these platforms, then again its feeds, then some youtube and this would go on. I wanted to consume as much as I could. 

Then my phone broke and I had to live without a smartphone for a few weeks. I had nothing to do in my free time except sitting idle and thinking about myriad of things. I would just sit and let my mind wander. Then to my surprise ideas started coming to me. Varieties to them. Of every kind. From those experiences I derived a process (sort of), which I am sharing with you.

The first thing you need to believe is that your mind has unlimited possibility for generation of ideas. If you believe it then anything is possible from here. The process which I apply for idea generation is quiet simple. And to be clear about myself, I have not applied this technique to generate ideas related to any specific topic, but rather a general idea, just regarding anything under the sun. 

Let’s talk about the process itself. Clear off any unfinished work and then sit in a quiet place. You do not need to have any noting materials nearby. Just sit empty handed. And clear your head. Just clear it. Think Nothing. 

Human mind is pretty restless mind. It’s attention span is nearly 7 seconds.  Your mind does not like to sit idle. It likes to jump around and it will prevent you from focusing it by going to unimaginable limits. When you try to clear your mind and focus on only one thing, it will feed you some random stuffs to distract you from focusing. Beware now! If you are baited then it is over. But if you persist then the game goes on. It will throw into your attention some interesting thing or idea. It goes on like this. The longer you persist the more interesting things your mind will hunt for you. And everything is in your mind, you should believe it. 

My only advise to you is that do not get carried away with the initial offerings of your brain. It has brilliant stuffs buried deep within it. You just need to irritate it enough by (ironically) calming it so that it reveals its secrets.

This process works for me most of the time. But even if it does not work, my mind is more calm than before and I can now focus on things a bit longer. I have nothing to lose and plenty to gain from this process.

Fun Fact: I got the idea that this activity can be a ‘Idea Manufacturing’ process during one of these mind hunts itself. 

[prakashaditya]

The Attendance illusion

May 23, 2020

I will soon be graduated. It is not the result only of my personal effort. It is the result of the combined efforts of many, the least of which is of my professors. Their only contribution to my degree is that they evaluated my answer sheets, took my attendance, and kept reminding every now and then that one with short attendance will be facing consequences. 

The attendance system is there to force the students to attend the classes. It is in place to prevent casual bunking of classes by students. But this is at a greater cost, which we are failing to realize (or admit). Why are we forced to sit in a class which does not interest us at all? Is it just because I opted for that branch of study? I did not know that these subjects would seem so boring back then when I had applied. Now that I am on the verge of exiting the education system here, It seems to me that the subjects are not boring themselves. No subject can be boring. 

If you find science boring, you are learning it from a wrong teacher. - Richard Feynman

And things become worse when you force someone to sit through the boring times. From this boredom comes the hatred for the subject. After this, it will be very hard for his interest in the subject to grow (even by any Good teacher). 

Except if some discussion has to be held in the class, it is utter nonsense to force the student to sit just to listen to the teacher. Especially in this tech-era where even the teachers know that lectures better than theirs are available online. The students should be free to use the materials online or attend the lectures of his teacher, whichever fits them most, and take the help of the teachers to clarify any doubt. This way, even the teachers would elevate their standards, who at present don't give a damn about the teaching methodology as they know the students will anyway attend.  Accepting this attendance system is same as accepting mediocrity. 

The biggest misunderstanding of the implementers of the ‘Minimum required attendance percentage’ must be that the students who attend the class study during that time and the students who do not attend the class do not study. While this system has managed to satisfy almost everyone that Education is happening, all it has really done is to prepare and nurture students who study only for the sake of examinations and then forget everything after the exams are over.

This system definitely needs to change and it will change gradually as more and more students are being churned out of this culprit factory who will soon realize that they had been wasting their time all along attending those lectures.

[prakashaditya]

Reorganization of Education

May 21, 2020

Today morning from 09:30 to 10:30 was my examination of the subject ‘Digital Image Processing’.

Yesterday when I was studying for today’s test, upon seeing the ‘j’, denoting complex values (which I had learned in my senior secondary days as ‘i’), I remembered what a friend of mine, who took biology in class 11th, asked me a few weeks back.

He had asked, “Hey, you guys (who took mathematics then) used to study that thing with i (he meant complex numbers) and dy/dx and so many things. Are they of any use now? I don’t think those things have any practical application.” I had a very hard time trying to explain to him that all those things are very integral parts of engineering and that engineering is more that what he meant by ‘practical application’. Back then in class 11th, he had to learn a little bit of calculus for his Physics classes, and he did not like this at all.

The problem was that he had no idea of any application of what he was learning. Of course, the immediate application of differentiation was to calculate the acceleration of a particle with the given function of its velocity, but to him this was not a practical example. Why and where the hell in my life will I get this function of velocity, he would say. He might have needed to know some scenarios where those things would be useful for him, and frankly, there were none!

This I think is the biggest problem in education today. We are providing abstract education to the students. They know what they are studying but a very tiny fraction of them knows why they are studying it. This is the ‘Bottom-up’ approach to teaching. Here the students miss the forest for the tree. They spend a lot of time on the subjects which they will probably never use in their life (like my biology friend). Even if he gets a related problem it will not be worth what he went through studying them in detail. And when he really gets the problem it will be much easier for him to learn then, as he will have a clear picture of what he wants and how the process and steps are helping him gradually solve his problem.

What I am proposing is a somewhat top-down approach where we show the students what is desired and then show them the steps to go there and then describe the steps in detail. An even better situation is when the student encounters a problem and then starts to study its solution and take the help of the experts to learn the steps involved. This process will save a huge amount of time wasted in learning things unnecessary to us which we soon forget.

Calculate the time it took you to go through those secondary year school and senior secondary and then graduation, then post-graduation, and so on. If any person wants to study all which you remember now, don’t you think that it will take much less time than you? And why will he even care to do so? He does not need all of that, same as you do not need all of that.

[prakashaditya]

Concept of “Touch”

May 19, 2020

Ever touched anything? Felt its texture? Maybe your mind formed an impression of the texture of the subject while you were “feeling” it, but, if by ‘touching’ you mean having contact of your fingers with the other object, then, you are mistaken. You did not touch it. In fact you have never touched anything in your whole lifetime. This might come to you as a shock, but, give it some time and think about it.

Two atoms never touch each other, except when they are chemically bonded. There is high electrostatic repulsion when two atoms come close together. This force is inversely proportional to the distance between them(squared). Thus, if they approach each other then the distance between them decreases and the repulsion increases. In chemical reactions, nuclear force comes into play and it neutralizes or overcomes the repulsion. Otherwise when the distance tends to zero(total touch), the repulsion reaches infinity.

Thus, a pure physical touch is not feasible. What is possible is merely a sensation of contact due to detected pressure from that object.

Enjoy a somewhat changed mind!

[prakashaditya]

Disastrous year

May 19, 2020

This year, 2020, seems to a disastrous year for the humankind. It started with the COVID-19 pandamic. In continuation to that there was a gas leak in vishakhapatnam. There are several incidents of earthquakes. A massive cyclone is forming in Bay of Bengal right now as I am writing this down. 

But this too shall pass.

[prakashaditya]

Contents

Disastrous Year 

Concept of ‘Touch’ 

Reorganization of Education 

The Attendance illusion 

Manufacturing the ‘ideas’

Engineering vacation over

“शब्द”

Dealing in infinites