Gals and Problems.......

I was working on some problem in mathematics(number theory for precise) and as I was feeling bored, I started thinking about other things and of course gals too... I found some of the similar characteristics which can instigate you to run after gals and taking up problems:

1) Simplicity: The simplicity of the statement of problems can attract you to take up a problem or at least think about it. Many famous problems come in this category like Fermat's Last theorem, Goldbach Conjecture etc. Infact almost all the problems which look quite simple are among the most difficult to solve! In the same way, you can be attracted to a gal for her simplicity and then getting her can be really difficult....

2) Influence: People like to up problems which can have profound influence on understanding many concepts or problems better(say ABC Conjecture)! They may not be really able to solve them or try to solve them but look for what it gives to other problem! In the similar fashion, one may get attracted to gals whom one can't get or not really keen to run after, but because they may be gateway to knowing other gals! I have seen this quite often:-)

3) Wealth: One may be interested in some of the problems because of the prize money it offers, like Million Dollar Problems(Riemman Hypothesis and others)! In the same way, you can be attracted to a gal by how wealthy is she or her family. However it is definitely easier to get wealthy gals than solving the Million Dollar problems....

4) Daily Encounters: While solving some problems or reading some literature, one encounters interesting problems which one takes up and try to solve. This is definitely more difficult than trying some gal which you meet almost regularly and who you are interested in....

These are few of the interesting similarities I could think of as of now! There could be more! I plan to update with your comments:-)

Nothing 2 worry!

When I was attending MTTS program at IIT Chennai in 1998, I created this with the help of my frens!

There are two things to worry in life!
Being healthy and being ill!
If you are healthy, nothing to worry!
If you are ill, there are two things to worry!
Either you become well and you don't!
If you become well, nothing to worry!
If you don't become well, you die and
you have two things to worry!
Either you go to heaven or to hell!
If you go to heaven, nothing to worry!
But then, if you go to hell,
you find almost all of your frens there
and you can enjoy and merry!
So nothing to worry in life!

This reminded to make another and I started!

There are two things to worry in life!
Either you are mentally and physically fit or not!
If you are fit, nothing to worry!
If you are not fit, 2 things to worry!
Either you go to a hospital or you join TIFR!
When you go to Hospital,
you become better and nothing to worry!
When you join TIFR, there are 2 things to worry......

and now I invite others to complete this!

Disclaimer: You don't have to worry about this as you are not the one who is referred here!

Tired of maths? You may get rid of it!!!!!!

I saw this new report on "Tired of maths? You may get rid of it" which is really unfortunate! Well, I do understand that many people find maths boring or has difficulty in maths! It has more to do with the way maths is taught in schools etc.... After all, maths help in improving the analytical skills of students! As such, even if you don't continue in maths, when you appear for competitive exams, you definitely have to give a paper on maths and at least Class X maths is necessary. Well..., those who want to go in Sports and Glamourous World, they may not need any maths! But that does not mean they should not be taught maths! After all, the present system of maths upto Class X is not bad! This proposal should be objected!

A drink with Shamir(S) of RSA!

RSA has been one of the most widely used and secure Cryptosystem for interent security, e-commerce and what not! However it is quite interesting to know that prime numbers whose notion was quite abstract can be quite useful. For the unitiated, RSA stands for Rivest, Shamir(the guy on the left in the photo) and Adleman, named after the inventors of the secure system. RSA is secure(as of now) since the factorisation of large numbers is a difficult problem. The factorisation of 193 digit number RSA-640

3107418240490043721350750035888567930037346022842727545720161948823
2064405180815045563468296717232867824379162728380334154710731085019
19548529007337724822783525742386454014691736602477652346609

took 5 months on 80 2.2 GHz Opteron CPUs! It was factored by F. Bahr, M. Boehm, J. Franke and T. Kleinjung of the German Federal Agency for Information Technology Security (BSI). The factors are

163473364580925384844313388386509085984178367003309
2312181110852389333100104508151212118167511579

and

190087128166482211312685157393541397547189678996851
5493666638539088027103802104498957191261465571

which are both primes. Even though we know much larger primes, its really difficult to factor large numbers and which is making your internet banking, credit cards and sensitive passwords safe! I was lucky to meet and know Adi Shamir, one of the inventors, at a conference at Le Meridian, New Delhi in Feb, 2004. The person on the right is Professor R Balasubramanian(Balu) who is the present director of IMSc and a famous Number Theorist and I was quite lucky to have studied under him and know him well!

Gauss in Love!

Not many people know of passionate and poetic side of Carl Friedrich Gauss, one of the greatest mathematicians of all times. The following is an exerpt from Gauss' Letter of 12 July, 1804 in which he asks for the hand of Johanna Osthoff, his first wife:

....My true friend, receive favorably the fact that I pour out my heart, in writing, before you, about an important matter, regarding which I have found no proper opportunity to mention up to the present.

Finally, let me say it from the fullness of my heart, that I have a heart for your silent angelic virtues, an eye for the noble features which make your face a true mirror of these virtues. You, dear modest soul, are so far removed from all vanity that you yourself do not realize you own value; you don't know how richly and kindly heaven has endowed you. But my heart knows your worth -- O! more than it can bear with repose. For a long time it has belonged to you. You won't repel it? Can you give me yours? Dear, can you grasp the proffered hand, do it gladly? My happiness hangs on the answer to this question. Indeed, at present I can't offer you riches or splendor. Still, dear, I can not have erred as to your beautiful soul -- you are certainly as indifferent to riches and splendor as I am. But I have more than I need for myself alone, enough for two young people to start a carefree, agreeable life, not thinking at all of my prospects for the future. The best that I can offer you is a true heart full of the warmest love for you.
Ask yourself, beloved friend, whether this heart completely satisfies you, whether you can reply just as sincerely to its feelings, whether you can contentedly make the journey of life hand in hand with me, and decide soon.

I have placed before you, darling, the desires of my heart in artless, but candid words. I could have done it in entirely different words. I could make for you a portrait of your charms, which you, although it would be nothing more than the truth, would have received as flattery; with burning colors I could make for you a picture of my love -- to be sure, there I would be allowed only the expression of my feeling -- a portrait of the bliss or disconsolation which await me ever after you have accepted or rejected my desires. But I didn't want to do that. At least, don't mistake the pureness of my unselfish love. I don't want to bribe your decision. In the sincerest concern of your life you must not allow any unusual considerations to influence you. You are not to bring a sacrifice to my happiness. Your own happiness alone must guide your decision. Yes, dearest, so warmly do I even love you, that only possession of you can make me happy, if you are of the same feeling.

Dearest, I have exposed to you the inner part of my heart: passionately and in suspense am I waiting for your answer. With all my heart,

Yours,
C. F. Gauss

Johanna let C F Gauss squirm for three months before saying yes!

Taken from pages 63 and 64 of G. Waldo Dunnington's biography Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science, reprinted by MAA. You can also read more here!

Even though the above letter has nothing to do with Mathematics, this reminded me of G H Hardy who wrote in A Mathematician's Apology (London 1941):

The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poet's must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colours or the words must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in this world for ugly mathematics.

Coming up soon!

I had been quite preoccuppied with some random thoughts and completion of few workings and papers! Many people have been asking me if I stopped blogging! My answer is no and I hope to put up a new post by 27th March! Watch out for this space....

When are you finishing?

Nowadays everyone seems to be interested about this question

When are you finishing?

and I have decided to answer

I am not finishing......., Most likely I shall be finishing my PhD soon!

I have been encountering this question from Faculty and students alike, not to mention from my frens(from outside TIFR) and family... Another question I need to answer is

Which year are you in?

Well, this is a question for which I need to explain a bit! I even feel like answering I m now in 2006!
Now whoever asks me this question, I will forward him to this site to see for the answer which is:

I joined in 2000 but had to give my BSc exam in April 2001 that I was away for around 5 months in 2001 starting January! So I had to start my coursework again in 2001 and that still puzzles me which year(batch) I am in TIFR! I shall be happy if you tell me which year I am in so that I can give a single word(or digit) answer next time!

I hope this clears their doubts, and mine too!

Interesting Article!

I saw this article The economics of prostitution by Michael Noer in Forbes Magazine! Definitely interesting! Even though I agree with many of the comments, something which I can't agree is Men buy, women sell! However its an article worth reading!

Sense without Sensibility!

I was following the recent reports that Sachar Committee was looking at the census of muslims in Indian Armed Forces! See this article

Muslims in the Army: A dangerous census

This is really a grave and unwarranted developement! I don't know why politicians do all sorts of junk things just for vote bank politics? After India's nuclear vote against Iraq, Left and other parties are trying to cash it on to get votes for upcoming assembly elections! I know and most of us will agree that no muslim in their good senses will ever succumb to such evil designs of so called secular parties! But after all, politics is about numbers and arithmetic! Thank God(if God exists), its not Number Theory!

Understanding Woman, A Myth or A Reality?

Yesterday, I went to the last program of the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival and saw 4 short films by woman directors! Konkana Sen Sharma’s "Naam Karan", Jenny Pinto's "Rose Mahal", Indrayanee Mukherjee's "Blank verse" and Nishtha Jain's "Call It Slut". Rahul Bose(who acted in Mr and Mrs Iyer) was standing just behind me! After watching these movies, I started thinking about the topic, "How much you can understand woman?" From my experiences, what I have heard and seen and what I have read, I started compiling few things about woman!

1) Woman likes to be pampered!
2) She wants to get attention!
3) She wants guys to run after her even if she is not interested in that guy!(One gal told me exactly this)!
4) When she wants something to be done, she tries every trick to get it done!
5) She is quite emotional but can have the heart of a stone!
6) "Tears" is both a "weakness" and also "weapon" of a woman!
7) A woman can influence a man and make him work hard and successful! The other side can also happen! She can make him completely down and out!

and the list goes on! So in a way, understanding woman, looks like a myth after all! So it was not surprising to see this article in DNA Newspaper today morning!

Men seek help. Is women’s panel listening?

I would like to hear what feminists and others want to say about this?

Appearances can be deceptive?, true!

In the book "My Numbers, My Friends" by Paulo Ribenboim, he mentioned that Primes are one of the most beautiful things in nature discovered by man. Well, I believed him and thought must be true, untill I observed it to be true! I was working on some problem with prime numbers and the set of primes which I was working was quite unmanagable, chaotic and they were giving me sleepless nights(literally)! Then day before, I got enlightened and discovered(observed) that they really behaved quite differently, but they are really beaufiful, with a very nice pattern, has interesting properties which I didn't anticipate! For the first time in my life, I could understand "what is real beauty?"

This led me to believe in the phrase "Appearances can be deceptive" even though I have no example in my real life. After all, a person may be really nice and quite beautiful eternally, but may look quite differently from outside!

Interesting love story

I got a forwarded e-mail from a fren about the following website.

http://www.love.2loop.com/

Even though its just fun, it prompted me to write this post again just for fun!

One sunny bright winter day at TIFR! He saw one of the most lovely faces ever seen! Her name was ....(after all whats' in a name!), and every move she makes just turns him more and more. He nudges his best friend and say, "Wow, she has to be the most beautiful damsel I have ever seen." Suddenly, to his surprise, she looked in his direction and starts walking right towards him!!! She says, "I noticed you staring at me from over there. I just had to tell you, that I think you are so good looking, and was wondering if you'd like to accompany me to seashore and chat?" He was dumbfounded and didn't know what to do!!! With a stupid smile on his face he says, " you mean..., sure..." and go with her. When they finally get to Seashore, they moved closer to each other and started walking together by holding their hands and sat on a proper rock! They kept staring at each other without telling anything! They were about to kiss when he woke up with the aching of his neck, to find out it's all a dream! He was sleeping on the chair and his guide was continousely knocking on his office door to call him for discussion!

Is it just a liking......?

From the day I met her and talked to her, I started liking her and she has always been in my mind.... I always long to meet her(and at least see her) when I am not working! It is not that I loved her really(I have a lovely gf) but it looks like I am thinking more about her than my gf! I never sleep anyday without thinking about her(but I don't know really what I am thinking about her...)! Is it just a infatuation or liking or something else.... I don't know why and how she came to my mind, but I can't stop thinking about her... When I am lonely( and even with frens) in the places where she can be found, I always look around for her... Even in the canteen, I just come sometime to check if she is around or not, even though I have no intention of eating anything etc... Earlier when I was not thinking much about her, we used to cross often...but now its almost no crossing! Its like all the buses are coming other than what you are waiting for! What should I do?