Sunday, November 27, 2005

attention please! if u r a teenager reading this,i'm sure u'll say “exactly da,i know” . teenache happens without exception.what do u feel?if u hav passed this stage of ur life,then i'm further sure that u r absolutely willing to take a trip down memory lane,with me 4 company!so y wait?read on.a typical teen tale,up 4 grabs!

trrring! late night party…ur beauty sleep is now given a rude jolt as the alarm clock screams itself hoarse.u r just about to throw it out of the window..wait.the 'morning walk'aunties trying to flatten their unwanted bulges(while exchanging latest gossip simultaneously)definitely wont appreciate a noisy heavyweight doing the job 4 them.fine.u get outa bed looking like an insomniac moron who's barely had an hour of sleep.a hurried shower,baseball cap/tracksuit 4 the day,a sandwich 4 breakfast and umpteen admonitions later,u get to college(70 kmph,&beggin the traffic cop 2 let u go) 1 hour late. you r confident about being chucked out again..ur luck he merely glares.so u giv a shrug and settle down with growls still ringin in ur ears..
breaktime n every other guy/girl/lecturer is subjected to ruthless analysis by ur gang.[god look at him!puhleez,she's so yuck.u know,that guy broke up with that girl but patched up with my girlfriend..grr..arre that lecturer doesnt know english..he says pyjjiks 4 physics..and his forefinger has to explore every nook n corner of his dirty nose...).so after the entire set of lectures r done 4 the day,loitering around town is the only thing on ur mind.
u walk home with friends i.e,weirdos with spiked greased hair,tattoos-the works...lookin like they r visitors to planet earth(needin 2 take bath i mean) and all hell breaks loose.bushy eyebrows n menacing eyes(dad) corner u! without further ado,ur pals r thrown out of the house..
so what?u suffer from a contagious combo of motormouth malady and phone mania. kudos..chatter away...
as 4 entertainment i.e,chilling,'linkin park' screeching their lungs out..or worse,u joining in enthusiastically is definitely not ur mum's idea of rest n relaxation.but who cares anyway?
tired n spent u finally hit the bed thinking of how to impress the new hunk/babe on the block...
but somehow a nightmare makes a grand entry in2 that numbskull...and u r reminded..u hav exams next week.suddenly the next day onwards,god doesn’t seem to b satisfied with ur bribing(who wants coconuts now?).search 4 refuge..u suddenly remember a place in a remote corner of ur campus..'THE Library'.soon u begin sneezing as u flip painfully through pages of ancient ,dusty manuscripts(they r called textbooks) .now u make a beeline 4 the class nerd. u try buttering.
D day exam hall .that brain of urs (with unlimited GB memory 4 crap) is no use 4 integral calculus. u hope n pray 4 a brain to b seated next to u..what the heck,another guy has come..he’s whispering to u 4 the answer!now u r mesmerised by the ceiling(peeling paint,out of order fan and all),ur scalp gets very itchy,and fingernails turn in2 a delicacy.hehe , i need not take u through the horror that follows(results).after the initial shock wears off,u r back to the same old normalcy(sorry did i say normal,its abnormal na?
at the same time somewhere new thoughts ,new dreams keep growing... a nice thirst 4 life ..a mature being materializes,gaining prominence as the days pass..and ahoy u r an adult with the weight of the world upon u.....
no regrets though..u learn from mistakes..however silly they were and u look back sighing wistfully..the golden era has passed out of reality leaving only memories behind..that teenage was ur gift!
forever young remains the heart of man always...whether he shows it or not!


I completed my 19th year on planet earth recently and can no longer boast about being a teenager.before handing over the mantle to adulthood,I sit back and recall each year of my teenage sighing happily. It may sound melodramatic but lets face it. We all do it. Hence,this post.
Lets get interactive. Tell me which teen year u liked best and why.
so shall we start?

Friday, November 04, 2005

the queen of sciences

in school,the much-talked about subject i.e, in academics was mathematics. the one subject most kids feared and some were crazy about.yeah, there were only two options in this particular subject. u either liked her or hated her! as for me, hmmm...i had a love-hate relationship with her. it depended on the kind of teacher we had.a kiddish thought,but i hated maths mainly because it compusorily made my notebook dirty with all the crossing out!!
jokes apart,it always intrigued me and sometimes frustrated me, when i failed to hit the bull's eye on a problem.i knew 'she' was teasing me,enjoying my discomfort.yeah reader,i see ur face breaking into an expression of amusement even as u read this. however my sole complaint was this-the syllabus didn't include anything that could capture the happy attention of a school kid. i longed for the puzzles,for the number tricks and fun facts.all we had to do then was mug up the multiplication tables and recite them like trained parrots.i was never a math genius but i got annoyed when classmates made math a metaphor for monster!! a comment 'is it the fault of math that we can't comprehend her?' from me met with furious glares.
any book i found with a math puzzle turned dog-eared quite soon because i worked ,reread,repeatedly tried out the problems it had to offer. of course,i couldnt solve all of them myself,but the process of discovering something new gave me a thrill, a high. come college and maths was reduced to cramming calculus formulae.the board exam took the fun off activity. but even now, any math puzzle book catches my eye.the process of solving problems has grown slower,sometimes it doesn't happen.nevertheless, i know she still fascinates everyone,young and old.

hats off, ms.Mathematics-the queen of sciences.

some things that demonstrate math magic:

a set of math jokes,seriously.


The reciprocal of 89, a Fibonacci number, is based on the Fibonacci series,
1/89 is a repeating decimal fraction with 44 characters:
.01123595505617977528089887640449438202247191
You can see the beginning of the Fibonacci sequence in the first 6 digits of the decimal equivalent of 1/89. (i.e., 0,1,1,2,3,5 appears as 0.011235..)
If you take each Fibonacci number, divide it by 10 raised to the power of its position in the Fibonacci sequence and add them all together, you get 0.011235955..., the same number as the reciprocal of 89.

Note the Fibonacci series in green
Note the sequence number of the Fibonacci series in red

1 / 89 =
0 / (10 ^ 1 )+
1 / (10 ^ 2 ) +
1 / (10 ^ 3 ) +
2 / (10 ^ 4 ) +
3 / (10 ^ 5 ) +
5 / (10 ^ 6 ) +
8 / (10 ^ 7 ) +
13 / (10 ^ 8 ) +
. . .
0.011235955... =

0.0 +
0.01 +
0.001 +
0.0002 +
0.00003 +
0.000005 +
0.0000008 +
0.00000013 +
. . .

and of course u all are familiar with the number PHI

phi is just one of an infinite series of numbers that can be constructed from the following expression using the square root (√) of integer numbers:
(1+√n) / 2
It just so happens that you get phi when you let n equal 5. Let n be other integers and you get a series of numbers whose squares each exceed their root by a difference that increases by 0.25 for each number in the series.
Phi, being the 5th one in the series, just happens to be the one that produces a difference of 1 with its square, leading to the unique property that it shares with no other number:
Phi + 1 = Phi *Phi
Phi=(1+√n)/2

Phi - 1 = 1 / Phi
check it out urself.amazing,it really is.

ok so we all need a laugh now,so...here are 10 excuses for not completing that math assignment!!

10. It's Isaac Newton's birthday.

9. I couldn't decide whether i is the square root of -1 or i are the square root of -1.

8. I accidently divided by 0 and my paper burst into flames.

7. It's stuck inside a Klein bottle.

6. I could only get arbitrarily close to my textbook.

5. I had too much pi and got sick.

4. Someone already published it, so I didn't bother to write it up.

3. A four-dimensional dog ate it.

2. I have a solar calculator and it was cloudy.

1. There wasn't enough room to write it in the margin.

another 'un:

CLEARLY: I don't want to write down all the in-between steps.
TRIVIAL: If I have to show you how to do this, you're in the wrong class.
OBVIOUSLY: I hope you weren't sleeping when we discussed this earlier, because I refuse to repeat it.
RECALL: I shouldn't have to tell you this, but for those of you who erase your memory tapes after every test, here it is again.
WITHOUT LOSS OF GENERALITY: I'm not about to do all the possible cases, so I'll do one and let you figure out the rest.
ONE MAY SHOW: One did, his name was Gauss.
IT IS WELL KNOWN: See "Mathematische Zeitschrift'', vol XXXVI, 1892.
CHECK FOR YOURSELF: This is the boring part of the proof, so you can do it on your own time. SKETCH OF A PROOF: I couldn't verify the details, so I'll break it down into parts I couldn't prove.
HINT: The hardest of several possible ways to do a proof.
ELEGANT PROOF: Requires no previous knowledge of the subject, and is less than ten lines long.
SIMILARLY: At least one line of the proof of this case is the same as before.
CANONICAL FORM: 4 out of 5 mathematicians surveyed recommended this as the final form for the answer.
THE FOLLOWING ARE EQUIVALENT: If I say this it means that, and if I say that it means the other thing, and if I say the other thing...
BY A PREVIOUS THEOREM: I don't remember how it goes (come to think of it, I'm not really sure we did this at all), but if I stated it right, then the rest of this follows.
TWO LINE PROOF: I'll leave out everything but the conclusion.
BRIEFLY: I'm running out of time, so I'll just write and talk faster.
LET'S TALK THROUGH IT: I don't want to write it on the board because I'll make a mistake.
PROCEED FORMALLY: Manipulate symbols by the rules without any hint of their true meaning.
QUANTIFY: I can't find anything wrong with your proof except that it won't work if x is 0.
FINALLY: Only ten more steps to go...
PROOF OMITTED: Trust me, it's true.

ready for a puzzle all u bravehearts??

A rectangular sheet of paper is folded so that two diagonally opposite corners come together. If the crease formed is the same length as the longer side of the sheet, what is the ratio of the longer side of the sheet to the shorter side?

get going.


now dont u agree?u might like her,u most probably will hate her,but u just can't ignore her.




my dil goes mmmmm....