Life

Guys,

I wanted to write about something on which I had invested almost 5 years of my 22 year old no expiry wine bottle (read life, I am sure many of you must have also) on the highly ranted topic of love. So, going by wiki, love would be classified with three attributes - lust, attraction and attachment. I believe that lust and attraction are basic animal instincts while attachment is what holds a relationship together - brought about by various social procedures, marriages for instance.

As it turns out, there is always a reacher and settler in a relationship. And there is always this unbalanced control of power involved. So the reacher mostly tries to control the settler because he/she knows that she/he is too good for him. In this way, the other half starts living your half and you literally lose your individuality ! That's pretty much what happened to me over the last few years !

Men and women you know obviously look for different things. I love the way John Nash put it in the movie "A beautiful mind" - I find you attractive. Your aggressive moves toward me... indicate that you feel the same way. But still, ritual requires that we continue with a number of platonic activities... before we have sex. I am proceeding with these activities, but in point of actual fact, all I really want to do is have intercourse with you as soon as possible.

People who wish to get into relationship please give a thought on what you are going out for - perhaps all you need is a physical help to your chemical excess and nothing else. I believe friends are the best company you can ever get. Treasure them!

Cheers

VJ

AnjuMani- VM derbys

It is really nice to see Nut actively blogging with his excerpts from Quantum Mechanics; enjoyed reading it, keep it coming. The following write up is strictly devoid of the Newton's, Bohr's and the Heisenberg's; strictly for us lesser mortals.

First, let me give you an introduction about the AnjuMani tournament. Sometime in late Oct-2004, Anuj ( Anju- 12 C ) and Subramanian ( mike mani- 12 A ) decided that a tournament had to be organized in order to determine the best football team in all of the four 12th std sections. They initially named it "AnjuMani memorial tournament"; after getting to know the meaning of memorial and the consequences of the namesake, they changed the name to " AnjuMani". Mani started to write the rules onto the holy grail ( last page of his KPR tuition notebook ) and they were 1. matches would take place under the watchful eyes of Anuj and Mani ( the referees ) 2. matches would be played before after and in-between special classes only on weekends 3. Matches will not be cancelled come rain or snow 4. 2 teams for A section ( due to the large number of footy players), 1 for 12 B and 1 combined team for 12 C and 12 D ( weakest team as each section hardly had any football players ). 5. Seven players in each team including the goal keeper.

Now the team line ups ( to the best of my memory ).

A section " the dependables"- Bajji and Hruday - a dream midfield duo, a left right combination and a goal keepers nightmare; KV- the mini wall ( if I say wall then it will be too much for that face)in defence; Souvik Sen - Gattuso; Vichar- had the goal "covered" ( just for jolly); Bgav- toe poke specialist and " VM volleyball captain"( undisputed LK )- only for verbal reasons .

B section " Inglorious ........" - Nut- Ultimate striker known for his stepovers, Chang- the human treadmill and the best midfielder you can ask for ( my personal favorite ), NK- warning " strikers dont step past him else be ready to face the consequences " , Maggi- goalkeeper par excellence, nothing gets past him.

C and D " the underdogs "- Agent - 100% skill and speed , can win a dying game; Dikki-" bullet shot" goalkeepers beware, you don't want to come between his shot and the goal; Ajoy- " thunder thighs" goal fortified, school's best defender; Panju-" Pires" brilliant in free kicks and crosses; Patt- known to pull off unimaginable saves when least expected; Prashanth- C sections very own NK; Rohit and myself.

For those who played the tournament, here are some unforgettable moments,

1. LK destroys KV: The match was between A and B, the scores were 0-0 , in the final few minutes KV manages a handball. Nut steps up and hits a rocket past vichar. A section won. In the post match session near the cement benches,

LK:" KV bloody bas ne venumne thane hand ball panine, match fixer da ne "

KV( already serious and with loads of guilt): : moditu velaiya paru "

LK: " oru canteen gobi kaga ipidi ya, cha"

KV:" dai ( tears forming )"

LK:" worst da ne, "

KV starts feeling bad, everybody around are happy and start clapping.

2. NUT dikki kita vechukadhey - Finals of AnjuMani between CD and B, scores are 1-1. Nut scores a great goal with 4 minutes or so left. After scoring he comes to Dikki starts swearing at him and shows all possible fingers. Dikki is calm, its our kick off next. I roll the ball to dikki, he shoots from the halfline ( volleyball posts to Bhavani cage ), its an unbelievable goal- a scorcher.

The celebrations begin, dikki gives it back to NUT with interest. Agent me Joy and Patt could not stop laughing. Wat a retort. Guys I am sure you remember this.

Please add as comments your own memories of the tournament.

Alive and Dead...part 2

Alright guys, i am back again after a couple of Lost episodes... I just realised I have been building and hyping the subject up without actually giving anything that can make you go oooooohhhh and aaaaahhhh...i shall not waste anymore of your time, but at this very last moment i shall repeat this---> QM unlike CM is very abstract and something we cant easily relate to, even though i wont be going into the related mathematics of it. QM does lack that intuitive appeal i mentioned before and will be anything but obvious. Ok? Lets start...
Since I am avoiding talking about atoms and electron states, the simplest eg i can think of is that of a simple coin toss. Now this can be heads or tails, which is pretty clear (and this is what CM will equivalently predict) but what QM says is that not only is head and tails possible but so is any "state" between head and tail!! "omggwtff??" you ask... very simple, if u say heads and tails are two possible things a coin toss can give you, the postulates of QM will prove that a state in the form of 0.6head and 0.4tail is also possible!! Note: this is not heads or tails...this is both heads AND tails at the same time!!! What thats just ridiculous?!!?That doesnt even make sense!! Well guess what... its actually possible!!
"Hmmm ok ok, i have known u for years nut and i believe what u just said, as ridiculous as it sounds.Now if these "superposition" (thats what they are called) is also possible, then how come we have never measured it?? surely its not possible that everyone over the course of 1000's of years making millions of measurement missed something so different" Good question!! This is where another postulate of QM kicks in. Lets see if we all agree what measurement is. A measurement in a way is like taking a really really long stick and poking the thing you wanna measure from a distance and see what reading you get. CM assumes that you making a measurement or taking this stick and poking the thing doesnt actually make a difference. A fairly sane assumption if you promise not to poke too hard or for too long. If this actually was true, then your question would be very valid and we should have seen this "superposition" states by now. But QM is more detailed and says you observing( ie measuring) actually does affect the system, infact it affects in a very big way. In such a big way, you actually destroy it!! YOU have caused the system to collapse!! (For those who are really interested, look for the phenomenon of wave collapse) Hmmm so if i destoyed it, will i always get zero as the answer you ask?? Not really, when i say the system collapsed, I meant it collapses to give you a certain set values. Am i sounding too out there?? Cool,I will get back to the coin toss example...what this last few lines means is, if the coin actual could be in heads AND tails (superposition) state,you trying to measure it will cause it to "collapse" and it will end up giving you heads or tails like CM!!
"Aaaahhh thats just highly convenient da nut!! U are effectively saying this "superposition" state exists but you cant show it to me because trying to show me will destroy everything!! yaaru kadhula poo suthare??" My thoughts exactly and ejjactly what i asked my prof but i didnt quite pose it that way!! lol Since i promised not too go into the deep maths of this, my best answer is to just trust me, its how it is, no matter how counter intuitive it sounds. (For those read more on wiki but have some questions, hit me on gtalk and i am up for a talk anytime!! :D ) Now lets stick with the whole coin analogy. QM says if we did the whole coin toss act a very large number of times and find out how many times heads turned up and how many times tails turned( in short there probabilities), you have mathematical thingamajings to back calculate exactly what superposition state it was in!! But I gave you this to indicate that while CM is "deterministic" ie you can say for sure that this what you have, QM is what we called "probabilistic" or everything is a probability!! Yep everything is a probability. It can have a very high probability or low probability but everything comes with a probability!! You dont say anything for sure!!
You can ask me "will you come to school today?"
CM answer: " i will!!" QM answer: "the probability of me coming to school is pretty high"
I think i have basically covered everything as simple as i can possibly can (ps: the truth is, it was put to me in an even simpler way but i am not as good as my prof). I am going to let you guys read over this a couple of times before it makes sense because it took me several days involving sleepless nights and banging my head on the wall kinda action before it started making sense. I will end my mindless rambling with one last post on the various weird things QM can actually predict..some of which is plain ridiculous (even by QM's standards) and some which actually turn out to be true...


Natesh
...trying to calculate the band structure...


PS: To those science students who have come across eigenvalues and the eigen equations, lemme continue a little bit more. The rest,I warn you, I have been raring to become technical and I shall do so here. The various values that system can collapse to is obtained by solving the corresponding eigenvalue equation when acted upon by the respective operators(dont ask...long story!!!)
Why these values?? the truth is we actually dont know!! YES!! A fundamental postulate in the most researched theory in physics and we dont know!!
Why does the system collapse? This was unexplained for a very long time till the theory of decoherence was proposed (a while back).I shall not even try and explain what this is because it gets very very messy and confusing!!

Alive and Dead...part 1

No no no, i am not talking about blog...its pretty much heading towards the dead side but NOO we shall not let it...COME ONNN!!
I was hoping the blog would be overflowing with posts by now...tch tch...but since its not,u are forcing me to do the unthinkable...I wanted to post some mindless timepass but i am actually going to post something that could be useful, maybe even a little educational...
Before I dive into what i was about to write, I want to share a small anecdote which now brings a smile to my face everytime I think about it. It was about 5 yrs ago and many of you here were sitting with me in KPR's sirs class(I respect that man too much to even imagine not calling him sir even on paper!!) ...anyways i am digressing, it was before the board exams and we were discussing one of his revision papers which we had answered a while ago. As he was giving out the answers, one of our pasanga(think adi it was you) gets up and asks sir if the answer could be X and Y. He looks up and in his usual low voice says "U can be either be dead OR alive but not dead AND alive at the same time". It was a good analogy to counter the doubt and we had a good laugh.
Fast forward many years ahead, to about a few months before i write this and I open the wikipedia page for Schrodingers cat--> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger's_cat To those who did get this and its immense significance, u need not read on but for those who this page left you with more questions than answers, let me introduce you to the wonderful journey that is Quantum Mechanics(QM). No no do not worry, the rest of this post will not be technical and filled with complex equations, though they do form an integral part of it. I shall for the most part explain the basic ideas in simple words and convey what i know and leave you wondering on how beautiful and mysterious the world around us works.
U might ask...now wait a second, werent you studying electrical engineering?? Isnt quantum mechanics a very "physics" like subject? When and how did you end up learning it? and is it possible to even put something that is sooooooo scary in simple words??
Yes quantum theory for the most part deals with atoms,molecules and all the small thingys but with our electronic gadgets becoming smaller by the day, the need for electrical engineers to know this theory is quickly becoming very relevant. And yes, believe it or not, it is actually POSSIBLE to state the basic ideas of quantum mechanics in simple words. For many yrs now, like many others, I too have related the vast subject of QM with complex equations and derivations running for miles but over the course of the last 6 months, I have been shown that it is only one small part of what is undoubtedly the most powerful theory available!! And for this I shall forever be thankful to Prof.NGA, my QM teacher and academic advisor.
If you guys havent realised it already, I have developed an unhealthy obsession for the subject devouring whatever i can get my hands on, and it gets me excited everytime i find something new that it so brilliantly predicts!!(yes yes i need a life, and maybe a girlfriend as well lol). As gun once said, "i will marry QM if i can"!!, well he didnt say QM, he was talking about math but i definitely will!!
Lets start with a little history shall we...we all know our Newtons laws and the physics based on those 3 laws is referred to as Classical mechanics(CM). For a very very long time, to almost about 120 yrs ago, CM was considered to be the end of physics, it seemed to explain everything so nicely-from planetary motion to our everyday world with a very good degree of accuracy and the 3 laws had what we scientists (ahem ahem :P ) call "intuitive appeal". U read newtons laws and it makes sense dont they? It makes sense to a level that you think "hmmm thats quite obvious, why did he have to call that a law!! its common sense!! stoopid newton!!" The reason for this is that the laws fit beautifully with things around you and u can relate to them. You see a table in your room and if your not moving it with some force, it wont move but always stay there aka Newtons 1st law. I will come back to this intuitive appeal again. Anyway we had CM and everyone was happy, but...but... a few scientists went poking around with atoms and did this experiment and that and found that the experimental data was quite contrary to what CM says it would be. (To the science students, these will include experiments with black body radiation, the photoelectric effect, atomic spectrum, etc) Anyways the most notable among those who proposed a quantum theory( note: quantum comes from the greek word 'quanta' meaning discrete amounts) include Max Planck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck) and Niels Bohr(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_Bohr). Note that both went onto receive the Nobel for there work in this theory. However their ideas werent so widely accepted at first because it meant leaving the safety and comfort of CM and embracing something new and possibly dangerous (in its implications) :)
If you were to look into the history of science, the stories of Bohr is actually quite interesting. The final boost to QM came from Einstein himself who suggested something quite revolutionary (which later is the wave-particle duality proved by DeBroglie in his Phd dissertation!!! oops.. getting a little too technical??) Anyway Bohr strongly opposed Einsteins idea even though it would perfectly support the idea of QM. However Einstein later went on to prove his idea(through photoelectric effect) and receieved the Nobel for it.(Yes it is amazing that Einstein did not actually get the Nobel for his e=mc^2, the worlds most famous equation!!) Anyway Bohr did an whole 180 shift and embraced the idea which he had once vehemently opposed(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr–Einstein_debates). To balance the books, Einstein became less loyal to the QM he had helped prove when Heisenberg came up with the very famous Uncertainity Principle...the very famous statement by Einstein "God doesnt play dice" is a small jab at this principle. Anyway this is how the theory began and from then onwards, it hasnt stopped with more and more scientists coming up whole new ideas that shook the very way we viewed things, soon leaving the realm of science and venturing into the philosophical and metaphysical!!
I promised to state the basic postulates but digressed a little too much into the history...I shall stop here and let you catch your breathe and prepare yourself for the mind boggling journey ahead(if you are brave enof to take it)...

natesh
how deep does the rabbit hole run??

ps: agent, i hope u are reading this...hopefully it should help you understand the QM part in study of dreams if you come across it..