Books

During the holidays I have been reading quite a few books. A taste of fantasy, a little bit of science fiction, and a moderate dosage of scientific and mathematical non-fiction.

Non-fiction first, followed by fiction.

I read this book titled something like 'The ten most beautiful equations in the world’, which covered equations from those as simple as the Drake equation, to nothing but a clever arrangement of symbols, like Einstein's equation of gravitational attraction. The equations might not make any sense to me, but it's interesting to read about the history of science. In fact, I like math and science books with more words than numbers a lot more than the converse. In the book, I have also been introduced to game theory, signal processing, and the development of quantum mechanics. That chapter on quantum mechanics was not remotely comprehensible to me, and I got lost halfway through the chapter, thereafter I just read word after word without stringing the sentences together, for the sake of finishing that chapter as quickly as possible. I would say reading such books is just like reading a storybook.

And I read another book – ‘the quantum zoo'. It discusses two big branches of modern physics, the very large and very tiny, quantum mechanics and relativity. This book serves as a much more comprehensible guide to physics compared to the previous book, but it contains much less background information. After reading this, I am still quite impressed by how logical special relativity is. I knew it was supposed to be logical, but I had no idea that it would be so logical, where all elements such as time dilation and length contraction all fit together perfectly.

Another book, titled the mobius strip, introduced me to the world of knots and unimaginable geometry of the klein bottle and real projective plane.

And then also a book titled surfing through hyperspace, just to reinforce my understanding and pseudo-visualization of higher dimensions.

To end it all, the best read I have had was Chaos: Making a New Science. I took up an interest to chaos a few years ago, but never managed to learn the theories behind it with full understanding. Firstly, there are relatively little books on that subject, and then there is also of course my own comprehension abilities. I borrowed a small tutorial book about chaos a few years back, and got passed the basics of the logistic function, but never managed to get pass the definitions of sensitive dependence on initial conditions.

But there was little mathematics in this book. The book was written for a layman, and gone through the many developments and interesting notes about Chaos Theory. It was a biography of Chaos. It was like a storybook, and although I did not understand some bits of it, I feel that I will miss the book as I approached the end of it.

I move on to the fantasy genre now. I heard from some friends that Terry Pratchett is good to read some time ago. Some people have also said that Discworld is the fantasy version of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, thus being a fan of the latter, I decided to give Discworld a shot.

First I read this Discworld titled Small Gods, a parody of religion. Quite good, I felt it was, but the humour was no where near the style of Douglas Adams. Then I read Making Money, which was lacking in content. Finally, I read Hogfather, and towards the middle I was already losing the story. Thereafter, I just read the book word by word without having an idea what is going on, and it was not captivating enough for me to want to try to make some sense out of it.

In fact, I do not feel that the ideas are even original. All the three books I read were simply ideas modelled after the real world. A parody. And when something is a parody, it can't be original. Which means that it bores me. I have thus now severed ties with Discworld.

Before the holidays started, I told myself that I am going to finish the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy series. To me, I feel that this plotless collection of science-fiction ideas, is much much more worth my time than Discworld. The number 42 joke always deserves a place in my memory. What meaning is the answer when one does not know what one is searching for?

But most importantly, the series has brought one big question to my mind. What will you do, if today the Earth, with all inhabitants except you, was destroyed? A friend of was destroyed.mine had criticized this point of Arthur Dent not seeming to feel anything after his home blew up, thus rendering the story unrealistic. But I beg to differ because, firstly, the scale of things, compared to having a deceased relative, is so large that the meaning of life is under jeopardy. It is understandable if such an event anesthesizes a human's emotions. Secondly, I do not treat the hitchhiker's guide as a story, but more as a collection of ideas of what life feels like in the extraterrestrial world and some clever logic.

With one travelling all over the universe, I can't help but feel the characters' lives are going no where, lost of purpose. This is clearly depicted in the emotional behaviour of Random Dent.

I remember Allan Yip saying on radio once, “What would you be, what defines you, if I removed everything from you now?”This is supposed to be a test of self confidence and worth. And clearly, having your own earth destroyed is this exercise carried out to full scale. I recall in one part of mostly harmless, Arthur questions a person under a pole for advice on what he should do now. And the answer was to create your own world and perspective, and not to live by others'. Or else, when others are destroyed, so are you.

One other thing that caught my extreme attention was the state of Marvin the robot. I extend my deepest condolences to him for having such a powerful brain, that having solved the world's fundamental mathematical, biological, physical, sociological...etc. problems many times over, he can't help but feel hopelessly bored and depressed without another being of similar intelligence. In addition, due to time travelling, he had become 37 times the age of the universe, and dying will become his only wish.

To end it off in an upbeat note, I will like to share this idea in life, the universe and everything, that I love repeating in my mind so much. There is a knack to flying, all it involves is to throw yourself at the ground, and get distracted at the last moment, and miss it.

The world of hitchiker's guide to the galaxy is one that I will truly miss.

New Classes

I was walking with cmc at bras basah complex when he told me that his friend sent him an sms, asking him what class he was in.

Jokingly, he suggested to me the possibility that he was asking him about his Kingdom of Loathing (online game) class, rather than 2011 new class allocations. I would have preferred that the former was true though.

There is great enthusiasm within me to know who my new classmates are going to be, but provided that I will be liking the answer. Knowing that my interests will hardly be met, enthusiasm takes a 180 degree turn into dread. I would then, rather clutch at straws, cling onto the glimmers of hope that I would get to be in the same class with certain people, than coming face to face with a reality which I do not like (Unless reality miraculously meets my interests of course). Like the saying goes, ignorance is bliss.

My dad used to tell me not to worry about things so much. He said, instead of suffering in constant anxiety for an hour, why not concentrate all those worrying into the final minute? Easier said than done, but if it can be done, the latter would sure be much more preferable. Only now, I know I will be feeling the sadness for the rest of the holidays.

So I went home, and the first thing I did was turning on the computer, and asking people on MSN: “What class are you in?”.  I also got to know about an excel sheet that was circulating around, waiting for people to fill up their own new classes onto class lists. When I saw my class list, my emotions took a downturn. I had not a single friend in my class so far, and there were already quite a few foreigners in my class.

I do not hold any personal grudges against foreigners, but I can’t help feeling that there are wasting class slots. From a stereotypic point of view, they nearly always keep to themselves and are difficult to communicate with. As such, I would rather have these slots be given up for other people whom I might prefer.

And I also feel that there might be quite some personality clashes in my class. This will probably lead to alienation. Reminds me of Year 1/ Year 2 all over again.

There is a lack of balance too. ‘Physics Aura’ is far too strong. I do not have anything against physics, but I love a good balance of everything. I am not very supportive of having sorting of our classes by subject specialization. I love balance in everything, even my worst science subject biology. Come to think of it now, although I had dropped the subject, I will miss it dearly. Thus I will prefer a class having students from all subjects. In addition, it appears that almost my whole class consists of guys. I’m a guy too, but balance is always needed.

But my class list was not fully filled yet, grab and I always on to the faintest hope there is (with dwindling confidence of course).

I messaged: -What class are you in?-

She replied: -I hvn’t checked.-

-Let me noe when you have-

-I will-

After alternating between the morphing class list and facebook for quite a while I got a disappointing reply: –I’m in 06-

*Confidence score drops from 45% to 20%*

And as I miserably watched names being added onto the lists, that score never ceases to continue dropping.

I have heard about trauma, seen it on television, read about it, never experienced it, which is probably an extremely good thing. This experience, of having to face up to my new class, is probably the closest thing to trauma I have ever experienced, and I hope it will continue to be. From a heart full of yearning, believing that nothing is impossible, the unwanted truth collapses upon it in

I watched a little television, then continued sitting in front of facebook. I could not even concentrate on something like watching television properly.

No friends.

No good friends.

No potential good friends.

No potential good friends whom I would really like to befriend.

No balance. (I will probably elaborate sometime later about this)

How do I alleviate my emotional stress over this?

If there’s one thing I learnt about my coping with E.mozilla *, it is not to do anything to surpress it. I found out that it only makes me feel worse. If I’m have the E. mozilla, I should just admit that I’m really suffering from it, and just calm down (calming down doesn’t really necessarily mean to have lifted spirits, it just means not to get agitated) and think about it. No need for any solution. Just think about it. It will make me feel better. Do not restrain the feeling. People says never to coop up one’s emotions to the verge of explosion. It makes one go crazy.

And I had little discussion with someone over msn by the name starting with C and ending with E. We ranked the quality of classes from lowest to highest. Ultimately, I felt only a little better after venting it out via conversation. As we signed off, she told me wished me good dreams, but I replied that I didn’t want any good dreams, because as I have mentioned, trying to go against how I feel will make me feel worse. Just let it be. And hope that I will feel better when I wake up.

Then came up with a few lines, not meant to be taken too seriously:

1) I would drop physics honours just to switch class. Truth is, I don’t like physics that much as mathematics. I’m just naturally curious over natural phenomena. Think I love all those number crunching and calculations? No, I don’t. I like to wonder who something as seemingly complicated as relativity is logically deductive from a few axioms, and how things work. It’s just curiousity, search for knowledge, and I would be just as keen to learn names and stuff of plants and animals. I did not take biology, because I can’t stand it once one goes into too much details. Which explains why I don’t like doing physics calculations. I just love the concepts the way they are.

Majoring physics would have sufficed, but my logic goes that I should either put my best in doing something, or not even doing it because not doing one’s best is a waste of effort. So I should not go for something mediocore like a major. It’s honours or none. I wouldn’t want to take a major and realise that I like the subject and regret not honouring it. Thus I took an honours in physics.

2) I should bring ten books to school everyday next year and they will be my companions. So many people love to tell others to accept the truth and like it; it will make them a lot happier. Unfortunately, unlike the choice of being happy, there is no choice whether to like something or don’t. I can try to like my new class, and hopefully I can, but if I still don’t forcing myself doesn’t do any good, because you can’t force one to like something. If I can’t like socialising in my new class I will probably resort to my ten books.

Being happy is another thing though. That’s the magic of it, only you can decide whether to be or not to be. Stephen Covey’s habit one: Be Proactive

3) Is cycling a good therapy for E. mozilla? I went cycling with cmc, yk, tecklim and joelle the day after, but if I talk about this now I will be jumping ahead of chronology.

Remember what I mentioned about trauma? I have never had dreams for several months running, but that night, I had a dream. I dreamt that a friend of mine and I were spending some time together in 2011. That is probably nothing close to a bad dream. But I have not mentioned that throughout the dream, I was constantly worried about waking up; I was aware that this was unlikely to be the case in real life.

Is one supposed to call such a dream a good one or a nightmare?

Perhaps the reason I did not feel as bad in year 2’s shuffling is that year 3 and 4 are not going to be my final years in this school yet.

After a few days of thinking and contemplation, I feel much better. Just, let it be.

 

I’m in 508.

*E. mozilla is the name of a fictitious virus invented by me which causes one to be emo, named such because of how the name reminds me of E.coli

Sentosa – Part 2

We went to the Universal Studios on Monday. The queue stretched a long way, expected yet dreaded. The good thing was that it moved unexpectedly fast.

Upon entering the gates of Universal Studios, we were greeted by the great Hollywood boulevard lined with shops in Hollywood style. Just reminds me of Hong Kong Disneyland, with the exception that the weather is a ton hotter here in Singapore. Not very relaxing.

   

We moved on to the land of Madagascar, where a gigantic ship awaited. It turns out that other than the safari merry-go-round, no other attractions were available.

We proceeded to the land of Far-far-away, where we queued for the ‘4-D’ show. It was not a very long wait, due to the theatrical nature of the attraction being able to host many visitors at a time.

When the doors opened, we were forced into a hall, where we listened to a squire’s ranting about the rules and regulations of the show, in fairy-tale language, which was pretty lame.

I was sitting at the corner, thus some of the 3-D images were not very well projected into my vision. Simply, it was short 3-D Shrek movie with lots of chair-rocking, air streams shooting out from headrests and water squirting. I would have preferred Disneyland’s idea of a 4-D movie more, which cleverly utilized its surround sound system to make the characters sound like they were really moving around the theatre. To me this was just a rather irritating 3-D movie.

Attraction Rating: 5/10

After the show, my two youngest brothers, my Dad and I went onto the tiny indoor ferris well just by the exit of the theatre. The thing about this ferris wheel which sets it apart from any other that I have ridden, is that this wheel has such a small radius that I could feel the forces of acceleration acting upon me, which made it, shall we say, a tiny-bit roller coaster like.

Attraction Rating: 6.5/10

Next, my youngest brother, dad and I went for a ride on the Enchanted Airways. This is a mini roller coaster, with more twist and turns than Escape Theme Park’s family coaster. Just the right thing to ride on if you are looking for a bit of adrenaline, but not yet ready for the full course yet. Especially interesting was the way Pinnochio’s nose grew longer as the coaster passes his hut, accompanied by a sliding-up sound. It is funny, I don’t know why. It just is.

Attraction Rating: 7.5/10

 

We went to have lunch. I find it excellent that the management have labelled the outlets which serve vegetarian food on their park map. What I find funny at the same time, is that all of the outlets have the vegetarian label. But the stalls does not explicitly label on their menus, what vegetarian food they serve, which makes it quite a pain to queue up and do all the waiting, only to find out what the vegetarian food is when you ask the service man, because I might not like it at all. Finally we settled at Friars, where they served wraps. Wrapped in green dough, filled with huge chunks of vegetables, served with a side of tapioca fries.

The tapioca fries were good, and the wrap was too initially. Only when I ate deeper into the wrap did I realise that most of the composition of the wrap was capsicum and peppers, giving me a rather sore and bitter throat after I finished the wrap. Nice glass panes on the interior though.

We split up quite a bit after that. My brother took me to the Revenge of the Mummy roller coaster. The land of Ancient Egypt was carved out with huge rocks and statues, which I fear might topple anytime. The roller coaster was built in a gigantic, approximately eight-storey tall pyramid, with a shockingly long queuing area. It was quite a great safety concern for me. How will the visitors be able to evacuate this big tomb fast in the case of an emergency?

Upon going pass the entrance of the Revenge of the Mummy, we had to walk back and forth, following the guidance of the fences which took us spiralling a few rounds. Then the path led us into an open corridor. In total I suspect that the ride entrance was not less than 150 metres from the building entrance. The building was dark, only lit by a few lamps. The queue progressed slowly but surely. The queue led up to the second storey. After a long wait of around an hour, it was our turn.

The cart had passenger seats arranged in a 4 by 4 matrix. I was rather nervous when I stepped into the cart. It was going to be a dark. dark. dark ride. I felt my pulse racing.

The cart navigated a slow turn into darkness, with bloody messages imprinted into the walls of the ride.

The robots were rather realistic, although I wouldn’t say the same thing for their actions. Passing by the masked man which sucked out the dummy’s ‘sou’l, the cart moved into a spacious chamber, seemingly comfortable. But I felt that such comfort isn’t induced without a reason, the next moment balls of fire illuminated and the room with heat searing across my skin, and four fierce warriors jumped out screaming. That is the worst scare I had in the ride. The cart coasted back into darkness and crashed into a wall. The cart rolled downwards, backwards and actually I would have preferred this part of the ride to last longer, because it was the most relaxing part, feeling the wind behind you. It was supposed to be frightening though, I assume. It fell onto a turntable, afterwhich it shot upwards into a blast off, unlike many other coasters I have ridden which are dragged up slowly by chains. Just before an instantaneous feeling of weightlessness at the top of this track, it zoomed through a projection of a black-hole like thing which was pretty shocking considering the speed. Then it fell into darkness, with ghostly projections and G-forces adding to the thrill.

Going in and out of another fiery room, smoke shrouded the path ahead. The cart just crashed through that wall of eerie and cooling smoke which sent a chill across my body and fell into a series of twist and turns once again, and the ride came to an abrupt end.

The atmosphere of the ride was very well created, though the speed was not at all scary. But together, it synthesized a heart-racing experience. One which I will fear, no matter how many times I take it. In contrast to space mountain from Disneyland, the psychological aspect of the Revenge of the Mummy was much greater than the physical.

Attraction Rating: 9/10 (No perfect score due to the possibility of nightmares seeping into the unconscious mind after too many rides)

Following that, my brother, maid and I went to visit ‘the land of the future’ which only had two rides, the Accelerator and Battlestar Galactica. The latter is as we all know in malfunction, leaving only one ride. This is rather ironic, as I associate ‘the future’ with ‘many high-tech rides’

‘Artist’s’ Impression of the Battlestar Galactica – A tangling of blue and red cotton threads

The closure is rather disappointing, with it being one of the biggest attractions in Universal Studios Singapore.

The Accelerator is very well named. It is simply the spinning tea cup ride, decorated with blinding, oscillating coloured lights, painted in the ‘radioactive’ colours – black and yellow. It threw us back and forth like a rollercoaster, only that the accelerative forces only acted horizontally. Quite dizzy, but the ride was very futuristic like.

Attraction Rating: 7.5/10

My whole family then visited the Lost World. Some of them went to ride the Pterosaurs, but not me. Queue is far too long for a more extreme version of a merry-go-round.

That above, is the Canopy Flyer

 

 

We went  to take the Rapid Raft Adventure, which was a tour around the Jurassic Park, a must-go. We could tell, by the 80 minute long queue.

We stepped onto a conveyor belt, which carried the circular yellow rafts. The ride was initially calm, with herbivorous dinosaurs occasionally growling and wagging their tails. The surrounding environment, composed of trees and big rocks, isolated us quite a lot from the park, which made it feel like we were in a river.

Then, the raft is ‘diverted’ through a broken fencing into ‘restricted area’ where carnivores roamed. First it was fierce robots staring at you with contorted faces, next were a few dinosaurs jumping out behind rocks and screeching at you. The raft got washed down the rapids, bumping into rocks, jerking back and forth. The motion was more nauseating than the thrill.

The raft proceeds into a large hydro-electric dam, with roaring noises of dinosaurs all around. Soon, we were shrouded in total darkness. The only sound was the lonely sound of flowing water. A lamp then illuminated a side of the wall like a lightning strike all out of a sudden, revealing a realistic T-rex trapped behind bars. It shook about violently in its cage and made horrible noises. It was as if it was ready to break out of its cage anytime and chase us. It was nerve-wrecking despite the knowledge that it was fake.

The raft drifted pass ominous looking danger sirens and sophisticated flashing controls. It drifted onto an elevator. It lifted us up. Directly above was a huge T-rex head whose size was astounding up close, I didn’t feel much like staring at it right in the face. The raft was washed down a slide, out of the dam, back into daylight. What a relief.

Attraction Rating: 9/10

My Mum, maid and younger brothers left the park. My Dad, brother and I went onto the Canopy Flyer, which is a seat hanging from a track – a very slow flying fox. The queue was not worth waiting for 1 minute of such a ride.

Attraction Rating: 6/10

We went quite a few more times on the Revenge of the Mummy, as the queue was now drastically shortened. We also rode the Treasure Hunters Ride, a track around archaelogical landscape which they claim you can drive your own car, but in reality the driving is heavily constrained by a central guiding bar. Very jerky motion. This is exactly the same as the electric cars in Hong Kong Disneyland. If only Singapore could combine the smoothness and cleanliness of such electric cars, and the freedom of driving, such as in the Daytona Go Kart, it will be wonderful. True, the Luge employs such ‘technology’, but the Skyride is irritating.

It was quite a mundane archaelogical landscape

Attraction Rating: 6/10

Then we left. In summary, the attractions in Universal Studios are quite lacking, compared to other theme parks. Revenge of the Mummy and Rapids Adventure are the best attractions though.

To cut a short story shorter, we went to the foodcourt at Palawan beach for dinner, went back to our room to watch television. The next day we went to Imbiah and took the new desperadoes show and the extreme log ride, both being a waste of money.

The end. I’m so glad to have my own bed, pillows and blankets back.

Sentosa - Part 1

I just returned from Sentosa on Tuesday.

I like the old sentosa much better; the Sentosa during the time when I was a little kid. It felt much more adventurous, more spacious, more clean, and fun was much of its emphasis.

First there was the monorail system, a good and systematic way to get around. It is easy for one to get off station by station to explore the island. Now, it is destroyed and replaced with head spinning bus and tram rides.

I also remember that there used to be nature always by my side in Sentosa. Now Sentosa is just a gigantic construction yard.

Most importantly, there used to be a sense of cohesiveness among the attractions of Sentosa last time. There was ambience on the island. Now, it feels like every attraction is just 'plopped' here and there. like placing dots on a computer game map. For example, walking along the road of the beach, there is now a coffee house with water attractions every now and then. It feels as if everyone manages their own business in the business compounds, and everything outside their doors has absolutely nothing to do with them.

I'm not sure how to describe this, but I think this will do. Imagine trying to create a jigsaw puzzle. The right way would be, get a big picture, and slice out the different pieces. However, what the current Sentosa now is like this:

Beaches carve their own jigsaw pieces, Resorts and Accomodation try to carve theirs, Shops try to carve theirs, same for Transportation and other attractions, while Resort Worlds Sentosa come up with their own puzzle frame and squeeze all their pieces into the frame.

To be direct I will compare the new Sentosa with Escape 'Theme' Park.

The main attraction of the island seems to have turned into shopping and dining, a place for tourists to burn their cash, rather than a place for family fun. Especially with the advent of Resort World Sentosa, money spending has turned into a theme.

The shattered remnants of old Sentosa reside in my memory. I used to have a wish to go down every monorail stop and visit their attractions, especially volcano land (which my parents told me that I visited it when I was even younger but I was too scared to open my eyes) , but I never had the time to. No more monorail.

I also recall wanting to fly by tying myself to helium balloons. When I realised I could not fly with one balloon, my dad somehow got the whole bunch of balloons from the balloon man and we brought them home.

Where has Fantasy Island gone too???

Everything that I mentioned happened when I was quite young, so I only had one impression of fantasy island before it was gone. It goes something like this:


Just imagine the brown stuff are cliffs and the river is filled with lots of families and children in floats.

***

Seeing how construction roamed the island and how money-centered Sentosa has become on Sunday, my mood was off to quite a bad start. My family and I took a tram down to Costa Sands Resort in front of Siloso beach. We booked a small room with one bed, and a kampong hut. From the moment I stepped into the hut, stale and wooden air wafted into my lungs. This was not very good.

I can't bear to put too much effort into this picture. It is too dull in reality. Those two things at the sides are double-decked beds.

We then moved on the other room, whose main composition was concrete, rather than wood. Other than being more spacious, and having a little more furniture, it was not much more comfortable. The floor was tiled (This statement might have more meaning if I added that the floor was not carpetted).

Tiled = Dirty Resort

Carpet = Hotel

One thing I like about a carpetted floor is that it shields your sight from dirt and dust on the ground, and your feet, because the floor feels furry no matter what. So it feels less disgusting living with it, unless it gets wet of course.

After settling our bags down for a while, my dad, my brother and I went to visit the Luge and Skyride.

The sentosa luge requires not fuel to run at all. It simply zooms down an inclined track, which I like because unlike the Daytona Go Kart at Escape Theme Park, it does not vibrate up and down and it is free of nausea inducing exhaust. Although it is rather expensive, 12 dollars per ride should one buy a single ride, I like driving (in games at least, not that I can drive a real car anyway).

The dreadful part of it is the Skyride. One can purchase a Skyride ticket without going for the Luge, but not the other way round. If one wants to take the Luge, one has to take the Skyride back up. One can, however, take the liberty to walk back up the slope on foot, but then he will still have to pay the fee for a skyride ticket.

Dangling above the treetops, exposed to the scorching sun, we could not wait to get off the Skyride each time we took it. The scenery didn't alleviate the tormenting wait, because it refused to change so we eventually got bored of looking at the same things.

At night, we immersed ourselves in the comforting chill of the evening water of the swimming pool at the resort. I immersed my head in the water, saw nothing but patches of blurred balls of lights at the walls. The water was ridiculously murky, and it was only when I rose I felt the sting in my eyes. The floor was scattered with dirt, and thus we eventually moved to the 2 metre end of the pool to avoid our feet from touching the floor.

After bathing, my family and I settled to watch some television, and my mum, my brothey, my maid and I moved to the kampong hut to sleep.

Horrible. The bed was horrible. The pillow was horrible. The air was horrible. I lay on the bed wrapped up in the furry blanket, occasionally adjusting its coverage over my body for maximal mosquito blocking to ventilation efficiency. But the hard bed and lousy pillow remained a problem; my neck ached severely from sleeping on them. In cruel collaboration with the poor ventilation of the hut, I had headaches, and could not sleep for 2 hours. I got one more pillow stacked on the first pillow for more neck support, afterwhich I managed to drift off to sleep.

I dreamt that it was once again a school day, and I was going to school on the bus with the usual person.

I woke up the next day, and my family and I prepared to set off for the Universal Studios.

Regarding the Mode of Chinese Assessment here

My English grades are probably worse than my chinese grades, but I resent the latter more. For one reason - when I look at the mistakes and inadequete standards I meet in english, I feel that I deserve it. Thus I accept this without qualms.

When I review why my answers are insufficient to answer a comprehension question, I can see for myself that there is a lack of logical flow. I can see that my essays lack developed vocabulary and organized structure. This is strange, but I feel a lot happier with my english grades than my chinese grades(which a probably slightly higher)

The mode of assessment of chinese here is rigid. I will not forget the time when I had a real good laugh upon reading a letter to the newspaper. It complained about the rigidity of science marking in the country in this era, by flashing an example in which a question, "What is the difference in the rate of evaporation of water in A and B?", was posed. A student, giving the answer: "B will evaporate faster because A has a smaller surface area", was marked wrong!

The "Model" answer was something along the lines of A will evaporate slower because B had a larger surface area et cetera. This is a rather extreme case.

Anyway, in chinese letter writing, the assessment is such that content marks are allocated based on how many points one writes down. i.e the paragraph count. It does not matter how well developed each idea is, how much elaboration and explanation it contains. It does not even matter how much it stands out an important and crucial point that no one else had though of.

One point just mean one content mark. Three reasons and three ways to solve the problem is required. Just two is not an option, no matter how good they are like I mentioned. And its letter writing, not a proposal of advocacy or analysis report.

This method of assessment destroys the fair advantage critical thinkers have over those who do plain memory work and 'mind-readers' (Those who writes what the teachers want to see).

That is only one issue. Another thing I feel uneasy about is the open-ended comprehension passages. Contrary to English assessment, where marks are scored, when one answers the question to the point, has the correct answer with a logical structure, in chinese this requires unnecessary elaboration which is irrelavant.

Take for example a standard 4 mark question. Should you just answer the question, the most you will obtain is two marks. The other two comes from the elaboration that revolves around the main answer. So it almost always ends up with a lot of ctrl-c ctrl v s from the passage.

There are times when elaboration is not needed and 4-5 marks are awarded straight for a one line answer. Yet the differences between them are almost impossible to tell.

Life is indeed unpredictable.

However the central problem lies in the choice of comprehension passage. Many times they just love to give passages that teach the reader some moral, or a lesson. Most of the time they are illogical and look as if they are written by a child. (Verified by trusted source) One can argue that my standard of comprehension is probably not high enough to attain the level of 'mind-reader', but again it is not so low as to be able to stoop down to their level and think from the writer's point of view. As such, I can't comprehend such passages.

Let me translate one such passage.

"Distance" brings about beauty. But why do we destroy such a dream? Humans, with their selfish desires, have destroyed the beauty of "distance, and have started to possess others by force. No longer now is the forest quiet, but it rings with the sound of gunshots, tigers face extinction. Never again will we see birds soaring in the air, or the fluffy white sheep roaming in the plains. But the humans feel that this distance must not be maintained, and they pick up their axes and saws, and start deforestating, destroying the 'distance' ,destroying their beautiful home...

...

The beauty of literature requires distance too. Have it not been for the long time that has passed since they have been written, will ancient poems still spark the endless imagination of mankind?....

...

But today, our fast paced society will destroy all the beauty of distance. Fast food culture has taken over the distance humans have always been longing in their hearts. Authors no longer pen classics, rather they mass produce hasty works, works that are not worth passing on for generations...

Yes, my translation is horrible, but thats approximately the idea of what kind of passages I get

I really hope that the setters of paper use news articles or articles regarding governmental policies to test us, rather than these sort of 'moral-instilling anecdotes'.

It is difficult to comprehend, and I do not mean that in a good way. Let's put it this way, when I do a difficult English comprehension question, I think hard, because I know an answer is there somewhere, waiting to be found. But here, it's like it can never be found.

Music Scores

Today my Dad took me to Gramercy music to get some violin scores for ABRSM Diploma. The scores were all catalogued by composer, which is rather impressive, because truthfully, I have never been there before. The prices of music scores is simply shocking. Fortunately they were having a sale.

They way some shoppers just moving around with a stack of sheet music in their arms are terrifying. It was as if they were librarians, just that they were going to buy all of them. One stack, at a glance can easily be seen to be worth at least 500, and will even have a possibility of shooting into the thousands range.

This makes me think of a really frustrating thought, why are all these music scores set at such a high price? Many classical pieces are already in the free domain, so downloading them from sites such as IMSLP or Mutopia is not illegal. But examination boards require that the candidate buys an original copy from a renown publisher, and that is what professional performers are seeming to always do too, carrying nicely bounded cover pages, with the glittering letter of the publisher and piece title embedded into it, around.

I only needed the Scherzo, the last 4 pages from Brahms Sonaten, but they just don't sell them alone


$74.80 for three pieces, inclusive of piano part.

Exams

This is the first time that I have been such a slacker during an examination period. I have not been revising hard and properly. I have not been memorizing my biology terms, doing my chemistry revision exercises and...well other than that I don't have anything else to do.

The driving force behind this...not being driven to do well, is because I have given up hope of getting a 4.5 CAP score for this semester already. English is 6 MCs, and I have not been doing very well for it. I would rather English be 3 MCs spread out over two semesters, and having a lower CAP last semester, than it being all weighed this semester.

Chinese, which is also 3 MCs, is pulling me down too.

And I know I didn't do very well for music either. Music Education Module, really tough one to score. I would prefer doing a music module than doing a music philosophy module. More fun, more grades too.

So altogether its 11MCs of acidic buffers keeping my pH of my overall score in the low range. How can I still be motivated to do well for the rest of my subjects?

Last week, I have read my biology textbook once or twice, understood the terms, but I have never really gone into memorizing anything. It turned out to be quite a good move too, because other than a couple of 'history of evolution' questions that required memory work, the rest were much easier than I thought.

For chinese, I memorized a list of 250 idioms to use. The only problem was, I knew the meanings in chinese, but I am not able to recall the idiom when I want to use it. It's a one way flow, sorry about that.

English exam tomorrow. I really hope I can do well for that. Hope I get a lenient marker. During the holidays I have to go read lots of non-fiction should I want my english to improve.

Chemistry is tomorrow too, and I have not really gone into any practices. I'm more worried for English.

Physics. E and M is so abstract. You know how I am going to revise for that? I'm just going to make a list of all the equations related to the topic. And that's all I'm going to study.

After tomorrow, after the horror of english and chemistry is over, I will start on some integration practices for mathematics. Effectively, once tomorrow is over, it will be such a great stress reliever, like the whole examinations are over.

Sorry for the poor language. Too much is running in my mind right now.

Drawings - Instruments of the Orchestra

Just a few of them:
I drew these pictures, so I own them, but feel free to use them.

Covering the Oil Spill (English Homework)

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/05/26/the-missing-oil-spill-photos.html

Article Review:

This article talks about the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Local and federal officials are limiting access to the sites of the oil spill where the effects are most visible, to news photographers and journalists. Even when they are allowed to visit the site, a close eye by the officials is kept on them. As local fishermen and charter boat captains are left without a source of income as a result of the spill, they are being forced to work for BP in order to keep their livelihoods. They are thus being pressurized by BP not to talk or co-operate with the press at the risk of losing their jobs.

The BP oil disaster is one which really shook the world. It being denied coverage, is in my opinion one of the most selfish acts conducted by the officials. Peace Marvel, a charter boat captain, claimed that “running members of the press around only gets in the way and makes things worse”. This is a fallacious argument, as should officials be worried about the clean up works being hindered by visitors, all should be kept out, and not just members of the press. In addition, planes are not allowed to fly below 3000 feet above the affect areas, which clearly wouldn’t have any role in hindering clean up works.

Peace Marvel also compares this restriction of press coverage to not allowing people to enter a flaming building to take photographs. This comparison is ridiculous, as the latter brings about a risk in human safety, while the former does not. It appears to me, that BP, together with their supporters, federal and local officials, are making up excuses to justify them concealing their big blunder in order to salvage their reputation.

The damage has been done, and no amount of salvaged reputation will be able to fix the problem. The affected land might be governmental property, giving them every right to restrict access to whomever they please from a legal point of view. Looking at it morally however, it is wrong to do so, as the environment belongs to everyone, and thus they have the right to know what exactly is happening to it.

I hope that BP comes to their senses. Two wrongs does not make one right.

711 disaster

After playing badminton till 3 pm on thursday, I finally decided that it was time to head for German lesson. However, it turned out that when I reached there someone told me that there was no lesson. For having wasted such a trip, I felt a little discontented and so I decided to salvage the 'wastedness' of the trip to have lunch somewhere nearby.

I headed down towards Serangoon MRT station and had a quick survey of the locality map, looking out for any shopping center. I saw 'Upper Serangoon Shopping Center' a walking distance northeast to my current location and thus I made up my mind to try having lunch there.

After walking for a little while I felt rather easy. I wouldn't have mind taking a walk in the park, but walking along old roads, Serangoon Road, with the run down shophouses and light industries was not very comfortable. Hot, dirty air, having to constantly watch the ground for puddles of sewer, uneven floor, awkward pieces of rock and concrete jutting out from the curb and the need to manoeuvre your way round thrown out boxes and plastic chairs.

Finally I found Upper Serangoon Shopping Centre which I would have thought was a factory had I not seen the sign on the utilities room. After jumping over a drain and walking along a lonely alley, I reached the entrance. It was one of those old style shopping centers like Bras Basah, Lion statues all over the place, the nauseating presence of incense, either red bricks tiling the floor or grey concrete.

I wouldn't even think of visiting such shopping centers if I didn't have to. I doubt I would find a good lunch there. Disappointed, I walked out to the main road and proceeded to Kovan Station to take a bus home.

Along the way I had my attention caught by 'a sign of civilisation', a seven eleven shop front. It had a tiny entrance, just two glass panels for doors, with the counter just a few steps away from the entrance.

I reckon I should get a drink.

The counter occupied the top left of the shop, which already covered half its space. To the right of the counter, in what was pathetically called the remaining space, was lined with refrigerators which only had half a meter of space from the counter. Opening the doors was already difficult. I reached my hand in to get a drink in an awkward position. I tried to reverse my way out after closing the fridge, but something was stuck. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something teetering back and forth, but I did not think much about it as I was worried. I figured that I would soon find out what it was when I got out of my crammy space to have a better view.

Fright makes people do stupid things.

My bag dragged what appeared to be a plastic rack of assorted condoms and bottles of what I think were lubricants. The entire shop was covered in them, since the shop was tiny to begin with. I just remembered myself feeling very shocked at first, followed by fear, and no number of apologies I made was able to pacify my feelings. I did not know whether the male shop owner was feeling pissed or pitiful of me, but he was putting on a friendly front and told me that it was okay, although his facial expression was rather dull. What made it worse was that the plastic rack shattered into smithereens. The owner got a basket and we put the products into it. I picked up the pieces of the shelf with my bare hands with the childish notion that the owner was going to see how sorry I was that I go to the risk of injuring myself. Like I said, fright makes people think and act irrationally.

People who wanted to come into the shop opened the door and left. It was very embarrassing. Now, I had no money to pay for the broken shelf. I forked out $4.40 to offer to pay for the damage which I knew that he was reject, but I could not think of anything else to do. The least I could do was to buy everything I could worth $4.40, but irrationality caused me to put back the drink I wanted to buy when he asked me whether I wanted to buy it, and instead I replied 'never mind', and I just walked out like that.

At that point, just after I walked out of the shopfront, I felt a feeling I have never felt before, a tinge of embarrassment which refused to part with me concocted with guilt. A feeling that made me feel like I have just committed a crime, one that have tarnished my life forever. I have never blundered so greatly in public before. And even if I did not tell my parents; as if there was a need to, I regret the feeling of facing anyone at that moment.

Such unpredictable things happen in life. I lived in comfort for too long. Such a happening, relatively minute to others, has shocked me so greatly.

The only thing I kept on telling myself on the way home was to go straight home after school next time and not to wander about, especially into unfamiliar places. I would have been resting at home an hour ago and yet I was then still on the bus, filled with my concoction of fright, shock, embarrassment and guilt.

What made it rather ironic was that I saw Heartland Mall when I reached Kovan. Why did I have to stop at Serangoon?

Snopes - 1

Urban legends can be interesting. Some of them are plain funny, others encompass deep substance and a few are actually quite inspiring. Even if they are not true, some of them are just lovely to read, giving new satisfaction each time it is being read over again.

I selected 4 good ones from this section.

http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/exam.asp

EXAMS:

Introductory Chemistry at Duke has been taught for about a zillion years by Professor Bonk (really), and his course is semi-affectionately known as 'Bonkistry'. He has been around forever, so I wouldn't put it past him to come up with something like this. Anyway, one year there were these two guys who were taking Chemistry and who did pretty well on all of the quizzes and the midterms and labs, etc., such that going into the final, they had a solid A.

These two friends were so confident going into the final that the weekend before finals week (even though the Chem final was on Monday), they decided to go up to UVirginia and party with some friends up there. So they did this and had a great time. However, with their hangovers and everything, they overslept all day Sunday and didn't make it back to Duke until early monday morning.

Rather than taking the final then, what they did was to find Professor Bonk after the final and explain to him why they missed the final. They told him that they went up to UVa for the weekend, and had planned to come back in time to study, but that they had a flat tire on the way back and didn't have a spare and couldn't get help for a long time and so were late getting back to campus. Bonk thought this over and then agreed that they could make up the final on the following day. The two guys were elated and relieved.

So, they studied that night and went in the next day at the time that Bonk had told them. He placed them in separate rooms and handed each of them a test booklet and told them to begin. They looked at the first problem, which was something simple about molarity and solutions and was worth 5 points. "Cool" they thought, "this is going to be easy." They did that problem and then turned the page. They were unprepared, however, for what they saw on the next page. It said:

(95 points) Which tire?

Assuming the car had four tires, they had a quarter chance of 'getting it right'.

~~~

Just before Christmas a college professor read the following on an examination paper: "God only knows the answer to this question. Merry Christmas."

Across the paper the professor wrote: "God gets an A, you get an F. Happy New Year."

~~~

The following concerns a question in a physics degree exam at the
University of Copenhagen:

"Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper with a barometer."

One student replied:

"You tie a long piece of string to the neck of the barometer, then lower the barometer from the roof of the skyscraper to the ground. The length of the string plus the length of the barometer will equal the height of the building."

This highly original answer so incensed the examiner that the student was failed immediately. The student appealed on the grounds that his answer was indisputably correct, and the university appointed an independent arbiter to decide the case.

The arbiter judged that the answer was indeed correct, but did not display any noticeable knowledge of physics. To resolve the problem it was decided to call the student in and allow him six minutes in which to provide a verbal answer that showed at least a minimal familiarity with the basic principles of physics.

For five minutes the student sat in silence, forehead creased in thought. The arbiter reminded him that time was running out, to which the student replied that he had several extremely relevant answers, but couldn't make up his mind which to use. On being advised to hurry up the student replied as follows:

"Firstly, you could take the barometer up to the roof of the skyscraper, drop it over the edge, and measure the time it takes to reach the ground. The height of the building can then be worked out from the formula H = 0.5g x t squared. But bad luck on the barometer."

"Or if the sun is shining you could measure the height of the barometer, then set it on end and measure the length of its shadow. Then you measure the length of the skyscraper's shadow, and thereafter it is a simple matter of proportional arithmetic to work out the height of the skyscraper."

"But if you wanted to be highly scientific about it, you could tie a short piece of string to the barometer and swing it like a pendulum, first at ground level and then on the roof of the skyscraper. The height is worked
out by the difference in the gravitational restoring force T =2 pi sqr root (l /g)."

"Or if the skyscraper has an outside emergency staircase, it would be easier to walk up it and mark off the height of the skyscraper in barometer lengths, then add them up."

"If you merely wanted to be boring and orthodox about it, of course, you could use the barometer to measure the air pressure on the roof of the skyscraper and on the ground, and convert the difference in millibars into feet to give the height of the building."

"But since we are constantly being exhorted to exercise independence of mind and apply scientific methods, undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on the janitor's door and say to him 'If you would like a nice new barometer, I will give you this one if you tell me the height of this skyscraper'."

The student was Niels Bohr, the only Dane to win the Nobel Prize for physics.

Education is not about "Teaching people how to think", it is about teaching them how to learn.

~~~

An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. The class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said ok, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little... The second Test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for anyone else. All failed to their great surprise and the professor told them that socialism would ultimately fail because the harder to succeed the greater the reward but when a government takes all the reward away; no one will try or succeed.

A Possible Ultimate Question

Recent news have announced that Stephen Hawking believes that creation did not require a creator, going against modern conventional christian culture. Physics have toppled many theories and we have to embrace that fact that it should not be treated second place to religion in 'the search for truth'. Who is to say that these religious beliefs are not as 'untruthful' as science, considering that religion is molded by humans, therefore leaving room for biasedness and unreliability of sources.

The battle between creationists and evolutionists is still not over today. There is sufficient scientific evidence today to say that evolution is a probably phenomena that created the variety of organisms we see today. After all, we don't see odd otherworldly creatures springing out in the wild nowadays. From my point of view, since evolution is a more logical process to happen, it is more likely to be true, though I cannot rule out the possibility that creationism is 'more right', for someday logical argument might be presented about creationism.

That was a controversial example. One thing we cannot deny is that the Earth moves around the sun, not the other way round. To be extremely precise, in fact neither moves around the other, as gravitational attraction is mutual and motion is relative. However this was an idea banned in ancient times. People preferred to believe that the world revolved around them. A perfect example of how religion is not foolproof. Created by humans, subject to errors. But the best we can do would be to think logically and listen to our conscience and observe 'the truth around us'.

(For the sake of argument again you can say that our conscience is a dimensionless concept instilled into us by aliens in order to trick us and our logical system is actually entirely flawed and yet we do not spot the paradoxes beneath them because our mind is not so great to comprehend them)

But look at the title, this post isn't supposed to be about searching for truth. As I was thinking about Stephen Hawking on the bus quite some time ago, I realised that I came to a very fundamental question.

How is the existence of existence justified?

Based on definition, we live in a world that exists. Many people believe that this world originated somewhere in the distant past, and so do I. When I say the world I don't just mean the universe. Maybe clusters of Universes, from the beginning to the end of time.

If we believe in a creator, then who created that creator?

If we do not believe in one, then there must be a process that make this world work. Maybe a process which causes the world recycle itself time after time spontaneously? Then isn't that process 'something'? What created that process?

Why does something exist, rather than nothing?

Soon we realize that this question is itself a paradox. Any attempt to answer that question will result in a contradiction.

It's no use thinking about it, and it serves no purpose, neither would the world be made a better place if you know the answer.

It's just a thought.

World of Science - Aerodynamics - Part 7

I have nothing much to write about the last few lessons. For the last last lesson, the lecturer from NUS talked about start and end vortices induced by airfoils, and how these cause wings to fly. Honestly, it does not make a lot of sense to me, and I have came to a realization that I do not understand how aeroplanes fly based on this circulation around the airfoil explanation completely. However, one thing is for sure, that is I do not know how airplanes fly. Sounds contradictory? Let me elaborate.

When I was really young, I thought that airplanes fly because air hit the wings and get deflected downwards (partially correct). I mean like balls bouncing off the wings and creating a upward momentum. I thought this, because of the phenomena that when I fold the back of the wings of a paper plane up, they tend to go upwards. So I just thought that the 'balls of air' will push the wing and cause the plane to pitch.

However I later found out that a fluid doesn't act like a solid. The path of a fluid curves even before hitting the obstructing surface. So upon learning Bernoulli's Theorem, I thought I knew how wings can fly. This explanation, I thought always correct, and perhaps many others is in fact a misconception: Air flowing above the airfoil takes a longer time to reach the end, while that flowing below the airfoil takes a shorter time, so the air above has to flow faster, thus causing a lower pressure on top.

The flaw in this explanation lies in which, there is no logical explanation as to why the air on top should meet the air below at the same time, so there is no reason for it to be faster.

I found this website in an attempt to understand how wings work. I don't quite get it still, but it is an improvement compared to the wrong stuff that I always thought was correct.

So now I have now upgraded from not knowing what I don't know, to knowing what I don't know.

Next, the lecturer talked abit about animal flight, something I have already listened to during the NUS physics camp. Exact replica. He showed us a few high speed camera videos of birds flying. Some think that its funny, I think that it's really impressive to see stuff like hummingbirds flapping their wings in slow motion. And albatrosses crash landing. And the eagle's precise landing by diving below its eyrie and swooping up again, converting its kinetic energy all into potential for a steady landing.

The following week was a lesson about aircraft stability and control surfaces by Dr Robert Goh from DSO. From the way he speaks, the impression that he gave me was that he knows his stuff much better than the NUS lecturer. The lecture this time was more towards the engineering side, rather than the science and vortices and fluid stuff. So it was quite a lot easier to understand. It didn't really teach a lot, but it was a great exposure to what to expect in the field of aerospace engineering.

I mainly remembered two simple things from the lesson. 1) Dihedral wings give a plane stability because rolling to one side will cause one side of the wing to have greater lift. 2) Found out the use of the tail plane. To correct yawing moments of the plane.

Followed by that we went to the field for a flight demonstration. First we looked at an expert flying a huge R/C plane (maybe around 80cm long) with bulky wings. From the looks of it costs around 300 dollars. The thrust it generates is impressive. The range is 2 km. I have had always a liking for vehicles since a child. By imagining little people just beside the vehicle, and making the vehicle move fast, I place myself in the viewpoint of those little people, and thus they look really magnificent to me. I still can't really believe how 'young at heart' or childish or whatever adjective you use to call a person who a few months ago took a big lego commercial jet flying it around the house and making it take off and land over and over again, I am.

Then the guy showed us a big flapping bird which could not fly as fast, but still it can fly faster than I thought. Not very agile. It attracted a bird which flew near, but it soon flew away when it knew it wasn't a bird.

Lastly, he flew a UFO like thing with 4 propellers. By the looks of it, having to control each propeller individually, it is a hard vehicle to control. Then he tried to do a loop the loop with it, and when it reached the top of the loop it thrusted down towards the ground and smashed.

I really hope I can fly a big model airplane someday. Ironically I wouldn't want to fly in a real one for two reasons.

1) I wouldn't be able to witness it flying from the outside. It will be just a screen, like watching TV if I sit inside the airplane. Maybe a wide surround screen, but still a screen.

2) Maybe looking at screens isn't that boring after all, if you see stuff flying towards you without a need of 3D glasses or if you see grounds spinning towards you. But that isn't really the kind of excitement I am looking for.

Roommates

First, I decided that I was probably going to room with Eugene, but wenbo was feeling so emotional over not having a roommate. Furthermore, he wanted one so he could toilet jx and jeremy. Then Raynor came along and asked me if I wanted to room him. I decided that it would be alright, if only Eugene wanted to room with wenbo. Problem is, nobody seemed to want to room with him. So I set up a conference, hoping to deal with this in a just and fair way. Afterall, my conscience got the better of me, and considering that a few decisions would be affecting the lives of a few for a year, I really felt responsible. So we managed to reach a consensus that Raynor, Eugene and I will toilet each other. We had to find a fourth, and upon asking wenbo whether he wanted to be the fourth, on the condition that he couldn't toilet jx and jeremy anymore, he refused. He rather be without a roommate, possibly because randomizing himself will give him a glimmer of hope getting to toilet jx and jeremy. He asked Jk to room him, and at first Jk rejected. Our conference decided that if wenbo did not want to join us, Jk, not wanting to room wenbo, will join in. However, Jk doesn't really sense our hints to him and took wenbo as an insurance lest he really didn't have any roommate. So Eugene, Raynor and I have at least accomplished something, getting wenbo a roommate. But our fourth was still missing, so we asked Tung, but Tung was being stuck up and refused since he didn't want to room with a bunch of 'nerds' which I suppose he should call himself one too considering that he likes physics so much. So during sports day I went to ask Toan. Cmc at the side was not being helpful at all, which I did not appreciate, by pointing out Raynor's flaws. So failed I, in coaxing Toan to room with Raynor. However. Raynor asked Tung again the next day, and he accepted this time, which I no longer cared much for since he have been such a ______. And just when our problems were thought to be settled, I brought up the wrong topic as Jk and I were walking home from DSO, and he kindly revealed his plans to me, and asked if he could replace Tung and ditch Wb. As I questioned him over msn about how he would break it to Wb, he had reservations about it and thus I could not put my confidence in him to settle this in a win-win manner, or perhaps just the best way. Thus Eugene was rather unsupportive of having him as a toiletmate, and I was beginning to have my doubts to. So knowing that although logically it would be correct for Jk to ditch Wb as they had an agreement, it was morally wrong as Jk had knew in advance that the agreement would not be met. So I constantly tried to hint Raynor over MSN that why not we all do some people favours and give unwanted people a chance to have a roommate. Unfortunately, my obvious hints were not understood by him, or even if they were they were ignored, and Raynor called Tung to confirm whether they were rooming. Then Tung said if he was alright with it he would go with someone else, and Raynor just agreed. So Jk came to join raynor and broke it to Wb that he no longer had a roommate. Since I have been part of the conference, I somehow felt responsible, and if I just left Wb like that, my efforts in even, setting up this conference would be in vain. So I had to press on and desperately help Wb get a roommate. Some people already had a roommate, and Toan was the only one who didn't. I didn't have high hopes about it, as he previously mentioned that he wanted to room with people he knew. However I felt that if there were people that he knew who did not have a roommate yet they would have paired long ago, so I accompanied Wb to try to convince him that if he randoms it, he would not only not have the chance to room with someone he knew, and he would instead probably room with someone unbearable to him. So the agreement was closed, and that put a final end to a 5 day conference about roommates.

The End

A bowl of red bean soup

A couple of weeks ago my mother bought a few bowls of keychains that had soup inside it. I'm guessing it's glass or something, but more probably plastic. I hooked the bowl of red bean soup onto my pencil case, and it attracted some attention from a few school mates over a few days. A surprising number of them actually thought that the soup was real (or maybe they were just faking it)

And some of they commented that, costing one dollar, and having no practical usage, it was pretty not worth.

But during one chinese lesson, this bowl of red bean soup saved me. I have not been doing my O level practice papers, from 1-6, and the fact that it was plain impossible for me to finish doing them, even with cross referencing the answers at the back. I had to start somewhere hadn't I? But laziness got the better of me and as time slipped past, hope became slimmer and thus I was even more not bothered to start doing them.

As my chinese teacher walked past my table, she looked at my keychain. She then made a remark about me liking red bean soup. Then I casually agreed, and she made another comment that I am vegetarian, causing me to like red bean soup. And I asked how she knew, and she told me she taught me since year 2. I replied, "Really?" And she said yea. And she laughed, and walked away, forgetting to check my undone work.

Theremin

During physics lesson we were learning about capacitors, and we were showed a video of a Theremin. Invented in 1928, it is an electronic musical instrument that requires no contact. One hand controls the volume, while the other controls the pitch. Apparently it all has something to do with capacitors. When the distance between the hand and the instrument is increased, the pitch decreases; and the shape of the hand plays a part too, due to different surface areas.

It looks really challenging. Like trombones and string instruments, the pitch is over a continuous range, which might lead to undesirable slides in pitch, which means that the performer's hands have to change very fast. And there is no physical feedback other than the sound, unlike strings, when you can rely on feeling the tension or vibration. So I suppose muscle memory is extremely important.

This one sounds very space-like, imagine trying communicate with an alien.

The classic, the Swan.

Rachaminov's Vocalise

I guess that's about it, some people say that the strings are the hardest musical instrument to learn, but I think that the difficulty to master the Theremin is comparable.

I find it really cool.

The Periodic Table of the Elements Memory Train - Part 3

Now I'm just going to complete this thing for the sake of doing so. It just doesn't feel write to start things without ending them, no matter how horrible the ending is.

"Throughout my journies, I have never encounter any LANTHANIDE metals, let alone Barium!"

"Then you shall feel the wrath of my nuclear submarine with HAFNIUM nuclear reactors!"

But before the bear fired, he got tantalised by a bag of TANTALITE. So the bear grabbed it and ran away.

Tin tin jumped onto his rocket, switched on the TUNGSTEN lightbulbs as headlamps, and started his RHENIUM rocket engines.

The bear cried: "OSMIUM comes ofter rhenium doesn't it?"

"And next would be irritating IRIDIUM wouldn't it? How do you expect this sort of thing is going to help anyone memorize the order of elements?"

The bear replied, "You have a point there, but you'll never catch me because I have all the PLATINUM and GOLD in the world to distract you."

And then the bear leapt of the surface of the earth and flew towards MERCURY

Do you know how to spell THALLIUM? It's T-H-A-L-L-I-U-M!

The bear LEAD the rocket to mercury. It turns out that mercury had inhabitants who installed BISMUTH fire sprinklers all over the place in case mercury caught fire...

The bear thought: "This surface is rather lifeless..." So he took out a bag and sprinkled POLONIUM which he thought was a synonym of pollen. The inhabitants saw this and demanded for ASTATINE, RADON, FRANCIUM, RADIUM and ACTINIDE metals.

And thus the whole story repeats itself.

This is by far the most STUPID thing I have ever written and I'm glad I won't have to bother about it anymore.

Fermat's Last Theorem

x^n + y^n = z^n; no integer solution.

This is Fermat's last Theorem, so named because it is the last conjecture which remained unproved among Fermat's notes. So rather, it should be called Fermat' last conjecture. For 350 years, it baffled mathematical minds, until in 1993, it was finally cracked.

"I have discovered a truly marvelous proof that it is impossible to separate a cube into two cubes, or a fourth power into two fourth powers, or in general, any power higher than the second into two like powers. This margin is too narrow to contain it."

This was what Fermat claimed, on his copy of Arithmetica, and though it was a tantalizing remark, no one was sure whether it was true that he found a proof that did not require 20th century mathematics, or whether it was just one of the thousand proofs with subtle errors in them.

300 years later, inspired by media attention of the unbreakable mystery, a piece of graffiti found its way onto New York's Eight Street subway station:

x^n + y^n = z^n; no solution

I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of this, but I can't write it now because my train is coming.

Computers started to get powerful in the late 20th century, but these algorithmic machines are pretty much useless in the branch of number theory. There are infinitely many values to check for, and even if a trillion are checked, there is no guarantee that the next one would disprove the conjecture.

In the seventeenth century mathematicians showed that the following numbers are all prime:

31; 331; 3331; 33331; 333331; 3333331; 33333331

However, the next number, 333333331 turned out not to be a prime.

333333331 = 17*19607843

Euler's conjecture stated that x^4+y^4+z^4 = z^4 did not have any integer solutions. For two hundred years nobody could prove the conjecture, neither could they disprove it by finding a counter example. Then in 1988, Naom Elkies of Harvard University discovered:

2683440^4 + 15365639^4 + 18796760^4 = 20615673^4

But these two examples would be considered nothing to the next:

When Carl Gauss was 14 years old, he predicted the approximate manner in which the frequency of prime numbers would decline. The formula was rather accurate, except that it seemed to overestimate the true distribution of prime numbers. Testing for primes up to millions, billions, trillions, it just was a little too much. Thus mathematicians were tempted to believe that this would hold true for all numbers, thus giving rise to the overestimated prime conjecture...

In 1914, J.E. Littlewood proved that in a sufficiently large regime, this would no longer hold; Gauss' approximation would underestimate the number of primes. In 1955 S.Skewes showed that the underestimate would occur sometime before reaching:

10^10^10000000000000000000000000000000000

It is estimated that if one played chess with all the particles in the universe, where a move meant interchanging any two particles, then the number of possible games was roughly this number.

There was no reason that Fermat's last theorem wouldn't be as cruel as these.

Source: Simon Singh (1997). Fermat's Enigma. New York: Walker.