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