Post-finals euphoria music

Hokey so...finally done with finals (sorry that's the best I can come up with right now). Ten quarters done, two precious ones to go. On my way back from the classroom today, I had his spontaneous urge to start humming AC/DC's Girls got rhythm . Naturally the first I did when I got to my apartment was to flip open my laptop, head straight to youtube and play it.

He starts off so imperiously here too: "I've been around the world..." and that gives the song an irreverent, cocky tone throughout (which, I have no doubt, is precisely what Messrs. Young and Co. had in mind).  Really infectious riff here. And the screeching, rather than being obnoxious, just adds to the magnificent aura of this song. Cheers:

Goodbye to a great mathematician

A couple days ago, I read that famous mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot passed away. If you are not a math nerd or a math hobbyist, you probably have never heard of him before. If you are, however, interested in the fascinating aspects of weird geometries and crazy sequences, you probably worship the man. He is credited with inventing fractal geometry, a branch of mathematics that deals with fractals. I will try my best to go briefly over them, but forgive me if I am not able to clearly explain the idea.

In my precalculus class in high school, there were some forbidden (i.e. chapters we were not going to cover in the class) chapters at the back of the book. One day, I flipped through some of them just out of curiosity. I felt a lot like Harry Potter stealthily walking around the forbidden forest. One of these forbidden chapters talked about something called fractals. This intrigued me a lot. I knew what fractions were (thanks to my third grade math teacher), but what kind of  a beast was this fractal?

I talked to my math teacher and he was nice enough to let me borrow a DVD on fractals. Fractals are, roughly put, geometrical entities that have infinite complexity at all levels of magnification. No matter how far you zoom into the object, you will keep unraveling more and more layers of complexity. The coastline of Britain is often used as an example of this. From the sky, it looks more or less uniform, but as you get closer and closer to it, you begin to see all the jagged edges, coves, etc. They also have a property called self-similarity, which basically means that small sections of a fractal share shape and other features with the fractal as a whole.This video illustrates both of these properties: (it shows the Mandelbrot set, named in honor of the man.)




Fractal geometry has been successfully used to calculate Cloud dynamics, formation of galaxy clusters and predict market fluctuations. Combined with cutting-edge computer technology, fractals have also been used to create stunning visual effects in movies.

Goodbye sir, and thank you for inspiring and captivating us.

The new aristocracy

Sorry I was AWL for a while there (Away With Leave - it is my blog after all and I don't need leave to leave. Zing!). It was a busy week for me, but things are settling down for now.

Yes folks, it is that time of the year again. A bunch of dignified, boring looking people in black robes will huddle up in an elegant closed room and debate...wait, that's the supreme court. Sorry let me try again. A bunch of dignified, boring looking people will huddle up in an elegant closed room in Sweden (motto: not Norway) to decide the winners of the Nobel prize.

Alfred "dynamite" Nobel bequeathed an enormous sum of money to reward hard-working scientists after he felt enormous remorse at having invented dynamite. So every year the committee sits down and awards prizes in five categories: Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, Literature, and Peace. The Nobel prize in economics is a very slight misnomer because it was never specified in Nobel's original will, but was established later by another Swedish dude in memory of Alfred Nobel.

Being a nerd entitles me to obsess over the history and peculiarities of the Nobel prize, and I have proudly done so over the years. Let me share a few today.

• Like Herbert Hoover's reputation, the Nobel pot has appreciated in value. It is worth some $1.5 million today. Or, roughly what Charlie Sheen makes per episode of Two and a Half Laughs..er Men.
• Unlike the Oscars (see: Ledger, Heath), the Nobel is never awarded posthumously. As my friend (and roommate) JPA recently said, "Two rules to win a Nobel: Say something controversial and Don't die."
• The prize cannot be split between more than three people, but the rules of splitting are weird. Some times, one person gets half of the prize money while other two get a quarter of it. A little insulting.

For some (not us), the Nobel is a family affair.

• William Bragg and Lawrence Bragg are the only father-son duo to share a Nobel Prize. They won in 1915 for their work on X-Ray crystallography. Only 25 at the time, L. Bragg is also the youngest to win the prize. 
• Niels Bohr, that colossus of early 20th century physics won the prize in 1922. His son Aage matched the old man by winning it in 1975 for his work on refining the model of the nucleus.
• Arthur Kornberg won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1959 for discovering DNA Polymerase I. His son Roger won the Chemistry one in 2006 for solving the crystal structure of RNA Polymerase.

All of that pales in comparison to the mercurial Curie family. This superfamily produced three Nobels in all:

• Marie Curie shared the Physics Nobel in 1903 with her husband Pierre for their work on radiation. She won the 1911 prize in Chemistry for discovering Radium and Polonium. 
• Pierre and Marie must have done a great job raising their kids because their daughter Irene shared the Nobel in Chemistry with her husband Frederic in 1935 for their work on artificial radioactivity.

ABC take note: this is the real No Ordinary Family.

Winning one Nobel is hard. Winning two is near impossible. And yet there have been several two-peats:

• Linus Pauling: Pauling virtually created modern chemistry by working on a quantum mechanical model of molecular bond formation and was rightfully awarded the Chemistry prize in 1954. His Peace Nobel (for his work on nuclear nonproliferation) was a bit dubious, in my opinion. Then again, Peace prizes have always been marred by bizarre political overtones. (see: Kissinger, Henry for bringing "lasting peace in Vietnam" and Obama, Barack)
• As noted above, Marie Curie won it twice.
• Frederick Sanger: Sanger is the Kobe Bryant of Chemistry. He won it twice, in 1958 and 1980, for his work on protein synthesis and DNA sequencing, respectively.
• John Bardeen: The Jimmy Neutron, if you will. Bardeen won the Physics prize twice: Transistors (1956), and Superconductivity (1972). Thank him for your ipods and 5 TB harddrives and iFancyMacs.

Yabba Dabba Doo

September 30, 1960 was a groundbreaking day in animated television history.

On this day, the Flinstones premiered on ABC and in many ways, revamped the television landscape. Yeah those were the good old days when networks didn't have to resort to gimmicky ad campaigns (I am looking at you "The Event" with a misplaced E!) or outrageous plot devices ("Lost").

Flintstones was created by legendary creative duo William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, the wizards behind such beloved and memorable characters like Tom & Jerry, Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, Johnny Quest, Smurfs, Jetsons, Yogi Bear and so on and on and on.

The show made history right from the beginning. It was the first TV show ever to show a married couple (Fred and Wilma) in bed together. It was also the first animated series to be nominated for a primetime comedy Emmy. Not until 2009 (when Family Guy was nominated for a comedy Emmy) was another animated show nominated in a non-animation category.

The tremendous success of Flintstones inspired Hanna-Barbera to create the Jetsons. Whereas Flintstones was set in the stone age, the Jetsons was set in a highly futuristic age, an era replete with fashionable personalized space-cars, robotic maids and escalator-equipped houses.

The formula employed by the Flintstones was hardly unique. It was your typical suburban family tale with its typical suburban problems. What made it unique was its clever incorporation of themes that made it appealing to viewers of all ages. On the one hand, you have these episodes where Fred is forced to make difficult choices, his obligatory personal angel and demon goading him in opposite directions. Clearly, these scenarios were written to appeal to kids- to make them more moral and principled. On the other hand, the show touched upon issues like jealousy and workplace blues, which appealed to the adult crowd as well. Betty and Barney are often jealous of Fred and Wilma, and Fred often has to swallow the proverbial bitter pill when ordered to something unsavory by his boss at the Bedrock Quarry. Of course, it was always a pleasure to see Bam-Bam. And those feet-propelled cars. Great stuff. And who can forget poor Fred, locked out of his own house by his devilish cat (BTW, yet another proof that cats are devious engines of mischief).

Happily, Flintstones' charm still lingers on. I mean here I am, writing about a TV show I grew up watching on the Cartoon Network. Despite being a product of the 60's, it still resonates with us. Shows like Full House, Modern Family and Everybody Loves Raymond took many elements from the Flintstones. Walk into your neighborhood grocery store and you will find Pebbles cereal. The show even led to a full-fledged movie starring oft-married Elizabeth Taylor among others.

It's nice to see Google paying a homage to this wonderful wonderful show via its doodle .

So on September 30, wherever you are, whatever you happen to be drinking (wine, beer, champagne, rye, water, kool-aid, blood - just kidding about the last part), take time to raise your glass, chalice, cup, bottle, jar, pitcher or skull in honor of a show that truly exemplifies the concept of genius.