loops

I found something better than xkcd,

k that statement is not entirely true, since it's a project by the same author. Thus, I correct the statement to: "I found something better than the main comic of xkcd: What If".

In other news, back at res and somewhat ready for a new semester. Preparations included reading through ESP II's course documents (simultaneously looking forward to and dreading this course), filling out new planner, and playing Risk with friends until 2am.
At least I sleep better at Chestnut.

mortar and pestle

Here's a lot of baking and posting to make up for the lack of either once next semester starts.

(dear Apple, please pack a bigger sensor into the next iphone camera so pictures can look this good even in lower lighting)

Mmmmm cookies.

Originally, it's a largely painless process, especially since I've started to enjoy creaming butter and sugar. But no, turns out that all my brown sugar has all hardened. So there went an hour grinding them up, and scattering sugar into perhaps every nook and cranny of the kitchen. I was also initially worried that the dough was really dry and crumbly, but they turned out well :)

All in all a success, recipe via Everybody Likes Sandwiches.
(listen to her, the addition of salted almonds makes it so much better)

Chaos: Making a New Science

Another popular science book, whoo!

Though I have mixed feelings about the genre as a whole. Since they're written with the general population as the intended audience, they really don't say much about the topic. The focus is usually on the history of the subject and important contributors. I'm confident that the associated Wikipedia articles contain more technical information. However, the plus side is that the quality of the writing is much better and the ones I pick up are rather humorous.

Moving on,

The content of the book deals with the emergence of the study of chaos theory, and is easily summarized through the following quotation, describing a paradigm shift from

Simple systems behave in simple ways.
Complex behaviour implies complex causes.
Different systems behave differently.

to

Simple systems give arise to complex behaviours.
Complex systems give arise to simple behaviours. 
And most important, the laws of complexity hold universally, caring not at all for the details of a system's constituent atoms.

Continuing from the first paragraph about popular science books, the explanation of the subject goes as far as "what the theory is", excluding the "how it predicts what it predicts" and "why it works". To be fair, answering the latter two question requires significantly more knowledge than I/the public possess.

Now back to the book, there's an interesting quotation on what theories are/do:

The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work.

John Von Neumann

Cue my calc prof stressing the importance of knowing how apply the math we learned to model real life situations.

And in relation to professors, I found the last sentence hilarious:

"Faculty members are familiar with a certain kind of person who looks to the mathematicians like a good physicist and looks to the physicists like a good mathematician. Very properly, they do not want that kind of person around." [Murray-Gell Man]. The standards of the two professions were very different. Mathematicians proved theorems by ratiocination; physicists' proofs used heavier equipment.

Generalizing to the difference between hard and soft sciences:

In the hard sciences, investigators found it easier to amass their thousands or millions of data points. Economists, like biologists, dealt with a world of willful living beings. Economists studied the most elusive creatures of all.

This description is how I always imagined university when I was young:

[The] room taken over by the chaos group developed its own atmosphere, with piles of apper and pictures of Tahitian islanders on the walls, and eventually, printouts of strange attractors. Ar almost any hour, though night was a safer bet than morning, a visitor could see members of the group rearranging circuitry, tanking out patch cords, arguing about consciousness or evolution, adjusting an oscilloscope display, or just staring while a glowing green spot traced a curve of light, its orbit flickering and seething like something alive.

(this is going off on a tangent) I feel slightly sad that I'm not planning on doing any post-grad research. Having a space that's dedicated to the pursue of a single thing seems so wonderful. Maybe that's why I love looking at photos of artists' studios.

(and back again) The next quotation is in relation to the previous book. An explanation for the existence of the universe was that it was just the result of a quantum fluctuation. The rebuttal, however, was that the laws of physics would require an explanation, therefore this didn't really count as the first-cause. I find it a coincidence to see the author of this book mention that

I always felt that the spontaneous emergence of self-organization ought to be part of physics.

And my favourite for the last:

"God plays dice with the universe," is [Joseph] Ford's answer to Einstein's famous question. "But they're loaded dice. And the main objective of physics now is find out by what rules were they loaded and how can we use them for our own ends."

I'll always have a soft spot for any answer to Einstein's statement of "I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice".

attractors

Today has been a good day.
It's been a day of lazing on the sofa with a interesting book, a cup of tea, a cozy blanket and the occasional internet breaks.

More days of the break should have been spent like this @_@

Why Does the World Exist?

Good way to start the year by finally finishing something that is not a textbook.

aka the exploration of the most profound question that one can ask.

The book's chapters are divided by different possible answers to the question "why is there something rather than nothing?" Though to ask this question, one must assume that "something" actually exists. A "proof" of such is offered in the prologue:

A quick proof that there must be something rather than nothing, for modern people who lead busy lives:
Suppose there were nothing. Then there would be no laws; for laws, after all, are something. if there were no laws, then everything would be permitted. If everything were permitted, than nothing would be forbidden. So if there were nothing, nothing would be forbidden. Thus nothing is self-forbidding.
Therefore, there must be something. QED.

The rest of the book is also filled with even more subtly worded arguments, presented through Holt's conversations with a range of philosophers and theoretical physicists. Along the way are interludes of his amusing experiences at Cafe de Flore (where Satre and others have pondered the same question).

Some interesting quotations:

Science is a differential equation, religion is the boundary condition

This one is from Alan Turing, and I'm sure I'll find this much funnier once I actually learn about differential equations next year.

We tend to think that value can bring something into existence only with the aid of some mechanism [...] But such a mechanism could never explain the existence of a world. It could never explain why there is Something rather than Nothing, because it would be part of the Something to be explained"

This is a reoccurring rebuttal to many of the theories in the book. Ways to get around this often ends in tautology (terrible), or ends up resorting to a brute fact (equally unsatisfying).

He expressed amazement that mathematics could be so complicated. A mathematician had told him that 80 percent of mathematics was about infinity. And he was horrified to learn that there was more than one infinity!

In regards to philosopher Derek Parfit, I find his remark very funny.

It would be very odd if the Big Bang came with a label that said, "THIS MECHANISM OPERATED ONLY ONCE"

 I can totally imagine this appearing in Hitchhiker xD

A man finds himself, to his great astonishment, suddenly existing, after thousands of years of non-existence; he lives for a little while; and then, again, comes an equally long period when he must exist no more. The heart rebels against this, and feels that it cannot be true

from The Vanity of Existence by Arthur Schopenhauer. The book shifts from cosmic existence to personal consciousness (what is the "I" in Descartes' "I am thinking, therefore I exist"?), and eventually comes to the topic of death and the fear of it (is that Giardine smiling I see?).

Lastly, a few funny definitions:

Philosophy, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
Reality, n. The dream of a mad philosopher.

from The Devil's Dictionary (this where I will be spending the rest of the day).

ceramic

I have found my incentive to wake up earlier every morning.

Smelling tea as it brews it perhaps one of the greatest feelings in the world.
(thanks again for the mug Donna :D )

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Learning how to use InDesign, imo soooo much more useful than Photoshop! At least for academic/extracurricular purposes (ie. poster making). So amazed at frames and the various smart guides, how did I ever live without them.

resolutions '13

Uhhh...
I'm actually drawing a blank this year.

Aside from the ones that carry over unfulfilled every year: sleep more, read more, get better grades, exercise, etc, really can't think of any unique goals for 2013.

Something cool that Sarah posted is having a jar and filling it with slips of paper describing a happy moment each day. But knowing me and daily commitments, highhhhly unlikely that this will go very far. Instead, guess I'll bust out a notebook from my collection of many and record them there.

Which in turn reminds me that I really ought to use more of my stashed goods rather than buying so many new items. This applies to stationary, cloths, cosmetics, and soaps (ahahaa I'll never get through these). So let it be that in 2013 I will not purchase random pretty colours of gel pens, edit down my closet (and donate the extras), and resist the temptation to walk into Sephora/Lush. In conjunction, I will actually use whatever I already own instead of admiring their packaging.

Oh and explore downtown on foot once the weather warms up. Walking in the cold is just a miserable experience @_@"

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xkcd, obviously, has the best resolution.