More about 1729.
Ofcourse any school kid can tell you that the "Ramanujan Number" 1729 is the smallest positive integer that can be written as the sum of the cubes of two numbers in two different ways.
1729 = 10^3 + 9^3 = 12^3 + 1^3
I learned few interesting stuff recently.
1+7+2+9 = 19 and 19 * 91= 1729
Consider the prime numbers 7,13 and 19 which form an arithmetic progression, 7*13*19 = 1729
1729 is not "really" the smallest number with the property that Ramanujan discovered, infact it is 91 if negative numbers are also considered.
91 = 4^3 + 3^3 = 6^3 + (-5)^3
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Big Rock Candy Mountain
I watched the movie "O brother, where art thou" and i have fallen in love with it. I played the movie several times hopping to the songs and i have already listened to the "Big Rock Candy Mountain" at least ten times today.
"Big Rock Candy Mountain" is a song about a hobo's idea of paradise - a modern version of the medieval concept of Cockaigne.The Land of Cockaigne was the medieval peasant’s dream, offering relief from backbreaking labor and the daily struggle for meager food. It was where,
"The houses were made of barley sugar and cakes, the streets were paved with pastry, and the shops supplied goods for nothing. Roasted pigs wander about with knives in their backs to make carving easy, where grilled geese fly directly into one's mouth, where cooked fish jump out of the water and land at one's feet. The weather is always mild, the wine flows freely, sex is readily available, and all people enjoy eternal youth"
Big Rock Candy Mountain
One evening as the sun went down and the jungle fire was burning
Down the track came a hobo hiking and he said boys I'm not turning
I'm headin for a land that's far away beside the crystal fountains
So come with me we'll go and see the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains there's a land that's fair and bright
Where the handouts grow on bushes and you sleep out every night
Where the boxcars are all empty and the sun shines every day
On the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees
Where the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains all the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft boiled eggs
The farmer's trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay
Oh, I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow
Where the rain don't fall and the wind don't blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains you never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol come a-trickling down the rocks
The brakemen have to tip their hats and the railroad bulls are blind
There's a lake of stew and of whiskey too
You can paddle all around 'em in a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains the jails are made of tin
And you can walk right out again as soon as you are in
There ain't no short handled shovels, no axes saws or picks
I'm a goin to stay where you sleep all day
Where they hung the jerk that invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
I'll see you all this coming fall in the Big Rock Candy Mountains
I watched the movie "O brother, where art thou" and i have fallen in love with it. I played the movie several times hopping to the songs and i have already listened to the "Big Rock Candy Mountain" at least ten times today.
"Big Rock Candy Mountain" is a song about a hobo's idea of paradise - a modern version of the medieval concept of Cockaigne.The Land of Cockaigne was the medieval peasant’s dream, offering relief from backbreaking labor and the daily struggle for meager food. It was where,
"The houses were made of barley sugar and cakes, the streets were paved with pastry, and the shops supplied goods for nothing. Roasted pigs wander about with knives in their backs to make carving easy, where grilled geese fly directly into one's mouth, where cooked fish jump out of the water and land at one's feet. The weather is always mild, the wine flows freely, sex is readily available, and all people enjoy eternal youth"
Big Rock Candy Mountain
One evening as the sun went down and the jungle fire was burning
Down the track came a hobo hiking and he said boys I'm not turning
I'm headin for a land that's far away beside the crystal fountains
So come with me we'll go and see the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains there's a land that's fair and bright
Where the handouts grow on bushes and you sleep out every night
Where the boxcars are all empty and the sun shines every day
On the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees
Where the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains all the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft boiled eggs
The farmer's trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay
Oh, I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow
Where the rain don't fall and the wind don't blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains you never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol come a-trickling down the rocks
The brakemen have to tip their hats and the railroad bulls are blind
There's a lake of stew and of whiskey too
You can paddle all around 'em in a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains the jails are made of tin
And you can walk right out again as soon as you are in
There ain't no short handled shovels, no axes saws or picks
I'm a goin to stay where you sleep all day
Where they hung the jerk that invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
I'll see you all this coming fall in the Big Rock Candy Mountains
Saturday, October 21, 2006
On the shores of Lake George! The winter is finally here ! The water is stark blue, something which i failed to notice when i went there in Summer. It was crowded with boats in summer and now the winter has forced them ashore. The shops and restaurants have all shut down and and the streets are empty.The bustle and commotion of summer have made way for the torpidity of winter. Soon, the leaves will all be gone. Snow storms and blizzards will take over this land. The beauty of spring and the heat of summer will all be memories. But the winter will bring with it its own adventures. I would love to go snowbiking and skiing.Spring and Summer were welcomed with cheers. Winter may always be an unwelcomed guest who overstays.
Monday, October 9, 2006
Visit to Swartswood State Park
| This was taken during a visit to Swartswood State Park, New Jersey yesterday. It surprises me that the fall has arrived in NJ while the trees are still green up where i live (Schenectady, NY). | |
Thursday, October 5, 2006
The Horse Shoe Falls - NIAGARA
| I took this video from the boat "Maid of the Mist" right from under the Horse Shoe falls which is the largest of the Niagara falls. The view from the boat is breath taking as it takes you close to the falls and makes you feel all its power. The clip is brief and is hazy due to the heavy mist near the fall. Enough water flows down the horse shoe falls to fill a million bath tubs every second. It was a truly great experience. | |
Monday, October 2, 2006
A typical week end swished past me and before i could even realise, it is the uphill climb - It is monday !! Weather played the spoil sport on saturday and i stayed indoors with my books. Sunday saw me watch two movies - "An Inconvenient Truth" at the Proctors and after reaching home , i watched Kevin Costner's "Dances with the Wolves". Simple story, well told. Inconvenient Truth, on the other hand is a poignant tale of a beautiful planet called Earth being eaten alive by a species called Homo Sapiens. It makes you walk out of the theatre with a heavy heart. But for the positive note on which the movie ends, the heaviness would have lingered on longer. Forget Al Gore, forget global warming, i have myself been witness to the slow and tragic death of a river that flows through my erst while neighbourhood. We used to swim in those waters long ago, now it is nothing but a sewage canal whose stench can be felt several yards away.
I am depressed :-(
I am depressed :-(
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Theism to Atheism, Agnosticism to Realism
I generally loathe putting text copied from another page on my blog. But this time I shall make an exception. At the very end of this post you will find an excerpt from Bhagat Singh's diary, written in 1930 and his musings on Atheism.
It has prompted me to write something on "My Faith" - This is certainly one of the toughest subjects to write/speak about. At least, that what I have often felt. Questions about the existence and perception of God, raise a tempest in my mind. My rebel and rational mind never accepts religions, in the form they are today and hence I prefer keeping my debates private. The very fact that I am posting them here causes consternation. This is supposed to be a deeply personal matter. That being the case,I am not going to use valuable bytes to paint my mind here. Instead, let me reminisce.
I recall those rebellious teenage years when I refused to visit temples, how I refused to go out an bow before deities, how much these words from Rabindra Nath Tagore's Gitanjali inspired me (It was a poem that we had to study in school) ;
Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads!
Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut?
Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!
He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground
and where the pathmaker is breaking stones.
He is with them in sun and in shower,
and his garment is covered with dust.
Put off thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil!
Deliverance?
Where is this deliverance to be found?
Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation;
he is bound with us all for ever.
Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense!
What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained?
Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow.
Years passed by and I changed , I became a turncoat,I started to read works of Swami Vivekananda The metamorphosis kicked in and I found myself a Theist. Things never stopped there. The rebel in me was still searching for an identity, I didn't get my answers or consolation in religion. I became doubtful, felt that my actions were nothing but self deception, my faith was another hypocrisy, my mind squirmed when my tongue uttered prayers, the wheels started to move...days and months went by and I called myself a Realist. I didn't care if the glass was half full or half empty...If I was thirsty I just wanted to drink it ! If God existed, good for him. The void in my heart and mind, my bones and flesh coalesced, I was hollow from within. My version of Realism gave me an opportunity to run towards ignorance. I didn't care if there was a soul,I didn't want to know, it never fetched me three square meals a day.
Sometimes I laugh , but mostly I have sympathy for that boy who was stuck somewhere in the turbulence of his age. I would like to talk to him someday when all my hairs have turned grey and I clutch on to a stick only to walk with a stagger. May be I can reach to him in ways that no one has or can ever reach and make him be at peace with the world.
I have changed a lot. May be I have not let gone of all my idiosyncrasies but another metamorphosis has moved me through Agnosticism and unnamed, unknown realms. I do not know, for sure whether there is an omnipresent,omniscient and omnipotent force who conjured this Universe up, but I realise that I am just a blip on screen. I have not have seen, heard or felt the Almighty and I have not seen or heard about anything that corroborates its presence. But I think often that if I could "see" a lot more frequencies of the Electromagnetic spectrum my Universe would change for ever. Those Cosmic and radio waves originating in outer space will not simply pass through me, but would evoke something in me and open my mind. I tend to think that people in their beliefs, in their religions, in their practices and in their lives in general are doing nothing but search for that elusive place where there will be no turbulence and no further quest. I may not have answers to everything that my mind throws at me. I try hard to rationalise and "now" for me, where rationality ends, Silence begins.
:-) Long post...never thought I would write so much when I started. By the way here is the link to Bhagat Singh's thoughts.
I generally loathe putting text copied from another page on my blog. But this time I shall make an exception. At the very end of this post you will find an excerpt from Bhagat Singh's diary, written in 1930 and his musings on Atheism.
It has prompted me to write something on "My Faith" - This is certainly one of the toughest subjects to write/speak about. At least, that what I have often felt. Questions about the existence and perception of God, raise a tempest in my mind. My rebel and rational mind never accepts religions, in the form they are today and hence I prefer keeping my debates private. The very fact that I am posting them here causes consternation. This is supposed to be a deeply personal matter. That being the case,I am not going to use valuable bytes to paint my mind here. Instead, let me reminisce.
I recall those rebellious teenage years when I refused to visit temples, how I refused to go out an bow before deities, how much these words from Rabindra Nath Tagore's Gitanjali inspired me (It was a poem that we had to study in school) ;
Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads!
Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut?
Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!
He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground
and where the pathmaker is breaking stones.
He is with them in sun and in shower,
and his garment is covered with dust.
Put off thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil!
Deliverance?
Where is this deliverance to be found?
Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation;
he is bound with us all for ever.
Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense!
What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained?
Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow.
Years passed by and I changed , I became a turncoat,I started to read works of Swami Vivekananda The metamorphosis kicked in and I found myself a Theist. Things never stopped there. The rebel in me was still searching for an identity, I didn't get my answers or consolation in religion. I became doubtful, felt that my actions were nothing but self deception, my faith was another hypocrisy, my mind squirmed when my tongue uttered prayers, the wheels started to move...days and months went by and I called myself a Realist. I didn't care if the glass was half full or half empty...If I was thirsty I just wanted to drink it ! If God existed, good for him. The void in my heart and mind, my bones and flesh coalesced, I was hollow from within. My version of Realism gave me an opportunity to run towards ignorance. I didn't care if there was a soul,I didn't want to know, it never fetched me three square meals a day.
Sometimes I laugh , but mostly I have sympathy for that boy who was stuck somewhere in the turbulence of his age. I would like to talk to him someday when all my hairs have turned grey and I clutch on to a stick only to walk with a stagger. May be I can reach to him in ways that no one has or can ever reach and make him be at peace with the world.
I have changed a lot. May be I have not let gone of all my idiosyncrasies but another metamorphosis has moved me through Agnosticism and unnamed, unknown realms. I do not know, for sure whether there is an omnipresent,omniscient and omnipotent force who conjured this Universe up, but I realise that I am just a blip on screen. I have not have seen, heard or felt the Almighty and I have not seen or heard about anything that corroborates its presence. But I think often that if I could "see" a lot more frequencies of the Electromagnetic spectrum my Universe would change for ever. Those Cosmic and radio waves originating in outer space will not simply pass through me, but would evoke something in me and open my mind. I tend to think that people in their beliefs, in their religions, in their practices and in their lives in general are doing nothing but search for that elusive place where there will be no turbulence and no further quest. I may not have answers to everything that my mind throws at me. I try hard to rationalise and "now" for me, where rationality ends, Silence begins.
:-) Long post...never thought I would write so much when I started. By the way here is the link to Bhagat Singh's thoughts.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Visited an Apple orchard today. Came back with a bag full of apples, fresh and plucked right off the tree. Not sure what to do with so many of them. Apple Pie, Apple dumplings, Apple Muffin, Apple Cake, Apple Shake, Apple Crunch, Baked Apple, Fried Apple, Apple Cookies, Apple Nut Dessert, Caramel Apple Dessert, Grated Apple Dessert......Jeez give me a break !
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Beating India to the Drain !
Recently, I was disheartened to read about the Indian Government's move to introduce reservations in Universities, public and the private sectors. The news left me pondering whether any other nation on Earth would ever perform such a self destructive act. Well, the Economist (July 15th 2006 ) tells that we are not alone in the race to the drain. Brazil, too is coming up with "Quotas". While it is caste based reservation in India, it is going to be based on colour in Brazil.
The government of Brazil is planning to reduce the official race types to five - White, Oriental, Indigenous, Black and Pardo (Brown). Unofficial surveys say that there 136 terms by which Brazilians classify their complexion, from "Snow White" to "Cinnamon".
The Racial Quota Law and the Racial Equality statute would create reservations in Universities, Civil Services and the private sector. An initial quota of 20% (which would in course of time rise to 50%) of senior civil service jobs and vacancies at federal universities are to be set aside for those of "African Ancestry". The Indians too would benefit from these new laws.
Like India, Brazilians too appear divided on this issue. Those in favour of the draft point to the deep racial divide and the poor living conditions of the majority of the negroes and pardos. Those against the law argue that what is required in the place of such a law is a broad system of incentives - study grants and tutorials for the poor which would reach all Brazilians, whatever be their complexion.
So, what is the moral of the story ? I would say that America's greatest export - democracy is not the panacea for all political evils. Infact, democracy brings together demons who become intoxicated with power and leave no stone unturned to divide the masses and stay in power.
Blame the hoi polloi for staying blind and deaf.
Recently, I was disheartened to read about the Indian Government's move to introduce reservations in Universities, public and the private sectors. The news left me pondering whether any other nation on Earth would ever perform such a self destructive act. Well, the Economist (July 15th 2006 ) tells that we are not alone in the race to the drain. Brazil, too is coming up with "Quotas". While it is caste based reservation in India, it is going to be based on colour in Brazil.
The government of Brazil is planning to reduce the official race types to five - White, Oriental, Indigenous, Black and Pardo (Brown). Unofficial surveys say that there 136 terms by which Brazilians classify their complexion, from "Snow White" to "Cinnamon".
The Racial Quota Law and the Racial Equality statute would create reservations in Universities, Civil Services and the private sector. An initial quota of 20% (which would in course of time rise to 50%) of senior civil service jobs and vacancies at federal universities are to be set aside for those of "African Ancestry". The Indians too would benefit from these new laws.
Like India, Brazilians too appear divided on this issue. Those in favour of the draft point to the deep racial divide and the poor living conditions of the majority of the negroes and pardos. Those against the law argue that what is required in the place of such a law is a broad system of incentives - study grants and tutorials for the poor which would reach all Brazilians, whatever be their complexion.
So, what is the moral of the story ? I would say that America's greatest export - democracy is not the panacea for all political evils. Infact, democracy brings together demons who become intoxicated with power and leave no stone unturned to divide the masses and stay in power.
Blame the hoi polloi for staying blind and deaf.
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