Today the results of my 7th semester exams were out. I hadn’t done a single exam well and obviously it showed in my results. My score ended up 8.29, pushing my CGPA from 9.10 to a tantalizing 8.99. Abhilaash as usual the topper by far at 9.71. I know I am deteriorating with my academic performances, but results such as these show that I can’t mug up and write pages and pages of bull-shit just to score marks. Most of the subjects seem to have such content since 5th semester and hence I’m consistently scoring below 9. I sincerely hope to change this trend and if possible score a perfect 10 in the final semester and give a chance for my CGPA to go beyond 9 again and gain a semblance of respectability
Honeywell-Nobel Foundation initiative has been doing the wonderful job of taking Nobel laureates to educational institutions and making them address students to inspire them to great great heights in their lives. As a part of that initiative, Dr. Eric Cornell, 2001 Physics Nobel Laureate visited TCE on 23,24 September 2009 and I was privileged to attend his talk on Bose-Einstein condensation which fetched him the Nobel Prize. It was during this session that I was inspired by English and hence the previous post.
Dr. Eric Cornell
Dr. Cornell’s talk wasn’t in Greek and Latin as I had feared it would be, it was far more understandable though I would have been unable to appreciate fully what he explained, only due to my lack of much knowledge in that domain. He was very down-to-earth, very friendly and very funny too. I enjoyed his sense of humour very much. Even for the n00bs who knew very little about the subject, he explained simply and clearly without confusing or overwhelming the listeners. Such a wonderful skill that is.
He then started talking about the Bose-Einstein condensation and the interesting story behind it – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyendra_Nath_Bose. It was so inspirational and I felt so proud that an Indian in 1920s had done so much of path-breaking work that even Einstein acknowledged and contributed to! Hats off!
Though Bose-Einstein condensation existed as a theoretical principle, no practical proof/samples were possible to create in about 60-70 odd years. In the 1980s there were some efforts to obtain the Bose-Einstein condensate which continued into the 1990s when Dr. Cornell and his colleague Dr. Karl Wiemann started working in the same direction. They were trying to cool down the atoms to a very low low temperature (in the order of nano kelvin) that the atomic motion will cease and they would form a condensate where each atom becomes indistinguishable and the group of atoms behave as one and exist as a single wave.
They used laser cooling (A technique that won its creators the Nobel prize) to bombard the Rubidium atoms from 6 directions so that they would slow down and stop at some point, where they will just fall down under gravity. As the motion of the atoms cease, the temperature will drop drastically. But if the falling atoms get to touch the container which is at room temperature, they will be boiled to a very high temperature and start moving again which will counteract the cooling. So they applied a concave magnetic field inside which the atoms fall into and stay put. Rubidium was chosen as it has one valence electron and it simplified a lot of things. This laser cooling cooled the gas atoms to a very low temperature but that was still too high for the Bose-Einstein condensation to happen. So they used one more cooling technique called ‘Evaporation cooling’ technique-the oldest known cooling technique known to man.
What they did was to compress and expand the magnetic field periodically so that the atoms with energy started moving and bounced out of the concave field, thereby lowering the temperature of the remaining atoms as atoms with temperature higher than the average temperature bounced out. Simple to hear but difficult to understand and implement.:-). The great man talked about how his colleagues and his students helped him with the experiment and narrated the difficult times they had in the beginning when there were no takers/funds for their work and also the wake-up call they received from competing efforts which propelled them to achieve the goal even faster.
When they achieved the goal of creating a sample of Bose-Einstein condensate, they had a peculiar problem of being unable to capture images with any available equipment. So they used some techniques and somehow were able to film the shadow of the Bose-Einstein condensate. But there was a problem with this setup too that whenever they took snaps, the temperature raise caused from the camera destroyed the condensate and they had to create it again for further work. Wow! Physics was getting biiiiiiiig at the smallest level! I was awestruck and gaped for breath at what I was seeing/listening to. So much of tireless work for a Nobel prize and even more for the advancement of science. Hats off to such people.
For more in-depth and better description and details here are some authoritative links – http://www.physics.otago.ac.nz/research/jackdodd/resources/exp_aspects.html and http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/bec/index.html (Colorado University is where this exciting discovery happened and there are explanations from the laureates themselves). Going through these resources is by far better than reading my description of what I thought I had heard and understood. There are a lot of images/diagrams to give a better understanding of the concept and the work that was done.
Then Dr. Cornell talked about superfluidity which is a continuation of his pioneering work about atoms and the vortices, I couldn’t grasp/understand much of it though it sounded interesting despite my ignorance.
The whole talk was videocast over the internet and in the other auditorium where students and staff from other colleges were listening to. He enthusiastically and patiently answered the questions from the audience that were present there and the audience on the internet.
The thing that made this man even more special is that he had his left arm amputated to avoid the spread of flesh-eating bacteria which had affected him. After the amputation and rest, he is back to work as usual and is doing great work and guiding a lot of pioneering work done by his students. The next day he spoke a few words to all the college students who had assembled in the Open-air auditorium to see him. Then he climbed down the stage and wanted to be amidst us, the students and took all their greetings. We all gave him a standing ovation for all his work and his contribution to humanity and Science. I broke down emotionally as I was overwhelmed by such a situation and it’s a great great privilege to have Dr. Cornell at our college and listen to him.
I am so privileged, lucky to have got such a wonderful once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to listen to Nobel Laureate. My grateful thanks to all those who gave me this chance – my college, Honeywell and the great man himself for consenting to visit and give a lecture. Hats off again!
English language has always been a passion for me in terms of its beauty, depth, sounds, accents and etc. I’ve also been privileged to read some wonderful works in English language and still want to go ahead in that direction very often. This passion burst out into a huge flame when I had a chance to hear the native speakers speaking the language so effortlessly and fluently imparting it a charm on it that left me dazed.With such a good quality of English with the so natural accents, pronounciations, modulations, I fell in love with the pure language again.
Of course in India, we seldom get to hear such wonderful English ( even if the speaker is only speaking small and simple sentences) and there is always an overdose of Indianized English – Hinglish, Tanglish and etc.. I know for sure that non-native speakers of English like Indians can never even come near the natives and that makes hearing such a language even more wonderfully attractive. Of course, Indians can talk and write correct and good English with our own distinct flavour, but still English at its purest is the very best.
P.S.: I was so charmed by hearing to the speaker that I didn’t even realize that the function in the auditorium was over and he was asking me to leave! 😀
I have always been unlike most of the students who are so crazy about social networking in its various forms. And the fact that a lot of popular social networking sites are banned inside my campus where I am residing has ensured that I’m away from social networking. But suddenly out of nowhere I started to use Twitter and gradually revived my Facebook activities too. Nowadays I tweet regularly and I’m close to the 200 mark and in Facebook too I perform a lot of activities out of which Mafia Wars takes up the majority of time. 🙂
My Twitter profile is at http://twitter dot com slash LGuruprasad
Searing pain at the sides of the nose where the eyebrows and the nose meet, inability to sit in front of the computer for reasonable periods without headaches, sugar level that is everywhere except under control and more things have clearly ensured that my health is really really poor and is going down.
Being a diabetic, I am supposed to very restrictive and careful with my health, but my health condition rarely ever lets me do so. Though I want to sit in front of the computer and work/learn/waste time, my present health condition doesn’t let me. I feel frustrated with it and increased frustration isn’t going to help anything. With the exams approaching, I have loads to memorize and make up for my poor performance at memorizing and writing loads of pages in the test, also known as preparing and doing well in the exam! I can’t take it anymore and I quit!
Normally we download Sun JDK installation binaries and install them. Then we configure the PATH environment variable to point to our JDK installation. But some times there will be conflicts between the native gcj and Sun JDK. So it is always better to install Sun JDK through debian repositories.
But unfortunately, the Debian repositories have Sun JDK in non-free repositories and do not always have the latest JDK.
So this is how we can install the latest JDK natively on Debian.
Steps to be followed:
1. We have to download the JDK or JRE binaries (a .bin file) appropriate for our architecture.
2. Then we have to create a .deb package from the Sun JDK binaries we have downloaded
*Requirements:
a.Install java-package which will help us to convert the Sun JDK .bin file to a .deb file installable on Debian.
b. Install fakeroot.
3. Then do as non-root user,
fakeroot make-jpkg <Sun JDK binary filename>
If there is an error like ‘Plugins not found’ or similar errors, it means that the version of the Sun JDK you are trying to install may not be supported by ‘java-package’. Fortunately, there is a work-around for this:
Edit usr/share/java-package/sun-j2sdk.sh like this:
Add the following to that file:
"<Your Sun JDK/JRE bin file name") # SUPPORTED
j2se_version=1.6.0+update<version>${revision}
j2se_expected_min_size=130
found=true
;;
at the end of the list of similar directives for various versions of JDK/JRE and save the file.
Now repeat step 3 and it will not give the ‘Plugins not found error’ and a .deb package will be created with some warnings which you can ignore safely.
4. Then install the .deb file as a root user by the command:
dpkg -i <generated .deb file name>
5. After the JDK is installed, we have to configure the installed Sun JDK as the default JDK. So we use the following commands:
update-alternatives –config java
This command will show a list of Java installations available (including gcj) and prompt for a choice.
Choose the choice which corresponds to your Sun JDK installation. In my case it was something like this:
/usr/lib/j2sdk1.6-sun/bin/java
Now your Sun JDK installation will be the default JDK. 🙂
I have got so used to life with Internet at college that when at home without hi-speed internet connectivity, I feel so uncomfortable. I can’t check emails very frequently, I can’t download stuff, I can’t google and find out answers, I can’t do this and I can’t do that etc.. Life away from the Internet now seems so alien to me and without google I only feel half alive.
When at home I have to go to nearby browsing centers to surf the internet at moderate speeds, whereas at college I have unlimited, free, hi-speed internet round the clock which I am so used to using. Life without Internet seems so different and eerie, but I do realise that I live a more orderly, proper life at home without Internet connectivity than at college.Of course Internet is a great boon and an unlimited reservoir of knowledge and information, but most of the times I am so immersed into the Internet that I spend too little or no time for other essential things.’
Thus, the stay at home is kind of a welcome break for me from the Internet and I do realise now that such breaks are really good for me than bad. So I am shelving my plan to get a broadband Internet connection at home for now, so that home remains home!
This year has been so tortuous for me with regards to academics and the trend clearly reflected in my results of the 6th semester exams. I scored 8.39 GPA, my lowest ever! This semester subjects involved a lot of memorising and writing loads and loads of pages. Unfortunately for me, I am miserably poor at memorising stuff. I can write pages and pages of stories, but even that is inhibited by my small handwriting due to which I write in 1 page what my friends write in 2-3 pages. So memory-wise and pages-wise I had a severe handicap. Also I didn’t do my internal tests properly which resulted in poor internal marks which virtually ruled out scoring above 90.
In fact, my highest internal mark was in ‘Numerical Methods’ subject at 25/30 which tells a big story in itself. The subject was one of the enjoyable ones in the semester and we had our beloved Dean who taught us so wonderfully that we didn’t realise the semester ended and the course for that subject was over. Hats off to the great man!
I didn’t do the exams well as my preparations weren’t there at all. I am happy and relieved that I didn’t fail in any of the subjects which would have been a big indelible blot that would have affected my life totally in all possible ways. Even in the last semester, I had noticed the beginning of the downfall but I didn’t do anything about it. Even in things that were in my control, I went astray and out of control and as a result, the results are there for all to see.
I am getting more and more interested in the real learning rather than what & how I learn in college courses. Being a server administrator in my college helps me learn a lot of wonderful things than the things which I can’t memorize from the book and reproduce verbatim in the exam.
All this apart, I have to pick myself up from the free fall I am in and score some very good marks to satisfy myself and all my near dear ones and of course for a better career.
Luckily for me, my CGPA has not gone below 9 and I am glad about it as probably this is the CGPA which I have to enter in my resume when I face placement interviews in this semester and immediately after this semester hopefully.
On 13 May 2009, I participated in the democratic process of the world’s largest democracy. The election process has become so cliched and ripped apart by the insatiable politicians that electors feel in fool’s paradise only till they cast their vote. This time I cast my vote and felt somewhat emotionless and empty. Come whatever may, the political parties will woo the voters during the time of elections and make political issues out of anthills and bend truth as they wish and create so much of a ruckus to fool the normal ignorant Indian voters.
The moment the results are out, we get to see a different persona of the politicians. I can’t help feeling like crap as whomever I vote for, even if he is going to get elected, is not going to any good at all or the good-bad ratio is going to be hopelessly bad for the good things.
So when a provision like ’49-O’ was present, I was hopeful that many people could use it to express their displeasure at such a meaningless exercise called ‘General Elections’. But unfortunately, the voters have to fill in a form and submit it to be able to cast a ‘Do not wish to vote for any of the candidates’ vote, which is starkly against the secret ballot system being followed in our country. An individual casting such a vote can be at mortal peril too as his choice of vote is not a secret.I heard rumours that a button for ’49-O’ option will be present in the EVM itself from the next elections, I don’t know if it will be implemented and even if it is implemented, how effective and useful it will be is a big question.
The political parties try to woo the voters by showering them with illegal bribes and compete fiercely with competing parties. It is no longer the agenda of the parties, what they have done for the people and what they promise to do, that matter, but only the damn money! In a world where extremes like counting more votes than polled happens so silently and easily, bribing voters is absolutely normal and sane.
The ink mark on my nail hasn’t vanished yet and it is still dark and black looking to stay on a lot more days. It will go off in some time, but our nation is getting newer indelible and permanent blackmarks every instant that people like me tend to lose faith in democracy. I can’t help feeling that good-bad ratio is far more better in cases of a monarchy or a dictatorship rather than “Democracy”
I wanted to install OpenSolaris 2008.11 in a machine that had 512 MB RAM which is just about enough to install and use OpenSolaris. But to my misfortune, GNOME Desktop environment took too long to load from the LiveCD and the system hung up every time I tried starting the installation. I was irritated and wanted to try the Text mode provided in the LiveCD and wanted to see if OpenSolaris has a text-based or ncurses-based installation available but to my misfortune, it left me at a login shell beyond which nothing happened. On googling, I found out that OpenSolaris doesn’t yet have a text-based installer and there were a few workarounds that were given like ssh X forwarding which was Greek and Latin to me and I couldn’t do it either.
So I decided to post this issue to BOSUG and immediately Moinak Ghosh, the man tirelessly and enthusiastically working for Belenix replied by telling me how to start the installation without loading the GNOME stuff at all and it worked perfectly. Here are the steps.
1. Boot into Text mode in the Live CD.
2. Login as user ‘jack’ in the login prompt that appears. (password is jack)
3. See if there is a .xinitrc file in the home directory. If there is, delete it.
4. Type the command ‘xinit’ and it will start X with a terminal.
5. Click on the terminal and type the command ‘pfexec /usr/bin/gui-install’ and the installer will start fine.
Thanks to Moinak and BOSUG for letting me know about such a way to install OpenSolaris on machines with just about enough RAM. With this, I was able to install OpenSolaris 2008.11 on a lot of machines.
