Relativity and Problem Solving Time Loops

Science and math geeks have two reasons to celebrate today.

Firstly, today is Pi Day!! In some countries todays date is written as 3/14 which are the first three digits of the Mathematical constant $\pi$ . So people around the world get together to celebrate the world's most famous mathematical constant.

Today is also the Birthday of THE Albert Einstein who has become something of a mascot for physics and science in general. The strange thing was, although Einstein became famous among the general public during the early 1900s for his theories, nobody really understood his theories. They just liked the crazy consequences.

I was really expecting a Google Doodle for the occasion on the Google homepage but they decided to honour  Akira Yoshizawa instead. (Google, you have disappointed me.)

Speaking of Einstein, my A-Levels are now over. So I'm getting plenty of time to delve deep into those obscure bits of physics which were too time consuming for an A-Level student. I've been reading up a lot on Einstein's Theory of Relativity in the last two months. I can finally say that I understand the basics of tensors without feeling dishonest.

A few posts ago, when I was testing out $\LaTeX$ I put down this equation in with many others.

$R_{{\mu}{\nu}} - \frac{1}{2} g_{{\mu}{\nu}} R + g_{{\mu}{\nu}} \Lambda = \frac{8{\pi}G }{c^{4}} T_{{\mu}{\nu}}$

This summarizes everything about the theory of relativity in one elegant equation and this equation is what I hope to eventually understand. Right now, the only part of the equation I know anything about is the $g_{{\mu}{\nu}}$ or the metric tensor.

Learning about relativity inevitably leads to thinking about the mind boggling consequences of time travel. I came across this really interesting application of theoretical time travel while reading on the internet. This trick works even if it is only possible to send information back to the past.

Imagine I have a machine using which can send a Word file "Something.doc" back to the past. If I am trying to crack a simple 3 digit number lock, I can use the time machine to my advantage.

I wait for my future self to send me a file labelled "Combination.doc". If the file contains a combination I try out the combination. If the combination works, I create a file named "Combination.doc" , write down the correct combination and send it back to my past self.

If the combination does not work, I add one to the 3 digit number, write it down in the newly created "Combination.doc" and send it back to my past self.

If if commit to doing this, the only situation which does not lead to a paradox is when I send back to the past the correct combination and so the very first time I open the file, it must contain the correct combination! It's kind of like a "do ... while" programming loop in real life.

The amazing thing is that this technique allows a person to solve any problem which involves combination without any effort at all! This could work even on email accounts which lock you out if you enter the wrong password. Since the information is going back in time, even if the the loop tests the  passwords a billion times, the actual password entry happens only once outside the time loop. Or you could get a hundred percent on any multiple choice test without reading a single question (Of course, if you're smart enough to invent this machine, you probably don't need to answer the questions in the first place.)!

I wonder if this would actually work if we had a real information time machine.

Synesthesia

Synesthesia is an interesting phenomenon that I discovered while watching a talk on TED by the neuroscientist V.S Ramachandran. It's when people have this amazing ability to make strange associations between seemingly unrelated concepts like sound and colour or numbers and shapes.

Toward the end of this video there is an interesting demonstration of something called the Bouba/Kiki effect.

Two Blobs

The effect is seen in an experiment where a large number of people are shown this image (separately of course) and asked to assign the name Bouba and Kiki to any of the shapes. More that 90% of the people name the shape on the left as Kiki and the one on the right as Bouba. This shows a kind of shape-sound synesthesia that is present in all of us. 

I've also been thinking about how this seems to be a learned skill. A person does not learn how to read or count without being taught. And since synesthesia occurs in learned symbols, I think it is to some extent learnable. I think it might be possible to learn to be synesthetic.

So I am going to do an experiment on myself. Since I do a lot of reading online I am going to try and create a script which assigns every letter and number on the page a colour but first I've got to find out if such a script is even possible. 

Of Pokeballs, Nostalgia and Mood Superpositions

My most recent work in Blender 3D is a Pokeball (Pikachu's Pokeball from the very first episode for all the Pokemon fans out there.) which in the final rendering turned out a lot better than I expected it to. It is the best thing I've created in Blender so far and in my opinion, my first work that does not seem too amateurish. I posted it on my deviantArt profile. (Or you can go over to the "Blender Projects" section of this blog and check it out there.)


Pikachu? Is that You? by ~RationalAsh on deviantART


Well it definitely taught me that nostalgia can be a very powerful motivator for art. That first episode I is not particularly complex or entertaining when compared objectively to many of the more recent masterpieces of Japanese anime but it represents something very special for many of me. Tied to this episode are precious memories of old friendships quarrels that shaped my personality. In fact when I look back on my early childhood, I find that all my memories are inevitably tied with the many cartoons that I watched at the time. They provided a release from the harsh realities of a conservative school. I used to spend hours immersed in imaginary worlds, dreaming of all the amazing, crazy things I could do.

I also noticed something about how moods work. I think that at any one time, people don't feel any single mood in isolation but a mixture of several different moods. The "dominant" mood may vary from time to time but it's always a mixture. So the mood we are feeling is actually a superposition of many moods. I started observing this effect when I did international travel for the first time. When I first visited Malaysia for a period of two months something felt subtly different.  I was under the impression that it was a smell but that description didn't seem to describe it satisfactorily. In retrospect I think that the travel to a new country introduced new moods or intensified some moods that had lain dormant for many years. I observed a similar effect when I travelled within the country but to a lesser extent. Sometimes I walk into a house or some other building and I think: "There is something oddly familiar about this place." This could be because that place had a mood signature similar to that of a place I'm very familiar with.

The mood signature of a specific place also seems to change over time, especially during emotionally significant events such as going up from Year 5 to Year 6 at school or a transition from Junior School to High School.

Coming back to the subject of cartoons, I discovered that by just watching cartoons that I'd watched during a specific period of my childhood life I could temporarily produce inside my brain a close approximation of the mood superposition of that period. It is like being mentally transported back in time to relive that part of my childhood. All the troubles, mishaps, worries, joys and triumphs I had at the time come rushing back to meet me. And perhaps this is what is happens inside the brain when we experience the state of mind called "nostalgia".

I think it's exciting that despite "owning" my mind for over 17 years I still have a lot to learn about it.

The Lost Symbol and My Thoughts on Fiction

It's been a long time since its release but I finally got an opportunity to read The Lost Symbol. Now that I read it I don't think i missed out on much at all.

I was thoroughly unimpressed by the book. After "Angels and Demons" and "The Da Vinci" code this book was completely underwhelming. The plot was a bit weak and I felt none of the unexpected bursts of excitement that had made his previous books so difficult to put down.

About halfway through the book (at which point I was reading simply because I hate to leave a book unfinished) I realized something about why some novels seem so enjoyable while others make us cringe.

It's how believable the story is in its own "universe". The term fiction does not give a writer the freedom to put in whatever captures their fancy. For an example take Harry Potter. It is a story about magic. But in the very fist book the "scene" is set. So the reader gets an idea of the laws of nature (or magic) in the Harry Potter universe. The rest of the books follow the laws of the new reality very strictly. The same goes for  most of the good novels I can think of. The protagonist does not pull through whatever difficulty is presented due to string of coincidences bordering on unbelievable. But this is exactly what happens in The Lost Symbol.

Another mark of a good story is how it draws you in. Many books (like Eragon and Harry Potter) talk about worlds in which, deep inside, everyone wishes to live in. Reading them makes me want to live the book so badly that sometimes I can't help laying awake at night thinking of all the cool, amazing things I would do if I were in the place of the protagonist.

Dan Brown's take on Noetic Science also spoils the book somewhat. The book is supposed to be set in the real world but the book shamelessly represents this repackaged pseudoscience as the real thing. Noetic science tries tie in quantum phenomena with the problem of consciousness but with experiments that mainly involve trying to prove that low probability fluctuations in Random Number Generators are somehow related to focused intention of many people to produce this result which to me just sounds like Deepak Chopra 2.0.

The Obligatory New Year Post.

So today, as I type, people around the world are celebrating the start of 2012 and as usual we have Google's customary New Year doodle!

Every time some event like the New Year comes up, I start thinking. It always feels as though the year that separates two New Years, Christmases, Valentine's Days or birthdays fly by at breakneck speed.

On my seventeenth birthday I was struck by how my sixteenth birthday felt like it happened only a few months ago. I wondered why time seems to go by really fast when now and why when I think back to the time I was in Kindergarten, the one year I spent there seems like an eternity. A few days ago I came across this really interesting Youtube video which gives a possible explanation for this illusion of time speeding up. Skip to 2:13 in the video to get right to the section I'm talking about but I think it's a good idea to watch the entire video as it's really quite interesting.

I think the theory is very likely correct because I've had a similar experience. When I was in Year 9 my family moved to Malaysia. So the thirteenth year of my life was filled with new experiences. I learnt a new language, I met new people, made new friends and saw new cultures and traditions. Now when I think back to Year 9 it really does seem like the year went on for a really long time. And I do seem to have richer memories of Year 9 than of any of the following years until I started my A-Levels. At the start of the A-Levels there was again a lot of new things to get used to, like completely new teachers, new classmates and a new syllabus. So the first three or four months of my A-Level course seemed to have lasted longer that the rest of the course.

So after all those observations I have something to add to the theory. I think what makes time seem to go by really fast is a routine. If there is a routine that I strictly follow every single day over time, my actions start to become automatic. Take the example of me brushing my teeth. I've been doing it for so long that I can now get up in the morning and brush my teeth even if I am half asleep. My body has built up some sort of muscle memory that puts the body on autopilot so that I don't have to think about brushing my teeth. In fact I often brush my teeth lost in thought only returning to reality when I have to find out what classes are scheduled for the day and pack the right books. So once you fall into a routine, you know exactly how the day is going to turn out and therefore there are no surprises or novel experiences in your life.

So at the start of this New Year, I leave you with this nugget. If you want to live your life feeling that you have squeezed as much as you can out of every single second, if you want to look back on your life and say "It's been a wonderful ride.", go out and do new and exciting things, throw your daily schedule in the fire and spice things up a bit. Learn something new everyday and savour every single moment of your life.

Happy New Year People!

Let's work together to make 2012 the best year we've ever had.

The Face of Music

I'm someone who was introduced to the world of "Western" music quite late. For most of my childhood, I heard nothing but Indian music. Notice that I use the word "heard" rather than "listen" because I never really chose the music I heard. To be frank, I never felt much of an attachment to music during my childhood. I remember that I had grand total of three or four "favourites" but I never felt any connection with these songs and I liked them more for the fact that they had a catchy melody than anything else. I was never able to catch the words that were actually being sung. Looking back, I think it was because of a unique situation I was in. The school I went to had English as its medium of instruction and we were strongly advised to speak in English while on campus. So as my vocabulary and knowledge of English steadily improved as I progressed in school my mother tongue was left neglected. I always scored higher in English language tests (Relatively speaking as I never did that  spectacularly in English either.) I did feel however that English was slightly easier to learn and being a science freak, I tended to use English just as often or perhaps even more often than my mother tongue as I felt that learning scientific concepts were much easier in English and by the time I was in Year 6 or 7 my thought processes and all my mental conversations that happened in my brain were entirely in English.

When I moved to Malaysia in 2007 English became my dominant language, a change I was able to handle with relative ease because of my previous school. At this point music was something that was quite alien to my mind. My perception of what music is differed significantly from my current perception of music. Music was something that I thought to be in the same category as other occupations that entertain people in their leisure time like chess or other sports. It didn't touch me as deeply as it seemed to touch others.

As the months I started becoming interested in western classical music. Starting with a couple of sample tracks that were included in a fresh install of Windows XP, I ventured into the world of symphonies and concertos. I admit that when I first started I listened out purely for the novelty of the experience and not because the music produced in me any of the emotions that the music was supposed to convey. These subtle messages completely escaped me. Almost two years passed before I started to really feel the mood of the music.

The years after I moved were those of great changes for me in many areas of my life. I started taking a genuine interest in mathematics, learnt to think critically and creatively, and most importantly I learnt to think for myself. I learnt scepticism, about the fallacies of the mind, about how information should always be judged upon evidence and not the authority of the source of the information. I also became more open minded to change. I went from being moderately reluctant to change and new ideas to being fiercely supportive of new ideas. I came to realize than change was quite literally the vehicle of progress and the necessity of abandoning old ways of doing things in favour of newer, more efficient ways of doing things.

It was this change that spurred me to try contemporary western music. When I think back to those moments of discovery I loose any of the regrets I have about not discovering this genre earlier. For most people these moments are part of their early childhood when the brain is less analytical in my opinion less capable of appreciating the complexities of perception. Because I was venturing into this new genre of music at this (relatively) late age every time I listened to something new, every time I stumbled upon a gem, a new melody I was able to "observe" what goes on in my mind with the excitement of a scientist who has stumbled upon something new and revolutionary. Now when I listen to music "properly" I sit down on my bed in the dark after everyone's asleep, put on my headphones, turn the volume up to a comfortable level. I then close my eyes and concentrate on the sounds. I try to mentally decompose the music into the separate instruments and the voice. It's like trying to pick out a conversation from a buzz of noise in a huge room full of people. I then notice how each separate sound fits together with the rest how they combine to give a resultant sound which is sometimes completely unexpected. It's like mixing together ingredients with different tastes when cooking to give a new, unexpected taste. The ingredients are the notes from the different instruments and voices used. The net result is the final dish that you eat. Cooking with sound...

I noticed that rarely I stumble upon music that is so good that I take to it the very first time I  hear it. For most songs however the moment of "liking" is less well defined. It's lot like my experience with meeting people. The first time I wander into a group of strangers for example when I move to a new school everybody looks similar and my mind is a confusing mass of faces. But as I get to know the people in the crowd better their faces or at least my perception of their faces change. They get friendlier, less intimidating and more distinct. They start to stand out from the crowd. And if you have a huge mass of faces with a couple of my friends in it familiar faces are easily distinguishable from the "noise". Its the same with most of the music I listen to. When I first hear a track it's a bit intimidating. It's new and I don't know how to think about it yet. Eventually it grows on me and when I hear it again, my brain hails it like an old friend.

James Randi Does His Stuff

I am often surprised at how even highly educated  people can sometimes be fooled by slightly unusual things. In my opinion it's nothing but intellectual laziness. If intellectually lazy people see something that's not in the textbooks they immediately jump to the conclusion that something mystic is going on rather that trying to find out what might have happened.


This is a video I found on Youtube about a "mysterious" reaction which apparently has no explanation. As a person who has learnt quite a bit of Chemistry I tried to figure out what could possibly have happened. My explanation may be slightly off or even completely wrong but I have to start somewhere.

Here's what I think happened. If you look at the video you'll see that a few drops of liquid is added to the distilled water before the blue universal indicator is added. Since the Indicator is blue in alkali that "something" was probably an alkali. I remember that pH indicators are frequently weak acids or weak bases and that only a few drops of alkali was added at to the beaker at the start of the experiment so the concentration of alkali must be very very low.

The universal indicator solution is made up of a mixture of several pH indicators, some of them weak acids. From my experience in doing titrations with I've seen that near the endpoint if you keep swirling the flask the solution turns clear (using phenolphthalein as an example) but the titration is not quite done yet because once the swirling is stopped the solution turns a very very  slight pink. You then have to add one more drop to complete the titration. I reason that the agitation may may be affecting the reaction to a certain extent (I still haven't figured out how but I will soon.). I think this is a similar situation. 


One of the acidic indicators in the Universal Indicator mixture reacts with the miniscule amount of base and neutralizes it. After neutralization, the remaining mixture of indicators take on a yellow colour either because the new ions formed are yellow or because the remaining portion of the Universal Indicator has a yellow colour. The colour will probably return to blue if the stirring is stopped.

I hate to burst the bubble of that aspiring magician (He did look awfully pleased with himself) but sometimes the truth is more important.