xeno's lullaby

You are an adult male on child duty. The child is reasonably young - think 2 or 3 years old. You are seated on the bed and you next action is to make the child anticipate being thrown over the bed. And then you count...

1.........2........2½........2¾.........🤔

What comes after 2¾? Is it 2⅝, or 2⁷⁄₉? 🤔🤔

Fortunately we can calculate this. But for brevity think of a line of numbers - aka the real number line. You are at a some point on that line. numbers behind you are smaller than numbers ahead of you (including the one you are standing on).

Or, if you look at it from another perspective, numbers to the left of you are smaller than numbers to the right. 

This is the "real" number line. Some of the points represent fractions. In mathematics they say there are infinitely many real numbers...But...we won't be exploring that.

So let's take an interval on this line - say 0 to 1. We know that half (i.e 0.5 or ½) is a point in this interval. Correctly at the midpoint. There is a formula to get you there, but we usually learn it as part of cartesian geometry. 

If you got two numbers on a numbers line, A and B such that A is less than B, you can find a number exactly equidistant from both by computing (A+B)/2. 

There are numerous proofs for this. We are not doing that today❗

Now you play the game of iterative substitutions - plug A = 0 and B = 1, and, you get (A+B)/2 = ½ = 0.5

What is between 0.5 and 1? Substitute A = 0.5 and B = 1, and, you get a result 0.75 = ¾

But we humans don't say 2, 2.5, 2.75, ... 🚫

We use the number-with-fraction form. 2 ... 2½ ...2¾... ✅

Do you see the pattern?

What comes after ¾? Use the formula to calculate. The result will be ⅞

The next one will be 15⁄16 , ³¹⁄₃₂, ⁶³⁄₆₄, ...

Do you see the pattern? 

Now you can say the numbers and never reach three, just like xeno's paradox. I know I have left you haning on xeno's paradox. that is easily searchable in the modern day. 

However, I will pray that your skill of multiplying by 2 is good. 👍😉

The right to repair

Right to repair. 

This is little technical subject. At least, in my opinion, it has its origins in the tech community. I don't usually talk about tech stuff here. I blog most of my tech stuff elsewhere. But today I thought otherwise. 

I classify "right to repair" as a kind of consumer movement. Its probably meant to end certain business monopolies certain giant corporations have over their products which locks consumers, deny them of certain freedoms governing how they are able to use/repair that product.

I am all for it. I like the idea that my mobile phone, for e.g. can work the same way 30 years from now, and, if at all there were some problems, it is going to be "fixable". Same can be said about, say, a microwave oven that belonged to a grand mother that lived two or three generations before ours.

But just think about consumers for a minute. Its a small segment of humanity; people who earn, buy things, homes, cars, medicines, health care, etc. To them "right to repair" sounds like some kind of freedom. There is some meaning in fighting for a cause, admist such like-minded "similar" group of people. 

But please don't rub this "right" into the faces of the other half of humanity; they are not this relatively "privileged". Many "such" people simply struggle to make it through the day.

What is more dark is that I can only shrug at this sad state of humanity, and, move on with my life. Because, that is what is practical. 

Yes, it is sad. 

When you try to confront the challenges of people suffering from various vices of humanity - like poverty, disease, injustice, etc and their problems become yours, there is some risk. You'd either end up estranged from your family, friends, or, loved ones. Or worse, you could end up putting them in danger.

But what can we do?

I am stopping short here. Perhaps I might get the inspiration to continue on this thread in the future. Perhaps not. But in any case believe that "life is good".

National Education Policy 2020

If I actually write about it I will eventually sound political. Now, due to its ambiguity, my current rating on this framework: i.e. a framework which is meant to better equip the upcoming generations and revolutionize India, is only something like 1/5. And this is how I have come to interpret it. People can always have different scores or ratings depending on their outlook.

All that aside, what is an education framework that I would rate 5/5? What is a framework that you would rate 5/5? This is something all Indians especially teachers must have some say about...

I am no teacher. But I implore you to watch Carl Sagan's famous documentary series titled "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage"

And this is the internet. I don't have to write anything about Carl Sagan that wikipedia doesn't already know...

The Great Library of Alexandria 

This is something Carl Sagan talks about in one of the episodes. Many historians believe that this was one of the greatest libraries in the world. It is said that if those libraries were not destroyed by the Roman empire, then we probably would have made key discoveries a lot earlier.

Imagine what effect would the Laws of Planetary motion, or, the law of gravitation, have on our human civilization if the ideas behind those laws were discovered earlier. (It may not have been Kepler or Newton who discovers it. It could be other people). 

And if that was the trajectory human civilization took, I believe I would be writing this blog aboard a Star Trek enterprise space ship... 😁

Perhaps the Star Trek enterprise is an exaggeration. But the loss of human ingenuity that prevailed at the time, cannot be measured. All of it; the whole place was burned to the ground... 😔

So what's this got to do with NEP 2020?

Absolutely nothing.

Star Trek will still be a tv entertainment programme for the next 3 generations...🤪

Good Day

Ps: I apologize if the title was misleading...

indian railways - exchanging confirmed berths - things to take note...

This happened recently.

My mother and I were travelling to Bangalore from Calicut. She had a confirmed berth - but it was in the middle. At the time of reservation, I had no choice; there were no lower berths available. So out of the urgency of that travel I had to accept what the system auto-allocated. I did what any other Indian would do...exchange with other passengers for a lower berth so that she could sleep comfortably.

Fortunately, there was a group of women travelling along with their kids. They had their seats reserved in the same coach, but different, but adjacent compartments. When I requested they casually obliged. And the exchange happened peacefully. I made sure I exchanged with a party that was going to drop off in Bangalore. And they had confirmed tickets. I never bothered to check their tickets however.

But later, after probably Shornur station, the berths we (my mother and I) were occupying got allocated to another party (who were in RAC status). When the ticket-checker came and allocated, he did ask about the seats and my ticket. When he understood that I had a confirmed ticket, he asserted in the most callous way: I have allocated the berths...all of you please co-operate among yourselves and see that you are berthed. He never made an attempt to find out if the berths were claimed. According to him, he has diligently marked those berths as 'not allotted'. It was nearing Palakkad. The station where the ticket-checkers usually interchange as their shift comes to an end.

The people who were alloted the berths were students. I explained them the issue. I was sure that the checker made some mistake. Even they were sort of convinced. But we couldn't find the checker anywhere. He disappeared. Even those three didn't make an effort to find the ticket-checker. Finaly we agreed we'll clear it with the next checker.

And the time came, with a little trouble waking everyone up, we presented the tickets. Thats when I understood the problem. The lady who I had exchanged with presented her tickets. They were two tickets. But they were stapled together. So when she presented it, it looked as if she had presented only one ticket.

That diligent (b*****d) of a ticket-checker (who was in the previous shift) only marked the berths in the first ticket. He marked the ones in the other compartment (the one which I occupied, and which were in the second ticket) as not allotted. And he, obviously not guilty of the previous crime, further went and allotted them to three RAC passengers.

Well, the now on-duty checker thankfully realized this problem. And he gave consideration to the family and told the three students to kindly adjust. Luckily those three, only asked for one seat so they could adjust and travel. He also gave the story of how someone from S8 coach, without getting his ticket checked, went to join his family in a different coach, and finally got his berth marked as not-allotted. Thus problems ensued. I don't know how they resolved it.

Such screw ups happen inside of trains. I only pray the ticket checkers are more considerate...Hope this story has given you an idea of things to put in your checklist before exchanging berths.

Now what if you don't have a physical copy of a ticket? What if the ticket was just an sms? How will you ensure that the ticket was checked by the checker?

the star killer base

While watching Star Wars the Force Awakens, it looked like I was the only one who was left curious about the Star Killer base. And, dear lord, I was...

Watching a lot of these scifi movies lately it just gave me the impulse to get curious about it.

It sucks up the whole star, yet people walk on it like people walk on earth (with normal gravity).

Okay, according to present astronomy knowledge, what do we know that can practically suck up a star. A black hole - a body of immense density that is capable of sucking light too.

If you are a space documentary fan boy like me, you'd also probably have imagined accretion discs, and gamma ray bursts.

People over at scifi stackexchange have some pretty convincing answers touch.

If you are fascinated with providing theoretical answers, fascinate me too.

Au revoir.