life update:
1. Now, i’m back onboard ship. yet again, still an officer under training, but gonna take over soon. i hope. gonna be a navigation officer... watever dat means. sigh. wish i could be under training forever... haha.
anyway, new ship is called bedok. i was previously onboard katong. moved from katong to bedok. haha. lousy joke. i’m quite happy to be onboard the same type of ship, the minehunter. our grand mission: to protect the sea lanes of singapore free of mines and the threat of mines! so that insurance premium for shipping in our lanes will be low forever. (ps: i added the last part)
2. finished a book called ‘the millenium problems – the seven greatest unsolved mathematics puzzles of our time’ by keith devlin. contrary to popular belief, although mathematics have been around for a super super long time (more than 2000 years), there are still many problems which havent been solved. yah. any maths major should be aware of this fact.
so, there’s this institute called the clay institute which will award 1 million usd to seven such problems. (actually, there are only six left. the poincare conjecture was proved by some reclusive russian, who like most smart eccentric chaps, refused to accept the 1 million usd) so, the book gave some lay descriptions of the problems, giving the historical background and highlighting their importance. and really, 1 million usd is peanuts compared to the fame and further remunerations the solver will receive, and compared to the impact the solution has to the world.
anyway, the book’s q an easy read. i should put a disclaimer here. i found that i could relate many of the material to what i learnt in uni. but like i wrote in the previous post, when we learnt maths in uni, it’s often without context. devlin just provided the background and motivation required for the problems, making them accessible to most people (which includes me).
hmmm. was considering if i’ll do a part-time masters in maths in these 3 years. one problem which surface is the fact that i’ve to take leave for exams etc... which my sailing schedule might not permit. but in the case if i do not do a masters, i have another objective in mind. to understand (not to solve) the seven problems. haha. (which i think is more daunting than doing a masters...)
oh. the book also offered a reason why mathematicians like to solve such impossible problems. or why some mathematicians can dedicate their entire life or their sanity to one problem. (oh. if you watched John Nash in ‘a beautiful mind’, one probable cause for his schizophrenia is one of the problems – the Riemann Hypothesis)
the reason is: “because it is there”.
1. Now, i’m back onboard ship. yet again, still an officer under training, but gonna take over soon. i hope. gonna be a navigation officer... watever dat means. sigh. wish i could be under training forever... haha.
anyway, new ship is called bedok. i was previously onboard katong. moved from katong to bedok. haha. lousy joke. i’m quite happy to be onboard the same type of ship, the minehunter. our grand mission: to protect the sea lanes of singapore free of mines and the threat of mines! so that insurance premium for shipping in our lanes will be low forever. (ps: i added the last part)
2. finished a book called ‘the millenium problems – the seven greatest unsolved mathematics puzzles of our time’ by keith devlin. contrary to popular belief, although mathematics have been around for a super super long time (more than 2000 years), there are still many problems which havent been solved. yah. any maths major should be aware of this fact.
so, there’s this institute called the clay institute which will award 1 million usd to seven such problems. (actually, there are only six left. the poincare conjecture was proved by some reclusive russian, who like most smart eccentric chaps, refused to accept the 1 million usd) so, the book gave some lay descriptions of the problems, giving the historical background and highlighting their importance. and really, 1 million usd is peanuts compared to the fame and further remunerations the solver will receive, and compared to the impact the solution has to the world.
anyway, the book’s q an easy read. i should put a disclaimer here. i found that i could relate many of the material to what i learnt in uni. but like i wrote in the previous post, when we learnt maths in uni, it’s often without context. devlin just provided the background and motivation required for the problems, making them accessible to most people (which includes me).
hmmm. was considering if i’ll do a part-time masters in maths in these 3 years. one problem which surface is the fact that i’ve to take leave for exams etc... which my sailing schedule might not permit. but in the case if i do not do a masters, i have another objective in mind. to understand (not to solve) the seven problems. haha. (which i think is more daunting than doing a masters...)
oh. the book also offered a reason why mathematicians like to solve such impossible problems. or why some mathematicians can dedicate their entire life or their sanity to one problem. (oh. if you watched John Nash in ‘a beautiful mind’, one probable cause for his schizophrenia is one of the problems – the Riemann Hypothesis)
the reason is: “because it is there”.
1 comment:
haha the last line sounds so cliche. haha..dear dear jiayou!! u'll be one of the seven problem solvers! =) u noe today, we learnt abt speed in math class. then we did some problems-there were 6 questions. I was struggling at Q2, when my friends at my table were already asking whats the ans for Q3, and another fren at my table, already finished. Hai..very paiseh..when im still at Q2. So i turned my paper around and started solving Q3. Then teacher say go home and solve..hai..very discouraging..
Post a Comment