IPL-3 beckons, even loser takes it all!
We must be feeling a lot happier as the planet EARTH was chosen to be the liveliest of all when God created the universe. I am sure we can confidently say that it will remain so forever no matter whether great men are from MARS and beautiful women are from VENUS.
God seemed to have had a unique plan!
The inhabitants had their own plans though! They wanted to enjoy everything they do and they chose to do only what they enjoyed. They explored umpteen ways to make it a fruitful reality. One such exploration resulted in the formulation of sporting games. Soccer, Basketball, Footy and Cricket were all born.
God indeed had a plan!
Europe fancied Soccer so much and they chose to make it big! Basketball became American baby and Footy was nurtured down under. Cricket was nobody’s game anymore.
Was it again a part of the plan?
Not really though!
The cricketing fraternity did everything possible to uplift this downtrodden game. They analysed every permutations and combinations and they kept pushing on their abstract agenda. Nevertheless there was a disconnect somewhere.
Did they lack the required business acumen? Yes, the game needed to be nurtured in the right place.
Alas, Indian Premier League was born!
Like anybody from this ongoing generation, I am fortunate to have been witnessing this modern extravaganza that has everything you can dream for. It has everything in store for you as a cricket lover or strategist or businessman or businesswoman. The games provide great excitement, passion, on the field and off the field controversies, cheerleaders, high TRP and there is no wonder on why the world’s biggest democracy goes mad about loving this sport!
Is that all? One may wonder though!
The biggest throughput is the money involved! It can make the teams rich by all standards. The business analyst in me developed a model and started doing the numerical analysis. My inquisitive mind took a long nice breath when I realized that my model can predict how many cricket billionaires would be created as a result of having this game organized for a few years.
“An extrapolation would be required”, my mind reminded me.
The first edition of the Indian Premier League witnessed most of the participating business owners ending up on the losing sides though Rajasthan Royals straight drived home with the inaugural trophy and a whopping 20% profit. Kolkata Knight Riders, though finished sixth, too made a winning start with 18% profit. (See Table below)
Nobody panicked though!
There were no show cause notices or show stopper meetings! Nobody pointed their fingers at each other. Everyone involved started their next day as if they won a huge lottery! They knew that the planet Earth would require just 365 more days to get them back to winning ways and to have their business go green!
Even adverse political circumstances could not spoil the happening of this event as the second edition of the Indian Premier League was a huge success once again.
Though there was just one champion team, not even one team tasted the business LOSS! The figures involved were truly mind blowing! There were teams that made almost 50% profits.
Winner and Loser indeed took it all!
The third edition of this much awaited tournament will kick start from 12th of March, 2010. I just could not wait to see what numbers my models would predict.
There is every possibility for all the business teams to go green this time as well. If the trends follow my model, India will be fortunate to have several new cricket billionaires by the end of 8th or 9th season of the much coveted Indian Premier League!
One should not be wondering on why God had such a unique plan, firstly having this universe made, then the planet made and finally the game of cricket played in India!
Go India Go, Live long and prosper!
If business people across the globe are delaying their strategies on buying a new team, I reckon it is not too late!
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Why do we need Mathematics?
“Cheers”, we screamed!
We were into the last week of our summer holidays and little did our celebration moods realize that fun and laughter must obey all the rules. Neither did the wine glasses show any respect whatsoever for the Newton’s illustrious third law nor did the sound intensity levels to Bell’s decibel levels. The governing forces indeed originated from several non equillibrium body masses guided by transient brain centres. An entropy meter must have deflected to its peak reading!
“Back to studies yet again, why do we learn?”
I knew it was rather a philosophical question given the fact that only the last bottle in the case was up for grab. I had little doubt about any possibility of that interrogation breathing further. It was too late and people invariably showed signs of fatigue and the consciousness was completely lost. Such situations in the past had us enjoying a long sleep, never having to fill our stomach on the following morning!
Nevertheless, the question provided me with some interesting food for thought!
The frenzy mood slowly surpassed the sixth time constant discharge after a first order sleep and the lunch table next day had the complete attendance as if it was a bonus day in an office.
We badly needed a topic to continue!
Realizing that the group comprised of committed, sceptical and resistive people, I decided to give it a go on the last night afterthought.
“The country needs to balance its knowledge quotient”, one of the committed members was eager to thread the discussion.
“Sustainability”, the group seemed like having more committed members that day.
“We need job”, I did not get enough time to classify him into a specific category as I received the next bouncer,
“Social Status”, there were clear signs of frustration coming from that angle!
“Why is the country asking me to learn Taylor series?” a resonance was observed when a resistive member banged with a vehement denial. Resonance indeed produced the highest peak as he continued.
“I chose to study biotechnology and they need me to learn Taylor series?”
The discussion was over shadowed by a delicious lunch. The group unanimously agreed to go Dutch that day.
The researcher in me decided to come up with a model for a fruitful course outline. Mathematical models can explain a great deal of things about any process whatsoever. Phenomena that are otherwise complicated to visualize or explain can neatly be demonstrated using a set of mathematical identities.
So, where do we draw a baseline?
It was time for dinner and after the much needed food break my evergreen lust took control of my actions and the scientific thoughts had to wait then for a long time. I did not want to cut short even though it was back to work from next day.
Nothing was in place the next day and I somehow managed to be in the prescribed attire. Most of the participants in the class had had long faces as if the length of the vacation was not enough.
It was supposedly an introduction class on engineering mathematics. I knew that a poor introduction can cause a big deal in their morale and a good start is always half the job done. The story teller in me started to enact my research intuitions.
Ever since the human technology moved from stone to bronze to iron, people realized the importance of knowledge, umpteen researchers shifted from their usual observatory mode of work to a much more elaborate experimental mode of work. They started questioning everything around and the only path forward in front of them was to go deep inside the unknown territory.
Any residual signs of long vacation mood slowly started to disappear in them. Most of them had one of their hands married to their jaws. I distributed a 250 page course book. No sooner did they browse through the pages than they looked at me with utter despair unable to comprehend most of what they saw in it.
I sensed that an hour long discussion will be more than a blow for them to experience after a splendid vacation.
My previous stories about number system and complex number (reference: Two of my previous blogs) did convince them to an extent on why they needed to study some of the chapters in it. I stretched the number system further to reason basic variables and simple equations. It took little time, then, for them to develop an appreciation for first order, quadratic and higher order equations and trigonometry.
Newton’s story did the trick in convincing them about the need of differential equations, differentiation and integration. I continued to narrate stories on Faraday Vs Electromagnetism, Ohm VS current electricity, Fourier Vs Heat Transfer, Boyle, Charles, Pascal, Taylor so on and so forth. In most of the processes they experienced, only effects could be seen and not the originating causes which led to the usage of a culture called mathematics.
There was an overall agreement among us and it was time for conclusion. The story was indeed well heard by them. An 80dB alarm sound pierced through my sensitive diaphragm indicating a designated break.
That night again, I did not cut short on my ever propelling lusty desires.
We were into the last week of our summer holidays and little did our celebration moods realize that fun and laughter must obey all the rules. Neither did the wine glasses show any respect whatsoever for the Newton’s illustrious third law nor did the sound intensity levels to Bell’s decibel levels. The governing forces indeed originated from several non equillibrium body masses guided by transient brain centres. An entropy meter must have deflected to its peak reading!
“Back to studies yet again, why do we learn?”
I knew it was rather a philosophical question given the fact that only the last bottle in the case was up for grab. I had little doubt about any possibility of that interrogation breathing further. It was too late and people invariably showed signs of fatigue and the consciousness was completely lost. Such situations in the past had us enjoying a long sleep, never having to fill our stomach on the following morning!
Nevertheless, the question provided me with some interesting food for thought!
The frenzy mood slowly surpassed the sixth time constant discharge after a first order sleep and the lunch table next day had the complete attendance as if it was a bonus day in an office.
We badly needed a topic to continue!
Realizing that the group comprised of committed, sceptical and resistive people, I decided to give it a go on the last night afterthought.
“The country needs to balance its knowledge quotient”, one of the committed members was eager to thread the discussion.
“Sustainability”, the group seemed like having more committed members that day.
“We need job”, I did not get enough time to classify him into a specific category as I received the next bouncer,
“Social Status”, there were clear signs of frustration coming from that angle!
“Why is the country asking me to learn Taylor series?” a resonance was observed when a resistive member banged with a vehement denial. Resonance indeed produced the highest peak as he continued.
“I chose to study biotechnology and they need me to learn Taylor series?”
The discussion was over shadowed by a delicious lunch. The group unanimously agreed to go Dutch that day.
The researcher in me decided to come up with a model for a fruitful course outline. Mathematical models can explain a great deal of things about any process whatsoever. Phenomena that are otherwise complicated to visualize or explain can neatly be demonstrated using a set of mathematical identities.
So, where do we draw a baseline?
It was time for dinner and after the much needed food break my evergreen lust took control of my actions and the scientific thoughts had to wait then for a long time. I did not want to cut short even though it was back to work from next day.
Nothing was in place the next day and I somehow managed to be in the prescribed attire. Most of the participants in the class had had long faces as if the length of the vacation was not enough.
It was supposedly an introduction class on engineering mathematics. I knew that a poor introduction can cause a big deal in their morale and a good start is always half the job done. The story teller in me started to enact my research intuitions.
Ever since the human technology moved from stone to bronze to iron, people realized the importance of knowledge, umpteen researchers shifted from their usual observatory mode of work to a much more elaborate experimental mode of work. They started questioning everything around and the only path forward in front of them was to go deep inside the unknown territory.
Any residual signs of long vacation mood slowly started to disappear in them. Most of them had one of their hands married to their jaws. I distributed a 250 page course book. No sooner did they browse through the pages than they looked at me with utter despair unable to comprehend most of what they saw in it.
I sensed that an hour long discussion will be more than a blow for them to experience after a splendid vacation.
My previous stories about number system and complex number (reference: Two of my previous blogs) did convince them to an extent on why they needed to study some of the chapters in it. I stretched the number system further to reason basic variables and simple equations. It took little time, then, for them to develop an appreciation for first order, quadratic and higher order equations and trigonometry.
Newton’s story did the trick in convincing them about the need of differential equations, differentiation and integration. I continued to narrate stories on Faraday Vs Electromagnetism, Ohm VS current electricity, Fourier Vs Heat Transfer, Boyle, Charles, Pascal, Taylor so on and so forth. In most of the processes they experienced, only effects could be seen and not the originating causes which led to the usage of a culture called mathematics.
There was an overall agreement among us and it was time for conclusion. The story was indeed well heard by them. An 80dB alarm sound pierced through my sensitive diaphragm indicating a designated break.
That night again, I did not cut short on my ever propelling lusty desires.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
‘i’ have indeed been complex!
I was off to a very important discussion on the next day. As usual, there were butterflies in my stomach wondering on how my story would be accepted by my critics, my dearest students. Ever since I knew me, I have always been cutting loose from the real me due to my ever ambitious propelling desire to dig deep and crack the code. I made sure to take a deep breath just after my much needed association with the nature!
It was a full packed house as usual and some of them appeared to me as though they have not been able to come out of my 1+1 (reference: my previous blog) shock and I knew I had to ease out the day long gap. Good morning has never been a successful phrase in front of this grown up international group!
“Flop indeed”? My mind silently screamed.
To make things more worse, I announced that the topic for the day would be complex number ‘i’, a topic which caused otherwise looking mathematicians more extroverts, conventional tool engineers real bookworms and the high voltage and low voltage groups reclusive. I was standing in front of a non reclusive cohort and I knew I had to be extremely careful not to be sounding like a learnt professional but like a sweetly paced kindergarten story teller.
Once upon a time there lived a magnet, which when freely suspended in air slept North South. Like a flower has its fragrance that attracts beauties around, this magnet had a fascinating field spread around which attracted all the iron like beauties as close as possible. The magnet was very well looked after by an eminent person named Michael Faraday. Faraday carried the magnet with him wherever he went. It was time for Faraday to find a suitable match for the magnet and the search was over when a naked coil triggered Faraday’s imagination. He decided to unite the magnet and coil.
An interval was on the cards and I decided to do my part. My compass movements uplifted their spirits and I noticed people becoming more inquisitive. My not so exquisite picturesque view of the arrangement was good enough for my energetic audience to visualize the coil movement pattern and they strongly believed that something was indeed destined to happen!
They badly wanted the next half of the story!
Rate of change was a new feeling for them and I had to be careful fore playing it with. The sequel story, for the rate at which this field interacts with the moving coil (I had to be careful and did not use the word cutting) will possibly generate a rate of change of the field, was just fine as they knew that the fragrance did have a variation as they went near to the flower and vice versa.
The stage was set for a final showdown.
Fortunately they knew how trigonometric functions would look like when sketched! The moving coil and the unseen field (for this case) hence interacted and the rate of change of magnetic flux (field) threading the coil or the rate at which magnetic flux (field) is cut for a wire-moving across magnetic field lines resulted in the origin of Faraday’s law. An induced voltage was the result whose magnitude did relate to the time derivative of the magnetic field. People realized that Faraday did the right thing by setting up a marriage between the magnet and coil which gave birth to an extremely useful product.
Is there an inexplicable storyline for the complex number? People were curious though!
The baby needed a name, “Induced voltage”. Issue Solved!
A “surname” was also needed though. It requires some meaningful introspection and the best thing was to have the surname from the combination of factors involved. The involved factors were the time derivatives and the sinusoid. Time derivative of a sinusoid provides cosine. The family was proud enough not to loose the generality and they wanted a surname relating to sine itself
“Ladies and Gentlemen, there goes i”, I was elated and I felt as if I had experienced a kundalini energy. This was one of the reasons for the origin of the operator j or i which is called the complex number.
Both I and ‘i’ have indeed been complex.
As expected, half the class was absent on the following day!
This is not a real incident though!
It was a full packed house as usual and some of them appeared to me as though they have not been able to come out of my 1+1 (reference: my previous blog) shock and I knew I had to ease out the day long gap. Good morning has never been a successful phrase in front of this grown up international group!
“Flop indeed”? My mind silently screamed.
To make things more worse, I announced that the topic for the day would be complex number ‘i’, a topic which caused otherwise looking mathematicians more extroverts, conventional tool engineers real bookworms and the high voltage and low voltage groups reclusive. I was standing in front of a non reclusive cohort and I knew I had to be extremely careful not to be sounding like a learnt professional but like a sweetly paced kindergarten story teller.
Once upon a time there lived a magnet, which when freely suspended in air slept North South. Like a flower has its fragrance that attracts beauties around, this magnet had a fascinating field spread around which attracted all the iron like beauties as close as possible. The magnet was very well looked after by an eminent person named Michael Faraday. Faraday carried the magnet with him wherever he went. It was time for Faraday to find a suitable match for the magnet and the search was over when a naked coil triggered Faraday’s imagination. He decided to unite the magnet and coil.
An interval was on the cards and I decided to do my part. My compass movements uplifted their spirits and I noticed people becoming more inquisitive. My not so exquisite picturesque view of the arrangement was good enough for my energetic audience to visualize the coil movement pattern and they strongly believed that something was indeed destined to happen!
They badly wanted the next half of the story!
Rate of change was a new feeling for them and I had to be careful fore playing it with. The sequel story, for the rate at which this field interacts with the moving coil (I had to be careful and did not use the word cutting) will possibly generate a rate of change of the field, was just fine as they knew that the fragrance did have a variation as they went near to the flower and vice versa.
The stage was set for a final showdown.
Fortunately they knew how trigonometric functions would look like when sketched! The moving coil and the unseen field (for this case) hence interacted and the rate of change of magnetic flux (field) threading the coil or the rate at which magnetic flux (field) is cut for a wire-moving across magnetic field lines resulted in the origin of Faraday’s law. An induced voltage was the result whose magnitude did relate to the time derivative of the magnetic field. People realized that Faraday did the right thing by setting up a marriage between the magnet and coil which gave birth to an extremely useful product.
Is there an inexplicable storyline for the complex number? People were curious though!
The baby needed a name, “Induced voltage”. Issue Solved!
A “surname” was also needed though. It requires some meaningful introspection and the best thing was to have the surname from the combination of factors involved. The involved factors were the time derivatives and the sinusoid. Time derivative of a sinusoid provides cosine. The family was proud enough not to loose the generality and they wanted a surname relating to sine itself
“Ladies and Gentlemen, there goes i”, I was elated and I felt as if I had experienced a kundalini energy. This was one of the reasons for the origin of the operator j or i which is called the complex number.
Both I and ‘i’ have indeed been complex.
As expected, half the class was absent on the following day!
This is not a real incident though!
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
An Interesting experience
It was a usual practise for me to ask my young and energetic audience, my students, about what they thought about a particular topic before I share my thoughts. Once the fact is revealed, both sides of the stage remain in satisfaction equillibrium which, seemed to me, set up the required chemistry for a successful knowledge transfer.
As an interesting inquisition, I wanted to know what they thought on why is 1+1 = 2 and not some other number. For a moment, there was a long silence. People looked at me as if I had gone nuts and probably I had a morning tug of war with my ever patient (I am slightly impatient) wife! When I offered a plus one in their assessment credits, at least some of the participants realized there is nothing insane about the question! I knew they would require some clues and my key word was Number System.
Number systems evolved as a necessity and the whole world was, by and large, an automatic slave of decimal number system then. People first created new symbols for numbers and then sequenced it for counting. Perhaps when they reached 9 (the largest single “digit” decimal number), the next number selection was a logical selection? Could it have been that the choice was to have two “digits”? Perhaps they must have decided to choose the second single digit number and sequence it with the first approved 9 symbols and so on and so forth until they reached “99”?
As this dimension to the story stands, people traded with decimal operations and operators and they knew everything appeared had a decimal meaning! 1+1 became 2 in a decimal system. But why is it not 3? The computer age introduced several systems of numbers. This caused a split in the automatic choice group and people, all of a sudden, needed to use new operators and operations which caused unforseen results! 1+1 was no more 2.
So, how do we conclude with a universal definition?
When you add any number in the number system with the first number in the list (evergreen 0 is always an exception!) you have to move on to the next number in the number system. Similarly, when you add the second number in the number system you must move ahead two numbers (Snake and Ladders, but you can have more than 6 added!)This gives 1+1 as "10" in binary system and "2" in decimal, octal, hexadecimal systems. Does that mean that other than binary system, 1+1 will always remain 2?
Not when they have dimensions. As expected, there was an extended buzz around when I said 1+1 need not always be 2.
Leaving my dearest students perplexed, I had to leave the class as I had an important meeting!
As an interesting inquisition, I wanted to know what they thought on why is 1+1 = 2 and not some other number. For a moment, there was a long silence. People looked at me as if I had gone nuts and probably I had a morning tug of war with my ever patient (I am slightly impatient) wife! When I offered a plus one in their assessment credits, at least some of the participants realized there is nothing insane about the question! I knew they would require some clues and my key word was Number System.
Number systems evolved as a necessity and the whole world was, by and large, an automatic slave of decimal number system then. People first created new symbols for numbers and then sequenced it for counting. Perhaps when they reached 9 (the largest single “digit” decimal number), the next number selection was a logical selection? Could it have been that the choice was to have two “digits”? Perhaps they must have decided to choose the second single digit number and sequence it with the first approved 9 symbols and so on and so forth until they reached “99”?
As this dimension to the story stands, people traded with decimal operations and operators and they knew everything appeared had a decimal meaning! 1+1 became 2 in a decimal system. But why is it not 3? The computer age introduced several systems of numbers. This caused a split in the automatic choice group and people, all of a sudden, needed to use new operators and operations which caused unforseen results! 1+1 was no more 2.
So, how do we conclude with a universal definition?
When you add any number in the number system with the first number in the list (evergreen 0 is always an exception!) you have to move on to the next number in the number system. Similarly, when you add the second number in the number system you must move ahead two numbers (Snake and Ladders, but you can have more than 6 added!)This gives 1+1 as "10" in binary system and "2" in decimal, octal, hexadecimal systems. Does that mean that other than binary system, 1+1 will always remain 2?
Not when they have dimensions. As expected, there was an extended buzz around when I said 1+1 need not always be 2.
Leaving my dearest students perplexed, I had to leave the class as I had an important meeting!
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Fond Memories : Introduction
The first thing that came into my mind when I decided to blog was about the quality of contents I can come up with. I knew that I could strike well with my relaxed thoughts. However,the challenge I felt was about the qulaity of the contents that can provide my readers a reading orgasm, by all means, a unique reading experience.
I decided to follow my relaxed thoughts and transfer them to illustrated posts. I believe a good starting point could be all of my unique innovations, true learnings, experiences and some meaningful thoughts for the future .....
I do not mean to be writing an autobiography though!
I decided to follow my relaxed thoughts and transfer them to illustrated posts. I believe a good starting point could be all of my unique innovations, true learnings, experiences and some meaningful thoughts for the future .....
I do not mean to be writing an autobiography though!
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