Wisdom of Goethe

What I have lately said of painting is equally true with respect
to poetry.  It is only necessary for us to know what is really
excellent, and venture to give it expression; and that is saying
much in few words. (The Sorrows of Young Werther)

....and the man who, solely from regard to the opinion of others, and
without any wish or necessity of his own, toils after gold, honour,
or any other phantom, is no better than a fool.
(The Sorrows of Young Werther)

Oppenheimer on Einstein

The famous physicist Robert Oppenheimer speaks on Albert Einstein— the greatest physicist of the last century.His lecture on the works and life of Einstein can be found in The New York Review of Books.

Oppenheimer himself was also a colorful personality.He was a prodigy scientist as well as a great admirer of poetry.He was the first to explain the formation of space-time singularity in terms of General Relativity.He was instrumental in the development of A-Bomb—in fact he led the Manhattan Project at a mere 34 years of age.In his later life he was accused of conspiracy and confined in his house.

Reading Psychoanalysis

Nowadays I am becoming interested in psychology and psycho-analysis. As I believe that most of our mental problems are not by birth, rather they are diseases and can be healed by proper treatment.So I think studying psychology is important.

Knowledge of psychology is not essential only for psychologists, but as far as I know many other professionals(e.g. social scientists, historians, writers etc.) who find psychology as an essential tool.

At present I am trying to read Freud's Dream Psychology.

Return to computer science

During my early high school days I was very much enthusiastic in Computer.But near the end of the school I became interested in Physics and Mathematics.But in last few months I am becoming interested in Computer Science again.That is principally due to reading Chaitin's works.His home page is: www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~chaitin/

Chaitin's brand new idea Algorithmic Information Theory (AIT) is subtle! This introduces a way to measure the computational complexity of something. It is denoted as H(X); which means the bits of information to build something X.

His lecture on the debate of foundation of mathematics is clever but easy to understand.

Dangerous Knowledge

In this outstanding documentary Dangerous Knowledge David Malone features the works of four of the greatest mathematicians of the previous century.

Crisis in Newton's law of Gravitation

Newton's law of Gravitation was a very successful theory. It was tested by many people many times and it always proved true. But, it was not the final theory. It also has some faults and some of them were known to Newton.

At first many of Newton's contemporaries found the idea of attraction between two objects through empty space unintelligible. Newton provided an escape by imagining that gravitational attraction is caused by the exchange of some massless particle called graviton but he explained no further.

Another problem was number of stars in the universe. According to Newton the number of stars in the universe should be infinite because a finite number of stars would eventually collapse at some point due to gravitational attraction. Later Heinrich Olbers argued that infinite number of stars would make the night-sky so bright like day.

Vectors in Physics

As I am studying more Physics I am coming to realise that vectors play a very important role in Physics. It has revolutionized the study of Mechanics and later it came to far important use in Thermodynamics and Electromagnetism.

In mathematics vectors are also helpful to study complex numbers.

I think the very basis of vector is the triangle law and the idea of representing some quantities by lines drawn on plane.

New look at cosmology

About four or five years ago I was very much interested in Cosmology. But last one year I have shown a little interested in Cosmology. Last two days I am finding myself interested again in cosmology. Stephen Hawking`s history making A Brief History of Time,(which has changed the course of my life) is still my guide to Cosmology. While reading it two or three years ago I had omitted Alan Guth`s idea of inflation and primitive state of universe but now it seems to me one of the most interesting idea in the history of Cosmology.

Physics

Physics is a science that deals with the material objects of the universe (mass, force, energy, charge etc.) It aims to express the laws of the universe in terms of mathematical equations. These laws are believed to predict all the phenomena that take part in the universe.

Physicists are trying to formulate a Grand Unified Theory that alone will govern all the natural phenomena. But it would require incredible effort to do so at once. So physicists take the shorter and easier way, they began to find partial laws which predicts some limited phenomena. Some of the most successful partial theories are Law of Gravitation, Electromagnetic Theory, General Relativity, Quantum Theory etc. At present physicists are trying to unify General Relativity and Quantum Theory.

Introduced with Kitaro

Today I have listened another New Age instrumentalist Kitaro`s pieces: Silk Road, Orochi, The Clouds, Moon Dance. This Japanese composer possesses strong mystic and ghostly power.

His Silk Road is a long mystic theatrical peace.As far as I know the piece was written for a Japanese TV series Silk Road.Perhaps Silk Road is a famous route from Europe through Tajikistan, Uzbekistan of central Asia to China. It culturally connects two continents (Europe and Asia).

Cover of Yanni`s Album

Sometimes the cover of a music album accompanies the mode of the music in it.Yanni`s album covers are very much artful.At the beginning of his career his album-covers were abstract, gradually they became portrait based.In his early cover-portraits (for instance In My Time, Dare to Dream) he appears like a romantic-novel hero.

The cover of Yanni`s first and second solo albums (Optimystique, Keys to Imagination) are like surrealist paintings that fits rightly to the nature of his music. Notable the later springs a supernatural feeling.