"Darren Aronofsky is a genius" seems to be the general opinion, from what few reviews i've read on the net. When I saw the movie "The Fountain", I couldn't get past the first few minutes without interruption. I couldn't understand what the movie was about, although I was certainly awed. And intrigued. I had to look up imdb to see what the movie was about, to convince myself to sit through the movie. And that was when I realized Darren Aronofsky, the director, was also the one who wrote and directed Requiem for a Dream. And Pi. That in itself was enough to convince me.
Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life, Fountain of Youth, eternal life, Mayan creation legends, cancer, disease, death, fight for survival, medical experiments on monkeys, animal rights, space travel, bubbles, reincarnation, schizophrenia, yoga, the Lotus Position, Spanish Inquisition, treasure hunt, astronomy, the Xibulba nebula, yeast cultures, co-dependence, eternal quest. Some of the things that figure in the movie. And oh, by the way, there were no computer-based CG effects used, the awesome depiction of stars and nebulae was done by micro-photography of yeast cultures. And this is only what you see. What is meant to be understood, after seeing it, is still a mystery. Even after seeing the whole movie I still couldn't understand what the movie was about, except that it ended. And somehow, I was fulfilled. In Aronofsky's own words, "it's very much like a Rubik's cube, where you can solve it in several different ways, but ultimately there's only one solution at the end".
Open to interpretation. That's what I like about some movies, like the hindi one I saw the other day, "Life in a Metro". Seems to me that involving the audience, in the movie and its interpretations rather than in creating plot twists and story arcs, (such as taking online polls of what kind of story the public wants --- ouch!) is an integral part of critical success.
June 11, 2007
April 12, 2007
The rains are here!
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget
As you run out into the street, droplets of rain lashing at you from every direction, you just can't help the smile that forms. You can't get rid of that innocent blissful grin on your face, even though you know it makes you look even stupider (if that was ever possible). You forget for a moment what you learnt was possible, and start to leap to a plane that is above everything. Petty comparisons, differences of opinions, little insecurities all vanish for a moment from your conscious thought, as you give up your hold on your body to those little wet needles that tingle you everywhere. You wish you could fly higher, so that no tree would be able to block the rain. You wish you could fly higher, so that you can see the thunder cloud much closer, and play with the lightning. You settle for something equally pleasing and equally stimulating, a walk in the rain. You think of all your friends who are missing out on these little joys in life, and pray for them. You think of all your friends elsewhere, who would be out dancing in the rain too, and wish that you were with them. You think of how rare it is to see the sun up and shining bright, when it is raining hard on your face. And then you search for the ever-elusive rainbow. And the pot-o'-gold at the end of the rainbow.
And when the rain leaves you alone, and the sun glaringly points this out to you, all you do is bask in the knowledge and hope that all is well with the world.
April 1, 2007
Theory
What is a bit? Where did the notion of a bit come from? To understand such essential concepts one should truly understand Shannon's Information Theory. What is to be understood, is that a bit is nothing but a measure of information. Weight (mass?) is measured in kilograms, length in metres, and information (data?) in bits. The minimum amount of information that can exist is a bit. A bit contains information about a certain flag, as to in which of these states it lies: TRUE (1, high, on) or FALSE (0,low, off). How is this information sufficient enough to do anything with it? Because we already know what that flag was intended for. We only needed to store the current state of the flag, and hence the bit.
Notice, that a flag can exist in only one of two states, T or F. Nothing intermediary. This is the basis of Binary Logic, Binary arithmetic and etc.. Arithmetic to the base 2. Why do we use only base 2 arithmetic? If we could store states 0, 1, 2, ... 9 in a "dit" (a decimal bit), we would obviously need a lot less number of dits to store the same information than the number of bits. So why is the number 2 sacred? Why does every computer use Binary logic instead of Decimal logic? The answer to that lies in material sciences. We have transistors that can work in between two electrical levels. Each of these electrical levels (
, 
, VDD/VCC, etc.. ) can represent only one state, so there can be only two states represented by the transistor. And besides, arithmetic that can be done with any base can also be done with base 2. In other words, Decimal logic, is no more powerful (in terms of calculational possibilities) than Binary Logic. Hence the whole idea of Flip-Flops, etc.
Why am i talking about bits and pieces? What is the whole picture here? Basically i wanted to talk about "Qubits". Quantum Theoretic equivalents, of the Information theoretic bit. When we said any dits or other-its are as powerful as bits, why are we talking about these qubits? coz they come under a wholly different category. A qubit can exist in infinitely many states!
eh? what does that mean?
Think of an electron. It has spin angular momentum, according to our highschool physics text books, of either
or 
. Let us represent the spin with say 0 and spin with 1. These states are mutually exclusive, in that no electron can exist in both these states at once. But what is interesting, and what is not taught in high school text books, is that an electron can exist in a combination of these two states! But hey! Didn't we learn that spin angular momentum of an electron was only either 
? Now what's this about combination of states? Ahha. There in, lies the secret of the principle of Superposition.
What is not apparent at the first glance, is that outcomes of an experiment may not indeed tell you everything about the state of the system before the experiment. What I'm trying to say, is that we (meaning most computer scientists and almost all engineers) are so used to the black box approach, that we assume we know everything about a system and the states it might have been in, once we know the inputs and outputs through that black box. Maybe, this is not true in the Quantum world. Or is it? I really don't know. What I do know, is that we can never really say that an electron was in such a place in such a time (remember? Heisenberg's uncertainty principle?). When you can't even say that, or the direction in which it is spinning, how can we say whether it had a positive or a negative spin angular momentum? What in fact happens, or is theorized to happen, is that electrons might be spinning in a mixed state. Meaning they have a little of and a little of spin. But the moment we try to measure which of these it has, the state "collapses" to either one of them. Imagine a vector 
, which is neither completely a real number, nor completely a non-real number. But the moment you take a projection of this vector along one of the axes, the vector "collapses" to its component along that axis. This is how I understood what happens, when an experiment is done. The state of the system collapses to the observed state. But there is a difference to be noted, which might be the difference between a classical system and a quantum system. In the case of the vector, we knew a priori the axis that we were going to project the vector upon. This is not the case with a quantum experiment. You do indeed observe either a or a spin only for an electron, but you can never tell which value the result of the experiment will be. So essentially, an electron before measuring its spin angular momentum is in a state that is neither of the observable states, but in fact, a mixture of both and a lot more. Which is what I mean when I say a qubit exists in infinitely many states!
Now having said all of this, I still am not really sure whether what I've written is anywhere even remotely near to the physical/mathematical/scientific reality that I proclaim to study! (What is it that I proclaim to study? Please... )
Notice, that a flag can exist in only one of two states, T or F. Nothing intermediary. This is the basis of Binary Logic, Binary arithmetic and etc.. Arithmetic to the base 2. Why do we use only base 2 arithmetic? If we could store states 0, 1, 2, ... 9 in a "dit" (a decimal bit), we would obviously need a lot less number of dits to store the same information than the number of bits. So why is the number 2 sacred? Why does every computer use Binary logic instead of Decimal logic? The answer to that lies in material sciences. We have transistors that can work in between two electrical levels. Each of these electrical levels (
, , VDD/VCC, etc.. ) can represent only one state, so there can be only two states represented by the transistor. And besides, arithmetic that can be done with any base can also be done with base 2. In other words, Decimal logic, is no more powerful (in terms of calculational possibilities) than Binary Logic. Hence the whole idea of Flip-Flops, etc.Why am i talking about bits and pieces? What is the whole picture here? Basically i wanted to talk about "Qubits". Quantum Theoretic equivalents, of the Information theoretic bit. When we said any dits or other-its are as powerful as bits, why are we talking about these qubits? coz they come under a wholly different category. A qubit can exist in infinitely many states!
eh? what does that mean?
Think of an electron. It has spin angular momentum, according to our highschool physics text books, of either
or . Let us represent the spin with say 0 and spin with 1. These states are mutually exclusive, in that no electron can exist in both these states at once. But what is interesting, and what is not taught in high school text books, is that an electron can exist in a combination of these two states! But hey! Didn't we learn that spin angular momentum of an electron was only either ? Now what's this about combination of states? Ahha. There in, lies the secret of the principle of Superposition.What is not apparent at the first glance, is that outcomes of an experiment may not indeed tell you everything about the state of the system before the experiment. What I'm trying to say, is that we (meaning most computer scientists and almost all engineers) are so used to the black box approach, that we assume we know everything about a system and the states it might have been in, once we know the inputs and outputs through that black box. Maybe, this is not true in the Quantum world. Or is it? I really don't know. What I do know, is that we can never really say that an electron was in such a place in such a time (remember? Heisenberg's uncertainty principle?). When you can't even say that, or the direction in which it is spinning, how can we say whether it had a positive or a negative spin angular momentum? What in fact happens, or is theorized to happen, is that electrons might be spinning in a mixed state. Meaning they have a little of
and a little of spin. But the moment we try to measure which of these it has, the state "collapses" to either one of them. Imagine a vector , which is neither completely a real number, nor completely a non-real number. But the moment you take a projection of this vector along one of the axes, the vector "collapses" to its component along that axis. This is how I understood what happens, when an experiment is done. The state of the system collapses to the observed state. But there is a difference to be noted, which might be the difference between a classical system and a quantum system. In the case of the vector, we knew a priori the axis that we were going to project the vector upon. This is not the case with a quantum experiment. You do indeed observe either a or a spin only for an electron, but you can never tell which value the result of the experiment will be. So essentially, an electron before measuring its spin angular momentum is in a state that is neither of the observable states, but in fact, a mixture of both and a lot more. Which is what I mean when I say a qubit exists in infinitely many states!Now having said all of this, I still am not really sure whether what I've written is anywhere even remotely near to the physical/mathematical/scientific reality that I proclaim to study! (What is it that I proclaim to study? Please... )
Is it really true? LaTeX??
Well, there's only one way to find out, isn't there? let's try this for instance:
This just adds a whole new dimension to my blogging! :D let's see if this works out now, after publishing....
OK, it works after publishing toO! but why don't LaTeX equations on other blogs show up? Anyway, interested people might find out more (instructions, prerequisites, etc..) from here, all credit due to this person.
This just adds a whole new dimension to my blogging! :D let's see if this works out now, after publishing....
OK, it works after publishing toO! but why don't LaTeX equations on other blogs show up? Anyway, interested people might find out more (instructions, prerequisites, etc..) from here, all credit due to this person.
January 22, 2007
Rings, Cycles, and Circles.
Lost
Desperation
Confusion
Hope
Resolve
Ambition
Success
Complacence
Lust
Failure
Lost
Desperation
.
.
.
Desperation
Confusion
Hope
Resolve
Ambition
Success
Complacence
Lust
Failure
Lost
Desperation
.
.
.
December 12, 2006
Collegesick :(
long time since i last blogged. hmm.. i guess i do it every once in a while when i get too bored, or when none of my friends are online :P
so here's what's been happening lately:
And oh how can i forget this? Convocation for our undergraduate college batch is going to be held pretty soon, and i'm looking forward to bunking it! :D I have my own reasons, thank you.
guess that's about it. should give you an idea of how completely bored i am now! and oh yeah if you're wondering what the title's supposed to mean, it means feeling sick of college (ala seasick, carsick), as well as longing to go back to college (ala homesick). i simply had to say it...
so here's what's been happening lately:
- Converted my MTech at IIIT to MS by research
- Basically it means college gets to pay my tuition fees, and i get to write a thesis which, if good enough, is eligible for publication. A lot of ifs and buts, but i think i can do it if i get down to it.
- Faculty guide Prof. Kannan Srinathan, simply an awesome person. You got to listen to his lecture sometime, just to see the wide range of topics he touches upon.
- Have to find a topic soon enough, or i might get kicked out of the CSTAR lab :P
- Took up a lot of interesting courses this semester
- Computational Geometry, by Prof. Prosenjit Gupta, another mathematician i respect simply for the rigour with which he talks or writes maths.
- Topics in Information Security, by Prof. Kannan Srinathan, and in his class, believe me he was touching upon how Information Theory and Gravitational Theory are related fields!
- Artificial Neural Networks, by Prof. B. Yegnanarayana, google him up, and you will know.
- Graph Theory by Profs Kishore Kothapally and Ch. Venkaiah, just for fun :D
- Trying to get myself out from the potato couch i've been in all my life till now
- Been going to swimming classes, but that somehow isn't working out. Can't get myself to even float!
- Playing TT as always, and hope to improve upon, as soon as I buy my first Table Tennis bat. I'm still wondering whether to buy an Infinite or a GKI Kung-Fu, or a (sh*t. forgot the name of that company Gururaj told me about.. ). Guess I'll buy one as soon as i receive my first stipend deposit.
- Planning on going to the gym. But if you know me, you must already know my umpteen number of plans. so, I'm not getting my hopes up too high :D
- Should look into some of the topics being taught in classes
- IAC and SC models (PDP models) in ANN class
- Byzantine Agreement on Complete/Incomplete Networks with/without interaction
- K-connectivity and Bipartite components in Graph Theory
- Interval Trees, Range Trees, Segment Trees, etc in Computational Geometry
- and first of all try and attend the lab meetings!! i dunno why i'm doing MS if i'm not attending Kannan sir's lab meetings.
And oh how can i forget this? Convocation for our undergraduate college batch is going to be held pretty soon, and i'm looking forward to bunking it! :D I have my own reasons, thank you.
guess that's about it. should give you an idea of how completely bored i am now! and oh yeah if you're wondering what the title's supposed to mean, it means feeling sick of college (ala seasick, carsick), as well as longing to go back to college (ala homesick). i simply had to say it...
November 7, 2006
Random Rantings
Bored. Frustrated. Alone. what to do? update your blog!
Current Status:
Sarat Chandra Addepalli, age: 22 years.
currently pursuing Mtech, at IIIT Hyderabad.
single, and no hopes of changing that in the near future.
how uninteresting can a life get? you'll know, if you know me. Passions, interests, none. Aim in life, still not very clear. Views, thoughts and opinions on current issues: if the current is a/c, you'll die. I know. Bad joke. And that too not a very laughable one. I suck at socialising. I suck at making and keeping friendships. I suck at keeping promises. And it's a wonder how I've lived more than 20 years on this planet!
I know my life is much better than more than half the people on the earth. I know my problems are nothing compared to some of the problems others face in their everyday life. I know I'm much better off than most people. Yet, I crave for sympathy. And finding none, I pity myself. Fallen into a deep rotten pit. Along with my conscience, which mocks and jeers at me every second. I try to hit it hard, and subdue it, but that only makes the grin on its face much wider.
Enough with the pitiful self-pity. The other day, i was trying to think of an idea which involved Man, Machine, Cyborg, Robot, Conscience, Guilt, and such. And all I could think of was how complete the Matrix concept was. Somehow i can't go beyond the Matrix. It's like all possible scenarios have already been encoded in the Matrix (and the Animatrix), that one can't possibly think of a situation beyond it. But then again, that's just another way of saying I'm sorry, I'm unable to think. So how do you think, and come up with something that nobody has ever thought of before? And for those of you who have not much work to do like myself, may i suggest to you this site? Contains comics, essays, videos, anime, artwork and such addendum, some of which is very interesting, captivating even.
What is it that defines man, and differentiates it from all other species? is it thought? No. We have already proved that other creatures too are capable of thought. Is it conscience? How do we prove other animals are not self-aware? After all, they too have instincts honed over generations which help in survival. Then what is self-awareness? Simply put, I understand it as knowing that I exist. Then doesn't a dog know that it exists? How come? A dog knows when it is hungry, and it certainly knows affection. Any pet-lover will tell you that. I suppose a dog will also revolt, under extreme circumstances. Bees certainly do, when their hive is violated. So does it mean animals have a sense of belonging? A sense of what is theirs and what is to be protected? I think so, yes.
So what is self-awareness? I know i exist. Doesn't an animal know that it exists? Is that even possible? Interesting tidbit: Once upon a time, it was assumed that blacks were incapable of thought, and that they were inferior to humans. That they were used as a commodity is well known, that they were thought of as a commodity is plausible. There might have even been days when people did not consider blacks as people. And now we know better. So is it possible that some time in the future we suddenly realise that even dogs are much more intelligent than they seem? Or that indeed other species have a latent ability to be self-aware? I don't know. I'm not knowledgeable in areas such as this, and I do not know what are the studies that have been done. What I do know is that gorillas have successfully been able to understand limited speech, and even communicate with humans. So does that mean the better a species is able to communicate with humans, the more intelligent that species is? Like I said, lots of questions, don't know the answers.
Anyways, I was trying to lead up to this: in my opinion, the distinguishing feature that a human has, is individuality. The faculty of independent thought. The ability to live all alone, and not be bored at the same time. The ability to come up with different ways to represent knowledge and thought, in the form of languages and sciences. The ability to feel a wide range of emotions, yet be heartless enough to see a fellow human suffer. The ability to change lives of others, even when one doesn't know them. The ability to think something, say something else, and act completely different. Deceit, treachery, malice, pride, jealousy, envy. I wouldn't know if animals have such emotions, but i sure know humans have them. And the ability to wage a concerted civil war, when they feel their rights have been infringed upon. And maybe it is only after a war that a civilisation realises its mistakes. All this is what marks a man from an animal, his boon and his doom.
What if there is a new species that is much more intelligent, capable of processing much more information, stronger and swifter, but incapable of individual thought? what if all the thinking process is done in a Queen's brain, hidden inside a highly secure hive, and all the work done by drones controlled by the Queen? Does that make the species more intelligent than us? What if the Bugs rule our world in time to come, and subjugate humans and brand us as less than them, and thus lesser arthropodizens (like blacks were branded as lesser citizens)? And what if, that new species wasn't even a biological species, but a software bug that suddenly gained consciousness on some level, and started ruling (or rather controlling) all electronics, communications and power systems? Will that still make them a species? Will we have to listen to their electronic voices or messages in order to preserve our sanity? Or worse, our freedom? (The Queen could be a super-secret mainframe hidden deep inside a mountain range, a hive, ala Dan Brown's cultist defense organisations. I know it's cheesy, but i'm only stating what could be an electronic version of a Queen bee. Or it could be something like Resident Evil's Red Queen.)
Where does all this leave us? my question is, why do we feel so superior to other species? After all, we are just another species, which shall leave enough information for later species to delve out of our fossils. For all our bickering, we will still be outlived by the cockroaches. Doesn't that make them more intelligent than us?
Current Status:
Sarat Chandra Addepalli, age: 22 years.
currently pursuing Mtech, at IIIT Hyderabad.
single, and no hopes of changing that in the near future.
how uninteresting can a life get? you'll know, if you know me. Passions, interests, none. Aim in life, still not very clear. Views, thoughts and opinions on current issues: if the current is a/c, you'll die. I know. Bad joke. And that too not a very laughable one. I suck at socialising. I suck at making and keeping friendships. I suck at keeping promises. And it's a wonder how I've lived more than 20 years on this planet!
I know my life is much better than more than half the people on the earth. I know my problems are nothing compared to some of the problems others face in their everyday life. I know I'm much better off than most people. Yet, I crave for sympathy. And finding none, I pity myself. Fallen into a deep rotten pit. Along with my conscience, which mocks and jeers at me every second. I try to hit it hard, and subdue it, but that only makes the grin on its face much wider.
Enough with the pitiful self-pity. The other day, i was trying to think of an idea which involved Man, Machine, Cyborg, Robot, Conscience, Guilt, and such. And all I could think of was how complete the Matrix concept was. Somehow i can't go beyond the Matrix. It's like all possible scenarios have already been encoded in the Matrix (and the Animatrix), that one can't possibly think of a situation beyond it. But then again, that's just another way of saying I'm sorry, I'm unable to think. So how do you think, and come up with something that nobody has ever thought of before? And for those of you who have not much work to do like myself, may i suggest to you this site? Contains comics, essays, videos, anime, artwork and such addendum, some of which is very interesting, captivating even.
What is it that defines man, and differentiates it from all other species? is it thought? No. We have already proved that other creatures too are capable of thought. Is it conscience? How do we prove other animals are not self-aware? After all, they too have instincts honed over generations which help in survival. Then what is self-awareness? Simply put, I understand it as knowing that I exist. Then doesn't a dog know that it exists? How come? A dog knows when it is hungry, and it certainly knows affection. Any pet-lover will tell you that. I suppose a dog will also revolt, under extreme circumstances. Bees certainly do, when their hive is violated. So does it mean animals have a sense of belonging? A sense of what is theirs and what is to be protected? I think so, yes.
So what is self-awareness? I know i exist. Doesn't an animal know that it exists? Is that even possible? Interesting tidbit: Once upon a time, it was assumed that blacks were incapable of thought, and that they were inferior to humans. That they were used as a commodity is well known, that they were thought of as a commodity is plausible. There might have even been days when people did not consider blacks as people. And now we know better. So is it possible that some time in the future we suddenly realise that even dogs are much more intelligent than they seem? Or that indeed other species have a latent ability to be self-aware? I don't know. I'm not knowledgeable in areas such as this, and I do not know what are the studies that have been done. What I do know is that gorillas have successfully been able to understand limited speech, and even communicate with humans. So does that mean the better a species is able to communicate with humans, the more intelligent that species is? Like I said, lots of questions, don't know the answers.
Anyways, I was trying to lead up to this: in my opinion, the distinguishing feature that a human has, is individuality. The faculty of independent thought. The ability to live all alone, and not be bored at the same time. The ability to come up with different ways to represent knowledge and thought, in the form of languages and sciences. The ability to feel a wide range of emotions, yet be heartless enough to see a fellow human suffer. The ability to change lives of others, even when one doesn't know them. The ability to think something, say something else, and act completely different. Deceit, treachery, malice, pride, jealousy, envy. I wouldn't know if animals have such emotions, but i sure know humans have them. And the ability to wage a concerted civil war, when they feel their rights have been infringed upon. And maybe it is only after a war that a civilisation realises its mistakes. All this is what marks a man from an animal, his boon and his doom.
What if there is a new species that is much more intelligent, capable of processing much more information, stronger and swifter, but incapable of individual thought? what if all the thinking process is done in a Queen's brain, hidden inside a highly secure hive, and all the work done by drones controlled by the Queen? Does that make the species more intelligent than us? What if the Bugs rule our world in time to come, and subjugate humans and brand us as less than them, and thus lesser arthropodizens (like blacks were branded as lesser citizens)? And what if, that new species wasn't even a biological species, but a software bug that suddenly gained consciousness on some level, and started ruling (or rather controlling) all electronics, communications and power systems? Will that still make them a species? Will we have to listen to their electronic voices or messages in order to preserve our sanity? Or worse, our freedom? (The Queen could be a super-secret mainframe hidden deep inside a mountain range, a hive, ala Dan Brown's cultist defense organisations. I know it's cheesy, but i'm only stating what could be an electronic version of a Queen bee. Or it could be something like Resident Evil's Red Queen.)
Where does all this leave us? my question is, why do we feel so superior to other species? After all, we are just another species, which shall leave enough information for later species to delve out of our fossils. For all our bickering, we will still be outlived by the cockroaches. Doesn't that make them more intelligent than us?
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