Theory of Relativity

How often do we really compare what we learn as part of academics to our own real life? Some do this always, some do it now and then, and some really dont care. Well I belong to the first kind and sometimes I get lost in my own world trying to map things in physics and science to the thought process of our brain in real life....

Einstein's theory of relativity compares the mass and speed and says how one entity becomes negligible or very small compared to the other entity. One of the most recent comparisons that I found out was how we perceive 'distance'.

When I was in India, I would visit places in and around Karnataka often atmost an overnight's journey equivalent to 250-400 kms. I felt that Northern India was faaaaaaaaaaar away and so never really tried to make a trip to North India.

However, now that I am in US, I find that for every small thing, we have to make a trip of around 4-5 miles. I was even thinking of visiting my friend in New Jersey once a while which is around 1500 miles from Dallas. This is equivalent to the distance from Blore to Lucknow(almost 3/4 country's length) if you calculate. Here you see the change in 'perception'. As soon as I landed in US, instead of realizing that US is a big country and places are far, I started measuring distance relative of the country's width. This means, I felt that NJ was only half way across the country, which was not THAT far. More so, because of the distance I had already travelled (India to US). Now that I had travelled India to US (very faaaaaaaar), if I see the northern places in India now, I feel that the places are not really 'far away'. But because of my 'local comparison', I thought that way... And that is why I say 'far' and 'near' are always relative. We cannot really say it in an absolute sense.

Also for people in US, travelling 50-60 miles everyday for work is a day-to-day affair. But think about that in Bangalore.. how much fuss we make to go from North Bangalore to South Bangalore even if it is once a while for some wedding. People go 20 miles just to do some shopping. How far do we actually travel in Bangalore to do our shopping?

Come to think of it, ANY measurement metric we use is relative to something we fix as a 'reference'. This is the beauty of life and Einstein just put that in the form of a formula and that is why he is great.

Sing while you build a tree

If you happen to know about the Perlman algorithm for creating a spanning tree for bridges in Computer Networks, then here you have the algorithm right in Radia Perlman's style.

Algorhyme

I think that I shall never see
A graph more lovely than a tree.

A tree whose crucial property
Is loop-free connectivity.

A tree that must be sure to span
So packets can reach every LAN.

First, the root must be selected.
By ID, it is elected.

Least-cost paths from root are traced.
In the tree, these paths are placed.

A mesh is made by folks like me,
Then bridges find a spanning tree.

- Radia Perlman

Hope you enjoyed this poem.... You guys heard any of such ones????

Sleep and Dreams - Explainations

If you have seen my earlier post about dreams, then here are some insights into "How sleep works" and "How Dreams work".

Interesting read.. Let me know what you think...