Sixth Sith Sitch Itch

I have a bad feeling about this....NOT. I refer of course the imminent fall of The Republic and to the inevitable (or otherwise) demise of Annie (go get yer gun) Kin Skywaker.

Yes, the final (third, or is it the sixth?) episode of Star Wars is all but upon us, after decades of wondering why.

It all began in 1977, and is now about to end in 2005. Star Wars fans aside, Mr Lucas has certainly taken his time to set this one straight. I mean, we all knew that Lord Vader from the planet Vulcan (soundtrack provided by "Van Halen") jumped at the chance to go to the Dark (breathes in asthmatically) Side (breathes out pneumoniacally), but nobody knew how, why, or where. NOW we all have the chance to finally see for ourselves, the How, Why, and Where of it all. And wherewithall is what we will will need to pay to get to see it, given Movie Theater seat prices.

My entry to this planet was about the same time that "Jedi" was airing, so I will never go to THAT planet again, but, needles to say ( and I did say "Needles", Michael J. Fox and Van Halen keep watching), I will be watching this denouement with bated Vader's breath.

After all, Mr. Lucas, the new digitised cameras can't "free you up" THAT much so as to compromise the entire expectation (values) of an entire Generation (s) such that they get in the way of the actual storyline.....but this is BeFore GigaQuads were invented, so maybe I am wrong.

Maybe we should ALL try the Sixth Sith Sixth Sense Sitch, and realise that all it is about is money, after all, or maybe some allusion to the World's Worst Tongue-Twister.

(for those not with the Force, "sitch" is Teen English slang for "Situation")

Expectation Values

Here I am then, in Groningen. Hotel is fairly not-so-fabulous, but hey! who am I (good song in Les Miserables - 24601 ahoy!) to judge?

Tomorrow I will gauge their team's invariance to the "3-slit" technology that I have somehow provided for them.

Here is flatland to a fault (not that they get any here, but hey, this is Akiko with her triple entendres). This place is so FLAT that ignoring any kind of resistance (French or otherwise), given a small push on a bicycle, you would travel for "miles and miles" (The author of that song would mayhap trash his guitar at my allusion) without any help at all. A "bit" like superconductivity, only on a macroscopic scale, and without the "cool" temperatures.

Suffice it to say, Groningen is a little different from Manchester. It is in the middle of nowhere, with just a few black-and-whites for company (Al Powell perhaps).

My reading on this place is that they are not expecting anyone to make much valued improvement, hence the title of the post.

Quantum Mechanics is wonderful, ain't it?

Damn the Hamster

Once upon a time there was a river. It was called the "Amster". It hailed from a country called "The Netherlands" (connotations ahoy! - twice! ~ NAY ~ thrice. Those of you into journalism may make the connection(s)).

Anyway, I am here in the real flatland, and home to M. C. Escher. Now there was an artist. True , his career spanned woodcuts and engravings and even paintings, but there was an aura about him that caught the eye. The Impossible Triangle first caught mine. (It certainly got the attention of Boon's finger in Clive Barker's "Nightbreed". (what a disturbing movie!))

Now, there is an impossible cube. (this statement has at least three meanings, depending upon who you are!)

To each his own.

Back to the future, then. I am here in Holland checking out the laboratory in Friesland. Where the black and white cows come from. The lab is at Groningen, North west of the said area. They have an average sort of setup. I will go there tomorrow and gauge their invariance.

East Sea Of Japan

In my life as a person hailing from Japan and studying in Korea, I have come across various forms of what other people might call racism. Far be it for a lowly Japanese subject to say but, hey! We are not all political you know!

The group of islands called "Dokdo" in the East Sea of Japan is a point I would like to make. Are they Korean or are they Japanese? As a Japanese citizen who spent time in Korea I have to say that I have neutral views. I HAVE to have neutral views.

Why don't our nations both embrace the spirit of Japan/Korea friendship year, along with the World Cup Spirit of 2002, and share them? Or am I being too naive?

Maybe not.........

Several Koreans I have met do not even give Japan a capital letter when writing the name of my country.

Although I hate this, I just keep quiet. After all, I do not want to sink as low as these people.

In a world that is somewhat enlightened now, I was of the opinion that this sort of puerile behaviour was outdated.

Sadly, it seems I was wrong. There are always unelightened people out there, however much a different accent they have, Pakistani or otherwise.

What is special about 6174?

That got me thinking. The rational numbers, I mean.

Then Kaprekar came into mind. Indian guy who loved to play with the integers.

Try this: pick any 4-digit number (digit - a single numeral), make the largest and the smallest number you can from the four digits available ( make sure the digits are mainly different). For example - choose 3298, the largest new number you can get by juggling is of course, 9832. The smallest is 2389. NOW, subtract the smaller from the larger and you get a new one - namely, 7443. Use this number to continue forthwith; Namely, 7443 - 3447 = 3996 etc.

It always stops at 6174.

You tell me.

For three digits it is always 495. After four digits, the process cycles, but for three and four digits, it ALWAYS ends in 495 and 6174, respectively.

One has to ponder what other significance these two otherwise unimpressive integers have, if any. And how many others there are out there, if only we ask the right questions.

For those of you who are more of the inquiring nature, try a similar exercise called the "Goldbach Conjecture" ~ to be elaborated on in a future post.

If I ever buy a house in a long street, I want the house number to be either 495 or 6174. I regard these numbers as the opposite to "13" (for the English among you), or "4", (for the Koreans among you), or "42" (For the pessimists among you, Koreans or otherwise).

Mathematics was not one of Douglas Addams' strong points.

Rational or Irrational?

No, I am not talking about people this time. It is numbers. They are strange.

For those of you who have only a rudimentary knowlwdge of numbers, this paragraph is for you. For the rest of you, skip to paragraph three. Numbers come in all kinds. There are the rational numbers, that is, numbers that can descirbed as p/q, where p and q are whole numbers (integers). Then there are the irrational numbers, those that cannot be expressed as such. Rationals have a decimal sequence which either ends or repeats in a cycle. Irrationals have non-repeating and non-ending decimal sequences. Both sets of numbers can be found as solutions to general algebraic equations. A third class of numbers, the "transcendentals", are irrational, but they are "above" the others. That is, transcendental numbers are those numbers that can never be found as solutions to algebraic equations.

One of the more common irrational numbers is the square root of 2, or approximately 1.4142... In fact,the square root of any odd number will almost certainly give an irrational number as the answer.

Perhaps the most well-known irrational number is pi, the constant number that is the result of dividing any circle's circumference by its diameter. Its value is approximately 3.1415926... This number is so famous that the computer programmers have calculated it up to 300 or 400 million decimal places, with a billion well in sight. Less well-known, but maybe more important in higher mathematics, is the number e. "e" stands simply for "exponential", and is approximately 2.718281828... Not surprisingly, both numbers have been proved, many years ago, to be transcendental as well.

Mathematicians have combined the two in various ways. (pi + e) is irrational. (pi - e) is irrational. (pi * e) is also irrational. All are easily proved.

Here's the rub:~ e raised to the power pi has been proved to be irrational, and is suspected to be transcendental, but not proven (yet).

Astonishing? Maybe.

Try this one then :~ pi raised to the power e. A number approximately equal to 8.74248131559. Nobody has any idea whether this is even rational or irrational.

I find this absolutely fascinating.

Clan Royal

And the winner is.....Hedgehunter?

We are talking about the winner of the Grand National here, not some Award Ceremony.

Contratulations to the rider Ruby. Ruby? At first I thought they had waxed eloquent, but Ruby? as in a MAN's name?

Well, anyway, my horse, Clan Royal, fell at Becher's Brook the second time around. The horse could not jump because two other riderless horses ran right across its path. Make of that what you will. I already have. Clan Royal.

Seriously, though, Royal Weddings don't come a dime a dozen, but interestingly enough, CNN did not label its LIVE broadcast as "The Royal Wedding", but simply "a Royal Wedding".

Small "a".

Pity they missed out the "......" and even the "?"

Akiko Inspired Moment #1

Because I am a scientist (self-proclaimed or otherwise) , every so often, I will go into the mode I call AIM. Here's the first:

Everyone uses electricity, and everyone has some knowledge of electrical resistance. But what is it? Here is my explanation.

Imagine a soccer match in a big stadium. The home team's greatest fan, Pierre, is always early, and runs straightaway down the empty terraces to the barrier, unopposed by any other fans. This is the equivalent of zero resistance, and is found in superconducting ceramics. at extremely cold temperatures. But what if Pierre is on time? Well, he has to jostle with the other early people and barge his way to the front. This is resistance is normal as at room temperature. The current (Pierre) finds it ok to pass through, but has a bit of trouble. However, one Saturday, he arrives late, but just as the away team scores. The crowd is silenced, and he finds it easier to get to the front., because the fans are not moving, just standing still in shock. This is resistance is low, and it happens at cool temperatures. However, Pierre is unlucky because the home team scores just when he wants to go to the bathroom. He finds it hard to move because the other fans are jumping around, hailing their team. This is resistance is high, and happens at high temperatures.

One Saturday, however, he is extremely late arriving at the game, because he was introducing his sister , Ann, to the delights of Star Trek and their collective enemy , the Borg.

He rushes down the terraces only to find nobody there. No players, no crowd, nothing. Only a battle scarred pitch and a large display screen with three words.....Resistance is futile.

Popes, Camillas and Horses (but not necessarily in that order or preference)

Well, here I am in Jolly old England. Charlie-boy has had his irreverent (irrelevant?) wedding postponed more than once, and now, it had been rescheduled again due to some other dead person(Sorry John-Paul, respects later). And now I find that the Grand National has been moved to 1605 rather than the traditional 1520 because of this.

Well, I made my Great Trip to Manchester, and I now get to Liverpool for the National. Local traditions, purrlease! Grand National starts at 1520. Period!

Please say that it was postponed for the Pontiff, not the Pretender.

I am neither Catholic nor Muslim, Buddhist nor Hindu, but there is at least enough good faith in me to realise that this bloke J-P2 deserves a sainthood.

Cynicism aside, The guy travelled the equivalent of the distance to the moon and back three times in aid of World Peace, and who else can simply say "I fathered the birth of a New World". To that, John-Paul, II, you have my deepest respect, and I trust that you and your maker are having a good old rumbustuous time together right now, toasting to the successful job you both put together.

Bill Paxton said it right

Well, I have only seen a shake of M. Paxton's films, but he has a coupla memorable quotes, to wit,

"Well, what the Flaviana Alfar are we supposed to do now?"

to call into mind a rather successful sequel.

He seems to have that sort of face that says "Well, stroke me now because you ain't never gonna get another chance at it" (grins childishly)

For those of you who know me, then welcome to my blog. For those of you don't , hey, then welcome to my blog. This is my way of "Bustin' out all over", etc.

To business: The three-slit adaptation method of gathering data that I have had implemented in more than several labs across Europe has been, if put mildly, wildly successful. This is an idea I became inspired with in Korea and has been the pseudo-bane of my existence ever since. I invented it, submitted it, was subsumed by it, accused of it, praised for it, cursed for it, blessed for it, thrown-into-a-job-because-of-it, and finally, am overseeing it, but all-in-all, it has been a pleasant 4-D rollercoaster ride.

My idea? O-Ho not so fast, bucko! I will write about it here once you know the basics of the tiny field of atom-smashing that I am in. Interested? You WILL be, but of that later. Meanwhile......More on the swearwords....

"Gordon tonight holder person" was one I learnt with aplomb during my early years as a nubile teen in London.

Next post will elaborate and be more elaborate.

Jehangir Khan - another cool swearword

Being a polite and humble subject of the human race, I find it hard to swear in the normal way. So I use interesting and verbose words to substitute. You have already "Flaviana Alfar", here is another "Jahangir Khan". He was a World Class Pakistani Squash player. Kinda has a ring to it, just like Flaviana Alfar.

Anyway. Here's me.

Name of Akiko. Nuclear physics student, who has studied at frumious bandersnatch type of places, but always comes galumphing back.

"This gubblick contains many non-sklarkish English fluzpahs, but the overall pluggandisp can be glorked from the context"

See? How a scientist gets side-tracked.

However, more on this blog presently. Sometime in an undated future I will get into those things that REALLY bug me - the blown gaskets on the scattering chamber vacuum pumps.

After that, I can launch into good stuff after I deal with those gaskets in Manchester.

Bloggin hell!

"This document contains no data"! A bloggin scientist's nite mare!

What the Flaviana Alfar is THAT all about?

Now don't get me wrong, Flaviana Alfar was probably a very nice mother, and perhaps an even nicer mother-in-law, but purrlease! don't judge me on the use of a perfectly good Filipina's name as a swearword occasionally. A lot nicer than saying "What the F*** is that all about", and certainly a lot longer to remember.

What I am rabbiting on about is my administrations' persuasion to become suddenly all beaurocratic. I got this new job in Europe (a great job created for me) and here I am in London, but they didn't have the forethought to think I would like to visit my family in Tokyo on the way from South Korea, for crying out loud!

Talk about - well anyway you get the idea.

Savoy in London. Well, it was nice whilst it lasted. Afternoon tea at $7. Good job I am not paying. Here's to Manchester in the North (Ay up, pal) next week. Then it is off to goodness knows where for gordon knows how long.

Such is life.