Category Archives: Personal Life

What do you call a person who spends his/her weekend reading about Quantum Tunneling, Socrates’ Moral Philosophy from a book The Great Philosophers, Wave-particle Duality, History of Netherlands, Summation of the Grandi’s Series and it’s cousin, and finally, a poor attempt with the Hwa Chong Ionic Equilibria Lecture Notes? Vib.

As if a single term would suffice to describe such a person. I didn’t read all those topics on Wikipedia. I mean I do that sometimes but for this weekend, I really went into the books sort of knowledge and truly understood many things that I haven’t when I was surfing through Wikipedia. While I spared myself of Schrödinger equation, I took de Broglie’s hypothesis pretty calmly and understood what it means. In fact, de Broglie’s PhD thesis presented one of the most elegant relation that I can imagine (as compared to the one that I can’t imagine, which is Euler’s Equation; ironically with the imaginary term in it), and I read about it quite long ago when I was being introduced to the field of Quantum Mechanics. Quantum tunneling is something that helped excite me further about the quantum world. I must say all the quantum thing that I was ever interested about was more to do with Unifying Theories, which I have been brought into by Brian Greene several years ago with an online version of The Elegant Universe. I seriously think anyone concerned about natural forces should watch this. I spent quite a fair bit of my Secondary 3 life pondering over the stuff the video mentioned but then exams set in and so goes Relativity, Superstrings and stuff. Now it’s time for a revival. In fact, this weekend of exploration made me visualize wave-particle as an entire continuum where you either behave like a wave because you have too small a mass that you are almost pure energy or you behave as a participle because you have too large a mass that makes your wavelength so small and undetectable. Whatever in-between are just the quantum stuff. More importantly, I suspect a connection between gravity and electromagnetism. I just have this feeling that gravity is just the ‘electromagnetic’ counterpart of particles.

Then on to Socrates, I discovered how his idea of man being creatures of perfect rationality (but not wisdom) is actually coinciding with economic thought. His ideas banished Altruism almost entirely, by suggesting all good is done to cultivate one’s soul and gain happiness. Well, from a Kantian perspective, if you believe in Socrates, just twist the whole means-end thing around. I do have my doubts about Socrates but I must say that his spirit is absolutely commendable – exemplification of a rather ideal moral person, though his wits and playful rhetoric often work against him in terms of him being a philosopher or at least a pillar of thought. To put myself in his shoes, I suspect he would rather be a commoner, forgotten, rather than to be father of philosophy itself. I guess unless philosophy is purely a study of techniques of inquiry, Socrates should not like his position as the ‘father’ at all.

Finally, the mathematics I have just to learn to appreciate is really fun! Grandi’s series, and a whole lot of mathematically counter-intuitive stuff has helped make it less rigid. I mean, for a pseudo-arts-quasi-science student like me, it wouldn’t be fun for me if there was a universal and perfect answer to every problem in the world. I truly enjoy the fact that we can sit down and discuss whether the sum of a particular series should be this or that, or whether the series converges to a particular number. That’s more Mathematically Vib, or Vibbishly Mathematical whichever you would prefer. The (1 – 2 + 3 – 4 + 5 – 6 + 7…) series actually sums up to (in the Euler’s revised definition of summation sense) a quarter! Can you believe it?

While reading a lot of crap brings down your grades quite very occasionally, I do enjoy the moments of epiphany of realizing how Superfluid defies gravity (it’s quantum jiggling supersedes it’s tendency to form solids; or to put it in another way, the quantum rule against non-motion of the particle overcomes any potential inter-atomic forces), or why on Earth would an electron orbital consist of two spaces with a node of discontinuity in between and yet the electron can move within the two places simultaneously. I do hope to be a Polymath but that can easily cause myself to stray into the abyss of a ‘Jack-of-All-Trades (And Master-of-None)’. Well, I’ll just explore what I like for the moment.

Damn it, my USA POLO bag that’s barely 1.5 years old gave way. It was the weakest part of it, the fastening plastic that broke, partly due to the heavy weight and partly due to the fact that I have this bad habit of carrying just one side of the bag for prolonged periods. The last bag I used before this switch was a Hayer bag and it totally rocks. In fact, after washing it in the washing machine, it looked absolutely new, not a single clue of having been used for more than 5 years. I guess the brands sometimes do matter after all. Well, no choice, that bag that failed me was bought from Carrefour at a rather low price so it’s probably time to get a new bag.

Problem is I won’t be able to get one that soon – that’s what happens when you don’t have enough money, not even enough income. Pity I am not a civil servant (or minister), neither is any of my parents. Anyway, with a politically incorrect blog, I shouldn’t be expecting a pay rise even if I have a public sector job. Life’s tough when you are not on the right side of the fence.

Challenged by Mib’s crappy definition of simplicity, I am forced to change my blog layout temporarily to reflect the nature of my arguments and the descriptors of the site used by it’s URL, which is kinda inaccurate in any sense.

By the way Mib, thePropagandaMachine was started in 2004, when we entered Secondary 3, and the time when erpz.net started. In 2002, if you still remember, we spent our days talking a whole lot of computer game crap with Yong Keob in class and wouldn’t have learn about designing websites yet. In 2003, we were doing the igroov.net with Wap so no chance for erpz.net to spring into existence. So to sum it up, erpz.net is not as old as you think.

Talking about perspectives, I always take on multiple ones, so you can consider me as sitting on the fence, omnipresent when looking at the same object/issue/idea/dispute or perhaps as being a perfect observer but it appears that I have met my match. While I must claim capability in applying scientific principles of balance in nature with that of humanly interaction and social sciences, or using economic principles to explain behaviours, much robbing much of psychologist’s rice bowl but this time, I must seriously admit defeat. My sister, when flipping through her Physics Tutorial, was asked the question:

Is it possible for the speed of a body to decrease while the [magnitude of] acceleration increasing simultaneously?

In retrospect, the words in the parenthesis makes all the difference about how the question should be answered but the issue here is that my sister told me the answer is a ‘yes’, which is really counter-intuitive. Then she explained that you can be slowing down in speed because you are accelerating in the opposite direction. That was total ownage. Never have I expected that sort of perspective. It’s like running 2.4km, slowing down and getting scolded by the coach for slowing down halfway – what do you reply? “I am so not slowing down, in fact, I am accelerating, just in the opposite direction.” Would you take that for an answer if you were the coach? Sometimes, in fact often, we rely on our intuition more than logic because logic is often undermined by a play of words, setting certain premises down to misled people. In fact, some weird people actually dare to attempt to undermine my arguing ability by providing the following ‘riddle’:

一个告你哲学的问题：什么是人生（人参）？

Apparently, the words in parenthesis in the question reflects the actual question and despite the difference in pronunciation, it is too slight for us to detect naturally without close inspection. This would thus suggest that the question is out to trick people to give some really complicated answer when you could have just said ‘It’s Ginseng’. But yet that would not constitute an answer because of the premise being set down – that the question is supposed to be philosophical. As such, the answerer commits no mistake in producing any answer or even babbling constitutes an answer because the question itself is flawed – the answer that is expected of the question do not satisfy the premise that has been set down.

Going back to the physics question earlier, the answer is indeed ‘yes’ if we simply consider the ‘magnitude’ of acceleration because taking on ‘magnitude’ would mean a total disregard of the sign. This being true, we can say we are accelerating rapidly in magnitude if we go to a stop from a sprint. There’s absolutely nothing wrong logically with this statement, but it irritates people. And more importantly, it irritates people more than the Monty Hall Problem. Probability is a wonder, it never becomes truly integrated into our intuition because it doesn’t satisfy our day-to-day experience and the transfer of information makes the law of large number valid but makes large numbers seem small anyways. Therefore, the Monty Hall Problem would be one that confuses naturally, and is inherently, indisputably counter-intuitive. But this, is different, it is difficult to take on a perspective not expressed in the ordinary terms – though there’s often times when you have to accept extremist perspectives, they are not as disturbing as the one raised because this acceleration problem gives rise to other connotations of laziness and so on. It is hard for us to accept such a logical argument.

That being said, we do not rely on logic, and reason is just something that managed to become housed in our intuition enough for it to play out fully in the world. Reason, as far as we know, in the context of human being, is never consistent and I believe I have mentioned in previous articles/writings that double standards is a result of the idea appealing to the different sides (emotional or intuitive reason) of our brains. Logic is not relevant when it cannot be linked to our daily experience and applied to our lives. The scientific rhetoric, or to put it nicely, philosophy of exploration of natural inquiry, should cease to generate arguments of nature so abstract and devoid of reality.

Seriously, erpz.net gone through a crazy shift over to the servers of Siteground! The computer was transferring data over to the new space over yesterday night and now most of the stuff are up. New stuff will be coming, with probably more bloggers joining erpz.net (given that we now have more space – Booh Techmonix!), so just sit back.

Guard against the Hardening the Heart…

Unfortunately, in this harsh world of mankind, humanity seems out of place, seriously misplaced. Sometimes I ponder over how right it is to have a word which has it’s roots from ‘human’ to describe something that is really not that human nowadays. The hardening of our hearts is a phenomena that seriously need some tracing back to understand why it’s really so hard for humans to be humanly and for the terms mankind and humanity to converge.

Guard against the Hardening the Heart…

Unfortunately, in this harsh world of mankind, humanity seems out of place, seriously misplaced. Sometimes I ponder over how right it is to have a word which has it’s roots from ‘human’ to describe something that is really not that human nowadays. The hardening of our hearts is a phenomena that seriously need some tracing back to understand why it’s really so hard for humans to be humanly and for the terms mankind and humanity to converge.

Propagator is temporarily backed up on this space in case there’s changes over at erpz.net as the deadline for hosting approaches. This shift is under test and may be used full-fledge in future for Vib’s blogging.

2 Years (or was it 3?) ago, I rejoiced at the fact that I have a Kodak DX that allows me to capture 4.0 mega pixel photos and being a digital compact flash camera, I am happy to bring it around with me on overseas trips as well as gatherings or outings with friends. I was happy to be able to upload what I shoot and to me then, 4.0 mega pixel was a whooping lot of pixels and great resolution. So you can imagine what kind of country bumpkin I was.

A year back, I discovered SLR photography and decided that it was fun and one of the nice activities I am going to indulge in. I never own a SLR so despite using it for quite a long time in my months in Huang Cheng, I was happy to continue with it, so I entered Photography Society to play around with more lens and pick up more knowledge about cameras. Still, owning a DSLR is something I can hardly conceive. In fact, I promised myself to get a DSLR only when I saved enough of what I earned myself. Imagine my horror when I realised those young kids that are now becoming my juniors, those just a little older and are supposedly my seniors, are snapping away during festivals and events with their OWN DSLRs. I am angry for 2 reasons: They were blocking me (And I am supposed to be working for the school!) and they own those cameras they hold in their hands. As an amateur I am already okay with the slow, leisure shots but the high speed ones are really terrible for me, which is also partly the reason for bring angry with those freaks blocking me.

What a rant to make on Chinese New Year Eve anyway. Happy Pig Year!

It’s been a real long time since I logged into my blog because I have been really busy with school work, and all the orientation for the new-comers and so on. It’s been a long month of January, full of crappy and seemingly meaningless work. The first thing on the dashboard that caught my eye when I logged in was the sheer amount of spam comments I received – 241. Well, that’s a great record for having a blog, which is so obscure no one really reads it.

Spam have now becomes such a common occurrence that I would consider it a freaky day when I log into Gmail with the Spam Folder empty. I’ll probably be expecting to do some stuff in my email even when I am not expecting any mail – because I am pretty sure there’s spam for me to clear. Thus, even the clicking on the spam folder, and then the button to select all spam mails, and finally the button to ‘Delete Forever’, is considered extremely productive work. In fact, while I have typed all these chunk of stuff, a new lame spam has just entered the spam folder. And I felt I attained some kind productivity by deleting that one.

That’s life in the modern age.