Saturday 30 July 2016

a head full of numbers - and coldplay

a head full of dreams - coldplay

dear daisy,

i began my work as a math tutor to a friend, who is planning to take gre next month - and i need this as a challenge, because it has been ages since i actually doing math. i figure out that i actually miss math, it's like being reunited to the long, lost and forgotten love. without any preparation and looking into what gre was, i dived into the unbeknownst and bagged myself with a decent score of 5/20 - it was a blow to my face, a phd scholar. who is actually not smarter than any 10 year old kid.

so, i want to start a new hobby to be really good at this. one problem at a time.

first i need to work out with the language, english is not my first and in those years when i did math, we used malay and korean language: so that's my handycap - i have to reopen the text book and start again from zero.

talking about zero, i want to share facts about zero from my recent visit to smithsonians. i also had an interesting conversation about zero with a taxi driver at downtown boston (not uber... cause usually uber drivers tend not to make any conversation. real taxi drivers can be particularly informative if you want to figure out about the current economic and political state of the country).

let's begin with the history of zero - which denotes as one of the greatest finding in human history and central to civilization and progression of science - it does not represent void but its absence symbolises greater meaning that without it, life is like much ado about nothing. it is also like the existence of dark matter in the universe which is very intriguing and fascinating.

you can just read the history here:
history of zero

back to my gre preparation: here are the rules of zero

1. every integer (positive, negative or 0) is either odd or even
2. 0 is an even integer it is a multiple of 2 (0 = 0 x 2)
3. 2 is the only even prime number
4. 0 is a multiple of every integer (0 = 0 x n)

the properties of zero

it is the only number that is neither positive nor negative
smaller than every positive number and greater than any negative number
an even integer
is a multiple of every integer
for every number a:a+0 = a, a:a-0 = a
for every number a:ax0 = 0
it is also equal to its opposite
if the product of two or more numbers is 0, at least one of them is 0 (this is the most trickiest part that got me wrong for few times in the questions to find possible value between x and y). i tend not to include 0.. so my carelessness in math must be a product of habit.

--------------------------------------


i miss doing things and calculation, i never thought that my two years tutoring chemistry for high school actually helped to keep myself sane from tumultuous reality and heart-break.


after so much running, grasping for fresh start then almost breaking my knees, mom told me to take it easy with everything that happened..and even quoted shakespeare too: if you love someone, let him go.

i should get back to work, i'm still working on the 3D anaplastic thyroid cancer model and doing math (when i hardly digest science anymore). well, here is coldplay for you, life is for living.

now i never meant, to do you wrong, that is what i came here to say.
but if i was wrong, then i am sorry, i dont let it stand in our way.