Another One

This looks like a good time for accepts, just got another paper accepted. This conference is in Netherlands. I can also use this as an excuse to visit that country since I have never been there. So for summer I have San Francisco, Chicago and Amsterdam. Things are looking up.

The Altar

Why go to the altar every other day when one turns back? Why go indeed when one has turned one’s back on many things? Because one hopes for a better world. Man and better man, or even overman.

Leonhard Euler

Last month was the 300th birth anniversary of the Mathematician extraorinaire Leonhard Euler. Here is a story from the Washington post. For those people who are not familiar with Euler the following excerpt should serve as a good introduction.

“The four greatest mathematical scientists of all time are Archimedes, Isaac Newton, Leonhard Euler and Carl Friedrich Gauss,” said Ronald S. Calinger, a historian of mathematics at Catholic University. He is nearly done with the first book-length biography of Euler written in English.

What Happened to Art in the 20th Century

The question is what happened to art in the 20th century, Spengler over at Asia Times tries to provide an answer.

To accommodate the ambitions of the artists, the 20th century turned the invention of artistic worlds into a mass-manufacturing business. In place of the humble craftsmanship of Bach’s world, the artistic world split into movements. To be taken seriously during the 20th century, artists had to invent their own style and their own language. Critics heaped contempt on artists who simply reproduced the sort of products that had characterized the past, and praised the founders of schools: Impressionism, Cubism, Primitivism, Abstract Expressionism, and so forth.

What You Leave Behind

There are times when you feel like doing the disappearing act and not writing back or saying anything to anyone. You feel like the ones who were left behind but you won’t even though you miss them. You think that if you are away from them for a sufficiently long time, that would be enough time for them and also for you to be perceived as a different person. Even though you miss them you are in a new place now and you have to move on. This is what you leave behind.

New Paper

Just got another paper accepted which is not in my main field of study, at another conference but unlike the last conference I will be going to this one since it would be easier to do so. I can now add Chicago in my list of places to visit in summer.

Do You Know Me (02)

Eisenheim disappears one days never to be heard of again but people do hear things about Eisenheim. In the course of time Eisenheim becomes semi-legendary and then he returns. The people that he knew do not recognize him. He is a different person now. To be a different person, to be the person that you always wanted to be requires that you reorient yourself towards being that person. May be one day when I am back I will ask, “Do you know me?” My response will be – “No!”

Discovery of a Fossilized Rainforest

This is a rather amazing discovery – a fossilzed rain forest going on for miles and miles. It makes one wonder what amazing discoveries await us right beneath our feat. Paleontology is full of surprises, isn’t it? Here is the link to the story and here is an excerpt.

That’s where coal miners working south and west of Georgetown have unearthed, chunk by fossilized chunk, what has revealed itself over the past few years to be the remains of a fossilized rain forest.

It covers about 15 square miles, all more than 200 feet below ground, and probably is the largest intact rain forest from that period ever studied, according to Scott Elrick of the Illinois State Geological Survey.

Why be yourself when you can be someone else?

This is the question that the modern man and the modern woman has to ask themselves if only they get time from their busy routine. The modern man and woman is too busy running after his or her goals and mechanically executing their daily routines that they have seldom time to reflect on the activities that they are doing. Hence people do not have time to be themselves and feel better off by merging into the crowd. This is one of the quintessential question that has been raised by many existential thinkers starting from the father of Existentialism himself, that is takes courage and going against the flow to be oneself. Now those who go with the flow can ask such people “Why be yourself when you can be someone else?” Such is the paradox of life.

The Muslim Daughter

We can pretend all that we want that women are accorded a high status in Muslim cultures but how does one make sense of the following when a Muslim women upon hearing about at the birth of a male child says, “God has saved them from the calamity of a girl.” How is one supposed to interpret this statement? Is it happiness on the birth of the male child or does it show that the woman in question knows how much a woman has to go through just to survive or is it both? Thus the dichotomy contiues in Islam (or is it with Muslims?) between theory and practice. Bernard Shaw may be been right, Islam may be the best religion but Muslims are not the best of followers.