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sakoikai
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Name: Sakoi
Country: China
Metro: Beijing
Birthday: 8/5/1987
Gender: Female
Interests: drawing, web design, designing, math, science, reading, soccer, music, anime, manga, movies...
Expertise: I can do a little bit of everything, but not exactly really good at any.
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  sakoikai
MSN: sakoi_kai@hotmail.com
Member Since:
11/9/2003
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You scored as Chemistry. You should be a Chemistry major! As if that isnt clear enough, you are deeply passionate about Chemistry, and every single chemical reaction and concept fascinates you. Pursue that!
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Chemistry |
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92% |
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Philosophy |
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83% |
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Biology |
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83% |
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Mathematics |
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75% |
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Theater |
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67% |
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Engineering |
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67% |
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Art |
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50% |
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Psychology |
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42% |
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Dance |
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42% |
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Sociology |
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42% |
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Anthropology |
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33% |
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English |
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25% |
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Journalism |
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25% |
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Linguistics |
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8% |
What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3)
created with QuizFarm.com |
Imagine that! I actually got Chemistry, which is, so far, my intented future major... Though I was hoping to change to Biology instead, since I didn't do well in my first semester Chemistry course... Well, either way, I will definitely focus on cells and cellular process / mechanisms, and genetics --- I'm most interested in sciences regarding things at or smaller than the scale of a cell. | | |
| *sigh* I guess not many people are interested in math or have learned algebra/pre-calc yet... Well, I will stop posting those little math stories...
I've started an account on LiveJournal, and after a few days of testing it out, I don't think LJ is boring anymore -- it's actually pretty fun, though I don't have any friends on there yet. =X
Oh, I thought that I should share my course schedule for the spring, click HERE to see! If I don't take the Philosophy class on M/W/F, I'd basically have those days off! Tuesday and Thursday are horrible, though. | | |
| Half-mad, and ecstatic, Pythagorean thought offers us the chance to peer downward into the deep uncouscious plaace where mathematics has its origins, the natural numbers seen as they must have been seen for the very first time, and that is as some powerful erotic aspect of creation itself.
"Number," the Pythagoreans wrote, "is the essence of all things."
Greek historians tell an odd little story. A ship is sailing across the Aegean Sea, the sound of the waves slapping against its wooden hull, the rowers chanting. On board are a number of mathematicians, Pythagoreans all...
The Pythagorean theorem dooms any naive version of the Pythagorean program, the denouement taking place on board that sailing vessel just recently seen leaving port. A mathematician named Hippasus of Metapontum has just drawn a right triangle whose sides are one unite in length on the dusty surface of a ship's plank; throat cleared wetly to draw attention, he observes that by the Pythagorean theorem, the length of its diameter must correspond to the sqaure root of two.
Now suppose, Hippasus continued, that the square root of two is a number or that it may be represented as the ration of two numbers. In that case, √2 = m/n. The steps that follow have a concision suggesting the taps of a telegraphic key:
Tap. Suppose that m/n has been reduced to its lowest common form by division.
It follows that either m and n are both odd, or that m is even and n odd, or, finally, that m is odd and n even.
Nods all around. It is a find thing to be on board a ship.
Tap. Squaring both sies of √2 = m/n, it follows again that 2 = m^2 / n^2.
Tap. Then 2n^2 = m^2, so that m^2 is even.
If so, then m = 2x, where x is now some number. This is, after all, what it means to say that m is even.
Tap. Squaring things lavishly, it follows that m^2 = 4x^2 = 2n^2...
My telegraphic taps now end just before the final tap; but like a newspaper announcing a great victory in headlines with details to follow on subsequent pages, this message is realy complete. To get to those subsequent pages, the reader need only see that n^2 = 2x^2 so that...
But if my taps have come to an end, Hippasus kept right on tapping, point out with evident satisfaction that a contradiction had been reached, and that -- tap, tap, tap -- it consequently made no sense to suppose that the square root of two corresponds to the ration of two numbers, and that -- tap, tap, tap -- it follows that certain distances cannot be measured by the natural numbers at all, and that -- tap, tap, tap --
But here the story really ends. The Pythagoreans pitched Hippasus overboard hwere, still tapping, he perished ignominiously.
It is said that at some point in his mathematical career, Pythagoras proclaimed himself a god.
He was right to do so. | | |
| Last Wednesday I met a family friend at the local library. She was one of my aunt's good friend, actually, and had nothing to do with my family. I did not even recognize her in the first two minutes of our conversation. She was a mid-age mother of two childs (one in middle school, one in medical school) -- exactly like my aunt. Upon spotting me, she came forth and started asking me questions regarding my college life,
my experiences in getting in a good school -- my opinion on whether such thing is nessecary, and how did I get into a good college anyways -- what did my parents do to help me, what did I do...etc. She went on and on -- kept me standing in between those bookshelves for hours -- destroying my hope for a quiet and productive afternoon.
Of course, it would be rude to express my impatience. Thus, I went along with her and tried my best to help her by answering those questions.
It turned out that she was worrying about her younger son's future. She hoped that he will be able to give more advance education than her older daughter, who went to a normal college and a normal medical school. She admired my aunt whose children are very smart, went to good schools, and "have such bright future waiting for them". She wanted her son to be like that too, however, she's unwilling to spend time on helping (or in the case of most traditional Chinese parents, forcing) her child to achieve those things. As she's getting older, she hoped to just have a good time the rest of her life and not worrying too much about her children. I understood her feeling; it's hard for parents with children who have large age differences in between -- after the tiresome experience of raising one kid, they have to do it all over again... So I started telling her that she should keep up with some ocassional encouragement for her son, but let him study independently, just try to get him aware of the benefits of a good education... Since that's what I went through as a child -- my parents had stopped caring about my academic life since I was in 4 or 5th grade...
After listening to the mother for more, I finally realize the main reason she wanted her son to go to a good school -- and it seemed, surprisingly disturbing to me. She cared far more about the crowd her children are hanging in than their academics. She told me about her daughter having a best friend whose parents got divorced, and how she thought that because of the divorce, that girl must be somewhat psychologically affected and thus must have problems. She went on saying that the girl has piercings (for instance, on eyebrows) and tried to convince her daughter to get some too. Because of these reasons, the mother was sure that the girl is abnormal and such must be a bad person whom her daughter shouldn't associate at all. She also dislike homosexuality and asked me (with a disgusted expression on her face) whether Duke University has gay students... I was very opposed to her views and tried to explain to her that children with divorced parents, orphans, homosexual or bisexual people, and other seemingly uncommon people, aren't bad people at all, and they often do not have pschological problems... In fact, in a country with high divorce rates such as the U.S., children with divorced parents are often more independent and mature, and have strong personalities. Yet, I could not convince her that those kids are not abnormal in a bad way, but unique...
I cannot believe that in the current open-minded society, there are still parents who think like that. Not everyone we encounter are perfectly normal and good. Abnormality is not necessarily bad -- for often people benefit from it. After all, isn't life about meeting new (and consequently, different) things?
Pass experience and outer appearence don't always define a person, it's what inside matters. I know that I have made the right choice in befriending the people around me, even though they may be considered abnormal by certain people. | | |
| Brilliant Story
When the great Indian prodigy Srinivasa Ramanujan lay dying in a London hospital, the cold English winters eating his lungs away now ending his life, his friend, the mathmatician G. H. Hardy, paid him a visit. Paralyzed by his own reticence, Hardy could think only to blurt out the number of the taxi that had brought him to the hospital -- 1729, as it happens.
"I don't suppose it is a very interesting number," he added.
"Oh, no, Hardy," Ramanujan replied at once, "it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways."
And so it is: 1729 = 1^3 + 12^3 = 9^3 + 10^3. No smaller number has this property. | | |
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