The New York Times > Week in Review > The Best of Physics: What Makes an Equation Beautiful

The New York Times > Week in Review > The Best of Physics: What Makes an Equation Beautiful

I love the beauty in these equations. e^(pi*i) + 1 = 0 is one of the greatest equations ever. I just love it. It takes the short hand for expressing the relationship of 1/x to the x axis as x goes to infinity, the short hand for the relationship of a diameter to the circumference of a circle, the short hand for the square root of -1 and relates them to the two most fundamental concepts in the universe: something (1) and nothing (0). All the components seem independent, yet they are all related. Outstanding!!

One thing that just ran across my mind was the relationship of entropy to physics and math. If our universe tends towards chaos and equations bring order to the chaos, aren't these equations violating the laws of thermodynamics?

[Updated] Added a definition.

Audiovox SMT 5600 review by PC Magazine

I've been searching forever for a way to get rid of my piece of garbage cell phone. Thankfully, I've found it.

Audiovox SMT 5600 review by PC Magazine

I've actually been really amazed at how long it's taken to get true convergence between all the devices. Why do I have to carry car key, house key, cell phone and wallet? Shouldn’t these all be one device? Even excluding the keys and the wallet, which I’m sure will be coming soon, it does seem like it’s taking forever for me to have a music player, a pda and a cell phone all in one. There’s really no need for an iPod… if you’re going to carry around a light weight cell phone, it should have access to your calendar, music, etc. It seems so simple, but it’s taken forever to get there. I’m really excited about this one.

Fly-by mapping software

Keyhole I wanted to pass along this super cool mapping software. It's especially awesome because it takes publically available data and merges it all together really nicely. Check out this movie! Where is the nearest Dunkin Donuts to me?

Too addictive gossip

Ok, I have to admit it... I read defamer.com. It's so addictive. Some time I'd love to figure out why what other people are doing is so interesting. Of course, this is kind of true for just about anyone... not just famous people. But with famous people you can at least talk about it with someone else.

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2004 paralleled with 1984

One thing that really struck me about the time we live in is how disturbingly close to the dystopia (I was going to give a shout out to the dictionary for making me sound smart, but I remembered this word on my own!) of Orwell's 1984. I mean just look at what the ministry of truth says…

WAR IS PEACE
War is the state of our being today. We are part of a never ending “war”, either on terror or rogue nations or whatever. And this constantly distracts us from our internal issues. Because these wars can never be won, the government can keep them going, totally legitimately, forever. I’m not saying this is a conspiracy or that we shouldn’t focus on the people who attack us and try and keep ourselves safe, but we have to do it in perspective.

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
Civil rights are more threatened today than they ever have been in the past. In fact, my saying this would be construed by some as unpatriotic, even though the rights laid out in our Constitution have gone through a lot more arduous times than these we are living in now with no change. In 1812 we had the entire British army marching through <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:state>… that’s a bit worse than today’s environment, no?

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
This is a more subtle one, but just look at how ready people are to not know. When the president can get up and say he “just does not know” about global warming, or stem cells or being gay from birth v. being a choice that should be unacceptable. Our leaders SHOULD know. They SHOULD drive to an answer and understand our world as well as any of us to make the best decisions that affect everyone. But they do not and they do not want to (and I think both parties suffer from this).

I do not mean to sound so alarmist. Things will swing back and things will get better. I just feel very uncomfortable looking at the way things are today.


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Being part of a crowd

On a bit of a lighter note, last night I went to a local bar to watch the Red Sox beat the Yankees. First, I have never really been a Red Sox or Yankees fan, but I was very impressed with the way the Red Sox were so determined to win, even while they were up by 2x over the Yankees. It was remarkable not to have even a hint of arrogance or expectation (especially contrasting this with their normal behavior).

The second thing that my girlfriend's sister pointed out to me was how many people were there. It seems kind of odd really. At home I have a good TV, beer, etc yet people derive more enjoyment from watching things in crowds than they do by themselves. During the average movie or tv show, I will laugh outloud very rarely though I might find many things funny. Yet in a theatre I'll laugh at length at terrible jokes. Why is this? I feel like it's something about how we're wired to feel similar things as those around us, but I could not tell you why for the life of me.

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Conservative v. Liberal Death Match!

I’d like to take this opportunity to be totally self-righteous. Feel free to tune out here.

I cannot tell you how frustrated I am with conservatives and liberals. Do you guys have any idea what your parties used to stand for? Conservative = conservative use of government. Liberal = liberal use of government. Let’s play a little question and answer:

Should the federal government stop gay marriage?

  • Yes = you are a LIBERAL; you believe that government has a responsibility to protect the institution of marriage
  • No = you are a CONSERVATIVE; you believe that the government does not have the right to dictate how people live

Should the federal government support faith based institutions?

  • Yes = you are a LIBERAL; you believe that the government has a responsibility to encourage a system of beliefs
  • No = you are a CONSERVATIVE; you believe that church and state should be separate

Should the government spend more than it takes in?

  • Yes = you are a LIBERAL; you believe that the government can take on debt to provide more services for its citizens
  • No = you are a CONSERVATIVE; you believe that the government should not burden the future with liabilities for benefits in the present

Should the government restrict drugs, gambling and prostitution?

  • Yes = you are a LIBERAL; you believe that the government has a responsibility to enforce a set of moral standards
  • No = you are a CONSERVATIVE; you believe that the government should not legislate self-affecting behavior

I could go on. In the interest of full disclosure, according to this, I’m a conservative. Interestingly, I suppose this is just my definition, since the dictionary says that conservative is “tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions” and liberalism is “a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties” (Fascinating how different those are! Would anyone not consider themselves a liberal according to that definition? They’re not even really antithetical! (Let’s hear it for the dictionary/thesaurus and making me sound smart(-ish)))

Anyhow, doesn’t it seem like that should be how parties divide? Today it is caught up in such a mish-mosh. Conservatives today believe in maintaining their values but then go about pushing those values on everyone else. Liberals … well I don’t know what Liberals do today. They are kind of all around but they seem to be so much less vocal than their conservative counterparts.

One of the most interesting exercises I did during the debates was reading up on all the live blogging taking place on the right wing or right wing leaning blogs (http://www.hughhewitt.com/, http://www.rightwingnews.com/, http://polipundit.com/, http://www.instapundit.com/, etc) . Though I do not espouse many of their beliefs (either about their politics or who won the debates), it gave me a great sense for how people who do not share my beliefs look at the problem. I just think it’s a shame that both of us do not have parties which represent the two sides of our issues in a consistent way.

In truth, if I could ask for one thing from our elected officials, it would be to get out of the way of my life and what I want to do (legally). Guns? Sure. Drugs? Bring them on. Religion? I have one, but lots of other people don’t, and I don’t care. Etc. I think that's probably why I'm not a Republican... I just feel like they have their set of beliefs and they push them in a way that affects me either directly or indirectly (abortion/stem cell; drugs; faith based institutions; etc). I suppose my wish for the government to do what it does (defend us, defend the planet and keep the law) is more libertarian than anything else. Of course, in the thousand shades of gray that is the experience of being in politics, I do not think that anyone would be against these. It is just that when the 10th bill comes up for the refunding of the NEA (which I think is an extension of defend us because it reduces crime by making people more learned), it is tough to call it quite as black and white as I have just laid out.

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Google's Desktop Search

Google Desktop Search Launches @ Searchblog

I've installed the Google desktop search and in truth, it's pretty good. It's not great and it's not horrible. But it's just pretty good (for the curious, you can install it here). I've played with a lot of other search tools, both public and not, and I can tell you there's a lot else out there that searches better, faster and so on. Plus there are plenty of design issues I'd like to see improved:
  • Search as I type
  • Unlimited listing of all items I search for
  • Better and deeper previews of what I'm searching for
  • Directly open the documents (rather than opening another browser window)
  • Highlight search terms
X1 is probably the best I've used... it's just so much money! The thing that this actually highlighted for me was dual fold:
  1. Google is going after MS hard core. We knew this was true, but this is the first salvo.
  2. Google has made bad product (and non-customer centric) decisions in favor of increasing their revenue stream.

This latter point is the most dramatic. A company that was trying to simply solve the search problem with no assumptions about the right or wrong way to do it would have built a small app that integrated into the shell and opened a custom window on its own (much like X1). But Google did not do any of that:

  • They hacked together a solution that uses a browser window instead of making it separate to reuse the engine they already have instead of one designed for the desktop;
  • They only have one blank, with limited ability for the average person to figure out how to prune down the findings;
  • They display a limited amount per screen to increase their ad revenue (yes I know that ads aren't there, but how long do you think that will last);
  • They optimized for something users do not care about any more (400k app size) - actually, I don't know why they did this other than they're good engineers :)

I don't think this is the end of Google being cool; it's just kind of unfortunate that the realities of business are now affecting their behavior.

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