With Edison, NJ in the news, this article from the the good folks over at GNXP is rather timely – a mathematical model for the formation of ethnic enclaves –

…Natural Intelligence has developed an application called the “Ethnic Simulator” that models the residential behavior of people in the hypothetical ethnically diverse city of Metropolis. …The premise of the Ethnic Simulator is that ethnically distinct groups have a modest preference to live among their own kind. In Metropolis there are five ethnic groups –- Blues (the majority), Greens, Reds, Grays, and Yellows. The application allows the user to set the percentage of preference of each group for its own kind.

Outcome? Regardless of how “racist” the majority Blues are, the minority Yellows end up in “ghettos” if they express even the most minor preference for being near each other…. Intuitively obvious perhaps, but interesting to see mathematically modelled. Continue reading →

Eccentric mathematics rock star Srinivasa Ramanujan, who died at age 33, postulated a combinatorics problem almost 100 years ago that’s just been solved (via Slashdot). The breakthrough may yield better cryptography, meaning more secure documents and transactions.

Any integer can be broken down into sums of smaller numbers (‘partitions’). A University of Wisconsin researcher has extended Ramanujan’s theorem and shown that the number of partitions in any large integer are divisible by all prime numbers.

The truly interesting bit is Ramanujan’s Indian Idol story. He was recruited to Cambridge from an underdeveloped farm system like a pitching prodigy from Puerto Rico:

… in 1913, the English mathematician G. H. Hardy received a strange letter from an unknown clerk in Madras, India. The ten-page letter contained about 120 statements of theorems on infinite series, improper integrals, continued fractions, and number theory… Every prominent mathematician gets letters from cranks… But something about the formulas made him take a second look… After a few hours, they concluded that the results “must be true because, if they were not true, no one would have had the imagination to invent them…” [Hoffman]

The next Einstein working alone in a room, surfacing out of nowhere to overturn the accepted paradigm: it’s every institution’s nightmare. The self-taught Ramanujan had flunked out of school in Tamil Nadu and run away from home because he obsessed over math and only math. Over time, he was granted an honorary doctorate by Cambridge and elected to the Royal Society of London, Valhalla for mathematicians.

Ramanujan was an intuitive thinker who disdained formalism:

Hardy was a great exponent of rigor in analysis, while Ramanujan’s results were (as Hardy put it) “arrived at by a process of mingled argument, intuition, and induction, of which he was entirely unable to give any coherent account…” He was amazed by Ramanujan’s uncanny formal intuition in manipulating infinite series, continued fractions, and the like: “I have never met his equal, and can compare him only with Euler or Jacobi.” [Hoffman]

Continue reading →

India isn’t the same place it used to be. Literally.

A seismologist in India says that the country has moved closer to Indonesia due to the massive earthquake which triggered the tsunami in December. Dr Vineet Gahlaut said that India had shifted a few centimetres eastwards. The expedition reveals the geographical distance between India and Indonesia – the epicentre of the deadly earthquake – has been reduced by between five metres and 15mm. The amount of movement depended on the closeness of different areas to the epicentre of the quake, Dr Gahlaut explained. [BBC]

You see? The tsunami has brought the people of India and Indonesia closer together. Continue reading →

Bharat Bhushan, a MechE prof at Ohio State, is studying lotus leaves to fashion better technology. Biomimetic, how poetic — the Sanskrit gurus would approve.

The project was inspired by lotus leaves’ deceiving looks. Although they appear waxy and smooth to the naked eye, the leaves are actually covered with a series of microscopic bumps that prevent water drops from touching their surface… The idea is to use surfaces to eliminate friction between moving parts that can’t be oiled… In a few years, the development could lead to far cheaper [DLP] wide-screen televisions, [microfluidic] chips that can analyze blood samples or windshields that clean themselves…

There’s the high tech approach to minimizing tsunami deaths — a global alert system that tries to predict tsunamis — and then there’s the low tech approach — mangrove swamps. This should not be a surprise – wetlands are very effective at combatting flooding, for example, far more so than levees and dams. And while it is anthropomorphic to say that “the wetlands are nature’s method of protecting people,” it is useful to observe that wetlands have preserved many lands and try to cultivate them for that purpose. The Christian Science Monitor reports [snippets only]:

Mr. Selvum says that 172 families were saved from the tsunami in the fishing village of Thirunal Thoppu in India’s Tamil Nadu state only because the mangroves are thriving and dense there. He also mentions three other Tamil Nadu villages where damage had been minimized by the aquatic trees. “Every village has more than 100 families, so just think of the number of lives saved,” he says. “Even though the mechanical impact of a tsunami is enormous, and is bound to destroy the first line of mangroves, the water suddenly slows down as it moves farther in,” Selvum says.

Continue reading →

Just days ago I mentioned that a bunch of wacky conspiracy stories have emerged recently in order to explain the origin of the tsunami. Although this one has nothing to do with the tsunami, it was just too good to pass up. From India Daily:

Kongka La is the low ridge pass in the Himalayas (the blue oval in the map). It is in the disputed India-China border area in Ladakh. In the map the red zone is the disputed area still under Chinese control in the Aksai Chin area. The Chinese held northeastern part is known as Aksai Chin and Indian South West is known as Ladakh. This was where Indian and Chinese army fought major war in 1962. The area is one of the least accessed area in the world and by agreement the two countries do not patrol that part of the border. According to many tourists, Buddhist monks and the local people of Ladakh, Indian Army and Chinese Military maintain the line of control. But there is something much more serious happening in this area.

According to the few locals people on the Indian and Chinese side, this is where the UFOs are seen coming out of the ground, According to many, the UFO underground bases are in this region and both the Indian and Chinese Government know this very well.

Now please keep in mind that UFO stands for “Unidentified Flying Object” and so it doesn’t necessarily equate to aliens, but what else might it be?

Recently, some Hindu pilgrims on their way to Mount Kailash from the Western pass, came across strange lights in the sky. …The pilgrims at that stage started quizzing the Indian border petrol personnel. According to them, the security personnel told them that they are ordered not to allow any one near the area of interest and it is true that strange objects come out from under the ground with amplified and modulated lights. IndiaÂ’s Special Forces and possible visit the area by intelligence agencies.

But why in this area? Is it due to the remoteness, or something else? Continue reading →

This one seems hard to believe but I am sure it will elicit several comments from those gnxp’ers:

Genes may account for more than 40% of such charitable behavior as the massive outpouring of donations following the recent South Asian tsunamis.

A study comparing the social responsibility of identical and non-identical twins showed that genes account for 42% of individual differences in attitudes while common environment accounts for 23% and other factors account for the remainder.

Conducted by Canadian researcher J. Philippe Rushton of the University of Western Ontario, the study also found that genes have a stronger influence on males than females (50% to 40%) while home upbringing has a stronger influence on females (40% to 0%), suggesting that parents may more closely watch the behavior of daughters than of sons.

The 92nd session of the Indian Science Congress is taking place right now in Ahmedabad and the U.S. is hinting at closer cooperation with India in space exploration as reported by IndiaExpress.com:

“India is working on a mission to moon. We are looking at collaborations with India in this,” Dr Lee Morin, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Science at the US Department of State, Bureau of Oceans and International Environment and Scientific Affairs and a NASA astronaut, told reporters in Ahmedabad at the 92nd session of the Indian Science Congress.

“US is also looking at collaboration in the area of telemedicine,” he said.

One of Bush’s main legacy projects will be an ambitious space agenda, including the first steps in a return to the Moon and preparations for a manned mission to Mars (although both will occur long after he has left office and would be subject to the whims of future administrations). The International Space Station was created with the help of 16 countries, of which India was not one. Baby steps like this could pave the way for India to be an active partner in such ambitious undertakings allowing Indian nationalism to be inspired by something other than nuclear weapons. Let us hope though that scientists such as this guy at the SAROUL (Scientific Advance Research of Universe and Life) conference in New Delhi don’t get to participate in space exploration:

When water was there in Mars, there was a definite life; small insects, reptiles and fishes were the natural life, fishes used to live in small, medium and big lakes.

There were no seas or oceans on Mars, only lakes were available, where the river used to end their journey by dropping water, particularly in the big lakes.” Dr. Baldev said.

Ummm. No. That statement is absurdly false on so many levels, and the worst part is that some of the press won’t know any better.