First time listening to Feynman's voice!

And it's pronounced as "Fineman". I came across one particular website as I was trying to refresh my memories on Feynman-Dirac statistics and its application on the semiconductor PN junction. There I found out that Britney Spears is actually a pro in physics! Wow, that is one good reason to love physics. There are nice links on the site and that is where I found BBC's interview with Richard Feynman. As you know, I am a big fan of him and it excited me when I found new materials about him.

Goodbye, Arthur C. Clarke....last of the sci-fi trio

Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) and Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) made a bet on who would lived longest. Clarke won by a big margin. Together with Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988), they were the greatest science fiction writers of all time. At least that was what my varsity roommate told me. From him, I began to read some of Asimov's works - fiction and non-fiction.



As I recall, Asimov has written about 500 books in his lifetime, starting at early twenties. That's an average of ten books per year! One of his books was turned into a blockbuster movie (starring Will Smith) using the same book title - 'I, Robot'. Well, apart from the 3 Law of Robots and the positronic brain, the rest of the movie has little resemblance with the book, but it was still an exciting thriller. An older movie titled 'Bicentennial Man' starring Robin Williams follows more closely with the book.

Clarke's books were also turned into movies, most famously, '2001: A Space Odyssey'. The movie theme song has been played in many places. We also see his ideas being used in other movies, such as the black monolith and chilling HAL supercomputer. I tried to grab some of his Rama books to read but never quite finished them due to distractions. Such a shame but I know I have a lot to catch up on his books. I know a few things about him, like he lived in Sri Lanka. And he shared his vision of the cluster of geostationary satellites orbiting earth, which inspired the construction of Motorola's Iridium satellite system (I think).

One of his famous quote must be "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." He left some instructions before his passing - "Absolutely no religious rites of any kind, relating to any religious faith, should be associated with my funeral". Like Asimov, Clarke has a low opinion of religion and chose the atheist view of the world. In fact, I think most science fiction writers (and scientists) adopt this stance.

You can read about him in today's headlines:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/books/20clar.html?ref=science
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-et-clarke20mar20,0,6129446.story

and some youtube videos:

His legacy will continue.....

What do you care what other people think?

Feynman Diagram [Source: hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu]

While surfing on Technorati website, I came across a post mentioning my hero's name, Richard Feynman. The title of this post "what do you care what other people think?" was actually an advice given by Feynman's wife to him when he was confused what to say at the commission investigating the Challenger disaster. It is also the title of his book describing his adventures in the big NASA organization. Life is, unfortunately, just like that. Sometimes you cannot say what you believe in. You are going to hurt some people when you do that.

In the Challenger disaster, Feynman had to dig deep to find out the cause of the space shuttle explosion. He went to the engineers and technicians - people at the lowest hierarchy, and eventually discovered the O-ring was the culprit in the tragic accident. The O-ring is a rubber object that prevents gas leak in the shuttle's fuel tanks. When the temperature drops, it behaves differently, becoming more brittle-like. It turns out that the night before the shuttle launch, the temperature was freezing cold. So, when the space shuttle was launched, the O-rings were not able to prevent the gas leaks (the hydrogen got mixed with the oxygen) and hence the deadly explosion. Now, NASA kept a log of their previous shuttle launches but failed to notice the correlation between the launch temperature and accidents. They had been looking at the successful launch data only while ignoring the failed missions. So it took a single physicist to point out the important information. The way Feynman presented the results of his investigation before the Rogers Commission was also pretty dramatic. All he used was just a glass of cold water and a G-clamp and the O-ring.

Anyway, as he expected, some of the details in his findings report were deliberately censored by the Commission. Maybe some big boys in the government don't like to see some things published.

Feynman Stamp

Occasionally, I get some kick out of solving important problems in my engineering career. I remember one time when the whole R&D team was trying to figure out an ESD-related problem with the cordless phone the company I worked for designed. They spent almost a month and did some patchwork but still, the phone could not pass the specifications. So, my manager got me in and I did some thinking. I looked at the phone and asked myself where the engineers could have overlooked, not wanting to repeat what they have already done and waste my time. I figured out it must be under the electrical shield on the PCB. The PCB layout made it difficult to remove the shield and the engineers probably assumed there was nothing wrong there. After removing the shield, I found that the electrolytic capacitor was inserted with the wrong polarity in. Once that was corrected, the problem was fixed. Maybe it was a bit of luck and a bit of smart guesswork - it was fixed in less than a week.

Not trying to show off lah. Sometimes it is nice to look back at my achievement and relive my moment of success. I guess that is what you keep after all is old and gone. Your sweet memories. So, sometimes when you know you are right about something, be confident and don't be afraid to go against the popular opinion. In my humble opinion, Feynman is a very inspiring character. He has another book "Surely you must be joking, Mr Feynman" which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. He has many interesting stories to tell and made me laugh every moment. I would recommend it to you.


Finally, half-expectedly, my manager told me there seemed to be some more problems...

What the bleep do we know?

Ever wonder why strange coincidences take place? Ever bump into some old friend in the most unlikely place on earth? Ever wonder why someone can tell your destiny by using your birthdate, name, palm, face...anything at all. Ever wonder the show never ends until you make your exit? I think there is a simple explanation to it. I have mentioned this before in my earlier post. I think it is because you created the environment and events yourself. It's hard to believe but why don't you reflect back on the important events in your life. Ask yourself this question: did you wish for certain things to happen and they came true?

I used to be more mainstream in my thinking - by that, I mean, what mainstream science can accept. Like, you can use mathematics and scientific knowledge to explain everything in life. Granted, I still hold dearly to the belief that it is important to apply scientific methods to systematically collect data and draw reasonable conclusions about the physical phenomenon. One of the important tools used in the scientific study is to use control experiments. For example, the doctor gives your some syrup and tell you that you will get better. The next time he gives you some sugar water and tell you the same thing (and you believe him). So here he has a way to verify whether the syrup actually works. Well, maybe it is not as simple as that but I am just giving an example to show that you must put in some control test in order to draw proper conclusions.

Unfortunately, there are some fields or areas where scientific validation is quite difficult to carry out i.e. those which require qualities like intuition, belief or mind-thing for something to happen. I don't claim to understand quantum mechanics but I know something about the uncertainty principle and Schrodinger's cat. I think it basically says that the observer can alter the outcome of the observed. Well, I do know that what you say or think about me can affect my emotion and behaviour, that's for sure for most people. There is this Emoto's experiment with water crystals which seems to show that water does react to thoughts. Controversial? Maybe. I'll keep an open mind. Science is always changing. One minute they say the world is flat. Next minute it is round. And now they tell me it is flat(economical sense, duh).

So, my observation tells me that my thoughts are creating my realities. Hmm, not sure if I am accurate in saying that but basically....I create my realities. You create your realities. Our realities can intertwined with each other. Sounds cliche? How to verify? Don't know yet. I will think about it later. Maybe some Guru will tell me. But the very important message I want to convey across is "what you think, you become". You direct your 'movie' life (duh, can't I say something more original?). A friend forwarded me this interesting video (kinda sensationally done, as usual - TV stations, but interesting, nonetheless).

Maybe some susu kacang for you? Yawn....