Bits n Bytes - Fibonacci Series

Ever wondered how the Fibonacci series came into existence? Yes the same series all the students of computer science or electrical engineering have to encounter in the initial days of programming. I came across their history in a book on "XML Processing" by Elliotte Rusty Harold. I have added it here for your reading.

" .... as far as we know, the Fibonacci series was first discovered by Leonardo of Pisa around 1200 C.E. Leonardo was trying to answer the question, “Quot paria coniculorum in uno anno ex uno pario germinatur?”, or, in English, “How many pairs of rabbits are born in one year from one pair?” To solve his problem, Leonardo estimated that rabbits have a one month gestation period, and can first mate at the age of one month, so that each female rabbit has its first litter at two months. He made the simplifying assumption that each litter consisted of exactly one male and one female.

Leonardo begins with one pair of baby rabbits, a male and a female. At the end of the first month, these two have reached puberty and mate. There’s still one pair of rabbits. At the end of the second month, the female gives birth to a new pair of rabbits. There are now two pairs of rabbits, one pair of adults and one pair of babies. The adult pair mates again, so that they will produce one more pair at the end of the third month, at which point there are now three pairs of rabbits. One of these pairs has just been born, but the other two are old enough to mate, which, being rabbits, they do. At the end of the third month, two of the three pairs have babies producing five pairs of rabbits. Meanwhile all rabbits born in previous months mate, so that at the end of the fourth month there will be three more pairs of rabbits. Leonardo realized that the number of pairs at the end of each month was the sum of the number of pairs the preceding month and the number of pairs the month before that. The rabbits don’t simply double in population each month because it takes two months before a rabbit can have its first litter. Nonetheless, the numbers do grow only slightly more slowly than exponentially; and the process continues indefinitely, at least until you run out of rabbit food or the rabbits take over the world, whichever comes first. The number of pairs each month—1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, ...— has come to be known as the Fibonacci series after Leonardo’s Latin nickname, Fibonacci (short for filius Bonacci, son of Bonacci)."

Heat wave across Europe

phew! .... its unbearably hot these days. As the heat wave sweeps across European cities, the sun is scorching down over us. Over the last week the temperatures have soared high enough recording maximum measured values at several places. It brings back the memories of Summer of 2003 when the heat was similarly sweltering. Then around 20,000 people had died across Europe, owing to heat-related problems. The governments were not prepared at that time to face such a hot weather, which is quite uncommon to this part of the world. Since then, the officials and the people are more prepared for the scorching summers. There has been record sales in fans, air-conditioners all over the cities. But the increase in air-conditioners forces demand on power consumption which adds to some extra problems to the authorities apart from the environmental hazards the CFCs emitted would cause.

While in school I had given a talk on Global warming and Ozone depletion and the problems that would cause. That was more than a decade ago. Now I seem to experience those problems, about which I had read at that time. If we dont do something serious about the issue of global warming, I fear we could only see some more severe weather conditions in the future. There are constant reports of blackouts in US owing to high consumption demands. If a country like US cannot meet its energy requirements, then we can only surmise about the energy crisis in under-developed nations. Its high time we dealt with this issue seriously.

Philosophy : To Blog or Not To Blog

..... yes thats the whole question. With more and more news being written about bloggers and their responsibilites, Blogosphere is slowly coming into limelight. This week there were 2 news hitting the headlines. Earlier it was the ban on certain blogs by the ISPs in India and today BBC ran an article on how to´s for a blog.

One of my friends is doing research in Intellectual Property and Legal issues over content of the Internet. His opinion is that the blog craze is bound to grow but the bloggers need to be aware of the legal implications and own responsibility of what they write about. Well not everyone is to be careful, its only those who love to complain and cribble over their lives, jobs, employers and people around them, who have to be ready to face some music for their actions. There are plenty of bloggers who write constructive, creative and informative content. I love to read such blogs rather than listen to somebody complaining.

Hobbies & Interests : Photography

Photography is a passion in itself. Considered to be one of the most expensive hobbies, it gives the photographer enough tools and space for creativity. With the varous types of cameras invloved, the several types of lenses tailored for a particular need, photographers coming from several backgrounds, each having his/her own taste, etc - photography in itself is a vast field covering several domains from fashion-documentary-fine art-street-nature-vernacular-night-panoramic-photojournalism etc.

for starters this wiki is a good place to have your interface with this vast, interesting and creative field. With the great boom of digital camera technology, cameras and photography in general has expanded its user base by leaps and bounds. To know more about how your digital cameras this is a good link. For the little advanced users and semi-pros, a DSLR camera is the best tool. this would help all you DSLR fans

I guess most of you host your snaps online at places like Flickr, Webshots , Photo.net etc. I found this interesting blog that has a good set of photos uploaded by their users. My favourite ones are this, this and this

Macro photography is a large field in itself. Here is a good starting point to know the intricacies about Macro Lenses. This wiki is also informative.

I upload some of my snaps at these links

Enjoy !

PS: photo Courtesy of Miwaza Jemimah

Philosophy of Life : The End of Grad School

I came across this on the Net.

lyrics by Steven A. Wolfman

Hello caffeine my old friend
I’ve come to wire myself again
I should be back home in my bed sleeping
Instead I’m trying to write this thesis thing
But the chapters get jumbled in my head
Feels like lead
This is the end of grad school.

Late last night I worked alone
That’s when I heard the telephone
Headhunters spoke with tongues of honey
Weaving fever dreams of money
And the sound of ka-ching is rare for a PhC
We work for free
That was the end of grad school.

“Fools,” said I, “you do not know
Research like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Tenure track will soon defeat you.”
With those words, to lecture I am bound
Abandoning the sounds of grad school

And then some students knock on wood
Pray for three letters and a hood
A decade older than the new first-years
Sixty credit cards in deep arrears
Someday they’ll think: “If I’ll end up at Google,
I might as well go today.
I need the pay,
To make an end to grad school.”

Footnote : The Ph.C., or Philosophical Candidacy, is the utterly meaningless degree one receives upon qualifying for the Ph.D. program, as with a successful preliminary, generals, or thesis proposal examination.

FIFA World Cup - Fussball-Weltmeisterschaft 2006

And finally the month long football fiesta came to an end. The final was a batlle between traditional rivals France - Italy and Italy came out champions in an intensely fought match, which was decided in a penalty shoot out. The majestic stadium in Berlin was packed fully, prominent color among the crowd was 'Blue' common to both the teams. Surpirse injury to Thierry Henry put the French men under pressure, and the Azzuris dominated the proceedings in the first half. Zidane scored the first goal through a penalty, but Materrazi made ammends soon and equalised through a beautiful header. In the second half Henry started with his aggressive style and pressed hard for the goal. Ribery impressed in patches, but when Viera left the field due to an injury, Les Blues were a little stretched. They looked as if playing without a plan and were hoping for Zidane to create something. The match went into extra time, and Zidane began playing some beautiful stuff. But he was heavily marked and Cannavaro and Co never gave him any space. In those extra minutes, Zidane was being singled out and there were comments and sledging at him. At one instant Cannavaro brought him down through a vicious looking tackle. In the heat of the moment, he lost his mind and let his anger get the better of him and as a result did that very insane act of head-butting Materazzi. Though videos showed that he was being taunted and was given hard time by the Italian defenders, a player of the caliber of Zidane is expected to deal with it professionally and not loose your mind. That one moment of madness has put a bad remark over his illustrious career. Nobody liked him to exit the stage in this manner.

The penalties are always a Waterloo for the Italians. Prior to this one, they had faced penalties 4 times and had lost all the 4 times. The pityful scenes of Roberto Baggio hitting over the bar in the 94 finals was still in memory of the Italian fans. But this time, none of their players errored. Grosso held his nerve and netted the final one and the nation erupted in joy. Trezeguet who was the nemesis for Italy in Euro 2000 commited the only mistake France could afford and hit the bar instead. So the wheel turned a complete circle and many notions were discarded. Italy finally won a penalty shoot out and emerged as world champions adding a 4th star to their achivement. They now stand second to Brazil with most number of World Cup Titles.

For the other awards - Podolski deserved his Young Player Award, Buffon got the best goalkeeper title (he never let any ball pass through in all the matches, except that freak self goal against USA). Zidane was voted the best player - a status which was slightly tainted with his dismissal. The real winners of this tournament were the Fans. They made it special by cheering and chanting for their teams both inside the stadiums and outside at the FIFA Fan Fest. Kudos to Germany for hosting a very successful tournament, which was managed very well. The huge stadiums, the Fan Fests, the warm welcoming crowds made it all very successful. Now we meet in South Africa after 4 years to start a fresh new battle for world supremacy. Untill then keep singing - Italia ... Italia !

Travelogue : Brixen, Süd Tirol, Austria-Italy

Last week I had been in Brixen for a Summer school organised by my University. Brixen also called as Bressanone in Italian lies in the SüdTirol region in the border region of Italy and Austria. The region was formerly part of Austrian empire before the World War 1. After the WWII the region was ceded to Italy but the people were more inlined towards Austria, hence it was granted autonomous powers. For more about the history of this region check out this . The people there have their own language, so most of the places you find road signs and other public notices are written in German, Italian and Süd tirolian For more statistics and numbers about the place check out .

The region is a good ski destination in winters and in summers its even more popular among tourists who want to do some trekking in the Alps. Major towns of the region are Bozen/Bolzano, Brixen/Bressannone, Brennero etc. The closest biggest airport is the one on Innsbruck. For more tourism related information see this

site
Since most part of the week was raining, I could not take much snaps. However these are some of the good ones, I managed to click in the few hours of sunshine available.

This one is taken in one of the small gardens in the town.

I loved this one, the effect of the clouds and sunshine beaming through was amazing.

I took this one, while going up one of the hills. After speaking to the couple later on, I learnt that the lady was born in 1925 and the man is nearing his 90s. The old people mostly speak German with Austrian dialect, which I felt was close to the Bayerisch spoken in the south of Germany.

FIFA Weltmeisterschaft 2006 : Zizou .... Allez ... Allez .... Allez

Come Brazil and out comes the magic of Zidane. If you saw the quarter final between France and Brazil, you could not help but be amazed at the skills of Zidane and would have agreed that France were playing like true winners. Before the tournament began, critics had written off the Les Blues. Zidane came out of retirement for the sole cause of keeping the French hopes alive in hunting that all elusive trophy.

When the match began both the teams looked a bit jitterish and not able to overcome their nerves. But 30 mins into the 1st half, Zizou began to spin his magic. His club mates from Real Madrid, Roberto Carlos and Ronaldo had no answer to his absolute control on the ball. He was all over the place, making game giving passes and playing with absolute authority. Brazil met their same nemesis of 98 Finals - a charismatic Zidane. In Henry, Viera and Ribery he had perfect finishers. The only goal of the evening, was a free kick in perfection. It was a surprise that Brazillian defenders had not marked Henry properly, and he perfectly timed the volley into the net.

Its a pity that the greatly hyped Ronaldinho could not score a goal in this tournament. Its sad to bid farewell to Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos, Adriano and group. Now the battle for world supremacy is being played in the neighboured. 4 neighbours Germany, Italy, France and Portugal will fight it out amongst them for the World title. If France continues to play this way - they will be difficult to kept at bay. The coming week holds the answers to it.

FIFA Weltmeisterschaft 2006 : Dont Cry for me Argentina

And so it is. Germany will face Italy in the semi final on 4th July at Dortmund. The 2 quarter finals were a stark contrast in themselves. While the Azzuris had no trouble keeping Shevchenko and his side at bay and score some brilliant goals, the Germans and the Argentinians had a tough fight - a battle so intensely fought that it had to end on penalty deciders. At the end Lehmann held his post and the trust Klinsmann had put in him. Almost the whole of 72,000 supporters in the Olympiastadion at Berlin were backing Deutschland and chanting "Deutschland, Deutschland", after the match the phrase of "Dont Cry for me Argentina" was seen all over the press and match reports. Without doubt Argentina were one of the best teams in this tournament so far, its a pity that they had to bow out at this stage. Now only Brazil remains the sole representative of South America or else its an all European affair from here on.

Italy meet the host nation Germany in the semifinals, a tie which is quite ambivious for me to take sides. Both the nations have been my favourites. Having stayed in Germany for over 3 years and see them revive under Klinsmann after that disasterous Euro-2004, my heart surely backs Ballack und gruppe. But the Azzuris and their charismatic play so far overcoming the ghosts of match scandals of Italia Serie dont let you remain apethetic to the pulse of the nation you are living in at the moment. Either way its a win-win for me. The evening on the 4th July holds the answer to it.