From the First Principles

Staying on with Feynman ...
Most of his biographers, editor, lecture notes compiler agree on two facts:

Feynman was a fantastic teacher
Feynman worked things out for himself, from the first principles.

So, working out concepts from the first principles helped Feynman to come up with unique perspective. On the other hand this amounts to reinventing the wheel.

What surprises me is that none of the 'Feynman authorities' made the logic leap from fact#2 to fact#1. It was because Feynman worked out things for himself that he was a fantastic teacher.

Here's a lesson for all teachers, lecturers, mentors and, most importantly, parents. You can teach best only when every aspect of what you are teaching is absolutely clear to you.

And here's a test for you to figure out if you have understood a topic well or not. If your student / child / subordinate asks you a dumb question - some would say, there are no dumb questions - and you get irritated at that so-called-dumb question, then you do not have mastery on that topic.

Actually the source of irritation is not that dumb question. It is your subconscious mind that is getting irritated at your inability to handle the question.

We can extrapolate this to our everyday situation.

If a situation is irritating you, and you feel inclined to shout out in frustration, then the source of the frustration, perhaps, is your inability to handle the situation; not the situation itself. Working out the solution to the situation from the first principles - it may not be possible to do it at the spur of the moment; could be done later - will let you handle the family of such problems when your encounter them next. (You will be surprised how apparently dissimilar problems, when shred of all externalities, are oh-so-similar.

Think about it.

Note: For a fantastic biography on Feynman read Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James Gleick.

The picture used here belongs to Sarah Williams. Please visit her gallery to see more such pictures.

Learning From The Best Teacher In Modern Times

Richard Feynman American Physicist and Nobel Prize Winner
When the introduction to a computer course is like this ...

Computers can do lots of things. They can add millions of numbers in the twinkling of an eye. They can outwit chess grandmasters. They can guide weapons to their targets. They can book you onto a plane between a guitar strumming num and a non-smoking physics professor. Some can even play the bongoes. ...

Physics professor? Bongoes? ... you immediately know that this has to be Richard Feynman's lecture.

And you know that you will enjoy the book - Feynman Lectures on Computation - even if you are not a computer science student.

I chanced upon this book in my neighbourhood library. We have just joined a new library near our house - more of that at the end of this post - and I was just browsing books in the general section, as my kids went hyper with the complete set of Goosebumps (why do they read this stuff when they regularly get up in the middle of the night and disturb me with "bad dreams"?). Now, Feynman is associated with Physics. Checkout any book shop and all you will get is Feynman's Lectures on Physics, Surely You Are Joking Mr. Feynman, Six Easy Pieces, but not this one. It seems Feynman lectured on computation from 1983 to 1986. This is one is a compilation of the same.

So I have borrowed it to my kids' dismay - as they can borrow only 3 books instead of 4.

Ok here is a question for you - how many (popular) books, not papers - including Feynman Lectures on Physics - do you think Feynman wrote in his life time? Go on! Google it! I will tell you the answer. Exactly ZERO. Not one has been written by him though all of them carry his name in big, bold letters. They were all compiled by someone else. This includes QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter.

If there is one book you must read on Physics I would recommend QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter. There cannot be a more ideal introduction to Quantum Electrodynamics. You come to know that Feynman was a genius when you read it. He has explained his Nobel Award winning work in 4 lectures without using any equation. Now that is an achievement!

Give QED to your teenager. I guarantee you that your kid will be hooked to Physics for life. Better still, you read it. Even if you hate Physics. You would have learned the art of explaining concepts to lay person without sacrificing the essence.


And why did I join this library (It is called Just Books) when I am already a member of the British Library? Answer: Radio Frequency Identification, or RFID for short. The library card and every book in the library is (passive) RFID tagged. And at the entry is a touch screen computer. You need to place your card and the books on the tray in front of the computer and voila! you can now either borrow or return your books. Just like that! I just could not resist this opportunity to try out RFID.

Call me a sucker for technology!

Discovering Internet Through Books

No! I don't mean e-books. I mean the books that deal with some aspect of Internet. I avoided such books for a long time - for some strange reason that I have still not been able to put my finger on.

But before I go on here are a few interesting things ...

a) Have you heard of LAUNCHcast? It is Yahoo's online radio station. You can create your own play list. You can pick and choose. This is also where recording companies test waters.

b) Ok how about this? Machinima. Have you heard about this? You can make movies at your home on this using animation characters. All you need is a script and a set of good voices.

c) I am sure you have heard of Rhapsody. Yes? Congratulations because you are ahead of me. I just read about this.

d) Let's try something more basic. Go to Google. In the search field just type "25 * 30" and hit return. What do you get? Yes it works like a calculator. Ho hum! But wait. Now type "twenty five * 30". Hmmmm... it still works. What about "twenty five multiplied by thirty". Wow! It still gives you an answer. What kind of calculator is this?

The first book on Internet that I read was The Google Story by David Vise. Besides telling a story it had such interesting bits (such as the Google calculator) that I was hooked.

I am now reading LONG TAIL. by Chris Anderson. Equally riveting. But the interesting parts are the information on Internet that otherwise would have escaped me.

The best thing about such information is that you can immediately go to the Net and check it out for yourself.

The paradox: the best way of discovering Internet is through books. All this when Internet is threatening to displace books as a habit.

Note: The picture used here belongs to Ilker. To see more such images see gallery.

My Place In The Sun

How would you like to earn $250,000 per week? No this is not a scam. This is happening and we are all contributing. But more of that later down the post.

27-March-2007 is a date I will remember for ever. It was on this date I first published my blog. On that date I became someone who just searches for information on Internet to someone who provides information. That in itself is a huge satisfaction. The blog on DO-178B is niche.

It took me another year or so to decide to start blogging on more general topics and monetize - this blog. As of this moment this blog has been viewed by over 90,000 individuals.

But consider this. There are more than 50 million bloggers world-wide. In India alone there are more than 6000 bloggers. These are conservative estimates. So, my blog is one among 50 million? What are the chances of getting any readers? Where is my place in the sun?

And then Chris Anderson comes to rescue. It turns out that I am part of a LONG TAIL.

So what is a long tail? For example, if you plot the graph between number of visitors (in Y-axis) against all the blogs in the X-axis. Now arrange the blogs on X-Axis from those getting maximum hits to those getting minimum. You would get a rapidly declining curve with the first few blogs getting huge number of visitors. The curve rapidly declines but the value never touches zero on the X-axis. The curve goes on and on.

Let me take a better example ... an example that I am familiar with. My blog has non-zero visits. Everyday there is at least one visitor. The visitor may or may not check out any advertisements. But in a month there is at least one click on the advertisement. That amounts to a few cents. Now it seems 98% of the more-than-50-million-bloggers fall in my category (more of less). So that is 50 million cents a week. And even if we take 50% of these blogs to be inactive, it is $250,000 per week. Not bad earning for someone like Google whose advertisements adorn most of these blogs.

Google, e-bay, Amazon, i-Tunes have all understood this new economy. And are exploiting it.

The ancient Indians too understood this. There is a proverb: "drops fill up oceans." (translated from Hindi)

So, even if I am a tiny cog, I am contributing to the Internet economy. Not bad for a five month old blog.

Guaranteed Stress Buster

This works for me. Every time. And this is no quack remedy. And the best thing you do not have to pay $$$ to some unknown advert promising you relief.

I have tried this on myself and works like wonder.

I first discovered this technique when I was learning to drive my car. You know how it is. You start learning something and you are doing fine and then hit a roadblock ... no matter what you do there doesn't seem to be any progress. So it was when I was leaning to drive. One day as I was driving I suddenly realized that my body was taut as a violin string. I then visibly relaxed ... meaning made it less taut and voila! to my surprise my ability to maneuver the car through Bangalore traffic (you have to come to Bangalore to witness for yourself what the traffic is like) improved instantaneously.

You try it. As you are reading this blog; Stop. Just turn your attention to your body. Is your back of your neck down your shoulder muscle stressed? What about your arms? And legs? Just relax these muscles. The way to relax these muscles is by just letting go. What about your eyes? Are you straining too much? Are your brows creased? Just relax your eyes ... turn away from this blog and just shut them (Ok! You can do this after finishing the reading).

I do this the whole day. As I am going through the normal routine, I stop and determine if I am holding a pen too tightly or as I am typing too hard or if my calf muscle is taut. As I am driving, I do a quick reality check. Am I gripping the steering wheel too tighty?

And how does this help?

Every time a muscle is taut you are wasting energy and the muscle is getting tired. By the end of the day, the small wasted energy all add up. And you have lost a lot of energy. Similarly, through out the day those tiny muscles get just that much tired, and they all add up.

Try visibly relaxing through out the day - the way I have described above - and let me know if at the end of the day your energy level is higher.

The Hedgehog and The Fox

I first read about the hedgehog and the fox in Good To Great by Jim Collins. The fox is clever and knows many thing. The hedgehog is a simple soul but knows one big thing.

When I first read Good To Great I was heavily impressed. Of course, by then I hadn't laid my hands on two trend busting business books: Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense, and Fooled By Randomness. I now know that what was done in Good To Great was backward fact-fitting and was inspired by a desire to find a cause for success while in fact it might just have been a case of being at the right place at the right time. (Read Blue Ocean Strategy for a small critique on Good To Great).

But just because I prefer books like Fooled By Randomness over Good To Great, doesn't automatically translate into Good To Great is crap. There are elements in Good To Great which could be some value, right? Ok, I reject the theory in Good To Great that companies that are led by silent, determined type CEO's make the leap and those that are led by aggressive but not exactly humble don't. (Where in actual fact the CEO's personality may have no bearing on a company's good performance.) But one cannot, off hand, reject the fact that companies that follow the hedgehog concept are more likely to emerge superior to those who do not. The hedgehog concept looks suspiciously like core competency, doesn't it? So isn't focusing on core competency good for a company? Or for that matter should being a hedgehog help an individual. Jack or all trade, master of none sort of thing.

It does ... but only if tomorrow is identical to yesterday. Meaning, only if you can extrapolate the future based on past data.

The Black Swan on the other hand pumps for the fox. Too much focus makes a person myopic. Hedgehog is myopic. Fox has a more broader vision. The fox takes in many more inputs from the world that exists outside its own and does not take its future as granted.

Now one might want to justify the both are necessary. When things are going smooth, hedgehog is a better strategy, while in turbulent times being a fox is advantageous.

Wrong.

A Black Swan event can happen exactly when going is smooth. That is why it is a block swan event. So being a fox is always a better proposition. A fox might survive the black swan event but a hedgehog will not.

Do you agree? What is your take on the hedgehog and the fox?

Do Your Children A Favour

This new year please do not take a resolution. You know very well that it will not last more than a week. Instead take your children to the nearest library and make them a member. We have been members of the British Library in Bangalore for the last 4-5 years. And I have seen my children fall in love with books.

A library does things to your kid that you might not even suspect.

Consider these ...

• Books: That's what libraries are for, aren't they? The greatest gift you can give your child is the love of books. It's like you are teaching them how to fish. And the earlier it starts the better.

• Constraint of numbers: One is spoilt for choice in a library. Heaps of books. But the number you can borrow is only, let's say, 5. I can actually see my children taking decisions ... which ones to take this time? They look at the book, read the back cover, turn a few pages to sample and decide. It is an amazing feeling to see them decide. Blink comes into play.

• Constraint of time: This comes to play if the library is located some distance away from your house. We can go to the British Library only once a month (it is about 20 km away). The children need to chose correctly. What if it turns out to be a boring book? And what if I finish reading the books quickly and then have to wait for a couple of weeks before we can go back to the library. At first I saw them picking up thin books - easy read ones. Then real fat books. Over a period of time I can now see them picking up combination that is just right.

• Trade-off: There are times when I pick up a book. By the time I choose, they already would have picked up 5 books of their choice. My book would then bring in a new dimension of decision making. Which book can they now 'sacrifice'? Believe me, it is not an easy decision for them. In a small way, this nudges them out of their comfort zone for a brief period of time.

• Zone of silence: This is the pay back. From my point of view this is the greatest advantage. The two boys need to talk less for a period of time. They also cannot monkey around when they are in a library. What else does a parent of two hyper-active kids want?

So, do your children (and yourself) a huge favour. Read this blog and head straight to the library. And see your children blossom.