GaNitha

gaNitha means Mathematics.

Today I attended a special lecture on "Number partitions as an extreme value problem" by Dr. Rajesh from IMSc, Chennai, as a part of my Physics Minor course. It was an extremely interesting lecture.

Some how this made me look back and see how my interest in Mathematics grew and realized how blessed I am when it comes to Mathematics teachers. Since school (class 5th) I have always had really good mathematics teachers. This blog post to is dedicated to all my mathematics teachers.

I still remember my first Algebra Class in 5th standard by my Math teacher (Ms. Vasudha ?? Cannot recall her name now :( ). The way she introduced the concept of algebra was enchanting. I was so thrilled how we could solve for unknowns! Somehow the x,y,z s in the equations looked fascinating. Later I had Ms. Jayashree, Sister Royaline, Mrs. Cinthia D'souza teaching me Mathematics in school. During +2 I had Vasudeva sir teaching in the college (Pre-University college).

At the pre-university level, I had the opportunity to learn mathematics under HLS Rao sir. The most amazing mathematics teacher I have encountered till now. A teacher who can teach mathematics without writing a single word on board! The motivation that he gave us during those days is something that I shall cherish through out my life. I will require a full post dedicated to him.

Here at IIT Madras, I have been lucky to have really good Mathematics teachers. Prof. A V Jayanthan, under whom I did my first two semester Math courses (Calculus I and II) and also my Linear Algebra course and Prof. Natarajan who taught me Probability and Random Processes.

Currently I am doing Basic Graph Theory under Prof. Choudum. Another amazing teacher. Its a pleasure to do the course under him.

The frien(I)DLY dinner

We had a very Special Dinner on 24th of October, 2009.

I entered the mess ignoring the board which read Special Dinner. Over-estimating the level of my hunger, I ended up taking a plate full of variety of items (which looked weird). There were finger chips which were really over-sized, gulab jamun which looked unhealthy, something that resembled manchurian, some special rice and curd rice.

The dinner was being served by the mess people (generally we help ourselves). The man in-charge of serving curd rice seemed too stingy. Even after requesting twice, he was reluctant to put more than two spoons of curd rice. Fortunately(?), he had to leave the place for a moment and I was quick enough to make use of his absence to fill my plate with a heap of curd rice.

I went to a table and sat with a bunch of juniors. They started to laugh looking at my plate. I ignored them and started to eat.

The gulab jamun tasted idly-ish! Moving to the manchurian, it tasted idly-ish too. The finger chips was no exception and the curd rice was not curd rice! It was crumble idly mixed with curds. Everything was IDLY!!

So, it was actually a "IDLY" dinner! It was too heavy and of course tasted too idly-ish.


The Menu :

1. Idly Finger chips
2. Idly Manchurian
3. Idly Rasa Vadai (read Rasa as "Rasam").
   
4. Idly Briyani ! (Biriyani :-P )
   
5. Idly Usilli (we never figured out what this was.)
6. Idly Curd Rice(?).
7. Idly Gulab Jamun (Wow!!)

This was to our frien(I)DLY dinner menu.



My final Dinner :



Banana saved the day!



P.S : Thanks to Tejaswi and her camera for the pictures!

Disjoint

The last day of my fourth semester!!
I just cannot believe this. It means that I am half way through my life in IIT!!

Well. I have had a so called the "rod" semester. 26 credits it was!!! With no slots free, all afternoons occupied and yeah, with lab making you do extra work.
As a matter of fact, this being my first blog of the year, further proves my point.

No. No. I was not that busy! I just did not feel like blogging about anything in this semester!! I mean, nothing phenomenal happened in the semester. It was just another even semester, with of course few credits more. So, what did I do in this semester?

ABCDEFGS.
I have not forgotten my alphabet! The letters out there in capitals were the slots I had. Do not worry. I am not going to bore you to death with the description of each course in this post. It needs a new post and of course a lot more time!

The semester started and within no time Saarang came and went; followed by the Quiz 1. Before we could even get out of the trauma of the first quiz, the quiz 2 barged in and then there were the presentations, lab exams, lab projects and end semester exams and that was it! Oh my God, The semester just got over.

I had my share of fun with colors at Saarang. I spent almost all my time at Indraprasta (the place where fine-arts competitions took place), splashing colors around. I did face painting, glass painting and also made puppets!

As a part of Astro Club, International Year of Astronomy, we had theory and observation sessions quite regularly in the first two months. We met every Friday evening for theory session and had sessions on Friday and Saturday nights. I enjoyed them a lot!!

Then there was Boltzmann, a bunch of Physics enthusiastic students guided by Prof. SG . We just meet mostly on a Saturday afternoon, and discuss interesting topics. For the first time, I started attending the sessions of Boltzmann regularly. Yet times the topics discussed seemed a little over-head projection but they made me learn so much!

I broke my previous semester records and ended up watching around 25 movies! Of course, we had cute little birthday parties, treats, hostel nights etc., giving us an opportunity to enjoy the sunny side of life.

And there it ends!

Moorakke Mukthaya

Third semester!
Its over!
I have been in IIT for a year and half.... er!? A year and a half ??? I cant believe this !

Being in THE ELEC department of IIT Madras which is know far and wide for its "RODness", I knew what to expect and what not to. Or I thought I knew it, till the semester started to gear up and THE ELEC department started to show its ramifications in RODness. Only then did I realise what the ELEC EFFECT actually is.

The three departmental courses that I did in this semester were
• 1 Digital systems
• 2 Network System
• 3 CAD laboratory.

Digital Systems: EC104
It was taken by Prof. Vekatesh and Prof. Ravishankar. The course teaches you the philosophy of life. There are only two states in this world, 0 and 1, everything else is an illusion.
The course seemed all fair and fine till i held quiz 1. A ' (complement) completely complemented my life in the course. At the end of the day, knowing that the grading is binary too, huh!.... er.... there are only two states.

Network systems: EC204
Prof. Vinita taught us how to be punctual. I never believed that I, Ramya K V, can ever be "in time" to a class. Me?? er... I cant believe this! I am the kind who wakes up ten minutes before a class and barely manage to get inside the classroom before the Professor.
All through the semester we bulbed and bulbed and bulbed. Prof.VV had to give up on us finally. Can you imagine, a class of >40 odd ppl, all yet to be Electrical Engineers from IIT Madras, having done a 4 credit course on Electro-Magnetic Circuits in the previous semester, did not know what "Natural Frequency" means till almost the end of this course?
Finally we did manage to transforme almost everything on the way. Being non-causal, non-linear and time variant, I too finally managed to Fourier transform Laplace!

CAD laboratory: EC205
The Programming Laboratory. Its fun, yeah! fun, you see. Really, I did enjoy programming. But beware of this course!! This One Credit course can potentially take away all your happiness in life.
I got scared! Yes, literally I got scared. I never thought that I shall love Programming so much in life that I will pack everything else and sit crazily in front of the machine and become a machine myself. This is not I want to do in life, I knew it, yet this bloody thing was not leaving me. Thank God finally I did manage to pull myself out of the "Paapakoopa" (The Cursed Place) **.

Despite the heavy load, Elec Rocks!!

The "other" courses during the semester were:
• 4 MA205
• 5 AM110
• 6 ID120
• 7 BT101
• 8 HS509

Probability And Random Processes: MA205
This is one of the courses I thoroughly enjoyed, especially at the end of the semester. Prof. Natarajan was quite good. Though, he was not so audible, mike helped out.
Having no fundae on permutation and combinations, I had to start with the basic concepts of counting. Moving on from counting to Probability to Random Variables to the Stochastic Processes was an amazing journey. Also we learnt how to read any kind of handwriting :P

Engineering Mechanics: AM110
The subject so dear to me became the most hateful course this semester. Certain Professor V took the course , huh!! My hard luck. I never thought I could ever not like er... actually hate a Professor to this extent in my life.
I am done with the course. That is it. Period.

Ecology and Environment: ID120
Thanks to the Supreme Court of India. We had to sit and bare with this course for two hours per week and give two exams. Well, we need to be concerned with the environment. Yes. I agree completely, but does that mean that I have to sit in a class of ~552, spread across three rooms, with Professors and Teaching Assistants patrolling around in the class room? Well, its over.

Life Sciences: BT101
Thanks to the Supreme Court of India again. We had to again sit for two hours per week and give two exams. The lessons that we were made to study were all interesting. But why don't they understand that we do not have 48 hours a day to sit and read Campbell. I can potentially give a Medical Entrance test now.
And yeah, its over too.

Accounting For Social Sciences: HS509
The one and only course that I enjoyed all through the semester. Prof. Umakant Dash was GOD!! If it was not for this course, I guess I would have been insane by now. The delicacy of accounting, its intricate nature were made all so easy by the professor.
The only formula that we needed to know was Assets= Liabilities+Owner's Equity !
The Balance sheet, the Income Statements and the Cash flow statements seem so cute and nice now! The business news pages in The Hindu has started to make sense :)

**P.S: I have nothing against Programmers! This is my personal point of view.

avalokana

Its been more than five months that I wrote a blog.
Have I had nothing to say at all?

Being fresh at the beginning of the semester after my first trip to the North (Delhi, Agra, Shimla and Manali), my first ever flight journey, first experience on Rajdhani Express, first trip on a toy train. Experiencing the “Elec” effect. The experience of being a coordinator in Shaastra. And the whole lot of philosophy of life, which can potentially make a book. Huh!! In fact I had so much to jot down. Then why didn't I write? Good question... Why didn't I write anything?
It was sheer laziness.
Was it mere laziness?? Or I was heading towards a confinement?
Oh! No... that seems scary.
But yeah, I am back, with a fresh open mind [ :) ]

And now I sit, when it is five minutes before the clock strikes 12, desperately trying to analyse what went wrong... and write this and upload it before the Internet is turned off!! My fire fox bulbs... I have force quit it four times in a minute... [ :( ] All to post this...

Huh... Error !! [:( ]

Well.. still putting fight to post this.

P.S: Finally I did manage to post something which looked very vague due to the error in what so ever it was. And hopefully nobody read it until I managed to edit it.

NenapugLa saramaale....

A lost feeling,
A gloomy day,
A dark surrounding,
A pensive mood.

Sitting by the window,
I open the my inner mind,
To recollect the memories,
The happy ones and the sad ones,
From all the nooks and corners.

The droplets of the first rain,
The fragrance of the wet mud,
The lighting and thunder,
The areca-nut trees around, so tall and sleek,
The chirping of insects,
The bite from the leech,
The echoes from the hills,
The stories from granny,
The pranks I played,
The mischievous grin,
The innocent smiles,
The games I played around in muddy ground,
The fighting with siblings and pals,
The stage where I danced,
The swing on which I soared,
The punishments for chattering in class,
The tantalizing childhood,
The letters from my friends far away,
The album full of cherished images.

They bring me joy,
A new turn to the stagnant life,
A new ray of hope when the sun sets,
With fresh mind
And a lot of enthusiasm I start the new life :)

EshTond coursu !!!!

The courses I did in my first semester:

CS110 – 3 credits

PH101– 3 credits

CY101– 3 credits

MA101– 3 credits

PMT– 2 credits.

ID110– 2 credits

WS101– 2 credits

PH103– 1 credits

CY103– 1 credits

Did I miss any one? Was that enough for a semester??

CS110:

Aah!! The most peaceful and nicest of all the courses I had in first semester or rather of all courses I gonna do. It is probably the only course about which I did not crib :P . The feed back system was awesome. The answers to some of the questions were hilarious.

The following are some FAQs (Funnily Answered Questions):

Student’s Question: “I was sleeping on the last bench so, I couldn’t

enjoy the class.”

Kama’s Response: Sorry that I could not provide you a pillow. I shall

try to do the same next time, but for that I need to know your Name

and/or Roll Number.

Student’s Question: You have to be more energetic, please move

around the class.

Kama’s Response: The camera has to be more energetic. It cannot

move beyond some angle. If it can rotate then why walk - I am ready

to fly around.

Student’s Question: I was feeling sleepy, slept at 2.00am. Watching

Taare Zameen Par with friends. Classic movie!!!

Kama’s Response: So you again slept at 10.00am without watching

”CS110 deevaar Par” with friends. Classic Course yaar!!!

Student’s Question: dnim reveN

Kama’s Response: ?tahW

Student’s Question:

(a) I was feeling sleepy.

(b) No Comments. I was asleep.

Kama’s Response: Rock-a-bye student on the desk top;

when the teacher talks all thy dreams rock;

when the quiz comes;

nightmares befall;

down will come student;

CGPA and all.

PH101:

It was a course with divergence :P. I never could understand where I headed through this course. Till the end I curled and curled around to find what gradient meant. Finally I did manage to get some feel of del, the “del, del_dot and del_cross”.

CY101:

H | Ψ>= E | Ψ>

Er… !??

What’s this | > ? May be the Prof Writes ( ) as | >

This is what I concluded after the first class of CY101, the “Quantum Course”. The Professor (Prof. Chandrakumar) was really awesome on teaching. It was slightly flying above my head initially. But gradually it became the most favorite part of the course.

Next was the Thermodynamics and kinetics part of the course. Seemed quite familiar but was not so! But I enjoyed the jokes of from Prof and the stories of the scientist, that’s all I heard in his class and a result I cupped in it royally. My wonderful ability of sleeping with my eyes open helped a lot to deceive the Prof (he caught me in the last class though).

MA101:

The most difficult of all math courses (according to the students). The certain Piskunov (piski being the pet name) is the “Bible”. The certain Prof. K is never convinced that students study. He believes that we all have “Lost the train”. The class average in the quizzes was not encouraging too (4.25 out of 20!!!). We were getting used to see the single digits on the answer papers by then. After RKK’s zero (I managed to pull off a 2 in that, details later in ID110 : P) we were hardly shaken by these binary numbers.

We got entangled in the series of convergence and got diverged sequentially. Integration never seemed so difficult a topic before this course. Everything seemed crystal clear, so obvious. Of course nothing is obvious in Mathematics; you need to prove even 2+2=4. That’s quite hard, I know; everyone knows after MA101 experience.

We had certain Prof. Jayanthan, a quite interesting man. He has an orkut profile; his homepage is interesting as well. Mathematics being my first love, I enjoyed the class as well as the course.

EP110 (PMT- Professional Major Theory :P )

It was a fun course too. No exams!!! There were lectures by various Profs. I attended all of them. But to be honest, I slept through most of them. The presentations for evaluations were really very useful. I learnt a lot in the process.

Even after attending all the classes we ended up getting a G (G-good. VG- Very good. M-Marginal) for attendance.

ID110:

An Introduction to Engineering Design.

It was a combination of several lectures by different professors. We got to listen to a range of topics. We got to know how CD player, projector works; about electrochemical cells to airplanes. Yup… we even came to know that we are 98% bananas!!!

Some of the lectures were interesting to the core while others were sleeping pills. The ones in the virtual class were blissfully snoring while the ones in real class were no better! But there were TA’s who often disturbed the peaceful sleep (to sign the attendance).

What else can they do with 550 students? One class has the Prof, while the other two can “see” and “here” (if one wishes) the Prof. That’s what I meant by the “Real” and the

Virtual” class.

The projects were fun. All was not well there though. Hmmnn…. Well that may require a separate dedicated post.

WS101:

It’s the time you get Hands on experience.

Electronics WS: soldering. It was nice to blacken the PCBs :P

The sir was peace maxx.

Electrical WS: “Wires and Pliers” – one of the joyful and full of fun workshop. You bend and bend the wire and light the “BULB” : P

Turning: It was quite peaceful too.

Fitting: People think it’s the toughest of all workshops. But I liked it. It was so much fun in filing and cutting metal pieces. How proud you will be once you see the job you have done!! I even kulted the job pieces (not the main one! The part which I hack sawed :P)

CY103:

Chemistry lab. I enjoyed it very much. The experiments were quite interesting and spanned all parts of chemistry. The TAs were good and explained things clearly. It was real fun!!

PH103:

It’s the physics lab. The experiments were well chosen. But the lab evaluation was much to be questioned. We soon realized that Honesty was not the Best Policy here. That’s where students learnt to do the “Best fitting curve”, “Reverse experimentation” and “Value fixation.” We ended up learning lot of “general stuff”.