blog.elevenseconds » pointers http://blog.elevenseconds.com on exploration, introspection and creation Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:36:59 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Being Young http://blog.elevenseconds.com/being-young/ http://blog.elevenseconds.com/being-young/#comments Wed, 18 May 2011 00:57:54 +0000 me http://blog.elevenseconds.com/?p=2293 Many people who are older than me gave me this piece of advice:

Take advantage of being young, especially a year or so after college. You have very few obligations and commitments, and you can devote large chunks of time on whatever moves you, whatever you are passionate about. Take risks, do things you’ve never done because the next good opportunity for that will be a few decades later and even then, you won’t want to take as many risks and you will not be in as good a physical and intellectual shape.

]]> http://blog.elevenseconds.com/being-young/feed/ 0 The Universe is Running Out of Energy http://blog.elevenseconds.com/the-universe-is-running-out-of-energy/ http://blog.elevenseconds.com/the-universe-is-running-out-of-energy/#comments Sun, 23 Jan 2011 00:29:46 +0000 me http://blog.elevenseconds.com/?p=2521 Entropy in the Universe is increasing. Why? What is going to happen when it runs out of its energy? This is a fascinating question (so beautifully covered by Asimov in The Last Question) because it pertains to quite possibly the most universal of all concepts of the Universe. Ever increasing entropy is the reason we die; it’s very likely the reason no alien race has contacted us yet; in my opinion it’s intrinsically linked to the reason why time flows in a single direction.

But does it have to be that way? First, what would the Universe look like if entropy did not increase mercilessly? Would it even be allowed to exist? If the flow of time — and thus causality — is linked to entropy, it seems that Universes without that ticking clock would be unstable, ethereal, essentially nonexistent (existence, I think, can only be defined in a knowledge base that also includes time).

Could entropy be reset? Or, in other words, what happens once the Universe reaches its maximum level of entropy (and we now know that such a maximum exists as nothing in nature is infinite — probably another implication of the existence of entropy and thus the Universe’s stability)? The Universe — its existence, history (which requires information, and thus entropy) becomes undefined. Cause and effect cease to exist. The last sigh of a dying Universe nullifies everything the Universe has ever been. The undefinable entity that is the Universe post mortem is no different than the undefinable entity that is the Universe before its birth. And in that chaos where everything is infinite, the proto-Universe has a lot of time to invent the concept of entropy all over again.

This reminds me of how I thought of an afterlife some time ago — we are immortals who one day choose to live a life of a mortal with no recollection of their former selves. If that’s the case, we might just as well enjoy our life before we return to our regular immortality.

So go ahead, destroy the Universe.

]]> http://blog.elevenseconds.com/the-universe-is-running-out-of-energy/feed/ 0 Concepts http://blog.elevenseconds.com/concepts/ http://blog.elevenseconds.com/concepts/#comments Fri, 10 Sep 2010 01:45:20 +0000 me http://blog.elevenseconds.com/?p=1733
  • Quine – a language that prints itself
  • Apophenia – perception of patterns/formulas where none exist
  • Forer effect
  • Light echo
  • Estivation
  • Matthew effect
  • Adaptive Monarchy: a kind of monarchy where the successor is outside of the ruler’s kin
  • Double-life hypothesis: symbiogenesis of metabolising cells and parasitic genes
  • Hypnic jerk
  • Benford’s Law
  • Hawthorne Effect
    • ]]>     http://blog.elevenseconds.com/concepts/feed/ 0     Tools and Libraries http://blog.elevenseconds.com/tools-and-libraries/ http://blog.elevenseconds.com/tools-and-libraries/#comments Mon, 11 Jan 2010 03:53:21 +0000 me http://blog.elevenseconds.com/?p=1418
  • JavaScript math rendering engine
  • Lilypond
  • multiphysics (this is incredible!)
  • Image manipulation library
  • 2D library
  • Another 2D library
  • iPhone development and scripting languages
  • mp3 decoder
  • html 5
  • pgf/tikz
  • rmagick
    • ]]>     http://blog.elevenseconds.com/tools-and-libraries/feed/ 0     Sixty Symbols http://blog.elevenseconds.com/sixty-symbols/ http://blog.elevenseconds.com/sixty-symbols/#comments Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:12:42 +0000 me http://blog.elevenseconds.com/?p=209 www.sixtysymbols.com is a website that features videos about the symbols of Physics and Astronomy. The presenters try to carefully walk the line between material that’s too popular-science-y, and too jargon-y, but most times they err on the side of the former.

    Still, it’s interesting to see the videos explains concepts in Physics and Astronomy by starting at the definition of the symbol and branching out and talking about things relevant to the symbol.

    [source: gizmodo]

    ]]>     http://blog.elevenseconds.com/sixty-symbols/feed/ 0