Google Docs

I've been told by my best partner that I should try this another interesting platform from Google, namely Google Docs. For people like myself who use mathematical symbols a lot. I mean really a lot. The famous word document such as LaTeX.is very powerful. For example, nowadays we can see that the transformation of using blogspot to wordpress for a blogger who need a friendly and fully integrated TeX medium (i.e. mathematical symbols) in the web has already been solved.

Now, with this features of Google Docs, we can make our quick or recall notes anytime without even using the LaTeX processor or medium to execute such file that we need. The best thing of Google Docs, is that for those who are used to LaTeX symbols or LaTeX documentation, the same ideas work very well in Google Docs. Plus also for those who doesn't really know about the LaTeX shortcut symbol, Google Docs had prepared an equation editor menu. So that as usual, one just need to just choose, click and insert the associated equation.

Thanks Google...

a new document

select the Equation editor on the insert menu

the TeX equation workbook

example of an output

Updates on Weather

Today is like the first coolest day since the beginning of the Winter. Though the day was so nice and sunny but the real feeling is not that nice. Before went out to school, I have myself all wrapped up from head to toe just to make sure that I can challenge this weather. :-)

N.B. the Feels Like is refer to how the outdoor air is expected to feel in degrees Celsius when actual temperature and wind are combined (see windchill).

Lately Transformed...

I just finished watching the transformer movie and I'm having a really good time. I mean the movie was great. Full of actions and the story lines are wonderful. But yes, I just watched the first transformer movie. Its kind of late since the second movie has been released this year. Thanks to CBC.ca local television to make this movie as one of the holidays movie.

During my childhood, I am a big fan of a transformer. But then, during that time, we enjoyed the cartoon versions. And after seeing this movie I know now why lots of viewers give credits to this piece. It's really cool...

The leader of Autobots, the Optimus Prime.

Decepticon's logo

What is today...

I am 29 years of age today and I had received so many wishes. Thanks to facebook.

I received a nice quote that reads

"we turn not older with years, but newer everyday"

Happy Birthday to me...

Redo and Redo

Up until this post is written, I had spent the whole morning and the afternoon working on the construction of the group multiplication related to the Stockwell transform. I am quite sure that I have work out the computational method in a right way. According to the journal I'd refer. But at the end my final answer was not correct.

The next piece of paper will mark the eight (rough) paper for the computation alone. And there's more to come.

Lets do it all over again...

Snow Again

It is the beginning of the December of 2009. Which means the year of 2010 is just around the corner. Also it marks the fact that it is the beginning of the Winter.

How fast day has passes by.

I looked outside, I can see the snow has started to shower this big city of Montreal. Soon the 'white sea' will be everywhere...

Phase #1: Upgrade Your Skill of Presentation

Last week I missed my usual weekly appointment with my advisor. The truth is I don't have enough material to show him plus I haven't work out any significant ideas for our regular discussion. There's time when you hardly succeed any progress for which when your brain don't produce any solid or interesting idea. You will find that you need to fight against time as you have to read more and dig more ideas from literatures before your next appointment.

I tried to make a reasonable outline of possible materials to be presented during the discussion. Also at the same time I divide the hours of days accordingly so that I can cover every methods or formula and doesn't missed a thing. In my previous presentation, there's always few things which I lacked in terms of presenting ideas. One, I still need to refer to a notes or working problem when I presenting. Next, whenever I detect what kind of question my advisor will asked, it never went out smoothly. It always go wrong. Also I always stumble on few things (try my best not to stumble on basic things).

The good thing here is everyone love to talk, passionate about presentation and happy if they can speak out lout for their ideas. I have experienced most of the students are capable of presenting their materials without even referring to any notes or paper at hand for which I envied most. And this week I give a shot.

I'm happy that it is more or less work out find. My advisor give his satisfaction and I received my next task. Which is a good thing. Thank god that I have finally upgrade my skill of giving a presentation.

Beggar/Homeless in Montreal

Type ??
They can be categorized to be a very talented person on earth. Most of them can play music very well. Some might prefer to call them a buskers or street performers. Not just singing and playing instruments but they can do other things as well. They perform so well which sometime they collected quite amount of tips for a single day. I can safely said that this type do not fall into the beggar/homeless category.

Type 1
This people standing at the side of the escalator at the exit (entrance) of metro (subways train) stations holding a board that reads, "I've served my country as an army during the Vietnam war. Please spare me some coins". Or some just shouting loud saying, "anyone, change please. Change...". Others are not saying much but just show off their buckets or hats for some to drop a coin.

Type 2
They don't even bother to ask for anything but just lying down at the stairs sleeping and some are even smelly. This type don't even care if anyone felt sorry for him. And even interesting when I found out that this people have a very high pride. One day I saw a couple of policewomen who trying to help a homeless guy who used to sleep at the side walks. I've heard one of the policewoman said that "come on, we just wanna help. Its not like we're gonna give you a ticket or something. You're interrupting people who used this route". Then this guy reply with, "owh..yeah I don't need help. Like I care". Hehehe... despite he was so much indeed need of help.

Type 3
They don't need money they just need a cigarette.

Type 4
I just came across this type number 4 this morning. He sat at the pedestrian side walk and at the same time reading a book. In front of him was his hat for coins. OK, to me its look like budaya membaca is everywhere. Maybe because of he showing off his effort to read, some might considered him to be worth it to drop at least 10 cents.

I haven't yet found any particular people with disabilities begging for money or anything. I just met a type of healthy and lazy people trying to do so little work with so minimum energy to survive for live.

Do and Learns

Honestly, I don't really bother to stay all day at my place in my office. I also don't mind to sit at the same place with the same environment all day or even months. Just maybe and maybe it is because of the things we do (a theoretical work) we tend to accept that there will be no term of 'boring' when it comes to work place environment. I am not talking about myself alone, but it also happen to the rest of my office mate. They all sit at their place very quiet, reads, and there's one person I saw him thinking. He stared at the ceiling for quite sometimes. Woww...

However, recently I went to the library to do works and some readings. Just to have an another feeling from my routine. It helps also since books and reference are near, it was very easy to make an instant referent. And yesterday I found a book titled "Groups:A Path to Geometry" which contain full of exercises plus complete answers on the fundamental concepts of groups.

At the very beginning of books, the author says

Mathematics is something we do, not something we learn.

And he mentioned that most of mathematics lecturer tends to do the opposite.

I try to figure out what he really means and I know it of cause that we can never learn maths unless we do them. We won't understand the rules or the important properties until we work on all the possible solutions. Only than that the rules make sense and acceptable.

So, lets do and learn.

Research Has Begun

Today I gave another presentation with my advisor together with his visiting scientist on a recent paper which I studies named "the group representation related to the Stockwell transform". After one year of registering into the program I am now working on my (advisor) topic of interest. This kind of transform is a new study in time-frequency analysis which are greatly important in areas like geophysics, biomedicine or engineering. I have started this work like three weeks now eventhough I haven't completed my maths comprehensive part.

Remember on previous post, I've been preparing for the Ph.D qualifying exams. Well, I just managed to perform in the physics parts, which it is natural for me to do so since I was graduated from physics background. But I sense that I somehow could not tolerate with this kind of situation (fail for the maths part, since I like maths a lot). Ouuh...may my likeness isn't enough. But the truth is I spend like 3 whole months preparing for the maths part ONLY. And it didn't work out.

I went to see the person who giving the grades for the exam and she showed me how I'm doing. She mentioned that I have no problem to use all the mathematical tools yet I having problem in terms of proving and analyzing mathematical statement. But she said that, it is OK since any physicist will not interested to know how functions behave accurately. Only mathematician do. But since I do mathematical physics, it is also natural for me to know both parts. I remember when my former supervisor told me quite a few times (for a theoretical physicist), about how he committed to physics more than maths. Maths is just a tool to solve physics problem. If you get stucked with the maths perhaps go back to the significant of the physical explaination on how one should tackle such problems. If oneself get 'carried away' with the maths part perhaps he or she should be working on the maths problem.

However, during the year I've learned that maths is just not for solving, it is philosophically a logic thinking. And I admit that I was so weak in that sense. Need to stay in the field long enough to get the feeling. Later on my advisor told me that it was just the past, and lets work on for the future. Some of the stuffs I've learned may not even used later on. For example physicist don't need to know measure theory (which happened to be the subject for the comprehensive). This told me that I still had a chance. If I get lucky I can still be continuing to this program. Or else I am preparing myself home for my country. My advisor is positive due to my continuing but I don't know how the university system works. Lets just hope for a positive outcomes.

I take it as it is and now started to spend time on research and Ph.D works. I don't get discouraged for what has happened and still carry one with what is in front of me now. Take every opportunities that I can get until it is been told to my face that 'it is the end of the world'.

p\s-Apart from the stuffs I've been studying for the maths comprehensive, I found that it really helps a lot while reading any mathematical physics journal. Especially in terms of notations and terminology.

Turkey and Thanksgiving

the 'the' turkey

This week we've been invited to attend to a thanksgiving party organized by my supervisor. This is our first time to actually being invited to a thanksgiving party. This is also our first time to get to see how the real turkey is prepared (one can read more on Thanksgiving here). Apart from the turkey (which was the main dishes), we also have a homemade cakes and beriani rice together with the cranberries jam and gravies for the turkey. We depart home at 8 p.m. after having a special coffee prepared by the host.

we took some pictures at the park nearby

No Heat Left

Its just the second day of October and it is still Fall. But the truth is I cannot feel any heat left. It's feels like the winter is very near. People especially pedestrian has started to wear more cloths than usual.

p/s- I remember I kept my head covered during the long night at home.

The Reals

This Fall, I was encouraged to attend an undergraduate's class on Real Analysis. A subject of mathematical analysis. It is a basic or very fundamental to all mathematics' graduates in Concordia. It has been two weeks now and there's a lot that I've learn from the class.

During my undergraduate's I remembered that I took some mathematical subject being as my minor. Those days, I have Calculus, Algebra, Linear Algebra, Advanced Calculus, Vector Analysis, Mechanics and Complex Analysis. For all this types of subject I was learning on how to solve a problems given. To be specific, we were taught on solving problem technique per se.

In my Real Analysis class, we start with the study of the property of natural numbers (i.e. positive numbers, 1,2,3,..), next the rationals (i.e fractional number 1/2, 1/3, ...) and now we are learning to construct the real numbers from the rationals. How beautiful can it be rite?

We were using the fact that from the property of rationals the operation of addition and multiplication can also be done in the real number without assuming that that kind of operations are definitely works (in real life it is always true). But, how far that we know that it is always true? In this class, we were suppose to answer any such question with proves. Only then it is safe to say something implies to something. If no such proof, then it's just only and hypothesis. Nothing else. It's quite complicated and sometimes it can be a mental torcher, but it is worth it.

I think it is the best choice to sit in this class and learn 'new' things which for most people it is not really new.

p/s- Reals as we know as nombor nyata has long been used for counting.

Salam Perantauan...

We've finally made it this year for the Aidilfitri Salam Perantauan (credits to Kosmo.com.my)

SALAM Ramadan dan Aidilfitri 1430H kepada ibu dan ayah di Besut, Terengganu dan Kuala Pilah, Negeri Sembilan (Masitah Sulaiman, Aziz Jusoh), (Norsimah Habib, Mohd. Shah Hussein), Mak Dik, Mak Mi, Mak Jan, Uncle Sham, Edan Farid, Azri, Mak Ton, Kak Ina, Edan, Zuwan, Kak Cik, Ana, Usmadi, Yusri, Yusnita, Tarmizi, Azwan dan sanak saudara tidak kira di mana sahaja berada. Untuk rakan-rakan di UKM (IMEN) dan UPM (Jabatan Fizik) juga kami menyusun sepuluh jari memohon ampun dan maaf.

Daripada:

MOHD. FAIZAL AZIZ, NURISYA MOHD. SHAH dan AIN EDLEEN MOHD. FAIZAL, Concordia University, Montreal, Kanada.

No Short Cut

I've been preparing myself for the comprehensive exam in the specialized part which is physics. Which means, I have to 'cover' my previous undergraduates study on classical mechanics (CM), electrodynamics (~EM) and quantum mechanics (QM) at the same time. They provide the textbooks plus the selected chapters to focus on. It looks impossible to do and create pressure at the same time. But earlier student proved that it can be done.

Looking at the selected chapters, I try to be as positive as I can in terms of grabbing any facts, techniques, method and everything which are important. Believed me there are so many (sigh). Also to be honest, there are some chapters which I don't remember myself ever went through. For example the WKB approximation in QM. Then I thought to save time, I can try to talk to my SV (who also the question maker) so maybe that few chapters can be excluded.

But the response was just

"well, try to look at it first"

An answer which I've expected. So bring it on (in a positive way)

Very Hot

My friend is going to defense her Ph.D thesis on this end of the month. She will soon completing her Ph.D and will be entitled a Doctorate of Philosophy in Mathematical Physics. We both were supervised by the same professor.

This week, I was invited to attend her pre-thesis defense. She welcomed any suggestion so that she can really well-prepared during the real defense. Together with our supervisor and another new student who started his study this coming Fall, we all gather at the conference room. Her topic was the study of coherent states (CS) on R(2,1) space (i.e two dimension and one time). She worked on the CS of upper hyperboloid and upper cone which represent the R(2,1) space. The coherent states is simply a quantum states which by all means satisfy all the quantum properties. For example, in terms of complex square-integrability.

The time limit for the defense is 40 minutes and the rest will be open for the questions from examiners. She also mentioned that since her external was in Switzerland, her defense will be live via teleconference. Since the time different between Switzerland and Montreal is six hours later, she managed to arrange her defense to be in the morning. Noting this, I can not imagine, if I had an external from Malaysia and we want to have also a teleconference. This could be insane to organize because of the 12 hours different.

During her presentation, I heard few familiar stuffs coming from our supervisor. Please make your slide as visible as you can. Don't expect the audience knew what you are trying to tell them, even though they have read you thesis. Also don't stumble on basic things (I've heard this quite a few time actually, reminded by my former supervisor).

The best thing to hear was, when she was asked by our supervisor to highlight her results as a very new in the field. As no one ever come up with such results. He was so hilarious when he said,

"this is a very hot from the oven".

hahaha

Things That Make Me Smile

Up until now, I just don't realised how lucky I am due to the location of my office. Department of Mathematics and Statistics which is situated in level nine have rooms arranged in circles. At the center of the circles, we can also find more rooms which placed the conference room, graduate's office, rest room, discussion's room and some lecturer's room. The only disadvantage of the graduate's office situated in the center of the space is that they don't have windows to see outsides view. I'm lucky because the office which I'm sitting now, had a view of the street of Maisonneuve of downtown, Montreal. When it's snow falling, I enjoyed them every single day.

To start with, my office is only separated by three other lecturer's room to my advisor's room. Whenever he is speaking to someone or he went to the rest room, he will walked past my office. So I can sometimes heard his voice very loud and clear. I even recognize his footsteps. hehehe... Then, in front of me is the room for the department technical staff (we called him the computer consultant) and next to his room is the department Mathematics Help Centre (math help centre) staffed by graduate students, which provides tutoring and personal assistance for undergraduate students (particularly for first-year courses), and helps smooth the transition from CEGEP to university.

Next, we are also very near to the administrative area (this includes reception counter and support staff room) which also be very closed to the elevators (I can reach my office less than 10 steps). To add more, the conference room, where seminars usually took place is also near. And most important, the graduate's computer room where unlimited printing services is available is just happened to be next two room from my office. And last but not least, in between the graduate's computer room and my office there is the emergency's stairs (only). I think this is the most important one, if in case of fire alarm.

To view it back, I personally think that I have experienced the best spot so far. And these make me smile...

Today

I spend like one hour (plus couple of hours on previous day) to find a solution for this particular question on convergent series. I've tried like so many steps and trying hard to tackle such problem from different angles. What can I say, it turns me nowhere. At the beginning I just want to ask my friend in the office. She's the only one who is available (it's summer break). We share the same SV. But to think that I must have missed few small steps to figure it out, then I just keep on looking for an answer. Next, I just could not wait any longer. Hey, there's other tons exercises which also need my attention. Cut the crap, just ask!

The minute she had the question, she made another form of the question that is similar to the one that we want to solve. Arrghh, that moment I can see the answer right away. What a very small, small effort.

I really piss off.

...

I am in a very long run with analysis. Could not find any courage yet to post something that is interesting. The track is full of technicalities and stumbles.

p/s- hard time is trying to spurs around. Please someone get me a powerful armor

ISM Colloquium 2009-Day 1

I've signed up to be as the attendees of the ISM Gaduate Sudent Conference 2009 which is held annually. This year the conference is held at UQAM (Universite du Quebec a Montreal) (a friend told that last two years it was at Concordia). At the early beginning, the organizer did mentioned that talks could be given in French (as the official language of Quebec) or English or both. As in my previous experience, lots of student prefer to speak in French rather than English especially if they came from the non-English university (in Montreal there are only two English (-speaking) university, McGill and Concordia).

I have no problem to listen to any seminar who was in French but the slides are in English. So as they present we can read on through the slides. And also, some term in French is similar to one we have in English. Where the differences are on the pronounciations and spells.

Today after the registration, I scanned the list of the abstracts given. 90% of the talks will be in French. As it happened previously, I am a bit of awkward to really asked the speaker to give their talks in English just for a minor group like myself because the looks from the rest appeared inconvenient. So lets look at the summary below

#1. Sarah Dufour on educational mathematics. How student can learn differential calculus (purely in French)

#2. Sebastian Labbe. software, SAGE where the communication language are the phyton (the slides blend between English and French). I found this talk interesting as it's more on software applications and examples.

#3. Jerome Fortier, Contemplating Incompletness. (slides in English). A story of the process of constructing a mathematical theory. Content- tons of theorems.

Plenary Speaker (Damien Calaque from Universite Claude Bernard, Lyon France) talked on the theory of Lie in the complex géometrie, by way of the isomorphism of Duflo. This talk should be in French, but after made a personal request from the speaker, he said that he has no problem to give a talk in English since his slides are already in French (so that everyone is happy). But need a proven by the organizer. I am fortunate that it is done in English. This topic is related on how Lie algebra exist in the relation of Duflo's result of isomorphism. Which is by the analogue of Duflo isomorphism of complex geometry. The speaker is a mathematical physicist.

Idol's Mood

Just to spice things up regarding the new Season 8 winner of American Idol. At the very beginning everyone has predicted (even Simon Cowell) that Adam Lambert will owns the title of a winner. However I'm not sure what happened to Adam's fan, their votes are less than Kriss Allen. Right now Kriss is enjoying his first single call "No Boundaries". I personally like the song. But sadly to say that I like the version of Adam Lambert's rather than Kriss Allen's version. Readers can decide it yourself. I post both versions.

Kriss Allen's version

Adam's version (I think, maybe the song which best described as rock genre suits Adam's voice more).

But overall I'm happy with the final results. Kriss is definitely a talented one of a singer. He's catchy and more versatile than Adam.
...
Plus I very much enjoyed the performance of Kriss and Keith Urban during the finale night. Again enjoy.

Song title "Kiss the Girl" by Keith Urban

p/s- personal point of view

Spring(Summer) is Here

All these while I always want to fly a kite at least once in my life. And...

the kite fly really well...

the kite gets higher and higher.

sadly, she is more into ball.

Department Seminar

After a long pause of no seminar, today we have a seminar given by a visiting professor of Professor Bob Raphael who research interest are on ring theory and commutative algebra. The speaker Dr. John Kennison is from Clark University, (Worcester, Mass). He speaks on the "Elementary Aspects of Multivalued Logic, Dynamical systems, Chaos, Topos and Banach Algebras".

I'm not sure if the topics suits me that well. But as my SV reminded me that its good to attend as many seminar as I can. It is not a compulsory but at least, just to show some interest and getting to know what are the progress of other current research.

Dr. Kennison talked on how the multivalued logic contributes to dynamical systems and chaos (or best for probability statistic). For example, at present how the prediction of the weather forecast is being measured. It is well known that the accuracy of prediction of weather is correct only up to one day prediction only. He gives an example of having a state of weather denoted by x=x_{i} (read x subscript i) and the time series of each state denoted by t(x)={t(x_{i})}. And the rest, certain properties that these parameter satisfied such that they can be used later during the calculations.

I would rather list out something that is interesting to know...

After the seminar, there is one professor asking about how fuzzy logic can also contribute to probability. Dr. Kennison then replied that fuzzy logic doesn't handle probability very well. And this is supported by another professor who works very closely on fuzzy logic. He elaborated, but I lost sights of his comments. hehehe... And next Dr. Kennison made a statement that topos is superior of fuzzy logic. I'm not sure why is that.

Another commend made by another professor saying that open sets are a good lattice structure (again I don't know why). That's why all of these worked very well. But I do know that open sets are one of the properties in the study of topology.

Reckless About Proof

Until now, the whole picture which I'm sure every student in this department has very well-verse in is at proving theorems, corollaries or a proposition. I, on the other side, are trying to find my individual internal personal connection with the idea of prove and satisfaction of proving. And I had to say that the chemistry is still not there.

I spoke to one of my friend and he mentioned that you need at least a year to comprehend yourself with the skills of proof. One cannot by any chance grab it instantly. Its more about getting attached to the whole idea of any particular concepts where later on your proof is well-defined (logically). Which I failed to feel it in the first place. I cannot start my proof, not until I read some of the hints. Meaning, I don't even know where to start. I've talked to my SV about my reckless about proof, and he did gave me notes on mathematical thinking. I looked at them, study, listing out important things and try to work out the exercises. It seems OK.

Then everything went wrong. Again. When I came back to reality, facing subject like measures, I feel dumb. The things I've learned is hardly applied to this part of subject. OK, this will not stop me. So I made a second move, to speed up my pace. What I did was to learn from any individuals who willing to show some of the skills/techniques. But yet as they spoke the same language (of maths), I feel terribly sorry for myself. So I think I need to go back to the canonical way. A book.

At the end I found that I have no basic in analysis at all. Supposed, I should have taken any functional analysis back then. Whoops, there's no point to mention it now.

Hey Jude

I'm not a big fan of the Beatles. However after listen to this song, I totally like it. It's really nice.

Enjoy...

Feels Like ...

It's been almost seven months now, I've been struggling hard to catch up everything which I feel left behind. I am speaking of my studies. This is due to my 1st qualifying exam which is due this coming June. The topics involved are general maths. But believed me, general doesn't mean easy. Since the question may varies. There are five topics to be covered (sigh). And right now I feel like I am becoming a math's student rather that a physics student. I can safely said that in my department, I am the only student who finished my degree in physics. Fortunate for me that I did some maths subject during my degree which help me to speed some of the understanding. But I don't think it's enough. Most whom I met (the students) have a pure maths background. And there's only one so far who did her bachelor in mathematical physics. Which I cannot compare myself with her since her grasp in fundamental of maths were gigantic as well. Lucky that when I have discussion with this student and when I cleared myself that I came from physics background, they being really reasonable. They treated me like I was in my first level of high school. Which is cool.

There's one thing that I've learned from these maths student is the way they play around with notations and indices. They can make easy generalization out from a very specific problem and apply them to a particular problem. They write equations a lot and tell a 'story' out of them. Numbers are hardly notice in our everyday life but variables are. Proof is normal thing to do and honestly, I don't really like to proof. One more thing is they like to discuss and presents ideas. Always. Right now, I am trying my best to be if not equal but at least not that far from them.

Note: My Chinese friend is more helpful than the whites (pure). If I asked only some idea to solve, she simply solved everything towards the end. thanks a lot. I may need to absorb everything from these people just to make sure that I am fully apprehended with the techniques before the coming of the exam.

Unnecessary 'Sound'

We have our final class last week with the rest of individual presentations as part of the marks for the course. I've given mine the week before, so I was more relax. We have extra audience this time, who was also the advisor of one of the student. From his figure, I can tell that he is one of a kind. We've been talking about this professor before. One of my friend told me that he has a sleep disorder known as narcolepsy. His hair is very white with half of his head being uncovered and he sit next to me. Before we begin the session, he told us

"I come here for my student, the rest of you just ignore me and act like normal"

Hmm...I am not sure what he meant by that. But in my opinion, something awesome will happened today.

Since his student presented the last, I found the professor sleep and snored most of the time. But at some point all of a sudden he did raised a question. A very insightful kind of question. I've seen this before during my other seminar.

But then, while I am trying to pay attention to the presentation, I heard someone fart. Though it was a very light sound and I just not sure if that kind of sound that I've heard. So I just ignore it. Next when our teacher trying to explain an extra input for the subject, there's another sound, huge, loud and clear (plus a vibration). And this time, I am so sure that the professor next to me was the one who blow it out. Thank god that no spreading smell.

I'm trying hard enough not to laugh and stay focus on the board. Our teacher also keep on talking, just like nothing happened. Owh like I thought, this professor is one of a kind. After the class, we went for lunch to celebrate our final day and laugh out loud for what just happened during the presentation.

The three of us, Sara and Alex. I missed Rodrigo's pic.

Because I Came from the Same Country as She is...

A Chinese guy came to our graduate room asked for our officemate Hyuan Yi. His speaking is hardly understandable because of the composition of Chinese plus English pronunciation. He stumbled on few words where he took times to think of the word in English. He showed much concerns if he cannot find the Chinese girl because he said he was late for the summer course registration. My friend was trying to tell him that the girl was just a master student and she has nothing to do with the course registration. One can always see for his/her advisor for registration purpose. Furthermore, the reception desk is available for any questions.

Then the guy explained to us that he really need to see our friend because he and the girl came from the same country, China. OK, it's not that I cannot figure it out. Everyone in the room can figure that out too. It was obvious. Next, we cannot offer him any help, so I offer myself to bring him to the reception counter. Outside the room, we bumped with another Chinese student and he started to feel comfortable speaking Chinese. And he don't need my help anymore.

Afterwards, the three of us who witness the situation, were confused of the important stuff he'd mentioned about the course registration. Instead of just smiling, one of my friend speak up.

"He just want to deal with a person who has a similar origin...that's all "

Weekly Discussion #...

On this weekly progress work meeting, there is also other student who joint me for my presentation. He was a previous student of my advisor. Very unlucky that I need to present on something that I didn't expected to do. Welcome to the real hectic world.

I've been asked to tell everyone what is the BCH formula is all about. This is not something that I'm ready for. The outcome is worse. I feel bad at the first beginning but towards the end I feel happy. A single force and unexpected things that is useful from someone, and you just need to do it (whether you like it or not) can sometime be very privileged. I really need to work on my style of reading and also in my style of understanding of every topics that I've read. And later tell it out loud without referring to a note. How many times that I need to remind me of this. Enough said. It's time to make it a fact.

Note: I'm in my PhD mood swing...

Lunch: Halal 786 Restaurant

We went out to try one of the famous Pakistani dishes at Montreal. The restaurant is situated near to Parc metro, Jean-Talon west.

Friends from McGill.

yummy...mutton curry

nice try out. Butter chicken

Pakistani "ayam golek"...

Journey towards PhD

From "A PhD Thesis Without Tears", John Creedy, 2007 (research paper)

During your preliminary reading, ...in describing what you want to investigate, you should be able to frame a clear question. One should prepare to answer questions like

1. 1. What was the question motivating this paper?

   2. What are the author’s major results?

   3. What do you regard as the main limitations of the approach?

   4. In what ways do you expect your research to extend existing literature?

Note: a very useful standard materials

Brush Everything Up!

This week, I've came up with three questions and one basic concept to be discussed with my advisor. I always try to think of, what is really there in a mind of a professor. It was very synonym that whatever kind of question that came up, these people usually have something to say about it and they explain it very well. Same happen to my advisor. He always have answer to all my question. And the best it, it is instantly giving question to an instantly giving answer. How do you feel about that?

There's a time, when he cannot think of a good way to answer, but he thought of it real deep, and the process was continuous. At the end, he will finally get to show ideas to solving such problems. Like what happened this week. He took more time to work out the solution for an if and only if statement prove. He wrote everything on the board and I try to get the idea of the solving method. When we sit down, just when I tried to wrote everything down in my notes, he said,

"so, that's pretty all of it. Afterward please brush everything up."

I looked at his face and not sure what kind of 'face' that I showed him, but he replied with

"no, no, I don't ask you to clean up the board, just detail everything up for that solution OK...", he laugh.

Owh, it's pretty obvious huh!!! @#$$$#&#&@@

Department Research Seminar

his is the continuing of department pizza seminar with a new name called department research seminar. It's a less catchy than the previous name. But the way the seminar was organized will be the same. Towards the end of the seminar, pizza will be served.

In this seminar the talk was given by my Lie Group teacher. The title was Introduction to Tau-Function. The outline were examples of Tau-Function and also the application one can have of the function due to physics interest. So, I must say most of the crowd is a very familiar faces with a mathematical physics background. The speaker used a slide presentation with a total of 37 slides and a given one hour timing. But there were not enough time and the rest 10 slides were sacrificed.

However, the contents are quite interesting to me. The famous example of the Tau-Function would be the Schur function, solitons, tau-function that is associated to algebraic curve and random processes. The common application that physicist can benefits from the Tau-Function would be on the fermionic Fock space. This is something that a particle physicist would deal with. Which I may never tried to go into deep.

The beauty of the examples of the Tau-Function is that they have a determinant properties and there's two more which I forget to write it down during the seminar. hehehe.

zzz...

What can I say. I felt so sleepy during the Lie group class this week. I know that I have work late the night before the class and my eyes are so tired. I try my very best to not show the obvious sleepy look on my face. To make it worse, the topic of this week is proving some theorem and the teacher had successfully jumble out an unorganized notations. He used to talk ahead further than what he was writing at the board.

Which make myself struggled to take notes. This course has definitely give me a headache. As my friend was saying, "there's no headache in consequence learning group theory..."

Talk Like A Physicist

I just found this interesting site from my Google alert for quantum mechanics. Who found that this cartoon hilarious.

Many World Quantum Interpretation-Talk Like A Physicist

credits to TalkLikeAPhysicists.com

Finally... A Real Task

As usual I have a weekly discussion with my supervisor for the subject on the group theory, topics on Hilbert space and Lebesgue measure. Those three topics are the ultimate goal for the rest of 24/7 days of my life so far. However, for this week, after preparing myself for whole week on my presentation, I didn't managed to present a thing. Since my supervisor has taken the whole time to explain me the general idea of the matter discussed. And I found myself happy with it. I must say that this is the shortest discussion that I've ever had.

Before we end, I suggest few things on my preparation for the comprehensive exam plus continuing on the problems for modern analysis and group theory. He mentioned that in the mean time, he will hand over some journals and group theory problem for me to work on with because later on I may end up working on such problems. Better start now or then.

So I guest this is the beginning of my research work. It doesn't have to wait until I finished all my courses though. But first thing first, I need to pass the comprehensive test. Good luck.

Better Lane for Professional Post

This post is to update everyone that from now on, any post with regards to the label facts and learn will be posted to mylambda.wordpress.com. It provides better platform if one uses LaTeX to write equations.

Ph.D Thesis Proposal

I went to the scariest talk ever this afternoon. The talk was meant for the Ph.D thesis proposal (see below title). This is the first time I've had a chance to joint this kind of a talk. To make this talk even scarier is the audience is a number theorist which make the talk is dense with an unfamiliar notations and terminologies. I think I picked the wrong slots. The topic is not really for me. Well, it is not like I ever want to try to understand the contents but the main idea of joining would be to have some kind of a motivation. I would love to see and feel how's it like to present your thesis proposal because eventually I will do same as this is part of the comprehensive exam. But on the other hand, I do found some familiar concepts like the group homomorphism and irreducible representation being mention in his early talk.

From my observation,

1. There are five audience, which includes the advisor, two co-advisors and two audience (count me in).
2. The advisor and the co are empty handed. No papers at hand and don't even note down a single thing while the speaker is presenting.
3. The speaker used a blackboard for his presentation and not once he ever refer to any reference while he's presenting.
4. The speaker is well known of those of the notations he used, and matters that he was saying.
5. When the speaker get lost or cannot answer some question, his advisor took in charged.
6. When the speaker was not known to an answer, he can definitely say I have no idea...

The thing that I learned would be

1. Be precise (always) what you are explaining. Give examples, perhaps a definition and so on up to every notations that you used. Don't aspect audience is well-aware to what you are presenting even though they really an expert.
2. A general organized talk would be to have a motivations of research, reviews from previous works, thesis problem and expected output.

Note: Apart from the above two things, I need to work on more in the first part. My former supervisor used to remind me of this...

Title of the talk:
Constructing Special Types of Fontaine Sheaves: Comparison Isomorphism Theorems

Favourite Puzzles

The unique thing about every newspaper is the publisher can put up some puzzles just to spice things up for the reader to be acquainted with more than just a news and report scenes. The famous one would be the cross puzzle, match and found the different of two 'alike' but not quite picture and so on. However the best thing in every newspaper in town (Montreal) would be the Sudoku. Yeah... There's always a Sudoku in paper like the Metro (French) and also the Gazzette.

Anywhere in town, especially in the metro subway, one can find people of any age will try to solve out Sudoku. Some are really an old old people. They seem enjoy doing it. Me too, there's even an evil Sudoku to be tried out if one has already being the master and trying to go next level up. Just google into sudoku, tons of related link will be appeared.

The other puzzle that I would like to highlight would be the spider solitaire. hehe... And I just found out that my nice friend Valerie also share the same interest. She played the game once a while in between her research works .

You know, doing theoretical, one need to read a lot and also spending most of his/her time working out the solutions. Which some of them takes longer time then ever just try to work it out. Plus siting in front of the computer for like hours. So when our brain get a little of tired, I especially like to try to solve the spider solitaire. It works to ease the tiredness of the functions of my brain. At least to regain back my energy to continue doing what I've started earlier.

Naive Lie Theory

Naive Lie Theory is an undergraduate text in Mathematics by well-renown Professor John Stillwell, a professor at University San Franscisco, California. I've met Professor Stillwell in 2004 during the TSL Expository Lecture Series III, 2004. Professor Stillwell is one of the invited speaker for the lecture series. I also used one of his famous book, Geometry of Surfaces, 1995 (Springer) during my master research.

Currently I'm using Naive Lie Theory to further upgrade my understanding due to Lie Groups and Lie algebra. As beforehand I'm using a book by Professor Brian C. Hall, "Lie Groups, Lie Algebras and Representations" for my informal reading course with my supervisor. Lie groups (group theory) is one of the tools needed to pursue my future research despite of other methods such as functional analysis, differential geometry and quantum mechanics.

I recommend the reader who have a similar interest as I am to consider the Naive Lie Theory as the next best companion. I like the way Professor Stillwell organized the contents of the book. One must have thankful to be able to find a crash course on groups and their basic important properties.

The book was divided into nine chapters that include, geometry of complex numbers and quarternions, groups, generalized rotation groups, the exponential map, the tangent space, structure of Lie algebras, the matrix logarithm, topology and simply connected Lie groups. Details work are shown in almost of every topics. The best thing is at the end of every chapters there is a discussion that introduce important results beyond those proved in the book, as part of an informal sketch of Lie theory and its history.

As catchy as the title, the author used a naive approach that will be usefull to those senior undergraduates or early graduates level as myself.

Note: Some of the exercises is similar as the one Prof. Hall presented in his book. Lie Groups, Lie Algebras and Representations, Graduate Text in Mathematics (GTM), No. 222.

Graduate Student Seminar

Yesterday was the starting of the graduate student seminar for the year of 2009 of the Winter term. Yesterday also, my schedule was pretty tight as I have a replacement of weekly discussion at 2 p.m., then at 3 p.m. my French Cancan session will took place for one hour and half. Later at 5 p.m. I need to rush myself to McGill University for the graduate student seminar for another 90 minutes.

At the beginning I was not plan to go to this seminar which is given by an algebraic (geometric) topologist entitled Introduction to Khovanov homology. Even though the abstract (see below) did mention about the contents will be quite rudimentary. I just knew that, somehow, it was not going to very quite elementary at all. Yes when you are talking about algebraic topology, most of the students here also well-know to the difficulty of the subjects.

However, after finishing my French Cancan session, I decided to go. I don't know where the sudden guts took over me, but I just did. And this time, I'm not going to walk all the way to McGill because I know that I cannot stand the cold and the windchill. So I took the metro instead (so far I have a very close attached to this transport). Still after I went out from the metro (with so many exit doors), I found out I was lost. It's not that the same exit as I was expected to be which is very close and I can see the main entrance of McGill right away. It took me about 10 minutes to figure the way out and I reached the seminar room 15 minutes late and the seminar was already started.

I sit at the very front row (this will prevent oneself to be fall asleep), and telling myself, I'm going to be board and most probably confuse trying to listening to the talk. However... yes however, the speaker was really remarkable. He used an upper case handwriting for the whole time and started to talk mostly algebra and how TQFT (topological quantum field theory) is related to the functors of monoidal map. Mostly he showed the algebra that he used (combinatory) to try to solve some of knot's problem. And he call the algebra and the idea was pretty "cute". How cool is that. I think I never heard anyone telling somethings that is maths were cute. He present it in a leisurely but yet professional and the connection of each topics were smoothly arranged. I admit that I don't recall some or most of the terminologies especially related to knot and combinatory theory, but overall I think it worth to be happened to join this seminar.

Abstract:

About 10 years ago, Khovanov introduced an interesting homological knot invariant. This is a completely combinatorial gadget, that makes use of some interesting algebra. I'll outline the definition, and try to give some highlights of the developments since the relatively recent discovery of the theory. The talk will aim to be quite elementary.
(special thanks go to CRM-ISM website)

Ain's Favourite

My first try: macaronie and cheese

Note: Actually, everyone's favourite

French Cancan

Bonjour!

Believe it or not, yesterday I had register myself to a French Cancan: French conversation group for beginner. The session will only be one and half hour per week every Wednesday and will be going on until April 1st. It is an informal session, with no pressures, no exams and just having fun. This is why I sign my name up. Also it is free for any Concordian with a valid student card. The group consists of approximately 20 people, and most of us are not from Canada. Most of them also have taken a basic course in French while, I have none, zero. So, truly I am an original beginner.

The first session was trying to know the pronounciation in French. Everybody were introducing ourselves and after that we need to introduce ourselves again in French. It is kind of tricky and I kind of split my tongue a bit. Though I managed to introduce myself in French for a first time. Who cares if I pronounced it badly or incorrect. As long as it sound like French, it'll be OK. hehehe...

As the instructor was saying, the key to success is your self-esteem. Don't be afraid and be brave to spill it out.

Measure Theory Demystified #1

The concept of measure is a generalization of the concept of "length", "area" and "volume". The famous theory of measure would be the Lebesgue measure which associated to the Lebesgue integration.

Every definition of an integral in based on a particular measure. I never learned such integration is integrated with a particular measure. I mean not in a normal integration.

For example,

1. Riemann integral is based on Jordan measure
2. Lebesgue (pronounced ləˈbɛg) integral is based on Lebesgue measure.

These two famous integrals usually encounter when study of analysis of functions (reals or complex). Lebesgue integral for example plays an important role in the branch of mathematics called real analysis and in many other fields in the mathematical sciences.

Remark: The study of measures and their application to integration is known as measure theory.

Discussion #...

Today is Monday, the beginning of the new week. It is warmer, with light snow and also very quiet. I was the only student in the office. Even after my usual discussion was finished, there's no one else coming. Also my friend Valerie, she is not coming to the office either. After all, I just found out that I will be left 'alone', as everyone else is finishing soon. Alone in the sense that the only maths physics student left. The rest of us were doing the actuarial maths, maths plus financial interest. It is a very popular research here in Concordia. From my observation, most student who taking actuarial maths is Chinese. Current news proposed, if they performed very well, they can be hired by a multimillion financial company for example an insurance company. This is a very good job prospect to be aimed for. Yup, Chinese is equivalently to business minded. So I guest they follow the right track.

If to compare with maths physics. It is kind of massless. We need to pull more crowd. I've talked to my supervisor and he mentioned that he currently focus on me and only me. The most student he had one time was two. As he was saying, supervising maths physics student is totally different from supervising an experiment base student per se. (Yeah, its not like I don't know about that). He did had another student from University of Montreal but yet he just being the co-supervisor. Though she also quite finishing. Valerie like I said is finishing this coming summer. As a remark there are many maths physics professor here (five of them) in Concordia, but less potential student.

Second Lecture on Lie Groups

Last week, the teacher started his first lecture on Lie Groups in giving definitions on groups and stuff like that. I'm going to summarize later on (in my own words) basic important definitions that going to be understand when we learned about groups specifically the Lie Groups. Today is just the continuation from last week topics, but a little depth on the representation theory. Personally I need to work out on this one since I don't recall I have ever experienced this subject before.

It is a good practice for myself to be able to put some details on the web as my own personal (input) database which going to be useful in future. This is a mathematics class but I don't see any numbers and a common mathematical work being presented through out the lecture.

Note: I am so dense!

-22 Degree

Patutla masa cik salma nak pergi ke sekolah pagi tadi, rasa sejuk semacam. Tak pernah lagi rasa sesejuk macam ni. Sampai di office, terus semak weather forecast untuk hari ni, rupanya -22 degree which correspond to the -33 feels like degree. Cuaca di luar memang cerah. Sinaran matahari begitu terik. Tapi sayang kami di bawah sinaran matahari kesejukan.

Nampak gaya lain kali, kena pakai seluar tiga lapis, baju pun tiga lapis juga.

Note: Di kala ini, tak sabar nak tunggu salji turun lagi.

Pretty Bad

I received an email later today from our graduate assistant. She mentioned that she has to withdraw my name from the course that I have registered for the Winter term, Mathematical Quantum Mechanics due to the low enrollmment. There are only two of us. I was sad about the news since the teacher for the course is my supervisor. During our first lecture, I was kind of excited to listen to his lecture.

It was more than just a lecture. He inspired us with a very nice starting through intuitive examples of quantum mechanics. In my early days, it is far well-known that subject on quantum mechanics is less interesting to students due to its depth abstract mathematical usage which is unreachable from any ordinary imagination. But believe me. Once when we get to its roots and terminologies, it was really interesting. There are many to relate to the physical world but of coz there's more open question about its existence.

I really hope that I can still have a chance to take this course. I have more years to go. This is something that I really needs as to practice myself to become a good QM teacher one day.

2009

I believed that everyone now must have encouraging setting up their 2009 resolutions. I wish all the very best to every human beings on the planet...