View of the Long's peak: panorama.

Taken on May 25th, 2007:

Remix.

Только что нашел в глубинах жесткого диска:

Захожу к операм в кабинет, а как правило в любом оперском кабинете висят на стенке листочки А-4 с каким нибудь умным изречением, типа: "если вас съели у вас есть два выхода" и т.д. и т.п., сегодня прочитал:

"Трудно собирать выбитые зубы сломанными руками, когда в глазах темно.." и подпись Конфуций.

И я понял что это ментовской ремикс на известное выражение китайского философа: "Трудно искать черную кошку в темной комнате особенно если ее там нет".

Plato's "Allegory of the Cave".

что было -- то и будет, и что делалось -- то и будет делаться, и нет ничего нового под Солнцем!
Екклесиаст

It amazing what people come up with over 2000 years ago. Following an excellent tip from my climbing partner, Morgan (thanks! the advice is greatly appreciated!), I read Plato's "Allegory of the Cave". It's one piece of deserving reading!

P.S. It was a required reading for a political science class.

Wonderfully intangible: Memes.

During a very cool discussion with my boss about Richard Dawkins, I was acquainted with a concept of memes, which is a unit of cultural information exhibiting a gene-like behavior. I found the concept to be a great example of a pure "informational entity". Wonderfully intangible.

A riddle.

A man is being hanged. There is a man in the crowd of observers who is asked of his relation to the guy on the gallows. He doesn't want to admit it, so he answers in a riddle:

-Brothers and sisters I have none, but that man's father {pointing to the man about to be hanged} is my father's son.

What is the relation between the condemned and the man in the crowd?

Mono-monostatic body ("GÖMBÖC").

Arnold's conjecture that convex, homogeneous bodies with less than 4 equilibria points (mono-monostatic bodies) exist was shown to be correct. In other words, it's possible to make a "come-back kid" {"ванька-встанька"} from a block of homogeneous material. So no matter how you drop it, it will straighten itself out and get on all four paws :-). Here is a page with a neat video demonstrating how "GÖMBÖC" rolls itself into equilibrium. And this Wikipedia article does a much better job of concisely explaining what this thing is (and what it does).

This picture is taken from a full paper: P. L. Varkonyi, G. Domokos Mathematical Intelligencer 2006, 28(4), 1.

P.S. Why less than four equilibria points, not just one? Because both stable and unstable equilibria count, hence gomboc has two equilibria points, not one.

Changing colors.

Here are two identical solutions of CoCl2 in aqueous HCl, left one is at ~-20C, right one is at room temperature (~20C):As the cold solution warms up, it changes color:Until both solutions become identical close to room temperature:Pink color is due to O_h-Co(H₂O)₆²⁺ complex, deep-blue - to T_h-CoCl₄^2-.

{Yoshi found the experiment and made the solutions, and I sealed the stuff in the ampules.}