moving

One thought that someone can get when she is packing to leave is

"I seem to have come far from where I started. How do I know it is far enough?"

PS: I will be travelling for sometime and then moving to a new place. So, it may be sometime before regular blogging resumes! Read the rest of this entry >>

ideas from the presentation

what if W(C) is irrational.

Talk about the if part first, so that the intuition is conveyed. Otherwise, it may give an idea of where the theorem is going. This is partly true because, we begin with the conditions for computability of S and give a condition of computability of S'

recession cone: give Ax<=b and Ax<=0 in the pictures, by moving the constraints through the origin. construct the recession cone from the generators also????

blackbox on the final slide should say:

yes if S is computable.
maybe otherwise.

suppose we give a definition of FATNESS. does that mean that the blackbox can give NO answer?

Make it clear if the statements are for computability or incomputability.
Are there better terms than if and only-if conditions? How about necessary and sufficient conditions? Is the following idea true: "The if part is weaker than necessary condition." If the if-part is added to FAT SURE's, then do we have a necessary condition?

Define a URE after the definining SURE. Read the rest of this entry >>

hayagriva and agasthya

Sri Maata Sri MahaRaagni Srimad Simhasaneshwari
Chidagni Kunda Sambhuta Deva Kaarya Samudyata ...

begins Lalitha Sahasranamam, possibly the most beautiful set of verses ever written. I always feel a sense of Bhakti when I recite Vishnu Sahasranamam. Of course, as Sankara says, there is no Advaita without Bhakti. With LS, I feel Bhakti too. I also feel a strange Advaitic feeling, that is unique to LS.

Lalitha Sahasranamam is said to be taught by Hayagriva (who is said to be very tall: maybe means a Sthula-Roopa) to Sri Agasthya (who is sais to be very short: probably means a Sukshma-roopa). Maybe we can interpret the physical structures as metaphorical allegories to ParaBrahma and Atma respectively.

The goddess who is being prayed can be considered to be the YogaMaaya herself. In an Advaitic way, the teaching seems to convey that "if you understand the illusion, you will be Brahma. There is no other way for the Atma to be Brahma than throught understanding the nature of Maya/illusion, that drives the world."

This entirely concurs with chapter 7 verse 14 of Srimad Bhagavad Gita, when Sri Krishna says:

Dive Hyesha Guna Mayi Mama Maaya Duratyata
Maame va prapadyante Maayametam Tarantate


[It is impossible to cross the maaya of this world. Only by my grace can you cross it.]

So, we are praying to the Goddess Tripurambika, Lalita devi to help us cross the illusion that is the world. Read the rest of this entry >>

some links on reservations

Atanu Dey: Imagine no reservations and reservations about reservations.

Nitin Pai of the Acorn: on Manmohan Singh, more on reservations. He is an awesome blogger with a big impact.

Francois Gautier on Brahmins in India today. A very sad state of affairs indeed!

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New links in the side bar: Nitin Pai at the Acorn and Jaffna and Cynical Nerd. Jaffna used to blog at secular-right. That blog has been dissolved (why?).

Postscript: Nitin Pai calls it the Tiananmen of India and gives a link to a poem. I understand the spirit. I think one more characterization would be to call it the Babri Masjid of Congress. In both the situations, the main party (congress/BJP) was led by special interest groups (congress-sycophant/VHP) Also, calling associating congress with the name of Babar gives a evil-satisfaction, as I have scant respect of both.

In disavowing the congress party, I am a follower of the Mahatma, who rejected the membership sometime in 30s and went further in asking the congress to be dismantled after independence. Read the rest of this entry >>

Dreams and Self Realization

In a post on self-realization, subbu gives a good anecdote of guru appearing in Dreams:

Rarely, a person may have a dream in which he receives initiation from God or the Guru into a mantra. In the Mahàbhàrata [in chapters 80 and 81 of the DroNa-Parvan], there is an account of a dream in which Arjuna received instructions from Shiva. Having vowed to slay Jayadratha by sunset the next day, Arjuna was worried about how he could achieve success. When he fell asleep, he had a dream in which Krishna came to him and led him on an aerial journey to the summit of the kailàsa mountain. There, they beheld Shiva and eulogised Him. In response to Arjuna's prayer, the Lord directed them to fetch His bow, pinàka, and His pAshupata-astra from a celestial lake. When they did so, a brahmacàrin emerged from Shiva's side and taught Arjuna how to discharge the pAshupata arrow. The Lord also taught Arjuna the mantra-s for invoking the weapon. Arjuna's memory of the instructions about the use of the pAshupata that he had received much earlier from Shiva was thereby restored. On waking up, he was in a position to invoke with mantra-s and employ the irresistible pAshupata, if needed.

Giiven that there is no difference between dream-state and waking-state, I think that instruction by Guru in dream-state is no different from instruction by Guru in waking-state. This indeed has happened to many great realized souls (Ramana?).

Also subbu gives the wonderful shloka 2-16 from BhagavadGita:

The unreal has no true existence and the Real can never go out of Existence.

The essence of which, was repeated by Shankara when Govindachaya asked him "What is Real?" and also when Shankara was framing the theory of reality. Read the rest of this entry >>

Tadhagata and Annamayya

A couple of days back, it was Vaisakha-Purnima, the Jayanthi of ShakyaMuni-Buddha and Annamayya. Read the wonderful article by Atanu on the enlightened one. Read the rest of this entry >>

aakaspatitam toyam saagaram prati gachati

Read the rest of this entry >>

Karp: The Mysteries of Algorithms

From People and ideas in Theoretical Computer Science edited by C.S.Calude:

My own work on formal methods centered around parallel computation. Ray Miller, Shmuel Winograd and I did work that foreshadowed the theory of systolic algorithms. Miller and I introduced the parallel program schema as a model of asynchrononous parallel computation; in the course of this work we introduced vector addition systems and initiated the study of related decision problems. The most notorious of these was the reachability problem, which after many false tries was proved to be decidable through the efforts of several researchers, culminating in a 1982 paper by Rao Kosaraju.

A related post: Ray Miller's memoirs. Read the rest of this entry >>

Siddhartha by Hesse: Final Chapter - Govinda (repost)

Those of my readers, who have not previously read Herman Hesse's Siddhartha, please do so. If you already have, please read the final chapter Govinda again. This chapter is rightly highlighed by Atanu at the right places. I have just one suggestion, please read it v-e-r-y v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y.

A repost of an inspired writing of mine. Read the rest of this entry >>

Linear Scheduling is close to optimal by Darte-Khachiyan-Robert

They handle a URE, not a SURE.
Give the ratio of the best free schedule to the best linear schedule.
Prove that it is small.

Have a definition of fatness.

See the open-problems post.


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Lattice Stuff:

From Polylib notes

A collection of material on LLL.

material on Reduced lattice bases

Deza's slides talk about the chapters from Schrijver's books.

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Diestel's Graph theory is available online. Check for some kind of "cycle space", or "reachable cycles"???

polylib notes on polyhedra and lattices.
A good site on convex stuff from upenn.
check Chernikova algorithm by Le Verge!!!! Read the rest of this entry >>

Sankara Desika Me Saranam

The lion of Vedanta appeared;
the universe of duality rejoiced.

Vaisakha Shukla Panchami is said to be the Jayanthi of Shri Adi Sankaracharya. Some material:

From the preface to Viveka Chudamani by John Grimes:

Unbelievably multi-faceted, he was a teacher, a thinker, a reformer, a commentator, an organizer, a philosopher, a poet, a theologian, a missionary, a mystic, a scholar, a saint, a siddha, a mukta, a divine incarnation, a living legend.

The famous Guru Shisya parampara of Vedanta:

Dakshinamurthi, the primordial Guru is universally understood and then:

Narayanam Padmabhuvam [PadmaBhuvam: one who is born from lotus. Brahma is said to be be born from the a lotus that was rooted in the navel of Shri Vishnu]

Vasistham [Deva Guru] Saktimca tatputra [Shakti: the son of Vasistha] Parasaranca [Vyasa's father] Vyasam Sukam [Vyasa, the compiler of the Vedas. Suka, the son of Vyasa and had recited Bhagavatham to Parikshit. Here ends the familial-guru-sishya-parampara.]

Gaudapadam mahantam Govinda Yogindra athasya sishyam Sri Sankaracharya athasya [Begin the parampara when the Guru's were renunciates. Gaudapada is the Guru of GovindaPada, who in turn in the Guru of Shankara.]

Padmapadamca Hastamalakancha sisyam tam Totakam varttika-kara [The shisya-parampara of Shri Shankara: Padmapada, Hastamalaka, Totaka and Sureshwara (varttika-kara?)] manyan asmad gurun santata-manatosmi [I bow to all of them.]

[Annotation by me.]

Greatness of Shankara's life and teachings (from advaitin mailing list): 1, 2, 3 and 4

Some of Shankara's works from Sanskrit Documents.

From Shankaracharya.org, the famous NisargaDatta Maharaj's I am That is available online.

A succint biography of Shankara, with references to a lot of works.

My other links on the same book: review and shloka on Shankara, transcript and thoughts on Shri AdiShankaracharya, the movie.

The title of the post is from Totakastakam.

...
Sarva Vedanta Siddhanta Gocharam Tam aGocharam
Govindam Paramanandam Sat-gurum-Pranatosymyaham.
...

Chidananda-roopa-Sivoham Sivoham! Read the rest of this entry >>

Birth Centenaries of Rado, Godel

Thanks to Lance for the great posts on Richard Rado (1906-1989) and Kurt Godel (1906-1978), on the eve of their birth centenaries.

Link to a previous post of Lance. Read the rest of this entry >>

Tao Te Ching

1

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name

41

When a superior man hears of the Tao,
he immediately begins to embody it.
When an average man hears of the Tao,
he half believes it, half doubts it.
When a foolish man hears of the Tao,
he laughs out loud.
If he didn't laugh,
it wouldn't be the Tao.


48

In pursuit of knowledge,
every day something is added.
In the practice of the Tao,
every day something is dropped.
Less and less do you need to force things,
until finally you arrive at non-action.
When nothing is done,
nothing is left undone.

81

True words aren't eloquent;
eloquent words aren't true.
Wise men don't need to prove their point;
men who need to prove their point aren't wise.

The Master has no possessions.
The more he does for others,
the happier he is.
The more he gives to others,
the wealthier he is.

The Tao nourishes by not forcing.
By not dominating, the Master leads.


==
Two translations I know that are good: by Gia-Fu Feng, and Jane English and by Stephen Mitchell. The latter is also available online. Read the rest of this entry >>

Sri Dakshinamurthy Stotram Part VII

In Part VII-a, Part VII-b, Part VII-c,Part VII-d and Part VII-e, Shri Subramanian discusses Verse VI of Shri Dakshinamurthy Stotram:


Rahu-grasta-divakarendu-sadrsho maya-samaacchaadanaat
SanmaatraH karanopasamharanato yo'bhut-sushuptaH pumaan |
Praagasvaasamiti prabodha-samaye yaH pratyabhijnaayate
Tasmai Srigurumurtaye nama idam Sridakshinamurtaye ||


Links to previous verses:

Verses I to Verse IV (Parts I to V) and Verse V, Part VI (both halves). Read the rest of this entry >>

Kristof Wins Pulitzer for Commentary

This blogger has been a fan of Nicholas Kristof. His work has been exemplary. Whether it is reporting on genocides, or tackling the administration in Pakistan for its atrocities against women, or environmentalism, or progressive thinking, and many such issues, he somehow seems to be correct in all he writes. Three cheers for Kristof!

Related links:

The NYTimes page, with some of his writings.

The columnist page of Kristof from NYTimes.

The winners in Journalism, the winners in letters and music (note that the book on Oppenheimer has won in biography).

My post urging my friends to read NYTimes.

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Postscript(04/22): According to the WiKi entry, Kristof already has a Pulitzer that was awarded jointly with his journalist wife, Sheryl WuDunn. Apparently, she too works for NYTimes and this was the first time a Pulitzer prize was awarded jointly to a married couple. Read the rest of this entry >>

Panikkar's Vedic Experience available online!

Raimundo Panikkar's The Vedic Experience: Mantramanjari, a good translation -- possibly one of the best in English -- of some of the scriptures from Vedas is available online from Himalayan Academy:

Related Links:

Other online books from Himalayan Academy.

Amazon link for Panikkar's book. Read tepi's review and tepi's other reviews.

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Link to Panikkar's book, thanks to Sunder, a poster in advaitin mailing list! Read the rest of this entry >>

Emily: I had no time to hate

Possibly, my most favorite poem of the woman in white (or the Bartleby page for Emily Dickinson):

I had no time to hate, because
The grave would hinder me,
And life was not so ample I
Could finish enmity.

Nor had I time to love, but since
Some industry must be,
The little toil of love, I thought,
Was large enough for me.

From: Selected Poems Of Emily Dickinson: Searing Vision of Life, Passion, Death and Beyond.

Here is an index of her first lines from Bartleby. Read the rest of this entry >>

Goedel Prize for Agarwal, Kayal and Saxena

Thanks to Lance, Agarwal, Kayal and Saxena, the authors of the famous paper "Primes is in P", won the Goedel Prize for 2006. Goedel Prize is the highest award in Theoretical Computer Science. Here is a list of past winners of the award. Note the names like Hastad, Arora, Sudan, Motwani, Goldwasser, Freund-Schapire, among other modern greats.

According to Suresh's blog, people knew this news earlier, via grapevine.

Here is an introduction to the problem and the algorithm (PDF link). The Wiki Entry, a version of the paper (PDF link) from Agarwal's home page. The paper has been accepted to be published in Annals of Mathematics 160 1-13, 2004. Read the rest of this entry >>

Hafiz: Now is the Time

My friend Elliott, pinned the poem "Now is the Time" by Hafiz (a 14th century mystic/poet from Persia) outside my door:

Now is the time to know
That all that you do is sacred.

Now, why not consider
A lasting truce with yourself and God.

Now is the time to understand
That all your ideas of right and wrong
Were just a child's training wheels
To be laid aside
When you finally live
With veracity
And love.

Hafiz is a divine envoy
Whom the Beloved
Has written a holy message upon.

My dear, please tell me,
Why do you still
Throw sticks at your heart
And God?

What is it in that sweet voice inside
That incites you to fear?

Now is the time for the world to know
That every thought and action is sacred.

This is the time for you to compute the impossibility
That there is anything
But Grace.

Now is the season to know
That everything you do
Is sacred.

Thanks Elliott!
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By coincidence, while commenting on Pippa's Song by Browning, Atanu remembers Hesse's Siddhardha saying to Govinda: “The world is perfect at every moment, Govinda.”

Here is more poetry by Hafiz. Read the rest of this entry >>

tapaswadhyaya niratam taapaswi vagvidam varam

So start the most beautiful Sanskrit verses ever written. They were the inspiration for great poets like Kalidasa.

Here is an online version of the Vaalmiki's Ramayana. The first 18 verses of the Baala Kaanda are beautiful.

The poster is also lucky to have the Telugu translations of Valmiki Ramayan by Shri Pullla Ramachandru Garu. Here is a great online book shop that sells Telugu books. Particularly recommended: Baala Kaanda and of course, Sundara Kaanda.


A young kid, Anand is translating Ramayana into English in his blog. He is right now in Yuddha Kaanda and plans to complete by (I think) Tamil New Year. Read it. Read the rest of this entry >>