science

what is science...

the oxford dictionary definition:
"the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment"

Wikipedia says:
"... science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on the scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research."

this blog entry is about... its about science and me... if you have understood God and science then this would make much more sense to you...


when i'm stuck with work - its science to the rescue...
when i have emotional issues - i've friends who help me out...

i'm a catholic (although the last time i went to church was so far back that i dont even remember)...

i studied in a catholic school and i've heard people say "if you pray and if you faith is strong God will answer your prayers..."

but heres the thing... there is something wrong in the prayer... 'cos sometimes we pray for things that conflict with what God had supposedly said...
like when He made man or woman or whatever it says in Genesis Chapter 1... He says that He made man (human) in His image and gave him freedom...
so if i want want to move left and if you're praying that i should move right - God will not answer your prayer... but that again is true only if He is a scientific God

i also realized that most of the answers to my day to day activities lie i science... hence the "science be praised"... "in science we trust"... "may science guide you"... "oh my science"...

i believe in God... sorta... and i kinda keep him for special occasions...

if science is getting in the way of your faith... whatever the religion is... then you've failed to understand science...

science is purposeful... even the random nature of science is purposeful...

on TV i saw this 'physicist' in a white meditation suit trying to provide scientific justification to Buddhism... and i'm sure there are 'scientists' who try to explain the resurrection of Jesus... or disprove it... so i see the purpose of these people were to elevate the ego of some extremist and themselves!

here are some quotations by various scientists about what they felt about science...

"All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree." - Albert Einstein

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed." - Albert Einstein

"The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful it would not be worth knowing, and life would not be worth living. I am not speaking, of course, of the beauty which strikes the senses, of the beauty of qualities and appearances. I am far from despising this, but it has nothing to do with science. What I mean is that more intimate beauty which comes from the harmonious order of its parts, and which a pure intelligence can grasp." - Henri Poincaré

"Fortunately science, like that nature to which it belongs, is neither limited by time nor by space. It belongs to the world, and is of no country and of no age. The more we know, the more we feel our ignorance; the more we feel how much remains unknown; and in philosophy, the sentiment of the Macedonian hero can never apply,- there are always new worlds to conquer." – Sir Humphry Davy

"There must be no barriers for freedom of inquiry. There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors." - Robert Oppenheimer

"Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors." - Thomas Henry Huxley

"Scientific thought is the common heritage of mankind." - Abdus Salam

"To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge." - Copernicus

"Physics is like sex: Sure, it may have practical results, but that is not the reason we do it." - Richard Feynman

"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." - Edsger Dijkstra

Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from the axioms of science. Truth is what stands the test of experience." - Albert Einstein

"The antagonism between science and religion, about which we hear so much, appears to me purely factitious, fabricated on the one hand by short-sighted religious people, who confound [...] theology with religion; and on the other by equally short-sighted scientific people who forget that science takes for its province only that which is susceptible of clear intellectual comprehension." - Thomas Henry Huxley

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." - Albert Einstein

handa maama

this a picture of the moon i took off my canon eos 350d with a EF 75-300mm lens

apparent weight loss

i've seen tons of ads on TV on apparent weight loss
one was about this cream... when you apply it.... your stomach shrinks
well to shrink my stomach i just tuck it in...
and i've seen lotsa other people do that as well...
so the sticky cream is kinda obsolete...

about weight...
weight is a force resulting due to earths gravity...
and what you feel is the reaction to your weight...
as in... when you're standing... your weight is pushing down and your feet are resisting that force so you feel that force
same thing when you're seated

weight (W) = mass (m) x acceleration due to Earth's gravity (g)

acceleration due to gravity, g changes with latitude and altitude... this can be proven using newton's law of gravitation...

the value of g at sea level... is 9.8067 m/s²... this is an average value...
i've attached a list of values for g for various parts of the world...
its not rocket science to calculate this...
earth has an elliptical profile... the polar and equatorial diameters are known....
so if you know the latitude of where you are... you can find the distance from the center of the earth and apply newtons law of gravitation
value of g in Sri Lanka is around 9.782 m/s²

my mass is 100kg...
my weight in Sri Lanka would be... 100 x 9.782 = 978.2 N
and if you were in paris your weight would be... 100 x 9.809 = 980.9 N

if you live above sea level - value of g is lower than the value at sea level
so you'd feel lighter if you're not so down to earth!!!

there is another factor affecting our weight... the tides...
there is a difference of 0.000002 m/s² in g between the high tide and the low tide...
so the change in my weight is 100 x 0.000002 = 0.0002 N
hehe thats not much

i think difference in my body mass... between meals is much more significant than any of these!

list of g values:

Amsterdam 9.813 m/s²
Glasgow 9.816 m/s²
Paris 9.809 m/s²
Athens 9.807 m/s²
Havana 9.788 m/s²
Rio de Janeiro 9.788 m/s²
Auckland, NZ 9.799 m/s²
Helsinki 9.819 m/s²
Rome 9.803 m/s²
Bangkok 9.783 m/s²
Kuwait 9.793 m/s²
San Francisco 9.800 m/s²
Brussels 9.811 m/s²
Lisbon 9.801 m/s²
Singapore 9.781 m/s²
Buenos Aires 9.797 m/s²
London 9.812 m/s²
Stockholm 9.818 m/s²
Calcutta 9.788 m/s²
Los Angeles 9.796 m/s²
Sydney 9.797 m/s²
Cape Town 9.796 m/s²
Madrid 9.800 m/s²
Taipei 9.790 m/s²
Chicago 9.803 m/s²
Manila 9.784 m/s²
Tokyo 9.798 m/s²
Copenhagen 9.815 m/s²
Mexico City 9.779 m/s²
Vancouver, BC 9.809 m/s²
Nicosia 9.797 m/s²
New York 9.802 m/s²
Washington, DC 9.801 m/s²
Jakarta 9.781 m/s²
Oslo 9.819 m/s²
Wellington, NZ 9.803 m/s²
Frankfurt 9.810 m/s²
Ottawa 9.806 m/s²
Zurich 9.807 m/s²

happy weight

i was having a conversation of weight loss with a friend of my and i asked how much she weighed...

xxxxx says:
well i did gain weight
lost a bit of it now
although i need to lose about 8 kilos (8 kg .g) to be my happy weight

and that gave birth the concept of happy weight!

so now if you're shy about your weight you can say "i need to lose 15kg (15kg.g) to be my happy weight" or "i'm 15kg (15kg.g) plus my happy weight"...

note
weight is a force so it must measured in either kg . g or N

but i'm not shy about my real weight... 'cos i guess its obvious... so my earth mass (mass relative to earth because mass is relative to the frame of reference its in, according to Einstein) is 100kg and that would make my weight 100 kg . g or 981 N... so my weight can still be measured in terms of N and not kN!

this is a song by powder finger... check the lyrics... i'm sure it's about some woman but you can apply it to the excess weight... (thats the present weight minus the happy weight)...

I see your shadow on the street now
I hear you push through the rusty gate
Click of your heels on the concrete
Waiting for a knock coming way too late
It seems an age since Ive seen you
Countdown as the weeks trickle into days

So you come in and put your bags down
I know theres something in the air
How can I do this to you right now
If youre over there when I need you here

My happiness is slowly creeping back
Now youre at home
If it ever starts sinking in
It must be when you pack up and go

It seems an age since Ive seen you
Countdown as the weeks trickle into days
I hope that time hasnt changed you
All I really want is for you to stay

I know I know I know what is inside

feb 04

today was a very eventful day

my grandfather's 88th birthday
usual thing... where my mother's cousins come with the families...
drink my grandfather's good scotch....
yeah like they get drunk on less than 400ml of scotch... pathetic!!
they talk crap... like of some poker game they played 4 months back!
or some lame ass thing they did 40 years back!

the food was bad!!!! 'cos my grandmother hires this old caterer...
the cutlets are like aggala... there too much pepper in it...
oh well...

school batch reunion - see photo album...
this was fun... and it was nice to meet up with my old school friends...
who i hadn't seen for like 10 years...
most of them have gained a lotta weight...
the food was good... they had a nice devil prawn thing...