Fork Bomb

:(){ :|:& };:

Looks like nothing but sequence of symbols right? But when you type this in a Unix or linux shell and press enter then thats all!. You have to reboot the system. It called Fork Bomb . I love this code, just because of it's simple and elegant look. First of all it's not even looking like a script. No buddy will think its a program.

It creates a function called ":" that accepts no arguments-- that's
the ":(){ ... }" part of the utterance.

The code in the function calls the recursively calls the function
and pipes the output to another invocation of the function-- that's
the ":|:" part. The "& " puts the call into the background-- that way
the child process don't die if the parent exits or is killed. Note
that by invoking the function twice, you get exponential growth in
the number of processes.

The trailing ";" after the curly brace finishes the function definition
and the last ":" is the first invocation of the function that sets off
the bomb.

Maarten van der Weijden zwemt tegen kanker

The Dutch phrase "Maarten van der Weijden zwemt tegen kanker" means "Maarten van der Weijden swims against cancer.". Today I read the news about Maarten van der Weijden, a swimmer from Netherlands, who won the Gold for 10km swimming in 2008 Olympic. I read his interview. It's an inspiring one.He was diagnosed leukemia in 2001.


He said in his interview that his experience with beating leukaemia, with which he was diagnosed in 2001, a revelation that halted his swimming career in its tracks for at least a year as he underwent treatment. "I learned from the cancer period," he said. "I learned to approach challenges step-by-step. I can see that having leukaemia is helping me now: It's making me stronger because everything I go through in life from now on will be easier than what I went through to beat the cancer. The pain and fatigue that you feel in this [the 25km] race, well, I went through that for a whole year to beat the cancer, so, I know I can do it here for five hours [in the race]."

In 2004 he swam across the IJsselmeer in 4:20.58 hours, breaking the former record by almost 15 minutes to collect 50,000 Euros which he donated for cancer research.

What a man great man!. He has proved that nothing can stop him from achieving his go(ld)al. Let us wish him success in coming years..

What does it mean?

(Thoughts came in to my mind while reading the book The man who loved only Numbers)

Understanding mathematics needs more imagination than an artist has. Some concepts look simple, but when we got the insight it isn't as simple as it was. For example consider a simple infinite series

1-1+1-1+1-1+...........∞

If I ask what would be the sum of this series, anyone can say it is zero, because,

(1-1)+(1-1)+(1-1)+(1-1)+......∞

But, if we think other possibility ,like this,

1+(-1+1)+(-1+1)+(-1+1)+......∞

then we will get sum as one.
This series is called Grandi's series. In modern mathematics, the sum of an infinite series is defined to be the limit of the sequence of its partial sums, if it exists. The sequence of partial sums of Grandi's series is 1, 0, 1, 0, …, which clearly does not approach any number (although it does have two accumulation points at 0 and 1). Therefore, Grandi's series is divergent.

What is the problem here?. Why it is giving two different accumulation points?. The answer is simple. This problem is not just a problem of summing a series. There is another fundamental question hidden behind this. The questions is "Is infinity even or odd?" . Even infinity leads to zero and odd infinity leads two one.

Answer to this question is not easy. I don't think there exists a correct answer to this question. How ever what I feel is we may consider both answers are correct. This is similar to the Hilbert's first problem "Continuum hypothesis ", one of the first proved example of Gödel's incompleteness theorem.Paul Cohen proved that we can assume "continuum hypothesis" either true or false without violating other mathematical axioms. At last it is proved that there is no answer to a question Hilbert most wanted. Even Paul Erdös was so eager to know the answer. Once he was asked "what would you ask if God appears in front of you?", he immediately reapplied that he would ask "whether Continuum hypothesis is true or false?" and he continued that "God would probably say three answers , first answer would be Gödel and Cohen already thought you, Second , you don't have enough intelligences to understand the proof and the the third, Still I am searching for the proof from the time of creation, and he finished by commenting that the third answer would be more appropriate.

Elaeocarpus ganitrus

I was really surprised to see Elaeocarpus ganitrus also known as Rudrakshm in one of the shops in Germany. I just counted it, again its surprise. It's 108. I thought I will buy one, and I bought. See am I lookinging like saint? :)
Actually I went for coffee shop, next to that I found this shop and Rudrakshm
So..

நான் காபி வாங்க போனேன்....

ஒரு காவி வாங்கி வந்தேன்....