> This department recieves MANY applications from Asia and the GRE scores are a joke. Almost all of the applicants have a 99% percentile on ALL three sections of the general exam. And yet when they come here they can barely speak english.
And go easy on the sweeping generalizations. Maybe you are unaware that English is a first language in some of the countries from asia.
I did my undergrad from a well-known premier technology institute in the South Asian subcontinent and every EE and CS grad I knew there really earned his/her GRE score. Most of them were truly brilliant, had a firm command of English and I couldn't possibly imagining any of them cheating for a few extra points. They were ethical and proud brainiacs. Or perhaps I was lucky to have moved in such good company. I wouldn't deny that there were also other lesser mortals who cheated using all these cheap tactics as discovered by the ETS. But you be careful before making any sweeping generalizations.
So what's some good reading material for Physics that will give you a good, solid foundation if you've missed something, and then give you some additional stuff?
Do you really want a SOLID foundation? Then learn high school level calculus first and then be prepared for hard work. Reading popular physics books for laymen will not give you a solid foundation but a rough intuitive idea of the important concepts in physics. For a solid foundation, you need to do read good technical books on physics, and practice problem solving for at least one year.
Physics is a vast subject. If you want to develop a solid ability to use physics for understanding macroscopic everyday mechanical, thermodynamic or electrical/magnetic phenomena both qualitatively and quantitatively, then read good foundantion books on classical physics. I would recommend Physics by Halliday and Resnick vols. 1,2 for its lucidity and excellent problem set. Remember that as in many other fields, including programming, practice makes perfect. Repeated practice of solving a well-chosen variety of toy problems makes you proficient in thinking physics and using it. Resnick and Halliday has an excellent problem set in this regard.
For understanding and solving problems related to quantum phenomena, start by reading a good introductory book on Quantum Mechanics. The following well-written books with practice problems are among the most popular in undergraduate physics courses: 1. Principles of Quantum Mechanics - By Ramamurthi Sankar 2. Introduction to Quantum Mechanics - David Griffiths
For relativity: 1. Gravitation - Charles Misner and John Wheeler 2. Problem Book in Relativity and Gravitation - Alan Lightman and Richard Price.
(Read 1 and do 2 thoroughly and you can become an authority on relativity.)
In other words, the cost of the optical transmission gear, the layer 2 line cards, and the switches and routers. As an example, for 10gig ethernet-over-fiber switches, the purchase cost per port is currently in the $400-$1000 range. And the annual maintenance costs are probably much more.
How about a poll for the most beautiful or insightful thought experiment in physics?
Hacker types usually deride gedanken (thought) experiments as exemplified by Eric Raymond's idiotic Jargon file entry for 'gedanken'. So be warned: do not read ahead if you cannot appreciate the importance of theoretical work in physics or elsewhere.
Everyone knows the Schrodinger's cat and the Einstein's elevator experiment. By the way, if you put the Schrodinger's cat inside Einstein's elevator, would that lead to a theory of Quantum Gravity? Jokes apart, these thought experiments have also been influential:
1. The Einstein-Podolosky-Rosen or EPR Paradox:
http://roxanne.roxanne.org/epr/einstein1.html
2. Maxwell's Demon
3. Object nearing a black hole
4. Feynman's QED thought experiment: what would happen when you shine light at an object passing through an interferometer, a device that can split the object into a pair of wavelets which are later recombined to produce an interference pattern. This incidentally was converted to a real experiment by an MIT team: http://www.aip.org/enews/physnews/1996/split/pnu25 3-2.htm
In both the internet and the network of earth faults, there are interactions between elements on multiple scales in time and space. That analogy is not hard to guess, but these physicists seems to have contributed a systematic measurement and modeling study. Fine.
So far, just from the reading the press article, my doubts about their work are twofold:
1. their ping frequency is one ping per second. This is a poor sampling of the time series of packet delays. Specifically poor sampling could lead to a false alarm or a miss. False alarm meaning that the sudden drastic 'congestion' could very well be an isolated event suffered by the ping packet or its adjoining ones; the rest of the packet delays in the one-second interval may be small. 'Miss' meaning you didnt catch the congestion due to the poor sampling. The ping packet got through quickly but there were congestion delays suffered by the rest of the packets in its one-second interval. In short, ping times are a poor indication of the true traffic status of an IP network. One ping per second is especially pathetic if one of the bottleneck links in your route is a high-speed OC-3 or higher link. For example, at 155 Mbps (OC-3), there can be upto 13,000 typical IP data packets through the router in one second. Only one of these is the ping packet!
2. Their flawed analogy between fault energy and congestion level. Fault energy builds up slowly over years and is then released suddenly in an earthquake. They compare to this user sessions running over hours and then suddenly contributing to short periods of drastic congestion. So are they saying that congestion builds up slowly over hours at a router or server as more and more packets are processed? Ha! I am still ROFLing on this one!
There research will vastly improve if they collaborate with internet researchers and engineers who have a working knowledge of the internet's routing and flow control protocols, instead of approaching it from a purely black-box modelling point of view.
I tried Emusic.com 's trial subscription and over my university LAN, it took just 1-2 seconds to download one MB! Now with 200,000 MP3 (500 GB approx) on their site, you can, in theory, download their entire site in about 280 hours.
In practice, you can download upto 10000 MP3 or 7000 albums in 3 months, all for just $45.
Not bad, I think. And your traffic is not classified as P2P and rate limited by your campus ISP.
There's no single answer to solving world poverty. You have to try in all the ways you can. And providing computers to the poor can be one of them. One big problem can be solved by the accumulation of a thousand little contributions. (can you say open-source community?) No one is touting the Simputer as a one-step magic cure for world poverty. Its just an honest little attempt by some Indian geeks trying to make a difference in whatever way they can. Even if the Simputer project proves to be misguided and fails, the fact is that they tried. Other similar projects may follow which will learn from the mistakes of this one. This may very well be a pioneering project that sets a trend.
Slashdot Mirror
> This department recieves MANY applications from Asia and the GRE scores are a joke. Almost all of the applicants have a 99% percentile on ALL three sections of the general exam. And yet when they come here they can barely speak english.
And go easy on the sweeping generalizations. Maybe you are unaware that English is a first language in some of the countries from asia.
I did my undergrad from a well-known premier technology institute in the South Asian subcontinent and every EE and CS grad I knew there really earned his/her GRE score. Most of them were truly brilliant, had a firm command of English and I couldn't possibly imagining any of them cheating for a few extra points. They were ethical and proud brainiacs. Or perhaps I was lucky to have moved in such good company. I wouldn't deny that there were also other lesser mortals who cheated using all these cheap tactics as discovered by the ETS. But you be careful before making any sweeping generalizations.
So what's some good reading material for Physics that will give you a good, solid foundation if you've missed something, and then give you some additional stuff?
Do you really want a SOLID foundation? Then learn high school level calculus first and then be prepared for hard work. Reading popular physics books for laymen will not give you a solid foundation but a rough intuitive idea of the important concepts in physics. For a solid foundation, you need to do read good technical books on physics, and practice problem solving for at least one year.
Physics is a vast subject. If you want to develop a solid ability to use physics for understanding macroscopic everyday mechanical, thermodynamic or electrical/magnetic phenomena both qualitatively and quantitatively, then read good foundantion books on classical physics. I would recommend Physics by Halliday and Resnick vols. 1,2 for its lucidity and excellent problem set.
Remember that as in many other fields, including programming, practice makes perfect. Repeated practice of solving a well-chosen variety of toy problems makes you proficient in thinking physics and using it. Resnick and Halliday has an excellent problem set in this regard.
For understanding and solving problems related to quantum phenomena, start by reading a good introductory book on Quantum Mechanics. The following well-written books with practice problems are among the most popular in undergraduate physics courses:
1. Principles of Quantum Mechanics - By Ramamurthi Sankar
2. Introduction to Quantum Mechanics - David Griffiths
For relativity:
1. Gravitation - Charles Misner and John Wheeler
2. Problem Book in Relativity and Gravitation - Alan Lightman and Richard Price.
(Read 1 and do 2 thoroughly and you can become an authority on relativity.)
Apparently the band found this a brilliant idea and replaced Lance Bass with a cargo container.
In other words, the cost of the optical transmission gear, the layer 2 line cards, and the switches and routers. As an example, for 10gig ethernet-over-fiber switches, the purchase cost per port is currently in the $400-$1000 range. And the annual maintenance costs are probably much more.
How about a poll for the most beautiful or insightful thought experiment in physics?
5 3-2.htm
Hacker types usually deride gedanken (thought) experiments as exemplified by Eric Raymond's idiotic Jargon file entry for 'gedanken'. So be warned: do not read ahead if you cannot appreciate the importance of theoretical work in physics or elsewhere.
Everyone knows the Schrodinger's cat and the Einstein's elevator experiment. By the way, if you put the Schrodinger's cat inside Einstein's elevator, would that lead to a theory of Quantum Gravity? Jokes apart, these thought experiments have also been influential:
1. The Einstein-Podolosky-Rosen or EPR Paradox: http://roxanne.roxanne.org/epr/einstein1.html
2. Maxwell's Demon
3. Object nearing a black hole
4. Feynman's QED thought experiment: what would happen when you shine light at an object passing through an interferometer, a device that can split the object into a pair of wavelets which are later recombined to produce an interference pattern. This incidentally was converted to a real experiment by an MIT team: http://www.aip.org/enews/physnews/1996/split/pnu2
> Or what about when I walk into a gas station and can't find a single person there who can speak the native tounge of the area. (english.)
English is not a native tongue of America.
In both the internet and the network of earth faults, there are interactions between elements on multiple scales in time and space. That analogy is not hard to guess, but these physicists seems to have contributed a systematic measurement and modeling study. Fine.
So far, just from the reading the press article, my doubts about their work are twofold:
1. their ping frequency is one ping per second. This is a poor sampling of the time series of packet delays. Specifically poor sampling could lead to a false alarm or a miss. False alarm meaning that the sudden drastic 'congestion' could very well be an isolated event suffered by the ping packet or its adjoining ones; the rest of the packet delays in the one-second interval may be small. 'Miss' meaning you didnt catch the congestion due to the poor sampling. The ping packet got through quickly but there were congestion delays suffered by the rest of the packets in its one-second interval.
In short, ping times are a poor indication of the true traffic status of an IP network. One ping per second is especially pathetic if one of the bottleneck links in your route is a high-speed OC-3 or higher link. For example, at 155 Mbps (OC-3), there can be upto 13,000 typical IP data packets through the router in one second. Only one of these is the ping packet!
2. Their flawed analogy between fault energy and congestion level. Fault energy builds up slowly over years and is then released suddenly in an earthquake. They compare to this user sessions running over hours and then suddenly contributing to short periods of drastic congestion. So are they saying that congestion builds up slowly over hours at a router or server as more and more packets are processed? Ha! I am still ROFLing on this one!
There research will vastly improve if they collaborate with internet researchers and engineers who have a working knowledge of the internet's routing and flow control protocols, instead of approaching it from a purely black-box modelling point of view.
Typo: That should be 700 albums , not 7000 :)
I tried Emusic.com 's trial subscription and over my university LAN, it took just 1-2 seconds to download one MB! Now with 200,000 MP3 (500 GB approx) on their site, you can, in theory, download their entire site in about 280 hours.
In practice, you can download upto 10000 MP3 or 7000 albums in 3 months, all for just $45.
Not bad, I think. And your traffic is not classified as P2P and rate limited by your campus ISP.
There's no single answer to solving world poverty. You have to try in all the ways you can. And providing computers to the poor can be one of them. One big problem can be solved by the accumulation of a thousand little contributions. (can you say open-source community?)
No one is touting the Simputer as a one-step magic cure for world poverty. Its just an honest little attempt by some Indian geeks trying to make a difference in whatever way they can. Even if the Simputer project proves to be misguided and fails, the fact is that they tried. Other similar projects may follow which will learn from the mistakes of this one. This may very well be a pioneering project that sets a trend.
we have a total solar eclipse *every* 24 hours. What happens is that the other half of the earth completely blocks our view of the sun.
They want to see if robots can make people happy.
I think so. Why else did half the country vote for Al Gore?