Připálený dobroty

Často, když se zamyslím nad tím, jakže přišla na svět některá z mých oblíbených chuťí, dojdu k tomu stejnýmu kuchařskýmu paradoxu: prudkým žárem: ne možná každý bude souhlasit s přísným termínem "přípálení", ale minimálně "pražení" to je. Příklady?

• káva
• čokoláda
• karamel
• buráky a pistácie
• kůrka chleba
• povidla (tady bych za to ruku do ohně nedal, ale myslím si, že i v tomto případě teplota přesáhne stovku)

Samý dobroty, a to jsem určitě na další zapoměl. Kdo ví, co dalšího může vzniknout šťastným omylem třeba právě ve vaší kuchyni?

Je to sice velká legrace, když děti kreslí krávu fialově, co takhle ale zkusit požádat dospělýho matematika (/programátora/manažera) aby namaloval semena kávovníku:) ?

The nicest city the most miserable

Mathematical academical life has given me many opportunities to visit cities around Europe, to enjoy more than just a small amount of time there and not to run the usual stressing touristic race around all "must-see" sights.
On the contrary, I was able/had to take the viewpoint of an ordinary inhabitant and take at least a sip of a daily life there. This formed my view on cities in general as well as my opinion on many European metropoleis.

• I have great memories of Amsterdam, (among other reasons) for its public "street night skating" with a friendly atmosphere run weekly (dry streets permitting) all year round.
• I admire Paris for its incredibly dense net of rental spots of city-bikes, that can be used for a very friendly price.
• A great example of competition in public transportation can be found in Catalan metropolis: three different metro/railway systems (more or less successfully) work hard for the comfort of people of Barcelona.
• My biggest impression from my short visit of Zurich were the modern terraces built onto old roofs of almost all buildings around our hotel and people enjoying silent evenings with beautiful views from there.

Of course, for your life (in a city), the thing that matters most is other people around. But should the city be an obstacle for the life of "your community" or a pleasant environment? Should the city serve to the tourists, preservationists, and historicians or to its inhabitants?

So what about "my city"? No matter how hard I think, I can not figure out any reason why should I include it into my nice list. Can you help me somebody, please?
I would love to change my view of the city of Prague as the most beautiful, the most miserable.

The year 2009

My



year 2009 was heaven and hell. It brought me both the best and the worst three months of my life.
My life-time came on winter (math) doctorand course in Barcelona. Let me skip the boring enumeration of factors, that made the unique blend of conditions of my dreams. I just suply you with an evidence of what it meant for my mates there: among the best results of the doccourse were three brand new couples. Considering the usual gender imbalance of math communities, you won't be surprised by the fact that the doccourse pushed the outcome very close to its theoretical heterosexual limits.
The catastrophic period came surprisingly soon - in the summer, not surprisingly it is located in Prague, mostly. If I were to characterize the reasons in one word, I would say frustrations. Frustrations caused both by my stupid expectations/plans and bad planning as well as by unlucky coincidences of failures, external reasons. I don't wish anybody to experience such a black spiral of depressions and lost self-confidence, but as long as one survives, I believe, he can even make good use of such crisis, after all.
Anyway, getting into troubles is always easy, the miracle of the year was definitely my return back to earth. The process was a long and complicated story but if I had to pick a single moment that kicked me most in the right direction, it would be trip to Berlin in September (for the doccourse reunion). In general, staying active at all cost was the right cure, but I can't deny a touch of love and happiness from "above" as well.
How will the year 2010 look like? Am I immune to the following storms my life? Definitely not entirely. More feel like a small boat in the ocean. But the current weather is more than good.

Visual Memory Rocks

The preparation for my doctoral exams gave me a lecture about math learning: at the first place there are pictures, at the second place there are pictures,... and only at the third place... there are pictures.

OK, this statement has some exaggeration in it, yet, I really shocked myself how much I depend on having some drawing in front of me (or any kind of visual perception), when somebody explains me math. Hearing just words doesn't work at all.
Even if I analyze the way how I remember math ideas, I get that  they are mostly pictures what stays in my head. (Words are just a bonus that can be attached to the necessary picture in my memory.) A rather boring example case analysis follows:

For example even such non-visual theorem like Chernoff bounds: At the first place, there is the Gauss distribution: the famous "hilly curve" that lies on x-axis having the y-axis in the middle. Then there is one more vertical line the right side of the y-axis, quite close to it, which is telling: "although I lie close to y-axis (distance C) only (exponentially in -C squared) small ratio of the mass (of the Gauss distribution) lies on the right side from me". And there is also formula picture (it also has a picture-like nature) where one important place is in the probability brackets (there is the C\sqrt(n)) which influence another place in the exponent of e (after the "<" sign) where is something like C squared times 2.

Recalling some of the experiences from the lectures I recently took, I also have to say, that the teachers are speaking unnecessarily much. Most of the words just flow through my head. Now I believe that what I rather need is pictures (or even animation/movie) on the blackboard that can be additionally accompanied by explanations and important keywords. Do the teachers teach bad in general or am I an E.T. by accident thorwn on the planet Earth? What do you think?

By the way, if you accept my first claim of this note, don't you think that from this point of view the glorified LaTeX just sucks?:)
But that is for another chapter.

Zurich night-skate

Well, working in academia really helps one to "collect" various night skates around Europe.
The Zurich night starts at Burkliplatz, a place just next to the Zurich lake, and unusually is run Mondays.

For such a small and, according to my impression, relaxed and sleepy town, the crowd at "MNS" was huge. My very rough guess is 1000.

But the origanization was like Swiss clockwork:). Blocking of the side streets was assisted by a motorbike group in front of the crowd.

The number of seats was very limited at this square.

Beauty in mathematics

The beauty of mathematics comunity is that many of its members are engineers and artists at the same time. A sad thing about mathematics comunity is that many of its members are none of those.

The most beautiful of the Republic - Czech Canada

Je z toho, co jsem po republice obhlídl opravdu to nej. Váhal bych jen ve srovnání s Českým Švýcarskem. Bohužel i sem sahá kazisvětná ruka českýho lesníckýho průmyslu a na nevkusný smrkový těžářský plantáže tu narazit můžete, ale jsou zde velice upozaděny.
Protože ta krása se těžko předává mobilovým foťákem, uvádím jen perličky z poslední bajkové vyjížďky:

Rum is self-"translatory", except you replace sugar cane with potatoes. I wonder how big is the difference between this Czech liqueur and the bio petrol in production procedures. In taste not big.

Who is this zebra for?

Obviously for cows.