Looking back at my life over the past 23 odd years. I have no doubt to say that the last 6 have been most influential. I would also say they have been the most entertaining. The first 17-18 years were monotonous and the Prasant that existed for the first three-quarters was (I can dare to say) boring and liked to keep himself away from most of the things.

For most of my childhood, I only had myself to look at. I was at school inside NSTL (a research organization) and my schedule was that of a typical child - My dad used to drop me in school by 8:30 and at a school, we know it does not take a lot to spend/while away time! I used to hang around in the school till 5:00 and that was the time when my dad would come and pick me up :-) There were about 4-5 hours to spend at home and the usual stuff filled up my time - playing video games, may be a movie and any sport that was telecasted. For some reason, the life at school and at home were completely independent. I would say the co-relation between the two worlds was zero! May be even negative!

And then came the moment, after an average performance in the class X exams. My Dad decided to keep me away from the usual stress of an engineering exam and I would say, risked me and sent me off to a place named Puttaparti, on the banks of river chitravati. It was school which promises all round development of the child by making him a part of various extra-curricular activities like usually sports, games and also singing :P Not that I had a voice after I left that place - at least I learnt some carols, Islamic verses and some vedic chants — It was a truly secular experience in that sense :-)

It was a weird place in the sense that it was highly structured and disciplined — The schedule starts at 5:00 am in the morning with a small prayer and a routine drill of physical training for about an hour. The Classes start at 8:30 am and used to go on till 3:00pm. And then another set of physical activities ensured that the evening was busy. The only time we were asked to study was from 7:30pm to 9:30 - and the day ends there. There were no exceptions - you are forced into bed by 9:30. In a way, it was good - it ensured a good healthy schedule and brought some orderliness into my life. As always with any other scheme - the good is always accompanied by the bad. That was no exception to me as well - the bad part happened to be the fact that I was forced into a shell and to gain control over emotions and to gather strength to overcome the hostile atmosphere - I literally shut down myself. I sort of made survival my only goal. Sometimes, you see the only goals you can set yourself are just survival and you tend to protect your natural self. My natural self since early days in life has been being lazy - at everything, always postpone things to the last second. I was so lazy that I never cared to read the usual child’s favourite stuff like may be Hardy boys or the card games or any other hobby which say requires minimal physical effort. All I had done was to watch tv - an effortless activity :-)

So, by the end of my stay - I came out as a stubborn, aggressive individual who had no idea what was the world outside! I was so dumb. All I realized that I was really low on confidence, general information which people had. I should say I was slightly skewed in terms of the cultures. I had no idea about the franca Lingua (common language/traits to convey emotions and feelings). I never understood what can be told or what cannot be. I was sort of fighting a lone battle. By the time, I finished my studies over there - I lost all my contacts of school friends. Oh, I did not tell you that in the school at puttaparti - There was a literally no contact with outside world! In those days, e-mails or cell phones were not at a rage. You were only only allowed to write a letter and I knew that people/students outside had very little chance to write a letter - they hardly have any time to finish up their curriculum. So, at the end of my secondary school (class 12), I was only looking at myself and literally none. All I knew was my Dad and mom. It was really a low moment for me. I spent entire summer writing some competitive exams and ofcourse my dad understood me and took good care of me. He realized I badly needed some exposure and some freedom to recover my good old free spirit. I managed to get the Last Rank in JEE Mains and a decent rank in the AIEEE exam. Would you believe that I refused to come to counselling and my dad literally dragged me in and you know what - he filled my options and I was literally standing at the exit of the room. My Dad was wise enough to organize my options and I made it into a little known Computer Science Institute.

It was in these circumstances, I entered into IIIT on July the 24th and what followed was chaotic for the first few months. In lieu of my stay at the earlier place, I was again aloof, stayed away from anything and everything. I used to sleep at 9:30 or 10:00 and wake up by 6:00 (beyond that I could not sleep :P). Probably, an outcome of following a well-drilled schedule for about 2 years.

I still remember the day - it was about a month into the college and I was into my cozy bed by 10:00pm. It was then a crazy guy comes to my room, bangs the door hard at around 12:00 in the midnight. It was the very first time I had seen him. He was probably running - I could see he was exhausted. He had an unusual charisma - not the usual thing I knew of. All all through my life (till then) - I saw different types of people. But, this guy was really disgusting. I hated to see him. He was clad in clothes which were like yaaak - you what I am saying - The dress was full of dirt, stink and a frame which was really unique. He was flat footed, chubby, a tinch of baldness (?) when you look at his hair. All this in the middle of sleep and He blabbered the following, “Praveen’s Birthday celebrations are on, everyone is there - only you are not around. I came to take you.” I put up an expression which probably made him feel - I wondering who Praveen was! He murmured back - “Praveen, Praveen; He is the guy who sits besides you in the class everyday!” I gave him back a serious look and told him - “I am off for the day and I am sleeping”. He tried to convince me by showcasing the drinks and the cakes/desserts on offer. Ruthlessly (I was!) I shut down the door on him. The door was closed with such venom that I am sure any mortal/sensible person who have hated me for more than a lifetime! I guessed that probably this was the last time - He would talk to me. Not that I cared for it. After mercilessly shutting the door on him - I happily slept through the night.

I had a nightmare when it comes to my classes in the first year. English class from Appanna was the most horrible and harassing class I have been to in my life. He was a piece of **** - believe me, he was literally. Physics and Maths were not any better as well - but the large size of class made me feel better. I was lucky in that I had the good company sudha, sana and siddhu for the classes and other non-academic stuff. I wonder will such moments will ever turn up again in my life - the total careless attitude and give a damn outside towards anything and everything in life. Only class, I cared about was C-Programming; well not really cared but managed to do the assignments in quick time and even helped guys around me.

The life back in the hostels was cool and had excellent company in the form of Raguram - this guy is a genius. He made me wonder for his amazing abilities. He was too good with math and physics - which are not baffling ofcourse. But, this fella’s drawings were really awesome and his imagination literally out of the world. And there was Jimmy - I should say he was lost in his own world :-)

Nearly a month and a half passed - there was no sign of this mysterious guy (who broke my sleep) around. I was pleased that I rarely saw him around and glad that I never met him :-) It was in one of the end semester exams of a course named Digital Logic Design (I suppose) - I came out of the exam hall and in my usual way trying to evade everyone else and take the longest route back to the room so that I can avoid as many guys/gals as possible! I felt someone trying to catch my shoulder and give a pat on my back. It was the dark skinned devil again - This time he comes up to me and says, “I screwed up the exam. I doubt I can get even a couple of problems correct. And then, he paused.” In my own style, “I gave him a look suggesting my intentions of giving a damn to him or his performance.” But then, not withstanding his natural instincts started asking me about my performance in the exam. I told him I had finished almost all the problems with the exception of possibly one and give a stare which meant - “Go and get along with work. Do not deal with me!” I did not turn back and went on with my journey back to my room. I hoped that I scared him enough that I will not see this guy for the rest of my college if not for life. The semester ended and I took a break, went home; refreshed myself and was back for the registration of my second term at college.

I was in the registration queue and I could sense something was not going well. And as it happens so many times, the devil enters; this time he was really funny - can clearly see that he has neither bathed not changed the overnight dress and came rushing to register in time straight from the bed. My feelings went from bad to worse and my bad - he came and stood right after me! That was a moment which I can never forget - I regretted being right next to him.

True to his natural instincts and as expected, this person (whom I had no idea of) out of the blue says, “This semester there is a course called Data Structures. It is really tough and it will be taught by a taskmaster. It will be great if we can pass it and get through to the next term.” Upon listening this, I went mad and told him on his face,“Stop this non-sense. Why are you talking to me. I do not know you. I do not know you name. What the heck is wrong with you? Why should I care for your opinions about a god forsaken course.” He smiled back to say,“Hehe… I am cautioning you so that are aware of this fact. But, it is tough and If you get an A I will give you a party at Paradise.” I confirmed to myself at that point that this guy is indeed mad. What is wrong with him - First of all, I ask to shut up and even after humiliating him so many times; he comes up to me and offers me a treat if I happen to crack a course! I said to myself that this guy is nuts and moved on. But, then on the way back to my room he persisted and gave me no option but to say, “Ok. Let us see!” The semester has just started and I was really hoping that I would not run into this creature once more.

But (un)fortunately, I could never keep this scum away from me for any significant length of time! But believe me, I tried to the best of my capacity to thwart him. I tried all sorts of things - things like trying to humiliate him at every opportunity, tried to hurt his confidence etc. etc. But, no matter I did — he always reappeared! Nothing seemed to be affecting him. Such was his shamelessness and also, my hatred towards him that - I never talked any good to him and always unkind and dismissive to any thing he says/offers.

To see how the semester unfolded and what ensured later - you have to wait till the next post :D

The biggest test for an individual is when he at crossroads. Not the physical ones - physical ones only take you to a wrong destination. There is, of course, the disappointment in not reaching the destination; however on the brighter side, during the journey - you never realize you were on road to a different destination than you set out for. Thus, at any point you do not have contradictory feelings. You either feel great or bad at not being at your desired destination.

The crossroads I am referring to are the emotional and the intellectual ones - When I look deep inside me these days - I can see the reconstruction going on. Slowly but steadily, the old self and more importantly, the old code that I was running while at IIIT is being transformed. Since the last few days, I can sense it - there is an realization deep within. The realization goes deep; so deep that it begins to question the very purpose - which I started with.

I know deep inside that I had my share of luck in getting the admit. I know tons of peers around me (while at IIIT) who could tear me apart in an technical event/debate and more so in a non-technical stuff. Elaborating more, the days at IIIT were spent in trying to be someone whom I was not. Very few people, know what I was. Probably, Yaso (?) I cannot guarantee even that!

The quest while at IIIT can be summed up as - “Attempts to be indistinguishable from the best/average in the class, that is to get into Grade A or B (if you were settling to be at class average).” Most of my classes fall in this category :-) There were things I cared about to be indistinguishable from the top and also stuff I cared so little that I would settle for a ‘B’ or even a ‘C’.

While at MIT - this philosophy has been literally torn apart into pieces. Well, it all started with the same goal. Until one fine day, when someone called me up and asked me to talk about something (which I happened to study the previous term). It was here that I felt humiliated for not giving a suitable answer for the various questions posed - Why this, Why not this, What if I change the parameters, What if I skip this etc. etc. It was then I realized that one should learn for the joy of things and for seeking a better understanding of things/apparatus around you. This, of course, is a minor thing. But, certainly a point which requires you to introspect if you want to do something meaningful.

Well, this is not a great change and many would say - “Expected, given the lad has taken up a study at the graduate level”. I was satisfied with this answer for a couple of months. But, then you see the undergrads performing really well at various grad course in MIT - how is that happening over here (?)! It was then I realized that the difference stems from the methodology of teaching. At places like MIT, courses are offered for helping out the average and improving the skill of an average student. The aim is to let him understand, learn and apply things. More importantly, the onus of the course is not to finish the stipulated pages/chapters in the text book. This, I think, is the cause No. 1 for the failure of graduate school in India. There are far too many courses - whose sole purpose is to finish the book rather than measuring the knowledge imparted to an average student in the class.

The professors usually come to class with the intend of finishing a topic. However, in retrospect the objective should be that student understands the topic and will be able to use it when needed. For this to happen, he needs to understand the purpose of a course - say something like DS/AI/Discrete Maths - what is this particular course taught, what questions a course is trying to answer etc. Once they an idea of that - they can extend their knowledge. The entire process must be made joyful. But once, the student has lost the joy of learning - I am sure he can never reach the top of the summit. I think this happens to most of the students by the end of their 2nd year! But the management thinks otherwise - research is the quest. Asking them to be researchers on a topic after they miss the joy would be like -

Wanting to play in football WC and win the final. Well, you know if you are in the finals - corners, free-kicks, crosses and penalty kicks matter the most. So, everyday we get into the field and start practicing penalties. But, the problem is that for the match to go to penalties you should have lasted 90+ mins on the pitch. No matter how good are your skills - if you cannot manage to run around 10kms over the 90 mins - you cannot match the opponent. The most important thing is to train, run, sprint, go to the gym - put in around 2-3 hours over there to gain the physical strength and the mental endurance to last for the complete match.

But, we seem to be suggesting the other way round - we do not want stamina and the long hours of work out at gym. But, rather feel we only need good skills at taking penalties. It is but for obvious that we are bound to fail as we will not last the entire match.

I personally feel this is where we are heading - students are not lasting at 4/5 years in their complete academic health. They are exhausted and want to go out. They do not train themselves well as the training philosophy is flawed. Unless, the courses turn into centers of knowledge transfer and take care of the average student and the content imparted to him - the students can never have the mental strength/training required to last for the entire duration. But training is hard - only way we can make it a habit is if we make learning a fun and joyful activity. So, the heart of the problem is the Pedagogy methodology being used! Unless, they mend their aims and concentrate on creating an ambient atmosphere in class - the student cannot last the 4-5 years of under-graduation leave alone creating better graduate programs. As Edison rightly said - Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. You need the patience, perseverance needed along the journey.

So, what crossroads was I referring - All this seems good and someone from outside would say - “I think you are making progress, so what is the problem.” Well, the problem is that you carry the images of a joyful life - Imagine life at under-grad: All I waited for in the day was the midnight biryani and a couple of movies and scores of friends and people around you willing to spend time exactly as what you are imagining it to be! And the life now - you have lots of time, alright and also lots of other interesting stuff! But, all of it comes with a caveat - the caveat is that the higher you get, a tag of (increasing) responsibility is attached and you have to take of too many things. People around you expect you to be making a choice based on interest and expect you to be mature! As you get deeper into life - the more of all this is expected. So, I can see myself in both states almost all through the day - happy for a certain set of things and also sad for a different set of things. You fear what you may become in future.

Things suddenly appear worthless and you starting doubting the goals you have set for yourself. You can see the good old days and at the same time the need to move on leaving the past behind. The future (if reached) might be equally joyful and great once you are there. But, it is the journey which puts all your character to test. I think it is all in the mind. It is the mind which plays around with you and keeps teasing by showcasing various things - things which are only good during imagination.

The folklore is that the journey apparently is tough and very few have managed to get through it. There is also the other section which says, “Never take life seriously - nobody has come out of it alive!” I really do not know any of this - All I wished was that I remained a child throughout. Irrespective of all this I join in unison with Bill Gates to say - “Life is unfair my friend, Get used to it.”

1 . You can cross register at Harvard. That is, you can do your course-work either at MIT or Harvard!

2. As soon as I got in here - the first thing was to get this thing. And I am absolutely loving it!

3. My office, workstation- there is a couch in my room, loads of coffee and some great company around!

4. The very first day I walk into my office - this guy comes upto me (I was standing at a corner) and says, “Hey! I am a Erik Demaine. Welcome to MIT and enquires about me.”

I have loads of photo’s which i will be uploading very soon.

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‘Hollywood standards’ is a phrase that has been in currency in the last few years, unfortunately, for all the wrong reasons, particularly in the context of telugu movies. It is a misnomer of sorts, a term that is used either in the wrong context on in an incorrect sense. ‘Hollywood technique’ is probably what they mean. Eye catching photography, slick editing, great production design and others have seen a vast improvement in the overall technical aspects of movie making, when compared to a decade or so ago wherein mounting the camera on a tripod and parading all the action in front of that stationary setup accounted for majority of framing in the movie. Nowadays, even a television drama can be transformed into a eye popping spectacle, given enough budget. But the phrase ‘Hollywood standards’ is not reserved to technical aspects alone, which are mere bridesmaids and best men (toDa peLLi koDuku, tODa peLLi kooturu), who have to take a step back to the script. Without a good script, the rest is just a lifeless parade and a soulless procession. There are two prominent film makers in Hollywood who primary rely on technique and technology more than the rest - James Cameron and Michael Bay. Both of them have a penchant for scripting around the available (or not yet invented) gadgetry, both of them provide great grand spectacles, yet only one of them is regarded as a genuine film maker. In all his movies, Cameron made sure that the script could ‘afford’ the technique, not just ‘accommodate’ it. When a new piece of technology is brought into the mix, like morphing in Terminator 2 (a liquid crystal shifting shapes), or the blue screen technique for all aero- fights and feats in ‘True Lies’, his thoughts (script) preceded the action, than the other way around. Unfortunately the same thing cannot be said of the second film maker, Michael Bay. He is more a film stylist, than a film maker. Technology, to him, is a toy and the script is only a pedestal to showcase the eye candy effects. The visual imagery may be good/great to look at, but the effect lasts only as long as the fizz in a carbonated soda. When record keepers eventually open the history books on these two film makers, one would go down as a very creative and an imaginative story teller, while Bay would only find his place in the Appendix section, and the difference between them remain, not the technology, but the writing. Film styling has a half life period that is only proportional to the advancement in technology - the rapid the strides, the sooner the film would become outdated. On that scale ‘Magadheera’ may be the first movie entirely styled (not stylized) in telugu industry, that can remain current and trendy only until the next software update or hardware upgrade.

It would be amusing to guess the ‘creative’ process behind the scripting to understand what might have gone through the writers’ mind before they pitched the idea to the producer. There is absolutely no doubt that ‘300′ is the foundation for the movie, together with the design (stunt choreography, set design, costume design (including the face masks)), execution, and (yes,) even the rousing dialogues. But since it would amount to copyright infringement to lift the material in totality, particularly when all the major Hollywood studios have setup shop in India and watching the local scene eye with hawk eyes, borrow the main action sequences from the ‘Battle of Thermopylae’ in ‘300′ and translate it to a more native ‘Bhairava Kona’. And to ease into ‘300′, how about throwing in a little ‘Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon’ in the way the lead pair fall from the mountains to death (again, with the necessary background pathos music).

Q.But then, the story writer might have been confounded with the important question - how to get to ‘300′?
A.That’s ok, devote the entire first half to set it up

Q.1.25 hours to set it up? with what?
A.Well, with a couple of (not so funny) comedy sequences, with a couple of (unnecessary fights), and with a couple of songs (of which one is really melodious, and the other…wait for it…borrowed again from another movie)

Q.But all these wouldn’t amount to more than 10-20 pages. How to account for the other 50 pages to build up the first half?
A.Welcome to the ‘Michael Bay school’ of film making. No story? no worries. No script? no problem. Absolutely nothing to point the camera to/on? Piece of cake. This where the computers take over to fill the blanks (voids) for plot and performances. Stretch out even a normal bike vaulting sequence into an effects extravaganza.

Q. But what about the believability?
A. Believability? Who cares? This is a CGI sequence with wire techniques.

Q.But didn’t James Cameron make similar bike jumping sequence off a bridge in T-2 believable?
A.Now..Now…the comparison to Hollywood is unwarranted. They have bigger budgets, better equipment, and good expertise.

Q. But this movie is already based off a Hollywood, having similar luxury of huge budget and excellent technical personnel. So why can’t there be an expectation or a comparision?
A…..

Moving on…

At this stage, when the writers have threw their hands and minds in the air and resigned to the fact that the script alone cannot sustain the movie, and special effects have to shoulder a greater burden, Michael Bay rule book weighs in once again and calls for lengthy pans, forward zooms, backward pulls, and every director’s delight, zoom in on a trolley pull out, whether shot needed it or not at regular intervals. And to showcase the artwork (courtesy: Gladiator, Lord of the Rings), the computer eye furiously speeds forward, backward, downward and upward, like it is nobody’s business. And finally, the ‘300′ sequence…Phew… It has been one painful, arduous and a time wasting task to get till here. And there is not much to talk about this sequence either (like the side kick to Brahmanandam character in ‘King’ says, when asked how a certain lifted tune sounds, “as it is, alaagae undi saar”). Enough to say, the makers have done a good job ‘tracing’ over the ‘300′ sequence.

What after it? The rest of the script should be about rushing to the conclusion. Since only 4 songs could be sneaked in till then, how about an ill-placed item song that is supposed to titillate the audience while evoking sympathy for the hero at the same time? A couple of functional dialogues here and there about the hero trying to make the heroine remember the past, and then the climax fight, followed by a (supposed to be) funny banter between the hero and the sympathizer/rescuer to finish the movie. But wait… there is still one more song recorded for the purpose. But where to squeeze it in? Fear not, the makers of ‘Om Shanti Om’ have shown the way. Why unnecessarily reinvent the wheel?

The actual written script might have read awfully similar to the above and it doesn’t take a great scripting mind to reverse engineer the movie. If as an industry, telugu movies were to take the next leap into the next generation of story telling, they have to put in a more concerted ORIGINAL effort than the above ’spot the original movie’ mish-mash concoction of world cinema. And the less said about the performances, the better. It is unfair to expect the young lad to carry the movie entirely on his own, when the rest of the scripting staff failed so miserably. He certainly is easy on eyes and not so much on the ears. Secondary skills - dances and fights - he has in plenty, but he has a lot to improve on his primary ones - expressions, dialogue delivery, diction and modulation. There is certainly no shame to employ coaches to each of the above disciplines as it becomes tough to sail entirely on single line dialogues and exceptional abilities of the directors in the long run. The two technical aspects that deserve sound applause are the art work and the CGI team, which rightfully demand to ask the final question, why does a movie that looks so good and sounds so great (technically) be anything but?

Non-IIIT person: Hey, do you know how to deal with (random computer problem)?
IIIT student: Uh, no…sorry.
Non-IIIT person: What? You go to IIIT, don’t you? And you can’t fix a COMPUTER?!?

The way I fix a computer is I buy a new one. The perception that all CS students can deal with anything related to a computer is based on ignorance and stereotypes. True, a lot of people at IIIT work a lot in computer science, and a lot of work is done with computers, but just because everyone eats food doesn’t mean they all know how to cook.

And another one:

Non-IIIT person: Do you know what the answer to (random question) is?
IIIT student: Uh, no…sorry.
Non-IIIT Person: Ha, IIIT Boy here doesn’t even know how to solve it!

Ok, Tardtastic. Just because I did well enough in high school to get into IIIT and somehow managed my multiple choice options to get into IIIT; it does NOT mean I can solve every single problem ever conceived. I can barely even solve the problems in my own field of study. If I knew so much, do you think I’d be talking to you? No, I’d be thuggin’ into the likes of Newton, Guass, Hawking.

I think people from schools like IIIT/IIT are automatically put at a disadvantage due to this amazing ability that everyone thinks they have. If people have few expectations of you, it’s easy to surprise and impress them. But if expectations are always high, disappointment is a single mistake away. It’s gotten to the point where I’m reluctant to tell people I go to IIIT/IIT because I’m afraid of what they’ll automatically assume.

On the social front, though, the IIIT reputation can work to our advantage. If you have the ability to converse with other humans and have a good time with minimal awkwardness, people will often say, “You don’t seem like you go to IIIT!” Their expectations were so low that just being able to act somewhat normally impressed them.

[Esc] :wq

Observing the trends for the past two years - I cannot but relish the fact that the only movies into which sufficient effort was put were received by the audiences.

Racap of 2008:

Hits: Gamyam, Ready, KBL.

Average: Krishna, Jalsa, Parugu, Kantri, Asta Chemma, Hareram (Believe me Hareram is a decent flick and I rate it above the rest in this category!)

Films which stood out by pure performance from Artists: Dasavatharam and Surya s/o Krishnan.

And coming into 2009 the sense of audience seems to be getting richer! As of 2009, there are only 2 hits — Arundhati and Maghadheera.

A striking point common in both these films is the number of the days the films were in shoot. I have a gut feeling that both the artists as well as the audience are realizing the importance of effort and the importance of production values.

Some facts:

The movie Arundhati was shot twice! The first version of Arundhati took 210 days to shoot and the producer did not like it. He took another 40 days to shoot the version two with changes. And in those 40 days He felt he did 70% better to original version. The second version was finally released and was a block buster hit in both Telugu and Tamil languages.

Maghadheera went into for around 288 days and was in production for more than an year and is almost certain to beat all the records in the industry hand down.

Let us hope that this trend continues and the production values are held high.

ps: Flimfare Awards 2008 are out.

I hope most of the you are aware that Nandan Nilekani is heading the Unique Identification Authority of India — which aims at giving an unique smart card to every Indian.  This is an fictitious read on Nandan’s intro to parliament (Hattip: Anuj Gupta).

NP (Non deterministic Polynomial-Time) is (informally) the class of all problems for which a solution can be verified in polynomial time.

Why is it called “non deterministic polynomial-time”? It’s a somewhat archaic name, but we’re stuck with it now.

NP-hard is the class of problems that are “at least as hard as any NP problem.” Formally, L is NP-hard if given a solution for L, you could solve every NP problem in polynomial time.

NP-complete is the class of problems that are both NP-hard and in NP. Informally, NP-complete problems are the “hardest problems in NP” — NP problems that somehow capture the difficulty of all other NP problems.

The problem of P vs NP can be informally formulated as follows:

Is there a better way to solve the problem that doesn’t involve a brute-force search? Exactly this question was asked in one of the most remarkable documents in the history of theoretical computer science: a letter that Kurt Godel sent to John von Neumann in 1956. (The full text of this letter is here.) In this letter, Godel concludes that if there were some general way to
avoid brute-force search, mathematicians would be out of a job!

After 52 years, we still don’t know the answer to Godel’s question. But there’s something remarkable that we do know. Look again at all of these problems. A priori, one might think brute-force search is avoidable for problem X, not for problem Y, etc. But in the 1970’s, people realized that in a very precise sense, they’re all the same problem. A polynomial-time algorithm for any one of them would imply a polynomial-time algorithm for all the rest. And if you could prove that there was no polynomial-time algorithm for one of them, that would imply that there is no polynomial-time algorithm for all the rest!

After all, one might wonder why this problem is taking such a long time — The reason is pretty simple — Informally, all known proof techniques (so-far in mathematics) do not work. More baffling is the fact that there are formal proofs that the current techniques do not work!

For those interested in complexity theory, kindly go through Complexity Zoo.

The following techniques can be applied to solve computational problems in general, and they often give rise to substantially faster algorithms:

• Approximation: Instead of searching for an optimal solution, search for an “almost” optimal one.
• Randomization: Use randomness to get a faster average running time, and allow the algorithm to fail with some small probability. See Monte Carlo method and Las Vegas method.
• Restriction: By restricting the structure of the input (e.g., to planar graphs), faster algorithms are usually possible.
• Parameterization: Often there are fast algorithms if certain parameters of the input are fixed.
• Heuristic: An algorithm that works “reasonably well” in many cases, but for which there is no proof that it is both always fast and always produces a good result. Metaheuristic approaches are often used.

One example of a heuristic algorithm is a suboptimal O(n log n) greedy coloring algorithm used for graph coloring during the register allocation phase of some compilers, a technique called graph-coloring global register allocation. Each vertex is a variable, edges are drawn between variables which are being used at the same time, and colors indicate the register assigned to each variable. Because most RISC machines have a fairly large number of general-purpose registers, even a heuristic approach is effective for this application.

It is widely believed that quantum computers cannot solve NP-Complete problems in Polynomial (.) time.

Quantum mechanics usually allows only linear transformations. In lay man terms, only those transformations which can be described by a matrix. Surprisingly, an arbitrary amount of non-linearity (say, non-zero quantity) will empower quantum computers to not only NP-Complete problems but also outside much harder ones.

Before, we go ahead and discuss on what can be the limits of efficient computation in this world and what can Quantum computers do ! We need to understand the limits of physics.

Physics has survived a long time without a unified theory. The reason is that, as far as experiment is concerned , we have been able to divide the world into two realms. In the atomic realm, quantum physics reigns, we can usually ignore gravity. We can treat space and time much as Newton did — as an unchanging background. The other realm is that of gravitation and cosmology. In that world, we can often ignore quantum phenomena.

But this cannot be anything other than a temporary, provisional solution. To go beyond, it is the first great unsolved problem in theoretical physics:

Combine general theory of relativity and quantum theory into a single theory that can claim to be the complete theory of nature. This is called the problem of Quantum gravity.

Besides the argument based on unification, there are problems specific to each theory that call for unification with each other.

Each theory has a problem of infinities. In nature, we are yet to encounter anything measurable that has an infinite value. But in both quantum theory and general relativity, we encounter predictions of physically sensible quantities becoming infinite.

General relativity has a problem with infinities because inside a black hole the density of matter and hence the strength of gravitational field quickly becomes infinite. That appears to have been the case very early in the history of the universe — at least, if we trust general relativity to its infancy. At the point at which the density becomes infinite, the equations of general relativity break down. Some people interpret this as time stopping, but a more sober view is that theory is just inadequate. For a long time, wise people have speculated that it is inadequate because the effects of quantum physics have been neglected.

The quantum theory, in turn, has its own trouble with infinities. They appear whenever you attempt to use quantum mechanics to describe fields, like the electromagnetic field. The problem is that the electric and magnetic fields have values at every point in space. This means that are an infinite number of variables. An infinite number of variables can lead to equations that get out of hand and predict infinite numbers when you ask questions about the probability of an event.

These are cases where we cannot help but feel that an essential part of physics has been left out. The problem of Quantum gravity is one of the 5 most fundamental problems in Physics.

PS: There are four more fundamental problems that ail current physics. They will be discussed in the subsequent  posts.

• Likes of  [Rohit + Raina + Yuvraj] leaking nearly 20-25 runs which in my  humble opinion was school boy stuff!
• Ishant and Zaheer sending down such toothless deliveries.
• Can someone remind Dhoni that four is not the maximum. You are allowed to hit a six in cricket!
• Were India safegaurding Yuvi by sending in Jadeja ahead? I never understood this logic of rescuing your best — when it should be the other way round!

For some weird reason, I loved watching IPL to World T20. IPL was a festive atmosphere. Lets move into other things.

400 years ago, the formal study of sciences began. In this post, we look at the tale of two problems -  One from physics and the other from Maths.  Both these problems have rich history.  They have been known to mankind since 4 centuries.

The first one being the famous Three body problem in physics and the second one being the Fermat’s Last Theorem. Informally, three-body problem is:

The problem is that of determining the motion of three bodies moving under no influence other than that of their mutual gravitation given their initial postions, masses and velocities.

This is the longest standing open problem in physics.

Moving on the second problem,  it was a problem introduced by Fermat in the year 1637. It remained open till recently and was solved in 1995 by Andrew Wiles. Informally, the problem is

Fermat’s Last Theorem states that no three positive integers a, b, and c can satisfy the equation aⁿ + bⁿ = cⁿ for any integer value of n greater than two

An excellent book on the history of this problem is this book by Simon Singh. It offers wonderful insights into the efforts made by Andrew. It took him nearly 9 years of dedicated effort to solve this monster! He uses techniques from the theory of elliptic curves to arrive at a solution.

The first problem, however, remains an unsolved mystery! The contrast cannot get any bigger!

Let us call a set “abnormal” if it is a member of itself, and “normal” otherwise. For example, take the set of all squares. That set is not itself a square, and therefore is not a member of the set of all squares. So it is “normal”. On the other hand, if we take the complementary set that contains all non-squares, that set is itself not a square and so should be one of its own members. It is “abnormal”.

Now we consider the set of all normal sets – let us give it a name: R. If R were abnormal, that is, if R were a member of itself, then since R only contains normal sets, R must be normal, which is contradictory to our original hypothesis: R is abnormal. So, R cannot be abnormal, which means R is normal. Further, since every normal set is a member of R, R itself must be a member of R, making R abnormal. Paradoxically, we are led to the contradiction that R is both normal and abnormal.

This paradox is, often, referred to as Russell’s Paradox. Fortunately, consistent set theories exist — One of them is Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory.

Coming back to the informal set theories taught to us — these are attributed to the legendary Georg Cantor. Besides set theory, he gave us the wonderful notion of countable sets, uncountable sets and infinities. In a revolutionary result, he claims the following–

Not all infinities are of the same size! He, also, claims - Give me an infinity and I shall construct an infinity bigger than yours!

Informally, he claims In particular, the power set of a countably infinite set is uncountably infinite.

There are few more interesting things that come out of Cantor’s Results –

• The ratio number of problems that can be solved on a computer to those that cannot be solved is exactly equal to the ratio of number of Natural Numbers to Real Numbers.
• He, also, goes on to prove that set of real numbers is the smallest infinity that one can find.
• The number of Real numbers between 0 and 1 is exactly equal to the total number of Real numbers!

I will be graduating this convocation with a B.Tech (Hons) and a Masters by Research in Computer Sciences. The last week was spent in writing and compiling the first draft of this thing.

The title of the work will be “Agreement can be Easier than Point-to-Point Communication”. Informally, it is about the following — Given a network of computers, it may be possible that the computers will not be able to reliably communicate/route messages to each other but they can agree on something. Per se, agree on whether a database operation has aborted or been committed. In this work, we characterize the networks over which agreement is possible but Point-to-Point Communication is not (that is, we give the give the connectivity requirements of the network and the ratio of faults to non-faulty computers).

The result sounds both baffling and fishy at the first look as we generally expect any sort of agreement/consensus measures to have reliable communication as a prerequisite or may be even a sub-routine call in the process of reaching a consensus. Our results, however, prove otherwise - Consensus/agreement protocols seem to be more fundamental to network/distributed computing than Point-to-Point Communication!

I am nearly done with my burden and hence, hope to get back to blogging on things I left behind. A couple of drafts have been lying on the hard disk for sometime now :-)

[Esc]:wq

   Einestein endorsed this result reluctantly, but he could find no way to refute it, and in the half -century since then, neither has anyone else.  Among all the contributions of  Gödel - this one is certainly the Queen and most of the times goes unnoticed.

      In case, you are intersted to know more about this particular result of Gödel – refer “The Forgotten Legacy of  Gödel and Einstein” by Palle Yourgrau.

 ——-

        For those readers, who are unaware of  Gödel’s contributions to Computer Sciences and Mathematics; I compose this brief overview about Gödel’s result from Aaronsons’ lectures.

There’s an amazing result called Gödel’s Completeness Theorem, which says that these rules are all you ever need. In other words: if, starting from some set of axioms, you can’t derive a contradiction using these rules, then the axioms must have a model (i.e., they must be consistent). Conversely, if the axioms are inconsistent, then the inconsistency can be proven using these rules alone.

Prof. Venkaiah has got his doctorate from IISc bangalore and has done a lot of work on number theoretic, graph theoretic problems like factorizations of a graph and designing crypto systems. Rather, his doctoral thesis was entirely on the knapsack problem and its variants. The courses offered by him viz Data Compression, Algorithms, Cryptography and Network Security have been phenomenal successes (in terms of shear numbers of students willing to register and attend his lectures).  If I am not wrong - his courses have the highest number of registrations year after year. For when I was in the first year of my study at the Institute - I always wondered how can Prof. Venkaiah teach 150+ students. It was not until my 3rd semester when I got an opportunity to do a course with him. It was when I realized the amount the work he puts in to his course and the background study/reading he does. I still remember the professionalism and the formalism with which he teaches and carries himself around. Besides all this, his contributions to the Campus Green Club have been staggering - We have seen an unprecedented improvement in the percentage of green areas one can find in the campus. All I can is - We will greatly miss you, Sir.

This was probably the first time a Professor said a Good Bye to his students at IIIT and following mail will remain in my heart forever.

Dear All,

I have an offer from CRRao’s Advanced Institute of Mathematics,
Statistics, and Computer Science. So, I have resigned for my post at IIIT,
Hyderabad. I will be leaving around 20th May 2009 or latest by 20th July
2009.

In case you want to meet me, you may do so by reaching CRRao’s institute
located in Central University of Hyderabad.

You may also sparingly use my cell number XXXXX to contact me.

Wish You Good Luck,
Venkaiah

Let us all convey our best wishes to Prof. Venkaiah when he takes up a position at the CRRao’s Institute. On behalf of all the students of IIIT, I hope that Prof. Venkaiah enjoys the same phenomenal success which has tasted all through his years in IIIT.

Adios.

Understand that - it is fine if the student aims to get into Google/M$/Amazon. But, understand that an Institute cannot have aims like - place all student in an MNC. An Institute has bigger vision and plans. IIIT aims at creating a good university for Indian conditions - make higher eduction more accessible to the masses.

At the fundamental level - the education models (10th,+1,+2 and then engineering) and their evaluation criteria itself call for debate. The current day models have been lifted from western ones created earlier. But, one needs to understand that the demands of a western society and Indian society differ drastically.

In short, we need to create universities with processes that address our needs. We need to create our own Atlantis. Our own India. For that, we cannot expect others to make models/solutions for us. We have to indigenously work out models that work for us.

IIIT has set itself goals of national importance. It is in that plane Prof. Sangal and IIIT speaks, where as the students speak/address from a different plane and perspective. It is important for us to understand from which plane we are speaking and at what level are we attempting to find solutions. The solutions that the Institute is looking for are in a different plane altogether. IIIT wants to create models to make an Atlantis from every university in India. Clearly, this is a much tougher job.

One such model which might help us to achieve the optimal from an university is Jivan Vidya. Jivan Vidya aims to optimally utilize resources in an Indian environment. It is obvious that we should play to our strengths and in particular - the strengths of Indian Civilization. No matter whether you like or not - you carry the luggage of a 2000+ years culture.  The questions raised by the Western civilization for the need of higher education are valid for any setting - however the solutions may drastically differ. In order to create solutions for our setting, we should understand the differences between the two settings. Below is a speech of Prof. Sangal making an attempt to identify the differences and create models to suit the current day needs of the country. This is one is remarkably different from all the ones being delivered under the banner of Jivan Vidya. One particular significance of this one lies in the fact that - Prof. Sangal dons the hat of a researcher and analyses the needs for new models. It is not a yet another JV talk! There are no Human Values being discussed here!

I request the readers to go through this (may be slightly large, but nevertheless gives an Idea of what the bigger picture is!) and not start with any prejudiced opinions. I think this speech answers all the questions being raised in various blogs and other places. I think this speech is scientific and has a lot of thought put into. I also think anyone who has not read/understood this cannot really understand the questions being raised and the stand of Institute on various things.

There is some minor editing done.  This was said in the PPST (Patriotic People Oriented Science & Technology group) meeting. You may read more about PPST online. It  is a group that was started at IIT K when Prof. Sangal et al were all of our age group. Just read through it:

Prof. Sangal then spoke of his thoughts and said  -  We are searching for what is it that will leads us to human civilization. It appears that Indian Civilization has achieved - sort of the right direction - has gone towards this human civilization - then the historical interventions took place and changed our path to go towards the Western Civilization. In some ways the West was perhaps not acquainted with Indian Civilization in that sense, otherwise even they would have wanted to go towards what is the human civilization.

Western Civilization - the causal closure of matter and the engagement of science and technology with it - you assume that everything - mind-body divide and everything you need to know - we have to study matter and in some sense there is nothing outside that, and in some sense that course also has run through and we reached where we are today. In that course,we have split the atom. Two atoms have been split. One at the physical level - to create the nuclear bomb - the other atom is at the social organization level - the family. That split is also completed. Just learned that divorce rate has now crossed 50%.

Western Civilization with its assumptions and largely the science and technology which developed with those assumptions rapidly - something was thrown out, the other things are thrown away as and what remained are residues which are to be housed in humanities and some times other things and I think that what was thrown out was human being. So in the Western Civilization what was thrown out was human being retained was matter - the conclusion is strife within family, strife within society, strife with world, strife with nature. Human being could not fit in this order, we will change the human being and create a industrial worker, if that were not sufficient, we will create IT worker but at most we will create a citizen and certainly not human being. Citizen is someone who obeys all these rules and whatever there in a human being is thrown out and he need to be made to a template of at most a citizen - but mostly as a white-collared worker, blue collared worker. There appears to be - may be you could call it crisis, because there is no good answer to it - you go to Iraq but you do not know what to do. The other thing which has happened appears to be serious is - if India and China follow the same path then earth is finished, it appears. Earth may be more resilient, but it appears that greenhouse gases and all kinds of things may happen. We have sort of reached a dead end. What is the way out of this situation? We have to bring back the elements that we have thrown out of knowledge. The element that was thrown out was human being. The element to bring back is the human being. When you look at Human being - he seems to be unpredictable, indefinite - so you cannot study an indefinite - when you study him - you cannot bring morality in your knowledge - you can only curb it, you can curb his evil tendencies - you can make him into a citizen - you can make him into a disciplined him - you can control him - that can not be part of knowledge - knowledge is exploration, - there is no space for study of human being. The people of who study human - religion can’t be part of scientific study, there will be mystical elements; things may or may not be logical - thanks to various things - people need that - man is a questioning mind - common man - at the physical dead end; at the knowledge level that is the dead end. Those were the two dilemmas that allude us. - that is where we were looking, sudden - we found Jivan Vidya - firstly human being is not indefinite - which means there are invariants; there is an invariant we can study about. we can reason about - that is the method which we can study - and that is - one new element that is needed - when science understood observation and theorizing, then it said you cannot observe yourself - you can only observe something outside. Any observation of the self is not admissible. When you study a human being, you study him as a psychologist, you conduct experiments on him you study some external parameter,if he says that I am so and so, it appears to me, that at the epistemological, I do not what the right words here are,that observation has to be brought into admissible nature for theory making. A month ago, there was this large Intl. Conference - one of the invited speakers, who is a serious researcher - he put up this slide - You need to rethink what AI is all about - and then he talked of the characteristics of east and west - and then he gave a technical talk, gave some interesting examples and then said - if you shift the viewpoint - then there is a solution to the frame problem - which is an unsolved problem in AI. After the talk I went and talked to him - he also heading a IIIT, newly formed, in Japan, I talked to him about it and he said I have a paper on that. I immediately downloaded it, and was surprised that he was talking of the observation of the admissibility of the self and what needs to be done.

At the level of the method, there is no reason to assume that observation of the self cannot be made or cannot be formalized so that I don’t feel what comes to me without proper observation or without proper control - just like in science we have control in what is observed there is no reason to believe that a similar control cannot be exercised for observation on the self. If I am feeling happy or if I am feeling, psychology says none of this is admissible, and we have to watch your behavior to feel whether you are happy or sad. and that will bring us to the Searle’s Chinese Room experiment.

That there is a fundamental problem in trying to say that you can create awareness through mechanical means. No matter how intelligent a machine you make - it cannot be aware. So it seems to me that the advance in science also is required to incorporate this.

And in one way - the two problems in civilization - we have run into the dead end at the physical level and dead end at the knowledge level. The way out in the knowledge level would be - we need to bring human being back into knowledge. The self and consciousness of the human being need to be brought back, the body was retained by the medical people. If we do that, and Jivan Vidya says and talks about the invariance in the self and consciousness. And it is possible to do experiment, it is possible to study human beings scientifically - once we do that, an empirical claim that it makes is that all human beings feel happy when they behave in a certain way that is which creates harmony - that is good news. If human beings feel happy while creating harmony that is good news, but if it were not so, that is bad news, nothing can be done about it.

And what we need to do so this artificial man that was created through society, education - the society keeps constantly telling us - you have to cheat, hurt to succeed - then we say that - in fact if you cheat you feel unhappy. Actually the thing starts from there, there is a notion of preconditioning that is brought in here. When you make an observation, the observations are very direct, very raw. If you remove the preconditioning and that is the part of the practice of Jivan Vidya. It is not that the moral philosophers need not be a moral man - a moral philosopher will be a moral man if he wants to be happy.

Once we do this , then whole thing actually connects up - it relates with relationships very strongly. It relates to society, but large questions of society JV has left open. It has given that these are the elements of society - there is an element of production, element of trade, element of education, element of justice, … and after that how it needs to applied needs to be worked out.

It is sort of giving a definition for what is human civilization. And that human civilization is not artificial, it springs out of naturalness of human being, that is the good news. We need to work towards that human civilization to be happy which turns out to be the goal of everybody. So if that becomes a goal, it connects up with the society and opens up large spaces for inquiry about what kind of society we want to build and with respect to the criteria laid out, only the criteria - in fact - you judge these criteria yourself - it is not going to say do this and don’t do this - it will give you general criteria, it will give a process actually, and you follow that process and apply it in your own way. And then fairly remarkable set of conclusions are there, which if I say you would say it can’t be. Economics begins by saying -resources are limited and desires are unlimited, then there is going to be strife.

Jivan Vidya says the opposite - needs are limited, resources are unlimited - practically. So, those conclusions don’t take it because Jivan Vidya is saying it, but do it by applying a process and that process itself is open to question - the process is called - Sahaj Sweekriti is also open to investigation.

So if we talk of a human civilization - what is our notion of what human civilization ought to be - JV does not say ought to be it say that is what it is because that is what is natural. What is the notion of human civilization - then we can compare the Chinese Civilization - Indian Civilization - Western Civilization - and take the best. What choices they made and if we look at that -it appears that perhaps Indian Civilization made very conscious choices of simplicity, of making it not on hierarchy, but based on relationships - where the role of the king was so little and one can look at the past. How does one look into the future? Can those ideas be taken and applied to this world? Given those ideas how do you apply today? How will you come up with a new idea? You have a bench mark and a standard - in some sense the situation is ripe today in India. At the knowledge level, Neural Sciences and Cognitive Sciences moving in a certain direction. Internet - from the knowledge point of view, things are very ripe. Jivan Vidya claim is universal. It will even stand on a plane that is like a scientific and as strong a claim as that - at the implementation level - it will be very local, looking at the scenario and surroundings - how we apply. Knowledge level is ripe, but that is at the large - international level. In India, I do not know about the social sciences, and humanities level, we do not have a large effort in Cognitive Sciences, at the physical level or the social organizational level - things are very ripe - there is a large middle class - which appears to see that which aspirations can be met and it can move ahead. The changes are so rapid, if the change is slow - one does not see the the good and bad cannot be seen so fast. The change is so fast that people are suddenly not able to see the bad, but they see the good part - physical facilities part - what the earlier generation earned at the end of their generation are now able to earn them in their beginning itself - small number but not so small number.

There are associated ills - a very strong consumerism - that is why this disturbance. When JV shibirs are held - who are the people most attracted? It is the young people, it is also the old people. As a remark - when I went to Mussoorie for the I shibir - I came here to see some old people - but these are all young people in their 20s, 30s and 40s; because the young people have suddenly seen this rapid, and easily there are 10% of the population who would come to PPST, without doing anything - who are concerned about issues but they were not finding space, or rest of them were telling them you will spoil your life.

Suddenly they find a path, that path is by answering their own self, by focus on the self. And the focus on self, can be as rigorous as science. That is what Jivan Vidya tells, provided we include one observation that observation of self is admissible. We do not have to talk of mysticism, we do not have to talk of after life, you talk of life here and now. You talk about - people from industry are enthused, urban people, housewives, normal family life, even they have to face all these struggles - because it is talking of the life, of the self and relationships. People of the - suddenly realise I have trying to tell people that they have given 10 years of my life, 20 years of my life, to raise the standard of life, the moment there is a betterment of life - they want a TV, want a car - JV says that is fine - but at the same time alcoholism, kidnapping and the family break - so that both the atom - I put in all the effort - and the people are not going beyond, because that is the logic of Western Civilization, that is where it will take it. Because you have left out the Civilization, it is the NGOs - I should address the human being. When religious leaders who come, the highest Buddhist scholar who has come Rinpochet, himself a scholar and VC of Tibetan Institute - he sat for 7 days and he said he will come again. He normally does not spend time anywhere. Another scholar who came from Sarnath - he wondered- Oh Buddha - this must have been the logic that Buddha followed and we are following it as a recipes. Perhaps recipes are needed, were needed, but with the modern man with modern facilities of communication, that is where the Internet comes - it has the potential to put people, databases together… -  in that situation, even the common man also has unprecedented opportunity to develop. When one looks at the Indian Civilization - it might have said only few people will reach higher levels - but with this modern technology, potential is immense. JV starts with every man can reach the highest without recourse to scriptures, without recourse to anything - it is a synthesis of bringing the self back into knowledge, which was discarded and left out. It can rightfully be brought back and that is an opportunity for us. Because as a civilization as continuous - which was sort of in the right direction, so we need to bring it back to Loka Vidya - into Internet. Into Internet - I do not know how to bring it. But human to human interaction certainly. It also leaves a lot of areas for research in all areas -  for many of us the concerns are societies, the public sphere - which requires lots of efforts - Our goal should be human civilization - how do we establish human civilization - we will evaluate every civilization with respect to that benchmark. Then the goal becomes, what do we do to reach that human civilization not 250 years ago but now - so that is Jivan Vidya.

Benchmark is in human development.

There was a question which raised a point about the importance of having after life in the structuring of a theory of human civilization. In reply, Prof. Sangal replied saying:

What JV says is that - this minimum is sufficient. It will base its argument on what you should be doing this because you want to be happy here. But if you want to posit something more, you are welcome. This becomes the issue of maanyata, to be individually happy - happiness is always self-only - if I am happy with the self - my own interest and negating group interest - I am actually unhappy - the standard notions of the success actually fall flat. The hollowness of that comes out easily - it does require one to come out of the maanyata what is taught by the society, or the scriptures as to be done to be happy, JV would say you have to decide at your own level. It then talks of six level of harmony - at self, family, society, nature and existence - at all levels. Program of action is open to all of us to design - and that will lead to a human civilization.

I think now we are in a better to talk about the institute and its goals.