Cat revisited

Hi,

First of all, my sincere apologies for not updating my blog for 2 days. Will make sure this doesn't happen often. One of my friends (Srikanth) came up with some dangerous logic to solve the 'perpetually moving cat' problem. I haven't understood it but I thought some of you can explain it to me in English. I am pasting it as it is. So here goes the disclaimer - "All crappy ideas given below are from a seriously lunatic friend of this lunatic. The blogger (me) is not responsible for any brain damage or insanity ensuing from reading these ideas or experimenting with them". So here goes the crap:

Well,

Regarding the cat with a bread stuck onto its back, there seems to be a lack of understanding of anything thats beyond 'seemingly-obvious' reasons. Here I crap!

Assumptions:
1) The cat cannot think (so do the guys who crack cat)
2) The bread is not one of those Indian breads
3) No number of assumptions can make life any easier.

Action:
1) butter is applied onto bread
2) its stuck to the cat's back thru some complicated procedure!
3) The cat is kicked onto its ass form nth floor (where n>2, n is an integer)

Theory:
The theory can be split into two conflicting sub-theories.
(1)

In the first one, it is assumed that the cat has no choice with regard to the landing style, and so does the bread-butter side.
Also, it is assumed that the earth (gravity) decides as to which will fall in which style. So, as far as the inputs to the earth's 'brain' go, it only sees the cat. It doesnt realize that there is a stinking piece of bread behind it. Thus, the cat lands on its feet.

(2)

Here, it is assumed that the cosmic powers or the imaginary repulsive magnetic fields of moon push the piece of bread and the cat downwards. We can use some fuzzy logic to solve this problem.
Now, 2 cases arise:

(a) The bread piece's dimensions are larger than the cat onto which they are stuck. In this case, the only thing seen from the top is the bread piece, and the forces unite to make the buttered side get battered onto the ground.
(b) The bread piece is so tiny that only the cat is seen form the top. In this case, the cat lands on its feet.

So, in between them, the cat has to fall in a tilted fashion.

Perpetual Motion

Hi,

There has been tremeandous response from you guys. Thanks a lot. I promise I will show the same energy and enthu in maintaining the blog for the days to come. I have enabled comments for my blogs. Please thrash me. I actually got a very good piece from a friend of mine, Avinash Iyer (The higher you go the Iyer you become - as he claims). The piece he sent is very much in line with the current theme I am running. So I thought I would make it the topic for today. Here is the quote my friend has sent to me:

"We know that the cat lands with its feet downside when thrown into the air. We also know that the bread always falls butter side down when thrown into the air. So if we stick a peice of bread to the cat's back and then put butter on the bread, then we would have achieved a perpetual motion machine that will keep rotating above the floor at a constant speed, not knowing which side to fall down first?"

Lemme guide you to the link pmm. The above joke reminds me of one of our quant profs who keeps rotating around the desk while teaching, like the cat above. Guess he has a butter bread attached somewhere :-)). The above joke put two questions in my crappy head - if at all such a perpetually moving cat is possible according to physical laws, what will happen when the cat dies? Also, will the cat keep rotating at 'constant speed' as mentioned in the joke? Actually, the joke is well worded in that it does not attribute perpetual motion to any physical laws, it just says the cat keeps rotating not knowing which side should fall first. So maybe only confusion can lead to perpetual motion. Yes, I know what came into your mind just now - Is this guy perpetually confused? Yeah, you are right ;-)

I stink therefore I am

Hi,

There was a Rexona deodorant ad I saw some months ago. It is in a cowboy kind of setting. Two guys are escaping from those bad guys carrying guns over their shoulders. When they approach their hut, the two guys will lie down and act as if they are dead. The bad guys smell them and take away the guy who doesn't use Rexona deodorant because they infer from his sweat smell that he is not yet dead. I thought an apt caption for the ad can be "I stink therefore I am (alive)".

Now coming to business, lots of guys actually don't know what "I think therefore I am" means. Many think it means - it is thought that keeps us alive. One of our professors (one of those spiritual kind) gave us the same interpretation. But the actual statement - cogito ergo sum - made by Des Cartes means something else. It actually means "I doubt therefore I know". Des Cartes came up with two basic questions - "Can I feign that the world does not exist?", "Can I feign that I do not exist?" The answer to the first question is - yes you can - because, the world around you maybe your imagination or something is making you believe that this world exists as you know. Now in both the possibilities, you are accepting there is a thing called "I" that thinks. In the first, you assumed "I am imagining", in the second, you assumed "I am thinking". And both the questions arose from "doubt" which is also thought. So, I am accepting only one fact - that 'I think'. Now this would mean I am accepting that something called "I" exists. Hence the statement "I think therefore I am". So, this is the only statement you can say with 100% confidence, according to Des Cartes.

Too philosophical...aah....

Marketing Research applied

Hi,

Today afternoon I was in the bathroom and I suddenly got an idea. When I was in Hyderabad, I found that I can suddenly find a place to pee anywhere in the city. They call them Sulabh complexes. I found that I can actually apply marketing research fundas to make Sulabh complex a better place to pee. We can do a customer segmentation to find out who finds it convenient and who finds it demeaning to be asked to use them. And another management problem "How many rooms for ladies and how many for gents" can also be tackled by this customer segmentation. Actually I have prepared a questionnaire...

Answer in Yes or No ( dichotomous questions ;-) )
1. I find it demeaning myself to use Sulabh complex.
2. I find it very uncomfortable to look at a guy peeing next to me and grinning at me.
3. I don't mind leaving without flushing.
4. Momma says, "Don't leave the taps open"
5. I want a closed room to do this unmentionable thing.
6. I wait outside ladies room searching for the love of my life.
7. I like listening to music wherever I am.

OK, do take time to fill up my questionnaire..I have some work now. See you tomorrow, same place.

Hi,

As promised here is the first of my musings:

Newton's Third Law of Motion:
The other day one of my friends told me a joke which goes as follows. A lady is travelling in a city bus in Delhi. The driver applies brakes suddenly and the guy behind her falls on her. The lady looks at him scornfully and the guy says, "Don't mind Ma'am! It is just Newton's First Law of Motion". The lady slaps him and says, "Don't mind! It is just Newton's Third Law of Motion".

Now here I was totally shocked at the way Newton's Third Law of Motion has been interpreted. The guy was absolutely right when he said the reason for his falling on her was Newton's First Law of Motion. But the lady seems to be a commerce graduate who knows a lil bit of this and a lil bit of that and starts confusing herself by mixing all those lil bits. I have a friend called Siddharth who has incidentally become a CA contrary to all our expectations. Many a time he applies similar logic when anything to do with mathematics troubles him.

Newton's Third Law of Motion says every action has an equal and opposite reaction. And here action refers to a force applied by a body on some other body and dear Ma'am even reaction refers to the same. And both action and reaction occur simultaneously. One of my friends, when he listened to the above joke, extended the logic and came up with amazing discoveries about universe and existence. He said, the universe was formed by a big bang, now that was action, there will be an equal and opposite reaction which will ultimately pull all the matter together. Right now, as we have learned in our physics, the entropy of the universe is increasing, so the current age of the universe is less than half of its total life time. Now, this guy surely does have imagination. It is no fault of him because he made 2 assumptions, one big bang theory is correct and two, the lady's interpretation of Newton's Third Law of Motion is correct. So, dear ma'am be careful when you make such statements. There are crazy guys over here who will extend it to the end of the universe and conclude that they are dead.