Sunday, May 14, 2023

No Sushi On Conveyer Belt Sushi

 I went to have Sushi at a Kaiten-Zushi (conveyor belt sushi) restaurant after a very long time. During the Covid-19 pandemic, we did not eat out and now it has become a regular habit to eat at home. Sushi bars have changed since pre-pandemic times. Like most changes in Japan, these changes have been made without any fanfare. If one eats out at restaurants very often, it is likely that one may not notice anything at all. But, we did because of the time that has passed since we last went out.

Here are some examples.

1. There are robots that bring you the stuff that you order. 

2. More foreigners are working at such places. They are even in charge of the cash register. They speak the standard phrases taught from their manuals fluently. This can be deceptive, as you can easily find out if you were to try and strike up a conversation in Japanese with them. Japanese customers are highly unlikely to do that, so they will be comfortable with the standard set-phrases delivered fluently. 

3. Orders are not written down at most places. There is a tablet or iPad from which one can order. Click 会計 when you want the bill. 

4. There are no sushi carrying plates on the conveyor belts as before. No more picking up the sushi one wants. Instead, there are the pictures of sushi, with prices and order numbers on small stands, going around on the conveyor belt. Even before the pandemic, people hardly picked up the sushi going around the conveyor belts because they had the option to order fresh ones using the tablets. This change is perhaps good because it prevents food waste and is more hygienic. But, I do miss a part of the old Japan. 

 

 

Sunday, September 27, 2020

Climate change is like death

 Climate change is like death. We know that it is coming someday in our lifetimes, but we do not do anything about it. We enjoy the extra burger and fries and even procrastinate going to the gym. That's the equivalent of enjoying GDP growth while knowing that it is not a real measure of human progress.

Monday, March 20, 2017

Happiness chastised

I was standing on the platform, waiting for my train. The express pulled in and stopped, but I was not taking that one. I was waiting for the local, that came later. As is often the case, I looked around at the people around me as if it were an idyllic pastime.  My fellow human beings often amuse and surprise me no end.

A young lady in her early twenties was  waving to her friend of a similar age and gender, who was now comfortably seated inside the train by the window. The doors closed and the train started to slowly and deliberately pull out of the station. The young lady continued to gleefully wave at her friend with a big smile on her face. She started to walk with the moving train and then jogged a little to continue waving to her friend. All the while, she was clearly away from the yellow line that demarcates the danger zone, well on the platform to be in any sort of danger. However, she received a sound reprimand from the station attendant with the wireless microphone, and publicly shamed for her act. She ignored him and left the platform as her friend and the train disappeared out of sight with only the tail lamp visible at a distance.

My childhood flashed before my eyes. How many times have I done this in the past when I saw off relatives or friends at the railway station in my own country? My parents or other adults asked me to be careful or held on to my hand when I was too small. But, never was I publicly chastised. 

Of course, I would not even dream of doing such a thing here. And, even the young lady may well stop running after her friend as she approaches her thirties. Just a tight lipped smile and a cursory wave of the hand. Maybe even turn back and start walking away before the train leaves? After all, that's all adults need... to be "happy"...

Gamagori, Japan

Sunday, March 19, 2017

La La Land

Watched the very entertaining La La Land, that began in almost Bollywood style (with lots of dancing), without really understanding why it created such a stir for the coveted Oscar. Stereotypical portrayal of a woman (Mia), who first dumps her materialistic boyfriend, for a man with passion and dreams, and then, ends up with just another "rich man" (a minor character, we don't even get to know much about; except that he agrees to "get off the congested road" - abandoning the destination they were trying to rush towards- and have dinner with his wife). The stoical Sebastian (the enigmatic Ryan Gosling, who has now achieved his dream of opening a jazz bar), accepts his fate at the end with a smile. Bear it all "man"!

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Reality Check: The Power Of Real Mathematics.


I have always been at a loss of words about what to say when Japanese people tell me that all Indians are mathematical geniuses because they memorize more multiplication tables from a young age, and hence, are born for the IT industry.
(Needless to say, the IT industry in India employs less than 0.5% of the Indian population.)

First, let us take a look at how both Japan and India have performed at the International Mathematical Olympiad over the years.
Performance at the IMO
First participation: 1989.
Number of participations: 24.
Gold medals: 11. Silver medals: 58. Bronze medals: 51. Honourable mentions: 18.

 Japan 

Performance at the IMO
First participation: 1990.
Number of participations: 23.
Gold medals: 32. Silver medals: 61. Bronze medals: 34. Honourable mentions: 5.

Japan stands out with almost thrice the number of gold medals than India.

So, why all this fascination about Indian mathematics? 

Surely, the Japanese who memorize almost 2,000 alphabets to read their own language, can memorize more multiplication tables if they actually wanted to? Also, despite several drawbacks, the Japanese education system is definitely one of the better ones on this planet. Japan has produced several nobel laureates and has top ranked universities. (None of India's famous universities rank in the top 200.)

However, there are several books sold in Japan, under the title of Indoshiki or Indian mathematics, which mention tricks of how to calculate faster. TV programs often show Indian classrooms where students multiply figures like 333 x 333. Why not more complex numbers, I wonder!
(This apparent "admiration" could soon turn into disappointment when they realize that this so-called ability neither builds problem solving skills nor makes efficient personnel.) 

But, is the ability to calculate faster an essential talent required by mathematicians?

Jayant Narlikar, one of India’s top astrophysicists educated at Cambridge University and whose academic advisor was none other than Sir Fred Hoyle, has lucidly written on this subject in his wonderful book, The Scientific Edge.
He further recommends using a pocket calculator to provide fast answers to numerical problems.

This should be an ample reply to all foreigners who are inordinately fascinated by the mental gymnastics of calculating faster or being able to recite multiplication tables from memory. This is also a probable reason why some foreigners are so quick to glibly and randomly criticize India at the drop of a hat when things don't always turn out to be as per their expectations, because their understanding is often of a very elementary level to start with. 

The following is an extract from Professor Narlikar’s highly readable book:

What Is Vedic Mathematics?[1]

These words should normally mean mathematics from the Vedas, of the kind we encountered in the first chapter. However, in the popular mind, the phrase has been hijacked to mean a particular piece of work, which is described in Vedic Mathematics by Jagadguru Shankaracharya Swami Shri Bharati Krishna Tirthaji Maharaj, one of the foremost leaders of the Hindus. Numerous books and articles have since appeared, most of them written by amateur mathematicians, interpreting the contents, commenting on them and generally extolling its high mathematical content. Here is a typical extract from one such publication:

It contains sixteen simple mathematical Sutras from the ‘Vedas’ and forms a class by itself, not pragmatically conceived and worked out as in the case of other scientific works, but the result of the intuitional visualization of fundamental mathematical truths and principles.

First of all, can one say that what Swamiji has described is of Vedic origin? The book was published after the author died, and so we do not have his account of how he came across the information in the Vedas. The foreword to the book is given by Manjula Trivedi, a disciple of Swamiji. Neither of these accounts gives any evidence that the work highlighted in the book is of Vedic origin.

              The book contains sixteen Sutras, (rules, results or formulae) and thirteen Upa-Sutras. In the preface, the author claims that these Sutras are contained in the parishishta (an appendix) of the fourth of the four Vedas, the Atharva Veda. Unfortunately, no authorized edition of the Atharva Veda contains these Sutras.

              In this context, S. G. Dani, a mathematician at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai who has written authoritatively on Vedic mathematics, cites an episode narrated by K. S. Shukla, a renowned scholar of ancient Indian mathematics. He recalled meeting Swamiji, showing him an authorized edition of Atharva Veda and pointing out that the sixteen Sutras were not in any of its appendices. Swamiji is said to have replied that they occurred in his own parishishta and in no other! In short, Swamiji claimed that these Sutras were Vedic on his own authority, without any independent evidence to support his assertion. Alas no one, however exalted, has the right or privilege to add anything supplementary to the Vedas and claim that it is as authentic as the Vedas themselves, or else there is no authenticity left in any claimed part of the Vedas as being original to those works.

The Type of Mathematics

Leaving aside the question of authenticity, we now consider the book itself. Tf the contents were remarkable in themselves as judged by modern mathematical standards, then we could rejoice in the fact that something of Indian origin (Vedic or otherwise) has turned out to be so advanced.

              As an aside, one may compare the notebook left behind by the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan and discovered in the Trinity College Library. It contained many important and hitherto unknown results of number theory. Characteristically, many of the results were simply stated as facts by the illustrious author, and the later generations of mathematicians spent considerable time and effort proving them. The results were new and made significant additions to the present literature in mathematics. So here we have a compendium of results that has passed the test of being relevant to higher mathematics.

              Judged by this standard, the sixteen Sutras stand nowhere, and it does not require a professional mathematician to tell you so. One needs, however, to get over the popular misconception that tricks and short cuts to arithmetical operations like multiplication, division and finding the square root constitute higher mathematics. There are gifted persons who can do mental calculations with large numbers very fast. Public performances (often pitting them against calculators) are very popular and leave their audiences impressed. There is no question that people who have these computational abilities can boast of a very remarkable skill, but they are not mathematicians.

              Real mathematics is not number crunching but the interplay of logical reasoning, starting from relatively innocuous-looking postulates that leads to profound conclusions. Take, for example, Euclid’s theorem that the number of prime numbers is infinite. (A prime number is one which has no other divisors except the number itself and one.) For example, the first few primes are 2, 3, 5, 7, but a number like 12 is not a prime since it is also divisible by 2, 3, 4 and 6, besides 12 and 1. So the question is, does the sequence of primes end. In other words, is there a last a last prime so that any number greater than it is composite, , i.e. divisible by a factor other than 1 and the number itself? If such a last number does not exist, then the number of primes must be infinite.

              Euclid proved that this is in fact the case by the following argument. Suppose we multiply 2 and 3 and add 1 to the sum. We get 7, and if we try to divide it by 2 or 3, the remainder is 1. The number 7 is a prime of course. But we cannot guarantee that the product of all primes starting from 2 and going up to any level, plus 1 will necessarily be a prime. So Euclid gave this ingenuous argument. Suppose, the number of primes is not infinite. Then there must exist a prime that is the largest of them all. Call it P. So, by definition, there is no prime greater than P. Now consider the number obtained by multiplying all primes up to P and adding one to the total. This number is
              2 x 3 x 5 x 7 x . . . x P + 1.
This number is clearly not divisible by any of the primes up to P. for, if we divide it by any of these numbers, we will get the remainder equal to 1. Now let us examine whether this number is itself a prime or not. If it is a prime, then we have a contradiction, because this new prime is greater than P, which was claimed to be a largest prime in existence. If the number is not a prime, then it has to be divisible by some number. Such a number will either itself be a prime or prime factor belong to our set of primes going all the way up to P, because none of these primes divide this number exactly. (recall that they all leave a remainder 1.) So this prime will have to be greater than P. again we have a contradiction. So the assumption that the number of primes is finite is wrong, and their number is indeed infinite.

              This argument demonstrates the power and beauty of logical reasoning that leads to a profound conclusion without number crunching. Notice that although we used the notion of multiplication of a large number of prime factors, nowhere did we actually multiply them out to look at the result!

              Thus we can say that although mathematics started out as an exercise involving numbers, it eventually expanded far beyond the original concept, and it is the results that command the widest generality and applicability that get recognition as being profound. Mere number crunching is not considered a significant part of higher mathematics.




[1] Narlikar, Jayant V., The Scientific Edge – The Indian Scientist from Vedic to Modern Times, PENGUIN Books 2003, (p. 26~29).

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Reaching Out!

"Being dim-witted but aspiring for the success of the learned, I will end up in ridicule, like a dwarf raising his hands towards a fruit that can be reached only by a tall person."

- Kalidasa   (Raghuvansha).
Kalidasa went on to produce a masterpiece after writing this.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

(Re-) Kindle The Passion!

Kindle Paperwhite is a wonderful invention by Amazon. It has the potential to change the lives of reading enthusiasts all over the world. Of course, at present I mean to say that this potential could be something wonderful. 

I live at a place where English books are hard to come by, or, are quite expensive, even if bought on the internet. I could not even imagine procuring books in Bengali, my mother tongue, had it not been for Kindle, unless someone sends it over by international post. Bengali books are not that expensive, so probably it would take several times more than the price of a book to have it sent to me. Although very few books, and that too great books, that I would like to read, are available in Bengali on Kindle now, I hope this is going to change soon. 

English books are less expensive on Kindle than paper back editions. I hope more and more of the rare books are made available too, and the few typing errors that can be found yet, are also done away with. 

Kindle is simple and hardly any sort of rocket science technology. But it is soothing to the eyes, especially without the back light, and complete with the cover, it provides for a good reading experience. Well, the only other major difference is, you can drop a book many times over, or fall asleep on it without too much damage done, but don't try it with a Kindle. I am trying hard not to treat it as 'just another' book!

This is great for book lovers. The screen isn't glossy (I hate glossy screens!) and the battery lasts long enough. I am sure the future versions will make is easier to read pdf and word files too. But, what is most important is, it will keep rare languages alive. It has the extraordinary potential to provide reading material in any language anywhere on the globe. It would surely have taken this world several hundred years at least to provide books in every language everywhere on the planet. Now Kindle can make it possible sooner. I am excited about the future of Kindle, and the day when we can get books in so many languages at affordable prices. Imagine a world where entire libraries are available at your fingertips! Imagine a future, when students or not so well off people can buy a Kindle at affordable prices and pursue the reading habit, and consider it a good investment done!

※Thanks to my friend Abhilekh who introduced me to Kindle.