Book Title: The Universe - A Biography
Author:John Gribbin
Year written/published: 2006
Book Source: Amazon, Library
Summary: From Big Bang, the birth of the Universe to the future - how will the universe end?
Some extracts:
Scientific model…

In fact, all scientific models have restricted applicability. None of them is ‘the truth’. The model of an atom as perfectly elastic little sphere [...]

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So what is the fundamental unit of all matter? Long ago, it was the molecules, then it was atoms… and then it was the electrons, protons and neutrons.
Well, now there’s something evern smaller - quark. There are 6 flavours of quark and by the names, we surely know that phsycists are very imaginative and amusing:

up
down
top
bottom
charm
strange

Example, [...]

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So we could see the entire earth and it was already awesome for me… the next is the Google Earth SKY!!! Imagine you can zoom into the night sky … zoom zoom zoom and see all the stars, galaxies, constellations and the beautiful nebulae and star bursts. Yes it can all be done now due [...]

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Mobius Strip is a surface with only one side. It’s mind-boggling and yet it’s so simple to make it with just a piece of paper strip…

picture credit: wikipedia
Another surface will be the Klein bottle which also has only one side!

picture credit: wikipedia

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CERN - French Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, or European Council for Nuclear Research - is the particle physics laboratory.
Some facts…

it has the world’s largest particle accelerator
it can accelerate particle nearly to the speed of light
it’s members include 20 European nations

other links…

info.cern
webcast.cern
high school teachers at CERN

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Morse Code chart…

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Braille letters used by the visually handicapped to read…

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Book Title: Chaos: The Amazing Science of the Unpredictable
Author: James Gleick
Year written/published: 1987
Book Source: Amazon
Some extracts:
meaning…

There were mathematicians, physicists, biologists, chemists all making connections between different kinds of irregularity. Physiologists found a surprising order in the chaos that develops in the human heart, the prime cause of sudden, unexplained death. Ecologists explored the rise and [...]

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1927 5th Solvay Conference is one of the most famous conferences where the world’s most notable scientists gathered together to discuss on Quantum Mechanics. 17 out of the 29 attendees became or were Nobel Laureates.
This picture shows the meeting of the famous scientists… [full resolution]

Seating Plan:
Back Row: A. Piccard, E. Henriot, P. Ehrenfest, Ed. Herzen, Th. [...]

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Book Title:A Brief History ofTime
Author: Stephen Hawking
Year written/published: 1988
Book Source: Amazon, Library
My Comments:I have read this book before… before i started my undergrad studies. And reading it now once more gave me an even greater pleasure because i could understand the concepts much better. Hawkings is definitely a great writer - especially in the way [...]

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Book Title:What do you care what other people think? Further Adventures of a Curious Character
Author: Richard P. Feynman
Year published: 1988
Book Source: Amazon, Library
Summary:it’s sort of an autobiography where Feynman himself wrote stories about his childhood, the Manhattan project, his love and about the time when he was in the Commission for investigating the Challenger Shuttle [...]

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For centuries the dispute between the algorithmic and the abacist system went on and then finally in the 18th century, the abacist system was totally disappeared!
some links on the history of maths…

oriental mathematics
medieval competition
algorist and abacist

This picture depicts that dispute.
This woodcut from the Margarita Philosophica of Gregorius Reisch, published in Freiburg 1503, shows “Arithmetica” watching [...]

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I found some interesting facts about Nobel Laureates
multiple prizes…

J. Bardeen - Physics 1956, Physics 1972
M. Curie  - Physics 1903, Chemistry 1911
L. Pauling  -  Chemistry 1954, Peace 1962
F Sanger - Chemistry 1958, Chemistry 1980 

Married Couples 

Marie Curie + Pierre Curie 
Irène Joliot-Curie + Frédéric Joliot 
Gerty Cori + Carl Cori
Alva Myrdal + Gunnar Myrdal     

Mother & Daughter 

Marie Curie + Irène [...]

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Book Title: Zero - The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
Author:Charles Seife
Year written/published: 2000
Book Source: Amazon, Library
Summary: History of the birth of Zero and its concept.
Some extracts:
Some mathematics quotations…

There was neither non-existence nor existence then; there was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond. What stirred? Where?
~Rig Veda 
Where there is the infinite [...]

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Book Title: The Golden Ratio - The story of Phi, the World’s Most Astonishing Number
Author:Mario Livio
Year written/published: 2002
Book Source: Amazon
Summary: This book talks about the various occurence of the number phi and also its history of discovery
Contents Page:

Prelude to a Number
The Pitch and the Pentagram
Under a Star-y-pointing Pyramid?
The second Treasure
Son of a good number
The divine [...]

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Ancient Egytians had a base ten number system and these were represented by symbols…

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Platonic Solids are regular polyhedron: eg. Tetrahedron, Hexahedron, Octahedron, Dodecahedron Icosahedron.

Many artists were also visually intrigued by the platonic solids too. This painting called The Sacrament of the Last Supper by Salvador Dali shows a huge dodecahedron (a twelve-faced Platonic solid in which each side is a pentagon).

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Divine Proportion or the Phi as correct to the first 1000 decimal places…
1.
6180339887 4989484820 4586834365 6381177203 0917980576
2862135448 6227052604 6281890244 9707207204 1893911374
8475408807 5386891752 1266338622 2353693179 3180060766
7263544333 8908659593 9582905638 3226613199 2829026788
0675208766 8925017116 9620703222 1043216269 5486262963
1361443814 9758701220 3408058879 5445474924 6185695364
8644492410 4432077134 4947049565 8467885098 7433944221
2544877066 4780915884 6074998871 2400765217 0575179788
3416625624 9407589069 7040002812 1042762177 1117778053
1531714101 1704666599 1466979873 1761356006 7087480710
1317952368 9427521948 4353056783 [...]

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I’m reading a book on Golden Ratio… that’s a blog for another day. But as i was reading i came across 2 very intriguing paintings and the mathematics behind them.
First one is Melancholia I by Albrecht Durer. If we observe carefully, we can see the elements of maths embedded in this…

tolls of geometry and architecture [...]

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so pi is the most important mathematical constant… it is real and irrational. Here’s the first 1000 decimals… check out the 1 million decimal place… nobody had been able to find a pattern in any of these decimal places…
3.
1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510
5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679
8214808651 3282306647 0938446095 5058223172 5359408128
4811174502 8410270193 8521105559 6446229489 5493038196
4428810975 [...]

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