India’s Potential Lose-Lose-Lose Scenario

Dear Alephnull

``I don`t think this is true. The `Prime Number Theorem` was proved by Hadamard and de Vallee Pousssin in the 19th century. Ramanujan, in collaboration with Hardy, came up with a celebrated EXACT formula for the number of partitions of an integer.``

Hadamard did come up with prime number theorem in around 1896. It simply stated that the number of primes less than a given large number `x` are approx P(x)

I just watched Question Time Pakistan on BBC World. Did anyone else? If so what were your impressions?

The panellists were the Pakistan Law Minister, a PPP guy, a PML(Q) guy and Hameed Haroon? of Dawn.

One interesting thing to me was that there seemed to be unanimity among the panellists and the audience that unless Pakistanis fight for Kashmiris `selfdetermination`, they cannot fight for their own rights. There were statements to the effect that Kashmiris` `selfdetermination` was a precondition for Pakistanis` own struggle for rights in Pakistan.[These evil Indians!] Hamid Haroon said how can you talk of your own rights in Pakistan if you donot support the Kashmir stance of Musharraf and the Pakistani government which represents not only Pakistanis but also Kashmiris.

Moreover, otherwise `there will be no end to it, if we give this up, they[Indians] will come up with `another` demand`. The Law Minister said that a UN body must be constituted to implement UN resolutions. [About the rationale for the `U turn` he said, if India opposes something, it has to be good for Pakistan.]

One or two of the panellists said that `its India and BJP who lost a valuable chance when Musharraf showed `flexibility`in his famous speech[ the one about math in madarassas I presume they meant] and `India is in a `no-win` situation with its Army at its borders and Indian public is now questioning the government why the Army is at the borders`.

The politicians on the panel were asked to answer for many things, including Pakistan`s poverty and literacy figures during the periods of civilian rule 1993-1999(one panellist blamed the BJP), but there was no Army representative to field any questions about Army rule. Noone pointed out this glaring omission, which is no surprise because most of the audience clearly supported Army rule.

Nag #141

This is insider info indeed because I heard , the guy who played Mrs.Doubtfire - aka Robin Williams mentioned this on a program _ I believe it was the movie channel or some where Robin told the audience how Matt and Ben had based their story on an Indian genius ( Robin even had a comment - you mean Indians of the feathered kind to which they said no Indians of the dot com kind) , this is what he recounted , The story essentially uses the lifestory of Ramanujan- a reclusive mathematical genius but spun it into an Boston Irish working class character that the audience could relate to.

Any further comments .

Aamir

``This prime number news from IITK is a bit suspiscious b/c you might know there was some controversy or ratherscandal in invo9lvement of Mr.Agarwall with synthetic Fuel claims of Pillai.He as you know was fraud & disowned by IIT Chennai /K.

``

I guess you are confusing Dr. Agarwal and his undergrad students with someone else. He was never involved in the Pillai scandal to my knowledge. Actually no IIT Prof was involved as far as I know, just a bunch of politicians and a few mediamen. Secondly Pillai never came to IITK; he went to IITM(Chennai) and later IITD where his deceit was exposed again with a simple material balance. I know this for sure because I was an undergrad in the same univ at that time. Thirdly, although it is possible to fake some experimental results, it is almost impossible to fake a theory. With so many brilliant mathematicians all around the world, it will take just a couple of days to catch the fallacy, if the paper is available. Actually you will notice that some of the smart Profs can tell within minutes if a work is suspicious if you have been to those Conferences. Anyways healthy sceptism is always a good policy in science.

...lose-lose?...

{{India sets up military base in Tajikistan



NEW DELHI: India has set up a military base in Central Asia as global competition for access to the oil and gas-rich region intensifies, according to military and diplomatic sources.

The base, set up at Farkhor in Tajikistan, close to Afghanistan`s border, is the first such Indian military facility outside India and has been quietly operational since May.

The sources said the base had been helpful in transporting relief assistance India has pledged to Afghanistan in view of the mutual ban on overflights India and Pakistan imposed on each other in December.

The ban has forced Indian relief planes to fly to Kabul by circuitous routes via Iran or Central Asia.

Though Farkhor had been used by these flights for refuelling, it meant use of smaller planes because it has only a short runway. ``We had to fly 18 sorties up and down to ferry 18 tonnes,`` a source said.

With the Indian base coming up in Tajikistan, larger transport planes are able to land and take off from the base.

The base was set up following a bilateral agreement reached during Defence Minister George Fernandes` visit to the Tajik capital of Dushanbe in April.

The two countries have agreed to cooperate in the fight against terrorism because both are victims of the Taliban militia of Afghanistan.}}

re: krackheadrashid

{Particularly Nobel Prize in PEACE definitely, and Literature possibly are politically motivated.}

...listen, don`t get pissy because you can`t understand some of the writers ...try hooked on phonics...that might also help you graduate from writing disjointed sentences to make your asinine points...

Hey Arjun_M

Not that i blame you personally but your news papers for blaming the GujjuRIOTS on Godhra fiasco for the incentive & Newtonian Modis opposite reaction & retaliation

NOW

It appears according to two days back report in HINDU news paper that WAJHPAL a most influential BJP leader in Advanis Rath Yatra ,after leaving BJP exposes that .................

BJP may have been behind Godhra attack: Waghela



Hindu

``I know these BJP people... They can go to any extent for the sake of power. I will not be surprised if it is revealed later that the BJP itself was involved in setting fire to the train,`` Mr. Waghela, one of the founding leaders of the State BJP and its one time president, sai

Krashid # 136

What is more ridiculous is the Nobel for VS Naipaul. This guy is an anti-Muslim bigot and had a tunnel vision. It was a disappointment reading his work. Even Jay writes better than him.

fatima,

Edhi great days are gone. It has come to light that most his welfare money has gone to the families of shaheeds and it is a no no for the world today. sorry about that.

Fatimah #118

I was thinking also in the same way.

It happened that a lifetime terrorist, by mistake got Nobel Prize for PEACE, by the name of Yasser Arafat alongwith another lifetime terrorist Yizhak Rabin. Before that another lifetime terrorist got it by the name of Menachem Begin.

So these days, it is difficult to trust the motifs behind Nobel Prize.

Particularly Nobel Prize in PEACE definitely, and Literature possibly are politically motivated.

Who knows what other mechanism and biases underlie in awarding this once coveted prize, which has lost its worth, by seeing such names as posted by RSaxena.

temporal,

aaah THANKYOU! now you speak the language of the gods...my beloved Bombay hindi! now THAT I can understand! though...after 20+ yrs of lack of practice, speaking it is rusty...i can give some choice gaalis, but not to a sharif aadmi, like you. Maybe I can reply in konkani, but for once, 12 head is right...no script exists for that language:(

Actually, I dont come to Chowk to talk to crazy people...I come here to drive Romair insane:)

Dost-mittar #142

Actually Ben Affleck and Matt Damon took Ramanujan`s life story and spun a story about a cabbie or somebody who suddenly aolves the most difficult Math problem known.

Do not remember the name of the movie.

The guy who played Mrs. Doubtfire played a pert

Umair:


srif itna likhaiN gay:

``aagahi daam-e-shunaidan jis qad`r chahay bichcha`aye...``

...aagay khud hee samajh lo:)


____________________________________________


shanker-da:

aye bhai...kya lafRRa dalta hay...fir teray ko bolta, kya...tu idhar srif apni theraphy ko aata, kyaa?...din bhar oodhar paagalouN kay saath apna ich sar marta fir idhar aakar aur pagal logoun say khis khis karta, kya?

rgds,

t

Romair

{{You do not know who Madhuri is, and you cannot understand Ghalib. Yet you want to debate and discuss South Asia with me.

I am afraid such a discussion would a be a losing proposition for me. It would result in a great increase in your knowledge, but no increase in mine....}}

Hey! I`m guilty as charged! But your hero Eric-ne-Mara-goli doesnt know Madhuri & Ghalib either..

OOOOH..but you wouldnt mind discussing S.Asia with him, would`nt you?!

Wassa matter? scared of increasing my knowledge? Aw c`maaan, I mean my ancestors came from Kashmir too. Who knows, we could be cousins, many generations removed..ahemmm...so what if your line of ancestors took a wrong turn (er..thats a different story)? heck, blood is thicker than water!

Pankaj #86

Comments on your post.

{The importance of the algorithm developed by the IITK people is that it is exact!!!}

`Exact` has no nontrivial meaning for a decision problem like PRIMALITY, for which the correct answer is either YES or NO. It`s not like computing Pi to so many decimal places, where approximate solutions have some value.

The significance of the AKS algorithm is that it is FAST (`polynomial-time` in the number of digits of the number being tested) and DETERMINISTIC (i.e., the algorithm always runs exactly the same way on a given input, producing the correct answer).

Prior to this breakthrough, there were fast `randomized` algorithms for primality testing but none that was deterministic. There were of course `slow` deterministic methods, such as the ones that schoolchildren know.

{Several algorithms exist on prime numbers but none of them is exact. Using the best algorithms available as of now, one can only increase the probability that the solution is correct but there is no way you could claim the solution as exact.}

The existing fast randomized algorithms for primality have the property that they always correctly say ``Yes, prime`` when presented with a prime, but incorrectly, randomly say ``Yes, prime`` less than half the time when the number is in fact non-prime. By running one of these randomized methods repeatedly, you will catch non-primes with rapidly increasing probability; thus by running it enough times you can raise your confidence in the correctness of the result to any desired level.

This is good enough for many practical applications, but doesn`t have the finality of a fast deterministic method, which is clearly the `holy grail`. What is especially neat about the AKS method is that it is elegant and simple to describe, verify and analyse (though not to find, obviously). It uses only elementary methods - nothing high-powered - and is easily understandable by a good undergraduate. In fact the second and third authors seem to be undergraduates at IITK!

{It was another great Indian mathematician Ramanujam who gave an expression for the number of primes less than a given natural number. The expression was of course an approximation but it was the best approximation of its time.}

I don`t think this is true. The `Prime Number Theorem` was proved by Hadamard and de Vallee Pousssin in the 19th century. Ramanujan, in collaboration with Hardy, came up with a celebrated EXACT formula for the number of partitions of an integer.

{It is so sad that there is no Noble prize in mathematics!!!}

There is a recognized equivalent. It is called the Fields Medal, and is awarded very four years at the International Congress of Mathematicians. There is also a Nobel-equivalent in Computer Science - the Turing award - one of whose past winners (Michael Rabin) was among other things the inventor of one of the known fast randomized primality tests.