The Alchemy of Happiness

The Alchemy of Happiness is a wonderful book by the renowned medieval Muslim scholar, philosopher and mystic, Abu Hamid Mohammad ibn Mohamad Al-Ghazali (RA). Although Imam Ghazzalli (RA) is remembered mostly for his works in philosophy, his book, the alchemy of happiness, aims to elucidate its readers on as to how to live a happier and a more fuller life according to the tenets of Islam. Original title of the book is Kimiya-yi saadat. The book has many chapters that are divided into four main parts.

Mainly the book discusses various forms of worship including prayers and dhikr. A significant portion of the book deals with the various aspects concerning human relations. The most interesting thing about the book is that discusses various spiritual and psychological problems and their cure. Emotional problems an individual can have such as hate, anger, spite, envy and jealousy etc. are discussed and their cures are suggested.  For instance, the author suggests simple cures such as to praise the person for whom one has jealousy in his/her heart. To this end, the book is also a very good resource for learning about emotional intelligence.

The Conquest of Happiness

Conquest of Happiness is a very interesting and a wonderful book by Bertrand Russell. Bertrand Russell was one of the most prominent intellectuals of the early twentieth century. His major domains were philosophy and mathematics. However, this book is about life. Particularly, the book lists many tips and tactics for acquiring happiness in life and for developing a happier and a more content personality. Apart from its contents, the book is also very well written and is a good resource for anyone willing to improve their reading comprehension of the English language. There are many good examples in the book through which Russell has tried to persuade his readers to live with a simpler lifestyle. The book also gives a reflection of the simplistic mindset that Bertrand Russell had.

The most interesting thing about the book is where the author gives and example regarding struggle for survival. I do not remember the story verbatim, but it somewhat goes like this. Russell gives the example of a businessman living in a big city such as London. He spends most of his time with his work. He is so much workaholic that he hardly has time for his spouse and children. He leaves home early in the morning and comes back much late at night. On work he spends most of his time devising strategies in order to beat his business rivals. This is how his life goes on. Russell suggests that if you ask such a man on as to why he works so hard? The usual answer would be that he has to struggle for survival. Russell argues that this is not struggle for survival. Russell then gives an example of two friends stuck on a wrecked ship. Everyone except them has died on the ship. In order to feed themselves to stay alive they have eaten up all the corpses. Their plight is now such that in order to remain alive one of them would have to eat the other. This, Bertrand Russell argues, is struggle for survival.

There are many other interesting things in the book and avuncular advice to his readers for achieving happiness. For instance, Russell suggests that achieving happiness is not a one day endeavor. Rather it should be acquired over time and should be considered as a lifetime goal. Among other things Russell also argues that one should never feel guilty or remorseful from the point of view of having committed a sin. Although Russell asserted that he would explain his rationale somewhere latter in the book, as far as I remember he did not do it.

Overall the book is very nicely written and despite the fact that it is very old, it is still very much relevant for everyone to read.

Stratfor

Many people try to understand the world affairs through various sources such an news, newspapers, gossip and conspiracy theories. This normally leads to more conspiracy theories. People end up having either no understanding of the reasons for things happening around the world or they develop a foggy view of affairs at best. This lack of objective development of opinions can be further obscured by cultural conditioning. For instance, many people in the Muslim world would presume that the U.S. has a hand in the recent chemical attacks in Syria, while being oblivious of the ideological humanitarian struggle that has refrained the former from going to war or attacking the latter in response to the chemical attacks. Although, at least apparently, the two phenomena are quite orthogonal. Indeed, the way things are understood can be painful and ridiculous. It is a pity! Similarly, one may wonder what, for instance, the Europeans actually think about the role Russians have played in averting any possible air, or whatever, strikes. Indeed, there could be many misunderstandings.

Startfor addresses such misconceptions and misunderstandings very effectively through its weekly geopolitical analysis reports. Stratfor, as the name suggests, is a syncronym for strategic forecast. It is a Washington based think tank. It covers almost any situation in the world that may have any significant impact on the geopolitics of the world. Irrespective of whether it is an economic situation arising in Europe, a military situation raising its head in Afghanistan, a hurricane that may affect American trade or a political handshake in China that may affect the export of toys elsewhere and its consequence on global economy, Stratfor tries to explain that through its own vantage point of objectivity. Overall stratfor is quite objective in its treatment of various issues it picks. Stratfor can also be quite blunt and surprising in the way it explains a situation. It appears that the major objective of Stratfor is to talk about ulterior motives of nations.

The most noteworthy thing about Stratfor is the way its CEO, George Friedman, writes about any geopolitical situation. Apart from the content about the matter, the articles are interesting to read in their own right. That means that apart from his choice of topics, the way he writes is quite inspiring. Usually he starts off with a random phrase or a thought and then slowly builds his argument in the light of examples, limitations and lessons from history. The choice of words and the structure and flow of article keep the reader engaged till the end of the read. And the most fascinating thing is the way he ends his discourse.

Machine Learning

Machine Learning by Tom M. Mitchell is the first text book for students who aspire to learn the subject of machine learning. It presents detailed and easy to understand illustrations of various concepts that are used in the field of machine learning. These include, necessary topics concerning probability and statistics, artificial intelligence, neural networks and evolutionary algorithms. 

The best thing about the book is its illustration of feed-forward, back-propagation, multi-layer perceptron (MLP). The good thing about it is that the underlying mathematical concepts are explained in a layman friendly manner. One learns techniques for computing partial derivatives and the chain rule for differentiation for the first time in high-school calculus without having any apparent and significant practical benefit. Their utility becomes clear when one reads and understands how the MLP works. More precisely, Mitchell explains how partial derivatives are computed with respect to the weight coefficients at every step of the MLP so as to guide the gradient descent algorithm to plunge into some locally or globally optimal solution. Similarly, Mitchell shows the significance of applying the chain rule to derive weight coefficients at every layer and node of the MLP with respect to the input values at its first layer. The whole explanation is quite fascinating and exciting.

Mitchell also introduces and covers the complicated topic of evolutionary algorithms in a very nice way. Initially various concepts surrounding genetic algorithms are introduced in a lucid manner to make the student comfortable with the subject. Mitchell then illustrates genetic programming. Other important and interesting algorithms are also discussed. For instance, coverage of the famous simulated annealing algorithm is quite interesting. The book is an excellent guide for any student who has began to learn machine learning. 

Fractals

One of the possible sources through which one comes across a knowledge about fractals is the study of Internet traffic behavior. Internet traffic can be said to behave in a self-similar manner. Self-similarity means that given a network traffic trace, the pattern of variability of various network metrics, such as end-to-end delay or variance, at various time-scales does not exhibit any change. In other words it means that given a time-series of network statistics, no-matter how much you zoom-in or zoom-out of  that time-series, the pattern you observe is the same.

Internet traffic behaves in such a way due to various reasons. Self-similarity is modeled using heavy-tailed or long-range statistical distributions. A heavy tailed distribution is one which has its hump on one side and it is skewed to another side. Its tail is rather thick and that is probably why it is called heavy. They are normally classified as belonging to some exponential family of statistical distributions. Pareto and Weibull distributions are examples of such statistical distributions. It has a finite mean and an infinite variance. It is the consequence of this infinite variance that anything modeled through it exhibits a self-similar behavior as described above. I presume that if something like a time-series of internet delays has an infinite variance, it will exhibit the same type of variability no-matter what time-scales you choose to look at it. This makes it self-similar.

The simplest way of understanding self-similarity is usually proposed to be the study of fractals or fractal art. A fractal in fractal art is a piece of art that apart from its aesthetic appeal has one additional quality. That quality is that if one zoom's in or out of the picture, one gets to see the same pattern repeating as was seen in the previous step.

Awaken the Giant Within

I was recommended to read Awaken the Giant Within, written by Anthony Robbins, a long time ago by a close friend. The book was recommended for learning about acquiring better emotional health. I have to admit that I could not put the book down as soon as I started reading it. It is a very fascinating and motivating book. It describes many methods for becoming emotionally healthy. Along with that it also provides guidelines for acquiring good physical health and for becoming financially sound. However, it is mainly focused on emotional health which, in my opinion, is also the best thing about the book.

The author takes a multi-pronged approach to rehabilitate the emotional health of its readers. It tells motivating stories about the lives of people who at some points in their lives were stuck in extraordinary circumstances. They eventually liberated themselves of their misery because of things like courage, motivation, dedication and hope. Indeed it is quite encouraging to read audacious stories about people who had a multiple personality disorder with around hundreds of altars, or of people who were stuck in concentration camps during the holocaust.

The book also offers practical tools such as neuro-associated conditioning (NAC). Following such methods and tools can definitely affect a person's personality in better ways. Among many fascinating things about the book, one is the power and ability of any person to change his/her state of mind extremely quickly. That no matter in whatever state of mind a person is, one can change that within an instant. Although there are many quotes in the book that affect a person immediately. But the one I liked the most is: Change your focus, change your life. 

The goal of the book is to make the reader to learn to become a happier and a more prosperous person. The main emotion one experiences while reading the book is that of euphoria. Anthony Robbins has indeed done a great job by writing such a marvelous book.

Understanding Digital Signal Processing

Understanding digital signal processing (DSP) can both be intriguing and frightening in the beginning. The mathematics involved in various integral transforms can turn off many teachers. The mysterious domain transformations can fascinate many a novice. For a long time as a graduate student I was amazed by the underlying idea behind transformation of a digital signal from time domain to frequency domain. I simply could not understand how it happened. After going through many lectures and books, I eventually came across Understanding Digital Signal Processing by Richard G Lyons. 

Understanding Digital Signal Processing (DSP) treats the subject in a way no other author or teacher has ever done. The best thing about the book is that elucidates the various and many key concepts of DSP in an extremely layperson friendly manner.  It is quite inspiring to learn with the help of examples on as to what the various transforms and transfer functions do with a digital signal. One has a great eureka moment when one learns that the Fourier transform is basically a cross-correlation function. In order to know the strength of a particular frequency component in a multi-spectral signal, the signal is simply corss-correlated with another signal of that particular frequency. This is a very enlightening way to learn about the Fourier transform.

There are many other cherish-able ideas in the book. For instance, to know that a FIR filter is basically a smoothing function. Similarly, the rationale behind choosing a particular Nyquist's sampling rate is also quite informative. The reasons for having bell-shaped windowing functions and their linkage with spectral leakage is also explained in a very nice manner. Other topics like the Z-transform, or IIR filtering are also covered in a very nice way.

 Understanding digital signal processing can is the best book for anyone who wants to learn DSP from the ground up. It is also quite suitable for anyone who is an expert but wants a revision of concepts. It is specially useful for learning the key concepts of DSP and for developing a transparency in the mind about what actually happens to the signal when it is transformed from one domain to another. Any person who wants to learn DSP should definitely read Understanding Digial Signal Processing by Richard G Lyons. Understanding digital signal processing (DSP) can both be intriguing and frightening in the beginning. The mathematics involved in various integral transforms can turn off many teachers. The mysterious domain transformations can fascinate many a novice. For a long time as a graduate student I was amazed by the underlying idea behind transformation of a digital signal from time domain to frequency domain. I simply could not understand how it happened. After going through many lectures and books, I eventually came across Understanding Digital Signal Processing by Richard G Lyons. 

Understanding Digital Signal Processing (DSP) treats the subject in a way no other author or teacher has ever done. The best thing about the book is that elucidates the various and many key concepts of DSP in an extremely layperson friendly manner.  It is quite inspiring to learn with the help of examples on as to what the various transforms and transfer functions do with a digital signal. One has a great eureka moment when one learns that the Fourier transform is basically a cross-correlation function. In order to know the strength of a particular frequency component in a multi-spectral signal, the signal is simply corss-correlated with another signal of that particular frequency. This is a very enlightening way to learn about the Fourier transform.

There are many other cherish-able ideas in the book. For instance, to know that a FIR filter is basically a smoothing function. Similarly, the rationale behind choosing a particular Nyquist's sampling rate is also quite informative. The reasons for having bell-shaped windowing functions and their linkage with spectral leakage is also explained in a very nice manner. Other topics like the Z-transform, or IIR filtering are also covered in a very nice way.

 Understanding digital signal processing can is the best book for anyone who wants to learn DSP from the ground up. It is also quite suitable for anyone who is an expert but wants a revision of concepts. It is specially useful for learning the key concepts of DSP and for developing a transparency in the mind about what actually happens to the signal when it is transformed from one domain to another. Any person who wants to learn DSP should definitely read Understanding Digial Signal Processing by Richard G Lyons. The book is particularly suitable for the mathematics shy.

Gora

The Urdu word "Gora" literally means "white man" in English. Its feminine counterpart "gori" means a white woman. The word is commonly and quite frequently used to refer to an average white person of a Western origin. Particularly, it is used to refer to European and American white men. But it would not be an exaggeration to include people from other racial backgrounds, like the Chinese and the Japanese, to form a generalization. In short, the word gora can be used to refer to a person belonging to any of the advanced countries. In a literal sense it is used to refer to a white man of Caucasian background.  

It is not uncommon to hear mentions of gora in normal everyday discussions in Pakistan. Gora did this, gora did that. Gora is a genius. Gora is creative. Gora has better laws in his country. Gora has better values. Gora is humane. Gora is humble. Gora is funny. Gora is fun. Gora is simple. Gora is honest. Gora is innocent. Gora's science. Gora's research. Gora's technology. Gora's ideas. Gora is not jealous. Gora is not wicked. Gora's this and gora's that. Indeed, gora can sometimes be discussed in Pakistan like  the way shrimps were cherished by Bubba in Forrest Gump.  

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the gora has earned this good reputation and respect among the Muslim societies due to his/her superior character of the personality. Gora can be discussed in many diverse circles and places, ranging from markets to mosques. Indeed, many Muslims believe that should the gora recite the testimony of purity and convert to Islam, he/she would be a better Muslim than them already. Muslims claim to have with them a code of the most supreme morality in the form of Quran and Sunnah. It is a pity that the values of Quran and Sunnah are not practiced by the Muslims as the way they should be. They, nonetheless, find a practical implementation of these values in the life of a gora. Muslims, however, appreciate this strength of character. 

The Muslim Way of Speaking

Speech and language are essential and important components of human communication. Societies have evolved many languages over the course of human evolution. Currently there is a large number of languages and dialects that are spoken on our planet that may be believed to range between being euphonious to cacophonous. The manner in which a person speaks reflects on how genteel and humane he/she is. In civilized communities it is considered a norm to speak in a sweet-sounding manner. It may be thought that the early civilized societies may have had a tradition of learning to speak well too. To be able to speak is a great blessing of Allah Almighty indeed. But it is not difficult to find a widespread abuse of this blessing in everyday life. It is not uncommon to come across conversations that are full of swearing, cursing, profanity and slandering.

The Muslim Way of Speaking addresses this problem in a comprehensive, eloquent and lucid manner. The book is written by renowned Muslim scholar Harun Yahya. The book is available for download on his personal website and can be read online too. The book is also available for purchase on online stores like Barnes and Noble and Amazon.

The book is written from an increasingly Islamic perspective. It takes examples from Quran and Hadith on  as to how to speak and address people in normal everyday discourse. First of all it emphasizes on the importance of praising Almighty Allah in speech and to call Him through His beautiful names. It advises to speak with the knowledge that Allah is with the speaker at every moment. It warns not to associate others else with Allah. It is advised to speak in the knowledge of one's helplessness in the face of Allah and that no task can be performed without the will of Allah. Quran should be employed as a guide in speech. One should speak in the certainty of fate and the truth that there is good in everything. Allah should be trusted in all the situations.

One should speak with the awareness that life of this world is transitory. One should have concern in his speech for what is lawful and what is unlawful. One should avoid the style of speech that is influenced by Satan and one should seek refuge of Satan from Allah. One should enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong. One should speak with wisdom, sincerity, truthfulness, sensibly and logically. One should also give good tidings.

One should speak so as to arouse joy and enthusiasm. One should say what is best. One should not speak under the influence of the mean inner self and by being motivated by personal desires. A person's speech should be measured, courteous and respectful. Humility should be a cornerstone of good speech. Similarly, while speaking one should have an attitude of tolerance and forgiveness. Consultation should be a major part of intercommunication. One should make frequent references to one's disposition about submission to the will of Allah and to acknowledge that there is no strength but in Allah. It is very important to adopt good manners while speaking to one's parents. Backbiting and gossiping behind people's backs should also be abandoned. Suspicion and slander should be abandoned. Similarly mocking and ridiculing people should be discouraged and abandoned. One should not speak out of covetousness and envy. One should not speak in vein and make empty and trivial statements. One should not interrupts others speech and on their own turn they should speak calmly. A very important point is to adopt the manner of speech that is appropriate to the level of knowledge of the person that is being addressed. Speaking hypocritically should be avoided at all costs. A way of speech that gives rise to doubts should be avoided. A manner of speech that is probing and prying should be avoided. The statements that lead to evil should be avoided. Obfuscation should be avoided and secret and meetings should not be held. One should speak so as to defend and support our prophet Hazrat Muhammad (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him).

Finally the books lists the advantages of adopting such meritorious traits in one's speech and the author presents the conclusion. The last chapter of the book is deception of evolution. It is dedicated to addressing Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection. It tries to show with the help of logic, and in the light of relevant literature review on as to how the materialist theory of evolution presented by Charles Darwin is wrong and flawed. 

Overall I have found the book to be a very enjoyable read. It is well written and the quality and amount of material presented in the book is quite balanced and enlightening. I found this book while I was looking for literature regarding neural basis for language, speech and accent production. Although I could not find anything of that sort in the book, I believe that the book is an excellent resource for behavioral rehabilitation.  

Power of Unity

Following article in the August, 2013 issue of Ubqari magazine is particularly interesting and eye catching. This was written by Maulana Waheed-ud-deen Khan. I remember having posted another article by him earlier in December, 2012. That was about the importance of tolerance. I find this article important because it illustrates the importance of unity in our life and does so with the example of two European astronomers namely, Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe. The article is written below. It is quite interesting to note that the Ubqari magazine is getting better and better by the day. The writers in the magazines write articles for encouragement and motivation by taking examples from diverse cultural backgrounds. It is also quite interesting that the author may certainly have read about the works of the two characters of the following article. Johannes Kepler's name may be well known to many, as I remember that we come across this name in our high school physics. But I am sure that Danish Tycho Brahe is not a very well known name, although his significance in the history of cosmology cannot be undermined. It is interesting to have read his mention in the magazine.

Nonetheless, Ubqari magazine is a treat for everyone. It is an increasingly Islamic magazine that tries to teach all of the humanity as to how to co-exist peacefully. It is being published in a time while a great proportion of humanity is quite confused, and not least of the causes of this confusion is religion. Ubqari invites people to Islam and its magazine is worth reading and the sermons worth listening to. The article is as follows:

No person can do anything tremendous alone. But united struggle has a price. And that price is to overlook the differences and to unite on the common interests.

Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler were contemporaries. But one thing had become an obstacle for both of them in a significant discovery related to astronomy. That was that none of them had complete expertise on every corner of their respective scientific fields. Tycho Brahe had made a plenty of observations in astronomy. He used to keep writing his observations. He had collected a large volume of a written treasure related to the observations about astronomy. But the second aspect about the knowledge of astronomy is related to mathematics. But Tycho Brahe was weak in mathematics.

On the other hand the situation with Johannes Kepler was that he did not have any expertise in astronomical observations. His only specialty was that he was an expert in mathematics. And from a mathematical point of view he had formulated many precious ideas about astronomy. 

Although Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe had personal differences. So much so that in one of his letters, Johannes Kepler had accused Tycho Brahe of hypocrisy and had bad-mouthed him. But Tycho Brahe did not become angry with Kepler despite being short tempered. At the last moment of his life he thought that only Johannes Kepler can be a better inheritor of his knowledge treasure. Thus, he invited Kepler to himself while forgetting all of his rudeness. And in 1601 he gave all of his educational treasure to Johannes Kepler without seeking any reward in return. When all the stock of Tycho Brahe's observations reached Kepler, the deficiency of Kepler was addressed. Now he applied all the mathematical powers of his mind to associate them with these observations. The result of this came out in these three principles which are known as Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion.

This is the secret to a great success in the present world. Every man has a limited knowledge. And based on this any single person cannot do something tremendous alone. But united effort has a price. And that price is to overlook the differences and to unite on common interest. To unite with people despite the differences. This, indeed, is dignity and generosity.

The Code Book

After having read Simon Singh's Fermat's Last Theorem and Big Bang it is inevitable that one would go on to read The Code Book too. As the name suggests the book is about the history and evolution of the science of encryption. Apart from being a difficult subject, cryptography can come across as boring and lackluster. But Simon Singh knows how to treat his audience well. The Code Book takes its reader on to a roller coaster ride in to the wonderland of cryptography. In the book Mr. Singh chronicles the development of the science of cryptography and crypt-analysis from the times of ancient Romans and Egyptians all the way to our current times and quantum cryptography. During the course he records all the important events and hallmarks in the history of cryptography. The effect cryptography has had on the lives, wars, liberty and the geopolitical landscape of our times is described in a revealing way.

The Code Book begins with the Romans involvement with early forms of cryptography. Julius Caesar's secret military writings are discussed. It distinguishes between cryptography and crypt-analysis. It also elucidates the role of Arabs in the development of crypt-analysis and a few old methods of cipher analysis. It then goes on to discuss the clandestine plot of Mary queen of Scots to assassinate the British Queen Elizabeth. The assassination plot was deciphered by Queen Elizabeth and she had the former beheaded. At its climax, it moves on to the stage of world war 2 and a significant portion of the book is devoted to the developments concerning the deciphering of Germans' enigma codes. The efforts of Allen Turing and his contemporaries, on both sides, are worth reading.

The author then brings right in to our very own era of so-called modern cryptography. Here the author discusses the evolution of various techniques such as RSA, PGP and public-key cryptography. The author also discusses various philosophical, ethical and moral issues concerning personal privacy in our times. In particular, the discussion on the trade-of between the level of personal privacy and the level of information gathering by the law enforcement agencies is discussed from the point of view of security.

The final chapter concludes by speculating about the future of cryptography and discusses and analyses the potential of quantum cryptography. Here again the author has done a commendable effort to elucidate some of the intricate concepts in quantum physics, specially superposition, and to analyse their relevance with quantum computing and cryptography. Simon Singh has a very inspiring style of writing about popular science. All of his books are written with much lucidity and eloquence. The pace of the plot is fast while not compromising the fine details. A person who opens the book once and set's off to reading looses track of his/her diurnal chores, looses track of time and would find it hard to close the book before the last page is reached. Anyone who would read The Code Book would fall in love with cryptography.

Big Bang

I developed an addiction for popular science after reading Simon Singh's Fermat's Last Theorem. Afterwards I got hold of his Big Bang. This time I didn't borrow it from the library, rather I bought it for my personal collection of nice books.

The book takes a modest start by describing the earlier notions held by the ancient people of Greece, Perisa and Egypt about the nature and origin of the universe. After setting the stage for a keen discussion on the subjects of cosmology and astronomy, the author lands his readers right in to the lives and works of middle and post-middle age scientists. 

Simon Singh has a remarkable storytelling talent. The manner in which he narrates the history and development of any scientific enterprise keeps the reader spellbound till the last page, and for several subsequent days. The story is never less attractive than any bestselling thriller. Actually, the plot moves so swiftly while hopping over people and evolution of ideas that before the reader gets a chance to contemplate over any particular idea, he/she is ridden to a next more exciting one. Yet at the same time the fine details about the crucial concepts are not compromised. Everything is explained in an extremely lucid manner. And the biographies of the people involved make the whole narrative all the more interesting.

Big bang describes the works of notable scientists like Albert Einstein, Johannes Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo, Tycho Brahe and Ptolemy etc. The list goes on. It discusses the times and circumstances in which these people lived. The hardships they had to suffer. The theories which they challenged or developed. Their confrontation with the bureaucracy and the popularly held beliefs. And consequently how the various theories about the existence of universe evolved. The book is also interesting as it educates its reader not only about the nature of cosmology, but also about the intricate interplay between science with other realms of human existence, such as religion. 

Johannes Kepler

I can never forget having read this book for another reason too. I read this book while in various European cities. These include, Limerick, Vienna, Salzburg and Graz. I particularly remember that while I was reading about Johannes Kepler and his work, I was sitting in a garden in Graz. And when I finished reading the chapter concerning him, I noticed that there stood a statue of him in front of me. Similarly, I remember that read about the steady state model and its comparison with the big bang model on a hilltop in Graz on which I had gotten to through a lift. There were many people around me but I was practically oblivious about their existence. I read about the CMB (cosmic microwave background) on my way back to Limerick in a bus. These vivid memories are unforgettable and romantic.

Big bang is a must read for every student of science. Once you will read it, you will fall in love with cosmology. And you would also want to live the rest of your life as a cosmologist or an astronomer.

Fermat's Last Theorem

I read Simon Singh's Fermat's Last Theorem in 2007. It was recommended to me by a dear friend as a cure to boredom. I was reluctant about reading it in the beginning. My shyness with mathematics was the main reason. I nonetheless got it from the library and once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down till the time I reached the last page. And when I finished it, I was expecting more. I was sad to see it end.

Fermat's Last Theorem is a story about many stories. First and foremost, it is a story about a mathematical problem that ensued from the ancient Pythagorean theorem. Fermat's Last theorem is basically a generalized version of the Pythagoras theorem. It suggests that whole numbered solutions for the higher order Pythagorean equation do not exist. The theorem was proposed by a French mathematician Pierre De Fermat who lived between 1601 and 1665.

It has stories about many mathematicians starting from Pythagoras himself and finishing at Andrew Wiles. The latter spent a significant portion of his life is trying to come up with a proof for the enigmatic theorem. He eventually succeeded. The way in which Andrew and a myriad of his predecessors approached to solve the mystery is absolutely epic and is the subject of this book.

Stories of many mathematicians are told not only from the point of view of their works' relevance to the Fermat's theorem, but also about their personal lives. It is very interesting and motivating to read the stories of some of the mathematicians who grew out of humble circumstances and became some of the most renowned people of all times. Some of the notable people among these are Laplace, Fourier, Galois, Yutaka Taniyama and Goro Shimua, to name but a few. 

The book also has lucid and eloquent explanations of various mathematical concepts and how they evolved over time. For instance, the book explains the generalization ability and importance of a mathematical theorem and its proof. Other topics such as group theory and elliptic curves are also introduced in a layperson friendly way.

Reading this book was one of the best experiences of my life. It kindled an interest about reading and knowing more about various disciplines of science and mathematics. After reading this I went on to read other works of Simon Singh, whose thrilling storytelling style vitalizes any narrative he wishes to tell. Any person who would read Fermat's Last Theorem would fall in love with number theory, at least for a while.

Rooftop Gardens

The idea of having a garden on the roof of one's house is a cool one. It struck me for the first time when I read an account of India's Narendra Modi's endeavors to install solar grids over the canals of Gujarat, the province of which he is the CM. Installing solar grids over the canals has two additional benefits along with electricity generation. It saves land space, which can be used for other purposes such as agriculture. Secondly, it saves substantial amount of canal water from being evaporated. Projects involving solar energy have great potential in Asian countries like India, Pakistan and other middle eastern countries, which can have very hot climate specially in the summer months. Indeed, when installed on rooftops they could also be beneficial in reducing the indoor ambient temperature of a house or a similar facility. But solar panels are not viably cheap so that everyone can afford them. However, the idea of installing them over canals or on rooftops has additional benefits as discussed above. 

A cheap alternative to having solar panels over one's house is to plant a rooftop garden. Obviously they would not generate electricity. However, they will offer at least three other benefits. First of them is, of course, that the gardener would reap his/her own homegrown vegetables. The second is that it will lower the indoor temperature of the house as rooftop plantation would absorb much of the solar heat from allowing it to penetrate in the house. There is a third very crucial benefit too specially for a country like Pakistan. Pakistan is basically an agricultural country. However, much of its agricultural traditions are being ruined for one reason or the other. One of the reasons is population growth itself. A consequence of that is that a substantial amount of arable land that was once used for agriculture is gradually being converted to habitations. Thus, reducing the land that was available for agriculture. Adopting rooftop gardens would revive significant portion of that land for household horticulture. Growing organic vegetables on one's own roof would also be cheap and healthy. There is a fourth benefit too of having an orchard on one's own roof. Developing a rooftop garden can also be a way of testing and honing one's aesthetic sense about gardening.

Rooftop gardening is quite common in western and other Asian countries. It has, however, not been adopted in Pakistan so far. Of the many reasons a common one is that we as Pakistanis are shy of adopting new ideas quickly. Fear of taking initiative is another common cause. Developing rooftop gardens can have many benefits both personally for the owner and the community as a whole. It can also be anticipated that developing rooftop gardens can be much cheaper and would not require much paraphernalia. Here is a good link to useful advice on developing rooftop gardens.

Wisdom of the Alchemist

I read Paulo Coelho's, "The Alchemist" back in year 2000. It was given to me by a friend, Salman Ateeque, who lives somewhere in Africa now. The book has many wise anecdotes told by the Alchemist to Santiago. I am writing one here from memory and it is followed by what I thought about it then. The story is not stated here verbatim as I tend to forget bits of it but the central theme and details are hopefully true.

Somewhere in the middle of the book the Alchemist tells Santiago a story of a person who used to live in the Roman Empire. The person had a dream in which, possibly an angel, told him that one of his two sons would grow up to be very famous. When the man woke up he thought that it would be the poet son who would become famous for his poetry and it could not be the other son as he was in the army. It turned out the the son who was in the army progressed to become a centurion. And on a military campaign when one of his soldiers got badly injured he was advised by his fellow men to travel to middle east to a man who cured lepers. The centurion did so and eventually met Jesus Christ (probably but I am not sure, it could some other religious figure). He begged Jesus for his soldier's health and the words he used latter became a prayer. That was the reason for his fame.

At that time two things surprised me. The first was that as the father saw the dream he suspected the poet to be famous. It was strange for me to imagine that the father would think like that. For me it was natural to think that the one in army would become famous. After all army officials get to positions of prestige eventually and Roman Empire, for the large part, was a military oriented regime. It was strange to think that father would consider the poet to be lucky. But that probably owes to the fact that I am from Pakistan, where the profession of armed forces is considered much prestigious.

The other thing I inferred was that it is not necessary that whatever one thinks would come out to be true. The father thought about one son, whereas the other one became famous. This can be observed normally in rural areas of Pakistan when parents normally decide as to what the son is destined to do when he grows up even while the son is in the cradle. And depending upon the looks of the child he/she is either sent to a better school or a not so good one. And normally the instrument used for this judgement is the wise gaze of an elderly paternal figure.

Doom of the Jinn

Much earlier in my life, like when I was 6 or 7 years old, I saw a play on television titled "jinn ka zawwaal", which literally means "Doom of the Jinn". The play was symbolic and had the following plot.

A funny looking lean guy is sitting in his room with a lamp in his hand. He rubs the lamp and all of a sudden a giant, scary looking, really big, black man with horns in his head and a painted face appears in front of the lean guy and asks in his rather loud voice. "What can I do for you my master". Clearly, he is a jinn. The owner of the lamp, at first, gets frightened at his sudden appearance and shivers. The jinn tries to calm him down and somehow convinces him that he is his subservient as he owns the lamp and would do anything he demanded of him. After a while, after regaining composure, the gaunt guy, due to lack of a better idea, asked him to iron the clothes. The jinn got confused a little but then fulfilled the wish and disappeared.

As the play progressed the gaunt guy found an interest in the utility of the jinn and kept on rubbing the lamp again and again. And every time the jinn appeared before him and asked for his command, the gaunt guy told him to do trivial things, such as washing the clothes, polishing the shoes and doing the dishes. After a few episode breaks and after a few appearances the jinn started shrinking in size. By the end of the play he stood in the corner of the room having a size of a midget, pale and melancholic, ironing the clothes. The play subsequently ended. At that time it was more funny than horrific.

The play was probably symbolic in nature, as I latter thought about it as I grew older, like in the mid twenties. To me the jinn was probably synonymous for other things, such as mental faculties. As opposed to doing things such as polishing the shoes, the jinn expected to be building castles with in the blink of an eye, or to aid in long distance traveling in a really short period of time. As the gaunt guy was using him for trivial things such as polishing the shoes, the jinn not only got depressed, he also started shrinking. Such is probably the case with human expansive abilities.

At that time scripts for plays and drama serials were written with much creative vigor by people who used to obtain formal training in poetic and prosaic literature. The play was cast on Pakistan Television.