This morning, I enjoyed a leisurely stroll towards Castlefield, where exists remnants of a Roman Fort from 200 BC. Apparently this is where the first town in Manchester sprung up, a Roman outpost called Mamucium. Across Liverpool Rd is the Museum of Science & Industry, wide collection of stuff from this former industrial capital. Inside was a very interesting expo called 1001 Inventions, which showcased the Muslim heritage and how their inventions preceded many European inventions. However, having been to a few mammoth Chinese museums, I believe the Chinese are still a whole lot more advanced than the Muslims, what more the Europeans. One thing I would give them credit for is their mathematics, funny how our current numbers has a Hindu-Arabic origin. Arabic numerals, the 1 to 9 we use today, are said to be based on the number of angles contained in each numeral. Number 1 has one angle, 2 has two angles, and so on. See for yourself:
Interesting, ain't it? And 'zero' has a pretty long history too. After that, I went to the contempory artsy URBIS, which was hosting an interesting expo about Manc city 10 yrs after the IRA bombing. However, I couldn't find the postbox which 'survived' the bombing. Further on, I stumbled into the Chinese Art Centre, before settling for a hearty fish&chips in an English cafe. An ID made in URBIS, trying to signify the lack of privacy in city life:
Tram tracks in Piccadilly Gardens (courtesy of YW), instantly reminds me of my fave Beyond song 灰色軌跡 (Grey tram tracks):
踏著灰色的軌跡 盡是深淵的水影 我已揹上一身苦困 後悔 與唏噓
你眼裡卻此刻充滿淚 這個世界已不知不覺的空虛 喔哦...不想你別去
Don't leave, indeed.
Sounds like a groovy and educational trip. Good luck with all that.
ReplyDeleteAhh.. nice to see you living it up in Manchester.
ReplyDeletehey! where's the URBIS thingy? Still on now? I want the ID!! hehee.. I think the postbox is somewhere outside NEXT.
ReplyDeleteHAven't heard from you for ages! Let's hang out next week! a short trip perhaps? hehe. I'm going back 2nd july :(
thx, at least I ain't stayin' in Notts.
ReplyDeleteJovy: URBIS is after Printworks, on the left, can't miss it. Just give us a ring la, we postgrads are super free. Where you have in mind?
To malat in-house number specialist: after reading Wiki article about the number 'zero', some thoughts: would you consider 0 to be the centre or focal point of our numbers, since our numbers span from negative infinity to positive infinity? Somehow I don't see any element of balance in the span of numbers. I happen to think our numbers will be 3-dimensional in the future. The idea that our numbers only quantify one point to another seems so limited. Could it be that 'zero' is itself the centre point of another form of metric measurement?
Not that I'm the pre-eminent malat number theorist/specialist, but if you include the complex numbers, the number field can be viewed as 2 dimensional.
ReplyDeleteLike you said, 1-d is limited. If you work in the complex plane, you can do alot of nifty things like find analytical solutions for hard to solve integrals.
For more, try borrowing a book on complex analysis.
As for 3-d, I think there are numbers called quaternions which allow you to construct 3-d numbers.
Also, as to whether 0 is the "center" of the number field... since all numbers would have infinity(of the same size) on both left and right, we cannont distinguish 0 from the rest by the method you proposed..
1) archangel, i'm teetering on the brink of going GREEN with pure envy - grrr. *knocks head on wall in frustration* i jealous about spain. so SO jealous.
ReplyDelete2) wassup with the seriously weird temperature in uk's "summer"? The Star headline: "Earth is running a slight fever". *chortle*
3) eh ya should be using this free time to go job hunting so can stay in uk and go to more super organised museum n educational expos n visit the rest of eu leh. go tour england n scotland la. see the raphael cartoons in V&A museum, ruben's super impressive ceiling @ banqueting house, the english crown jewels.
4) as u shoulda guessed, losing weight in kl isnt exactly accomplishable when one's been away for an extended period of time hahaha...
Hehe.. yeah, I'm SO jealous of the Spain trip too. :(
ReplyDeleteHEy what bout York? a historical town too. Hope you guys haven't been there. If possible, either thursday or friday? I can only have a one day trip. :( or any other suggestions? :)
All: Spain has been super-duper-funkadelic-rockin-chun. You're welcomed to go green, green, green.
ReplyDeletePermanent Head Damage (pHD) student: thx for reminding, I totally forgot bout the complex number. But I guess zero's position being the centre point is still based on our 2-d perception that the centre of two points is the arithmetic average of these points. Goodness, I think I'm losing my maths, cuz my project now also requires minimal maths. I'm doing neural networks classification problems, where this field was initially motivated to map the human brain and its thinking process.
Chubby: C'mon, you can do better than to justify that nickname?! Although I wouldn't mind seeing all the pasar malam pics you have in store hehe. *saliva drooling* And also Lang Tengah. They say summer's arrivin' late. Late my @$$!
Ex-Chandos Girl: Sounds good! I'm free on Fri, will ask CM first, he's comin' back from Notts today. Do go to URBIS to take a wicked pic of yourself haha.
How can i get that cool ID???
ReplyDeletesoon, when you come Manchester..
ReplyDelete