I've been invited to...

Just checked my NUS email.
Noticed that I received an email regarding the Main Commencement Ceremony.
And on further reading of the email it says:

3. Congratulations! You have been selected by your Faculty (subject to the conferment of your degree by 30 June 2008) to be part of the privileged portion of the 2008 graduating cohort to be presented at C1 in lieu of the ceremony scheduled for your home faculty. C1 is scheduled for 7 July 2008 (Monday) at 11.00 am.

Wow!
I did not expect myself to be selected for the main ceremony.
I had read briefly before about this main ceremony where only selected graduates get to attend.
Little did I expect myself to receive the invitation too.

Now, I have to think about it.
Either
1. receive the scroll during the main ceremony from the Chancellor of NUS and sit in as an audience for my Maths dept session (faculty ceremony)
or
2. decline the invitation to main ceremony and receive scroll together with my coursemates from the Science Dean (or someone from the Science Faculty).

Which one should I go to???
Anyone can tell me?

First studio shoot

Did my first studio shoot with the East Shooters today.
Many first times.
My first outing with them,
My first studio shoot.
Model's first time too.

The model

The group shot

More of the studio shots can be found here.

Cheers,
Peiyan

New Shipment has arrived

My new orders have arrived today.
This time, the orders are mainly reading books (not textbooks).
After finish reading the book "The Man who Knew Infinity", I was craving for more books on Number Theorists.
Hence, I went to search for new books to read.
But after a few dissapointing tries on the national libraries, I decided to give up and buy the books from amazon.
I wonder who the delivery man was cos the package always land on my table when I reach home (that's bcos I'm usually home late :P)

A much smaller package this time since it contains only reading books

Book 1: The Man Who Loved Only Numbers by Paul Hoffman

Book 2: The Code Book by Simon Singh

Book 3: My Brain is Open by Bruce Schechter

There are 2 more books making their way to my house.
Should be able to get them tomorrow or on Tuesday.
2 packages, shipped on the same day, arriving on different days.

More readings to feed myself with,
Peiyan

The Man Who Knew Infinity

While in the course of learning Number Theory in MA4263, I gradually grew interest in this area of Mathematics. Through the course, Prof Chan told us many stories of famous mathematicians he has met before and stories of great mathematicians in Number Theory. There's G.H. Hardy, dela Valle Poisson, Hadarmard, Selberg, Paul Erdos, Adolf J. Hildebrand and others whom I can't recall their names. But of all, S. Ramanujan had very interesting stories about his life in becoming the greatest mathematician India has ever produced.

Overview:
Ramanujan was born in India with no proper education degree as he never manage to pass any school exams. His main interest was in mathematics, neglecting all other subjects. His only activity is sitting somewhere comfortable with his slate and pencil and noisy writings on his slate as he drift away in this mathematical thoughts. From young, Ramanujan came up with many mathematical 'results' on his own (some of which were already been found ages ago in the western part of the world while some became very interesting results as found by other mathematicians later). With no proper training in mathematics, Ramanujan did not know where he was right or wrong in his mathematical arguments. Neither did he know that some of the results which he found out by himself were already made know in the western countries.

Ramanujan tried very hard to approach many significant people in his hometown to help get his mathematics works recognised but no one could help him. It was until a letter from Ramanujan to a mathematician in Cambridge, G.H. Hardy, in which Ramanujan sort to seek help from freed up Ramanujan's mind to wonder freely into mathematics. Hardy felt that Ramanujan was a gem which has not been excavated.


Ramanujan gradually grew recognition when he went over to Cambridge to work on his notebook (which contains all the results he found) with Hardy. The results of this genius was widely spread amgonst the mathematicians in Cambridge and back in India. But Ramanujan's health took the plunge in Cambridge as the WWI came due to his strict vegetarian diet and long work whole day long with no one to take care of him.


Ramanujan died at the age of 33 due to tubercolosis.

The elmo thing you see there is acutally my bookmark.

It's so sad that such a genius man in mathematics died young.
One famous result from him is the Hardy-Ramanujan number: 1729
While sick in the hospital bed, Ramanujan could still explain the number which Hardy told him about the taxi having such a boring number plate.
It is the smallest number which can be expressed as a sum of 2 cube in two different ways.

Go borrow the book if you are interested.
I'm almost finishing mine.

Elmo zooms in to keep your spot,
Peiyan

Sushi Buffet

I've finished my last paper this morning.

The paper was bad to the extend that don't think anyone managed to complete the whole paper.
Out of 12 questions, I managed to complete 8+ questions within the 2 hours period.
And the last test question came out again and I couldn't complete the whole question.
*Damn*
The regular surface was another problem as the function was rather disgusting to get numercial values of x, y and z.


With the end of the last paper, I end my exams in NUS.
Jeanbean called me suddenly at about 3.45pm, asking me if I want to go and eat sushi buffet.
I joined him with 2 other malaysian friends at Sakae Sushi at Harborfront.
We could order anything on the menu as long as it cost $2.29.
No red plate from the sushi belt (which are tempting to go round and round pass our table).
Seriously, I think the sushi we ordered are much better in taste than those on the sushi belt.
Don't even know how long the sushi have been going round the belt.
The soft shell crab handroll was nice.
The fried tofu was delicious.

Jeanbean with mouth full posing with the 46 plates.

Aftermath of the sushi buffet.

Jeanbean and Thomas.

In total on the table, we cleared 46 plates.
But in actual fact, it should be more than 46 plates bcos they combine the plates for some of the orders.
Dessert was black sesame mochi ice-cream and watermelon.
For normal sushi, Sakae is ok.


*burp*,
Peiyan