The onset

Today was madness- Evidently I was slightly off in my last assumption, Uni is indeed a simple thing after all-

Simply hard, that is.

We started off with a nice simple pendulum. Nice bobby thing that does simple harmonic motion, and measures time fairly accurately. Pretty linear motion, very deterministic, very very simple.

Plot a graph of velocity against time, plot a graph of angular deflection against time, now plot a graph of angle deflection against velocity.... okay- those are sec 4 physics, a bit rusty but I can make do with what i still remember.

Now, class- imagine the length varies sinusoidally too. Imagine its a child on a swing: when the swing goes up he tucks in his legs, and when he comes down he stretches his legs to propel himself. Quite understandable, the child does some work to increase momentum and acceleration. Not yet, now imagine the hulk did the same on a swing, keeping his stretching and extending constant like another sine curve all the time.

okay, chaos sticks in..... same graph of angle deflection against velocity, except it now looks a little bit off.

Piss Mr hulk off and make him work harder dudes- let the hulk pendulum go all over around the world! watch the graph! Says Mr Lecturer.

HUH?? The graph got psychotic, and Jesse went along. Just when I got to understand what was going on, Mr Lecturer zoomed in a corner of the graph (called a map) and rotated it 45 degrees! Suddenly there was a new X and Y axis and what was diagonal was now vertical. Okay, they are compressing from here (vertical) to there (horizontal)... Okay man... this is freaky- this is my threshold of comprehension man, you can stop right here right now....

Nope- u gotta calculate it... Matrices came out (what>?!), divergence means unsteady, convergence means steady.... now English came out... "Homoclinic points", "stable and unstable manifolds"... Moral of the story?

(X {n+1})= A{n}X{o}, A is the matrix {waddddd}

English- cheem
Mathematics- Unorthodoxy (kinda revenge of the O levels, cuz its ultimately sec 4 stuff)
Concepts- still chaotic in essence (no puns intended)


OKAY- STOP, I DUN WANNA HEAR ANYMORE!!!!


I asked around after class- mainly to the guys there were of the first year too, since I guess they also have no clue what on earth was going on after two years of 'waiting for further instructions'. Some of them regretted taking up this module. Some of them felt like dropping the subject after they went through this psychotic lecture... they said its possible to appeal out since its special terms and stuff, and probably they are right.

But there was this year 2 guy who was really helpful- he said it was quite easy actually, although he said that his understanding might not be complete. Later we sat down and actually managed to prove the whole thing out again before playing l4d on his lap top. (you go to uni to play left 4 dead? have you gone psycho with the lecture Jesse?)

Nope. Indeed, what really matters ultimately is conquering this madness. We could take the easy way out and just drop the idea- or we could stick through it and kick its ass. Yes, either way will help us not to see this problem again, But dropping the subject at the first term is not something I would consider a positive conquest of the subject at hand-

Yeap, uni is going to be though- psychotically tough, conceptually at the very least. But new knowledge was never meant to be simple, because if we could find existing concepts to explain and deduce new knowledge then it won't be really new in essence after all right?

But to really learn new things (and want to learn new things) is to stick it through while enjoying the new madness that keeps coming at our faces.

Its also interesting to note that much of my current module is counter-intuitive. If we were to paint a mental picture of the thing to explain the logic we're end up with a soup of really unpredictable... things that will reflect in the motion of our eyes (@.@). Well the moral of the story ( i got) today is this advice:

When intuition fails (like in the case of this lecture), stick to deterministic logic (at least you know you are right). When logic seemingly fails- when the odds are just logically overwhelming, or when studying gets psychotic, the intuitive experience (and appreciation) can help convict the self.

Little tidbit from my other psycho blog, oh well- they are all thoughts of a deranged mind after all.

Whats the moral of the story Jesse? Let me quote you Left 4 Dead:

Stick together and stay alive dudes. Alright ladies, we've got tanks....