Turing's Cathedral

The computer that von Neumann built at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) was not the first computer, but it was probably the most influential. Turing's Cathedral is its story and of much else.

To get a feel for computing circa 1945, let's start by relating the well known fact that 'computer' at this time meant a person (usually a woman) performing calculations with the aid of mechanical desk calculators. The proposal for ENIAC (a well known predecessor) coined the term 'computor' to refer to a machine (which seems not to have caught on though). The architecture of ENIAC with its 20 accumulators was in fact a replication of the setup where 20 human computers were performing their part of a calculation and passing results back and forth; effectively a distributed algorithm migrated from human nodes to electronic ones (Incidentally, with humans storage was cheap but multiplication expensive. With ENIAC the situation was reversed, and all the algorithms had to be revised.) The architecture that has become familiar since, with a CPU, hierarchical memory etc, was what the IAS computer pioneered. Moving to hardware, consider the memory unit. The IAS computer had 1024 forty bit words of memory, a fortune at the time. The basis for implementation was an oscilloscope tube, which was on its way to evolve as CRT display. Wide surface of the tube was divided in a 32 by 32 grid, each referring to a binary digit, accessible via appropriate deflections of the electron beam for both reading and writing, with a 24us access time. Forty such tubes operating in parallel, and with corresponding locations in each together forming a single (40 bit) word was how the memory functioned. The machine was built out of vacuum tubes, since the transistor was not yet invented and binary digits were referred to as bd's, as the word ‘bit’ was not yet invented either. It had an instruction set (unlike the ENIAC where (at least initially) the instruction set was implemented as plugboard settings), and each word would contain an opcode, as well as an address (the famous von Neumann architecture). On the software side, in its ~5KB memory, the machine was used to run climate simulation models, simulations of gene-like replicators, and of course lots of secret weapons calculations. von Neumann was quick to see the possibilities of a universal machine (once Turing had laid the  groundwork) and went about building his machine as a scientific instrument, away from both industry and government. He actively put all the information in public domain, allowing a number of replicas to emerge and the ideas to be improved upon.

The book is ‘intensely human’ (as one reviewer put it) at its core and introduces a remarkable cast of characters. There is von Neumann of course, who made significant contributions to mathematics, physics, economics, computing, and much else. Less well known is his wife, Klara, one of the original programmers of the machine. Julian Bigelow was the main engineer, the person most responsible for making the machine a reality. Stanislaw Ulam was von Neumann's friend, and maker of a number of original contributions to mathematics and physics, among them the Monte Carlo method. Leibniz and Gödel, Turing and Teller, all make an appearance, taking their place in the ever widening stream of ideas and events.

For a long time, I wanted to read a biography of von Neumann, and while this book is not strictly one, it fits the bill nicely. It can be classified as a history of a particular computer, but that would be very limiting. This energetic romp through the thicket of philosophical, mathematical and physical ideas that came together in the form of the computer was a source of genuine exhilaration. It may be so for you too.

कोसला

कोसलाबद्दल थोडक्यात काही लिहिणं अवघड आहे. पु लं नी म्हटल्याप्रमाणे 'कोसलावर कोसलाइतकंच लिहिता येईल', किंवा मग काही लिहूच नये. 

आत्ता नुकतंच वाचून संपवलं; ही तिसरी-चौथी तरी खेप असेल. अधुन मधून डोकावणं तर चालू असतंच. तिचतिच पुस्तकं पुनः पुन्हा वाचणं हे तसं चांगलं. खूप पुस्तकं एकेकदा वाचणं हे फेसबूकवर खूप मित्र असल्यासारखं आहे. ऐनवेळी ते काही कामाला येत नाही. 

खोल, शांत, अंधाऱ्या रात्री मी कोसला वाचत बसलोय असं अनेकदा आठवतं. जेव्हा दिवसाची पुटं गळत जातात, आणि नवे साक्षात्कार होतात. अर्थात हे झोप न येणाऱ्यासाठी (उदाहरणार्थ आता रात्रीचे दीड वाजलेत). झोप येणाऱ्यानी झोप घ्यावी, आणि दिवसांची पुस्तकं वाचावीत.

कोसलाचा पहिला परिचय मी अकरावी-बारावीला असताना झाला. माझं इलेक्ट्रॉनिक्स होतं, पण रूममेटचं मराठी. आणि पुस्तकांचा इतका दुष्काळ होता की त्याचं पाठ्यपुस्तक मीच आधी वाचून काढलं. त्यात सांगवीकर अजिंठ्याला जातो तो भाग एका धडयात होता. अर्थात काही भाग गाळून.

आणि सांगवीकर. हा शहराला पण वैतागतो आणि गावाला पण. काॅलेज वर पण उखडतो आणि नोकरी वर पण. हा एक जुळणारा धागा म्हणता येईल. पण एवढंच नाही. आणि जे आहे त्यात खोटेपणाचा अंशही नाही.

Seven brief lessons

The book is called Seven brief lessons on Physics, but if you read it, you will appreciate that they are also Seven brief lessons in elegance. Let me say something about the Physics first and then come back to the harder part.

The book is a translation of articles physicist Carlo Rovelli (a leader in Loop quantum gravity) wrote for an Italian newspaper. Now there are tonnes of popular physics books, including brief ones, so one might ask, why read this one? I cannot think of the right word here, so let's use 'right focus'. When writing for a non technical audience, it is important to not miss the forest for the trees. Consider the Standard model, the best currently available theory of elementary particles. It is spectacularly well confirmed by experiments, but it is a piecemeal assembly not flowing from a single conceptual framework like relativity, and attempts to find an alternative have been made but failed. The book makes these points, but does not then get into quark generations, baryon conservation, symmetry breaking and other stuff that is advanced and undoubtedly important, but serves to obscure the essence in many a cases. 

OK, now let's move on to the harder stuff. Some of it is of course due to the 'right focus' I alluded to above, but it also goes beyond that. One important contributor is the level headed perspective, avoiding the extremity of Theory of everything on the one side, and that of life as insignificant chemical scum on the other. And then there are the sparkling prose, both technical and non technical.

This book would be a worthy read even if you don't care much about science. At just 79 pages, you need not fear for your time. And if you do love science, well, this is a classic. In either case, once you have read it, you will feel like returning to it every once in a while. Like I did.

A mind at play

Turing's was a shadowy figure until Alan Turing The Enigma appeared. A mind at play will likely do the same for Shannon.

Shannon of course is the father of Information Theory,  his insights forming the bedrock of digital communication. As the authors put it, 'information existed before Shannon, just as inertia existed before Newton'. It was Shannon who created the conceptual foundations needed to deal with information in a precise, quantitative manner. First of all, he clarified what information is. Information is what reduces uncertainty, one bit of it exists when we are choosing from two equally likely outcomes. Then he showed that all communication is expressible in terms of bits. Next, each communication channel has an upper limit on how many bits it can carry per second (dependent on the bandwidth and the signal-to-noise ratio). Within this limit, noise can always be defeated; a message can always be sent with an arbitrarily small amount of error. And lastly, all of the above stays true irrespective of whether the message has meaning or not.

The importance of his work was immediately recognized, propelling Shannon to scientific celebrity at 32, but Shannon chose not to pursue it. Information theory quickly became a buzzword in fields ranging from psychology to economics, but it was Shannon who cautioned against blindly jumping on the bandwagon. He returned to his work and spent the rest of his days inventing.

A mechanical mouse that could solve a maze and remember the solution (A concrete demonstration of AI when all the field had was theory). A juggling robot (Shannon was an accomplished juggler, and wrote one of the first papers on mathematics of juggling). A wearable computer to time roulette wheels and a system to place bets to maximize winning (I make my money on the Stock market, not by proving theorems, Shannon once said). A chess playing computer (and a paper establishing the foundations of the field). All sorts of customized unicycles. And the ultimate machine: when switched on, a mechanical arm came out of the box and turned itself off.

Shannon's was a fascinating life, and the book does a good job of bringing it out of the shadows. At a few places it feels a bit sketchy, but that does not take from it's readbility. The authors are clearly in awe of Shannon, and after reading it, you will be too.

Facts and Meaning of Logicomix

Facts:

A. It is a graphic novel about the 'foundational quest' in mathematics, an endeavour to put mathematics on a secure footing in the first half of the twentieth century. The story is told via Russell's life and in Russell's voice, a central character in that story.

B. It counts noted computer scientist and author Christos Papadimitriou as a coauthour.

C. It was on my reading list for a long time.

Meaning:

I (in fact) made a number of beginnnings under this section, but found none of them satisfactory. The essence always seems to escape, much more so than for most other books. Read the book and make the meaning for yourself.

Wild ride

Wild ride is the story of Uber. Now to anyone who reads news, at least parts of that story would appear familiar; the strength of Wild ride is it gives a highly readable, balanced and insightful account in a remarkably small package (just over 200 pages). It is worth mentioning that the author went beyond the usual research tools (interviews etc) while preparing for the book, working as an Uber driver himself for a while. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and to those who are interested in startups, it would make a pleasant and instructive read.

The fabric of reality

The fabric of reality by David Deutsch is certainly one of the most delightful books I have read. Now I would rate a good popular science book along the axes of being informative, readable, comprehensible. Very few would qualify as being delightful, so let me try to say why this one does.

A popular science book is, in general,  intended for the person who is curious about some field of science, but lacks the time and/or brainpower to undertake a thorough study.  While by design it can't get into the details, the good ones provide an understanding that is not wholly superficial. Generally they talk about a specific area of science. The fabric of  reality distinguishes itself, firstly, by not being about any specific area of science as such, but about the worldview that emerges when we take our best theories seriously, and treat them together. The theories in question are, namely, quantum physics, evolution by natural selection, theory of computation and Popper's theory of knowledge.

Is it possible for one person to understand everything that is understood? The book opens with this question and Deutsch answers this in the affirmative. Knowing all the facts is clearly  impossible, but understanding comes from explanations. The deeper the theory, the more it explains and you understand more even while having to know less. Science is fundamentally about explanations. This last is an important point, and (at least) I have not seen it made with such force and eloquence before.

Quantum physics has pretty good coverage of its own in the popular science category of course. As far as I can tell though, most of it makes a virtue of the counter intuitiveness of the quantum, which befuddles the nonexpert. The many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics makes the same predictions as the standard Copenhagen interpretation (which is often implicit in the popular accounts), but Deutsch argues powerfully that it embodies a better explanation. Part of the argument comes from quantum computing, especially Shor's algorithm for factoring. Factoring is an intractable task with currently known classical algorithms, but quantum computers can factor in polynomial time using Shor's algorithm. Deutsch asks, where does this factoring take place, if not in the multiverse? I know that the case for choosing one interpretation over another is not settled among the experts, but (as someone whose entire knowledge in this area comes from reading a few popular science books), I can say at least that I find Deutsch's explanation to be much more comprehensible than the alternative. In other words, I now believe in parallel universes :-) [I plan to revisit this bit some time later and see if I still believe in them. I also plan to read more on this topic]. Another related point is whether we should believe in parallel universes though they are not directly perceptible except for interference phenomenon in special situations. To this end, Deutsch develops a criteria for reality, viz, if something behaves in a complex and autonomous way needing independent explanation, it is real. And so are the parallel universes. Another important point, but not addressed elsewhere.

Inductivism is a theory of knowledge, which says that theories come by way of generalizing observations and are justified when their predictions are confirmed (more times the better). Deutsch points out that no amount of confirmation can give sureshot confidence, and theories in general come by way of good explanations and not from generalizing observations. In Popper's scheme, problem solving within the context of existing theories and their perceived deficiencies is of the essence. There is no ultimate source of justification for a theory (in the form of a principle of induction), but we are justified in acting on them because their rivals have been refuted by rational argument and/or experimental failure. This does not mean a better theory would not appear tomorrow. Parts of the book dealing with epistemology were a major source of the delight that I alluded to earlier.

There are of course, so many other things worth mentioning. Real quickly; how replicators survive by embodying true knowledge about their niches and how their  adaptation means their structures would be identical across the multiverse; how the concept of a flow of time does not make sense, but that of free will does and that too without letting go of determinism; what are the limits of virtual reality and why it is fundamentally important (instead of being just a new form of entertainment); how Turing was mistaken in thinking he 'undetstood paper' (as Feynman once put it); is time travel possible and if so, are paradoxes possible; what is the relation between mathematical existence and mathematical proof; and so on and on. But I see this post is already quite long and my point already quite clear.

There are very few books which made me want to reread them as soon they were finished, this one is one of those few  (I ended up ordering Deutsch's Beginning of Infinity in this case). One reviewer has compared Deutsch to Russell as a stylist and I could not agree more. As I said after finishing Russell's autobiography, it made everything else seem schoolboyish. This one, to a lower degree of course, certainly did too.

Seveneves

I came across a short review of Seveneves on GatesNotes a few days ago, and picked it up quickly on my next Crossword trip. I had read Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson earlier, and had read about 2/5th of System of the world, but then this third part of the Baroque cycle had proved too baroque for me. Nothing of this sort happened with this one, and I found much that is delightful. First of all, this novel belongs in the best traditions of SF, containing a lot of actual science. There are pages upon pages on Orbital maneuvers for example. Same is true (to a lesser extent) about epigenetics, heterozygosity and robot swarms. The characters feel real (they use Python to program their robots and parse logfiles after all). And the book manages to be consistently readable, through all of its Eight hundred and sixty six pages (OK, parts of Part III are a little flat, but that is really little). I came back to SF after a while, and reading this book felt like a breath of fresh air. I certainly see myself returning to it.

P.S. While searching for the link above, I found a longer (and frankly better) review on GatesNotes. Do read it.

Black Hole Blues

My reading has gotten quite erratic recently, so it felt great to actually finish one book from cover to cover. Book in question, Janna Levin's Black hole blues and other songs from outer space. It's about the gravitational wave detection that happened at LIGO last year, along with the history leading upto it, and what exactly was found and why it matters. It's an easy read, more lyrical than technical, and more of a narrative than systematic exposition. I enjoyed reading it, and as my popular science reading has leaned mostly towards the theoretical, it was good to get a glimpse of the experimental.

अपूर्वाई

मी अपूर्वाई वाचलं नव्हतं ही गोष्ट पण बऱ्यापैकी अपूर्व म्हणता येईल. पण शाळेत कधी हे पुस्तक मिळालं नाही, आणि बरेच दिवस दुकानात पण दिसत नसे. तो योग या वीकएंडला आला. पु लं. चा हा पहिला परदेश प्रवास. लंडन, पॅरिस, थोडंसं जर्मनी असा. त्यात मग ऑक्सफर्ड-केम्ब्रिज आहे, पण त्यापेक्षाही स्टेटफोर्ड-एट-एव्हन आहे. शेक्सपिअरच्या समाधीवर गदगदून जाणं आहे. पार्लमेंट मध्ये चर्चिलला पाहणं आहे. मादाम तुसॉच्या प्रदर्शनात कंटाळणं आहे. कार्लाइलचं घर पाहताना केलेलं मूक चिंतन आहे.  नेपोलियनच्या 'चिमण्या शिलेदाराच्या' समाधीवर करुण होणं आहे. आणि मी हे फक्त पु लं बद्दल नाही बोलतोय. वाचता वाचता हे सगळं गदगदनं, मूक चिंतन, कंटाळणं, करुण होणं, मी देखील अनुभवलं. आणि हो, आपल्या विसंगतीवर, हळुवारपणे पण नेमकं बोट ठेवणं, आणि हसवता हसवता कुठेतरी विचार करायला लावणं  हे आहेच. अर्थात हा अनुभव पु लं च  प्रत्येक पुस्तक देतं, तो मात्र अपूर्व नाही.  

ABC of relativity

Bertrand Russell wrote the 'ABC of relativity' in 1925. Now, about 90 years later, I read it. These are two examples of events in spacetime, and events is what relativity deals with. It tells us that the distance and duration between two such events as measured by differently moving observers can be different, and there is no reason to prefer one observer's version over the other. Nevertheless, there exists an entity called 'interval' that each can measure and will agree upon. So not everything is relative.

Popular expositions of relativity abound, so what is there to recommend the present one? First, it's Russell. You can expect both clarity and depth. Russell goes beyond matter curving spacetime and clocks running slow for someone who is moving. He tells why Newton's law of gravitation is not compatible with relativity (if different observers measure distance differently, they will also measure the gravitational force between two objects differently). He explains how the very notion of a gravitational force emerged due to influence of Euclidean geometry (if an object is not moving in a Euclidean straight line e.g. earth around the sun, there must be some influence to explain this behavior), while relativity does away with gravitational force as something exerted from afar to explain motions of objects as responses to the local features of spacetime. And how, the very notion of matter as which persists through all of time and is not present at more than one place at a time is dependent on complete separation of space and time, and hence needs revision in the era of relativity. And how scientific convention and limitations of our senses can influence our theories (in the Michelson-Morely experiment, do you say the length changes or speed of light varies?). And so on.

It would be foolish for me claim to have imbibed everything the book has to say. But I can certainly say this. It was a refreshing read despite having met popular accounts of relativity before. It is a popular account, so you will certainly learn something. And then of course, it's Russell.

नाटकवाल्याचे प्रयोग

अतुल पेठे हे प्रायोगिक रंगभूमीवरच एक प्रसिद्ध नाव. पण 'नाटकवाल्याचे प्रयोग' हे पुस्तक वाचण्याआधी  हे नाव मला फारसं परिचित नव्हतं.  प्रायोगिक नाटक करता करता आलेल्या अनुभवांबद्दलचे लेख आणि मुलाखती यांचा हा छोटासा संग्रह. पण जर हे पुस्तक फक्त नाटकासंबंधी असतं तर मला कदाचित ते इतकं आवडलं नसतं. नाटक या माध्यमातून जीवन समजून घेण्याचा प्रयत्न हा खरं तर विषय. आणि हे नाटक मग वेगवेगळी रूपं घेतं. माहिती अधिकार आणि आरोग्य, नेमाडे आणि तेंडुलकर, फुले आणि सॉक्रेटीस अशा अनेक विषयांना स्पर्श करतं. भाषा सरळ आणि मांडणी तर्कशुद्ध, उगीच भावनिक कल्लोळ नाही. आलेल्या अडचणी, फसवणारे लोक याबद्दल लिहिलंय पण कडवटता नाही. भेटलेल्या दिग्गजांबद्दल आदराने लिहिलंय पण वारेमाप स्तुती नाही. मन विदीर्ण करणाऱ्या आजच्या आर्थिक, सामाजिक वास्तवाबद्दल लिहिलंय पण त्यामध्ये हे असं का आणि त्याबाबतीत मी काय करू शकतो हा विचार प्रधान. आणि त्या विचारांची खोली आणि समग्रता दोन्ही जाणवतात. अतिशय वाचनीय आणि शिकण्यासारखं बरंच काही.

Last three books

The miracle of mindfulness: Thich Nhat Hanh

आहे मनोहर तरी: सुनीता देशपांडे

वंगचित्रे: पु ल देशपांडे 

झूल वाचल्यावर

चांगदेव पाटील तसा आपला जुना दोस्त. पांडुरंग सांगवीकर त्याच्याहून जुना, पण पहिल्यांदा भेटलो तेव्हा तो काय म्हणतोय त्यातलं अर्ध-अधिक कळलंच नाही. परत एकदा, कॉलेजात आल्यावर सांगवीकर थोडाबहुत कळला. चांगदेव त्यामानाने समजायला सोपा. त्याचं जग, लहान गावातलं, शिक्षकी पेश्यातल्या व्यक्तींचं, माझ्या सर्वाधिक परिचयाचं म्हणून देखील हे
कदाचित असेल. किंवा त्याचे विचार, त्याची तडफड जाणवली, भिडली म्हणूनही कदाचित. पहाटेचे चार वाजले होते, मिट्ट काळोख तसा शहरात नसतो कधी, पण सामसूम होती. पुस्तक संपलं आणि गहिवरून आलं. आता जास्त सांगत नाही. 

2001

It's a rare book that gives as much pleasure on the third reading as the first. 2001: A space odyssey is one such book for me. Why that should be so? Here is why: it helps keep my sense of wonder alive; reawakens it from its forced slumber. So I look forward to its fourth reading, in the not too distant future.

Small is beautiful

Recently read E.F.Schumacher's Small is Beautiful, 'a study of economics as if people mattered'. It is a classic, first published in 1973, and ranked as one of 100 most influential books published since World War II by the Times Literary Supplement. 

Organized as a collection of essays, it is a reassessment of economics as it was practised at the time (and which doesn't seem to have changed much in the ensuing 40 years). Schumacher points out that large scale, specialized industries conncentrated in a few large cities, while achieving progress in some abstract econometric sense like GDP growth or increased Capital/Output ratio, are failing to solve the real problems of poverty and economic imbalance. And the damage to the environment caused is unprecedented. As an alternative, he proposes 'Intermediate Technology', low cost, communally owned, easily accessible technology that can aim to spread development to all sectors, while reducing the environmental damage. Schumacher was also an enterpreneur, and tried to put these ideas in practice. But economics is only a part of what the book talks about; it is also a  call to rethink the assumptions governing modern life and which ultimately gave rise to the current economic situation; to take just one example, our definition of the standard of life in terms of amount of consumption, more the better. Schumacher asks whether the natural world, which is undeniably finite, will be able to sustain such a model indefinitely. Is it not high time that we start treating natural resources not as income but as capital, focusing on conservation rather than consumption? There are many such examples. 

Schumacher advises a return to traditional values that have governed societies for eons. While I found it hard to agree with everything that is in there, the book was certainly a thought provoking and eye opening read.

दाद

पुलंची पुस्तकं शाळेत असल्यापासून मी वाचतोय, पुलंनी वाचलेल्या पुस्तकांबद्दलचं एक पुस्तक अलीकडे वाचनात आलं. 'दाद'. वेळोवेळी पुलंनी विविध पुस्तकांना जी दाद दिली ती इथे संग्रहित करण्यात आली आहे. त्यात काही प्रस्तावना आहेत, नवोदित लेखकांना पुस्तक आवडल्याची पोचपावती म्हणून लिहिलेली पत्रं आहेत, काही प्रकाशन प्रसंगी केलेली भाषणं आहेत. 'कोसला' आणि 'रामनगरी' सारख्या माझ्या आवडत्या पुस्तकांबद्दल वाचून ती परत एकदा वाचायची इच्छा जागली, तशीच अनेक नवीन माहिती झालेली पुस्तकं गोळा करायची इच्छा देखील झाली. पण त्याहून महत्वाचं म्हणजे अनेक लेखातून, पत्रातून  पुलं स्वतःविषयी काही सांगतात. मुख्य मुद्दा म्हणून नव्हे, पण जे काही सांगायचं आहे त्याच्या अनुषंगाने. तसे ते त्यांच्या इतर पुस्तकातूनही भेटतातच, पण या पुस्तकातून थोडं जास्त, थोडं अधिक जवळून. आणि आपल्याला अजून काय पाहिजे! 

Reading this week: 3

This week was an exercise in randomness as far as books are concerned. Still there is something to say. That something is that I made a return to the Foundation series. For those who may not have heard about it, Foundation is a series of science fiction novels by Isaac Asimov. Foundation began its life as a short story in 1942; over time Asimov expanded it to a book, wrote sequels and prequels and now the series stands at seven books. Moreover, Asimov linked his Robots and Galactic Empire series to Foundation (both precede Foundation), taking the total to some 15 books. Now in an ideal world, one would 'begin at the beginning and go till the end is reached and then stop', as the king put it in Through the looking glass. In the non ideal world we inhabit, my progress was rather haphazard, documented here, here and here. So this week I said, now that I have at least the full Foundation series on my bookshelf, why not read it in sequence? Not one to let go of any good ideas (bwahaha) I immediately put it into action, and began with the first book.

Reading this week: 2

अभय बंग यांच 'माझा साक्षात्कारी हृदयरोग' हे पुस्तक मी नुकतच संपवलं. आंतरराष्ट्रीय कीर्तीचे संशोधक, गडचिरोलीच्या आदिवासी भागात राहून रुग्णसेवा देणारे डॉक्टर, व्यसनमुक्तीसाठी काम करणारे कार्यकर्ते अशी ओळख असणाऱ्या  डॉ. बंग यांना वयाच्या चव्वेचाळीसाव्या वर्षी, कोणतेही बाह्य कारण नसताना अचानक हृदयविकाराचा झटका आला. वैद्यकीय उपचार तर झालेच, पण त्यांना प्रश्न पडला कि हा विकार खरोखरीच अचानक झाला का? कि तो पूर्वीपासून होतच होता अन एक दिवस फक्त अचानक जाणवला? त्यांच्याच शब्दात सांगायच म्हणजे 'हृदयरोगामुळे माझ्या जीवनात सुरु झालेला शोध मला हृदयरोगापलीकडे घेऊन गेला. नंतर तर तो शोधच मध्यवर्ती झाला'. त्या शोधाची कहाणी म्हणजे हे पुस्तक.

आपल्या विकाराचं कारण शोधताना एक महत्वाची जी गोष्ट त्यांना आढळली ती म्हणजे हृदयरोग म्हणजे फक्त हृदयाचा आजार नव्हे तर तो पूर्ण जीवनपद्धतीचा आजार आहे. कोलेस्ट्रोल हे त्याचं एक कारण. पण ताणतणाव, शरीरश्रमाचा अभाव, आजच्या स्पर्धात्मक जीवनात येणारं एकटेपण आणि खिन्नता हि देखील महत्वाची कारण आहेत. मग उपचार या सर्वांवरच हवेत. आणि या सर्व मंथनातून त्यांचा शोध सुरु झाला. आहारात बदल झाले, व्यायामासाठी चालणं आणि योगासनं सुरु झाली.  पण मनासाठी काय? इथे लेखकाचं लक्ष ध्यान आणि योगाकडे वळलं. पण यात कर्मकांड, अंधश्रद्धा नाही. थोरांच मार्गदर्शन घेऊन पण सोबत स्वतः विचार आणि प्रयोग करून वाटचाल सुरु झाली. आणि हळूहळू  या क्षणात न राहता भरकटणारं मन, विचारांच्या वावटळी यातून मार्ग दिसू लागला. जीवनाविषयी प्रेम वाढलं, लहान गोष्टींत किती आनंद लपला आहे त्याची जाणीव झाली. सत्य, ईश्वर, जीवनाचा हेतू याबाबतच्या कल्पना बदलत गेल्या, अधिक संपन्न झाल्या. भ्रमाशी लढण थांबलं, जगणं सुरु झालं. आणि हे सर्व वाचताना मला ती शांतता लाभली जी मी जवळपास विसरूनच गेलो होतो.

म्हणून असं वाटतं कि प्रत्येकानं आवर्जून हे पुस्तक वाचावं. स्वतःच्या शोधाची ही कहाणी तुमच्या माझ्या प्रवासात मार्गदर्शक ठरेल, थोडीफार तरी दिशाहीन भटकंती वाचवेल असा मला भरवसा वाटतो.   

Reading this week: 1

So here we are with the first installment!

Recently finished reading A Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith. A new detective, Cormoran Strike, makes a debut, investigating the death of a celebrity model. While the book is a bit rambling in places, Strike manages to carve out a place for himself and I really enjoyed it. There is less 'deduction' than I would have liked, but maybe it is the lot of 'real' detectives to do more travel and questioning than armchair theorizing. This was contemporary fiction after a long gap, and it gave me a strangely liberating feeling. The Silkworm by the same author is going to appear in June and most likely I will go for it. Last thing, Robert Galbraith is actually just a pseudonym used by J.K.Rowling. (but given the liberal use of b, c and f words, this one is definitely not for kids).

Recently I have also started reading Mathematical Thought by Morris Kline, which is a multi volume history of mathematics. On the rare chance that I stick with it, it could very well be a multi-year (but quite fruitful, going by the one chapter I read) project. The chapter I read, first one of the first volume, deals with the most ancient mathematics known, the Babylonian. While I had encountered this history before, Kline's account was quite refreshing. The term Babylonian comprises a number of civilizations living successively and concurrently in Mesopotamia for about four thousand years before Christ. Babylonians did not practice mathematics as an independent discipline yet, always approaching it in the context of practical problems, but their knowledge was quite sophisticated. They knew Pythagoras' theorem, how to solve quadratic equations and could predict eclipses to within a few minutes. Their economics was sophisticated, problems such calculating taxes, interests, areas of fields and buildings and shares of agriculture, money exchange and so on inspired many mathematical developments. 

The next chapter deals with Egyptian mathematics, hopefully I will report on it soon.

Also, here is an (as usual) excellent review of Our mathematical universe, which I was considering buying. This review is much more positive than others I read, and gives a good idea of what the books says, but for now I have decided to postpone buying it.

So that's all for now.