We find it very hard to conceptualize past the first 3 dimensions of nature, i.e. length, width and depth. Well not really; we are also well aware of the 4^th dimension which is none other than time itself. We don't necessarily think of time as a dimension for, we cannot influence time as directly as for example squeezing a ball. The 4th dimension is as much as what the human brain can comprehend for we live in a 4 dimensional world. However there exists a 5^th dimension which forms the entire basis of what a select few scientists in the world work on every day - the field of Quantum Mechanics (which Albert Einstein himself refuted as being "unrealistic" given its complex nature). The presence of a 5^th dimension would basically mean that for every action that we perform we follow an independent path in the 5^th dimension, i.e. every time each one of us make a choice be it our own or influenced by chance or by others, we forge a different path in the 5^th dimension. The 6^th dimension extends this idea to refer to the possibility of moving between states, i.e. moving from one point in the 5^th dimension to another immediately. What this effectively means is that at any given instant in time (i.e. the 4^th dimension), there exists an infinite number of parallel worlds representing each possible action in the real world. This assumption is also the basic concept behind the Schrodinger's Cat experiment. As described in Wikipedia:

Schrödinger's Cat: A cat, along with a flask containing a poison, is placed in a sealed box shielded against environmentally induced quantum decoherence. If a Geiger counter detects radiation then the flask is shattered, releasing the poison which kills the cat. Quantum mechanics suggests that after a while the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when we look in the box, we see the cat either alive or dead, not a mixture of alive and dead.

An excellent presentation on how to conceptualize the 10 dimensions of nature is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjsgoXvnStY and I would highly recommend that you go through this extremely well presented narration. There is also a book by the same folks on the Tenth Dimension whose website is http://www.tenthdimension.com

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Image by dfarber via Flickr

One incident in particular introduced Ozzie to the magic that comes when people connect via computer. He had taken a part-time assignment helping a professor finish writing some courseware. The prof lived on the other side of town, so Ozzie collaborated with him remotely. Ozzie came to know and like his boss, save for one annoyance. "He was the worst typist ever," Ozzie says. "He was very eloquent on email, but on Term Talk it was just dit-dit-dit, sometimes an error, but agonizingly slow." At the end of the project, the man threw a party at his house, and Ozzie discovered the reason for the typing problem: The professor was a quadriplegic and had been entering text by holding a stick in his teeth and poking it at the keyboard. Ozzie was floored.

[Source: WIRED]

/me takes a mental note to not judge people as often. WIRED has an excellent article on how Ray Ozzie is changing Microsoft. I did get an opportunity to meet Mr. Ozzie personally and he was just as soft-spoken as the article suggests.

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In the U.S., there’s a crisis of confidence, In India, for the first time after decades or centuries, there is a sense of optimism about the future, a sense that our children’s futures can be better than ours if we try hard enough.

--Nandan Nilekani

[Source: NYTimes]

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Over 500 registrations already. What are you waiting for?

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Aditya sent this link to a Discovery channel Documentary detailing how photography lens are made. Astounding!

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"Indian" is a language as defined by the Stanford graduate admission committee.

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I have much love for the sed and awk utilities in the GNU toolbox. Peteris Krumins' extremely interesting blog has had some recent features on how to use sed and awk effectively and I can say no more to encourage you to go and read them here, here, here, here and here.

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