The reason why the guitar is my favourite instrument is because it's really flexible in how you want to make it sound. It's really a very simple instrument if you think about it. Just a box with six strings pulled taut across a neck. But it's amazing what one can do with a it.
The harmonics are what I like best about the guitar. When a string is touched across certain points along the string and then made to vibrate, the string can't vibrate at it's fundamental frequency and hence is forced to vibrate at the frequency of that nodal point only. This causes the pure, bell like timbre of the note produced well, at least that's how I think it works).
Well, I'm not great at guitar, but here's a vid of me messing around with tapped harmonics. Hope you don't think it's sucky (like the harmonica vid I posted lol).
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
First we have one about Romeo and Juliet.
God, I love being a physics major....____________________________________________________________________________________
Saturday, October 25, 2008
It's still a long way away till Christmas, but I absolutely love this song. This is for Mr Hendrik A Lorentz. Even though I've never met you, I'd just like to say that I'm extremely frustrated by that darned set of equations named after you. But, even though you've given countless physics students sleepless nights and probably caused the deforestation of a whole section of the amazon (due to the amount of paper wasted by the physics students), I still forgive you.
So I say, Merry Christmas, Mr Lorentz....
Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence by Ryuichi Sakamoto
____________________________________________________________________________________
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
I have decided to form the Idiot Club.
The Idiot Club shall consist of people who do, say or think stupid things unintentionally. People who perform a qualifying act shall be immediately inducted into the Idiot Club.
Member 1:
Name: Alwin
Qualifying Act:
Forgetting about gravity and thinking that a plank will rotate around in mid-air after being hit by a ball.
Quote:
"Oops... I forgot gravity...."
Member 2:
Name: Teo Wei Ren (myself)
Qualifying Act:
Kept getting a wrong answer on a physics question because he forgot that there was a third dimension.
Kept getting a wrong answer on a mechanics question because he didn't realise that all along he'd been using sin x = adj / hyp.
Quote:
"IT'S CORRECT!!!! Ey.....Shit!!! I've been using t= o/a, s= a/h, c = o/h..... SHUT UP!"
Member 3:
Name: Hugh Tay
Qualifying Act:
For being execptionally bad at math.
Quote:
"Har? You mean I just can't cancel the log ar?"
"Actually ar, I just used the identity cos x = 1 - sin x leh..."
Member 4:
Name: Jason Pillay
Qualifying Act:
For actually believing Hugh when he told him that when playing viola, the neck support was meant to be placed on the other shoulder in order to counter-balance the weight of the viola.
Quote:
"Really?"____________________________________________________________________________________
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
I got p4wn3d by my math test.... sigh.... I got a feeling that my math result is going to be quite shitty this time around.
I'm pretty unsure about econs too.
Anyway, here's a video for those who got p4wn3d by their tests, or if you're just looking for laughs.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Sunday, October 19, 2008
This is how I spent my birthday:-
Leave my house at 0800 and tutor Victoria from 0900 to about 1130.
Return home at 1215 and rest for a short while before leaving my home again at 1330 for tuition with Hosea.
Tution with Hosea from 1400 to 1600, after which I stay ahwhile to play with him. I leave his place at 1630 and reach home at 1700.
I spend some time washing up and sleeping and leave at 1800 for dinner with my parents and grandma at peach garden (which has a nice view, great food, and excellent service).
Then I go home, wash up, and go to Fiona's place to watch Mari and the Three Puppies (the Shiba Inu are so adorable!!!).
Then I go home, play my harp and play guitar, and sleep.
I guess it's not the 21st birthday most would expect, but I'm happy. I received plenty of birthday wishes, some from people I haven't heard from in a long time.
October to me has always been special, mostly because it's the birthday month. But exams are all around this period too, and they always cast a dark cloud on what could be a happier occassion (even if you are too lazy to study). October has never been a very fun time to have a birthday really. I've learnt to live with that though. And I believe all the October babies can say agree with me.____________________________________________________________________________________
Friday, October 17, 2008
I'm finally 21.
Others get wasted and throw parties on their 21st birthdays. Not my kind of thing though.
For quite a long time the thought of turning 21 scared me. Before army, I was still a teen, and when I turned twenty, I realised that I had just one year left of legal teendom left. After 21, I would be 22, and then 23, and soon, I'd be thirty. I think I was scared by how quickly time seems to pass.
But now that I'm 21, I realise that it doesn't matter how fast time flies, it's how much you make of your time. And compared to a good many other people, I got much more time to make good with. 21 is a good age. I'm much wiser than when I was a teen, and I'm not plagued with real worries of being old. In that respect, I think there's much balance in being 21.
Though every year comes with new worries, new experiences, new joy and new sorrow, I'd like to take each day at a time.
Finally, I'd like to say thank you to my darling for making the my birthday eve so wonderful.
My Giant Handmade Card!!!!
And darling got me an A harp!!!!
Heres a vid of me playing it. Lolzz....
____________________________________________________________________________________
Thursday, October 16, 2008
I think this is bad.... I seem to be spending more of the day playing guitar or harmonica, or singing rather than doing math or physics. I literally wasted the whole of today. So, while I can't sleep, I have decided to study math.
My Jazz Band just had a mini performance today and I thought we did well. Someday, maybe we'll perform for real.
I know plenty of people who decide to pick up an instrument just for the sake of it. I was like that myself. For 5 to 6 years I've been playing like a void deck mat. All that changed when I saw Kaori Muraji play though. That was when I decided to strive for exellence when it came to guitar. Along the way I decided to pick up the harmonica too, because it looked cool, fun and simple enough (it really is).
I guess I realised that it's really quite pointless to learn something and not have a desire to be good at it. You can't play the songs that you want, and you don't discover what you really can do if you really go beyond what you're comfortable with. I guess that if you don't have a desire to be good or if you are lazy and don't act upon that desire, your music becomes expressionless after awhile, and that defeats the purpose of making music in the first place.
I don't have any videos of myself playing or singing at the moment, but maybe I'll post something in the future. For now, here's a video of a viola virtuoso in the making - none other than my very own beloved roomate, Hugh (I apologise for it being rotated 90').
____________________________________________________________________________________
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Here are some of the interesting lecturers that teach me here in NTU. They're all great people, but they have their quirks....
Name: Prof Chew Lock Yue
Subject: Physics
Alias: Flying Dutchman
As you guys might already know, this is my physics lecturer. He's a great lecturer. I call him the Flying Dutchman because sometimes when I go for lectures I find myself Hor Lan (Armyspeak for Holland. Meaning that you're so lost, you might as well be in Holland).
Name: Prof Bernhard SchmidtSubject: Computing
Alias: Wong Fei Hong
OMG! He's german, but he looks like Wong Fei Hong!
Name: Dr Tan Geok Choo
Subject: Math
Alias: Shi San Yi (Thirteenth Aunt)
A very nice lady. Named after Wong Fei Hong's lover because we think that our computing lecturer, who looks like Wong Fei Hong, looks quite compatible with her.... Well... Maybe not, but what the heck.
Name: Dr Gustavsson Erik Anders Mikael
Subject: Math (tutor)
Alias: The Loreal Guy
German dude with *soft and bouncy haiiiirrrrrrrrr*. He doesn't really teach me, but he's a tutor for one of the math tutorial groups. Hugh calls him the Loreal Guy and the name stuck.
Finally, I decided to take a nerd test.
Lol.... I'm guessing this is the cut-off result for physics majors.____________________________________________________________________________________
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Math was bad.... I needed hugs..... and a footlong meatball sub with white chip macadamia nut and double choc cookies.....____________________________________________________________________________________
Monday, October 13, 2008
I've got a math test this afternoon. And I'm sian of doing math. I honestly have no idea how to study math. I'm doing my schaum questions while waiting for Big Man Japan to load. I got the feeling that Hugh isn't feeling that great either because he's waiting for Beauty and the Beast to load.
This test means a lot to me though. I've been failing all my mini-quizzes thus far. And they're all simple questions. It's not like I'm bad at math. It's just that I guess I've always been sort of a maverick mathematician. I do math the way I do physics. I use too much intuition.
I've managed to come up with proofs for all sorts of things like differentiation, pythagorean theorem, (-1)(-1) = 1.... And I wonder why I don't ace my tests. I guess it's because I use mathematics in a manner that any "formally trained" mathematician would frown upon. I multiply by infinity, divide zero by zero, skip steps... etc etc. Even the methods I use to do tutorial questions are "unorthodox".
I guess, I've always seen mathematics as interesting, but I've only ever used it in the most practical sense - to get the result I need. It doesn't really help that I can't be very bothered about mathematical formalism (or almost any sort of formalism for that matter, sometimes even my physics is non-"conventional").
I really should stop having this attitude towards math. Firstly because my A would be on the line if I continue, and even more importantly, formalism is there for a reason. To help, not to hinder.____________________________________________________________________________________
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Well, I guess a lot of people have much to say on my previous post, and my tagboard has a limited amount of letters I can fill it with. So I'll just reply with another post.
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough previously, but I believe the best educators have the following qualities,
- Passionate about the subject.
- Have a desire to educate and teach.
- Be an effective communicator.
Why does one need a passion for the subject? I believe that i've already mentioned this in my previous post. When Feynman was supposed to prepare a set of lectures for freshman on advanced topics and couldn't do it, he attributed it to not having a deep enough understanding of the topic itself. A deep understanding is necessary on the part of the educator in order to break down complicated things in to chewable, bite sized bits for the totally clueless student to better absorb. But of course, this assumes that the student is clueless not because he/she is an idiot or that he can't be bothered, but because he simply, has no knowledge of the subject being taught.
Secondly, there has to be a desire to teach. I believe there are many professors or graduates out there who do have a deep understanding, but have no desire to educate in the first place. Like my econs tutor, who just comes into the tutorial room, plops a transparency on the OHP and deosn't say a word (Though I'm not sure how deep her understanding is in the first place. But since she's an econs graduate student and I'm just doing econs as an elective , I suppose her understanding is definitely way better than mine).
Thirdly, one has to be an effective communicator. I know people who are really intelligent, but can't bring across their point properly, because they can't find the words. Sometimes, they're just plain boring, like Wong Fei Hong (though I quite like his German accent).
I guess some people simply like to educate, that's why they aspire to become teachers. But I think that's like an empty aspiration. Let's say that there's a certain guy who likes to teach. Since he's not bad at physics, he decides to become a physics teacher. So he goes to college gets a degree in physics and teaching. But how exactly does he inspire his students to like the subject? By showing them that physics is not boring, by showing them that physics is more than what is being taught within the syllabus. But how much would he know exactly since he isn't a physicist? His knowledge becomes confined to what he learnt in college, and maybe science magazines and journals if he is more interested. But the thing is, the environment he works in changes. He isn't learning physics anymore. He doesn't gain new insights, nor is he encouraged to learn. In fact, he is encouraged to remain in the syllabus because that's what gets the students their As.
I remember asking Ms Wee, my physics tutor back in JC about atomic physics, and now that I know a little more, I realise now that she was completely smoking me. Either she knows shit about what I was asking, or she didn't want to tell me because she was worried she would confuse me (even so, she could have just told me that it was higher level physics that I probably wouldn't be able to understand). I'm probably biased, because all I've ever had were shitty school teachers. But how much of a role did your teacher have to play in inspiring you to pursue your current major?
I'm not saying that we should employ Professors to teach in secondary schools. Teacher teachers are still necessary to give impart basic skills to younger students, effective or no. But that's the most I believe that they will ever be.
Maybe I'll screw up my physics degree. And maybe five years down the road you'll see me teaching physics in Serangoon Junior college. If that happened to me, I think I'll be an even crankier teacher than Ah Ber. Double whammy because firstly I didn't make it as a physicist, and second because I'm a school teacher.
At the end of the day, the point of this long rant is basically to say that if you like a subject so much you want to show people how wonderful it is, for goodness sake, do education a favour and don't join MOE as a teacher (or at least let that be the last of your options).
____________________________________________________________________________________Saturday, October 11, 2008
At this point of time, I believe very strongly in the generalisation that people who aspire to be an MOE teachers don't make good teachers at all.
I believe that the only people who can teach a subject effectively are the people who have a very deep understanding of the subject at hand. And in order to have a deep understanding of it, you have to have a certain amount of interest in it. The more interest you have means that you become more driven to attain a deeper understanding.
As such, the best teachers come from the set of people who are strongly interested and have a deep understanding. And such people, I believe, come mostly from people who decide to pursue an academic career in the subject, who are passionate enough to want to be a student of it their whole lives.
I highlighted "from the set of people" because just I've encountered some profs who aren't good teachers too. Sometimes they just can't be bothered about teaching, sometimes they just don't have much linguistic flair.
I don't think that I'm an effective educator. Not yet at least. I lack experience, and perhaps am too green where my understanding is concerned as well. But I try my best. My students might not be as interested as I am, but I at least try to show that them physics or math is more than what their teachers in school tell them.
I believe in teaching the subject to a student, not teaching the student a subject.
Sorry NIE people, but I think (for those who do become educators) there's a very high chance that you'll probably become the jaded old man or lady sitting at the corner of the staff room(or HOD room if you're a more "effective" educator) (TK people, think Lim Ah Ber).____________________________________________________________________________________
Friday, October 10, 2008
Absolutely brilliant (ugly guitar though). He's coming down for the guitar festival this year. I'm definitely going to be there... Hopefully I can get him to autograph my guitar case.
(ADVERTISEMENT) Catch Angel Romero and other classical guitar maestros live at the International Guitar Festival 2008. for more information, visit http://www.tomas-music.com/eventimages/poster08.pdf or visit Tomas-Music at #01-97/03-22C Roxy Square II 50 East Coast RoadSingapore 428769 .
I'm absolutely shameless... Lol
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
The following is a conversation I had during physics tutorial.
If the plane is frictionless and the plank isn't attached to the plane on an axle, what is the final velocity of the ball, Vf, after the collision.Alwin: Oh, you know what I did for this question?
Me: No. What did you do?
Alwin: Basically the board slips right?
Me: Yeah....
Me: Dude, how can the board start spinning around in a circle?
Alwin: Because the plane is frictionless.... So the board slips what.....
Me: Yeah, how the hell did you come up with that man?
WTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Don't worry Alwin, I forgive you. I've had such moments myself.
(Professor Chew then proceeds to draw the second diagram, which shows Mr O' again, this time with observer, Mr O who is not moving relative to earth. Suddenly, two balls from either side of the bus fly towards O', both with speed u, but travelling in opposite directions.)
(After that he moves on to explain that if you replace the two ball shooters on the side of the bus with lasers, O' will observe that both lasers reach him at the same time whilst O will see that one laser reaches O' first.)
Me: Hugh, help me out here. If light can't go faster than c, then for the girl in the train, the instant the light leaves the laser, the beam of light it doesn't take on the initial speed of the train right? So doesn't that mean that while the train is translating forward, the light beam gets "left behind"?
Hugh: No.... The thing is that the girl isn't supposed to know that she is in a moving reference frame what.
Me: No, but whether she knows or not, she's still moving what. The light leaves the laser vertically upward at a speed c, and thus ends up behind her upon being reflected by the mirror.
Hugh: No... The girl isn't supposed to know that she is in a moving reference frame.
Me: But it doesn't matter what.... the light goes up, the girl moves forward.
Hugh: Then the light doesn't know that it's in a moving reference frame also lor....
Me: Then why doesn't the light know?
Hugh: Err.... Liddis liddis liddis then liddat liddat liddat, then.... Liddat lor.
Me: ........
Hugh was right apparently, because I went to ask Prof Chew after lecture who then made me realise that I had a Michelson-Morley luminiferous aether mindset [ for those who don't know what that means, you can wiki if you're interested]. But, apparently, Hugh was right in his explanation of why light doesn't know it's in a moving reference frame too..... Because just liddat lor...... God, I love physics....
And that's the Prof, Alwin, Hugh and Andrew. PAP students reading this, please join the Prof Chew Lock Yue fan club if you have a facebook account.____________________________________________________________________________________
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
For those who I haven't already told, I am a sysnesthete. More specifically, I'm a grapheme - colour synesthete. This means that
Let us examine both cases.
Case 1:This is one of the conditions in order to porperly summon the elephant. Spend at least one whole day on a single question and waste A LOT of rough paper, and at the end of the day still have no idea how the hell to do it.
This is a classic case where effort is significant yet distance moved is zero.
W = F.0 = 0
Case 2:
Case 3:
Case 4:
Effort = 0
Therefore, distance = 0
Hence, W = 0
Monday, October 6, 2008
I used to write a lot, and I used to put up all my writings on this old blog at diary-x. When I stopped writing I didn't bother about it but when I decided to check on it again after a year or so, diary-x had closed down and all the shit that I had written was lost. Sigh... Thankfully, I managed to save a few. This first one I wrote some time back for my darling. I know some people are like gagging from mushiness... too bad for you.
Sun by Day,
Polaris by Night.
Actor in Play,
and the Speed of Light.
Pi to a Circle,
Water to Life.
Flame to a Candle,
Blade on a Knife.
Love in a Poet,
Point on a Pin.
Words in a Couplet,
Forgiveness to Sin.
like Blood when i Bleed,
You're the constant I need. ____________________________________________________________________________________
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Registration Queues for (from left to right):
1. Chemistry and BioChem (CBC)
2. Math and Econs (MAEC)
3. Math (MAS)
4. Physics (PAP)
Random Friend: "Hi Wei Ren, long time no see.... So what have you been up to lately?"
Me: "Oh, fine I guess.... I'm studying Physics at NTU."
Random Friend: (Upper lip curls up in a Stallone like manner) "PHYSICS?"
Me: "Err yeah...."
I realise I get that a lot.... I guess most people have an intuitive aversion to physics. Perhaps it's the education system (l STRONGLY believe that neither physics or math are very well taught in schools), perhaps most just had a horrible experience with physics during their JC days (which could be attributed to the poor teaching of it). Well, I never had a "good" experience with physics during school days either (I got a C for my 'A's ), but I still think physics is cool.
I guess i think, beyond it being interesting, that it adds perspective to things.
An excerpt from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out by Richard Feynman:
I have a friend who's an artist and he's sometimes taken to a view which I don't agree with very well. He'll hold up a flower and say,"Look how beautiful it is," and I'll agree, I think. And he says-"you see, I as an artist see how beautiful this is, but you as a scientist, oh, take all this apart and it becomes a dull thing." And I think he's kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe, although I might not be quite as aesthetically refined as he is; but I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time I see much more than he sees. I can imagine cells in there, the complicated actions inside which also have a beauty. I mean, it's not just beauty at this dimensionof one centimeter, there is also beauty at a smaller dimension, the inner structure. Also the processes, the fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting - it means insects can see the colour. It adds a question: Does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which shows that a science knowledge only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower. It only adds; I don't understand how it subtracts.____________________________________________________________________________________
Friday, October 3, 2008
A farmer one day realised that one of his chickens was sick. Not knowing exactly what the problem was or how to solve it, he thus sought the help a biologist, a chemist and a physicist.
Greetings to all. As some of you may have noticed, this is the first post on this blog. And on this first post, I would like to say a few words about me, and why I started this blog.
Firstly, this is not my first blog. All my previous blogs either fell into disuse within a week or two or disappeared into thin air because the host decided to not be a host anymore (!$##$@#! d**ry-x!!!!). While this might be the only entry on this blog, at this point of time, I hope that I will not succumb to laziness and once again have another blog that's rotting in cyberspace.
What is this blog going to be about? I guess it's going to be where I pen down thoughts on the people and things that matter to me. I suppose that's what all blogs are used for. So, what exactly will people expect to find on this blog?
Thoughts on: Math, Physics, School, World Issues, the usual.
Poetry by: Other people, and sometimes myself (though I haven't written in ages and can't profess to be much of a poet myself)
Attempts at artwork.
Attempts at music.
And the Interesting and Weird things I encounter in my not-so-boring life.
The list could go on. But these are mostly what people would expect to see up here.
I would very much appreciate comments if any of you feel that what i have posted has "spoken to you". No spam please. Thanks.
In case you don't already know, or haven't managed to infer, I am a physics major (in NTU). So, I shall therefore use my first post to bitch about the NTU physics tutorials with which I am very much peeved about.
I have always enjoyed physics, and though I've never shown much brilliance for it, I don't believe myself to be that horrible at it either. BUT, I have no idea what the physics profs at SPMS are thinking by giving us such KILLER tutorials. I had absolutely NO IDEA how to do almost all the questions in the latest tutorial. Well, maybe that was a little bit of an overstatement, but it STILL doesn't deny the fact that SPMS gives killer tutorials (at least for PAP111. I'd like to hear an Amen to that if there are any PAP students out there reading this).
In my last tutorial, I sought the power of the Amazing Pink White Elephant, and I think that I'll be seeing him for many more tutorials to come. For all physics majors, in the event that you do not know how to do your tutorial questions, seek out the Elephant.
Sigh... 
