Before the fight

I'm writing this before the exam period:
Come on, Let's fight!!!!!

Wish me good luck on all the exams!!!!
Rock my first year in U of T!!!!!

For the CSC104 course in particular, thanks for giving me an academic excuse to open the computer. I had fun play with the programming code although most of the time I didn't know what to do.

Good Luck to everyone who is about to fight in exams:)
Love you all.

The simplest algorithms

As I was thinking about the algorithms, the simplest one I could think of is the 1+1=2 (If it counts as an algorithm)

Then I started to think, what if 1 plus 1 is not 2 anymore. Well, is there any other answers to 1 plus 1 instead of 2? Of course! 

If we put one pile of sand with another pile of sand, there will eventually be one pile of sand. In this case 1 plus 1 is 1. If we put a man and a woman together, we may get three persons after all (they have a baby). Thus 1 plus 1 is 3. Under binary number system, 1 plus 1 is 10.

Some answers can be somehow ridiculous, for example: one half circle plus another half circle is a whole circle (0), so 1 plus 1 is 0. 1 plus 1 equal to the Chinese character 王 (meaning “king”), if we rotates “1+1” 90 degree. If one cup of water and one cup of alcohol are poured together, the mixed liquid will be less than 2 cups. Therefore 1 plus 1 is smaller than 2.

Eventually, I find countless different answers to 1 plus 1, leading to another question: if the result is not certain, why do we need so-called "correct answers"?

Algorithms Run the World

While reviewing the course, I saw the quote "algorithms could run the world" that I wrote down in the beginning of this semester. It seemed that everything came be broken down into basic components, and every process can be divided into basic steps. 

I once read an article on a magazine; it describes the process of “learning the world” as “forming a snowball”. If we analysis the process using algorithms, it will be like this: 

First of all, we need to grab some snow on the floor. Those original snows represent the facts that people learned from visualizing the world. Secondly, we clench the snow in our hand, making it a small snowball. This process indicates that people start to realize the basic concepts of the world by manufacturing the facts. Soon we find that the small snowball is able to stickup other snows on the floor, which represents the discovery of the way that things interact with each other. All the interactions are summarized as “rules” of the world. Eventually, people roll the snowball on the snow to make bigger ones; this refers to the process of building more complicated operations by using the basic concepts and rules. 

All the algorithms follows certain rules, such as logic, theories or even common sense. Those rules may not even be 100 percent true, as long as it works under certain circumstances. 

Continuous the fibonacci number (the golden ratio)

I did some research out of curiosity in terms of answering why people appreciate the beauty of things that is in golden ratio?

Some study has showed that the ratio of many human body parts fit the golden ratio. For example, in general, the ratio of length form the top of head to belly button and from belly to the sole is close to 0.618, the ratio of the length from the top of head to throat and from throat to belly button is roughly 0,618. As people are naturally fond of familiar things, we believe the human body is the highest standard of beauty, and everything that is close to human body is beautiful.

Further, many human body figures are close related to the golden ratio. For instance, body temperature is normally 37 degree, 37 times 0.618 is 22.8 degree. When the room temperature is 22.8 degree, not only people feel the most comfortable, the metabolism and biological functions of body also maintain the optimal state.

That explains part of the charm of golden ratio, but why is human body so closed related to the golden ratio? Still unknown. 

About the Fibonacci number

In today’s class, we learned how to code the fibonacci number in Dr. Racket. It reminds me some of my interesting experience with fibonacci number.

A famous feature of fibonacci number is that when the Fibonacci number goes on infinite, the ratio of two adjacent digital is close to 1.618, which is known as the  Golden Ratio. However, it is not how I know the Golden Ratio. In fact, through my painting career, I realize that 1.618 is the most important ratio for composition of pictures. The intriguing point is that even if I don’t intentionally pay attention to composition, the main part of the picture will eventually lie somewhere around the golden ratio, otherwise it just doesn’t look right.

As a result, the golden ratio appears more than frequently in famous works of art. I couldn't stop wondering, why people appreciate the beauty of things that is in golden ratio

What’s more, the golden ratio is also applied to finance, biology, chemistry, phytology, architectonics and many other fields. What’s their relationship to mathematics?

About CSC104

Several months ago, my friends asked me that "how does the CSC104 course go? What do you do in class?"

I answered,"It goes well, we make peanut-butter sandwich, flip dictionary, fold papers, reading historical stories and playing with a computer program called Dr. Racket in class. "

My friend. "... ... sounds fun."

What "check expected" does

The first time I saw check expected, I thought "this is easy, just need to replace all the symbols with an example."

But soon I realized how important it was, it shows the outcome we are expecting, and gave us a clear direction when writing the actual program. What's more, the check expected code helps me understand what I'm doing and what I'm supposed to do. 

Using check expected in programming is like setting a goal for the future in real life. You will easily get lost if you don't do that.