AY1819 S2 Course Review

MH1100 Calculus II

Lecturer: Senior Lecturer Dr. Ku Cheng Yeaw

• 2 Homework Assignments
• Midterm: 19/20
• Finals(60%)
• Overall Grade: A

MH1201 Linear Algebra II

Lecturer: Lecturer Dr. Tan Geok Choo

• 2 Common Tests: /20
• 3 Homework Assignments
• Finals(50%)
• Overall Grade: B+

MH1301 Discrete Mathematics

Lecturer: Asst. Prof Bei Xiaohui

• Midterms/ CA1 (25%): 25
• Homework Assignment / CA2 (15%): 15
• Finals (60%)
• Overall Grade: A

MH1403 Algorithms and Computing

Lecturer: Asst. Prof Guo Jian

• Tests ('quizzes' but scheduled) (50%)
  • 2 Hands-on exercises quizzes (20%)
  • 2 MCQ based quizzes (30%)
• Quizzes (on online platform after online lecture) (20%)
• Project (30%)
• Overall Grade: B+

HW0128 Scientific Communication I

Tutor: Ms B.

• Tutorial (20%)
• Midterm (30%)
• Finals (50%)
• Overall Grade: A+

HY3010 Philosophy of Science

Lecturer: A. Prof Olav Vassend

• Overall Grade: A+

It was only with my recent visit to Nepal, and visiting the Tibetan Refugee Camp of Pokhara, that I learnt more about the history of Tibet and Nepal. (with accompanying books of course ... and some museums on other topics. )

How the young 14th Dalai Lama as a 16th year old, together with his then government, became a Government-In-Exile in India since the 1950s and the politics have somewhat stagnated in this same chessboard position since.

Beside reading about the whole episode from books with great interest I also regained interest in mindfulness meditation, which had already been in my mind for years.

For a striving academic, library-goer or more simply a lover of books/knowledge, your self/mind is the only thing stopping you from doing more with less.

Having followed Sam Harris' podcast for quite some time, I just started reading his book of 2014 since it was recommended as an expository text alongside introductions to mindfulness meditation

In it, it is argued that spirituality should be a part of all human's conscious life, despite it being so often lacking in the lives of many atheistic and agnostic folk.

TAGS: meditation

References

1. Jha, P. (2014). Battles of the new republic: a contemporary history of Nepal. London: Hurst & Company.
2. Goldstein, M. C., & Rimpoche, G. (2008). A history of modern Tibet. Vol. 1: 1913 - 1951: the demise of the Lamaist state (1. paperback printing, [Nachdr.]). Berkeley, Calif.: Univ. of Calif. Press.
3. Jha, P. (2014). Battles of the new republic: a contemporary history of Nepal. London: Hurst & Company.
4. Harris, S. (2014). Waking up: A guide to spirituality without religion. Simon and Schuster.

On my mind often: what is the value of words? To describe or not to describe. And with the attempt to describe, so much fidelity is lost.

That to trace any paragraph of words is (a) linear, (b) time-consuming. Linearity is inherent in both the process of both encoding and decoding a string of words as to reconstruct a single line of thought. Grammar and then meaning is constructed with the iterative combination of words into bigger trees of meaning, and from this process there is only a finite number of well-formed formula, of which most of the time, in a good author, few interpretations of meaning are intended. Yet thought itself does not work exactly in this manner. In fact, the better a large piece of linear thinking can approximate that complexity of thought in action, the more time it takes to craft that piece of writing, and also to read it, which is the point (b). In defense of writing, having a linear path to follow is better than having no transmission of information at all, and on (b), it can be argued that over the long run carefully placed pieces of writing do more than than the original time spent on writing it, especially when considering that a well-pieced writing broadcasts to to many, instead of just the writer.

So one's refusal to write must belie naive beliefs about (a) the perfection of human memory and (b) the lack of appreciation of the transience of the physical self. Ideas and memories simply fade with the passing of people. It is a miracle by itself that knowledge of any form remains.

In any case, to circumvent such issues, or to facilitate words of the productive kind, I think the best thing one can do is to have a real conversation y'know. So dear reader drop me a comment to tell me what you would like to read about and how you would like to pick the brain of this mere individual.

(In writing this piece I realise I am still a cryptic of sorts, bound by my understanding of things, although now I am bent that I do have cryptographic messages I wish to communicate... Years ago a philosophy teacher once called me a bit of a cryptic... )

And another thought:

Perhaps on bad days when one cannot think well, when one's consciousness is bombarded by non-linear thought of the non-productive kind, when one's heart aches like an out-of-tune string, there is nothing better than a nicely laid, well-written article to pore over and to slowly follow and gleam literature of whatever line-form...

References

1. Cyril Wong: “I love ambiguity because there’s a certain openness about it.” (2018, April 10). Retrieved June 20, 2019, from RCGNTN website

It has been a week since I came back from Nepal, whereof I stayed there for 17 days from the 12th March to 28th March; I arrived on the night of the 12th and flew back on the night of the 28th.

The first impressions which struck me was the state of Kathmandu. Who could miss that? The smokey air of the industrialised streets, the poor children and adults who beg, banging the windows as you sit on the tourist bus. Through every transaction that must be bargained that leaves you a strong distaste for both the human condition and the physical state of affairs.

That was how we moved from the Kathmandu, the capital, to Pokhara by 3pm of day 2. We went about getting our Trekking passes from the TIMS centre only to find that the online information we were acting upon was incomplete to say the least. I called up the 2 trekking agencies which we prepared in advance as we were told that the registration process was different whether we had a guide or if we had not. Lucky us - hardworking agent responded and we went off into the mountains with our mountain guide by the next day.

8 long days of climbing these steps, moving further into the terrain. The pain more than the beauty, steps and thoughts a little too much to easily pen.

(I guess I am feeling a little lazy or I can't bring myself to write any more after all.)

At once I have so much and so little to say. About how much climatic variation along so little space within the Annapurna region, the little bit of the Himalayas we spent 8 days on. How precious the climate is. About looking at the ground most of the time and gr8 fun sliding down the ice trek because it was too slidy and we had no other choice. About meeting fellow travellers and having really nice conversations. Sharing supplies and perspectives! (Check out A fellow traveller's vlog! About how I used to read about Everest in the primary school library because I was really bored. No grand narratives.

References

1. fhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBOpJPKAXL0

AY1819 S1 Course Review

MH1100 Calculus I

Lecturer: A. Prof Tong Ping / A. Prof Xia Kelin

• 2 Quizzes: 21.5/22
• Midterm: 18/20
• Finals(60%)
• Overall Grade: B+

A fairly standard course in Calculus I. From first principles (limits) to derivatives and its applications up to anti-differentiation.

The bell curve was extremely steep. For comments just see my reflections/advice from this semester. I am choosing to be lazy here.

MH9100 Advanced Investigations in Calculus I

Lecturer: A. Prof Tong Ping / A. Prof Xia Kelin

• 2 Quizzes (40%)
• Class Participation
  • Prof Tong
    • Group presentation on book reading (20%)
    • Problem Solving (10%)
  • Prof Xia
    • Group presentation on chosen applied mathematical topic (30%)
• Overall Grade: A+

Like the Calculus I class, we alternate between the two professors with Mid-Terms as the splitting point.

• Like MH1100, Tong's class had a more rigorous flavour. Every week we spend 1h on about 5 problems. Everyone writes their solution on the whiteboard and you have to solve/present at least 2 to get full credit in the grading above.
  • It's stressful
    • but it's okay! The first lesson may be more intimidating than the rest because the problems in the first week are there to gauge the level of godliness in your class of about the size of 20. And after add-drop it was 10 for us...
  • After the problem solving 1h, we take 5 weeks to read Rudin's Principles of Mathematical Analysis and explain in groups to the rest of the class
• Prof Xia: we just read papers and self-organise in groups to present on topics we want. Have fun and enjoy but prepare to get questioned if you are trying to bluff/smoke/haven't prepared.

MH1200 Linear Algebra I

Lecturer: Prof Andrew Kricker

• Midterms: 24.5/30
• 3 Quizzes: 16/20
• Finals(50%)
• Overall Grade: A-

Course in LA1 from Gaussian Elimination up to dimensions of subspaces. Less content than the previous years.

Prof Kricker is a good teacher although a busy man.

MH9200 Advanced Investigations in Linear Algebra I

Lecturer: Prof Kiah Han Mao

• Final Assignment (100%)
• Overall Grade: A

A very nice course! 1AU only and Prof Kiah tries to make it so. Rather than covering the same topics as MH1200 (which in the end we did much more content than MH1200), we had 9 weeks of Tutorial questions buliding on concepts that also go alongside the wonderful Essence of Linear Algebra by 3Blue1Brown. So we had quite intuitive yet tough problems every week.

Like the other advanced class, there is quite a lot of preparation and problems to do before each class but I found it rewarding in the end. It will be the most educational of all the courses because of the smaller class size and closer contact with the profs. Again, these closer contacts are only meaningful if you are able to prepare and learn as much as possible with each week/iteration.

Our final assignment was to solve all problems in Kurt, and Tanya Leise. "The $25,000,000,000 eigenvector: The linear algebra behind Google." SIAM review 48, no. 3 (2006): 569-581x

MH1300 Foundations of Mathematics

Lecturer: Ng Keng Meng

• Midterms/ CA1 (25%): 25
• Homework Assignment / CA2 (15%): 15
• Finals (60%)
• Overall Grade: A

Introduction to proofs. First 3 weeks on logic, proof techniques then some elementary number, set and function theory.

MH8300 It's a Discreetly Discrete World

Lecturer: Prof Kiah Han Mao - Tutorial (20%) - Midterm (30%) - Finals (50%) - Overall Grade: B+

Steep bell curve too!

PS0001 Introduction to Computational Thinking

Lecturer: Thomas Peyrin

• Tests ('quizzes' but scheduled) (50%)
  • 2 Hands-on exercises quizzes (20%)
  • 2 MCQ based quizzes (30%)
• Quizzes (on online platform after online lecture) (20%)
• Project (30%)
• Overall Grade: A+

Elementary Python course from syntax up to writing functions.

It was frustrating on both sides whether a student or an educator since this is the first time the course is being offered.

All lessons are in the computer lab. We started out playing with Raspberry Pi! On the first week we actually booted straight into the device and played with it by rewiring keyboard and monitor from the Windows PC to the Raspberry Pi. On subsequent weeks we SSH (remote connecction) using Windows Software. This may sound daunting to the unintiated but really it is like using any other windows software; follow instructions and type instructions and press buttons in the correct order just like summoning a 'spell' (which you learn to call an algorithm)

After this the course is really only about being tested. But I figure that nothing I advise here will remain so after the next offering so whereof one cannot speak one must remain silent!

I was worried about the bell curve about this one but I guess this just means I do not know the nature of the beast!

Further Reading

I curated a little list of advice by other NTU SPMS Seniors

SPMS MAS Senior advice

Another Senior (MAS)

• jellyfish NTU SPMS MAS Course Review
• jellyfish NTU SPMS Electives Review

Another Senior

• Yr1 S1 results

• Yr1 S2 results

• Yr2 S1 with comments

• Yr2 S2 with comments

• Yr3 S1 Exam Results and Module Comments

• Yr3 S2; was semester intern

  • http://wwwdontmesswith6a.blogspot.com/2016/06/internship-with-dso.html

• Neural Networks CZ4042

  • https://almightygosu.wordpress.com/2015/12/10/ntu-cs-year-3-sem-1-modules/

• Yr4 S1 Results aka 2016 December

• Yr4 S2 FYP only

Another Senior (MAEC)

• NTU SPMS MAEC Electives Review

Another Senior

• NTU SPMS Mathematical Sciences (Business Analytics)

NTU SPMS CBC Chem

Rather than making New Year Revolutions, in my 22nd year I will attempt Nicky Case's approach

To focus on making a habits rather making goals. Too often I have too many of these little projects and goals but without creating a habit out of them, it is impossible to maintain some sort of work flow or 'form of life' (echoing the philosopher Wittgenstein).

• Here are some of my habit goals, then:
  1. Maintain this blog and the habit of writing
     • I have been keeping a diary for many years
     • I have been keeping daily electronic entries (with some missed entries) since August 18
  2. Building on the blog to be more than a blog
     • A coding portfolio thing
     • A space for friends and discussion
     • A space for myself to try things to transform this static page to be more than just a static page.
       • The least of the priorities but possibly exciting if learn some skills/techniques before trying to do this.
     • The Reading Group Page is supposed to be a highlight.

Happy new year to all!

Hello world! Welcome to my little space on the internet. Here I intend to share little thoughts.

Why

What does it mean to know things, to think, to feel, to exist if it is mere solitude?

The writer isn't sure if the content of this blog should be taken seriously either. Regardless, there are some values that we will uphold here.

1. Be excellent to each other

Watch this space to follow what this means concretely.