Fooji...

After reading your blog, I have only one thought in mind; that is to respond! principle of relativity is still being both defended and defied until today. generally, einstein and many of the early modern physicists created a whole new paradigm of human thinking in this world. they taught humans not to respect and trust fully on existing formulas and theories. although those abtract equations or findings might seem perfect, there are still a lot of rooms to explore.

einstein, planck, bohr and many others studied hard to disprove Newton's findings and in fact, they divided the field of physics into two; the classical physics and the modern physics. we were all very prone and amazed about physics during our schooldays, particularly in classical fields like mechanics, dynamics, kinematics, momentum, force, energy with formulas like F=ma, etc. how shallow we were when we extol Newton and not knowing the works of modern physicists in our own era.

bear in mind that not even one should disparage Newton even though some of his findings have weaknesses. Newton being the father of calculus is a fantastic role model for us to realise that success is not merely measured by money alone. in fact, successful in wisdom or knowledge is far greater. don't you think so?

the core of modern physics is fundamentally quantum mechanics. if you could remember again the time we were studying physical chemistry in form 6, and how terribly annoying and hard it was to understand the basic of quanta energy with all those mysterious lyman series, bohr model, planck constant, it would be times harder for us to understand or rather many times greater for us to amaze over some of the latest findings and equations by richard feynman, erwin schroedinger etc.

in the year 2000, when we sat for our stpm, if you still remember, an essay question about polymers came out in chemistry paper 2. at that same year, hideki shirakawa, heeger and macdiarmid were nobel prize winners in chemistry for their discovery and development of conductive polymers! but if you care to ask around, i am sure many malaysian university students wouldn't care much about such things anymore.

i have to agree with you that something is wrong with our education. we were not trained and taught to have the minds and burning desire to pursue a career in research and development in science. again "There are genius-es around, just that the environment does not promote the growth of minds...." getting a chance to study at princeton and meeting nash would be a fabuluous experience, how much more becoming someone like him!

if you plan to read more about science for pleasure, do go and read about Fourier. i was having lots of troubles doing mathematics with his formulas and series in my digital signal processing course. reading about him, you will realise how great is he that his formula or equation is so widely used in almost every single of today's engineering application. try to catch up with automata theory, nanotechnology, and the lives of nobel winners! haha :)

by the way, do you know that many european countries are actually using nuclear power as their main source for energy (electricity)? check out Areva of France. what more you have to say about tokyo university entrance exams? truly, to them, knowledge is not about studying or rather reading all the books and answer all the questions correctly, but more on developing a passion and love of learning (discovering) and use it rationally, wisely and analytically to produce own knowledge and solve problems.

Einstein on SOCIALISM



"The situation prevailing in an economy based on the private ownership of capital is characterised by two main principles: first, means of production (capital) are privately owned and the owners dispose of them as they see fit;
second, the labor contract is free.

Of course, there is no such thing as a pure capitalist society in this sense. In particular it should be noted that the workers, through long and bitter political struggles, have succeeded in securing a somewhat improved form of the of the 'free labor contract' for certain categories of workers. But taken as a whole, the present day economy does not differ much from pure capitalism.

Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an 'army of unemployed' always exists. The worker us always in fear of losing his job. Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than easing the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instabilitiy in the accumulation and utilisation of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor and to a crippling of the social consciousness of individuals.

This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.

I am convinced that there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals"

Albert Einstein

Dear Teong, Kar Kin...

when other people are reading up surgery, I found a book - Introduction to Einstein, a pictorial guide with lots of physics and maths - I found myself intrigued for 2 hours at least.

I just found out that the principle of relativity is much more complex and harder to prove than the text in our Form 5 physics. Also E=MC2 bears a somewhat more shallow meaning, at the same time, the ultimate reflection of all the hoohoohaha in the principles of relativity, how we still use Newtonian equations in mechanics in our textbooks while actually it has been altered by Einstein before the WW2.

And Einstein has no direct hand in making the Atomic Bomb, much to my horror for being so ignorant till now. I am sure the E=MC2 indirectly inspired the real nuclear physicists - Curie, Fermi and Szilard to come out with creation of energy and the chain reaction. I forgot what I learnt about that.

Do you all know that Inertia is still a mystery, but a very important aspect in the argument that E=MC2 ?

Am I talking sense to you guys? Actually, I am again intrigued by all this science, after so long,... I was studying Form 6 with much pressure, that I hardly actually find relaxed joy in reading up about science.

Something must be wrong in the way they teach science in our schools, I was not inspired to take up a career in science at all other than medicine, probably had it been otherwise, I may even go all the way to be a physicists or a mathematician like Nash... and all that....

There are genius-es around, just that the environment does not promote the growth of minds....

What say you guys????

Greece 2 - France 0

It depends how shallow you are regarding the Euro. For a lot of people, with the exit of the all the superstars and the favourites like England, France and Italy (most of them appeared in the expensive Pepsi, Nike and Adidas ads), there is not much reason to follow Euro with much excitement and interest anymore.

For me, it was yet another watch-worthy match between the Greeks and the French, that revealed the simple fact that teamwork is better than flair.

And I am not lying about the score-line, a freekick in the 15th minute actually produced a goal, where the ball crossed the line but Barthez pushed it back out, and was dishonest about it. The referee did not think it was a goal. The gentle Greeks hardly protested and went in search for a more convincing goal which they did.

France showed no urgency at all. And out they go. For me, Euro 2004 is getting better and better.

Tomorrow morning - Will Holland create some Orange Magic against the more favoured Sweden?

Beckham should hang his boots. He missed another penalty. Awfully sky-rocketing the ball. It is very true he is too much overrated as a footballer. During his peak, I dont even think he is a world-class or european-class footballer. Rather to me, he was just a better "crosser" then, nothing more. Now, every player on the field seems to know how he has been using only his right leg to make crosses, take freekicks and penalties. Every kick from him is so predictable and expected.

I believe, in many matches he played in La Liga, Spanish commentators had "teased" him a couple of times. Perhaps, he is not fit and have the overall qualities to play in Spain after all. One of my friend even said it is no doubt that no Spanish team fancy him, and even if he is to go back to England, no team will ever want him except of course, Chelsea, for the fact he is too "valuable". Time for him to hand over his skipper armband to Frank Lampard, John Terry.

Sorry, England's fans ! The Euro excitement continues minus Rooney and gang

England played a good game, much better than the over-rated Italy, Spain and Germany. But hey, we're in Lisbon, so let the Portuguese celebrate some more before they fall to Sweden or Holland, okay?

I supported England in the group matches but when it came to last night, Portugal deserved my support in the midst of the EPL fans around my college. And the match turned out to be one of the best so far, it was worth sacrificing my sleep.

What could have been a painful and fruitless wait after the Owen goal thanks bad defending, the whole affair got pumped up 100x after Poshtiga scored. Rui Costa could have been the winner had not they given space for Lampard.

The penalty kick-off should have been avoided as it would be unfair to the keepers and those who failed. And Beckham again turned out the be scapegoat for the exit.

Ricardo who had guessed wrongly till the 6th penalty changed role from a bad gambler to the darling of the match.

It was a great game. Too bad England and Portugal meet too early.

It is okay, with the huge success of the EPL, losing this major title is no big deal for England, isn't it? Portugal needs it more.

I am taking Greece tonight with ?goal handicap? Anyone?

England 2 (Owen, Lampard)
Portugal 2 (Poshtiga, Costa) won penalty 6-5 (missed: Beckham, Costa, Vassell)

Italy Crashed Out...

What a finale to Group C of Euro2004! I guessed it man.. that the Danes and Swedes were going to settle for a 2-2 draw.. true enough! Italy.. have to blame themselves for letting Zlatan Ibrahimovic equalised against them in their previous match.. nevertheless.. I see a lot of future with young Italians.. Pirlo, Cassano.. Nesta is still as strong and stylish and handsome :)

Holland lost, again.

Sigh, it's okay - this was not the team that can lift the cup anyway.

But they could have in the previous championship. It was the stupid Italians that ripped them... now all i can wish for is that the Italians join them in booking an early flight back home.

HAIL ZIDANE! FRENCH INJURY TIME COMEBACK!

I have no regret of staying awake to watch the France-England match this morning. With 3 Arsenal players in the starting 11 for France; Pires, Viera, and Henry together with their skillful and steady skipper, Zidane, there was no reason for me not to stay awake. England capitalised a typical Beckham's freekick in the first half to lead 1-0. Credit must be given to Lampard. He timed his running well, and with much good timing again, leaped and head with power to the left side of Barthez's goal post. No chance for the latter to save it at all.

Second half, France looked dominant again from the start. They kept on pressuring. Henry was more into his style of playing like when he was with Arsenal. But Trezeguet seemed drowned with not much performance and touch on the ball as well. Zidane, as usual, together with Viera really commanded the midfield with great power.

England's counter attack through Rooney midway through the second half proved to be disastrous to the French team. He was brought down in the penalty box by the desperate and out-of-idea Silvestre. The latter had no choice but to tackle, and that's it, a penalty. I was confident that Beckham would not put the ball pass Barthez into the net because I knew France were going to win. True enough, he didnt score. His penalty always quite predictable.

Then, it was the French comeback or rather the English downfall! First, in the 1st minute of the injury time after the full 90 minutes, Zidane curled a freekick and made it 1-1 the scoreline. David James moved to fast to his left and when the ball swung outwardly to his right, Zidane put his name on the scoresheet. 3rd minute into injury time, a misunderstanding between Ashley Cole and Gerrard forcing the latter to pass the ball back to his keeper and not knowing the speedy Henry was in the lurk.

Henry sprinted, dribbled the ball pass James and later only to be brought down. No doubt, clearly a penalty. Zidane, cool and skillful as he is all the time on the pitch, stepped up and yeah, sent James the wrong way and made a finale and emphatic swashbuckling victory for the French. 2-1 the final scoreline. 3 points for France.

Back in Malaysia this morning, most dailies especially the Chinese dailies, carry the "top STPM science student, Koong Lin Yee entering medical school and registering at UM" news in their frontpages together with a photo of his parents putting a lab coat on him at his room in UM's second residential college. Little did he know that with such publicity, he is going to face tremendous hardship of being oreinted to the maximum by his notorious seniors in the faculty of medicine. i wonder how is he going to cope up with questions from my very analytical, controversial but knowledgeful and well-rounded friend, HC Pang, and fellow great buddy, Fooji. i shall know later as whether i am going to hear good comments or bad ones about this top student from them.

Before that, I am wondering why top achievers choose UM over the other universities? Why many took the trouble to appeal to enter UM even though they were given courses of their choices in other universities? Why we cant see top students here opt for USM or UKM instead of UM, like top students in US who may reject Harvard and go to Cornell, MIT, Berkeley, Princeton or even Caltech?

The answers I have, number one, is because of UM's prestige and recognition in and out of Malaysia, number two, is due to the fact that other universities couldnt effectively challenge the position of UM as the premier institution in Malaysia, number three, lack of financial aids in private medical schools to attract top achievers to earn more recognised and reowned degrees from perhaps, John Hopkins, or top universities in UK and Ireland, number four lack of fundings and financial aids as well as recognition in the job market to technology-based private institutions like MMU to again attract top achievers, number five, lack of vision and contructive measures by other universities to establish themselves in a competitive level to defeat UM's overall prestige by focussing on R&Ds, and certain courses in which UM are very weak (it is like how Cornell being the more reowned engineering Ivy school compared to Harvard, although Harvard is no doubt, older and more pretige), number six, other universities should collaborate more with top organisations in various industries to making sure that there are offers for their top students upon graduation (without increasing the financial burdens to compensate for all these benefits), number seven, other universities should involve in more joint-ventures to offer top notch facilities and education services (MMU have a great vision of working together with Microsoft Malaysia), and the answers list continues.

In short, authorities have to just work on ways to set themselves on the mark and not just sit and surrender to the fact that they are not the elites. MMU should capitalise the many advantages they have in Malaysia own Silicon Valley at Cyberjaya to come out as "Stanford" of Malaysia. USM should continue and further enhance their R&Ds and inventing more and more patents and technologies and publicise themselves in and through CeBit, Intel Exhibition, etc to gain more positive recognition worldwide. They can be the "Berkeley" or perhaps the "MIT" of Malaysia.

When a non-KeAdilan supporter began to sympathise with the party, perhaps we should read this letter by Ann Choo in Malaysiakini.

If you cannot properly answer the following questions that Ann posed, then Anwar Ibrahim is of course, just like any other BN politician of his time, a bullcrapping half-idiot.

1. Where was our former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim when non-Muslim soldiers appealed to him for help when they had religious problems including not being allowed to pray in their quarters

2. Where was Anwar when exceptionally outstanding non-Muslim students were left out in their pursuit of higher education?

3. Where was Anwar when the Selangor state government passed the mubaligh law targeting non-Muslim children?

4. What did Anwar do in the 20 years he was in the government? Who spearheaded the Islamisation programme? Was he not the cause of polarisation in schools with his great emphasis on Islamic values (as if the other religions had none)?

5. ?he Malay grassroots are now acutely aware of the excesses of Umno politicians, of their material self-interests and their desperation.?Anwar was strangely silent on this when he was the deputy prime minister. Why was he silent on the prolonging of the ISA, OSA, UUCA and Printing Presses and Publications Act which curtail the civil liberties of Malaysians?

6. Why did Anwar did not shout Reformasi earlier in his tenure as DPM, but only after dealt the SACK blow by Mahathir?

I will be going to Taiping for 2 weeks starting this Sunday.

Will be surveying household like ahli banci, and visiting loji air, food factory... acting like health inspectors. And there will be 33 of us staying in one big expensive bungalow near Lake Gardens, spending the night watching Euro 04 and writing reports and working out the SPSS.

Sounds fun, isn't it?

I hope so.

We will be working in 4 rural kampungs about 15 minutes from Taiping.

We had finally decided to also do a research on their perception of HIV/AIDS, after a brief discussion on what to research on.

If only they would take my proposal of researching the health condition of Kamunting ISA prisoners. It would be fun !!!!

In view of my disgruntlement over the fiasco and shortcomings of students's admission into critical courses, I would like to make my points clearer. Whenever I refer to a particular group of people, bear in mind that I am not referring it to the each and every person involves in the subset. I am actually stating the majority of the people of the particularly mentioned subset. So, to avoid further misunderstanding, I would first apologise to the many of you who are actually innonsensely blamed by my judgements when I refer to the group of people in which you are actually residing in; to those in the authorities who are not able to carry their duties to the fullest of fairness and efficiency due to beauracracy and political hedge, and also to those students who are outright deprived and have their purest of dreams shattered.

Firstly, the cycle of processing applications. Few words to describe: shoddy, blur, not standardised, random (arbitrary), unfair, non-objective, and the worst of all, it depends on LUCK and not competency. Reaction to the process: unfair, meritocracy which is aint, bias, abstract, subjective, deprivation, aspiration annihilated, uncivilised and it is yet another methodology coined to further enhance the grip of special rights of the Bumis.

My suggestion to stamp out iniquity and favouritism (applicable when only the "majority" are ready to accept the fact, the fittest ones win and the the less ones, must give way). First process, the application and its submission. Critical courses should have different forms of application. Why? To making sure that the students pick the courses they desire. If they really desire to be doctors, then they just have to apply medicine instead of putting in a "rojak" of choices when they are not sure or when they are influenced by glamourity and mentality like "if i score full As and not applying medicine, what a waste", which might unfairly and grievously deprived those who have the full aspiration to be doctors and help patients. When you want medicine, you only apply medicine, you could not apply for any other courses. Include some short essay questions in the application forms, to gauge a person's inclination and interest towards those fields especially medicine.

Upon submission, the authorities should work closely with the medical faculties to filter, screen and select prospective students. Each medical faculty should come out with 2 lists; the list of accepted applicants for interviews/entrance tests and the waiting list (on-hold students). Never mind if there are students who are in accepted lists and/or waiting lists of different universities because they are required to reply to accept or not to go for the interviews. Nevertheless, one shouldn't be in more than n list; where n is an integer, standardised and proven by statistics and academicians; those people are paid to work out on this.. don't tell people it is hard, if it is easy, you will be working in farms or shit tanks.

Those people who are in waiting list need not be in despair but also doesn't mean they can take it easy. They are in the waiting list, they should start bucking up and have some alternative mitigation plans. After the interviewing process, those medical faculties should coordinate to choose and select and drop successful and unsuccessful applicants respectively. Successful applicants then should confirm as whether they would like to accept the offer or not. Here come the chances for the applicants in waiting lists, because they are some idiots who wouldn't go for medicine in UKM because it aint UM's medicine. In addition to remaining extra seats, these "rejected" seats will be freed and allocated to those in the waiting list.

Those unfortunate, who are not successful in their application should be given a chance to apply for other courses, which are related, like bio-medic, medical science, biochem which are more prominent instead of zoology, wood fibre technology. Those of you who rejected offers from UKM or UPM, don't expect to be given a chance to re-apply. Those too specialised courses should be abolished. Undergraduate studies are meant to be wholesome, holistic and well-rounded. Wood fibre technology and such courses are too specialised and are only suitable for intense research and development at post-graduate level. No point you offer such courses when there are no job opportunities in the market.

Authorities should concentrate on expanding and upgrading prominent and fundamental courses and not spending big bucks in establishing new in-depth courses where and when the nation actually don't have such need and expertise. If they have the far vision and do see the prospect of, say, wood fibre technology, they should increase the fundings to research institutes (like Perhilitan, or some sort), professors and post-graduates students.

That I believe is the way for a better tertiary education in Malaysia. Everyone knows, all these required efforts. Najib will be even saying "Kita tak boleh sewenang-wenangnya membuat perubahan kerana pertimbangan itu ini perlu diambil kira... bla bla". Hello, you and those people are paid by tax payers, it is your job to do all these positive changes and every work is hard. Again if it is easy, might as well we pay at a lower cost to hire tom dick and harry to do. You are placed in positions concerning the nation and the public, please dont expect to work only when problems arise and sit in the air-con rooms borak angin. You are to work hard and not easy through out the year man!

Malaysia is really full of bullshit/bullcraps. The same old problem keeps on repeating itself each year. I wonder what those people are doing everyday? Never they thought of plan to overcome the problem regarding admission into critical courses each year? Proven Malaysia gemilang, cemerlang, terbilang is just a mere myth. Perhaps, the plan has included such problems to exist. If not, where the Bumis going to stand? Very simple question. If you debate it further, you will see chances of getting into deep shit! Malaysia is MALAYsia. Remember that!

Then come the students. 2X5 also! Reads dua kali lima. Heard of one guy rejecting a place in UKM's medicine because it aint UM's. Real bullshit man! Medicine?! Nah, I am not despising people and my good buddies here who are studying medicine, but I thank God that He orchestrated in such a way that I got a result that denied me to apply for a place in medicine which eventually, I ended up not taking medicine.

In the end, I have to say again... Malaysia is Malaysia... I admit... we are still 3rd world... I admit we are still raw... even the students and the government... and I admit that I must give glory to God... that He truly knows what's the best for me... and I still believe being selfish and keeping silence is still the best... let God guide you man!

epaper.thestar.com.my

The free trial of Star's epaper was promoted last few months, but eventually it's officially opened to public since yesterday.

For those who is online all the time, and wish to save RM36 per month, then this electronic paper is the best option. Since we can't live isolated from this world, so we must always update ourself with all the current issues. Just sign in as member, then you can navigate page by page as what you read from ths local daily. The integrated features like zoom-in, zoom-out, previous-n-next buttons are sufficient to fully meet our objective in absorbing the local and foreign news, lifestyle, business, technology, stock market, health, education, politics etc. It's so convenient.

The only teethy disadvantage is its zoom functionality. If the page can be zoomed until the level where all the fonts are readable, then it saves a lot of time from clicking that particular article, read it and close it.

Thumbs-up for thestar epaper online group. That's good for those avid knowledge explorer, like me. The broadband age is prevalent this recent year, and its operation is just timely.