Termination Notice

This blog will not be updated starting from June 2008. Sadly, I have only the time to post this notice today. Some posts were never complete or posted but will always remain in my head. Nevertheless, this site will be testimony to my insight/ignorance in years to come. Thank you all.

EDB Dialogue and Roundtable Session 2007

EDB Dialogue and Roundtable Session 2007 was held on 21st July, from 8.30 to 11.30 at the Intercontinental Hotel Singapore ballroom. The session is organised by the EDB (Economic Development Board), a government organisation that is responsible for making Singapore attractive to business investments. Mr. Lim Siong Guan, chairman of EDB, gave a talk on career and scholarship choices and also participated in the discussion. Students from various top junior colleges were also present, and the entire ballroom of around 30-40 tables were occupied.

In his opening speech, Mr. Lim talked about Silicon Valley and how often people mistaken the root of its accomplishments to be creativity and innovation. Instead, he brought forth the idea that the determinant of the success in Silicon Valley was a result of optimism. Having gone to Silicon Valley on an overseas school trip in the June holidays, I thought that this idea was refreshing. The theme of the trip was creativity and innovation and that was the main reason why we visited Silicon Valley. Thus, when the idea that optimism was the crux of Silicon Valley’s success was proposed, I was taken aback initially by this challenge on my beliefs. Nevertheless, I still appreciate this point of view and I come to realise that indeed, it is very important to have a positive outlook in everything we do. This optimism allows people to adopt the mindset that failure is just another stepping stone to success and is a something that is part of every success story.

I must acknowledge that my generation is a relative fortunate one, free from war, widespread poverty or serious racial tensions. Instead from birth, we have been provided for with the best that has to be offered, be it education, material well-being or social interactions. One important thing Mr. Lim reminded us was that all the successes that Singapore have enjoyed as a country are fought for, not in terms of military actions, but in terms of staying competitive and be ahead of other countries. While this may seem to be common knowledge that is preached about everywhere, but I think we all underestimate the extent of severity. After the session, I think I would see Singapore’s strive for success in a more serious light: as a struggle for survival.

Another idea that was discussed was the need to be prepared so that you can grab the opportunities when they happened to come by. This may seem to be common sense and you might have heard it umpteen times before. Nevertheless, preparing yourself something that is difficult to do consistently, especially after a long wait where nothing has happened. I think the session gives me a good reminder that I should not give up just because opportunities are not coming by, but instead take the time to equip myself such that when the right opportunities appear, I would be in pole position to seize it.

Prior to the session, I thought that economics was the favoured choice of course for EDB scholarship applicants and that a degree in economics is much favoured, if not necessary, if you wanted to join EDB. However, after the session, I realise that this idea was inaccurate and an engineering degree is much sought after in EDB. Even though the study of engineering principles may seem to have little relevance to EDB, the industrial knowledge is very useful when it comes to interacting with clients who are interested in investing in Singapore. Moreover, the set of skills learnt and attitudes acquired in engineering, for example pragmatism as highlighted by Mr. Lim, would be beneficial to EDB, or to any other organisation you may end up working with. Even though this may be insufficient to make me switch my allegiance to engineering, I think I have learnt something important, that skills are highly valued, and that we should not overlook skills at the expanse of content; whereas content may become outdated and irrelevant in the future, skills would always be an integral part of you.

There are many other things that I learnt during this short three hours, and I hope that I would be able to remember the things learnt and apply them my daily life. I would strongly recommend anyone to attend the EDB Dialogue and Roundtable Session if given a chance in your future. I hope that EDB would continue to host such a session as this is very beneficial to all participants, regardless of whether they are interested in applying to EDB or take up an EDB scholarship or not. And if you are given an opportunity to attend such a session, remember to take the offer; I know I definitely did not regret attending the EDB Dialogue and Roundtable Session 2007.

A Brief Discussion of Indian Poker (Variant)

Introduction

(quoted from the article)

“Indian Poker is a simple game that has little relation to other more serious forms of poker. Every person who is playing will pick up a card and place it on his/her head, such that a player is able to view everyone else’s card but his/her own. After which, he/she may switch a card by firstly, discarding the card he/she is holding, and secondly, choosing any one card from the remaining cards. It is worth noting that the card discarded is not put back in play and can never be chosen again by any player. While many versions on the Internet states that the person with the highest card wins, a more common version played in Singapore (personal experience) is one where the person with the lowest card loses. The person who lost would then have to do a forfeit. One important factor that makes this game fun is that players are allowed, and even encouraged, to communicate with each other, so as to influence each others’ decisions on whether to change their cards or not.”

The article discusses the probability that any single player would win once the game starts. This is not to be confused with the probability of winning. In other words, the discussion serves to allow us to identify who has a better chance of winning in a particular game mathematically, but does not discuss the probability of winning the game.

Click here for the full article.

Victoia Integrated Programme (VIP) Symposium 2005

Introduction

I was reminded recently, to upload my presentation which I did during the Victoia Integrated Programme (VIP) Symposium 2005. The subject that I was in charge of was mathematics, and there was no restrains on topics. Following my teacher’s request I did a presentation on one of my “explorations” (extra cirriculum work that is encouraged, not compulsory, by our teachers). The “exploration” is mainly about solving a certain mathematics problems with a two-prong approach, with firstly, a computer program and secondly, algebra.

The presentation is in .pps (Powerpoint Slide Show, which can be opened using Microsoft Powerpoint), and is available here

The program used in the .pps and is available here. (Note: If you download this and unzip the program in the same folder as the .pps, when viewing the .pps, you can click on the slide with the large computer symbol, and the program will run.). For a peace of mind, please remember to scan the this program file for viruses, since it is easily mistaken, by humans and computers alike, that the program might contain a virus.

Rationale:
Although the presentation was requested by my teacher, the “exploration” was not. The work was done by myself, and by my own initiative; my teacher did not require, or in any other way instructed me to do, the “exploration”.

It was done out of curiousity, when I saw my friend’s mathematics olympaid notes. The question struck me as one that can be solved using programming. Hence, I did a computer program to solve that problem. Since “explorations” as such was encouraged by my teachers, I decided to write a report, and submit the findings from my “explorations” to them.

People to thank:
The presentation, was a chance my teachers gave me, to showcase my work. Hence I wish to thank the following people:
Mr. Lee (My mathematics teacher, who encouraged “explorations” and gave me the opportunity to present in the VIP symposum)
Mr. Ang (Another, mathematics teacher, who gave feedback for my presentation)
Cleaven (my friend, who is in mathematics olympaid and kindly showed me his mathematics olympaid notes)

The Simpson Index Program

Introduction:

Simpson Index is a meaurement of diversity for any given population of living organisms. I have created a Simpson Index Program that calculates the Simpson Index .

It is available here.

A free .pdf file that teaches you how to use this program is available here

Rationale:

I was approached by one of my classmates near the start of this year, to assist her in the calculations of the Simpson Index which she needed for her project. Having a programming background, I identified that this is definately a problem that can be solved using programming. Hence, I started work on this program. Initially, I only made the program and taught my friend how to use it. However, soon after, word that I have made a Simpson Index program spreaded to another friend of mine, who also needed to compute the Simpson Index for his project. After teaching these two friends of mine, I become more and more aware of how potentially user-unfriendly this program may be to someone who is not familiar with programming. Hence, I decided to add value to this project by creating an instruction file so that even people who do not know how to do programming can use my Simpson Index program too.

Future extensions

Given enough time, one possible extension is to develop a Java Applet that can compute the Simpson Index . (Got this inspiration from http://math.hws.edu/javamath/ryan/DiversityTest.html. Which calculates the Shannon Index, which is another diversity index)

(Physics) “6 States of Matter” Presentation

Today, our chemistry lecturer mentioned about the number of states of matter and I was reminded of a physics presentation I did 2 years ago (when I was 15 years old).

Please click here for the presentation.

How the presentation come about

We were having a group electronic quiz (a quiz where each group gets a remote controllers to select options and the results will instantly appear on the teacher’s computer) in class on physics, in particularly, on a topic relating to states of matter. One of the question goes something like this: “How many states of matter are there?” and the options are 3, 4, 5 and 6. Having remembered something our physics teacher said, I proposed to my group to choose “5″. The answer was “4″ (solid, liquid, gas, plasma) and so we got that question wrong. I was quite convinced that “4″ wasn’t the answer and went home to do some research.

After searching through many internet sources, I discovered that my proposed answer, “5″, was also wrong. Instead, there are as many as 6 states of matter (the other 2 being Bose-Einstein Condensate and Filament). I discussed my findings with my physics teacher, who in turn suggested that I should do a short presentation (less than 5 minutes) on my findings. Therefore, this is how this presentation came about. I have quite forgottened about it 2 years down the road but then I have to thank my chemistry lecturer for reminding me that I have done such a presentation, which then led me to remember to post the presentation here.

(Something worth mentioning: Actually, the 6 refered by my chemistry lecturer was Bose-Einstein condensate, fermionic condensate, solid, liquid, gas and plasma but my presentation took the 6 state to be the filament state instead of the fermionic condensate. I have to admit here that there are indeed a lot of uncertainties.)

People to thank:
My Boy (my physics teacher)
Mr Lim (my chemistry lecturer)
And others who gave suggestions/feedback about the presentation or is involved in the presentation in one way or another.

FIRST Robotics Singapore 2006

(This article was published in The Victoria Integrated Programme Prospectus 2006/2007)

FIRST Robotics Singapore (FRS) has allowed me to further improve myself in the field of engineering. The opportunity to apply physics learnt in class to tackle real problems has greatly enriched my understanding of the concepts. Our VJC mentor Mr. Kwek not only teaches us technical skills but also emphasizes the need for self-motivation and perfection-seeking. An ever source of advice, Mr. Kwek also encourages us to try things ourselves and to not give up when we fail. In the entire course of FRS, I have learnt much about interpersonal skills as well as the value of passion, faith and endurance. On the whole, I feel that FRS is a most unique experience and I hope everyone will have a chance to go through it. -Chew Tian Wei, 05V12, FRS Competition 2006

(Date of post published inaccurate)