Canada’s Population

Have you ever wondered what the population in a county is at a specific time? Or have you ever wanted to calculate what the population of the country is going to be in, say, 3 minutes and 41 second?

Well, I don’t know about you, but I never have, up until a moment ago, when I encountered this “population clock”,

http://www.statcan.ca/english/edu/clock/population.htm

which applies to Canada only (being produced by the Statistics Canada), but I am sure there are similar things for most countries. In fact, from the moment I encountered it to the moment this post is being written, Canada’s population grew by 5 people! That’s five more mouths to feed! But, perhaps, that’s five more physicists, or engineers, or doctors, or may be teachers, mathematicians, firefighters, soldiers, who ever not? Or may be a bunch of high school dropouts, which still wouldn’t be worst case.

Of course, this clock applies to local time periods only, but it’s being updated sufficiently frequently, for they last updated it half a year ago. I mean there can’t be a dramatic change in population growth over such period, unless there’s sort of an unnatural reason for it, which would simply be a some kind of fluctuation.

Interesting :)

A Short Update and Motivation for Further Takeoff

I sincerely appologise for updating the blog thus rarely. The new semester has started from a tough note, and so it ought to take time for me to obtain a laminar flow, for I would really hate to see any turbulent behaviour.

As some of you may know (and those who have checked out my web page, http://individual.utoronto.ca/nikolaev, for more information), I organise the 2008 Canadian Undergraduate Mathematics Conference (CUMC) that will take place at the University of Toronto some time in July. I have recently found out that the 2008 Canadian Undergraduate Physics Conference will also take place at the University of Toronto some time in October. Knowing that I have gained much experience in organising the CUMC, I thought no longer and found people responsible for the organising the physics conference. I now organise both events. With any further questions, please contact me. If you would like to appear as one of the speakers, please let me know that, too!

Again, I regret that I haven’t been updating the blog too often. I will try to manage my time better so that I will leave a few minutes to scribble a note or two. I have had a few things I was ought to share with the blog, but found no time to actually write them; as a result, I now do not remember what they were…

Also, I have quite a few nice photographs of the University of Toronto campus to show. These will also hopefully appear reasonably shortly.

On another note, I mentioned that apparently University of Toronto Physics Department had a store (here and here). Well, I went there and I looked at it. Umm… I couldn’t find it. Perhaps I was either looking at the wrong place or it was closed. I should ask someone, I think. I’ll let you know.

Winter Russian Scenery

Here is a link to a livejournal post by some community that specialises on journeys and trips around where ever. The post contains mostly photos, so even if you do not speak Russian you are highly recommended to visit the link and view the photos — simply disregard what’s written: it simply describes the route (I can translate if there’s interest).

You actually especially suggest you view the link if you are not Russian: the photos have a very good quality and are professional. Very beautiful! Please do take the time to look at it.

Here’s the link (!!! Caution traffic: about 30 high quality photographs !!!).

Sets of measure zero

Despite common smouldering discontent about the concept of a measure zero, it is a very interesting and useful concept. I have been recently talking to a student and was surprised that the person hated the concept of measure zero, calling it completely useless. Hence I decided to clarify some things.

Consider a very easy case in . Recall that Riemann function

on, say, the interval 0 to 1.

Recall how hard it was to prove that this function is Riemann integrable? We had to take some and show that the limit of the function is everywhere 0 and… all different sorts of things.

Now consider a situation where we know the notion of a set with measure zero. That is, we can state the following

Definition: A set has or is of measure zero, if a cover of the set by an a (finite or not) countable system of intervals, the sum of lengths of which .

Then we can easily prove the fact that a set that consists of only the rational number between and is, in fact, a set of measure zero. Then use recall the Lebesgue criterion for Riemann integrability, which states

Theorem (Lebesgue Criterion for Riemann Integrability): A function defined on a closed interval is Riemann integrable, if and only if it is bounded on this interval and the set of points, where the function is discontinuous, is of measure zero.

We are now ready to solve the problem. We see that the Riemann function is discontinuous at every rational point . Then the set of points, where the function is discontinuous, contains only the rational points and hence it is of measure zero. By the Lebesgue criterion for Riemann integrability, the Riemann function is integrable on 0 to 1.

Easy? I thought so.

A belated New Year Resolution

At one instant I became curious as to how much money in 2007 I have approximately spent on paper. Under paper I only include that which I write on: lecture notes, seminar notes, calculations, and whatnot; the category does not include that which I print on.

I must say that I was very disappointed, for the number I came up with was quite large, comparatively speaking, of course. In this includes the fact that I recently started doing much of the work in LaTex and hence there’s quite a lot less paper consumption.

I immediately decided to find ways to rectify this horrible mishap. There is not so much the paper consumption that I can limit, although, because I never really waste paper, and the very act of trying to save more paper would limit my studies (these require paper! and lots!). The least I can do is what I already do for quite a while: everyone in the house knows that I collect all paper that’s of no need to them anymore; I sort it out by selecting out the sheets that have a considerable amount of blank space and reuse it as my scrap paper later. This might seem like nothing (oh, how much used paper is going to have a lot of blank space to write on? come on!), but the amount of these “paper scraps” that accumulates in a month is painfully respectful: a hundred sheets of good-to-reuse paper (one full or almost full side is blank) a month can surely be expected, and about forty is a must. I encourage everyone to follow this example — this can save you a lot of money (and us trees).

One other thing that I looked into, which then became my belated New Year resolution, is the type of paper I use. I usually write on a quad paper (otherwise known as square paper or graph paper). [Caution: the following paragraph contains a useless "blah", so feel free to skip to the next one.] I always promote and say that physics and mathematics must be written on a quad paper. Correction: I used to promote that. About a year ago I changed my attitude, but only slightly, to promote and say that physics and mathematics must not be written on a lined (or ruled) paper. This is the argument I stand at still today. To me writing mathematical expressions and formulae in a lined paper is completely unnatural. And when people ask me “why? :S” and look at me ‘dumb’, I ask them back: “would you ever consider writing English essay in a quad paper?”, where they return “No, but… come on… that’s different”, to which I always respond by “How?”. The conversations usually end at this point. I win.

But I also happened to start loving writing on a purely blank paper. So in the view of grand costs on paper, I compared different papers. To my sudden amazement, followed by the usual “well, yeah… why didn’t I think of this earlier?..”, I was an exceedingly expensive type of paper! Blank printer paper is the one I should always have been using! Here’s an example of the comparison:

• quad paper (the one I usually buy) is priced as $3.51 per 100 sheets;
• blank paper (the one I use to print) is priced as $5.99 per 500 sheets;
• same blank paper (special deal, or something…) is $50.96 per 5000 sheets

This is amazing how much I could save! And in addition, writing on a blank paper is so much nicer than a paper with any markings on it: brighter, clearer, more organised, et cetera.

So here comes the belated New Year resolution:
Work exclusively on blank paper.

In the News

UK push for space station modules
A proposal for the UK to join the International Space Station (ISS) project has been put forward by a group of scientists and engineers.
A group of scientists and engineers put forward a proposal for UK to joint the ISS (Internation Space Station) project in that Britain will build and launch two HEMs (Habitation Extension Modules), directed towards improving the living conditions therein. [from BBC NEWS].

BBC NEWS also provide some short information on the proposed HEMs, which I thought I’d paste here, too:

• HEM is a 3.8m x 5.7m cylinder; Modules add 100 cu m to ISS
• HEM-C is a communal area for eating, meeting and socialising
• HEM-D sleeps 6 astronauts with enhanced radiation protection
• Launch on Soyuz-Fregat vehicle with 3 tonnes of supplies
• Room for one ISS Payload Rack for UK experiments
• Launch/build cost: £530 million; other costs about £70m

More details here (pdf file, 380 KB).

It is interesting that UK pulls out their support from particle physics, but will most probably sponsor this project. This all seems as if they rate the importance of scientific discoveries. Of course, ISS is crucial and there is much that humanity can gain from it; but ILC is very important, too, and we should not forget this.

Low energy light bulbs should be handled carefully
Be cautious when disposing your low energy light bulbs (such as the CFT ones) — some may contain a small amount of mercury. In fact, environmental agency in UK called for posting more information about this, since too little people new about the harm these excellent devices may bring when disposed. [from here]

This reminds me of an incident with a CFT light bulb some two years ago. I was twisting a CFT light bulb in, when it suddenly broke in half — I guess it was that kind of light bulbs that break for no particular reason. Knowing its low but measurable toxicity, I got a little scared. Luckily enough, it was a hot-hot summer day with no clouds whatsoever, so I decided to walk out into the yard and stand under the sun for 25 minutes. The idea was that if that light bulb did do something bad to me, then those 25 minutes under open sun would have done two or three hundred times as much, so the effect of a piteous light bulb would be negligible. That’s how I solve problems regarding health ;) I bet my fiancee is ready to kill me herself for my health-related beliefs.

UofT Department of Physics has a department store!? O_O
I have just found out that University of Toronto Department of Physics has a departmental store, where all various kinds of objects of UofT physics logos is sold. Boy, I am going down there tomorrow first thing!

Frogs Population is Under a Question Mark

A deadly disease threatens population of frogs, toads, newts, salamanders and caecilians all over the world. Scientists fear (~) it will be the largest mass extinction since the extinction of the dinosaurs. The threat is particularly harmful, because frogs and other species very frequently occur in various food chains.

7 Technologies that will Save the Earth in 2008

EcoGeek published their list of 7 technologies (here), which they predict will save the Earth in 2008. Even though the definition of “saving Earth” escapes me, I nevertheless found the article interesting.

1. Cellulosic Ethanol: the idea is the same as that with corn fuel, only the cause seems to be much more sensible.
2. LEDs: efficient, brighter, better than the incandescent light bulbs (which will be mostly illegal by 2014 in US and, presumably, Canada — more here).
3. Electrical Cars: hybrids already appear on markets with an exponentially increasing frequency, but I doubt that we will have an opportunity to see lots of purely electrical cars driving around as early as 2008. I think 2010 would be more reasonable a year, really. More here.
4. CDs are gone: DVDs perform painfully much better than CDs, not to mention things like MP3s. However, again, 2008 will be filled with CDs, no doubt; it’s just that their number will be decreased substantially. 2010 should be more reasonable, I think. May be 2009. May be.
5. Ebook Readers: electronic thingybobbles that let you read whatever on a screen.
6. Solar Energy: solar panels will become much cheaper than it is today; perhaps even as cheap as coal energy. This is a good point, because I have just recently started thinking about decorating the roof of my house with a few of them. I shall wait, then!
7. Smaller Cars: we have already made a huge journey from the large, mammoth-like cars of the 1950s and 60s to realise that smaller cars will do it much better, especially in the tangled jungles of many-floor business buildings of today.

Update: here is a list, originally published by BBC, of technologies that will most likely be a hit on markets of 2008.

What do you know about Kuiper belt?

The Live Science web site posted a short article, a part of which gives a nice overview of Kuiper belt and current perspective at it.

Here is a short summary on Kuiper belt from the article (which can be found here

Why is there rainbow of colors in the Kuiper belt?
Kuiper belt past Neptune is the suspected home of the comets, which complete their solar orbits as fast as a few decades or at most a few centuries. University of Hawaii astrophysicist David Jewitt says that it is surprising that Kuiper belt shows a very wide range of colours (from slightly blue to very red). The reason for it is unknown, although “Jewitt and his colleagues had suggested that cosmic rays could have made Kuiper belt objects redder, while impacts with rocks could have dug up more pristine matter that made them less red,” he thinks there ought to be another explanation.

What is ultra-red matter?
A material that exists only on about half or all Kuiper belt objects and their immediate progeny, the centaurus (these are icy planetoids orbiting between Jupiter and Neptune that recently escaped from the Kuiper belt). Interesting is that the ultra-red matter does not exist in the inner solar system, which suggests that ultra-red matter is unstable at higher temperatures, as Jewitt explains. He also says that the red colours suggest that this matter may contain organic molecules. A spacecraft could ideally go and take a probe of what it is.

Has the Kuiper belt shrunk?
Calculations suggest that Kuiper belt lost about 99% of its original mass. There are several conjectures as to how and when this happened. One suggests that when Saturn and Jupiter shifted their orbits roughly 4 billion years ago, their gravitational pulls threw Kuiper belt objects out of the solar system. Another suggests that objects pulverised themselves into dust and were swept away buy Sun’s radiation. Another one suggests that the proposition that mass was lost is wrong, in which case there is missing something crucial in our understanding.

Toronto Maple Leafs Had It Tonight

Tampa Bay Lightning 3 at Toronto Maple Leafs 4 in the shoot out.

Good game (here). I am glad Toronto had it tonight. They did work hard to get it and that ought to bring tonnes of spirit in their hearts. Especially after their long lasting downfall, which at the last game with New York Rangers seemed to have had almost a negatively infinite derivative. More about it here.

Scott Clemmensen, the backup goalie for the Leafs, turned out to be a great goalie. He stood really well throughout the game and he was outstanding on the shootout! Great job.

I am very sorry for Andrew Raycroft, for it will now be very unlikely that we will see him goaltending any time soon, considering the Scott Clemmensen’s play. But with all seriousness, Maple Leafs is better this way, at least for now, and so is Raycroft, there is no doubt. Raycroft is a good goalie, but he just has to gain his full potential, and that takes time.

Jason Blake finally had really something going tonight, as he picked up 3 points (one goal and two assists). Moreover, it was his goal that brought Toronto back from a 1:0 fallback behind the Lightning — as I said here, he did get the Leafs going tonight.