Coronado PST by Meade Inc.

This is one of several telescopes that I owned, all bought on line. PST stands for Personal Solar Telescope. Yes, you use it to look at the sun. Won't you damage your eyes looking at the sun ?

You won't because this gadget here reduces the sun's light by over a hundred thousand times and only allow light emitted by excited hydrogen atoms (H-alpha) to go through. What you see is a reddish orb, big enough to show the mottled surface of the sun, sunspots, filaments etc.

The surface of the sun is not static but changes over a matter of hours as it rotates and the hot plasma that it is made up of rises and falls. So what is the big deal.

The sun is 93 million miles away, so far that if it should shut down, we won't notice it until 8 minutes later because the last particles of light will take 8 minutes to reach us. The reddish orb that you see in the PST is so huge that the earth looks like a dot when compared with it on the same scale. And some say going from Changi to Jurong is far...... The energy from the sun drives everything on earth and has been doing so for the last couple of billion years.

When is the best time to look at our nearest star ? On a sunny day, preferably cloudless of course and you know what that will do to your skin. Drink plenty of water and have some nearby shade to duck into when it becomes unbearable. A wide straw hat will come in handy too.

Am I nuts or what to torture myself this way ? Well no if your interest is astronomy. The truth is out there.

Mathematica ver. 6 by Wolfram Research Inc.

In case you are wondering, this is not a book. Mathematica is the name of a computer software developed by Wolfram Research. This software is huge and contains within it all the mathematics that anyone will ever need.

I came across this software years back when Windows was still in version 2 or 3 when I chanced upon the Mathematica Book in MPH Stamford. This Book was meant to be the "bible", user guide and reference manual for the software. Mathematica was ver 1 then but I was amazed that you can use it to solve complex problems in maths and then plot the output in colour in both 2D and 3D. So out plonk my dole (it ain't cheap, but I was young) and I have upgraded all the way to ver 6 now.

Of course you can use it as a high end calculator - you enter the equation and it solves it for you but that's only the tip of the ice berg. You see you are supposed to use it to write programmes to solve extremely complex mathematical, physical problems and Wolfram has a whole web site of such programmes and functions developed by users.

Having said that, Mathematica does have a fairly steep learning curve before one is conversant enough to use it to solve real world problems. Believe me I am still trying. But I have seen maths books written entirely in Mathematica. Now that's something. I have dabbled with MathCad, MathLab etc but I think Mathematica is by far the "chimmest" (I mean deep).

One thing though, I never did manage to get Mathematica to explain and show me how come 1 + 1 is equal to 2 though. I am also wondering if any schools or universities here use it to teach mathematics or physical sciences.

A Course of Pure Mathematics by G.H. Hardy

This book was written 100 years ago. No, I didn't go buy a 100 year old book but a centenary edition. Am I crazy or what to buy a maths book ? Well actually I was rather curious about how a 100 year old book is like reading it and I sort of like maths. Don't get me wrong, I am no geeky nerd. In fact I don't even come from the science stream. During my time and in my institution, if you flunk maths in Sec. 2, that's the end of the road for all your dreams to become a scientist, never mind the straight A's for the other subjects.

I was a slow starter (ok lah, a bit lazy and idle too), flunked maths and ended learning about Shakespeare, history of China and all that stuff. But I was also one of the 6 heroes in the class who switched from elementary maths in GCE O level to advance (pure & applied) maths in GCE A level. Small birds never see last stick but after a challenging ( aka harrowing) two years we scrapped through. That was an achievement (never mind the grades) and the experience permanently rewired my brain to maths.

For those in the maths fraternity, Hardy was a renown mathematician and this book is supposed to be a classic. It is not hard to read but you will be cracko to try going through the pages one by one. Select a chapter or topic and jump right in. I find certain topics are more clearly written than some of those flashy maths books you find in bookshops today. When I read those sometimes I also lost.

Mathematics began with 10 digits (some say 20) on our limbs and the innate need to keep count (be it goats, cowrie shells or screaming mates from the next tribe). Today it can just about explain the beginning, evolution and probably the end of the universe. And all it took was time (give or take a couple of hundred thousand years) plus a three and a half pound of spongy jelly between our ears. Now, that to me is amazing and profound.........

TriField Natural EM Meter

This gadget you are seeing here is called a TriField Natural EM Meter that I bought online. What does it do ? - it detects minute changes in the static electric and magnetic fields around it. Extremely sensitive and is calibrated to ignore the usual sources of electromagnetic fields such as coming from your TV, PC, body etc. Gives a tone once a change is detected. In addition it can also detect radio and microwaves. So sensitive that it can detect a person walking near it.

It is used by many paranormal researchers (aka ghost hunters) to detect such minor EM fluctuations caused by you know what..... Haven't tried it at any haunted places or graveyards though. Not that I am afraid it won't work but I am more worried when it does ! Maybe I should bring it to ongoing getais in my neighbourhood to see if the needle goes wild.......

With the Old Breed by E. B. Sledge

Of all the wars books that I have read, this is the most poignant and haunting in it's simplicity and recounting of the horrors of war. Sledge joined the US Marines in 1942 and fought at Peleliu and Okinawa. He was a mortar man, part of a 60 mm mortar team that provided support fire to the Marines. The book was the result of the notes he wrote and kept tucked away in his Bible.

They were not about the battles and campaigns that 1st Marine Division fought in the South Pacific but his experience, observations and feelings as an enlisted man on the ground, under constant enemy fire and watching friends and foes die. Although I know how it felt to be eating compo rations out of my mess tin under pouring rain in a crumbling fox hole on top of Marsiling 265 or watching 81 & 120 rounds pound the hills of Bajau and Snake ridge (yeah, I was in combat infantry a long time ago), there are no unburied rotting corpses, maggots or the smell of decaying bodies to remind me of the stark realities of war at Okinawa. Sledge lived through that and more, retaining his sanity amidst the madness of man's inhumanity to man.

To Sledge, "war is brutish, inglorious, and a terrible waste. But it will be necessary to accept one's responsibilities and to be willing to make sacrifices for one's country. If the country is good enough to live in, it's good enough to fight for."

A thought to ponder as Singapore celebrates its 43rd birthday.

1421 and 1434 by Gavin Menzies

I read the first edition of 1421 and now it's "sequel" 1434 is out. 1421 claimed that the Chinese fleet of Ming emperor Yong Le under Admiral Cheng Ho circumnavigated the earth and discovered America 70 years before Columbus did. No doubt Cheng Ho visited South East Asia and parts of India and Africa in his voyages. This is a historical fact.

But to circum navigate the world ? Well the controversy still rages between those who believe it's plausibility and those who argue adamantly against it. Me ? I'd like to think that those crew, artisans, soldiers and merchants who survived the journey would have much to share with their families and friends when they returned, never mind that the official records were burnt and the treasure ships dismantled by the court when China decided to discontinue its maritime endeavours. Or did the court rounded each one of them up and silence them as well. Such "unofficial" records might still exist within the memory of the communities of these sea farers. Maybe I should retire and do research on it in China ?

1434 went a step further to argue a case that the Chinese fleet or part of it reached Florence, met the Pope and the sharing of Chinese technology sparked the Renaissance. Now that is mind blowing audacity and I am sure will stoke the fire of the raging controversy even more. Am I a believer ? Well it's quite a story but I gotta consult Mulder & Scully........

The Man Who Loved China by Simon Winchester

I heard about Joseph Needham some years back from a documentary. He wrote the tome Science and Civilisation in China. To call this a tome is an understatement as it runs into 17 volumes covering every possible area of scientific endeavour, invention and discovery the Chinese had ever made since antiquity. Some pre date European discovery by centuries. While some like gun powder, paper and printing are probably familiar to many of us, others are not.

What made this English bio chemist devote his whole life into researching, collating, indexing and finally publishing the history of Chinese inventions, science and mathematics ? Winchester tells the colourful story of Needham's life, his love and devotion to his Chinese mistress whom he married 52 years after they first met and 3 years after his wife died. I am not sure which was his greater passion, his mistress or China.

Despite the backwardness of the Chinese in the eyes of the Europeans in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Needham thought that this could be a passing phase of a civilisation, a "dimming of the lights." Had he lived to watch the opening of the Beijing Olympics, he would have agreed that China's appointed time has come.