Maths

Believe it or not, my recent bedtime reading is How to Solve Mathematical Problems by Wayne Wickelgren.

It sounds amazing, eh ? However, my glory would dime down if you know the title of its previous version: How to Solve Problems - Elements of a Theory of Problems and Problem Solving. The author was a professor of psychology at MIT.

Yes, the pages are full of difficult mathematical formula - which I was completely at a lost by the final one-third of the book. Nonetheless, the techniques are generic ones, and could equally be applied to non-mathematical problems. In short, Wickelgren described the component of problems, and outlined six general methods to solve them:

1. inference
2. use sub-goals and action sequence
3. method of hill climbing
4. method of contradiction
5. method of special example
   
6. working backward

More importantly, the author also showed how to choose the appropriate method by analyzing the type of the problem.

It is always a pleasure to learn something that is entirely useless.

Drug

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against Coca-Cola.

But it is really annoying to know, in addition to caffeine and high-fructose corn syrup, there is another addictive substance in the drink. In fact, this very material fulfills the criteria of an abused drug - it is both addictive and detrimental to health when consumed in excess.

Let's examine the characteristics of this substance more closely:

• After regular use for some time, a person would start thinking of another dose in 4 to 6 hours.
• If somehow he does not get a booster at once, he would certainly crave for it in 12 to 24 hours.
• Withdrawal symptoms include dry mouth, loss of skin turgor, agitation, and, finally, kidney shut down.
• Most abusers take it by mouth. If an excessive dose is consumed, the patient would develop adverse neurological effects, manifesting as confusion, convulsion, and, eventually, death.
• Occasionally, the substance is taken by the inhaled route. It could be lethal by inducing respiratory failure and cardiac arrhythmia.
• If a pure form of the drug is given intravenously, it would cause immediate hemolysis and occasionally death.

Scared ? More seasoned readers would now recognize, that very substance in question is our good old water.

Now, would you have more sympathy to Sherlock Holmes, and consider modifying your definition of an abusable drug ?

PS. The above discussion is not my invention. Have you heard of the dihydrogen monoxide hoax?

Cocaine

Many of you may know that cocaine, derived from the coca leaf, was present in the original version of Coca-Cola in 1861, and was taken out from the recipe nearly 50 years later.

Why ! Cocaine was legal in that era, and Sherlock Holmes was one of the most famous habitual users. It took several decades before it became clear that the substance is addictive and is detrimental to our health.

Alas, that's natural. Who knows without a hindsight ? As George Berry, formerly the dean of Havard Medical School, said: Half of what we are going to teach you is wrong, and half of it is right. Our problem is that we don’t know which half is which.

Even if we take our Coca-Cola as the example at hand, without cocaine, it remains addictive (for it contains caffeine). As to any possible detrimental effect to our health, it may take another 50 years before the effect of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS, the sweetener that it uses since 1985) is completely clear.

By that time, it may be plain obvious that McDonalds in Tokyo is the most terrible revenge for Pearl Harbor.

PS. The famous statement of George Berry implies that there exists objective right or wrong - a courageous assumption in itself.

Secret

One subtle news that caught my attention recently was the claim of finding Noah's Ark (again) in Mount Ararat of Turkey.

I must say I am a non-believer (which has a fine line of difference from atheist; I shall not elaborate) and should not be too excited. Nonetheless, I was. And an entirely different story flashed back in my mind.

*******************************

Fans of cola would know that Coke has a slightly different (or, you may say, attractive) taste from versions by other companies. It is widely recognized that the Coca-Cola company has a secret recipe, known only to a few senior executives, which gives its distinct taste. To add to the mystery, that few persons (probably 2 or 3) are not allowed to stay in the same hotel, or travel or dine together - so that if anything disaster happens, the formula would not be lost.

It sounds terrific, eh ? But, if you have the chance of taking a peep on the recipe, it may not be at all surprising - the attractive taste comes from our hope of enjoying a drink with some secret, rather than any physical substance in it.

A marketing strategy.

Ninja

My friend TW was furious recently with some youngsters who asked for government subsides so that they could buy their own house. (See http://hk.myblog.yahoo.com/cal-culator/article?mid=249)

I shall not elaborate my opinion on this matter. Just that a story of Bill Clinton came to my mind.

It went like this: Increasing home ownership was one of the major goals of Bill Clinton when he became the president of USA. As you would expect, it was particularly difficult for those new American immigrants who had a low income to afford their own house. Obsessed with multiculturalism, the Democratic president turned his effort to the private banking system. (The major one was the legislative changes in mid-1990s in relation to the Community Reinvestment Act.)

The result was simple. In short, even people with no income, no job or asset (so called "ninja") had a good chance of obtaining a mortgage to buy their own house. Well, it took almost 20 years before the bubble burst and it became obvious that those ninja should not buy something that they could not afford - even if someone lend them the money.

It was, as we all know (and suffered), the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

PS. Of course our local ninja did not want to get support from banks; they prefer to squeeze it from the government's pocket.

I'm sure the crisis would not develop in our banks.

Clear

(The story continues.)

CK was anxious; he was eager to know the questions, but he could not put up enough courage to ask the professor again.

He decided to find two companions to go with him, for psychological support, as well as for being independent witness - so that he would not be accused later for hiding crucial information from his classmates. (We all knew he would not, but CK was certainly the most careful person of our class.)

The two classmates that he chose were TS (who later turned out to be our gold medalist of surgery) and myself. When CK told us his plan, TS and I looked at each other; our eyes exchanged a quick understanding message, and we said together:

We think that PC's talk was very clear !

I still remember CK almost fainted.

PS. TS and I subsequently wrote down for the rest of our class what we believed was the secret message. In retrospect, there were seven questions in the paper, and PC gave us hint on six - obviously leaving one so that TS could score his gold medal.

Subtle

My friend KM was slightly disappointed: He had to write a warning letter to our interns, and he decided to use less offensive wordings; many of us disagreed.

Although love to say things in a subtle manner, I was one of those who tried to persuade him to use more explicit a language. (See http://drkmchow.blogspot.com/2010/05/wording.html)

While all these were happening, a little story that happened shortly before I took my final MB examination came to my mind.

*******************************

As a tradition, our class invited professors of surgery to give us revision lectures. (I suppose you know what these revision lectures were all about. If not, you are probably working in a non-medical field.)

The one by PC, our professor of orthopedics, came first. He gave an one hour talk in the lecture theatre, touching almost everything in the field, apparently without any focus.

Our class (most of us, at least) was perplexed. That evening, when we went back to the hostel and met in the common room, the confusion eventually crystallized into one point: What question was he actually going to put up for the examination ?

You see, that's serious. It was the primary purpose of the revision lecture, and a life-or-death situation. Our class immediately decided to ask CK, our class representative, to pay a visit to PC's office and clarify what he was trying to say.

(To be continued.)