Lord, what was the rush?!

Here is a question that has been bothering me for quite a while. I am sure it has crossed your mind too but you ignored it.

 As you see below around the time that Jesus was walking on earth the population of earth was about 170 million (see below).

So you tell me, walking around Palestine how many people he could possibly reach to enlighten and inform? Let say 1000-2000 people! But what about the rest of the folks.

Chinese, Indians and native Americans etc?! Can we really blame them for being Buddhist and Hindu and “Lord” knows what other religions!

Couldn’t lord have had planned it better to reach every one equally and fairly? Why not bless everyone?

If you look at the table below, had he been showing up a few hundreds year earlier he could have reached  a larger proportion of the population and of course by waiting a meager few hundred years by the time of  the advent of technology he could have reached everyone. Not to mention the age of Internet and satellite communication!!

So while all this discussion about intelligent design is raging all over I can not help but to think what was so intelligent about showing up too early ?!

Not to mention having an educated audience as opposed to bunch of illiterate shepherds would have helped? Or would it?!!

 Here is population of earth vs time (From Wikipedia):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Population_curve.svg

 year   world population (millions)
-10000     4 
-8000      5 
-7000      5 
-6000      5 
-5000      5 
-4000      7 
-3000     14 
-2000     27 
-1000     50 
-750      60 
-500     100 
-400     160 
-200     150 
0        170 -----> Population on Jesus's first visit 
200      190 
400      190 
500      190 
600      200 
700      210 
800      220 
900      226 
1000     310 
1100     301 
1200     360 
1250     400 
1300     360 
1340     443 
1400     350 
1500     425 
1600     545 
1650     470 
1700     600 
1750     790 
1800     980 
1815    1000 
1850    1260 
1900    1650 
1910    1750 
1920    1860 
1927    2000 
1930    2070 
1940    2300 
1950    2400 
1960    3020 
1970    3700 
1974    4000 
1980    4430 
2005    6500 (December 19th) 
2007    6576 

Roulette mirrors life!

Here is my thoughts on Roulette :
(Click here if you don’t know what’s Roulette http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roulette)

Playing roulette is pretty much like life itself. If you stand by a roulette table for a while you realize this. You will see people of all denominations.

Superstitious ones: There was this woman who kept playing same number (11) again and again and kept losing! I asked her, what is it with number 11? She enthusiastically replied, “Oh it’s number of my son’s jersey”!

Spiritual ones: A couple showed up at the table. Man exchanged the cash for chips and wondered where to play. He asked his wife. She said let me see. “Oh.. I am feeling it. 23. Right ..it’s 23. I feel it. Next number was 17.

Rich guys: These are the folks that come to table with lots of money and usually not much brain and just spread their money all over the table. They have no idea what they are doing. Usually they win few rounds before they vanish.

Engineers: These are the folks who look at the rolling wheel and try to calculate the speed and momentum etc. and get a handle of the game. They are gone before long!

Mind over matter folks: They are people who scream a number while wheel is turning. You usually can hear them from a distance. They all call a number or a color. “Thirtyyyyy fouuuuuuurrrr” come on! They will be quite after a while.

Sophisticated folks: These are guys who have a complicated approach to game. They have a formula. Like increase your bet twice every time you lose. They lose everything they have in a flash.

Followers: Some folks have no idea what to do. They are humble. they just follow others, usually someone that seems to be doing well. Sometimes they ask the dealer what number comes next and often dealer would predict the next number with confidence! Not a good way to go either.

Perplexed: These are the hopeless folks that bet on opposite outcomes! Like odd and even or black and red at same time! They can never win and lose if one of the two zeros turns up! 

Spectators: These are the folks who never play. They just watch others play. They never experience the glory and agony of wining or losing!

Stunningly, we have same kind of characters when it comes to lead a life. The followers, the sophisticated the spiritual and superstitious! In the long run though, everyone is a loser! C’est La vie (Such is life)! It is amazingly similar to how people live their lives and make decisions in face of uncertainty. Life is a gamble. After all, you are the lucky sperm who won the lottery!

Gamble of worst kind at that. The reason is, in roulette you can calculate the odds of something happening. In life you cannot even calculate the odds! If you disagree ask people who bought CISCO stock on Jan of 2001. When you board an airplane do you know the odds of surviving? When you buy a house do you know the odds that market would go up or down. What is the odds of your spouse being diagnosed with a terminal illness?

Another striking similarity is the fact that the winners in life are not necessarily any smarter or more educated than losers. As much as having a Ph.D in mathematics is not any help in roulette. If you argue, show me a mathematician who got rich by playing roulette. As a matter of fact all mathematicians had to be millionaires by now! There is no such thing as smart play when it comes to game of roulette or life. They are just lucky plays.

No one is immune from curse of randomness whether be it life or roulette. Luck has the last word! Of course people tend to brag about how skillful they are. But we know they have been just lucky at least up to that point!

Roulette, a Paradox in probability theory?!!

When playing Roulette there seems to be two competing, contradictory notions at work the same time. One says: The wheel does not have a memory so it does not keep track of the previous numbers and probability of each number coming is the same as any other regardless if it came previous round or how many times in past 20 rounds. On the other hand we know that there is a law in probability, called law of large numbers that miantains that the average value of many trials/outcomes has to approach the expected value of the distribution. In case of roullete the expected value is something around 18. So basically it says you can not have high numbers forever. In other words if you have had lets say 12 high numbers it’s inevitable that smaller numbers start to come. So can be said about red and black outcomes. So which one is it? No memory or memory.I have seen answers to this all over but I am not convienced yet!!

Mere musings…

Can mirror symmetry of a human being be traced back to a symmetry at cellular level? In the game of life (cellular Automata) symmetry is conserved.

Where the biological clock comes from? Why is a second our unit of time? We can not comprehend anything on smaller time scales. Is it the heart beat that sets our bioclock? Anything within cells? You bet!!

If we improve the resolution of our bioclocks we may live longer. Why our life span is so short compare to age of the universe? Does it have to do with earth orbit?

In measuring the length of a costal line the smaller your ruler the larger the length of coast line (Fractal geometry). Can same thing be applied to human life? By using more precise perception of time we may live longer?!! 

Why our physical size is much larger than atoms? (Schrodinger).

Is there any phenomenon in nature that makes “Recursive function ” calls?