Ragnchild

There is no doubt about it, I depend on the internet in my everyday life. I still remember the time when we had a dial-up connection, and I wonder how I managed to get by. I’ve come to realize that it is only through being able to use internet as much as I want that I’ve discovered how much you can benefit from it. So, here is a small list of what I like about it. Continue reading What I like about the internet

Usually, I’m the kind of person that cares about what happens in the world around me. People that just don’t care about anything irritate me, and when I see something that is wrong, I often try to think of ways it could be fixed. So why is it that I’m not looking forward to this autumn, when I’ll be voting for the first time in my life?

Well, it’s because the choices irritate me. The politicians make it sound so simple, left or right, red or blue, liberal or conservative. Well, guess what, there are almost 7 billion people on this planet, and classifying their opinions on a one dimensional scale is not going to be very accurate. Very often, I find myself agreeing with one party on several subjects, but disagreeing on another, crucial one, and so I just end up confused and irritated. Continue reading Politics is not that simple

Sometimes, things just seem to pop up in my mind for no apparent reason, and today, it was this particular curiosity: 1 + 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/4 + 1/5 + 1/6 +… (the reason I’m thinking about mathematical series may have something to do with my maths exam coming up, but that’s another matter). Now, this series is called the harmonic series, and if you keep adding the terms in this sequence forever, you’ll actually reach infinity, believe it or not.

Something I find quite interesting is that this particular mathematical construction is actually closely related to music. When you play a note on an instrument, what you hear is a mixture of several pitches called harmonics. The note you hear has a frequency called the fundamental frequency, and the other tones are not perceived as separate notes, in fact, they are what determines the sound of an instrument. Continue reading Music, maths, and universal harmony

I’ve noticed that people on American TV shows often eat ice cream as comfort food. Well, what can I say, I ate some chocolate ice cream today, just because I wanted to, even before dinner, and it felt great. I actually heard from a chemist that chocolate contains the same molecule that’s in the chemical which is released in your brain when you fall in love. Now, before you head towards your nearest source of those nice molecules, I should tell you that according to the chemist, you need to eat several kilos of chocolate to get any effect. Well, I have to point out that my experiments disagree with this, so if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get the chocolate sauce.