Employer scans your emotional quotient .....

III

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HYDERABAD | THURSDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 2012

Must be smart to survive in T-town.....IV

World's most complex math theory 'cracked'

The abc conjecture was first proposed by British mathematician David Masser, working with France's Joseph Oesterle, in 1985. It was, however, never proven. It refers to equations of the form a+b=c. It involves the concept of a square-free number, meaning a number that cannot be divided by the square of any number. For example, 15 and 17 are square-free numbers, but 16 is not because it is divisible

Japanese mathematician may have finally cracked 'the abc conjecture' - one of the world's most complex mathematical theories.Shinichi Mochizuki, a scholar at Kyoto University, has released four papers on the internet describing his proof of what is known as 'abc conjecture'. Experts said he took four years to calculate the theory and if confirmed it would be one of the greatest mathematical achievements of this century, The Telegraph reported. Confirming the breakthrough, however, may take many more year as Mochizuki has created an entirely new mathematical language to explain the steps that he took - and others in the field will have to learn to

read it first. The abc conjecture was first proposed by British mathematician David Masser, working with France's Joseph Oesterle, in

1985. It was, however, never proven. It refers to equations of the form a+b=c. It involves the concept of a square-free number, meaning a number

that cannot be divided by the square of any number. For example, 15 and 17 are square-free numbers, but 16 is not because it is divisible. From that, the abc conjec-

ture concerns a property of the product of the three integers abc. The conjecture states that for integers a+b=c, the square free part always has a minimum value greater than zero and nearly always greater than 1. Dorian Goldfeld, a mathematician at Columbia University in New York, told Nature magazine that Mochizuki's discovery is "one of the most astounding achievements of mathematics in the 21st century." Mochizuki describes himself not as a mathematician but as a "inter-universal geometer" and - as long as his theory stands up to the scrutiny - there are hopes that his findings will settle a number of knotty problems in number theory and other branches of math. - PTI

ECO CONSCIOUS

Photo: Hrudayanand

These young girls proudly show off the clay Ganesha they made in their school in Hyderabad, on Wednesday

SRM students win prizes in space contests

S
tudents of the SRM University near Chennai have won prizes in two international student aerospace competitions held in the US and China, an official of the university said. An eight-member team led by Sweety Prakash Pate, a final year aeronautical engineering student, won the third prize in the Undergraduate Space Transportation Design Competition 2011-2012 organised by American Institute of Aeronautics (AIAA). The AIAA one of the world's largest technical societies dedicated to the global aerospace profession. It conducts student design competitions and conferences all around the year to inspire and nurture young talent in the field of aeronautics and astronautics. "The competition organised by the AIAA required participants to design and produce a business plan for commercial Earth-to-Orbit passenger vehicle. The vehicle should be capable of taking paying customers from earth to orbit and back for a variety of research and tourism purposes," M Ponnavaikko, vice chancellor of SRM university told reporters. "This competition is an ef-

Scholars compile dictionary on ancient Egyptian life

cholars took 37 years to compile a dictionary recording the daily lives of ancient Egyptians, including what taxes they paid, what they expected in a marriage and how they worked. The ancient language is Demotic Egyptian, a name given by the Greeks to denote it was the tongue of the demos, or common people. It was written as a flowing script and was used in Egypt from about 500 B C to 500 A D , when the land was occupied and usually dominated

fort to encourage space tourism where not only astronauts but the common man can also take space rides safely," he said. "We just made the design and not a model. As per our design, the winged rocket can carry upto fifty passengers per trip and can make around 21 trips in a year. The task is to design a rocket and a business plan to carry 1,000 passengers a year," Pate said. The space vehicle, named 'Navshitij Vahak' - The Carrier of New Horizon, was designed to orbit at a distance of around 370 km from the earth and the rocket will be powered with a mix of liquid and solid fuel. "At the lift-off stage, the vehicle will weigh around 300 tonnes," Pate said. The SRM team's third position wins them a cash prize of $1,000. The university had bagged a similar award in 2010-2011. In China, a differ-

ent student team from SRM University comprising of S.M. Balakrishnan, Autham Mahesh and Harleen Kaur Maan won the second prize at the Robert A. Heinlein Space Innovation and Exploration contest held this July. They were awarded the second prize, consisting of an individual diploma and prize money of $2000. This competition is held every year in different parts of the world and is organised by the "Robert A Heinlein and Virginia Trust" based in Houston, USA. The competition is organised in the memory of Robert A Heinlein, a renowned American author in the genre of science fiction. This was the sixth edition of the contest and India featured for the third time. The trio has bagged the second position amongst 20 finalists from various Asian nations.

stitute of the University of Chicago. "It was also used for religious and magical texts as well as scientific texts dealing with topics such as astronomy, mathematics and medicine. "It is an indispensable tool for reconstructing the social, political and cultural life of ancient Egypt during a fascinating period of its history," she continued. Johnson has worked with Demotic since she was a graduate student at the Ori-

The ancient language is Demotic Egyptian, a name given by the Greeks to denote it was the tongue of the demos, or common people
by foreigners, including Persians, Greeks and Romans. "Demotic was used for business and legal documents, private letters and administrative inscriptions, and literary texts, such as narratives and pieces of wisdom literature," said Janet Johnson, editor of the Chicago Demotic Dictionary and professor at the Oriental Inental Institute. The advent of computer technology facilitated the assembly of the Demotic Dictionary. The language lives on today in words such as adobe, which came from the Egyptian word for brick. The word moved through Demotic, on to Arabic and eventually to Spain during the time of Islamic domination there, explained Janet Johnson, editor of the Chicago Demotic Dictionary. Ebony, the dark wood that was traded down the Nile from Nubia (present-day Sudan), also has Demotic roots. The name Susan is indirectly related to the Demotic word for water lily, according to a Chicago statement. "The University of Chicago is pretty much Demotic central," said James Allen, professor of Egyptology at Brown University. Besides the Demotic dictionary, the university also has some of the world's top experts on Demotic on its faculty." The work began in 1975 as a supplement and update to Wolja Erichsen's Demotisches Glossar, published in 1954. The dictionary is based on texts in Demotic that were published by scholars from 1955 to 1979, and lists new words not included in Erichsen's work as well as new uses of words included there. - IANS

he Delhi High Court Wednesday asked Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and city police to ensure that no "beef and pork" festival takes place in the campus on Sept 28. A student organisation of the university had announced plans to hold a beef-and-pork festival Sep 28. A division bench of Acting Chief Justice A K Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw said "The JNU and police are directed to ensure that no such beef and pork festival take place on Sept 28 and in future." The court's direction came on a petition filed by Rashtriya Goraksha Sena seeking directions for JNU to initiate disciplinary action against organisations and not permit serving of beef and pork or anything that hurts religious sentiments. The plea also sought direction for the Ministry of Home Affairs and city police "to enforce agencies to forthwith initiate preventive measures against the anti-social elements who have planned and declared beef and pork festival on Sept 28". With the proposed beef-and-pork food festival that sparked protests from right-wing groups, JNU authorities Sept 17 stepped in to prevent any further flaring of tempers, warning students against organising such an event. - IANS

No beef, pork festival: High court tells JNU T

More varsities join Coursera to offer free online courses

In the fast-evolving realm of free online college courses, Coursera (www.coursera.org) seems to be evolving fast
aunched publicly just five months ago by Stanford computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, the for-profit startup has been growing almost exponentially. It started with four university partners Stanford, Michigan, Penn, and Princetonputting it on relatively equal footing with rivals such as Udacity and EdX. In July, though, it announced a dozen more, including Caltech, Duke, and Virginia. On Wednesday it announced that it has again doubled its roster, with 17 additions that span the globe and signal a further branching-out into the arts and humanities. Here's the full list of new partners:

Berklee College of Music, Brown University, Columbia University ,Emory University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Ohio State University, University of British Columbia , University of California, Irvine University of Florida, University of London, University of Maryland, University of Melbourne, University of Pittsburgh, Vanderbilt University and Wesleyan University Fresh course offerings range from a course in improvisation taught by jazz musician Gary Burton at the Berklee College of Music to the cole Polytechnique

Fdrale de Lausannes Functional Programming Principles in Scala, taught by the man who designed the Scala programming language. The sheer volume and variety of Coursera classes seems likely to propel the startup to pre-eminence

among MOOCS, the awkward acronym for "massive, open online courses." How is it growing so fast? By leaving all the labor-intensive parts of online educationthe teaching, the curriculum selection, the quality controlto its part-

ners, the universities themselves. Whereas Udacity offers its own curriculum and EdX is run by three universities that offer only their own courses on the site, Coursera focuses on providing a platform that, in theory, just about any university can use. At a time when schools are tripping over themselves to join what might or might not turn out to be a revolution in higher education, Coursera has positioned itself perfectly to capitalize on their eagerness. Universities can join on a trial basis with only a couple of classes, and Coursera requires no exclusive commitment, so they're not closing off any other options. What board of regents could resist?

With the platform's explosive expansion has come concerns about cheating and questions about whether online lectures and tests can really substitute for a classroom experience. Those are big questions for the future, especially once universities start experimenting with offering real credit for online classes. For now, as I've argued before, Coursera and its kinincluding Udemy, which partners with individual professors rather than institutionsamount to an increasingly viable 21st-century substitute for textbooks. Given how lucrative that industry has been, Coursera could be in for huge success. Courtesy:www.slate.com/bl ogs/future_tense