The NEW National Library!!!!!

i think the title above makes me sound like an incorrigible nerd. I strongly beg to differ. I read somewhere that the story of the word "nerd" began in some American college, where they called those students who partied all day and never studied "drunk". For those at the other end of the spectrum, those who study all day , another term was invented by spelling "drunk" in reverse to give, "knurd".

oh my goodness, i sound so boring. boring with a period in front of it makes it look boring too.

anyway, i went to the new National Library yesterday with my mum. unfortunately they had to bury the Central Lending Library in the basement, but thankfully its not windowless as i had feared. Lotsa gardens around the library reaching underground to illuminate the basement CLC.

It was full of people, and i was getting very exciting cos i've been waiting for this day since i enlisted...haha what a thing to get excited abt...but i really am, i admit. As we entered, i looked around to take in a feel of the library before navigating instinctively to the General section, where books of the 500 region lie...science, math section. The shelves aren't fully populated. Many jewels that were probably once there have been borrowed out by other readers.

Still, i got myself two beautiful books: The World's 20 Greatest Unsolved Problems and, The Road to Reality: A complete guide to the laws of the universe...by Roger Penrose!!! Wow the mathematician has bothered to write this thousand-page tome exposition into the realm of physics and physical mathematics! A glance through the pages shows a healthy dose of words and math too...i hope that means this is not one of those books where idiotic mathematicians dump lots of math with no explanation of the underlying meaning. Yes i hold those guilty of this in strong contempt, because the math should serve to describe the meaning that is the science in more concise and precise terms, and sometimes the mathematical explorations give new surprises that we try to interprete in the context of science. NOT mindless symbolic manipulation, taking the intention and context and meaning for granted!

I wasted some good months wondering why in hell we use the Laplace transform instead of the Fourier transform to characterise signals, and how the hell pple figured out the physical meanings of the real and imaginary parts of "s" in the s-domain...because the stupid books mostly say NOTHING about this and for a person who's trying to learn such things for the first time and teaching himself, i wouldn't have known the simple reasons and intentions behind these mathematical methods at first encounter...until long periods of painful thought revealed them to me!

and dear reader, pls do not misunderstand what i said above...i'm no ignorant idiot! I know the motivation of the Laplace transform is to avoid working with integration or solving high-order differential equations by transforming the functions we work with into another domain, where we can work with simple algebraic manipulations, thereby reducing our math-associated stress levels!

What i was actually concerned about is a long story, but turns out to be very trivial. Thus i've wasted my time understanding such trivia due to some "mathematically -inclined" people who don't understand the need for meaning and understanding and intuition and the artistic beauty of electronics and thus fail to explain certain things which i believe are more impoortant than they think so.

I think many such pple are around, and they've written many books too.

and i've just realised i'm starting on one of my ramblings again...grouchy old man i am...

The Lee Kong Chian Reference Library is a haven! I can't wait to begin my regular visits there, and i know exactly where to look for my electronics books...oooh almost a whole shelf of them! no more limited access to mediocre texts like mine! multiple cross-referencing makes easier learning, and the books will never run away!

Very beautiful view to take in peering out of the glass walls which stretch from floow to ceiling. Large, empty spaces with spacious white study tables...so pure and simple. a nirvana for scientific and artistic meditation, learning, discovery, creation. what a wonderful place!

I can't wait to get there again. I hope i meet like-minded pple there too.