optoelectrical speech transcriber

"In 1930 a Hungarian scientist, Tihamer Nemes, filed a patent application in Germany for the principle of making an optoelectrical system automatically transcribe speech. His idea was to use the optical sound track on a movie film as a grating to produce diffraction patterns (corresponding to speech spectra), which then could be identified and typed out. The application was turned down as “unrealistic.” Since then the problem of automatic speech recognition has occupied the minds of scientists and engineers, both amateur and professional."

(Teuvo Kohonen, IEEE March 1988)

Long hair

Long on hair, short on brains.
- French Proverb -

Balzac

Love is the poetry of the senses.
-- Honoré de Balzac --

Most people of action are inclined to fatalism and most of thought believe in providence.
-- Honore De Balzac --

It is easier to be a lover than a husband for the simple reason that it is more difficult to be witty every day than to say pretty things from time to time.
-- Honore De Balzac --

The Role of Phidippides

Phidippides a professional runner of the Athen's army is the one whose tale was immortalized by the Olympic Marathon.
The Athens were fighting the Persas and they were outnumbered, so the Athenian generals send Phidippides to call for Sparta's help. He run 140 miles and another 140 miles back with the disappointing news that the Sparta agreed to help but said they would not take the field until the moon was full due to religious laws. They fought in disadvantage, but they launched a surprise offensive thrust which at the time appeared suicidal and won the battle. Phidippides was again called upon to run from the battlefield in Marathon to Athens (26 miles away) to carry the news of victory and warning about the approaching Persians ships. He reached Athens in 3 hours delivering the message and died thereafter from exhaustion.
When the modern Olympics began in 1896, the tale of Pheidippides' feat was immortalized: A 24.8-mile race would serve as the final event of the Games, covering the route from Marathon Bridge to the Olympic Stadium in Athens.

Critique of Practical Reason

Zwei Dinge erfüllen das Gemüt mit immer neuer und zunehmender Bewunderung und Ehrfurcht, je öfter und anhaltender sich das Nachdenken damit beschäftigt: Der bestirnte Himmel über mir und das moralische Gesetz in mir.
[Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more seriously reflection concentrates upon them: the starry heaven above me and the moral law within me.]
-- Immanuel Kant --

words, thoughts and reality

As words miss when they want to express any thought, thoughts also miss when they want to express any reality.
-- Fernando Pessoa --

night and silence

Il ne voit que la nuit, n'entend que le silence.
[He sees only night, and hears only silence.]
-- Jacques Delille --

Conversation between Achilles and Tortoise

"Tortoise: (...) But it is beautiful anyway, is it not?
Achilles: Oh, yes, there is no doubt of its beauty.
Tortoise: I wonder if its beauty is related to its impossibility. (...)"

Introduction - Gödel, Escher, Bach - Douglas Hofstadter - pq. 29

Juana's Dream

Juana's Dream - Eduardo Galeano

She strolled through the market of dreams. The saleswomen settled various dreams over big clothes on the ground.

There arrives Juana's grandfather, deeply sad as it's a long time he doesn't dream. Juana takes him by the hand and helps him to choose dreams, dreams of marzipan or cotton, wings to fly while sleeping, and they go away, both, so full of dreams that there won't be enough night.

(translated by me)

Justice

A personification of the four cardinal virtues (Justice, Prudence, Fortitude and Temperance) represented usually by the scale, the sword, the blindfold and the law books. She symbolizes the fair and equal administration of the law, without corruption, greed, prejudice, or favor.
This figure dates back to the ancient history. The Ancient Egyptians referred to Ma'at, a woman carrying a sword with an ostrich feather in her hair to symbolize truth and justice. The Ancient Greeks believed in Themis, the goddess of divine justice and law. She held a pair of scales upon which she weighs the claims of disputing parties. She was daughter to Uranus and Gaia and was a partner and advisor to Zeus. Themis was a Titan who believed in and taught obedience to laws and peace. "She became known as a goddess of divine justice." The Roman goddess of justice was called Justitia. She’s represented by the constellation Libra, shaped like a heavenly pair of scales.

mortals

"We are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine."
-- Eduardo Galeano --

Measure

"Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so."
-- Galileo Galilei --

Fourier

"Fourier is a mathematical poem."
-- Lord kelvin --

Möbius Strip

In the eighteenth century, Euler observed that for polyhedra the number of vertices minus the number of edges plus the number of faces equals two. But this relations does not states for all polyhedra, as for example, for a polyhedron with a hole. The astronomer and mathematician August Ferdinand Möbius (1790-1868) studied the geometrical theory of polyhedra and identified surfaces in terms of flat polygonal joined pieces. The Möbius strip, a continuous surface named after him, has only one side and one edge. Starting in any point in its surface, one can reach every point on the strip without even crossing an edge. The Möbius strip is a mathematical construction that shows an evolution from a two-dimensional space into a three-dimensional one, by merging inner and outer spaces it creates a single continuously curved surface. The Möbius strip is also a non oriented surface. In order to be an oriented surface it should, for any point on the surface, have normal vectors with opposite directions.

The torus has a parametric equation:
1. x = (R + L*Cos(Alpha)) * Cos(Theta)
2. y = (R + L*Cos(Alpha)) * Sin(Theta)
3. z = L*Sin(Alpha)
Alpha and Theta ranging from 0 to 360 degrees

The strip of Möbius has a very similar parametric equation:
1. x = (R + L*Cos(Alpha/2)) * Cos(Alpha)
2. y = (R + L*Cos(Alpha/2)) * Sin(Alpha)
3. z = L*Sin(Alpha/2)
Alpha ranging from 0 to 360 degrees, L ranging from -Lmax to +Lmax

The Möbius strip has provided inspiration both for sculptures and for graphical art. Maurits C. Escher is one of the artists who was especially fond of it and based several of his lithographs on this mathematical object. It is also a recurrent feature in science fiction stories, such as Arthur C. Clarke's The Wall of Darkness. Science fiction stories sometimes suggest that our universe might be some kind of generalised Möbius strip.
In the short story "A Subway Named Moebius", by A.J. Deutsch, the Boston subway authority builds a new line; the system becomes so tangled that it turns into a Möbius strip, and trains start to disappear.
There have been technical applications; giant Möbius strips have been used as conveyor belts that last longer because the entire surface area of the belt gets the same amount of wear, and as continuous-loop recording tapes (to double the playing time).

Reason

"Reason is the substance of the universe, the design of the world is absolutely rational."
-- Hegel --

Orchid Flower

Among the most diverse flowering plants are the Orchids. Their name comes from the Greek orchis meaning 'testicle', from the appearance of structures called pseudibulbs. They are monocotyledonous plants and usually found in humid and warm places. Ancient people considered orchids as aphrodisiacs and they were a symbol of fertility. They were ratter used in love spells and it was believed to protect against diseases. In spring patties, the chinese used orchids to frighten evil spirits. It was also consecrated to the german goddess-mother Frija.

The Mind's Eye

An Experience of Blindness

"Rain has a way of bringing out the contours of everything; it throws a coloured blanket over previously invisible things; instead of an intermittent and thus fragmented world, the steadily falling rain creates continuity of acoustic experience... presents the fullness of an entire situation all at once... gives a sense of perspective and of the actual relationships of one part of the world to another."

dot the i

"A kiss, when all is said, what is it?
A rosy dot placed on the "i" in loving;
'Tis a secret told to the mouth instead of to the ear."
--Edmond Rostand.

The Bastille

The Bastille was a former French prison fortress in the East end of the city of Paris built around 1370. It was despised as a symbol of despotism and royal tyranny. The Bastille was constructed to defend the eastern wall of Paris from hostile forces. With walls over eighty feet high and well stocked and supplied arsenal, the Bastille quickly gathered the reputation of one of France's most secure military stronghold. However, after being defeated several times, the importance of the fortress diminished and by the early seventeen hundreds it had already become a prison. And so it remained during the 17th and 18th centuries being used mainly for housing political prisoners. Among those prisoners there have been famous ones, such as Voltaire, the famous political writer, and Marquis de Sade, a well-known French writer. The most famous and mysterious prisoner of the Bastille, is the legendary man in the iron mask, whose character is in a famous book, written by Alexander Dumas. At the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, the Bastille was attacked and stormed by a mob. They found only seven prisoners inside: four forgers, two lunatics and a young noble. The Bastille's fall became a symbol of the end of the Monarchy and the beginning of the First Republic. Two days later the destruction of the stronghold was begun amid great public rejoicings. The site is now an open square, called the Place de la Bastille.

Finite Element Method

The Finite Element Method (FEM) is a method for solving equations by using approximations of continuous quantities by a set of discrete ones, at discrete points, often displayed into a mesh or a grid. As the FEM can be adapted to problems of great complexity, it can incorporate material properties, anisotropy, boundary conditions, and unusual geometry, it is a extremely powerful tool in the solution of important problems, such as, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, mechanical systems, electromagnetic problems and acoustic problem, as will we will see later. Formulation of problems with the FEM is based on the minimization of the total potential energy of the system via a variational principle. I've written a brief introduction. You may find it at:
http://www.cefala.org/~leoca/acoustics/afem