Tag: ant

Posted in Philosophy

Threading A Marble

Posted on by Jinavie

It is recorded that one day, Confucius was presented with a small marble that was filled with tiny holes with twists and turns. He was challenged to try thread the marble with a piece of thread. Confucius tried and tried but could not complete the challenge.

Feeling lost, he asked for some time to think and took a walk. A passing woman noticed him and asked what was wrong. Upon hearing the story, the woman said: “Think quietly, quieten your thoughts”. This gave Confucius an idea, so he thanked the woman and returned to the puzzle. In Chinese, the character for “quiet (密, mi)” sounds the same as “honey (蜜, mi)”. He found an ant, tied a thread around its waist and then placed it on one hole. He smeared some honey on the hole on the other side of the marble and the ant followed the scent, threading the marble as it travelled through the twists and turns.

Thomas Edison famously said that “Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration”. Although this quote is usually used to stress the importance of effort and striving to succeed, you still need that 1% of creativity and out-of-the-box thinking to achieve true success. The inspiration can be from anywhere – a small memory in the recess of your mind, the casual remark of a passerby, an insignificant detail in your surrounding… What is important that you open your eyes and be open to such inspiration, no matter how silly or lowly you think the source is. You never know what or who will inspire you to have a eureka moment.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Tit For Tat

Posted on by Jinavie

In human society, there are many ways for a person to interact with others when in a group setting. Some may choose to be selfish and only be out for their best interests, while others may choose altruism and cooperate with each other. The mathematical model that tries to predict human behaviour and outcome in these settings is the Prisoner’s Dilemma – the core of game theory. Tit for tat is one strategy that can be employed in such a setting.

The basis of tit for tat is equivalent exchange. A tit for tat player always chooses to cooperate unless provoked. As seen in the Prisoner’s Dilemma, if both players cooperate, both benefit (let us say 3 points each); if one player defects, that person gains more than from cooperation (5 points) while the tit for tat player gains 0 points.
If a tit for tat player is provoked, that player will retaliate. However, the player is also quick to forgive. Ergo, if the other player chose to cooperate, the tit for tat player (following the principle of equivalent exchange), will also cooperate. If the other player defected, the tit for tat player loses the first round and then chooses to defect from then on.
Note that tit for tat strategy only works when there is more than one game so that the player has a chance to retaliate.

Let us use an example to illustrate why tit for tat strategy works. In this scenario, two tit for tat players and two defectors all play six games each, using the above point system (if both defect, they each receive 1 point). The results are as follows:
  • Tit for tat vs defector: Tit for tat loses first round, both defect for next 5 rounds (5 vs 10)
  • Tit for tat vs tit for tat: Both cooperate on every round (18 vs 18)
  • Defector vs defector: Both defect on every round (6 vs 6)

When the points are added up, a tit for tat player gains 28 points (5 + 5 + 18) while a defector only gains 26 points (6 + 10 + 10). This is a surprising turn of events, as the defectors never lost a round and tit for tat players never “won” a round. This goes to show how cooperation leads to better long-term results while selfishness prevails.

There are shortcomings of this strategy. If there is a failure in communication and one tit for tat player mistakes the other’s actions as an “attack”, they will retaliate. The other player then retaliates to this and a vicious cycle is formed. This is the basis of many conflicts ranging from schoolyard fights to wars (although interestingly, tit for tat strategy is also found during wars in the form of “live and let live”). One way to prevent this is tit for tat with forgiveness, where one player randomly cooperates to try break the cycle (a defector would respond negatively while a tit for tat player will accept the cooperation), or the tit for two tats, where the tit for tat player waits a turn before retaliating, giving the opponent a chance to “make up for their mistake”.

Computer simulations have all proven that tit for tat strategy (especially the other two types mentioned just before) are extremely effective in games. In fact, it is considered one of the most optimal strategies in overcoming the Prisoner’s Dilemma.

In human societies, there is usually a mix of “nice people” and “selfish people”. By cooperating and trusting each other, we can produce a much greater gain over time compared to being selfish. And since society still unfortunately has “defectors”, you can retaliate to those who refuse to cooperate by defecting on them also. Ergo, a good approach to life is to initially reach out your hand to whoever you meet and treat them from there on according to how they respond. If they take your hand and want to cooperate, treat them with altruism and help them out. If they swat your hand away and try to use you for their selfish gain, it is fine to shun them and not help them out.

Through cooperation, understanding and connection, we can build a far more productive and efficient society, just like the ants.

Posted in Science & Nature

Giant Monster

Posted on by Jinavie

A gigantic dinosaur monster of 50m height and 20000t weight appears in the centre of Tokyo! The invasion of giant spiders! These are common scenarios in science fiction films. Mankind has always been fascinated by giant creatures. Whether it be a child or an adult, no one passes by the skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex without being awestruck. Thus, it is very easy to use such creatures in movies. But the key point of every monster movie is the “stats”. A height taller than a high-rise building and a weight nearing one of a battleship excites people before the movie even starts. The problem is that this is very unscientific (considering it is a “science fiction”).

Let us look at the dinosaur monster first. The moment the monster steps on to land, it will be crushed like tofu. Every structure in its body will collapse and the skeleton will give way, causing 20000t of meat to crash to the ground. Simply put, the monster is just too heavy. Let us hypothesise that the monster is the shape of a gigantic T-rex. Tyrannosaurus rex was 15m tall and weighed 7t. If a 15m dinosaur is stretched to the height of 50m, the height becomes 3.3 times the original. But as the width and depth need to be expanded by 3.3 times as well, the weight becomes 37 times the original. The question is whether the monster can support its own weight. Just as the volume increased by a factor of 37, the cross-sectional area of every part of the body increases by a factor of 3.3 x 3.3 = 11. As muscle strength is directly proportional to the cross-sectional area, the strength only increases by 11 times. Thus, the load on a creature’s body is the same as the factor of expansion (e.g. there is 3.3 times the load on the monster’s muscles). But this is only when the T-rex was simply stretched. According to the stats, the monster weighs 20000t – 2800 times the weight of a T-rex. To support 2800 times the weight with 11 times the muscle, the load on the bones and muscle is 250 times. This is equivalent to having 249 people the same weight as you on your back. Of course, the monster cannot support this and its bones will become crushed and its internal organs will all burst, causing instant death.

Similarly, a giant insect monster also receives the same load as its expansion. But unlike an animal, insects have an exoskeleton instead of a skeletal system. This structure cannot support the load caused by the expansion (also, if you stretch an ant that is not even 1cm to just 10m, the load becomes over a thousand times). Ergo, the monster will collapse instantly. A giant monster is an unscientific creature that can only exist in our imagination.

Posted in Life & Happiness

Regret

Posted on by Jinavie

If today was the last day of your life, what would you regret? You might know for certain that it will not be something like money or fame, but if you cannot think of a specific answer, it might be worth taking a look at the enlightenment other people reached at the moment of their death. Human beings show the greatest insight about life at the door of death. The following are the most common regrets collected by a palliative care nurse called Bronnie Ware.

  1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me: The most common regret is ending your life without achieving the countless number of dreams and goals you had. If there is a dream you can achieve today, do not leave it to tomorrow. That way you can achieve even more dreams in the future.
  2. I wish I didn’t work so hard: Just like how the idiom “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” says, you can never achieve happiness if all you do is work to earn money. Perhaps the ant was wrong and the grasshopper was right.
  3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings: Many people suppress their emotions to get along with other people. But if you push down your feelings and repress them, they will ultimately take a toll on your mind and body. If someone is making you angry, be angry at them (but not all the time obviously). If someone captivates your heart, tell them that you love them. If you have a problem, speak up.
  4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends: The busier life gets, the less you keep in contact with your friends. But having a friend to hold your hand and give you words of reassurance at your final moment is a much more successful life than earning a fortune.
  5. I wish that I had let myself be happier: Too many people are misled into thinking that happiness is not a choice. Whatever the situation, happiness depends on your perception of the world. If you are unhappy, that is a sign that you should change something in your life. There is no one on the face of the Earth that does not deserve happiness. Whatever others may say, live everyday as blissfully as you can.

Remember. A successful life is one full of happiness and without regrets.

Posted in Science & Nature

Dimensions: Flatland

Posted on by Jinavie

As we live in a three-dimensional world, it is difficult to imagine that there are higher dimensions. To illustrate this, the thought experiment of the hypothetical “Flatland” can be considered. Let us assume that there is a two-dimensional world called Flatland. Here, the concept of depth does not exist. Only forwards, backwards, left and right exist; there is no up and down. Everything that happens here would look like it was drawn on paper.

Now let us interact with Flatworld. If we were to touch Flatworld with our finger, it would be like poking your finger through a newspaper. The inhabitants of Flatworld would see a circle suddenly appear out of nowhere that grows larger and larger. A person would appear as if they were being seen through a CT scanner – in sections. The concept that things can be above or below would sound crazy to a Flatlander, even though to us it appears as a simple concept.

Let us take an ant walking along a piece of paper as an example of a “2D object”. If the ant wishes to go from one edge of the paper to the opposite edge, it must walk along the 2D plane. However, with our 3D powers, we can fold the paper into a cylinder; now the ant can walk to the other point in an instant (across the fold). To another ant on the other side, the ant would look as if it teleported and suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

In another experiment, we make a Mobius strip (a ribbon is twisted once then its two sides are joined) and make an ant walk along it. Although the ant would think that it was walking in a straight line along a two-dimensional surface, it would have walked on both sides of the strip – a three-dimensional concept. If the Mobius strip concept is confusing, think of a garden hose instead: an ant walking along a straight garden hose is walking in: 1D (straight line), 2D (hose is actually a flat surface) and 3D (the ant can walk in a corkscrew pattern along the hose).

If we were to tell that ant that it had just travelled in a higher dimension, that ant would either scoff at us or be genuinely terrified of the experience. To it, we (or the giant pink circle that it sees our finger as) would look like some omnipotent being that can see everything going on in its world and teleport from one place to another. And although the concept of depth would initially intimidate the ant, it would bring the level of the ant’s understanding of the world up one dimension. For if we see what we only know, then how can anyone see anything new? The only way to truly learn and understand new things would be to jump out of the box and see everything from the outside – just like an ant seeing the piece of paper it was on from a higher ground.

Although we may laugh at the foolishness of the Flatlanders (and the ant), to a being of the 4th dimension, we would appear just as stupid and naive. By applying what we learned from the world of Flatland to our three-dimensional world, we can expand our horizon of knowledge and understand what the fourth-dimension is.

(This post is part of a series exploring the concepts of dimensions. Read all of them here: https://jineralknowledge.com/tag/dimensions/?order=asc)

Posted in Philosophy

Least Common Multiple

Posted on by Jinavie

The most common experience every people on Earth have with animals is with an ant. There are plenty of people around the world who have never seen a cat, dog, bee or snake. However, it is hard to meet someone who has never played with some ants once or twice. Interacting with ants is an experience that is common to all of us.

When observing an ant walking across our palm, we can find these basic facts:
Firstly, an ant moves its antenna to find out what is happening.
Secondly, an ant goes any where it can go.
Thirdly, if you block the path of an ant, the ant crawls on top of that hand.
Lastly, if you draw a line in front of ant with a wet finger, you can stop it in its tracks. The ant hesitates as if there is an invisible wall and eventually goes around it.

There is no one that does not know these facts. But this basic, childish knowledge that is shared between us and our ancestors is never used in our lives. Schools do not teach it as it has no practical use in finding a job. What we learn in school about ants is simply boring. Who would honestly find memorising the various parts of an ant’s anatomy fascinating?

(from The Encyclopaedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge by Bernard Werber) 

Posted in Life & Happiness

The Ant And The Grasshopper

Posted on by Jinavie

Once upon a time, there lived an ant and a grasshopper in the forest.
In the hot summer, the ant worked hard under the burning sunlight.
But the grasshopper spent all of his time playing on his instrument and having fun instead of working.
The ant was envious of the grasshopper, but on the other hand he pitied him.

One day, the grasshopper asked the ant: “You should rest a bit. It is important to work hard, but you should also think of your health.”
The ant, in a fit of rage, said: “You have no right to say that. The summer will not last forever and there is a finite supply of food in the forest. If you do not work hard now to gather food, everyone else will take it and you will die in the winter. To be happy in the future you must endure the pain of the present. I worry for your future.”
“If you have to live a hard present for a happy future, what meaning does your life have? Food does not define happiness.”
“That is just wishful thinking of the poor. A day will come when you will pay dearly for your lack of reality.”

And time passed until winter came. The winter brought a merciless cold snap and the forest quickly froze over.
The ant was right. The grasshopper – with no food or shelter – could not fight the cold and soon froze to death. As his body became more and more rigid, he thought to himself: “Well, I enjoyed my youth and had a happy time, so I have no regrets at least.”

The ant had enough food stored up and so he could live in his burrow without starving to death.

In his cold, damp, dark burrow he spent a lonely time, extending his miserable life just a little bit longer.
After a month of enduring it, he could not bear the continuous cold and eventually froze to death.

All is vain in the face of nature. Instead of just worrying about the future, one must also invest in the past and present to lead a complete life of happiness.

Posted in Life & Happiness

Matchsticks

Posted on by Jinavie
  1. There are 6 matchsticks. Make 4 identical, equilateral triangles.
    The hint is that you must think differently to everyone else. If you think like everyone else, you will never find the solution.
  2. There are 6 matchsticks. Make 6 identical, equilateral triangles.
    The hint this time is quite the opposite the first puzzle: think like everyone else.
  3. There are 6 matchsticks. Make 8 identical, equilateral triangles.
    The hint for this puzzle is that you must reflect on yourself.

Answers after the break.

(Source: http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs50/i/2009/288/5/4/Matchsticks_by_oh_yesh.jpg)

Continue reading “Matchsticks” →

Posted in Life & Happiness

Why And How

Posted on by Jinavie

When an obstacle blocks the way, the first response a person shows is thinking “Why did this happen? Whose fault is it?”. A person looks for the person responsible and ponders what appropriate punishment should be given.
In an identical scenario, an ant first thinks “How, and with whose help, can I solve this problem?”.
In the ant world, there is no concept of “crime”.

It is obvious that there is a great gap between people who ask themselves “Why didn’t this work?” and those that ask “How can I make it work?”.
In modern times, the world is dominated by people who ask “why”. However, in the future a day will come when the world is ruled by those that ask “how”.

(from The Encyclopaedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge by Bernard Werber)

Posted in Science & Nature

Man Versus Ant

Posted on by Jinavie

Human:
A mammal that ranges in size from about 1 to 2 metres.
Weighs between 30kg and 100kg. Females are pregnant for 9 months. 
Omnivorous diet. Population estimated around 7 billion.

Ant:
An insect that ranges in size from about 0.01 to 3 centimetres.
Weighs between 0.001mg and 1g. Can produce eggs endlessly given there is an ample sperm reservoir.
Omnivorous diet. Population estimated around 1 quintillion (1 billion times 1 billion).

(from The Encyclopaedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge by Bernard Werber)