"The menacing look he had given me."

  Dark rain clouds were gathering in the sky. I was cycling as fast as I could to get home before the downpour. When I felt a few big drops on my head, I decided to head for a bus stop, about a hundred meters away. As I was nearing the bus stop, I saw a lady rushing towards it from the opposite direction, tugging a little boy behind her. The little boy was finding it hard to keep up with her, so, finally, she just picked him up and carried him.

  Suddenly, a motorcycle roared past me, almost knocking me down. "Hey! Are you mad!" I shouted at the motorcyclist. He turned to look at me, and for a split second, I saw his face - cruel, glaring eyes and menacing expression. However, he just sped on. Then, I realized that he was heading right for the woman and little boy!

  "Watch out! Watch out!" I shouted. I saw the lady turn to look at the motorcyclist, dismay etched on her face.

  In an instant, the motorcyclist had reached the lady. He stretched out an arm and grabbed hold of her handbag, hitting her on the back at the same time. The impact sent the lady hurtling forward. The mother and child fell on the road, landing right in the path of a van.

  "Stop! Stop!" I screamed at the van driver, waving my arms wildly in the air. Thankfully, the driver had seen what was happening. With a squeal of brakes, the van stopped a few meters from the spot where the mother and child lay sprawled on the road.

  I saw the lady crawling on the road towards the wailing child. There was blood all over them. Tossing my bicycle to the side of the road, I ran to help them. By the time I got there, the van driver had reached them. He was cradling the child and examining his limbs.

  "I think your little boy is all right. Nothing is broken," he said. "How about you? Do you feel pain anywhere?" "Please help me. I am pregnant," the lady replied, weeping. "Don't panic. You'll be all right. I'll take you and your son to hospital," said the man. The lady could not walk, so the man carried her and settled her in his van. I carried the whimpering child to the van. The man asked me to go along with them so that I could help make the police report. I realized that, by this time, the motorcyclist would have gone far from that spot, with the lady's handbag.

  A few days later, I was told that the lady had suffered only minor injuries from the incident. She had some rather deep cuts on her face and limbs, and her knee was twisted. Thankfully, her unborn baby was unharmed. The snatch thief was never apprehended and I doubt I will ever see him again. However, I will never forget the menacing look he had given me.

"when nothing much happens."

It seemed like it was going to be another one of those days when nothing much happens. Ken and his friends were playing their regular football game along the banks of the river near their small village. In the midst of the game, Ken's attention was drawn to a tourist boat passing by.Actually, tourist boats were quite common in their area. It was also common for some of the tourists to take potshots the birds and squirrels along the way. This is why Ken's friends were not really surprised to hear a few small explosions from the boat. They ignored the sounds and went on with their game.   However, they were startled when they suddenly heard loud cries for help coming from the boat. They could see that the crew were running about, panic-stricken. Some people were shouting to them. "Their engine must have blown up! Look, there's smoke and the boat's out of control. It's going towards the rapids," Ken pointed out to his friends.   Ken's village was located at the point at which the tourist boats turned around and headed back upstream. Three kilometers downstream were the rapids, which spelt trouble for the boats. "It's heading straight for the rapids! They're in trouble! The boat will be smashed against the rocks!" Ken exclaimed. "Let's get help!"   The boys sprinted back to the village for help. Along the way, they met the village headman. In a panic yet haste explanation , Ken explained the emergency to the headman.   The headman was a man of quick action. Without wasting any time, he yelled out to some men to help him carry his powerful outboard motor to the jetty. With the motor tied firmly onto bamboo poles, they rushed hurriedly down to the jetty.   Their haste was indeed necessary for, by the time the men had reached the jetty, they saw that the boat was dangerously close to the rapids. There was not a moment to lose! With quick hands, the headman attached the outboard motor to his sampan and then sped off to the rescue.Upon reaching the tourist boat with bare minutes to spare, the headman realized his mistake. How could so many tourists be packed into this small sampan? The headman was filled with despair. Then he saw the rope that had been used to tie down the outboard motor to the bamboo poles. It had been flung into the sampan in his haste. Quickly, he grabbed the rope and flung it to the boatmen on the tourist boat. "I'll tow you back!" he shouted. After the boatmen had tied the rope firmly to their boat, the headman made a swift U-turn and then, putting the engine on full power, he steered his sampan upstream. The rope gave a jerk and then, to everyone's relief and joy, the tourist boat moved forward, obediently following the small sampan.   Loud cheers burst out from the tourist boat and the observers on the shore. Thanks to the headman's courage, the cooperation from the villagers, and the quick action of the boys, the tourists were saved from certain death in the rapids.

Numbers

Numbers are written signs or symbols for a particular quantity.   The Arabic symbols for numbers are the ones we use for our mathematical work and they have become part and parcel of the world of numbers. The Roman symbols for numbers use the letters of the alphabet. The Chinese use strokes and the number of strokes depict the number system. Do you know that some students have an illogical fear of numbers ? Mention Arithmetic or Mathematics and they go berserk! I was the burden of my Mathematics teacher. I could never understand why two minuses make a plus. It is most illogical but ask a mathematical pro and the genius would raise his eyebrow, look at me as if I am from outer space, an alien and from then on, would deem it beneath his dignity to speak to me.   Despite my fear of Mathematics, I had a fascination for numbers. It must be due to all the card games I played with my mother. Some educationists did say that exposing a young child to number card games would make him a gifted child. There has to be a short circuit somewhere for me not to lay claim to such a prediction. For all I know, it is some old wives' tale. However, I did get a distinction in Mathematics during primary school. It was either the paper was such an easy one or it was sheer good luck. Seriously, I think it was the gem of a Mathematics teacher.   From my personal experience, I believe that if a child is given the right grounding in the basics, the child would be able to do singularly well in the subject. Everyone is teachable and given the right opportunity, everyone can learn to add, minus, multiply and understand all the funny equations and formulae. A basic knowledge of mathematics is necessary in this world where everything has to do with numbers.   There are the queue numbers at banks, offices, and seat numbers for buses, trains and planes. Even hotel rooms are numbered, so too are the floors except that in certain high-rise buildings the 13th floor does not exist.   Our identification papers are numbered and not remembering them can be rather embarrassing. From MyKad to passports, birth certificates to registration numbers for cars, land titles, admission numbers -- all documents are printed with numbers. To the government we are figures, just numbers. To the police, we are statistics in accident cases. If numbers do not exist, the world would be terribly chaotic. Therefore, to make our life a pleasure, try to remember all the important numbers. It has been known that if your number is stolen and used by an impersonator, you might lose your identity.   It is no wonder that science fiction has turned to using palm prints, eye iris and access entry code to prevent impersonation and false entry into maximum security buildings. However, everything can be cloned so nothing is tamper proof or security proof.   The series "Numbers" illustrates how the various variables can be used to predict answer and solutions to crimes. A mathematical genius utilizes all the variables and promulgates a theory and proves the hypothesis right.   As long as man is a thinking individual whereby he does not allow the robot to manipulate and control his life, numbers will continue to dominate the fabric of daily life.

Reading

Ever since members of early civilizations used simple hieroglyphics to communicate their thoughts, hopes and aspirations, there has been a close connection between reading and refinement. For this purpose, the terms 'refinement' must be extended to include far more than 'good manners' -- otherwise, the only reading necessary to produce he 'refined' person would be a book on etiquette ! Refinement, however, really implies culture and civilization in the widest sense, a combination of those qualities which differentiate man from the animal world, and it is the bearing of reading on the development of these qualities which we must examine.   A high standard of personal morality and unselfishness is cultured man's first characteristic. This, he largely owes to the books of his religion, whether it be the Christian Bible, the Muslim Koran, the Hindu Upanishads, the Philosophy of Buddha or Confucius. Such books teach him the meaning of family life and virtues of honesty, peaceful living and integrity. But, the best of secular literature helps him to achieve the same object. The innocence of Ophelia, the nobility of Sydney carton cannot fail to impress and attract the reader.   Greek tragedy was intended to induce in the audience a 'Catharsis,' or purging of the emotions, primarily those of 'pity and terror'. But the general reader finds that all good literature has a salutary effect on the emotional side of his nature. Great emotional pleasure may be derived from a good novel, as we enter fully into the life of the hero or heroine, an the best of writing, whether it takes the form of poetry, drama, or the novel has an undoubtedly maturing effect on our emotional nature.   For most people, however, the 'refined' person is the 'educated' person, the person whose intellect has been developed through reading intelligent books. The clear, logical thinker owes much to his grounding in the school-room, and even more to the love of reading which this grounding has fostered. Reading becomes a stimulating function of adult life, and ceases to be a child's tool for passing an examination or getting a job.   Cultured living requires that people should be 'well-informed,' and wide reading has the added advantage of imparting useful general knowledge. Thus, the well-read man or woman is more fitted to live in the community and travel, profitably, outside it. Such knowledge is obtained from a variety of sources ranging from the newspaper and magazine to the many available volumes of specialized non-fiction books.   An added benefit of good reading is the development of a love of language for its own sake. Style, imagery and figurative language, the 'atmosphere of prose and poetry, its emotional intensity and its intellectual content-all these things inculcate a love of beauty, the mark of a truly civilized person.   No reader of good literature can fail to be influenced by the attitudes to life to members of the family, to the community and to the nation which it contains. He constantly checks his own philosophy against what eh finds, and in analyzing it, refines it. we do not necessarily try to behave like people in books, but at least we can learn from them. Sometimes, however, we rightly desire to model our lives on those of great men and women, in so far as we can, and in this connection, the importance of reading biographies cannot be over-estimated. it is a poor scientist who does not emulate the achievements of a Michael-Angelo or an Einstein, it is a poor nurse who does not admire the forcefulness and devotion of Florence Nightingale.   Today, we live in a cosmopolitan community, which has become sophisticated and matured by the admixture of foreigners, with their own languages, ways of life and special gifts. Furthermore, few of us nowadays, spend all our live sin our own small village or town. And so, it becomes increasingly important to know about other countries, other people. To know about other countries, other people. To know something about them from books, perhaps to learn their languages, at once smoothes the path to friendship, and it is a characteristic of a refined person to wish to make friends with other nationals -- not to regard them suspiciously as 'foreign devils.' The refined person is the mentally disciplined person -- the person who demands a full and intellectually satisfying life.

Mathematics is a language of perfection

  Strictly speaking, a language is a verbalized means of communication, enabling the speaker to convey thought to another person. However, the more complex the thoughts or ideas, the harder or more cumbersome language becomes. To explain verbally why 'the square on the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle equals the sum of the squares on the other two sides' would require a long and tedious paragraph or great math tutors. And this is the simplest possible example; anything more complicated would be unmanageable. So in this way mathematical symbols which nowadays are universally accepted, compress information in a way that no ether 'language' possibly could, and this fact supports the topic statements.

  However, this 'language' is only available to most people in it's simplest forms, i.e. arithmetic, algebra and geometry, and these are taught in schools because they have everyday usage. The shop assistant needs arithmetic, unless there is an automatic cash till, and technicians of all kinds need the other two; perhaps more, such as trigonometry, logarithms and the calculus, should he or she be dealing with quantities that vary in time and space. In this sense, of course, mathematics is a minority language, a language intelligible only to the specialists of all nations.

  The time may come when knowledge of higher mathematics is far more wide-spread, however. The 'new' mathematics is now being taught in many schools, sometimes alongside the traditional approach, and younger students find the new methods more intelligible. The principles of course have not changed; merely the setting out. However, there are great developments available to younger students enabling them to see the subject as a whole rather than as a series of separate compartments, and this should engender more interest in those whose natural bent is in the direction of the arts.

Mathematics has been described as 'the spearhead of natural philosophy', and this was certainly true up to about 1800. The subject grew up independently in China, India, the Arab world and Europe. For example, many of the Alexandrian and Greek schools of geometricians, represented by Thales of Miletus, Pythagoras, Euclid, Archimedes etc advanced propositions which were already Pythagoras, Euclid, Archimedes etc advanced propositions which were already known elsewhere. The West derived it's numbers system from the Hindu-Arabic world, which reached Europe in about 1000 AD. The West learnt mathematics from the Arab world and, from the 15th century, great developments took place.

  Descartes revived algebraic geometry, Napier invented logarithms, Newton and Leibnitz the calculus. Lobachevsky developed non-Euclidian geometry, and was followed by Einstein, though the latter was more of a physicist than a mathematician. From Newton onwards, mechanics and astronomy began to use advanced mathematics and, later on, physics came in for the same treatment. Both 'pure' and 'applied' mathematics became the indispensable tools of progress. Pure maths reaches conclusions by means of the deductive process, and may be independent of need. Applied maths consists of developments to meet the requirements of science and technology.

  So mathematics has become a 'beautiful language' in several senses. Firstly, in it's ability to compress ideas, just as a great poet achieves desired effects by great verbal economy. Second, because it's tools, the symbols, are internationally accepted. Third, because it is entirely objective, and completely exact, allowing no room for prejudice or human emotion. Fourth, because it constantly provides the ground for new hypotheses. These in turn are checked by logic and observation. Often as with Pythagoras, mathematical conclusions can be checked by other means. So mathematics can lead man closer to absolute truth than any other means, that is in the categories of discovery in which it can operate.

  Mathematics means 'facts', verified by experiment, and these facts are true within the four dimensions in which the human mind can operate. The other dimensions, perhaps six according to Stephan Hawking, must be compressed into infinitesimal space, so are likely to remain the prerogative of the Creator!

Lived

  Far up in the mountains of Canada, there is an old abandoned log cabin. Once it was occupied by a young couple who wanted to distance themselves from the chaos of this modern world. Here they were miles away from the nearest town. Bob, the husband, made the occasional trip into town to buy supplies whereas Jan, his wife, spent her free time by the fire, sewing. Their life was simple.

  Then, one midwinter's day, Jan woke up from bed with a strange ache in her bones. Putting it down to overwork, Bob shooed her to bed and made sure she rested. Though Jan was impatient to get to her chores, Bob soothed her, "Relax, Sugar. You're overdoing things. All these chores will be here when you recover." 

  However, Jan seemed to be getting worse instead of recovering. By evening, she was running a high fever and in greater pain. In spite of his best efforts, Bob could not manage to ease her suffering. And then suddenly, she started to lapse into unconsciousness.

  It was then obvious that she was seriously ill. What could Bob do? He had no experience in treating the sick and Jan was getting worse by the minute. He knew that there was an old doctor in town but he lived three miles away, downhill. Pot-bellied and obese, there was no way the doctor could make it up to their cabin.

  Something had to be done quickly! But Bob was stuck in the moment of fear. The only thing left to do was to go to the doctor. In Jan's condition, she could never walk that far in the waist-deep snow. Bob would have to carry her!

  Bob searched his mind for a way to move poor, sick Jan. Then, he remembered. He had once made a sledge so that they could ride together over the mountain. They never got around to using it though, because the whole mountain was thickly covered with rocks and trees. He had never found a safe way down, not even once.

  "Well," he thought, "looks like I'm going to have to try it anyhow," as he dug out the sledge from the storeroom. "Jan may die unless I get her to the doctor, and life means nothing to me without her." With this thought in mind, Bob gently tucked Jan into the sledge, got in the front, and with a short prayer for safety, pushed off.

  

  How they got through that ride alive, Bob has never figured out. As trees loomed up in front of him and just as quickly whizzed by his side, close enough to touch, he felt relieved that Jan was not awake to experience the ride. It was all he could do not to scream as collision seemed imminent, time and again, with only inches to spare.

  At last, bursting from the mountainside, the town came into view. Barely slowing down, they sped through the icy streets, only losing speed as they neared the doctor's house. The sledge, battered through the journey, collapsed in the left ski as it came to a halt, spilling out its occupants. Bob picked up his Jan and made his way into the doctor's house.

  After what seemed to be a long winter, Jan recovered fully from her illness but Bob never recovered from his fright. They moved into the little town so as to be near help in times of crisis, and have lived there ever since.

illusionary world part VI

  I'm collecting scrap in effort of making life as how I had been made. "Do you want a friend? That make sense, you must be lonely all by yourself. I'm sorry." She's not entirely correct. It is not that I felt lonely. I thought it will be more fun if we had more of my kind. A more lively world.  "Let's give it a try, even if it is not possible."

  Our creation, friend was not alive at all. Not the single trace of life was found in it. Life is difficult to be obtained in a world like this.