What I learned past week #1

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This past week has been hectic. My sophomore year has brought up a lot of academic pressure on me. I am still trying to maintain a proper balance.

But, still I am doing a number of stuff alongside my academic studies. 

On the first class of our Stat-201 course, my fellow Omar asked an interesting question. It's something like this: Suppose, you have a population of 1000 individuals and then you take samples of 100 for some statistical enquiry; how would the results differ if you take 2 samples of 100 individuals first replacing and then not replacing? I think if the population has a symmetric Gaussian distribution, then maybe two sampling methods would hardly show any difference. But, what about skewed distributions?

I am trying to write a C++ code to conduct the experiment in this case. But, I am stuck in a part. I will try again later.

Last Friday night, I was solving HW problem of CP's classical mechanics course. And for this I had to study the beaded string problem in oscillations. The topic is very interesting. And surprisingly the motion of the beaded string in the continuum limit gives rise to wave motion (i e. Infinite number of beads). The homework problem was also nice. It involved two beads with each of them attached to immovable wall with a spring.

Calculus - II course is demanding a lot of effort. Though I know the theoretical background, I have to give some time solving problems from Howard Anton Calculus book.

Another interesting course in my sophomore year is numerical analysis, and Burden's Numerical Analysis book is a real treat. I am having a pleasant time solving the exercise problem using C++ codes. Good thing about the book is it has a lot of physics problems. And it helps me to directly observe where I can use the numerical methods.

This Friday and Saturday I instructed a workshop on astronomical data analysis. It involved learning TOPCAT, a beginner software for astronomical data analysis. It was a great experience. More

And, Lab work. Damn! It is taking so much of daytime. And, sophomore year lab work requires a lot more effort than the freshman year. It's hectic.

I am hoping to learn special functions from Arfken's mathematical physics book. And, I also hope I will get back to learning CED soon.





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