Thanks DS. The title was "probabilistic analysis of noise effects in digital circuits"
I am doing my Master's in Electrical Engineering!

Can't wait for the movie.

Congratulations, svsg. That's quite an accomplishment.

Congrats svsg! That's quite an accomplishment.

Your thesis sounds quite interesting. Can you provide a layman's description of what kind of analysis you did? What kind of models did you have to run?

Congrattletogs!

Thanks DS, Klydon, LLC. Here is the layman explanation:

We are making faster and better Integrated Circuits or chips every year. This involves packing more and more transistors and more wires connecting them in the same area. With all the signals running very close to each other, they interfere with one another. This interference is called noise in electrical engineering. Loosely similar to your radio picking up some other channel due to interference.
In today's technology, the amount of interference is known very deterministically. But in future, it is predicted to get very difficult to quantify it exactly. Probabilistic analysis means that we assign certain odds for each possible strength of noise and predict how much of errors we will get in the circuits due to that.
My work was to do the math for this.

Hopefully I explained it well

I'm absolutely horrible at anything involving mathematics.

I remember when my aunts and uncles used to assume I was an excellent mathematician because I am a good musician (or, people tell me I'm a good musician, or whatever). Not true. If I were out composing orchestral pieces, then maybe I'd have a shot at it.

I have an alternating love-hate thing with math. Till I was about 11, I was supposedly good at math. I guess my classmates weren't really bright then . When I shifted to a different school, I started doing very bad in math as all the guys in my class were totally superior to me in raw arithmetic. And I hated math for several years. Once the math started moving away from arithmetic into more abstract concepts, I again started doing well and started liking it.

Well, I've recently come to the realization that math is a flawed concept, as infinity exists between every set of whole numbers, meaning whole numbers don't necessarily exist in reality, only in theory.

I mean, when you think about it, if I'm trying to move from point A to point B, I'll never exactly reach my location, as I'll run into halves, then thirds, then quarters, then fifths, then sixths, and so on and so on. I'll never get to point B, just too close to distinguish from that point from an alternative point. In other words, infinity is everywhere.

Things exist only in relation to others, 'tis true; nothing is an isolated whole; everything is conceptual.

Anyway, congrats, svsg!

I share llc's sentiments: I'm awful at maths.

I used to be great at it, though I had to work at it, it didn't come as naturally to me as writing or drawing; but I've neglected it since, and now I struggle even to count change. I'm numerolexic or something. But, on a serious note, I'm reluctant to even get a job in which I have to serve people and handle money, because I really am quite horrendous at counting coins.

You will laugh at this. There was this popular math problem that goes like this: Two trains are approaching each other at some speed. A bird flies back and forth between the trains. How many trips will the bird make before the trains collide?
Apparently the answer is Infinite using some concept similar to what you mentioned. The gap between the trains keeps reducing as a fraction of the original gap between them, and this goes on reducing to an infinitely small number without actually becoming zero. I don't know how this is possible practically speaking. But such is the weirdness of math
Some one talks about that problem here:
http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-130033.html
http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-156582.html

acalculia - the inability to perform math.

I always have been too... Not that I'm that bad at it, the prospect of it just makes me feel uncomfortable.

I think it was around 8th grade, when they began to bring in the "real math" that my GPA began to drop in math class. But, to compensate, it was around middle school that I really began to excel in English, music, and art classes.

Artists get all the girls

I wish that were true.

It may be in some places... But in stuck-up, highly-conservative, suburban mountain towns where the Catholic church rules everyone's life, not so much.

Haha, yeah, I wish that were true as well svsg! From what I've seen, athletes get all the girls. As dumb as some of them may be.

I think if you're extremely abrasive, and too stupid to show any signs of your own personality, you're bound to get an attractive but very shallow and unintelligent girl.

Your work impresses me, svsg. FWIW, I didn't love math in middle school and high school. Unlike you, the subject became less interesting and more foreign to me, the more abstract it became. I was more of a man of letters than numbers.

However, on all my standardized tests and SATs, my math score ranking was better than my verbal. Go figure.

LLC - You should know that there are different sizes of infinity and that there are numbers in the imaginary space - that math will really blow your mind.

Thanks for your description, svsg!

I can add, subtract, multiply, and divide.

That's all I need. I barely made it through college algebra...with a D

My mother-in-law fell yesterday and broke her wrist.

Why'd you push her?

She ticked me off.

That's her job as Mother In Law

She also has a big mouth

The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it.
P. B. Medawar (1915 - )


How true

That's why I have no friends.

(Jokes. You think I'm serious, how fucking dare you, I'll slit your throat and then my wrists, and together we'll bleed to death.)

n00b

There was moderate sized earthquake in the general area between San Francisco and San Jose a few hours ago. Blibble, report in and let us know you're OK.

Yeah I'm fine. 5.6 is nuttin'.

I'm a seasoned Californian. When an earthquake hits we all get excited and try to guess at how big it was. I was standing outside talking with a co-worker and I thought I was getting dizzy because I was rocking back and forth. It was a decent slow rolling quake, but nothing to be scared about. Not big enough to do any damage.

I always find it funny how people from the rest of the country would rather live where there are hurricanes because "There is time to prepare" even though way more damage is done. Earthquakes come and go so fast and usually do no damage. I'll take earthquakes any day over hurricanes or tornadoes.

Bibble,

I am pretty much use to the fact the we get earthquakes too, depending of course on how big of quake it is. I can't say it doesn't bother me though. I do always think "is this the big one?" I am not sure which scares me more, the rolling quake or the quick jolt.

Having lived both in tornado prone areas and earthquake, it's hard to say. Thankfully I've not been in or around an earthquake that's done any significant damage in the 27 years I've been in CA. Yet, there is something to be said for living where there are tornados.....you do at least have a place to take cover.

I can't buy the "stand in a doorway" idea should an earthquake strike. I think of the comedian (don't remember which one) who was talking about that very issue. He said, "how many times after an earthquake as you look at the damage done, do you see rubble, rubble, rubble.....doorway?" That's true. My first instinct, if inside, is to go out. I don't want upper floors smashing me.

TIS

When we see news accounts of west coast earthquakes, such as the recent one, I know it's not a bad one when they open the story with pictures of a broken jar of pickles on a supermarket floor.

I always felt a little bit lucky living in the Northeast. Tornadoes and earthquakes are extremely rare and if they do occur, they tend to be relatively mild. We get the blizzards, but all you have to do is bundle up, shovel snow and wait it out. Time will melt it eventually.