Choosing Between Making Money and Doing What You Love - Leonard A. Schlesinger, Charles F. Kiefer, and Paul B. Brown - Harvard Business Review

"If you're really passionate about what you do, but it's not going to make you a lot of money, should you still do it?"

What a great question! It seems like just about everyone who has ever addressed a graduating class of high school or college seniors has said "Do what you love, the money will follow."
Inspiring. But it is true? Couldn't you do what you truly care about and very well go broke, as the question above (recently sent from one of our readers) implies?

Based on the research we did for our book, we're convinced that when you're heading into the unknown, desire is all-important. You simply want to be doing something that you love, or something that is logically going to lead to something you love, in order to do your best work. That desire will make you more creative and more resourceful, and will help you get further faster.

And, it will help you persist. When you're trying something that's never been attempted before — beginning an unusual project at work, or trying to get a new business off the ground — you're going to face a lot of obstacles. You don't want to be giving up the first time you encounter one.

But, let's be real. None of this guarantees wealth, or even financial success. 

Why you should know your Physics & Maths well - Physicist Uses Math to Beat Traffic Ticket

Physicist Uses Math to Beat Traffic Ticket

Here's a practical application for your physics education: using math to successfully beat a traffic ticket in court. Dmitri Krioukov, a physicist based at the University of California San Diego, did just that to avoid paying a fee for (purportedly) running a stop sign.

Krioukov not only proved his innocence, but he also posted a paper detailing his argument online on the arXiv server. The succinct abstract for his paper certainly distinguishes itself from other research papers:

"A way to fight your traffic tickets. The paper was awarded a special prize of $400 that the author did not have to pay to the state of California."

After thinking Krioukov ran through a stop sign, a nearby police officer pulled him over and issued him a citation. According to Krioukov's paper, however, three physical phenomena combined at just the right time and misled the officer.

When Krioukov drove toward the stop sign the police officer was approximating Krioukov's angular velocity instead of his linear velocity. This happens when we try to estimate the speed of a passing object, and the effect is more pronounced for faster objects.

Trains, for instance, appear to be moving very slowly when they are far away, but they speed past when they finally reach us. Despite these two different observations at different distances, the train maintains a roughly constant velocity throughout its trip.

In Krioukov's case, the police cruiser was situated about 100 feet away from a perpendicular intersection with a stop sign. Consequently, a car approaching the intersection with constant linear velocity will rapidly increase in angular velocity from the police officer's perspective.

Similarly, if a car approaches the stop sign with constant velocity but brakes quickly before reaching the sign, the angular velocity will rapidly increase before stopping momentarily. To illustrate this point, Krioukov created two graphs: one for the case of constant linear velocity through a stop sign (illegal) and another for a quick stop at the sign before accelerating back up to speed (legal).



If you look at the graph on the right, you'll notice three lines with different colors, and each line corresponds to a different deceleration at the stop sign. The blue line with the biggest spikes represents a 10 m/s^2 deceleration -- about the highest deceleration for the kind of car he was driving.

This line mimics what actually happened best according to Krioukov because he had a terrible cold that day, and one sneaky sneeze caused him to slam on the brakes hard as he approached the stop sign.

The crux of Krioukov's argument is that this rapid, legal deceleration can appear very similar to the case descriped in the graph on the left. But the left graph actually represents a car cruising through the stop sign at a constant velocity exceeding 20 miles per hour. So surely an officer would still be able to tell the difference, right?

Not when another car partially obstructs his view, according to Krioukov. When another car partially blocked the officer's view of Krioukov's car momentarily, the officer could have missed the brief yet crucial timing of his stop. At least, that's Krioukov's version of the case.

Either way, his argument appeared to work: "The judge was convinced, and the officer was convinced as well," Krioukov told PhysicsCentral.

This physical description swayed the judge, or maybe he was simply impressed by the sheer dedication Krioukov put into avoiding this ticket.

You can peruse the paper here if you want to devise your own plan to get out of traffic tickets. Leniency in court, however, is not nearly as reliable as mathematical proofs.

Now, Krioukov has a challenge for our readers: "I want to ask the readership to please find the flaw in the argument."

Mathematical figures courtesy Dmitri Krioukov. Top stop sign image courtesy Infrogmation via Wikimedia commons.

Reblogged via : Buzz Blog: Physicist Uses Math to Beat Traffic Ticket

IIT JEE Survey Results

JEE SURVEY RESULTS

As of yesterday, 1072 IIT alumni, students, faculty and retired faculty participated in the survey. Mostly from IITKanpur.

The major findings are that :

1. 73% disagree to have a common entrance exam for Centrally Funded Technical Institutes (CFTI) including IITs unlike the current system where all IITs have JEE while other institutes have their own entrance exams.

2. 91% disagree that 40% weight to Class XII Board exam marks be given in determining rank for admission to CFTIs. In fact 66% wish to give 0% weight to class XII marks.

3. 87% disagree that only 60% weight, instead of current 100%, to entrance exam to be designed and administered by HRD Ministry

4. 95% disagree that HRD Ministry be involved in designing and Administering JEE rather than IITs

5. 84% are disatisfied with PanIIT's support for HRD Ministry's proposal.

6. About 84% think that HRD Ministry's prposal will negatively impact IITs autnomy, quality of graduates, and IIT Brand.

Please see detailed report at https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=c0cb0955d09a2a54&resid=C0CB0955D09A2A54

The report has been shared with PanIIT for discussion in its April 14, 2012 meeting.

Let me know if you have any questions. My e-mail is gupta@ohio.edu. IITK AA is ready to listen!

Thanks for participating in the survey. Survey is still open if you have not yet participated & can be filled in at http://uohio.qualtrics.com//SE/?SID=SV_9BqMIH3lMe9y4HW

Courtesy : Dr. Ashok Gupta, President, IIT Kanpur Alumni Association

Track everything IPL from one place - Quick IPL Stats - Symbolic Entrepreneurship

DLF IPL - Follow all scores & statistics at Quick IPL Stats

Iphone app sold for 1 Billion Dollars!

Forget about diamonds, rubies & fine jewelry, mobile apps is where the money is! Instagram, the sensational fastest growing iPhone app was acquired by facebook today for 1 Billion Dollars!

Jidd Karo, Jiddi Bano - What parents should teach their child

'Beta, zyada jidd maat karo, jidd karna buri baaat hai'' next time your Mom says that., refer her to this post.

What do people regret while dying?

Top five regrets of the dying

Photograph: Montgomery Martin/Alamy

A nurse has recorded the most common regrets of the dying, and among the top ones is 'I wish I hadn't worked so hard'. What would your biggest regret be if this was your last day of life?

Anna Hazare supports jewelers cause

Anna Hazare has come all out in support of the jewelers cause & has extended support to the jewelers protest against excise duty & increase in custom duties on Gold & Platinum in India.

Strike continues after a day's break

The on going strike by jewelers across India was called off yesterday but has continued from today on account of arrest of jewelers in New Delhi.

Meanwhile the all-Rajasthan bandh has been postponed on accOunt of the Indian government's assurance to take back the proposed excise duty on jewelers.