Day 693 : Hand Made Zoo?

Recently, my daughter loves making her own zoo using LEGO.
Above is a snapshot I took when I got back home today.
She showed me her latest work with all smiles. :)

BTW, she recently gets one more vocabulary, "boo-boo" which means a car in Japanese baby-talk. I'm wondering what is her next word/phrase... :)

The Psychology of Men of Genious

The Psychology of Men of Genious (Geniale Menschen), 5th edition
Ernst Kretchmer (Japanese translation)
ISBN 978-4003365816

A classical work on psychology of geniuses.
I bought the book possibly more than 10 years ago, and finally finished. The primary reason why I took it after such a long interval is mainly because I read Shroedinger's work on Mind and Matter recently. Also, Shroedinger is one of the greatest genious in the histroy of contemporary physics. I'm going to write on Shroedinger in another day.

This book is definitely one of established classics, but I'm wondering what people think about the section VII where Kretchmer says that there was no great female geniuses and explanations about "the fact." His analysis is mainly based on various talented people of Western European countries mainly before the 20th century. Especially after the second world war, the world is changing so rapidly. Thus, I'm feeling the theory of geniuses could be different nowadays. But, anyway maybe it just means I should read more contemporary works on philosophy of geniuses.

BTW, in Japanese translation, titles of part 2 is "映像" which means "Image", and I was not sure what Kretchmer meant by that. But, according to English translation available here, actually it was "Patterns." It might have been better reading the book in English... orz

Day 686 : First Word?

Today is another memorial day of my daughter. :)

According to my wife, my daughter said "Panman" which she actually meant "Anpanman," a popular Japanese TV hero for children. :)

BTW, it was a bit surprising for me that "(An)Panman" was the first word of my daughter because the most frequently used word at home is "Oka-san" (おかあさん) which means "Mom" in English.

One Thousand and One Nights (7/13)

Le Liver Des Mille Nuits Et Une Nuit (7/13)
Translated to French by J.C. Mardrus
ISBN 4-00-327807-0 (Japanese translation)

The 7th book of "One Thousand and One Nights."
From the night 414 to the night 515.

It was impressive that this book and the book 6 contain stories about people who live in the sea. They can breathe even in water, but except that they are almost the same with us. Actually, they have their own civilization under the sea.
In also Japan, we have a famous nursery tale, Urashima Taro, in which a fisherman helped a turtle and was invited to a castle under the sea.

I'm wondering if there are similar stories of people who live under the sea all around the world...
And if so, why?

Day 684 : Curler

Ha ha, above is a snapshot at home in this afternoon.
My daughter always has shorthair because her mother loves it.
But, sometimes I want to see my daughter with long hair fashion. :)

400K Yen

I had Summer vacation from August 12 to 18 and took my family to my home town.
Actually, it was a bit tough journey this time.

First of all, there was a bit big earthquake in my home town, Shizuoka prefecture on August 11.
All of my relatives there OK, and furthermore it looks like that there was only one victim by that earthquake. But, Tomei highway (the highway road between Tokyo and Nagoya) was heavily damaged and blocked between ShizuokaIC and Fukuroi IC. Of cause, it caused heavy traffic jam and we were trapped by the traffic jam. I was exhausted... :(

The above picture shows the worst accident during our stay in Shizuoka.
Luckily none of my family was injured, but it turned out that it would took about 400,000 yen to repair the car today. :(

Oops...

TOEIC '09 Summer

Again, I had a TOEIC test on August 2, and today I received the score sheet.
This time, my score was slightly improved by 20 points. But, I'm not sure why because I didn't read books in English nor speak in English almost at all recently...

One Thousand and One Nights (6/13)

Le Liver Des Mille Nuits Et Une Nuit (6/13)
Translated to French by J.C. Mardrus
ISBN 4-00-327806-2 (Japanese translation)

The 6th book of "One Thousand and One Nights."
From the night 331 to the night 414.

Nothing special to note about the stories in this book, but one thing came up with me is that in the stories of One Thousand and One Nights people really often lose consciousness when they were deeply impressed. I read in some literature that women nobles often lost consciousness when they felt deep emotion in medieval Europe. I can understand that because most of them were brought up in a bit special family situation and so they didn't have enough experience to control their own emotion since their childhood.
But, in One Thousand and One Nights, even common people often lose consciousness, and I'm wondering if it's just an expression technique or not...

Guin Saga 128

Secrets Behind the Sacred Shrine
Guin Saga 128
Kaoru Kurimoto
ISBN 978-4-15-030962-6

128th book of Guin Saga.

I'm not sure how many unpublished books of Guin Saga there are. Maybe we can read one more book, but anyway this is almost the last book written by Kurimoto before her death. :(

The Fabric of the Cosmos

The Fabric of the Cosmos -- Space, Time, and Texture of Reality
Brian Greene
ISBN 978-4-7942-1700-4 (volume 1)
ISBN 978-4-7942-1701-4 (volume 2)

This huge work is the next book of "The Elegant Universe" which explained contemporary elementary particle physics in plain.

In this book, Greene focuses on what is Space-Time, especially the Arrow of Time problem.
Roughly speaking, Greene assumes time reversal property of the most elementary theory and introduces very low entropy in the early universe just after the Big Bang induced by quantum gravity effects.

About 15 years ago, I also majored in elementary particle physics. But, now the cutting edge physics has gone into highly mathematical world and beyond my understanding. But, still it's fascinating walking through the thoughts seeking for the ultimate elementary structure of the world. :)