Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Post No 4,07,00,00,001 on the Internet: Nature’s curve may not be exponential and other odd thoughts

As I write this article and made a search with keyword COVID 19, the search engine retrieved 4,07,00,00,000 article in 0.43 seconds. Why not another one?

Few of my odd thoughts are as follows


Thought 1: Nature’s curve may not be exponential

When nature starts to dance to the music of death, the curves it shows may not be exponential but in the current situation the articles/forwarded messages related to the topic are taking an exponential form. I do not have enough knowledge to explain why network-based epidemic modeling is a better approach than exponential modeling with R0. (The future reviewers/editors of my articles will be so proud that I am using the technical jargons of which I do not have any clue) However, those of you have any clue, let me direct you play a simple game based on the same theory. https://vax.herokuapp.com/game


Thought 3: Survival of the fittest. Don’t make it survival of the “shittiest”


In the unprecedented time we live in, I remember the scene from heath ledger’s iconic performance in Joker and the words he uttered “When the chips are down, these... these civilized people, they'll eat each other.”. I understand the act of panicking helped our so-called uncivilized ancestors to run away from wild animal attacks, angry spouses but in today’s world when we call ourselves civilized we should have minimum decency not to hoard essential supplies.


Thought 5: Remember those who helped us in our bitter times when the time gets better


Most of us will survive this and maybe in a few months, we will go back again to our old tantrums of hating Mondays, blaming system failure everywhere with our perfect hindsight biases. But I hope we will remember those frontline workers, doctors, nurses, the workers in essential services and all those common men and women who stand guard in this uncommon time.


Thought 7: A Certified Introvert’s Guide to survive lockdown
Most of the cities across the world are in lockdown and governments are taking necessary steps to ensure that people stay at home. A plethora of advice on creating new hobbies, learning new skills floating around in proportion to the growth of the virus.


My advice is to try to sit still for a few minutes’ a day without the constant chatter of the mind. I guarantee you, if you do it for 21 days, if nothing else happens at least you will be older by 21 days.


As of me, paraphrasing the dialogue from the movie “Seventh Seal”; "I will carry the memory of these times between my hands as if it were a bowl filled to the brim with fresh milk. I will be grateful for the near and dear ones in whose prayers I take a position as per Heisenberg uncertainty principle."


In case you liked this article, do read my other imaginary article on “How to play Sudoku with imaginary numbers”