Critical Mass by Philip Ball

Suddenly it has become a fad to read or write a science best seller that are essentially about quantitative modeling, although they cross many disciplines such as marketing research, economics, finance, sociology, and political sciences. Blink, The Tipping Point,Freaknomics, Wisdom of Crowds…they have been churned out one after another and are catching fire among readers. Scientists have been using statistics, probability modeling and data mining techniques in a wide range of applications for decades (if not for centuries). Why does it only appeal to a broader readership until now? Since American education is especially poor in developing mathematics skill for its students, the current trend may help reignite some interest among a maths-fearing general public, especially when real problems that seemingly have nothing to do with mathematics can eventually solved by maths.

Critical Mass, a new book by acclaimed British science writer Philip Ball, went further than his American peels and presented actual maths models instead of sheer anecdotes. Ball has a doctor degree in Physics and this inevitably lured him to write in more rigor and abstraction. Ball’s essential interest lies in the human society modeled as a self-regulating system that consists of “a statistical melée of many individuals doing their own idiosyncratic thing”. Starting from here he quoted freely from statistics physics, chaos, evolutionary game theory, network, and stochastic models in economics and finance, while real examples are manifested through models used to explain traffic jams, flocking birds, bacterial colonies, urban growth, market crash, and, in one of the most fascinating chapters, the six degree of separations in social network. Underlying the large spectrum of these unrelated phenomena, there is one common thread: The mass of smaller individuals are to interact and evolve and change the collective nature of the system under the influence of both internal and external forces. This is exactly what the applied mathematics is about, the ability to model and predict the system behavior. Applied mathematics has become both a broader and narrower field as more branches get developed and grown out. My own field, operations research, is essentially one small branch, but nowadays more or less stands at its own.

It is easy to deviate to too many other topics as Ball undertook such an ambitious subject. Nevertheless he primarily focused on the human society and various topics in political science or political philosophy since he recognized that as the most significant. After all, peace and war and social engineering have the most impact on all of us. If any of the maths can be used to prevent war and positively construct a more civil society, that would be the most important science of all. But as the God is still rolling the dice, maths does not seem to lead to one final utopian solution. The system will continue to oscillate, just as the invisible hand of capitalism that may help regulate the market but can't stop the economic downturns or polarization, and nobody can predict where the human society will end up with. That is one of the most important reason why life is worth living -- the unknown destinations!

My Top Films of 2005

2005 saw another year of declining sales of foreign films and shrinking attendance for art house flicks, although the DVD sales for the same categories actually increased by a few decimal points. American media did not have much interest in films as an art form. Rather, films are entertainment machines where sequels and fantasies rule. Don’t be surprised if you never heard most of the films in my list. Some of them have not been released at all in this country. I had the luck to catch them in the film festivals, in the precious and splendid Castro theatre, or find them in the pirated DVD bins in China.

Head On, German-Turkey, Fatih Akin, Fatih Akin has matured into a true master after this masterpiece. I cringed in my seat through the film with my heart throbbing and my fist clenching. Love hurts and bleeds, and the despair and the loneliness as culture outsiders are so real. In the end you get so invested in their world that you can only fear the worst. I confess that I fall in love with the lead actress Sibel Kekilli. I googled her as soon as I got home and only uncovered her earlier porn clips, and thus her life-imitating-art stories. Guess how heart-broken I was!

Peacock China, Gu ChangweiAfter the film won the Berlin film festival and became a huge box office inside China, I keep on hoping that this film will be on the radar screen of the American film distributors. No luck so far. Although the film aims to depict a particular period of China (late 70s- early 80) through a family of five, the struggles between the children and the parents are universal and should easily touch on hearts of non-Chinese audience. But since the film is neither an underground film that tried to be subversive nor a Kung Fu epic with technical wonder to woo the West, it probably would never get shown here. Gu could proudly stand in the A-list of Chinese directors after this amazing debut, and I can’t wait for its sequel “Spring Begins”, which recorded a subsequent period (mid-late 80s) I was so familiar with.

Old Boy, South Korea, Chan WooParkSouth Korea has become a formidable entertainment powerhouse whose stars and films are sweeping over Asia and starting to gain their foothold in this side of Pacific. Old Boy is a second installment in Chan's Vengence trilogy. It lays out a plot that is almost impossible to believe but still very logical, with potent power of sentiment and intense visual violence. A perfect example to show that art can shock and entertain, especially when it is innovative, unexpected, and humanistic.

The Return, Russia, Andret ZvyagintsevI stumbled onto this film by accident, and without knowing anything about it actually benefited my viewing experience. What could possibly happen when two boys went out on a fishing trip with a long-absent father? But when tension starts to build you just know that something dreadful would happen. The cinematography and editing give the film such lyrical and mystic touch, and the acting of all three characters is very unforgettable.

The World, China, Jia ChangKeThis is the Jia Changke’s first film ever released officially in China, although he has already become one of the world-renown directors. It did not score well in the domestic market, however. The reasons could be many-folded…but its very bleak ending and suppressive theme probably kept many people away from theatre. Using subtle metaphors, Jia created a story with urgency and poignancy. His real interest still lies in history’s force on the fate of small characters, but this time, he touched the fresh wounds of our national psyche and people do not seem want to be reminded of that.

Walk on Water, Isarel, Eytan FoxTwo years ago I put Yossi & Jager on my top 10 list. This year the director came back with a much stronger film layered with complexity of history, race, politics, and sexuality. Pairing a deeply-troubled Mossad agent with a free-spirited German gay guy Eytan span enough drama that could keep you suspended until the very last minute.

March of Penguin, France, Luc Jacquet Ok I got have one documentary on my list. And undoubtedly I chose a crowd-pleaser this time. French seem to be very good at making films about animals. They managed to be both scientific (not as overly sentimental as Disney) and able to retain enough drama to sustain audience’s emotions.

The Intruder, France, Clare DenisYou either love it or hate it. But during the showing of this film in SF film festival, no one walked out in the entire 2 and half hours. Clare filled the screen with such sensuality and mysterious beckoning. It is about landscape, about weather, about aging and body and flesh, about drifting and travel and culture and everything else. But in the meantime the story has no coherence and sometimes no logic at all. Clare did not want to trick your mind as David Lynch did. She merely provided a framework and let you to imagine the rest.

Broken Flowers, US, Jim Jarmusch A triumphant return for Jim Jarmusch to do another road film with his signature caricature of characters and eccentric humor. I was converted ever since I saw Mystery Train, and I always wondered how he would be able to make another hit after all those earlier classics. Using a mysterious letter as a thread, Broken Flowers engineered a set of seemingly normal but quirky characters who either reinvented themselves or got very bitter. Jarmusch is a quintessencial American artist who is veryt rooted in the country's culture and history. His earlier films placed foreign characters in the most American locales, and this time, he enlisted a variety of personality prototypes to reflect on what kind of people this country have produced.

Carandiru, Brazi, Hector Babenco Like rest of Latin America and following a long left-leaning culture tradition, Brazilian directors excel in making films about marginal and underprivileged people. In Carandiru Babence portrayed a colorful set of characters from the largest prison with simpathy and compassion. After a slow buildup, the final 45 minutes ended in heart-wrenching and intense violence. I