Do Not Forget!

Today is the 14th. anniversary of Srebrenica happenings. This year we are not attending the ceremony but I am sitting at home and watching some documentaries about Srebrenica and trying to keep my conciousness. They will bury 530 victims, whose only some parts were found, today. It is not known how long it will continue to bury people since it is not known exactly how many people died. Just try to think today for a while what happened there and wish nice things for both victims and for the survivals.

Small note: The name of Srebrenica comes from Srebren which means silver since silver mining was always important in that small area. However, today, the area is out of silver but its soil is now full of with victims maybe whose bodies are more valuable than silvers.

Improbable

Nice expression; improbable, which means not impossible but very unlikely to occur or happen. This is the name of the novel of Adam Fawer. It was different than I expected but in some terms, even better than I expected also. The book became more meaningful to me while I have been teaching statistics and probability course since 3 semesters in the university. Because the book is actually about the life of a lecturer of statistics and probability. Without going into details, here are some parts that I selected from the book:

Pascal was one of the early researches about probability issue. By using the expected value calculation (which is one of the basic calculations in probability theory today), he decided to change his life towards being more religious. Why? Here is the reason:
Which is greater?
a. Expected Value of hedonistic life
b. Expected Value of religious life
where
a= probability of no afterlife*joy from hedonism+probability of after life*eternal damnation
b=probability of no afterlife*joy from religion+probability of afterlife*eternal happiness
Pascal's logic was simple; if a was greater than b, he should be hedonistic but if b is greater than a, he should live religious life. Here, the value of eternal happiness was positive infinity and that the value of eternal damnation was negative infinity, hence, for the above calculations, a becomes minus infinity while b becomes positive infinity. Of course, then, a gets smaller than b which triggers Pascal to turn to religious life.

Laplace's Demon; Just because we can not measure the factors does not mean the coin flip is determined by chance. This theory basically was arguing that if ALL the factors of an event (let's say to flip a coin) are known like the speed of the particles in the air, the angle of our arm, the density of each side of the coin, the effect of any voices around us etc. etc. then prediction about what side will come as a result of flipping this coin could be done. But there is no program, human kind or any source which can take into account so many factors to predict the future events. And even for a small event like flipping a coin, there are so many factors, can you imagine how it would be hard to predict an event which is affected by more and complex factors? There are billions billions of events are happening around the world every day, how would it be so hard to predict so many events at the same time. Can you imagine? But as it was said above, just because we can not measure the factors does not mean they are the results of chance. (Can you imagine the complexity of the God's brain? :) Laplace also showed that the best way to predict reality is not to calculate the right answer but to figure out what answer will be the least wrong. (Nice principle :)

On the other hand, Laplace's Demon knows everything in the past, because the past is alway singular. But Laplace's demon does not know the precise future because there is more than one. Why? Because in each step of acting even the small changes move you towards different futures. To know all the facts never enough since to control them is something different. You wake up in the morning and if you could not drink coffee for example, later on you would need to go to a coffee shop where you will meet one of your friends and by keeping him or her via talking he or she will be late for the work which can cause his or her firing. If you could just manage to get a small cup of coffee in the morning before you leave the home, none would happen. Billions billions of different futures by very very small act of you in each day. Crazy? Yes, if you knew what each of them would cause you could trun into crazy easily. This fits so much into my fate theory. Nice... And finally, Deja vu (the feeling as if you had this moment before) is a memory of a possible future...

Bu arada, youkarıda bahsettiğim kitap Türkçe'ye Olasılıksız adı ile Şirin Yener tarfından çevrildi. İlgililere duyrulur!

IUS's First Graduation Ceremony

Yesterday night we had our first graduation ceremony of our university since the establishment of the university in 2004. Actually, I have not been attending any of my graduation ceremonies until now. This time, I just wanted to be together with my students during their special time. Unfortunately it became longer than I expected since the long speeches of people and also our minister V. E. I think I will not change my tradition about not to go to ceremonies will continue, even for my own Phd one, because of the crowd, unnecessary speeches and loud music etc. Anyway, I was just feeling happy to see my students being excited of getting graduated. They will learn soon that this is not an ending but just a start of so many difficulties, challenges and beauties also :) Here are some photos...

I know, not the best photos but it was a bit dark inside and my battery depleted at the end :( Murph Rule was at work!

Bosna Fasli 3

Evet, Bosna ile ilgili actigimiz fasla devam edelim. Bu defa size burayla ilgili bilgi edinebileceginiz kitap ve filmlerden bahsedecegim. Once kitaplar...

1. Short History of Bosnia (Noel Malcolm): It gives information from the medieval times to today. But the book also includes explanations and opinions of the author. Not only a pure history book... Despite it says short do not think it is very short though.

2. BIH (Mustafa Imamovic): This is a book written by a Bosnian historian. It covers the periods from ancient times to today but in more historian way.

3. Modernization of BIH (Fikret Karcic): He is a Bosnian academician whom I got my Bosnian History course also. The book covers more about the modernization process in Austria-Hungary times.

4. Gecmisten Gunumuze Bosnaklar (Aydin Babuna): Evet, Turkce bir kitap sonunda. Kitap agirlikli olarak Avusturya donemine yer verse de diger donemlere de yer ayiriyor. Su ana kadarki zikri gecen kitaplardan en cok inceleme ve yorum icereni bu bence.

5. Sevdalinka (Ayse Kulin): Henuz bu kitabi okuyamasam da Bosna ile ilgili savas donemine dair bir roman oldugunu soyleyebilirim. Ayrica, yazar Ayse Kulinin soyadindan hareketle orta cagdaki en buyuk Bosnak imparatorlarindan biri olan Ban Kulinin soyundan geldigini dile getirebilirim.

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Simdi de filmler...

1. Perfect Circle (Abdullah Sidran): Bu topraklarin yetistirdigi onemli isimlerden biri Abdullah Sidran. Bu film, savas doneminden hemen sonra cekilmis olup savasa dair izlenimleri ozellikle 2 cocugun gozunden sunuyor.

2. No Mens Land (Danis Tnaovic): Bu filmi de nedense bulamadim bir turlu ama merakla bekliyorum izlemeyi. Ve bu da savasa dair bir film.

3. Wellcome to Sarajevo (Michael Winterbottom): Film gibi degil de bir haber kamerasindan belgesel gibi cekilmis fakat istedigimi pek de bulamadigim bir film.

4. Grbavica (Jasmila Zbanic): Yonetmenin odullu filmi, savastan sonraki yalniz bir annenin kiziyla olan iliskileri uzerine kurgulanmis. Bu arada, filmin adinin gectigi yer Saraybosnadaki onemli yerlesim yerlerinden biri, benim yasadigim yere de yakin. Savasin en cetin gectigi yerlerden biri imis. Filmdeki muzikler harika bu arada!

Fark edildigi gibi filmlerin agirligi savas uzerine. Ama yapilacak bir sey yok, savas bu insanlarin hayatini belki daha onlarca yil etkileyecek!

What Could I be...?

Despite I like what I am doing so much, I am thinking sometimes what else I could be if I was not an academician. One of the things I guess is I could be a designer. Yees, an industrial designer. I do not know but I like to create different things without any limit and make people's life easier and nicer by new type of products. Here are some examples from industrial designes that make me jealous.

This one is one of the designs of Tamer Nakışçı, a young designer from Turkey. This is a carper consisting of 10 or more rectangular pieces. So, if you would like to change how your carpet looks like, you can just play with the pieces and get new shapes. And below you can see a USB stick, yes it is a USB stick :), which has a shape of donut. I know maybe it is not the best idea to carry it easily but it looks nice and makes me hungry :)

Our One Year Anniversary :)

How fast the time is passing, I am realizing once more today because of our one year anniversary for the marriage. Wouv, it became 1 year already, ha?
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There are so many thing to say but I do not think that I can do. I can only say thanks first to God and then to him for every second of our togetherness. We have been married since 1 year and we have been in each other's ives since more than 2 years which made so many changes on us and each other's lives. When I turn back and try to think about them, I am surprised how amazingly the good, positive and happy things dominate the bad, sad and negative ones. Maybe it is something like that to have a good relationship :)
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Thanks to my lovely guy that he bravely changed so many things in his life and added so many different things in my life too. Thanks for being together with me, talking with me or at least praying for me every time when I need. Thanks for making me feel a woman and at the same time wakening the little girl hiding somewhere inside me since the sad times of my childhood. And finally, thanks for being loved by you with the purest love I have ever seen. Thanks a lot!
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I wish we could be together for this special day but it did not happen. Hope to compensate it soon... By the way, today is also the national day of Sweden. It was not our meaning to have our wedding at the same time with the national day but it became just an interesting coincidence :)

From the University

My main reason to be in Bosnia is the university where I do my Phd and give some courses. The International University of Sarajevo... It is a Turkish based university which gives education to students coming from different countries but especially for the Turks and Bosnians. Today, we had some guests from European Muslim Community in which a famous figure, Tariq Ramadan, was appeared also. There was a lady from Belgium Muslim Women Organization and a guy from England. They have talked about "Faith-Based Organizations and Civic Society". It was especially nice for me to listen Tariq Ramadan, an important, young and effective intellectual.

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I have been taking Phd courses since 1,5 year in my university and hopefully this semester will be the last. But for a first time a have got a small and nice memory from one of my classes (Foreign Policy course given by Stephen Spielman). Here is the photo.This is almost the whole of us. This old and sweet sitting at the front is our teacher. There are students from Bosnia, Turkey, Italy, Ukraine and Nigeria. (Try to find the Turkish ones from this one :))