Latin Squares

Back to Square One

2009-04-15T23:55:00.003+05:30

Its irritating that I have to post yet again on the Airtel Blackberry issue that I have been facing. Just when I was happy that its over, they screwed up again. The service is inactive again & I'm back to square one calling the ultra-inefficient Airtel Blackberry support team. I see the same things repeating again:

The false promises to rectify things in 1 hour, by next day morning etc.,
The refusal to give their boss's number to whom I want to escalate this matter
Their unfulfilled promises to arrange for a call back with their boss
Their meaningless 'I understand, sir' lines
The messy co-ordination between their teams & the stupid calls saying the service is active, when it is actually not

I am tired of this shit! I dont know if I can sue Airtel for all their false promises & meaningless TAT (Turn Around Time) they quote on their call.

UPDATE on Apr 18 2009: Airtel restored the service today after contacting the appellate office again.

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Airtel does its job, Finally!

2009-04-10T14:11:00.005+05:30

This is just an update on my previous post. Finally, after many many long conversations, escalation to airtel's appellate office, they have done their job. They have finally moved me to their new offering - BB Personal email plan on Apr 9th (8 days after the request was made!). I guess, the Airtel's BB support team will not forget my conversations with them. They got to remember it, if they are serious about improving their support mechanism.

Here's some free advice from me to airtel:

Manage Customer Expectations Better: The first mistake from my viewpoint that airtel made is setting wrong expectation that the job will be done in 24 hours. They continued this everytime I made a call, 'It will be done in next few hours, sir', 'It will be done by tomorrow morning, sir', 'It will be done by today evening, sir' etc., Why can't they assess the complexity of the problem at hand & provide a more realistic estimate. Why set false expectation.
Improve co-ordination within your support team: Everytime I called up, I used to get different response that left me confounded about the status of my request. If this is not enough, there were automated mails reaching me saying the service is 'active', when it actually is not. On top of it, there were weird SMS messages as well.
Improve Technical expertise: Though I do not know much of the background details on this point. 8 days certainly is a very long time to service a simple plan change request. The technical team seems to have struggled in resolving the issue.
Make your Nodal Officer reachable: Three times I had called up to talk to Airtel's Nodal officer, I had to wait for 5 - 7 minutes listening to an automated message saying 'Your call is important to us'. If it is important, why weren't you picking up the call?? The only response that I received on emailing the Nodal Officer were automated messages saying that the nodal officer will respond shortly, which never happened - so I had to approach the appellate office.

The plan itself is a cool one, however, getting there was the most painful part. Airtel's business team is coming up with good offerings, however such bad customer support experience will easily chase away potential customers.

If TRAI comes up with a regulation that the customers should be allowed to retain their mobile numbers when they switch across service providers, it will be great. I would have switched out of airtel to another provider, just because of this terrible support experience that I had to put up with.

Airtel Blackberry Service Support Sucks!!!

2009-04-03T00:56:00.009+05:30

Here I am blogging again after a relatively long pause. But it is not out of joy or enthusiasm that I'm posting this entry. It is rather out of frustration and a need to vent-out my anger that I am doing this. Please don't read this one unless you are terribly bored, coz its a long post of facts jotted down for god knows who!!

For about 5 months now, I have been using the Blackberry Internet service from Airtel on my BB handset. It has been working fine & I was happy, but for the fact that their data plan is not cheap. To minimize the cost, I was limiting myself to only checking/sending emails through this service. Recently, I noticed a new plan from Airtel (Blackberry Personal Email plan) which promised unlimited data at cheaper cost but restricted only to email and instant messaging services. This sounded like a good bargain to meet my requirements.

With that started my endless interactions with the Airtel customer service, especially their ultra-inefficient Blackberry Technical support team.

Interaction#1: Apr-01 Tuesday Morning around 10:09 am
When you call Airtel customer service number, there is no option in their IVR to direct the call to their Blackberry support team. After a long wait, someone informed that I need to call a magic number for Blackberry support!!

Interaction #2: Apr-01 Tuesday Morning around 10:19 am
On calling the magic number, I am told I need to send a mail to get my plan changed & the new plan activated. I am told, once the request is received, the plan change should happen in about 4 hours! Sounds great.

Interaction #3: Apr-01 Tuesday Morning around 10:46 am
Email sent to Airtel Blackberry support service requesting change of plan. Auto acknowledgement received in a few minutes.

Interaction #4: Apr-01 Tuesday evening around 07:58 pm
Email sent to Airtel Blackberry support service asking for the request status. Auto acknowledgement received in a few minutes.

Interaction #5: Apr-01 Tuesday late evening around 23:47
Dialled magic number. Support person informs that the request is already under processing. The old plan is deactivated and the new plan should be active in 15 minutes, after which I'll receive a SMS informing the new plan is active.

A long wait...hoping the service will be active...no SMS until 02:00 am....the handset data service status changes to 'Data Connection Refused'...but the new service plan is still not working....a few switching off and on of the device doesn't help...slept hoping the service should be working by next morning...

A SMS received at 2:32 am stating - Congrats, Airtel Live services are activated. Since your phone does not support download of settings call Airtel Customer service for manual configuration.

Holy crap!!! Its 8:00 am next morning Apr-02 Wednesday, the status is still 'Data Connection Refused'

Interaction #6: Apr-02 Wednesday Morning around 08:29 am
Called the regular Airtel Customer service as per the SMS instruction, after many exchanges - the support person clarifies that 'Airtel Live' is a totally different service, it is not same as the Blackberry service!! (I realized, I had toyed with the 'Airtel Live' icon on my handset last night before sleeping, this must have triggered-off that SMS). Frustration!!

Interaction #7: Apr-02 Wednesday morning around 08:40 am
Called the magic number again, the support person coolly says the plan is not yet activated. He needs to place a request to get it activated. I got more frustrated & reminded him that someone promised that the service should be active in 15 mins last night. He didn't seem to be apologetic about the whole thing. Instead, he pointed out that I had wrongly set up my email accounts in my old plan and that I should have set-up the email accounts through their website. But WTF, how am I supposed to know this 'chidambara ragasiyam' (Big Secret) unless someone from Airtel told me when I first bought the service!!
I demanded to speak to his manager. His supervisor came on line. Apologised & cooled my temper a bit. He promised that the service should be up in 4 hours by 1:00 pm. He gave me a complaint number (for the first time!) & assured that his team will take it as a priority & get it done. Sounded great again!

Apr-02 Wednesday evening 04:40 pm: Received a sms saying my old Blackberry plan has been stopped. But hey, my data service actually stopped last night itself. The 'Data Connection Refused' message is now gone. But the data service indicator has changed from 'edge' to 'GSM'. I just ignored the message & felt somewhat assured that the Airtel technical doing is doing some work on my request!

Interaction #8: Apr-02 Wednesday late evening 22:29 pm
Dialled the magic number again. Asked them what is the status against the complaint number. The support person informed that the new plan has been activated. I told her, but then the data service is still not working on my handset. She requested that I switch off, remove battery..etc., etc., and then it should work. I tried everything..guess what?! Right!, it didn't work.

Interaction #9: Apr-02 Wednesday late evening 23:13 pm
Called up the magic number again. Are the airtel support guys not instructed to talk loud enough? The support person surpised me saying that the request is still under processing. I felt, WTF. She then started explaining,"...we have activated from our end, but the server..." I had to clarify, I dont understand French or Greek. I was thoroughly confused. Are these guys playing some Apr-01 prank on me!!. WTF! WTF! WTF! I had to explain the whole series of my interactions with their support, still no sympathy from her end on my state!
I demanded to speak to her manager. The supervisor comes up on line. But I have run out of patience already...he said "probably by midnight or so" the service should be active. Again, WTF. "Probably?" "Midnight or so"? Do these guys really know what they are doing OR what they are supposed to do ? I demand that I speak to his manager. But luckily his manager isn't available. I asked him for his manager's number, so I could call that number the next morning. He refuses, saying he cannot divulge anyone's personal number. Again, WTF. I clarified that I dont need "personal" number and asked for an "official" number so I can escalate & get my problem resolved. Finally, he gave a Nodal officer's number. When I asked him, by when will the problem be resolved definitely, he said by 11:00 am next morning. I could only laugh.

Apr-02 Wednesday late evening 23:37 pm: I receive an email in response to my very first email, saying the service is activated. I laughed again, because the service is still not active and knew for sure, these guys really dont know what they are doing !!!

Its about 1:00 am now, the service is still not active. God only knows when that will happen. Airtel Blackberry Support team sucks. They suck bigtime & thats what I told them too.

And you know what? Try "Airtel Blackberry customer care" on google & the first link that you get is Airtel Blackberry Complaints. Way to go Airtel!

Blogcamp Bengaluru - March 14, 2009

2009-03-15T03:05:00.004+05:30

Image via Wikipedia

Instead of resting my ass on the couch & watching the match, quite unbelievably, I dragged myself against all the lethargy of a saturday morning into this Blogcamp Bengaluru held at St. Joseph's High School to meet fellow bloggers and hear them pitch on various topics.

Thanks to Ajay Jain, Amit Gupta & rest of the folks from IBNMS for organizing this event, it certainly turned out to be a day well spent for me. Thanks also to Seagate for sponsoring the event, for the free packaged water bottles, tea, snacks, awesome lunch & the t-shirt!

Why would you turn in your grave?

2009-03-15T02:01:00.005+05:30

Image by mtstradling via Flickr

A lot of people seem to use this expression 'Turn in his grave' which I found funny. Everytime I hear this or read this, I imagine, graphically, a deadman trying to turn in his grave. Just try imagining it yourself & you will know why I find it funny. Whoever had come up with this expression must have had good imagination & wit.

Amused by it, I wanted to discover its origin. Even after googling for about an hour, I couldn't find any site offering me the etymology of this expression. Does anyone know how this expression came in to use? Do you 'turn over' when you are upset or uncomfortable about something? You may scratch your head, you may frown, you may shout, you may make faces, you may itch, but do you 'turn over' ? Or may be, is it that when you are asleep & you find the position uncomfortable, you may turn over to adjust yourself to a more comfortable position. Could that be a possible explanation?

What would a dead person, whose body was burnt in a funeral pyre, do? I read this blog where Mr. Pattabhi Ram says 'Gandhiji would be turning in his grave'. I tried imagining Gandhiji turning in his grave. But hey, Gandhiji's body wasn't buried. How could he be turning in his grave? That is what got me into wondering so much about this expression & triggered me to blog about it.

Then I said to myself what Kamal says in PKS - பழமொழி சொன்ன அனுபவிக்கனும், ஆராயக்கூடாது! (When someone tells you a proverb or an expression you should experience it, not research it!!)

Brain's Storage Capakuty (capacity) & The Missing Options

2009-03-13T08:18:00.006+05:30

Image via Wikipedia

I was watching this movie today on HBO and was trying to figure out what movie is this? Have I seen it before? Keanu Reaves and Charlize Theron were there on the cast. After a while it came to me. I have seen this before. Not entirely, may be in parts. Whats the name of the movie? Its some 'October' or was it 'November'. Well, I could not get the name correctly before googling for it. It turned out to be 'Sweet November'. But that's not the point, my point is - Here's this movie which I had watched long long back, atleast about 5 years ago, had not even seen the entire movie, hadn't really liked or disliked it, but I still remember it!! It was still lying there in my brain somewhere hidden all these years. It brought out with it a memory of the good time that I had in New Jersey, because it was in NJ on cable that I had watched it.

All this got me into thinking how much of all that you have lived through is still lying there occupying the deep narrow bylanes of your brain?! Have you ever played this game of how far back can you go in your memory? How far back do you remember about your childhood? Well, certainly I dont remember the day I was born. I dont think I remembered that ever. The earliest memory that I have about my childhood is my first day (or may be second? or third?) to school, when my grandpa had taken me to school bought me some 'Kuchi's (Kuchi is a tamil word for those long flat chalk pieces that you use to write on your 'Slate' in school).

So, it appears that your brain starts recording things only from a certain point in time. Or may be it recorded things before that point too, but all of it were deleted as they were never accessed later. Or may be they are lying in there still but you got to try harder to access (that is, remember) them.

The other related point is how do you get rid of the junk - Things that you dont want to remember - so that you can free up some space for the good things that you want to remember. Unfortunately, there is no 'Select and Delete' option!!! Is reboot (Punar Janmam - Another Birth) the only option?!! We will possibly feel much less heavier (in terms of our thoughts), if we could delete some junk & may be it will even speeden up the processor!!

Pa sa ni sa ni sa ri sa!!!

2009-02-24T01:30:00.001+05:30

How can you be an Indian, a blogger and not blog about Rahman today? I know there are those who'd say 'Dont see Slumdog Millionaire - it sucks' and then there are those who'd say 'Why should Indians care about Oscars, these awards are meant for hollywood people by their academy...we have our own national awards, the manikchand filmfares and the stardusts...' But I'm not going to break my head over those useless debates. I am just happy that Rahman has won a whole new audience & that more people will now have access to his wonderful music.

He truly epitomizes hardwork, passion, talent and above all that selfless humility. Here are my top favourites from Rahman's classics:

Thoda Thoda Malarndadhenna

Pa sa ni sa ni sa ri sa - Bombay Background music (couldn't find a link for this one!)

and many more. We have to thank the great Mani Ratnam for discovering this gifted genius!! In this world today, when there is widespread generalization of muslims as terrorists, this guy put all the bad guys to shame by declaring that he chose love out of the two choices he had, proving that such generalizations are insane & absurd.

I dont think these 2 Oscars will do any damage to his shy modesty. I can only foresee him composing more inspiring & soulful music, soaring to greater heights, feet well grounded!

Vegetarianism - Go for it!

2009-02-17T10:13:00.002+05:30

Some of my friends wouldn't believe that I've converted to vegetarianism, let alone promote it here.

Someone said

'I think. Therefore I am'

which sums up that 'you are what you think'. Here's a new one on that same line of thinking but applied to your physical self,

'I eat. Therefore I am'

In other words, you are what you eat. On realizing this, all I had to do to become vegetarian is ask myself - Do you want yourself to be any of those animal meat that you eat? There is also another belief, I dont know if it is scientifically proven yet though that what you eat affects how you think. Meat gives you 'Rajas'ic thoughts as opposed to the 'Saatvic' thoughts.

I also believe that vegetarianism is the forward path along the direction of evolution. Evolution has brought us so forward in our thinking that we can afford to let go of our old eating habits. I know some of those technically inclined would argue that evolution has no direction & it just moves along the path of natural selection wherever it takes!! But my argument is based on the fact that we have the power to influence the direction of evolution, atleast on this topic, if we want to. And why should we? Simply because, we are humans.

Dying for attention!!!

2009-02-14T01:59:00.004+05:30

Being a new kid in the block (as a blogger), it is a constant concern these days as to how do you pull the crowd to your blog, what interesting content can you post, what information or knowledge can you share, how do you get the search engines to rate your blog better & fetch it among search results, what does google analytics reveal about page views on your blog.

Everytime you publish a new post, you end up checking often as to whether someone has viewed it and read it. How many have left comments? But, it seems to be difficult to get a critical mass of readers without active promotion. It feels as though you are one of those weird alien-searching scientists sending radio waves into outer space, hoping that someday a distant intelligent life-form will pick up the signal and respond. It also appears that the readers have already established their loyalties towards their blog favourites & are not keen to look up for newbies. That is, the old time bloggers have captured the whole marketshare & are holding on to it steadfast.

Hope, my friend, as they say, is a good thing!

Are we ready for this?

2009-02-08T22:48:00.011+05:30

After I vowed to myself unconsciously that I would spend atleast 3-4 hours a day surfing the net, reading others blogs and finding interesting new undiscovered worlds, there have been many aaaha moments. One such moment is upon reading this interesting article from Mashable.

Its about how (small) companies are creating blogs to promote themselves in an unique way. They don't just blog about their products or services, product features etc., anymore. They understand such content wouldn't really interest readers much & cannot sustain reader loyalty for long. On the other hand, they are creating blogs with generic & much more interesting contents related to their product or service. For example, if you were a furniture shop trying to promote yourself over the internet, you dont just blog about all the furniture models that your shop can offer, their quality, their prices etc., With such information, you cannot generate new content over a long period & readers wouldn't be interested in it anyway. Instead, if you blog in general about furnitures, say about how different furnitures are built, what materials are used, where do they come from, history of how certain furniture designs evolved, about the ergonomical impacts of certain furniture designs, etc., Well, I may not have been very creative with this example, but I hope you get the drift. Now that sort of content is going to fetch you readers, increasing your popularity & there by your page's ranking among search engines.

One of the points that Rick Burnes makes (although indirectly) in his mashable article is that a (small) company can do away with its cost on advertisements by promoting itself through such blogs. However, I tend to disagree to some extent. Now, who would be creating these blogs and maintaining it for that company. Someone will have to be putting in those efforts & will have to be paid. Even these blogs come at a cost. Therefore, one has to compare the cost & effectiveness of either of the approaches - promoting yourself through blogs or promoting yourself through the traditional way of advertising (on newspaper or other media).

I can hear you asking, so what's your point? You haven't said anything new than what the Mashable article says. Here is my point: Take what the Mashable article says & mix-it up with the idea of Outsourcing!! That small company need not have the skilled & available personnel to blog on some generic content (related to their product / service). In such cases, why can't they outsource it to Pros. Now, add offshoring on top of it. Why can't this be outsourced to an offshore Pro?! I guess, that's cool!!

So, are we (Indians) ready to become professional bloggers creating generic blog contents that can promote a small business firm (located anywhere in the world?) Are we interested in doing that & do we have the skills?!

(BTW, I created this entry using scribefire & Thanks to Zemanta for pulling out the related articles, I guess most of them were apt!)

Will they sit and think...? (உட்காந்து யோசிபானுங்களோ...?)

2009-02-05T08:41:00.007+05:30

This is in continuation of entry 'The next great idea'. I've lately been spending time largely on the net & googling for all the new tools & sites available. There doesn't seem to be an end to what one can discover. Its almost like I've just left a whole generation pass through without catching up on what's new... what I discovered may actually be something very old for the regulars though.

Net surfing should be treated as one of the 'adventure sport' henceforth, for one can set out on an expedition in this 'netta incognito', be lost forever & discover those rare species that has not seen the light of the day yet. Also, we should give a biological name to every new software/webtool that is cropping up day by day ('Twittera Microblogga', 'Tino Youarela'), because it is a quiet evolution that is happening in this virtual world. Many species are evolving. Some are fit to overcome the forces of evolution & some get wiped out.

By the way, here's a tiny url for my blog http://tinyurl.com/lsquare..easy to remember isn't it?

Office Space - A laughter riot!

2009-02-04T00:31:00.006+05:30

Watched this movie on Star Movies over the last weekend. One of the funniest movies that I watched ever. What made it more funny was that I could relate to the whole movie, as it was about the mundane life of software engineers (around Y2K time), their cribs about the work & their bosses, their job insecurity, their longing to do something worthwhile & more meaningful.

It even includes an Indian chap (Ajay Naidu) as one of the software engineers. Stereotyping Indians as software engineers seems to have started in 1999 itself!

One of the best hilarious moments was when the trio steal the printer out of their office & hammer it down into pieces..reminded me of the printer at my old office, which used to get stuck everytime!!! Wish I could break it too!!!!

If you dont have anything to do & feel like watching a feel good comedy..get a dvd & watch this one!

The next great idea?

2009-02-03T00:39:00.008+05:30

I have been reading this book "The world is flat" by Thomas L Friedman, which has led me into thinking - so what's the next big thing, the next great idea, that someone is going to come up with in this flat world ? A message that is oft repeated in the book is that, individuals have now become powerful through the tools available online. They can now leverage the power of the internet to turn their next great idea into a global business.

While having lunch with my boss today, he told me this story about his grandpa and what a simple, peaceful & stressfree life he had led. He'd wake up every day, have a hearty breakfast, go to the farmland & plough the field with the oxens until noon. Eat a healthy meal in the middle of the field along with his grandma. Have a short nap for an hour or so & again the plough the field until evening. Return home around dusk, have a bath with water from the well. Finally, have a great dinner around 7 & retire to bed by 8 or so..

My boss also told me, how in those days they didn't use money at all They would just trade things (bartering). They had a room full of grains, rice, wheat etc., which his grandma would trade for clothes, utensils, shoes, service (maid) and even ice-creams.

And where are we today, with all our currencies, exchange rates, equities, bonds, mortgages, securities, mutual funds, debit cards, credit cards, ponzi schemes, sub-prime crisis and accounting frauds (satyam). Good god! What a mess!!

So, I thought may be we should just bring back the bartering system. Do it online. Make it a global business. Trade anything for anything, from anywhere to anywhere, between anyone to anyone. Is this one of those "next great idea"s. My wise brain told me, no it can't be. Isn't it possible on eBay already? There had to be someone who has already thought about it! Well, a Google search revealed that online bartering has been around for the last ten years.

So, I'm hunting for this next great idea. Only to discover that everytime I'm late by a decade or so!!

Demystifying certain Infinite Geometric Series

2009-02-01T14:56:00.003+05:30

Don't be scared by the term 'Infinite Geometric Series'. The intention of this post is quite the opposite, to demystify it.

Most of us must have studied about the geometric progressions in our school. That is you take some number (a) & then multiply it with another one (r). Then you keep repeatedly multiplying them with more rs & generate a series of numbers.

For example: 2, 6, 18, 54, 162, so on... (a=2, r=3)

The series gets interesting when you consider an r which is a small fraction, something less than one.
For example: 1/3, 1/9, 1/27, 1/81, so on...( a=1/3, r=1/3)

Image via Wikipedia

What is interesting about it, you may ask. It is that the number starts diminishing as the series progresses. What an irony, it is not a "progression" then isn't it? Anyway, the point is that when you add up all the numbers in this series, you wont end up with a large number like infinity. Instead, you'll end up with a much more small and manageable number. In other words, they say, the series converges (when r is fractional, less than one).

1/3 + 1/9 + 1/27 + 1/81 + so on... = 1/2 (0.5)

1/2 is certainly a small and manageable number compared to infinity. I can hear you asking, but how is that so ? How do you say sum of that series results into 1/2 ?

You can pick up a math book on geometric progressions and look up the formula (and if you are keen the proof as well) to sum up a series like that. But I dont want to get into that route, lets demystify it...

Image via Wikipedia

One evening, Venkat brought home a small cake while returning from work. He has two sons - Ajay and Jay. He decided to give them both an equal share of that cake. But being a math teacher , Venkat decided to use this as an oppurtunity to teach his sons something about sum of infinite geometric series. He first cut the cake into three equal pieces & gave one each to Ajay and Jay. He had one piece left, which he then cut again into three more equal pieces & gave one each to Ajay & Jay. But there was one piece remaining again, guess what he did with that? Yeah, you got it. He cut that into three more equal pieces & gave one each to Ajay and Jay. He repeated this many many times until there was no cake left (well, almost!)

Then, he asked his elder son Ajay "What share of the original cake did you eat?"

To which, Ajay replied "First, I ate 1/3rd of the cake, then 1/9th of it, then 1/27th of it and so on.."

Then, he asked his younger son Jay the same question.

Jay replied "See Dad, you brought a cake. Only myself and Ajay have eaten all of it. Both of us ate equal shares. So, we both must have eaten half-of-it each."

Venkat just said "Both of you are correct!"

Hope you see the point!!

The Latin Square Count Challenge

2009-02-01T14:47:00.002+05:30

When I started to learn about latin squares, there was this question about them to which I have not found an answer yet:

How many Latin Squares are there of size n ?

I am not asking for a tabulated listing of different sizes & the count of latin squares for each of those sizes. With fast computers available today, I guess, programmers & others have used brute force approach to get the count (by trying out combinations one after another programatically) for considerably large sizes. Instead, what I am looking for is an elegant, closed, algebraic formula (involving n, the size).

I dont know if it is a tough job or whether no one is interested in solving it. Atleast, I have not found a solution yet. Besides, one may ask what's the use of it after all.

Forget the count for now, can someone atleast prove the following for me...

There are more latin squares of size n+1 than those of size n

Though it looks obvious, a rigid mathematical proof eludes me.

Sudoku Solver

2009-02-01T13:28:00.001+05:30

Have you solved sudokus? If you have, then you'd know how it is usually done... At the beginning, when you started solving them, you probably started with a guess and check approach, which gradually must have solidified into a few basic rules unconsciously into your head that you apply repeatedly until you have solved the whole grid.

Atleast, thats what happened in my case. Being a programmer that I am, the challenge had to be elevated to the next fun level...to extract those rules & put them into a program.

Here is what I ended up with - a sudoku solving program.
Download "Solve Sudoku"

Latin Squares?

2009-02-01T11:55:00.002+05:30

I know Times Square, Tinanmen Square...But, Latin Square? Where is it? Or Should I say what is it? Well, it doesn't happen to be a place or an object, but an interesting thing that the jobless mathematicians conjured up to keep their left brains busy.

In simple terms, it happens to be a 2-dimensional square matrix (like the crossword squares) into which you fill numbers from 1 to n (or n distinct letters / symbols) , n being the size of your matrix, based on these two rules

Each row should contain a number (from 1 to n) only once
Each column should contain a number (from 1 to n) only once

Here is a simple example (of a 3 x 3 latin square)
1 2 3
2 3 1
3 1 2

and a 4 x 4 latin square

@ # $ %
# @ % $
% $ # @
$ % @ #

So much for what is a latin square..It isn't all that complex as it sounds, right? Right!

If you didn't notice already, it resembles those sudoku puzzles that you see everywhere these days..Isn't it?

Yes, that's true. Sudoku puzzles are but special cases of latin squares. They are

9 x 9
In addition to the above two rules of normal latin squares, Sudokus satisfy an additional rule. If you divide the 9x9 matrix, into nine 3 x 3 blocks, each of these blocks should contain a number (from 1 to 9) only once

Now, that makes our latin squares little more interesting, doesn't it ?

Is this blog going to be all about latin squares? The answer is a big NO. For the simple reason that, I dont know much about latin squares myself. You may ask, Why did you name it as 'Latin Squares' then ? The answer is simple again, because it was available & not used by anyone yet!