ETH Zurich

Last week I went to summer school on optimization at ETH Zurich. One of prominent technical universities in the world that produced 21 Nobel laureates.  The picture above is view from back side of ETH Zurich.

From the school, I got lectures on Mixed Integer cutting plane, Evolutionary computing, generalized problem of moments. The last topic intersects a bit with my research. It was about the usage semidefinite programming in optimal control. Frankly speaking, I didn’t really understand what all the topics were. Needless to say, I have to focus on linear algebra and analysis, in particular functional analysis.

Coincidentally, there was a football match between Italy against French at Zurich last week. Since I don’t have any intention to watch, I decided not to watch directly in Zurich stadium. I and my wife only watched it from TV and you know the ticket price was quite expensive, around 199 CHF (if I’m not mistaken). I prefer to buy Victorinox instead to buy football match ticket :p There are two big screens for football enthusiasm at Belleveu nearby the city central. The weather in Zurich was very nice, it was around 27 degree Celsius. It made me feel like in Indonesia. Now I’m back to North and, of course,  back to cold weather again 🙂

Buku Pengarang India..

Hari ini baru saja saya selesai oral exam – Optimal Control. Kuliah yang menarik, 1 semester gak ada kuliah sama sekali. Hanya project dan ujian, selebihnya self study. Di awal kuliah si Prof memberikan arahan tentang kurikulum dan buku ajar yang akan dipakai. Saya waktu itu menduga akan pake buku Lewis, the widely used optimal control book. Eh..ternyata buku yang dipake adalah buku Naidu, silahkan cek di Amazon klik ini. Kesan pertama saya kira buku ini gak akan sebagus buku Lewis. Perkiraan saya salah besar !

Buku Optimal Control Systems – Naidu sangat2 jelas. Setiap bagian dijelaskan detail penurunan rumus dan prosedur2nya dibuatkan table. Mirip seperti buku Lewis. Plus contoh2 soal yang sangat ‘membumi’. Dengan sedikit Kalkulus SMA dijamin bisa mengerti. Walaupun isinya ‘gado-gado’, comot sana comot sini. Saya lihat ada materi2 yang diambil dari Buku Lewis dan Anderson.

Nah berangkat dari asumsi penulis buku orang India akan menulis buku yang mudah dimengerti, saya jalan2 ke perpustakaan pusat ketemulah dengan buku ini. Di Amazon dapat 5 stars !!! Semester kemaren, saya mengambil kuliah Nonlinear Control. Sama persis kuliah optimal control ini, self study. Entah karena saya lama gak kuliah, buka buku Khalil, Nonlinear systems gak cespleng. Memang enak dibaca, tapi saya perlu baca berkali-kali untuk mendapat essence dari setiap chapternya. Mudah2an, buku Vidyagar ini bisa jadi supplement membantu saya mencerna keindahan nonlinear systems, in particular nonlinear control.

Ada yang tahu buku2 control lain karangan penulis orang India yang mudah dimengerti?

Please comment below..