the cover picture

The cat

In case you are wondering, the cat in the front page is not the Schrödinger's cat. That was my cat (well, I'd better say "the cat that I used to live with" because you can never own a cat, he owns you). I named him Jerry, as in "Tom and Jerry". I deliberately named him after the world's second most famous mouse, I thought it'd be funny, but I don't think he ever cared. 

He passed away a few years ago when we were still living in Hong Kong. It was a very unfortunate accident. And part of me still think it was my fault. Jerry liked to go out, he was very curious, very smart, probably way too smart for his own good. There was no car in the area we lived but there were stray dogs. Our neighbours warned us we should never let our cat out. But Jerry was a very determined cat. He was also very anxious. He would fight as if the world should end if he couldn't go out. So we let him out. We would usually find him hiding under some bushes in our neighbourhood watching people and birds. And he would come back after a few hours, tell us what he saw (meow meow meow...), and then go for some snacks and water. But one night, he didn't come back. 

The night we started to worry about Jerry we published a post on our community's Facebook to look for him. To our surprise a lot of our neighbours replied with previous pictures and videos they took with Jerry in their kitchen, or on their rooftop, or outside of their bathroom, or playing with their kids, or eating their dog's food. That was the moment we discovered the secret life of our cat, our half-smart-half-stupid, always anxious cat. 

I feel there were always special connections between me and Jerry. Not the kind of special connections that you would find in instagram with a million views. We liked each other but constantly drove each other crazy. We both wanted undivided attention but seldom at the right time. We can flip from being happy to angry in a second and we fight like there is no tomorrow. We both sleep less than average and love running around looking for trouble. We love to disturb but cannot tolerate being disturbed. There is always a Jerry in my brain, and I am going to find out where he goes when I am not looking. 

The "maths"

The background behind Jerry is not maths. They are physics. I once saw a Book cover about a mathematician. The designer did a marvellous job finding the most beautiful formulas in the world and put them together. Just that they have nothing to do with mathematics, they are all physics.

Note to designers:

1) Mathematics and physics are two different subjects

2) If you find something that involves balls connected by springs, that's physics 

3) If you find a combination of weird brackets like <x>, |x>, <x| ... that's physics 

4) If you don't care whether it is maths or physics, you only want to make your design look brainy, please don't put E=mc2. Google "quantum mechanics formulas" instead, you're welcome.