Crazy trees

Here is one clue that I'm not in Kansas anymore! In a lot of ways while I'm at work here I feel just like I could be in any math department around the world. I really like my colleagues and the institute itself is amazing. I quite like the job. It's all the other stuff that's difficult for me to deal with.

That being said, I keep noticing these BIZARRE looking trees. They grow up quickly and start sprouting roots from the branches. Those roots descend back to the earth and start growing into the ground. The process continues until you have an enormous grove of tress which in fact is just one tree. Just hope that you don't have to uproot them...

I think these trees are really beautiful (a nice contrast to the trash generall surrounding them).

I mentioned to one of my friends that these tress are metaphors for different branches of knowledge. It all starts with some single root and observation, from there things branch out, and eventually something takes root nearby. It's a different root, but related, soon enough you have 1000s of these new ideas sprouting everywhere. He wasn't so sure about it, but I thought it was kind of appropriate given that we were on one of Asia's premier engineering campuses...


Without further ado, here are some pictures taken from the IIT campus.











I should finally mention, the roots are strong enough to support fun and games. Here, my friend can be seen swinging from the descending roots. These particular roots were probably 25 ft long! Strong, strong roots! Like Kudzu, but pretty.