Why $\textstyle l_2$ norm?

Recent progress in signal processing theory has generated a renewed interest in the effectiveness of using the $\textstyle l_1$ norm. It is interesting to note that, for example, in sparse signal recovery one can do a more accurate signal reconstruction minimizing the $\textstyle l_1$ norm.

The reason I have been thinking about $\textstyle l_1$ norm is because it apparently looks more useful for a portion of my current research. Maybe over a hundred years ago, or so, whenever mathematicians started thinking about norms $\textstyle l_2$ won, but current research trends show that $\textstyle l_1$ norm is very handy for a number of practical purposes.

Convex optimization reading group

I am now part of a reading group on convex optimization. We are going through the amazing optimization book by Professor Boyd.

Getting busy...

This is only the second week of the fall quarter, and things have already started to pick up. I was expecting that anyways, and now that it is here, might as well embrace it. Although, there is some reluctance to accepting the busyness, not really sure why because I just got out of college a few months ago, maybe because my feeling of being 'out of school', rather then 'being in school', has not subsided as much as I thought.