On HIV/AIDS awarenss for Dec 1 - World AIDS day

Here is a short article I wrote on HIV Awareness and the present situation with respect to finding etc on HIV/AIDSMarching towards zero AIDS and zero Stigma

Insights into railway accidents of 2010

Here is a paper that discusses how accidents take place and what are the most risk-prone zones in Indian Railway. Scientists from IIT Kharagpur analyse the 2010 Indian Railway Accidents. My report about the same in The Hindu today Click on this to read the article

And if you have a bit more time to read at leisure, here is a longer version...
 

 

There are many things going on around us that we seem so sure about and yet many times it remains a gut feeling only. For instance the changing of seasons – everyone observes this but we do not seem to have any scientific study that quantifies this change.  Similarly comments about the growing traffic on railways are rife yet many of these comments remain at a subjective level. However, there is news on this front. Moved by the spate of railway accidents that took place in 2010 in India – 19 in all of which 11 were due to derailments or collisions between trains or some sort of failure of the railway system itself (as opposed to fire or faults in the train  or some other reason), Saptarshi Ghosh, Avishek Banerjee and Niloy Ganguly of Complex Network research Group (CNeRG), IIT Kharagpur have taken it upon themselves to analyse this phenomenon.

Published in Physica A, this year, their results are twofold – first, they identify zones of heavy traffic and the reason for accidents as the fact that the number of trains has grown over the years whereas the railroads and routes have not proportionately been scaled up. Second, they identify serious flaws in the scheduling of trains on some routes. They find that if on these routes trains were to run as per the Indian Railways schedule, the system would not be able to handle the traffic. In reality, this is managed by making trains wait at signals because of which there are long delays in runtime of trains.  The second is an alarming result because it holds in its heart the possibility of human errors leading to accidents – what if the signals malfunction or if the driver fails to respond to the signal or some other such disaster? 

The year 2010 was grim in this aspect – there were 19 accidents in all of which 11 fell into the category the authors consider. It had the feature that eight of the eleven shortlisted accidents took place in a zone which they call the Indo Gangetic Plain – a north eastern belt of India.  Noting this, the authors identify statistical parameters to measure this phenomenon and do a statistical analysis of the existing Indian Railway (IR)  express train routes. They find that the Indo-Gangetic Plain hosts some of the most traffic intensive segments of rail routes (7 out of the 20 that they consider high-traffic). Comparing data gathered from 1992 to 2010 from Trains at a glance, they conclude that this is because the infrastructure such as railway lines and tracks have not grown over the years, whereas the number of trains has increased many times. They identify the most risk-prone “trunk segment” as the Delhi-Tundla-Kanpur one and identify the Vishakhapatnam-Vijayawada trunk segment from the southern zone as the “safe standard” owing to the empirical evidence that it has not had any accident so far.

Another parameter is the headway, or time lapsed between two trains as they cross the same point. As the headway reduces, the chance of two trains coming dangerously close to one another increases. On analysis, two segments clearly come out as risk-prone segments The Delhi-Kanpur segment  and the Ahmedabad-Surat segment. The Vishakhapatnam-Vijayawada segment has a much higher headway and therefore is safer, relatively speaking.  Of the two segments with low headway, the Ahmedabad-Surat segment has trains with low headway running throughout the day, whereas in the case of Delhi-Kanpur segment, they are bunched up in the early hours. This once again points out the latter as more unbalanced.

Runtime delays of trains on these segments were also studied and it was found that 20 percent of the trains on the Delhi-Kanpur segment were delayed by more than one hour, whereas about 3 percent of the trains on the Vishakhapatnam-Vijayawada segment were delayed to that extent. The delays reflect the high degree of congestion and frequent waiting of trains at the signals  - which again as pointed out earlier implies a high probability of collision due to malfunctioning of signal or driver failing to react to signal.

To analyse the congestion of traffic at a fine-grained level, a simulation of the traffic flow according to the IR schedule was done. The authors modelled the “block system” followed by Indian railways. A railway track is divided into block sections (of about 4 km to 8 km) such that when one train is occupying a block, no other train is allowed to enter that block on the same track.  At the end of the block, there are signals or stations which control the traffic entering the block.

From the simulation, it transpires that if all trains were to keep to the schedule and not stopped by signals etc, then for trains in the Indo Gangetic plain (IGP) there would be more than two (or three) trains in one block quite frequently. Now, while some blocks have three tracks, most of the IR blocks have only two tracks and so can accommodate at most two trains. So this indicates that the infrastructure is not sufficient to handle the traffic and this is only being managed by stopping trains and delaying them beyond the schedule. This is an alarming result because it implies that if the trains ran as per the schedule, for the IGP trains, the infrastructure would not be able to accommodate all of them. This is a result that begs for proportional improvement of infrastructure.

Do they have an alternate method for scheduling trains which may be safer? Niloy Ganguly replies, “We would like to do a study on better scheduling of IR trains, but it will only be meaningful if we get to know the present infrastructure accurately, e.g., the traffic handling capacities of different routes, etc…  we had requested the IR authorities for these information, but are yet to receive any favourable reply from them.”

How sound is the rationale behind keeping the south zone route as a safe standard? Is it not better to keep an absolute value on safety?  The author says, “It will definitely be better to use an absolute standard, but we do not know of any such standard for IR…. Note that there have been derailment / collisions even in south India in 2012. Hence, some segments in south India also seem to be nearing the risky zone. However, this means that the condition of IGP is even worse than what we had estimated in our paper (since the safe standard itself is no longer very safe)”.

Thulir Magazine completes twenty-five years

Thulir a children's science magazine that runs completely on volunteer efforts completes twenty five years of circulation... my report on the celebrations

Click here to read the article

Not just for the scientists - Citizen Science in India

This is a link to my article on Citizen Science in India ...


Citizen Science Initiative

Please add your constructive comments below...

And the Winner Is ....

 An article on the 2012 physics Nobel Prize, written for 12-13 year olds...

 
Who won? Serge Haroche and David Wineland for “ ground-breaking experimental
methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum
systems.

What does that mean? When you go down to very small distances, you see
matter in the form of atoms. Similarly light also is made up of particles
called photons. These are not “classical” particles like a ball or a book,
but they are “quantum” particles. They have some very strange properties
that make it very, very difficult to isolate them and measure their physical
properties like momentum or position, energy or angular momentum.


In Wineland’s lab, using electric fields, ions were trapped in a small area
and then excited using laser pulses. It is a great feat to isolate
individual atoms and to put them in specific quantum mechanical states.


Haroche and coworkers trapped photons in a cavity made of special reflecting mirrors and then by sending in specially prepared ions one by one into the cavity, inferred the presence or absence of photons there and measured their quantum state.


Why does it matter? You may have heard about atomic clocks. They are a way
of measuring time using the oscillations of a caesium atom. Now you can have an optical clock which consists of just one ion or two ions in a trap. One ion’s oscillations are used to keep time, and the other ion is used to read the first one without destroying its quantum state. These clocks will be a hundred times more accurate than the caesium atomic clocks.


Another application is in building quantum computers.  Classical computers
work on binary logic, that is, their basic building blocks are bits that can
exist as 0 or 1. Now you have a quantum system that can be in a mixture of
states, a 0 and a 1 at the same time. A basic logic operation has been
demonstrated with these quantum particles and so we may have quantum
computers that work on quantum bits or q-bits in the future.
Complicated? But then who ever said getting the Nobel prize was easy?

ஹிக்ஸ் போஸான் பற்றி எனக்கு தெரிந்தவை- பகுதி - 1

ஜெனீவாவின் CERN நிறுவனத்தில் கொண்டாட்டம்தான் – 60 வருடங்களாய் ஆராய்ச்சி செய்ததன் பயன் – அவர்கள் தேடிக்கொண்டிருந்த ஹிக்ஸ் துகளை கண்டுவிட்டதாய் கிட்டத்தட்ட ஊர்ஜிதம் செய்தார்கள். இந்த ஹிக்ஸ் துகள்தான் நாளடைவில் கடவுள் துகள் என்றெல்லாம் பெயர் பெற்றுவிட்டது. கடவுளை தேடுவதுபோலதான் இந்தத் துகளை தேடினாலும் எளிதில் கிடைக்கவில்லை. சரி இந்த ஹிக்ஸ் துகள் என்பது என்ன என்று பார்ப்போம்.

1960களில் பீட்டர் ஹிக்ஸ் என்பவர் தான் இந்தத் துகளின் இருப்பைப் பற்றி எலெக்ட்ரோ-வீக் கோட்பாட்டில் வருவதாய் தன்னுடைய ஆராய்ச்சித் தாளில் எழுதினார். இந்த கோட்பாட்டுடன் நெருக்கமான தொடர்பு கொண்டது ஸ்டாண்டர்டு மாடல் எனப்படும் கோட்பாடு. இவைகளைப் பற்றியும் ஹிக்ஸை பற்றியும் புரிந்து கொள்ளவேண்டுமானால் நாம் முதலில் இயற்பியலின் அடிப்படை தேடலை பற்றி தெரிந்து கொள்ள வேண்டும். இயற்பியலின் அடிப்படை கூற்று இது தான் – உலகில் உள்ள எல்லா விதமான செயல்பாடுகளும் நான்கு வகையான விசைகளிலிருந்து தான் உருவாகின்றன – அவற்றை – Strong Force (வலிய விசை), Electromagnetic Force (மின் காந்த விசை) , Weak Force (மெல்லிய விசை) , Gravitational Force (ஈர்ப்பு விசை) என்று அழைக்கிறோம். இதில் முதல் மூன்று வகை விசைகளையும் சேர்ந்தார்போல புரிந்துகொள்ளக்கூடிய கோட்பாடே  Standard Model எனப்படும் கோட்பாடாகும். ஈர்ப்பு விசை மற்ற மூன்றிலுமிருந்து சில வகைகளில் மாறுபட்டது. அதிலும் மிகவும் மெல்லியதானது. அதனால் அதை சேர்த்து ஒருங்கிணைந்த கோட்பாட்டை யாராலும் உருவாக்க முடியவில்லை. இன்னும் சொல்லப்போனால் ஈர்ப்புவிசையை முழுதாகப் புரிந்துகொள்ளக்கூடிய ஒரு கோட்பாடே இன்னும் உருவாகவில்லை – String Theory இந்தப் புரிதலை கொஞ்சம் நெருங்கியிருப்பதாய் சொல்லலாம்.

சரி, இந்த ஹிக்ஸ் துகளுக்கும் மேலே சொன்ன கோட்பாடுகளுக்கும் என்ன ச்ம்பந்தம்? 1960களில் மின்காந்த விசையையும் வீக் விசையையும் இணைக்கும்போது அந்தக் கோட்பாட்டை முழுமை செய்ய ஒரு கனமான துகள் தேவைப்பட்டது. இந்த துகள் உடைந்து மின்காந்த விசையின் விசைத் துகளான ஃபோட்டான்களுக்கும் மற்றும் வீக் விசையின் விசைத் துகள்களான W, Z போசான்களுக்கும் அவைகளுக்குண்டான நிறையைத் (Mass) தருகிறது. இந்தக் கோட்பாட்டை பற்றி முதலில் பீட்டர் ஹிக்ஸ் என்னும் விஞ்ஞானி 1964இல் ஒரு ஆராய்ச்சித் தாள் எழுதி Physics Letters என்னும் பத்திரிகைக்கு அனுப்பினார். அதன் ஆசிரியரான யோசிரோ நம்பு என்னும் ஜப்பானிய விஞ்ஞானி, அதை பிரசுரிக்காமல் திருப்பி அனுப்பினார். அதற்கு அவர் சொன்ன காரணம் என்னவென்றால் இந்தக் கோட்பாட்டின் இயற்பியல் கோணங்களை கொஞ்சம் விவரித்து எழுத வேண்டும் என்பதுதான். பீட்டர் ஹிக்ஸ் ஒரு சில வரிகளை இணைத்தார் - அவற்றில் இந்த கனமான துகளுக்கான தேவையை பற்றியும் விவரித்தார். ஆனால் அதை வேறொரு பத்திரிகையான Physical Review Lettersக்கு அனுப்பி வைத்தார். மற்ற சில விஞ்ஞானிகளும் இந்தக் கோட்பாட்டை முன்னிறுத்தினார்கள். இருந்தாலும் இந்தத் துகளுக்கு ஹிக்ஸின் பெயர் வழங்கப்பட்டது. 

கோட்பாட்டளவில் ஹிக்ஸ் துகள் 1960களிலேயே நுழைந்துவிட்டாலும் அதை ஆராய்ச்சிக்கூடத்தில் கண்டெடுக்க படாத பாடுபட்டார்கள். புரோட்டான்களை மிகுந்த வேகத்துடன் மோத விட்டு அதனால் ஏற்படும் துகள்களில் தேடி பார்த்தார்கள், ஆனால் இதுதான் ஹிக்ஸ் என்று தீர்மானமாய் சொல்லக்கூடிய வகையில் எந்த முயற்சியும் கைகூடவில்லை. கிட்டத்தட்ட 50 வருட தேடல்களுக்கு பின்னால். இப்போது 125 கிகா எலெக்டரான்வோல்ட் நிறை கொண்ட ஒரு துகளை கண்டுபிடித்திருக்கிறார்கள். இது தான் ஹிக்ஸ் என்று உறுதிப்படுத்த இன்னும் சில பரிசோதனைகள் செய்ய வேண்டியிருக்கிறது.

ஹிக்ஸ் துகளைப் பற்றி இன்னும் ஒரு சுவாரசியமான செய்தி உண்டு. இந்த துகள் போஸான் என்னும் வகையான துகளாகும். இந்த போஸான் வகைகளின் பெயர் இந்திய இயற்பியலாளரான சத்யேந்திர நாத் போஸின் பெயரிலிருந்து வந்தது. அவர் மேற்கு வங்கத்தை சேர்ந்தவராவார்.

போஸான் துகள்கள் சத்யேந்திரநாத் போஸ் கண்டுபிடித்த போஸ்-ஐன்ஸ்டெயின் புள்ளியியலின்படி நடந்துகொள்பவை. சத்யேந்திரநாத்துக்கு இதற்கான பாராட்டை வழங்கவேண்டும் என்று ஐன்ஸ்டெயின்தான் இந்தத் துகள்களுக்கு போஸான்கள் எனறு பெயர் வழங்கினார். 

My take on unravelling the Higgs Boson...

It was grand day at CERN in Geneva when the physicists announced the discovery of the by now famous particle known as the Higgs Boson. Over time this has been come to be known as the God Particle. Like a search for God, this particle has been a very elusive customer – is that why perhaps it has been so called? In any case, this is a very important discovery for the Standard Model of Physics which is a model of how all interactions take place in nature. All the particles predicted by the Standard Model have been seen in experiments except this one, that is why it becomes such an important discovery. 

What is the Standard Model? To understand that, we have to know that physics is based on the concept that there are fundamentally only four forces in nature – Electromagnetic, Strong, Weak and Gravitational. The aim of physics is to construct a theory that will explain all of these forces completely. The theory that describes three of these interactions is known as the Standard Model. It describes Strong, Weak and Electromagnetic interactions and attempts are on to unify this with a theory of gravity.

In the 1960s, during the unification of the weak and electromagnetic interactions,the theory demanded that there should be a heavy particle which decays to give the other particles their mass. This was the theory of the Higgs. The theory predicted the mass of the Higgs particle. This particle would differentiate between the photon, which is massless and the field particle of the electromagnetic field, and the W and Z bosons, which are heavier and correspond to the weak field. In the standard model, the strong interactions are also unified and the quarks and gluons, which are the fundamental particles involved in strong interactions come into the picture. So it came about that the Higgs particle when it interacts with other particles, gives them a mass in proportion to the strength of its interaction.

Now all was right with the theory. However the practice proved to be really difficult. Particle physicists had their time cut out trying to find this particle. They devised several high-energy proton collision experiments in which they expected to see this particle but it kept eluding them. Finally after about fifty years of search and research, at CERN in Geneva, in two separate experiments, physicists sighted a bump in the spectrum which corresponds to a particle with a mass 125 gigaelectronvolts. The mass is close to that predicted by the theory. From the frequency of occurrence of this bump in collision experiments, they have concluded it is not just a resonance, or a short lived quantum state, but a real proper particle, and that too, the elusive Higgs itself! They need to go through a few more experiments to confirm this absolutely. But to all intents and purposes, as Rolf Heuer, Director of the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) put it, ‘As a layman, I think we did it. We’ve a discovery. We’ve observed a new particle that is consistent with the Higgs Boson.’

On Cheats and Social Engineering

This is an article published in the Hindu in School. It is an article for schoolchildren on the hazards of using social media unwisely.
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-in-school/article3409926.ece

About the National Tsunami Early Warning System

This is an article for school children on the National Tsunami Early Warning System, published by the Hindu in School.

 http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-in-school/article3368384.ece

About RISAT-1

This is the article on India's first indigenous RADAR imaging satellite. This was published in The HIndu In School.
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-in-school/article3358235.ece

Not Faster Than LIght After All

This is an article published in The Hindu in School . It is about the debacle regarding  the faster-than-light  neutrinos:
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-in-school/article3294804.ece

Transit of Venus Part 2

Here is an article I wrote about the Transit of Venus  in The Hindu In School

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-in-school/article3487861.ece

Transit of Venus vying with the Monsoons - Part 1

We have had two chances in our lifetimes to see Planet Venus traipsing across the disc of the Sun. On 8 June 2004 came the first of the pair of transits of Venus and the second, on June 6, 2012, will be the last in this century. The next time people on earth will witness the rare spectacle of Venus moving across the disc of the Sun will be in December 2117. So this event has caused a flurry among astronomers professional and amateur.

If Venus orbits the Sun in the same plane as the orbit of the Earth we would see such transits often. But since its orbit is inclined to the Earth by about 3.4 degrees, when Venus passes between the Sun and Earth every 1.6 years, it is usually a little below or a little above the line joining Earth and Sun. We only see transits on those rare occasions when the three objects are in an inferior conjunction, or a straight line with the Sun and Venus on the same side of the Earth. When Venus passes between the Sun and the Earth near the nodes a transit occurs. The points where the orbit of Venus crosses the Ecliptic are called the Nodes.

Transits of Venus take place at regular intervals, four times in 243 years, and in pairs separated by eight years. There is such a pair, then there is a span of 105.5 years without any transit then another pair separated by eight years and then a gap of 121.5 years.

The first recorded viewing of the transit was by Jeremiah Horrocks in 1639, about thirty years after the discovery of the telescope.  Since then transits have been observed in 1761, 1769, 1874, 1882 and 2004.

In order to promote the idea of viewing the celestial event, the Tamilnadu Science and Technology Centre supported by Vigyan Prasar has held awareness camps all over the country. Workshops for teachers were held in April and May each lasting three days for about 50 people selected from schools close to that area. The last of these camps was held at Anna Science Centre – Planetarium in Tiruchirapalli between 25 and 27 May 2012,  for Post-graduate teachers; Elementary education officers and Science communicators from Kerala, Puducherry and parts of southern Tamilnadu. About 65 people participated in the workshop.

Annular Solar Eclipse over China Japan and Western USA

On 20 and 21 May, some parts of China, Japan and Western United States will witness an annular solar eclipse, or eclipse of the sun. Depending where they are on the path of the eclipse on earth, people will be able to see the sun as a glowing diamond ring. Others will be able to see the sun as a crescent.

This eclipse will sweep over a width of 240-300 km track from eastern Asia, the northern Pacific ocean and western United States. The eclipse begins at sunrise over southern China at 2206 GMT and then travel to southern Japan. Residents of Tokyo can see an annular phase for about fifteen minutes starting from 2232 GMT. Then the shadow passes over the Pacific ocean over a long stretch of 7000 km in about two hours. It touches the states of Oregon and northern California by which time it will be evening as per local time in those states.
   

With the advanced technology we have now, solar eclipses can be predicted well in advance. But do you know what is an eclipse and why they occur only on special occasions. As seen from earth, an eclipse of the sun can only occur on a new moon day. This is when the moon passes between the sun and the earth. Whenever the shadow of the moon falls on the surface of the earth, those areas can view an eclipse. This is the blocking of the light from the sun, so that the sun’s disc appears partially or completely blackened.

We may think that such an eclipse can occur on every new moon day, but that is not the case. This is because the moon’s orbit around the earth is tilted at five degrees to the plane of the earth’s orbit around the sun.

Roughly twice a year there is a solar eclipse on earth. But these are not viewed each time. Mostly, the eclipses fall on remote areas or cover really small areas of the earth’s surface and so they go unviewed. At other times during an eclipse there are clouds that block the view and prevent enthusiasts from watching the celestial phenomenon.

People go to remote areas therefore to watch the eclipses when they happen. The best areas to view this eclipse of 20-21 May are said to be the desert areas of Nevada, southern Utah and northern Arizona.

The next time the earth will witness a total solar eclipse is predicted to be on 13 November 2012 over northern Australia and Southern Pacific. The next time there will be an annular eclipse over parts of India is 26 December 2019.

 

The Issue of the Indus Valley Script

A recently published (by Rao et al.) paper in Science was much talked about by the media. This paper contained a statistical proof that the pictorial markings on the walls of ruins from the Indus Valley Civilization were, in fact, sentences from a language similar to any that people use today.

Initially I was puzzled at this - haven't we always been talking about the Indus language and script and stuff like that? Was there any doubt on that score? Apparently, doubt was cast on the literacy of the ancient dravidians as recently as 2004...

To put it in Dr Rahul Siddharthan's words is much more exciting than for me to explain, for it offers not just a flavour of how math can enter language (that's strictly for the mathematically enabled souls, don't write fan mail if you can't see some sentences through to the end, I couldn't either) but also an insight into how science happens, how scientists talk, etc..

Here it is...

"Here is my feeling on what has happened here: Before 2004, the Rao et al. paper would not have gathered any attention. (Of course the Indus system is a language script! Why are you discussing it?) But that year, Steve Farmer managed to persuade two others -- one of whom, Michael Witzel, is a well-respected authority in the field -- to add their names to his thesis that it is not a language. The resulting manuscript was absurdly and unprofessionally bombastic in its language, while containing essentially nothing convincing. Regardless of the work of Rao et al, their hypothesis would have died a natural death -- but Rao et al do have Farmer et al to thank for enabling them to publish their work, with its obvious conclusions, in a prestigious journal like Science. Farmer et al are so rattled that they promptly post an incoherent, shrill, content-free, ad hominem rant on Farmer's website. Sproat even shows up on my previous post, leaving a chain of comments that reveal that he has neither understood, nor cares to understand, the argument. All those who dissent from their 2004 paper are Dravidian nationalists...."

The full text can be found here -

http://horadecubitus.blogspot.com/2009/05/more-indus-thoughts-and-links.html

Bonsai report for the month

Hi fellow Gardening Enthusiasts!

I have something good to report on my Bonsai experiments.
I have tried to grow four flowering trees in a pot (that's what Bonsai is).

They are:

Maghizham (Mimusops Elengi, L; common name - Bullet Wood; Evergreen)

Shennbagham (Michealia Champaka, Threatened Species)

Pavazhamalli (Nyctanthes arbortristis; common name: Night/Coral Jasmine, Parijaat)

Manoranjitham (Artobotrys (hexapetalus) odorotissimus; Harichampa, climbing ylang ylang).

The Maghizham is now in season, as are all flowers including the ones listed above. I had put it in the only rectangular pot I had which was abut six inches deep and had nearly vertical sides. I pruned the roots and leaves three months ago.

It's a week now since this specimen has let out a new shoot and I think I am succeeding in making it grow at an angle between 45 and 50 degrees to the ground!


Hurrah!

Lilavati's Daughters- My review in TNSIE

This review i did of, "Lilavati's daughters: Women in Indian Science," has been published in the New Sunday Indian Express.

Ninety-eight women who shattered myths

First Published : 26 Apr 2009 11:23:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 26 Apr 2009 11:15:33 AM IST


In India, women in science face all kinds of hurdles to their progress. This is seen in many ways: despite women having enrolled in higher studies since early 1900s, the fraction of women among scientists fluctuates around only 13 per cent–15 per cent. Many talented women drop out of science, at penultimate stages of obtaining their PhD or even later. Women in science in India resist taking each other’s side and often end up on opposite sides. Some women would not apply for awards given particularly to women scientists, for the reason that they feel this is setting their work apart as if it does not deserve to win in the general category.

Lilavati’s Daughters: The Women Scientists of India is a bouquet of biographical sketches of ninety-eight Indian women scientists, edited by Rohini Godbole and Ram Ramaswamy. It is a long-overdue acknowledgement of the contribution of women to Indian science.
How is this book a very fine first step towards achieving an antidote for this social poison of women dropouts? What does it contain that makes it different from the average biographical book? How does it work against existing prejudices?

The book’s format is very simple and straightforward and is often more of a personal story-telling about one’s own life and happenings, sometimes narrated by a close friend or relative. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that each one deserves to be read for its own worth. After reading this book, young women scientists won’t have to look to Marie Curie or Sofia Kovalevsky or Emmy Noether or Sophie Germain to model their own decisions and behaviour on, they would see there are examples closer home!.

Some poisonous prejudices against women are that they are not as productive as men; they show stereotypical behaviour; they are unwilling to relocate and face challenges, and so on. All these myths are shattered by reading even within the first nine stories in this anthology:
Janaki Ammal, from Kerala, was the first woman Oriental Barbour Scholar and D.Sc (1934), a botanist and a pioneer! Then is the story of B Vijayalakshmi’s heroic struggle against cancer of her stomach and abdomen, to carry out research in high-energy physics. Another pioneer is Asima Chatterjee, the first woman to receive a D.Sc. from any Indian University (Calcutta). Her work on ayurvedic drugs is the story of untiring and path-breaking research which led to the development of the anti-epilepsy drug, Ayush-56, which is patented and sold even today. Anandibai Joshi’s, Mumbai of 1865, is a story of struggle against the confusing marital complex- being educated and discouraged by the same person, her reformist-husband. Who can say that women fear controversy, if only you read the story of Iravati Karve, who was the pioneer in advocating statistical studies based on caste divisions – a theory that is controversial even now. Bearing testimony to the stolid undeterred labour of women, Anna Mani is a beacon of a physicist from CV Raman’s lab. Her thesis did not get her a degree in physics for some bureaucratic reason, causing her to shift her field to meteorology subsequently becoming Deputy Director General of the Indian Meteorological Department.

The short index of contributors at the end is a useful reference to put a face to the names. The earthy colours in the cover and the glossy pages add an aura of antique art and a touch of nostalgia. The contributors are listed alphabetically, which also underlines that all their contributions are valuable and important.

Is there any strategy to reach this book to the people who will appreciate and benefit from reading it?

Dr Rohini Godbole, an editor of this volume, and a leading particle physicist, says that the grant from Department of Science and Technology is being used by Indian Academy of Sciences, which has started the work of distributing 1000 copies among those who will benefit. Further, abridged versions of these essays, translated into Marathi, have been appearing in Marathi news paper, “Loksatta,” every Saturday from January 2009. There are suggestions and offers to translate the book into different regional languages.

India in the world of physics- reviewed by R.Ramachandran

On 14 April this year, there was an excellent review of

INDIA IN THE WORLD OF PHYSICS — Then and Now

(Edited by Asoke N. Mitra; General Editor - D. P. Chattopadhyaya; History of Science, Philosophy and Culture and Indian Civilization (Vol. XIII, Part I), Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture (PHISPC), Centre for Studies in Civilization, Pearson Longman, 482 FIE Patparganj, Delhi-110092. Rs. 2200.)

by science writer R Ramachandran.

It speaks much for Ramachandran's knowledge of science and scientific policy that he has brought out the strengths of the book and also pointed out glaring gaps in it. I give a kind of annotated extract below for friends (most of whom would perhaps have read the full text)

He praises Mitra's masterly introduction to the volume:

"...That he could condense all of physics — from Newton’s Laws to the emergent nanoscience that is sure to bring soon Feynman’s dream of bottom-up building of tailor-made materials to fruition — in mere 13 pages, with remarkable clarity and lucidity, only recalls to this reviewer his lucid lectures in classical and quantum electrodynamics at Delhi University nearly four decades ago. "
And goes on to point out the highlights among the essays included and then points out the lacunae :

"The inclusion of detailed individual chapters on scientific infrastructure established by the Indian nuclear and space agencies seems somewhat out of place in the volume as these largely cover aspects of technology. "

It is quite disturbing to see the favouring of technology over science by publishers and editors. It just seems to be a reflection of the chronic decay and slavish mindset at the heart of the Indian Scientific Establishment.

And more specifically:

"One significant area that has been omitted in the volume, where Indian scientists have made very significant contributions, is meteorological and atmospheric science ... with important contributions from scientists such as K. R. Ramanathan and L. A. Ramdas."

Other giants who have been overlooked (my words not his) are:

"Harish Chandra;.... [Homi] Bhabha; C. L. Mehta and Girish Agarwal; ... D. S. Kothari’s path-breaking work on the `Harmful Effects of Atomic Explosions', a work that predates Samuel Glasstone’s classic volume by a year."

And those who wish to read the full review, go to:

http://www.hindu.com/br/2009/04/14/stories/2009041450031800.htm

Science Fiction that fed into Science

In a blog on Oxford University Press's Dictionary Project on science fiction Jeff Preacher has listed nine words that made their way from science fiction into science

robotics, gas giant, zero gravity are some of these ...

read full entry at


http://blog.oup.com/2009/03/science-fiction/

nanopolitan: Geeky blog names

For want of ideas, or flashes of imagination, I haven't put in any of my own writing today. Instead, I'm displaying here two posts by an interesting blogger. Here's something on -
nanopolitan: Geeky blog names