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Advocacy

When there is no other respectable way to present it, its advocacy, people will listen to it

Stars and Fate.

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Astrology is the blind belief that stars change our fate — pun; like the blind belief wives change our personality. This is where Physics becomes a paraphernalia of whim, cultivated over the ages, to bring solace in seeking ignorance as a means of existential glory.

I just checked some scientific terms, in regards to how they have been made to work like paraphernalia to produce different astrological system. I was not shocked that Indians have kept advanced strides in one branch of knowledge — or the lack-thereof; Astrology.

Guess what? Hindu Astrology is a Sidereal Astrology, hence much advance than Western Astrology, which is a tropical astrology. This we have often taken boastfully, to mean that Indian science is advanced and far-reaching, even from the times of Vedas, but the simple facts — of my conviction, are; we have been manipulative from a very early time in our civilization’s evolution.

We just took science to produce religion. We also took religion to produce myth, and myth to produce social customs and took social customs to downplay science. Why else is “western” science advanced and we are merely a laggard participant in its various glorification.

— Of-course I don’t have words of solace to those who disagree, if like kids we assign ourselves the fancy of winning every sports, that we do not even take part in, because our parents will succumb to that whimsical demand of ours, it wouldn’t work towards science, here we have to work nonetheless, take part in each and every detail and each and every aspect, its not sufficient or even necessary to just downplay the impact of criticism.

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The quality of a scientific paper … A casual reposition.

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The quality of a scientific paper are not ZERO if citation is zero. Perhaps we need to define two parameters, quality and significance of scientific communication. Quality; a well done research in the best traditions and methods available. Significance; the outreach of the paper to bring effect into others work and others understanding toward the subject matter.

While there will always be a downside to both parameters, citation reflects the significance (and quality as much as it correlated to significance) of a paper.

A step toward Higher Education?

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Here is the summary. And I am quoting actual numbers from News Paper Reports.

News Report; 5% Odisha Resident students. [Including perhaps those also who would be Odia by their citizenship, irrespective of where they stay]

My estimate; a typical 10% general category students, going by how large the quota regime entails in terms of percentage toward quota qualifiers.

News Paper Report; Lying vacant per anum, 10%.

My reasoning; if there would be no quota based qualification system perhaps these seats would never lay vacant, plus we would have far superior engineers produced in the country. Because the 3-levels of quota scrutiny sees the merit off to such a level even 10% seats lay vacant, at the same level that gets admitted after fierce scrutiny.

What is it like to be in an Ivy League. Just a musing.

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The other aspect is from my own experience, while you are highly qualified, you are perhaps no more pouring in as much as even you would like to pour in, in terms of real research. You or your employers don’t want you to go into controversies, because they drain you out of wit and the employer runs into razor sharp issues. The Ivy Leagues have the “requisite infrastructure” which is cutting edge in a way preconceived notion kind of way. It really does not open the actual researchers to the issues involved in fundamental thinking. And sooner or later we all the highly intellectual kind belong to a level where we see our wit’s end. It takes the highly competitive experience of figuring out what exactly the Ivy League want from you for you and them to be successful lest which they are subjected to competitive and often no so harmless scrutiny from even tiny rats.

Review of Gravity, the movie, discussions.

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A discussion on Space movie Gravity, which I saw recently.

I remember one fact, that concerns, Physics, the roughly 50000 miles an hour (correct?) speed of ISS level debris that was coming, it set me thinking, are they violating the Relativistic Laws? For a while, and then I realize its per hour, not second, (that later would be grossly incorrect, 50 K miles / sec would violate Relativity certainly) that comes out to be 20 km/sec and thats perfectly enough close to what sort of speed, earth, moon, any satellite are typically found with, in our Sun’s Gravity. (in free fall) Even Rocket’s launching requires escape velocity. 11.2 km/sec. So they have clearly done their research on the Physics, as far as I could get in that moment.

Mathew and anti Mathew effect.

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I wanted to write this article, separately, as I didn’t want to break the flow of Physics arguments in the article, where this point came up.

This point was originally raised by Feynman; as far as I know. If David Mermin comes, he will stick his cotton buds, and wipe this out, and claim he said it, there is no lack of such incredible people. All he does say in that article, linked here, is so typical of plagiarists that you wouldn’t believe how murkily he dismisses Feynman as the original fellow who might have said so, “he is a great mind calculator, so nobody would ask him to shut up and calculate”.

How about nobody would think “Madonna” is a slut. A beautiful lady in the corner, well nobody would be harsh to her, such harshness would only be toward me, only I would be one to whom such a treatment can be mated, and that would be David Mermin’s famous and infamous proof and evidence of Mathew Effect of which he is apparently a victim.
If, anything, even I knew of “shut up and calculate” in my grad days, as a phrase ascribed to Feynman, in my privacy of studies, in other words never discussed with anyone, but knew of it, and grew in associating this behavioral treatment towards myself, going as far idiosyncratically, even to compare the thickness of my own hair, with Feynman’s, I can’t be Feynman, or can I be? Can “shut up and calculate” be used on any grad student or similarly placed researcher? Yes, it can be and thats the whole message, not the interpretation by the name of the city of Copenhagen.

सत्य कि बिबिधता सिमित हैं, यद्यपि सिर्फ एक में सीमित नहीं।

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बिज्ञान अक्सर परिभाषाओं के दायरे में सिमित रह जाती है क्यों कि इस से ऊपर उठना अल्बर्ट आइनस्टीन के भाषा में “बिज्ञान चमत्कार है अगर इसे कमाने कि एक पन्था से दुरी से देखा जाये तो” जैसे “पूर्ब सोम कि सत्य” जैसा प्रतीत है. यह अलग बिचारों से अलग हो जाती है, पर सत्य एक मात्र उपलब्धि न होने पर भी बहत सारे उपलब्धि भी नहीं हैं, कुछ और सीमित उपलब्धियां सत्य कि भरमाई करते हैं।

चेतन भगत के बिकने के कारण भी ढेर सारे हैं जो बिज्ञान से तालुक नहीं रखते, इसके परिभाषाओं के दायरे में, लेकिन क्या हम कह सकते हैं वो कामशास्त्र से ज्यादा महत्व रखता है? चेतन एक जातीय आशा कि कयामत से परिबंधित है, पर कामशास्त्र एक प्राचीन अतः अंतराष्ट्रीय, तथा एक कोमल भाबना कि महिमा जैसे परिकल्पनिया है. यह चेतन कि महनीयता के ऊपर प्रश्न नहीं, बल्कि सत्य कि बिबिधता के ऊपर आलोकित करने की चेष्टा है।

सत्य कि बिबिधता सिमित हैं, यद्यपि सिर्फ एक में सीमित नहीं।

सत्य अनिर्बचनिया है. यह सुन्दर भी है, शील भी है …

Growing Above All.

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What we conveniently forget is what I just parenthesized as “Ethereal Relativism”. Before Einstein’s work, the ether was taken to be something that gives motion a sense of absoluteness. Ether was the absolute measure or reference of motion, therefore all motion seemed to be known as absolute. But its widely silent that Galileo and Newton worked in a frame-work of Physics or laws of nature where a frame of reference keeps motion relative, and not absolute: a concept known as Galilean Relativity.

In other words, if there is an object falling under gravity, in telling our story, we almost forgot that, there can also be a situation where, the relative motion of the falling object, can be studied; with or without the gravity acting on the object. In other words, still, the central question is to ask; did this single object fall faster or slower w.r.t. a situation when there is no gravity? Was it known or not, to Galileo, that, this object can be tested; to be falling faster in presence of the gravity causing object.

As we know today: Gravity causes objects to fall faster, it does not cause them to fall in the first place, between heavier and lighter objects it does not make any one of them to fall faster than the other and this is a force of central attraction to the proportion of; strength being as higher as the square of separation is, less.

Happy birthday Newton, but really?

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There are no merry Christmas or happy Diwali at the level of the quantum. At that level we are all screwed, and the only things that worked out in our favor is a likelihood thats a part per million. Thats why scientists call it: contingent, laws of nature are arbitrarily, favorable to our existence and not drafted by the mercy of a wishful blown-up entity as desired by intelligent design and goes by various names or forms. Thankfully enough, explicitly enough we have accessed the quantum since a 100 years although even the Greek Philosophy talks about indeterminacy of truth. Thankfully enough we have also traversed as far as we could in our mission to know the cosmos, but we have been doing the first works since the time of Galileo. Newton, happy belated birthday Sir, last time we met was a bust of yours, standing in a garden, good enough only to make a joke about and of you, that was 3 years ago, you have changed the course of Physics for all time to come, in the right direction, more or less, by differentials, the ones that you invented, and the ones that we are still putting into our favorite computers, just like you were using the formula of Ibn Sahl …

Happy birthday Scientists, James Joule.

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It’s the birthday of James Joule, who was born in 1818 in Salford, England. Joule was a commercial brewer in Manchester. His work inspired an interest in physics and in the nature of energy. In a series of experiments, he demonstrated the convertibility of kinetic, thermal and electromagnetic energy. The SI energy unit, the joule, is named in his honor.

Why India can go to Mars and not the atom?

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Whats the electron’s electricity bill? Our democracy has made it easier that if every person pays a little particle physics is really not that expensive, even less expensive than Diwali, Diwali comes every year. A lab for example would stay for 3 decades if opened.

I worked for a particle lab whose cms energy for electron’s acceleration was roughly 10.5 GeV. Thats basically the energy if each person in India buys a battery of 1 Volt and gifts it to the lab as each battery would accelerate the electron a level of 1 eV and roughly the population of India would be needed to accelerate the electron to 10.5 GeV, assuming each one’s battery accelerates to 1 eV.

There will be other similar expenditures also, but this is like the electric bill for the electron. Says why particle physics is not really as expensive for the country as are eg riot expenditures or even Diwali crackers.

Why Harvard does not promote education.

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Its when we teach that we ourselves realize how effective our research quality is. As is said by the giants usually Einstein and Feynman “If you can’t explain it in simple terms perhaps you don’t understand”. So basically how can we be sure that the research Harvard is doing is applicable to validity or even a contribution towards intellectual assimilation by humanity? (Of-course Sean makes very clear all along that thats not the mandate of Harvard and its news to me that it isn’t.)

Only Industry, Funding Agency and Nobel Prize Committee will estimate the worth of the organization and its work. Isn’t that a death-nail to science? Because science is Research+Education not just research. I have done pain staking research in my life in last 12 years at-least for 10 years. But they will never be known, especially my particle physics research, if I will NOT be able to explain them or teach them, if some of them turn out to be interesting for any field. Of-course I am not Harvard and an individual. But this is the kind of difference between organizations and individuals, the organizations constitute of individuals but work in a fashion that respects only a specifically chosen policy, thats not questionable, whats questionable is why it will appeal the masses? Just because money flows from one end to another where no-one has a say?

A Physicist is a physicist’s way of talking about himself.

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In my case therefore you see, 0 publications in 2001. The year I joined my PhD, I was learning more about snow-fall, JC Peney and Bus rides. 2002 I have hardly 1 or 2, that was the year when in the later half I was given the privilege of being able to sign for science papers. The next year I am already acquainted quite a bit, so signing more than 1 paper a month is no irksome involvement. I already know what I am signing it for. 20 papers a year. Then it grows to 60 papers the next year, thats papers a month, my team of 400 was producing where I have a legit share of expert contributions, through weeks of data-collection, analysis and data-mining etc. (There would be papers where I won’t have legit share, .. ) The next year 2005-2006 was my peak, 70 papers, You can check my pictures from 05-06 (on f-b) and see how much I was involved in the literally tons of ways experimentalists contribute 😉 No kidding not everything is visible outside the vacuum pipe, its risky)

Then you can see I am gradually climbing down, but its hard enough to climb down faster because you already have a history. Becoming celebrity is a one way affair, no return. With years my direct contribution goes down but history has that which is yet to come and that shows up as bigger share in contribution. (Just like the electron’s history-of-all-path must contribute towards its momenta for future)
I think thats a good connection, like the electrons the Physicists are lost, they are picking on different things and survive and their history makes it bigger.

House is to brick what society is to family and …

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Apply this to the education system, we can’t criticize the students, the teachers or the admin for ever, once a reasonable bits and pieces of them (and only that no less) is in place we can’t go on around criticizing the same. WE can’t blame the teacher for ever nor can we blame the students for ever. Then we talk about education system. But whats a education system? Do we define it? WE have to first define it from its bits and pieces and see the links and processes in its most effective info-graphic, if thats possible. That would be like a carbon-cycle. We do understand that (carbon-cycle) perfectly, why else we would understand our physiology so well? (we may not be applying such in a given situation, thats another dimension and thats criticism-awaiting) .

We need to therefore see exactly how our education system is defined: here is higher education department and it consists of so and so with such and such qualification assigned to execute such and such. That follows regional level officers who are assigned with such and such power and privilege and RESPONSIBILITY. Then comes the tertiary level and the ground workers. And here is the process. We need to thoroughly understand the principle and the process behind each component in this info-graphic, and how effective they are. Then we need to objectify the big-picture goal and see what gets carried out and what NOT.

Teacher’s Corner.

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I believe its the sole responsibility of the Government (and no, not Government Bot) to make sure, it enlists default organizations and law-enforces them; to extract twice what they have defaulted, from their Employees and Government. Of-course, a lot of paperwork that are produced by these organizations, as mandatory disclosure are merely hogwash and; fraudulent numbers are filled in there. In addition, the Governmental Apex Body officers (such as AICTE) are often bribed hugely; to stop any investigation preemptively or not stop accreditation or to provide super ratings to defaulting organizations.

What really happens and why is Indian Academics not come of age? This above is one of the big answer. So lets go into specificity.

Primary School Teachers who are getting the scale of 4500-125-7000 presently, have been upgraded to, 6500-200-10500 and finally fixed in Pay Band-2 at 9300-34800 with Grade Pay of 4200.

Bol mere akka referencer.in; Referencer.in says as of 2011 we are supposed to be paid, a minimum of INR 31648.

I (the author) bet we are getting no more, than, 15000 in most cases, thats in 2013.

The Boson conundrum and the fishing tendency.

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As scientists Einstein and Bose were not particle physicists. Less so Einstein did not even believe in Quantum Mechanics which later he had to recant, but Quantum Mechanics as developed by others (Schrodinger, Dirac, Heisenberg, Feynman, Bohr et al) is the most important basis of Particle Physics as a research field. Einstein while is credited for a seed idea of Quantum Mechanics (photo electric effect) did not do any direct seminal work in Quantum Mechanics (except its most important philosophization and refinement of some concepts) . What Einstein’s real contribution would towards particle physics would be Special Relativity (or Relativistic kinetics which is used every hour in any Particle Physics lab and papers) and the statistical principle known by his namesake Bose-Einstein statistics which was rather the work of Bose only, Einstein made sure it gets the right attention and vibe of the Physics community. Relativity and BE statistics are useful towards the fundamental study of Particle Physics. But Higgs Boson is way more out of league when it comes to painting it as a Boson and crediting Bose or even Einstein. Higgs Boson isn’t even understood so far really well by the Physics community at large (except if you ask me I would say this or that about the particle without understanding much in depth) Thats even if you understand the Bose Einstein statistics fully well. Each particle in Particle Physics is uniquely difficult to understand experimentally and once more difficult theoretically, and mind it there are 1000s of particles that even Fermi, Dirac, Bose or Einstein would have ever dreamed of.

My Teaching Philosophy.

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Teaching is therefore while creative, satisfying and attractive in many respects and suitably rewarding one must be devoted in as many angles as it requires to be successful and responsible keeping the motto of teaching in glaring memory: teaching produces tomorrow’s citizens, the spearheads and pioneers of tomorrow’s world is the just product of today’s education and a teacher is the most relevant architect for that purpose.

I also look at teaching and learning process from another angle of paramount importance. Research. Teaching devoid of the latest knowledge of a body of epistemology, a creative dint of heuristics never discovered before or a suave deviation from a canonical pedagogy cannot be effective or attractive. One therefore in almost all academic branches be inclined to persevere to invent or share such gained insights by others towards the student-body. An ideally inspired student with an appetite to grow and cultivate the action of learning is not only the need of academia but also a cornerstone of a progressive society.

Exoplanet Lifes? The aliens could be debating to come or not. Thou shall not panic.

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Query: “In the search for intelligent life SETI should limit its search to star systems 100 light years or less?”

Response: In search of anything there should not be preconceived limits imposed a priori considering them important one way or the other?

query: “I would not be surprised if we are being visited from star systems within 100 years or less – I would however be amazed if the #exceeded say 1000 light years”

see thats about breaking of speed barrier by their physical movement. But no harm in knowing if they exist, irrespective of they can reach us or not.

Query: “Light barrier can’t be broken, How do they get here synch, Simple”

response: it can’t be as far as we know

query: “They colonized”

The academic sky of Asia.

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4. Rep of Korea: 14% organizations in top-100. Korea is 1.2% of Asia population.

Result: Korea provides about 12 quality organizations for each percentage of its people, normalized to Asia. Korea provides 1 quality organizations to about 7% of Asia population.

{quality orgs for its own people, normal to Asia; Korea 12 orgs/%, Japan: 7 orgs/%, China: 2orgs /%, India: 0.1 orgs /%}

{quality orgs for Asia population; Japan: 1 to 7%, China: 1 to 7%, Korea: 1 to 7 %, India 1 to 33%}

I haven’t scanned other countries such as Israel and UArabE. I am sitting in a cyber cafe to do this analysis and the keyboard was installed in 1556, so basically can’t type efficiently, its like pushing a stone with your elbow hair, like there is any.

The God Article.

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The idea is to give the idea. And Kaku might not have done a fabulous job here. But in the past the debate was blown overhead. I mean there simply is no fault with Leon Lederman. He is an immensity of science and not of religion. Lets not give him less credence than a Templeton quack or a Fundamental science prize winner. Scientists are from scientific passion and not from money or God passion. But there is coincidence. Weinberg had said “Every scientist faces difficulties with language” . Language is theological. Tuft Gerald had said “Language is a social construction”. And The Scientist always faces difficulty from what society is. Its not his fault what society is like. He still has to make a living. But to exploit such conditions is stealing. And I think Kaku over spoke but not trying to steal anything here. Lets keep the community sane.

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