tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75765953864730311772024-03-13T19:39:35.868-07:00Caprarius AquacornI am just someone who has managed to live a longish life well with a happy family life from birth.
I happen to be a scientist by choice and I am uncomfortable with the science of scientists by profession.
But there is so much more in life.
The blogs always start intending to be short but end up long because of my research training, I guess.
I don't expect everything in my blog to be true. I try. I learn. I could be new.
I hope to encourage debate sometime, somewhere.Keshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.comBlogger82125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-89568805969097231502013-11-25T20:14:00.000-08:002013-11-26T20:28:09.984-08:00Bharat Ratnas of Sa-Chin-tamani: Going by their chins
This year's Bharat Ratna has been given to two people for whom the upper class of India --- irrespective of their politics, class and caste --- have no hesitation in declaring their greatest admiration. They richly deserve the award, even if I am nobody to authenticate this richness.
IBoth Sachin Tendulkar and Chintamani Nagesa Ramachandra Rao (CNR) are appreciated by a very large number Keshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-50477693288853239202013-11-06T09:15:00.000-08:002013-12-05T23:57:17.600-08:00Homo Anarchicus vs Homo Hierarchicus: The difference between Fascism, Nazism and RSS's Modism
One is always afraid that one's comments on RSS may be construed adversely by them or their enemies and one could end up in the dumps in several literal and figurative ways. I have not considered the RSS seriously before. This blog is after a study through the internet (all images and videos are from there) and I think.t that, try as hard as they would, they may not really have it in their Keshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-24021001139192739622013-09-15T09:19:00.001-07:002013-09-15T09:20:11.147-07:00Tehri Dam: Twixt being well-Dammed or just being Damned?
This
is the last of a series of blogs on the 2013 Uttarakhand devastations.
In my earlier blogs I
have made a somewhat detailed study of the Himalayas, solely to
add (in my opinion) credible substance to them in the hope that they will serve
the purpose of putting forward an opinion for serious consideration by some who
see a point in these efforts being made to limit damages by human Keshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-8003086774674269022013-08-18T05:46:00.000-07:002013-08-18T19:04:59.272-07:00Threshold Landscapes and Uttarakhand Devastation. Things we Must get Right Before we Reconstruct.
Preamble
The path to holy Himalayan places using the old pilgrim’s route (see figure bottom left) by foot was used not too long ago. It served a soul-fulfilling purpose of the aam aadmi who carried their possessions in a cloth bundle on their head. They had no footwear, no warm clothes except perhaps for a chaddar of the coarsest (most comfortable and wieldy) kind; the older of themKeshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-68261716209807896112013-08-02T06:12:00.000-07:002013-09-13T03:51:33.872-07:00Himalayan Instabilities: What One Wanted to Ask but was Afraid to Know.
“We use the word Himalayan Blunder yet the blunder has been in Himalayas.
Ironically the salvage from humans is as uphill as the possibility (of salvage) looks
downhill.” Ananth Shankar
There is a tide
in the affairs of men using computers that leads them to become indifferent to
hazards that do not appear on their screen over extended periods of time. One
of these is the hazards of the Keshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-16147618788828183302013-06-29T00:01:00.000-07:002013-06-29T18:27:07.210-07:00Colossal Himalayan Slides, Massive Pilgrims’ Stress and lessons from History: Gaia as Ardhanareshwar.
Gaia, the goddess who brought order out of
chaos, was the appropriate title for a hypothesis about an Earth system that
regulate its climate and chemistry so as to sustain habitability --- James
Lovelock (author of Gaia, a new look at life on earth, Revenge of Gaia).
What Lovelock wanted to
say, has probably been earlier (much earlier) incorporated in our
life-philosophies by the duo Keshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-9195130114569110492013-06-20T01:24:00.001-07:002013-06-20T01:25:28.641-07:00Hundred Years of the Bohr Atom. Part III: The road to Bohr’s Model
“ … children at
school should not be introduced to quantum phenomena through any description of
the atom which includes Bohr’s orbits” Mott, Contemporary Physics, 1962
With that qualification from the very reverend Rev
Sir Neville Mott, Nobel Laureate 1977, it seems necessary for me to cite what
Bohr himself said:-
“Every sentence I utter must be
understood not as an affirmation, but Keshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-52133388446996256182013-06-05T04:30:00.001-07:002013-06-05T04:30:35.218-07:00Hundred Years of the Bohr atom. Part 2: Planck’s Quantum Plank
In the beginning of the last century the gallery of leading scientists
who contributed towards the development of principles of physics has been
sketched below in the internet. The main players in this blog will necessarily
have to include Planck, Einstein and Bohr (placed here along a principal
diagonal) if we have to put in proper perspective the Bohr revolution.
During Bohr’s early Keshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-15262951445437941602013-02-28T21:15:00.000-08:002013-06-05T04:32:16.354-07:00 Hundred Years of the Bohr atom . Part I: The pre-quantum years
This article has been prompted by personal reasons. I have been applying a non-planetary Feynmann adaptation of the planetary Bohr model to molecular structure (not dealt with here). I thought I should learn a little bit more about the historical antecedents/compulsions that drove Bohr to his model. The second reason is that being a Bengali (sometimes very proudly) 1913 is also the year that Keshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-82016878753120935302013-01-13T22:36:00.000-08:002013-01-19T18:35:25.741-08:00Bankapur"s Last Temple Ruin: Footprints from Pandava times
The old Hoysala-Chalukya temples must rank among the most distractung temptations when one wants to drive quicklly along NH4 on the Bangalore-Pune route. These temples are close by when one is between Chitradurga and Kolhapur. I have visited a few of them and photographed them only to lose them because of computer crashes and inefficient subsequent recovery. Last week my wife and I -Keshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-60215570529545572882012-12-29T09:01:00.003-08:002012-12-29T09:01:36.748-08:00Just Pontification 6. The end of Nirbhay (Fearlessness)... Time for a Personal Fear (Responsibility)?
A little girl died today. We hope we will remember her because of the fight she put up to survive and LIVE life in capital letters.
She was called Nirbhay, perhaps because of this will to live. I will accept this name for that reason, even if it is given by the Times of India group, whose sensationalized pages have the maximum number of money-making, money-enforcing advertisements.
We Keshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-79107586146591896412012-12-05T20:21:00.001-08:002012-12-05T20:39:16.094-08:00Mumbai’s “Lungi hatao pongey bajao” slogan: A Perspective on an ancient Historical conflict.
One book that I have
extensively referred to for my learning (if not for this blog) is “The Origin
of Bombay” by J. Gerson da Cunha published in 1900. Bimbakyan (Chronicles of Bimb or
Bhim), is presumed to have been written in 1139, and
is referred to by J Gerson da Cunha in his work, Raja Bhimdev established
his capital at Mahikawati (Mahim). “ “With
the king, came a sizable group of Keshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-31917877935749621562012-12-05T03:14:00.000-08:002013-02-11T17:58:06.046-08:00Original Mumbadevi of Mumbai: Speculations on her location, her looks, and Cornwallis as her unwitting impostor
This blog has come out of a short but intensive search of the
internet on Mumbadevi. It deals with the only first-hand description that I
could find on what was within the Mumba devi temple. This description of 1710 is
by one John Burnell, who may not have been a proper gentleman. This perhaps
makes his account more honest. He describes the idol as red with a
disproportionately big head and noKeshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-57725484174904353552012-11-30T21:11:00.000-08:002012-11-30T21:33:26.354-08:00The Prabodhan of Balasaheb Thackeray
It is
perhaps not always possible to imagine that the death of a person should cause
so much stoppage. It probably happens in one’s surroundings once every
generation. When I went outside to fetch milk in the morning of Nov 18 2012,
the day after Balasaheb Thackeray had passed away, I met in the lift a young
boy who was delivering newspapers. I asked him if the shops in Pune were still shut.
“Keshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-35404091495935210342012-11-13T22:32:00.001-08:002013-01-19T04:46:36.643-08:00Creatio ex Nihilo god and god particle. Part III: Higgs', parrticle, Mexican Hats and Wine Bottles and Adristam
Ever since the excitement of the “god
particle” came about, I wondered whether when the final time came to meet our
creator in whatever elementary particle form, I would be subjected to a god
field in which I could be expelled because I had no notion of the god particle.
This field would not spare me even if I am a chemist with an “incorrigible”
appreciation of the fundamentals of physics. At Keshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-14786867913067157052012-11-03T05:15:00.001-07:002012-11-03T05:15:22.415-07:00Barrack Obama’s “Third-World-Leader” Syndrome.I must assert that I have no issues with the people of the so-called third world. For the sake of a lasting earth and its inhabitants of all kinds, the people of the materialistically defined third world are very important as they are brought up to survive on their basic needs. My classification of first- and third world are purely based on the then (1960s) existing materialistic considerations. Keshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-37974182845666945872012-10-29T21:56:00.000-07:002012-10-29T22:17:13.934-07:00The Pizza man and his burden of Barrack Obama: Sindbad and the Old-man-of-the-SeaDemocracy is a very difficult notion to understand in detail, but is extremely simple when phrased in, say, Lincoln’s words that all men are created equall. One is never very clear, though, about what one means by being born equal. It may mean that we are born with equal statistical averages of our advantages and disadvantages that are necessarily judged by very different subjective criteria. Keshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-23969424809635386932012-10-21T22:17:00.000-07:002012-10-21T22:23:00.384-07:00Creatio ex Nihilo god and god particle: Part II: Atomos and Anu; Causality and AdristamIn the ingrained philosophy of the Indian subcontinent, god or divinity is in all things animate or in-. As a first or instinctive conclusion, this view is particularly consistent with the impression of what we have of, what is known as, Higgs’ field. This field is postulated to permeate everywhere in space, meaning that its value is non-zero so that it acts on any particle. Since, in Newtonian Keshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-78457631273903167072012-10-19T07:15:00.000-07:002012-10-19T07:15:48.780-07:00Creatio ex Nihilo god and god particle: Part I: Twixt Abraham, Aquinas, and OckhamWhat we all know or have experienced is the omnipresence of a god whom we accept (or, equivalently, not accept) in various ways without necessarily having a rationale for accepting it --- or rejecting it. In a thesis-antithesis space our love for god should have an accompanying dislike for god.
When we were being taught Oscar Wilde’s “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” in school, two lines stuck in myKeshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-31865958222836143402012-09-29T05:23:00.001-07:002012-09-29T20:02:48.869-07:00King Arthur as President of Simple folks of America? Marx, Engels, Snark and Boojum.There is always the wish in the mind of the ordinary simple folks that they could be ruled by a benevolent figure like King Arthur or his equivalent, It would be better still for the world if the most powerful country in the world, say America, had such a leader.
It is easy to pose the question in the title of this blog. One looks at the presidential candidates or presidents or important publicKeshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-35427890531203153332012-04-06T04:14:00.047-07:002012-09-19T20:59:11.051-07:00Thought of Food 9: Making gluten-free multi-grain bread --- the idli wayI have been busy dealing with my science: so I am not writing blogs on general subjects, even if I may get the impression from Indian news avenues that there are so many things going wrong that I can blog about. It is futile bitching about the state of affairs when that is all that we seem to be good at. In any case, I do not think my blogs help in bucking the trend.
What I am worried about is Keshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-83596421820468673362012-01-31T01:30:00.000-08:002012-09-19T20:57:13.371-07:00Thought of Food 8: Maska-da-golla in honey and molassesThe temptation to use paneer made from paneer phool continues.I have made cheese packets and they have aged well although I have not succeeded in introducing the deliciously rotten flavours of a Camembert or Brie nor have I introduced the penicillytus mold to make blue cheese. That is for another food-blog.
I had always thought that the paneer made by the traditional method of using the Keshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-4550650401561564252011-11-03T08:20:00.000-07:002012-01-30T08:49:28.306-08:00Thought of Food 7; Malpua as dessert- Italian UpvasThis blog was to coincide with the Diwali festival when making very sweet dishes is a national obsession. Despite Cadbury company's efforts to target the IT (Information technology) leisure class, the average purely mixed blood pure Indian loves his traditional sweets simply because of the possible romance associated with the thoughts about them....I could not finish the blog because I found thatKeshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-19299032288544631862011-10-24T22:58:00.000-07:002011-10-25T18:40:23.669-07:00Thought of Food 6: October Fest with Kumro (pumpkin) and Kulmi (water spinach) ShaakOctober in Pune is usually one of the warmer months. This year, because of the global warming, or Anna Hazare Movement,or whatever,and in the midst of the Occupy-Wall-Street Movement, and the hunting down and execution of another "dreaded" Arab terrorist that only the kick-sand-in-your-face bullies can justify doing, the southwest monsoon rains had delayed its departure until it was pushed out Keshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7576595386473031177.post-14066640768271425252011-10-16T19:41:00.000-07:002011-10-18T21:28:01.292-07:00Just Pontification 5: Occupy an Occupation, not Wall StreetThe Occupy Wall Street (OWS) campaign is a curious campaign which has grown spontaneously in a way that one should have anticipated but did not. Just as one should have anticipated the real-estate bust and did not. There is an inevitability in the way the disparities have grown. If one is not old enough one has to be reminded that Karl Marx predicted that disparities between the wealth of Keshtohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12552956990910638584noreply@blogger.com1