Prospects for the Immediate Future

I usually do not keep worrying about the future and always concentrate on the present. Given the choice, I would choose to spend my time on writing programs to solve linear equations than to familiarize myself with the pattern of the CAT. But no matter how detached one is from society in general, at some point one must think of his future. It is my turn now.

It dawned to me in a hard way today that the next 6 months are the most crucial for my professional success than anything before. Again I wouldn't care about my profession if I were the son of a lord in England and were born 200 years ago. But I am not. I cannot spend my time worrying about friction or about Braag diffraction unless I want to earn nothing. So I must choose to do something and so I have.

This "actvity" of mine can make it quite impossible to update this blog any time in the immediate future. In the meanwhile, I wish all the best to the readers of this blog for whatever they might be preparing for :)


P.S. : I am certainly NOT preparing for the CAT.

Computers and I

I have recently made a discovery. I have found that I am terribly inefficient in using computer tools. Surprise! I am not ashamed to tell anyone that I spend up to 3 hours in front of the computer screen (more probably after I was bought an LCD-TFT screen). This 3 hours is on days when I am very busy with college and work. On a typical holiday I might spend 5 to 6 hours at least. There is an old maxim that says, "Practice makes perfect.", which should mean that with each passing hour spent on the computer I would gain more experience. It is quite to the contrary, my observations show me. And, silly me, I took so long to observe this inefficiency.

This inefficiency came to light recently while doing a project for IBM. I found myself taking half a day to do what my team-mate did in less than half an hour. Here are the facts.

1. The very fact that computers make it easy for you to remember things works against me. I have taken for granted that the computer will complete it for me.

2. The internet has spoilt me. I no longer commit important facts to memory but say to myself, "Ah. It's there on the internet. Why remember?"

3. I had certain inhibitions about using the computer for a long time. This was sometime ago. Back then I decided (and took an oath) that I should stop learning more about computers since they were taking too much of my time. I was thinking of other things in which I could better spend my time. But it so happens that I, despite this oath, still spend 3 hours everyday nonetheless! Which is better : 3 hours learning something in computers or 3 hours learning nothing?

Remedial Measures

After carefully considering the facts I have decided to take corrective measures which are summarized below.

1. To drop the idea of not learning about computers and start learning instead.

2. To begin where I left in learning the languages MATLAB, python and, maybe, Java.

So, that's it!

P.S. : Watch out for my website that might surface soon ;)

Update to P.S. : My website is all ready but I have no place to put it, especially after Google says it is shutting down Googlepages :( So this is not going to happen now.

What is the problem?

I am going to be extremely critical of India and Indians in this post. I know I am Indian myself but so be it.

When there are no good programs in the Discovery Channel or NGC, it is usual for me to browse the popular news channels. All of them have one thing in common. They are full of news of injustice, immorality, inhumane and the down-right disgusting. Mercy killing here and corruption there. It is full of these things that forms part of a news-watchers day. Some say that the news channels always focus on the negative aspects, but wait... It is true that our world, especially our part of the world, is full of this negativity, whatever it means.

One might argue on the definition of negative in this context. This will be a never-ending discussion. So forgetting that let me take an example. Recently some students at a college in Chennai had a fight which was instigated politically. There was a video aired on TV that showed a youth being struck until he became unconscious and then struck again and again by some other persons of his college. Terrible. How one could fight with someone who was not armed or in this case not even conscious? Pick someone of your own size is really valid here. Terrible.

I listened to a couple of people who had some passing comment about the issue. One said, "Law colleges are always like this!". Another said, "The current Government must be changed.". Wait a minute... Who is the real problem. INDIANS ARE THE PROBLEM. The mentality of the Indian mind is the problem. There are now so many people in this country that, to survive, it becomes essential to push ahead of the rest leaving behind those who cannot push. Let me give you a few examples, some very trivial, which show the utter disregard, the insensitivity that Indians have to the law or to another person.

* People don't know to stand in a queue.
* People don't know watch for the red signal.
* People (especially in Chennai and probably the metros) take pleasure in the other person's failure.
* People don't care if they are a source of wrong information.
* People do whatever their peers do. Will they jump into a raging river if everyone does? I don't know.

etc.,etc.

I am not saying these are happening only in India. They happen everywhere. But nowhere is the rate of these things, among literates, as high as it is in India. Sad :(

Is this a genetic defect, something inherent in the Indian gene that makes them so? I sincerely hope not, for this means a great blow to this Indian race (if such a thing exists at all).

Is this a temporary phenomenon, caused by the ever-growing population? If so, then soon we might find a world full of Indians but with no India. Sad but a fitting end I would say.

P.S.:

I do not recall posting my views on social or racial issues in the past but the feeling now is so over-whelming that I need an outlet.

It is highly unlikely that this post will have a sequel. I have better things to worry about ;)

Last Six Months

In this post I will try to show the reader some interesting data about my life in the last six months. No spoilers here, read on...

Travels

Extensive analysis of my travel records over the last six months show that I have travelled 43000 Km (rounded to the nearest 500 Km). This value 11.1688312% of the distance between the Earth and the Moon. So if I live for 5 years, I will have gone the distance of the Moon. Wow! Thats amazing! All this data points to one conclusion. I have been travelling a lot and need some rest :)

Psst : Readers who need to know how I arrived at these values can send me a message. Note that these calculations are immensely complex [:|]. It took the supercomputer "REDQUEEN" at Oxford, 3 days to compute the values.

Visits

A picture cum text story of my visits in the past 6 months. The Delhi visit is missing because my friends haven't given the photos.



At the Havelock Beach in the Andaman Islands


At the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Kodaikanal


Summer at Kodaikanal was lot of fun


At the Fundamental Aeronautics Meeting, Atlanta, USA


Receiving the award


With the awardees


We stayed at a Sheraton in Atlanta!


In Derbyshire, UK


With the Thrust 2 ! Nostalgic...


The Thrust SSC



With the Thrust SSC. Wow! No words to express my awe. Then this happened after I returened.


Eyeing the London Eye in the City of Westminster


The Big Ben and I


The London Bridge is NOT falling down


Tower Bridge across the Thames


At Buckingham Palace


A typical street in Oxford


Airplanes

I have made more progress in the "airplane front" than anything else in this period. Some statistics for you...

1.) I have been in 12 take-offs and landings so far.

2.) I have been in 9 different aircraft (not aircraft types).

3.) I have been on B737, A320, B747, A319, S80 and A330.

4.) I know that tail number of all except two aircraft that I have flown on.

5.) I have photographed 60% of all aircraft that I have been on.

6.) The airplane had a technical snag on two occasions when I was flying.

7.) I had the best time in my life sitting in these airplanes. :)

The Language of Science

Can you tell me what this is?





And this?





Maybe this...?




I know you can tell what this is.



Yes, this is called a house. The three others also meant the same thing, but in a cryptic form that people call language.

Now take science. Science today has grown too complex for it to be expressed like a story in books. That is why it needs a common language. That is the need of the hour. But before you start saying that humans have not done enough to find this common language, it is already there, probably as long (maybe longer?) as science itself. People call it mathematics, but I prefer to call it the language of science.

Imagine where science would be without it. Just imagine. If you look around yourself, there is mathematics in everything. Everything without exception.

So why is it then that people are afraid of this beautiful language? I often find people doing engineering say, "Ah! At last all my maths papers are over." This is rubbish, especially so when it comes from a to-be engineer. People must learn to love this language rather than hate it.

I could consider that I have justified my life on Earth only when I look at a partial differential equation and visualize the phenomenon that it represents without any need for explanation. It is only then that I may consider myself anywhere close to being literate. A literate of this language of science.

P.S:

1. Sorry to people who know Norwegian, Japanese or Arabic.

2. I really don't know the purpose of this post. Just felt like I had to write it.

The "Coolest" Fortnight

I had the coolest fortnight of my life from June 8 to 22. I literally mean it. And also might I add that this very same fortnight was the coolest yet in every other possible way that one might imagine.

Visualize the following... You are 2.4 kilometers up in the sky, you calculate the velocity of super-granules on the surface of the sun, you play with lasers, you listen to songs, you think about symmetric airfoils (Well's Turbine), you talk about parkour to (a) scientist(s), you have breakfast (lunch and dinner) with half a dozen scientists, you see the sun everyday,

You talk about strings, you think of neutrinos, you sun bathe and read a paper on Hans Bethe, you wear the same sweater for a week and a half, you freeze to death every night, you eat coelostats for breakfasts, spectrographs for lunch and heliographs for dinner, you yawn at 12 in the night with an ISRO scientist sitting near you and looking at your program (IDL), you sleep near a permanent GPS station, you sleep 2.4 kilometers up in the air, you look at a (most) beautiful sunrise, you stand on the edge of a cliff, you get a free ride everywhere you go, you walk 10 Km in a day, you are protected by an electric fence, you have bisons for company, your professor is chased by a bison one day, you think about particles, you think about light, you think about amplifiers, you think about (Dr.)Mr. Raman, you sleep when bored by photometry and wake up during the night ,..........

If all this is making your visual cortex go ga-ga, then think about poor me. I went through all this and more in one of the two best weeks of my life. I was at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics doing physics. I was a sad fellow when IUCAA rejected me and I was not satisfied with IIA's invitation. But nonetheless I went and I don't regret it. How many people get to meet the former Dean of IITM (not to mention how good a teacher he is), a professor from Cornell, a scientific advisor to the Govt. of India, a professor who was chased by a bison, a scientist from ISRO for the night, etc.

Jokes apart, whoever they were, they were (among) the best. I probably learnt more in those 2 weeks than a month at CEG. But the biggest question that remains is, am I ready for research? The future will tell.



The professor who was chased by the bison. He was proud of being chased and showed the video to us :)

The Airbus A320

My second flight was on an Airbus A320 with registration VT-ADS owned by Air Deccan. I am a total fan of Airbus and I strongly believe in the engineering superiority of Europe over the USA. Thus I made yet another set of deductions for my second flight and pondered again how many would be correct.

Deductions

The journey on the A320 would be much smoother than the 737. Reason : My belief that European engineering is superior to the Americans.

The plane would be all economy class. Reason : Air Deccan is a low cost carrier.

I could take a lot of pictures inside the aircraft. Reason : No food was served to the passengers and thus the flight attendants would just sit down.

I would be able to see the Anna University Dome. Reason : I knew from observation that all aircraft had full view of the campus during their approach.

Touchdown would be much smoother. Reason : I love Europeans :)

Conclusions

Right I was. The plane was smooth and handled perfectly. In spite of going through clouds very often, there was considerably less shaking than there would have been on a Boeing.

That was a simple one. Air Deccan charges more than Jet yet gives nothing to eat!

Wow I took a lot of photos. Inside the cabin, outside, etc. The plane was only 3/4th full, so I could get 2 windows all to myself.

Not only did I see the dome, I also saw people playing in the AU grounds!

The difference was too small to make out. So Boeing and Airbus stand at the same level :( .


I had also, in my awe-stricken state, forgotten to observe many things about the working of the aircraft during my first flight. For example in both flights I was sitting in full view of the wings and could see the control surfaces moving. It was only during the second flight that I observed a few things about the control surfaces.

The ailerons moved very little during the rolls. This is probably because of their being far from the fuselage on the side.

Flaps with their fairings are used with great efficiency in commercial jets. If not for them the plane could never fly at such low speeds required for landing.

Slats and flaps produce so much noise pollution. Contrary to expectations, about 40% of all the noise from an aircraft is from the slats and flaps. I experienced this first hand. Within the cabin the engine noise could never be heard. But before landing when the slats were deployed I was able to hear the whine of air around it. That must have been a lot of noise outside.

The spoilers or air-brakes are also used efficiently during landing.

I could clearly distinguish a series of sensors on the wings to measure various parameters like temperature, pressures, air-speed, etc.

Some Pictures



The A320 I was on. Registration VT-ADS


The sky looks blacker at 33000 feet.


A packet of chips blown up due to differential pressure.


The sensors that measure some parameters clearly visible.


Close up of a sensor in one of the flap fairings. Click to view large image.


The spoilers deployed to reduce air-speed.


Is the Captain looking at me!? Click to enlarge.