Notes from here & there: essays, verses, and thoughts on science and society

Stream of currents, flowing with flourish, they help me think, n' float, n' dream, each night. Sparks of ions, jump, like shoals of fish, to reach a distant shore, always in sight. Once at home, the flows must integrate, to make all-or-nothing choices, as one for the syndicate. Hey synapses, you were invisible before! Ho synapses, a pity you are not known more! Oh synapses, you are omnipresent! Ah synapses, you are eternally incessant! The vote is tallied, as just a simple sum, if you speak now, you may lose a little. Decide one must, to scream, or stay mum; still, what happens outside remains a riddle. Will you raise shields, or open your arms?  Will you see a sky azure, introspect on past qualms? Hey synapses, you were invisible before! Ho synapses, you were not known ere! Oh synapses, you are omnipresent! Ah synapses, you are eternally incessant! In a sea of chemicals, lies a truth, the tomb and womb, of all thought and desire. Of memories, aspirations, or a lust for youth,...

(... continues from Part I ) Other unexpected puzzles arose, about the nature of heat, as fire was vital, to factories and fleets. To the economically minded investors ‘twas also crucial, that all their voyages, ran unwasteful. Around the engineers and shipbuilders went questions, did engine-design have limitations? Carnot claimed fuel's nature in engines, did not matter, only did, a fire's temperature. Unequivocally he proved, it was quite very essential, that it only be measured, by a gas ideal. Rumford, Joule, et al too, had claimed temperature, was simply just, another energy measure. Only later in the journey, was there clearer recognition, that heat was merely, pure atomic motion. Efforts were futile also, for harnessing in its entirety, the sum total, of a heat-engine’s energy. A resolution to this strange riddle, would arrive in a little, from insights of things, quite electrical. Electricity, together with his twin sister, magnetism, form the backbones, of Maxwell’s fo...

Intellect awoke, after slumbering through dark ages, to fathom secrets of the universe. An avalanche sprung by mathematical insights, set a path for the future bright.  The product of an object’s mass with its acceleration, was a Force, exclaimed Newton! This extraordinary recognition would become deified, as it stood unequivocally verified.  From that simple yet powerful and potent equation, dawned numerous universal revelations. When spoken in the language of calculus it symbolized, that the laws of motion were crystallized. Claims of Kepler and Galileo, of Copernicus and Tycho  could be annulled, or compelled to follow.  Wills ordaining motion of heavens were computable, by  laws of Newtonian Gravitation universal.  All passages of seasons, of comets, too of eclipses, were merely algebraic exercises. Symbols and experiments could reveal all truths, science advanced in physics' youth!  Through demonstrations of Otto van and of Boyle, were chiseled la...

It was around lunchtime, on a weekday, and we're nearly three-four weeks into the Fall semester. In this country, that meant most everyone in a higher-ed institution as my own is busy and about, usually just trying get in and out of various venues that provide the ability, to quickly grab or carry-away a bite for lunch. Campus stores, given the so-called administrative-financial pressures have gone the same route as most commercial stores around the country, by installing machines so that the customers can check themselves out. Such ideas apparently impact efficiency - which itself is usually only vaguely defined - but I digress. Anyhow, this is not a recent or altogether strange situation and all the thousands of denizens occupying campus, had made their peace with this arrangement (in-fact many rely on these efficient, self-checkout counters to keep up with the busyness of academic, campus life). The darned things do work - or at least they do most of the time... It was there at ...

The scientific paradigm - it epistemology, philosophy, applications and practice - is the crowning glory of our species. We have learned to observe and model behavior of systems across various spatial and temporal scales - the process is iterative, self-correcting, reproducible and has built and continues to add to the collective knowledge-base of modern science. The details and means to do this are as wide as scientific disciplines and their interconnections themselves. As educators and professional scientists, we strive to impart the notion of this ideology and its facets to engage and motivate the next-generation of student-scientists. Given the rapidly growing body of scientific knowledge (and its rate), getting students to begin a journey into this paradigmatic program of scientific thought  without just absorbing "facts" but instead reasoning things "from first principles" is challenging, to put it mildly. In physics, this has become near impossible give...

Pursuit of scientific research as a passionate, driven, ambitious and innate curious desire to follow a sequence of deductive or inductive steps for deciphering the working of a specific system (or the universe!) has unequivocally brought our civilization to where we find ourselves today. Outside academic settings, this pursuit is mostly perceived as, in fact is actively communicated, at large, by the scientific community itself, to be a dispassionate, logical and objective set of irrefutable arguments combined with pure intellectual rationale leading from cause to effect, relying, of course, on the verifiable repeatability of specific experimental, or symbolic, or algorithmic steps. This is true. It is the method of scientific inquiry. However, the pursuit itself is driven by passion, ambition, and desire - very human emotions. Thus, the actions of the people engaged in the science, or in other words, the act of the pursuit itself can be irrational, unbalanced, manic and some times...