Indian Wins Nobel - Wish Comes True

Didn't have to wait that long, now, did I?

I blogged my desire of an Indian winning a Nobel in the Sciences just yesterday (here) and just now received the news that Venkatraman Ramakrishnan has won this years Nobel for Chemistry. (see here) He shares it with two others - Thomas A. Steiz and Ada E. Yonath.

Now if only all my desires were fulfilled this rapidly!!

PS: I am not that hung upon "achieved it in India". So what if he works in the US?

Srinivasa Vardhan

Have you ever heard of S. R. Srinivasa Vardhan?

I bet you haven't.
This is a country that worships cricketers and movie stars. How could you have ever heard of a mathematician of International repute!!!

He is the only Indian to have won the Abel Prize. This prize is also known as the Mathematician's Nobel Prize. He received this Prize in 2007. And I do not recollect his photograph splashed across the front page of any paper or magazine, but then I do not read all the newspapers and magazines, and my memory is diminishing with age. In any case, I am quite certain there was no hoopla that was associated with, say, Sushmita Sen or even Amartya Sen.

Oh by the way, the Indian government has conferred upon him the Padma Bhushan in 2008 - AFTER he received the Abel Prize.

If you click on the 2008 list, you will also see a host of names, along with Mr. Vardhan's. How many of these can you recognise? Are we giving Padma awards to too many people?

No one knows - not even the economists

I have been unfair to the economists in my last post. I found out over the weekend (source: Chaotics by Philip Kotler and John A. Caslione) that an economist did indeed confess that nobody knows what is going on.

When asked the same question [when would the recession end?] in October 2008, Gary Becker, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, said, "Nobody knows. I certainly don't know."

Though I suspect this is largely a response in frustration rather than acknowledgment of truth.

Are you ridiculed?

If your ideas do not create ripples, then chances are that the ideas are flat in the first place. But, and this is very important, if the ideas are ridiculed AND you believe that your ideas make sense, there are chances that you have hit jackpot.

Here are a few names and ideas from history that should give you the courage to think beyond ridicule.

German geophysicist, Alfred Wegener. First proposed the Continental Drift Theory in 1912. He was ridiculed till the 1960s. Who would have believed that India was in the southern hemisphere and moved all the way to the north to slam into Asia to give rise to the Himalayas.

S Chandrasekhar. His thesis that predicted black holes was roundly criticized by his own guide. His predictions now go by the name 'Chandrasekhar Limit'. He received the Nobel prize 50 years after he first proposed the theory.

Karl Frederich Gauss, the prince of mathematics, did not dare publish his work on non-Euclidean geometry for the fear of ridicule. There are now three types of geometry (including Euclidean) that are correct and internally consistent. It is said that universe follows non-Euclidean geometry.

Hmmm.... Did someone laugh at you today?

Picture courtesy: Svilen Mushkatov

Learning From The Best Teacher In Modern Times

Richard Feynman American Physicist and Nobel Prize Winner
When the introduction to a computer course is like this ...

Computers can do lots of things. They can add millions of numbers in the twinkling of an eye. They can outwit chess grandmasters. They can guide weapons to their targets. They can book you onto a plane between a guitar strumming num and a non-smoking physics professor. Some can even play the bongoes. ...

Physics professor? Bongoes? ... you immediately know that this has to be Richard Feynman's lecture.

And you know that you will enjoy the book - Feynman Lectures on Computation - even if you are not a computer science student.

I chanced upon this book in my neighbourhood library. We have just joined a new library near our house - more of that at the end of this post - and I was just browsing books in the general section, as my kids went hyper with the complete set of Goosebumps (why do they read this stuff when they regularly get up in the middle of the night and disturb me with "bad dreams"?). Now, Feynman is associated with Physics. Checkout any book shop and all you will get is Feynman's Lectures on Physics, Surely You Are Joking Mr. Feynman, Six Easy Pieces, but not this one. It seems Feynman lectured on computation from 1983 to 1986. This is one is a compilation of the same.

So I have borrowed it to my kids' dismay - as they can borrow only 3 books instead of 4.

Ok here is a question for you - how many (popular) books, not papers - including Feynman Lectures on Physics - do you think Feynman wrote in his life time? Go on! Google it! I will tell you the answer. Exactly ZERO. Not one has been written by him though all of them carry his name in big, bold letters. They were all compiled by someone else. This includes QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter.

If there is one book you must read on Physics I would recommend QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter. There cannot be a more ideal introduction to Quantum Electrodynamics. You come to know that Feynman was a genius when you read it. He has explained his Nobel Award winning work in 4 lectures without using any equation. Now that is an achievement!

Give QED to your teenager. I guarantee you that your kid will be hooked to Physics for life. Better still, you read it. Even if you hate Physics. You would have learned the art of explaining concepts to lay person without sacrificing the essence.


And why did I join this library (It is called Just Books) when I am already a member of the British Library? Answer: Radio Frequency Identification, or RFID for short. The library card and every book in the library is (passive) RFID tagged. And at the entry is a touch screen computer. You need to place your card and the books on the tray in front of the computer and voila! you can now either borrow or return your books. Just like that! I just could not resist this opportunity to try out RFID.

Call me a sucker for technology!