Wrath of Railways

After a long time I was lucky or unlucky to face wrath of indian railways . My ordial started at 10:00 when I tried booking tatkal ticket utilizing my poor 3G airtel sim. After 15 or 20 minutes I got in but nothing was left for me to do now. I then tried for another trains on that route that was Delhi Patna route. I was wishing to travel from allahabad to delhi. Trains were many thanks to number of railway ministers from the region but seats were none. So at 10:30 I was helpless and lost but still journey must continue. I think motivational speakers should give examples of Indian railway passengers to demostrate struggle of man defeating all the odds. Coming back to my story on reaching ticket counter my ears were hearing sweet music when I came to know that seats were available in one patna delhi special and I grabbed the offer with both my hands streched. Ticket was my gateway to a gruelling twenty four hour adventure. Train was scheduled to arrive at 11:30 pm. I was at station before six. After waiting hour or so I checked with rail info website for arrival departure history of the train. It was never at Allahabad before 3 am. I expected the same so its was no news to me. I booked retiring room to have some sleep. At 2:00 am I came back my train was no where on the display. I checked rail info and rail radar  no update was there after 1 am so I waited for hour and two then proceeded to clueless guy behind enquiry counter he spoke nothing when I gave him train number just showed me white board on which with in black ink it was scribled train is delayed for 6 hours. "Okay no problem" thought me  I could wait for some more time. Websites were still clueless where the heck train is. After troubling enquiry counter guy every hour he cried brother I don't know where the heck train is. It has left patna that's sure after that nothing

The man who knew it all

For an artist joy of being recognized by name of his creation has no other parallel. Enjoying the praise of millions savoring his artistic dreams is something every artist dream of  but as wonderful the feeling is sometimes other creations of the artist suffers huge indifference due to dominance of one. 

Leonardo da vinci of Florence revered and praised by all for his paintings and architecture. No sane man would object about Leonardo's proficiency in painting but it was only one colour extracted from rainbow of talents Leonardo had. The man was botanist, astrologist, geologist, mechanic, physicist, paleontologist,  musician and of  course painter all rolled into one. The article pays a humble tribute to scientific contributions of Leonardo the miracle man the genius of renaissance.

Much before Copernicus stated his opinions about earth's orbital motion Leonardo discovered that earth moves around the sun and moon behaves in the same fashion.
Leonardo also noticed the mechanism of thunder storm and declared that light travels faster than sound
Long before industrial revolution Leonardo was able to construct a very powerful crane capable of lifting huge stones during construction of churches.
Leonardo much earlier realized the potential of water and wind energy and utilized them in many of his gadgets
Leonardo gave theory explaining formation of mountains stating that they were ancient coastline which gradually shifted upwards
Leonardo gave working designs for self propelled car and helicopter. Although experts believed that it was not possible for Leonardo's helicopter to take off utilizing just muscular energy but the design itself was perfect
Leonardo also designed modern canons precursor of tanks and pistols. See them working in Ubisoft's game Assasins creed's Ezio Auditore chapter
Leonardo was founder of sky diving, bungee jumping and gliding before him it was believed that only witches or gods can fly
Leonardo also was able to design deep sea exploration device comparable with modern scuba diving kits
Leonardo was brilliant mathematician and cryptologist. His fantasy for mathematics and cryptology could be well realized while reading Dan Brown's Da vinci code.
Its not possible to explains all of Leonardo's works on any single page, book or Library so confessing about my poor knowledge about that great man I would end this article now to come some another day to say something more about Leonardo .............

Abduction:Out of the World

Date was November 5th 1975 place  Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest Arizona. Travis Walton along with his best friend Roger was employed by united states forest reserve for logging contract. They had five more men in their crew. The fateful day was just an ordinary day. Typical day that no one remembers for long but it was about to deviate from typicality. Travis along with his friends left for his home at around 6 pm. Sun already had said goodbye to Arizona so headlights of their truck were sole source of light in the dark world. Destination was far and atmosphere had bit of creepiness inside it. Travis was driving and pressurizing the accelerator to get out of the black forest as soon as possible when unexpectedly he noticed out of nothing spherical light shinning on the top of trees. It was luminous and had no logical explanation for its presence but still it was nothing that few work exhausted men would care for but as the vehicle started closing in the light source started becoming more and more mysterious. It was large spherical metalish object hovering independently in the air.
Travis applied the brakes he was now as close as he could be on the road to the strange flying object. He got of the truck. Curiosity is one of the greatest bliss and equally great bane for the man. His friends stayed in shouting at Travis to get going but Travis was adamant to find out what the thing is. He left the road and stood under the mysterious object. Just after few seconds light flashed from metal giant above and Travis rose few feet above the ground and then quickly thrown back to the ground. He was uncounciously lying on the dirt. His friends were in shock they were having hard time to fathom that their friend was murdered by the UFO. When they gained some senses back one of them occupied driver's seat and flew away as if whole world was ending behind them. On reaching home they contacted police (It was not easy to persuade administration that an UFO killed your friend) but police started search nonetheless.They found no body at that location. They suspected Walton's friends of murdering him and burying him somewhere and then coming with ridiculous story. Five of Travis's friend who were even subjected to polygraph test or lie detector test attested that they were telling truth. The incident attracted so much attention because for first time there was UFO abduction with so many witnesses and to make things even more eerie Travis Walton was found lying unconscious on the highway on November exactly 10 five days after the event. Travis Walton wrote his experience when he first came to senses after losing his consciousness in forest in his book fire in the sky as "I looked at the vague but reassuring forms of the doctors around me. Abruptly my vision cleared. The sudden horror of what I saw rocked me as I realized I was definitely not in a hospital. I was looking square into the face of a horrible creature . . . with huge, luminous brown eyes the size of quarters! I looked frantically around me. There were three of them! Hysteria overcame me instantly.”
Travis Walton became overnight celebrity. He wrote fires in the sky based on his personal experience even a movie was made based on his narration. There was many skeptics who doubted Travis' s narration as doubtful. Recently a team of national geographic researchers reached to the site and found that trees in the area are showing accelerated growth after the incident although they also stressed that it could be result of environmental factors.
Whatever truth is. Travis walton's abduction was and is one of the most talked event among Ufologists and conspiracy theorists

LIGHT CHRONICLES

From times immemorial past man eyes used to wander around lots of twinkling lights in the

 universe and he that was proud master of the earth considered himself at the center of the 

vast universe controlling and affecting everything around him but the harsh reality came quite late.

Our magnificent eyes enable us to see only 0.001 percent of the stars in our galaxy on any clear day in the optimum condition and our galaxy is just one tens of millions of other galaxies. The proud was shattered and humans at least the physicists realized where we stand in the universe. How our study really started?

Although physics was subject of study of many philosophers in the past but modern physics started with the discovery of speed of light and journey of discovery was long one.

Light no wonder was imagined to travel at infinite speed in the past for human senses were no match to catch light in action. First time in 1676 Danish astronomer Ole Christensen Roemer discovered light traveled with infinite speed. Its while studying the moon of Jupiter Roemer realized that these moons disappear from time as they pass behind the gas giant Jupiter but these eclipse were not evenly spaced. It meant only one thing that the moons speed somehow fluctuated in the orbits but their was another explanation that suppose light has finite speed then there would be some delay in seeing the eclipse and if Jupiter moves closer to earth then delay will be less and if it moves farther then delay will be more. This explained everything and Roemer got the speed to be 140000 miles per second (Its really 186000) but still Roemer proved that light travels with fixed speed

Light was pretty much happy with its newly found quality speed but then entered grand master of the physics (Seriously students spend whole eleventh standard cursing him) Isaac Newton. Newton protested the concept of fixed speed because if you remember he said that speed is not absolute but relative quantity (Famous train example if you are sitting on the train then your speed with respect to you is zero and your speed with respect to person outside is speed of the train). Newton said that if nothing could have absolute speed how come light is special (Remember for Physicists everything is AAM Particle). People came forward to protect light and introduced concept of ether (No relation with Thor the dark world but like movie the concept also turned out to be crap). People said that whole universe is filled with some magical medium called ether and light has fixed speed in relation to that medium only. Fortunately for them people accepted that concept with fighting much. In 1887 Albert Michelson and Edward Morley proved through their experiments that ether is no more than figment of imagination. The experiment was simple (It now look as simple when we know the results) Michelson assumed that if earth is moving in the medium ether then if we observe the light coming from sun in different seasons then it must show some difference in speed (If we move towards the source then speed adds up and if we get away the speed diminishes) but the light was most stubborn character one could ever think of and adamant of becoming constant ‘C’ so Michelson received same speed of light in every season. Ether was removed from textbooks but Newton was gone and his theory was in grave danger. Then came superstar of the physics a man who continues to inspire mind and hairstyle of scientists’ world wide an unknown clerk who used to scribble physical theories for hobby Albert Einstein. Einstein saved Newton’s law saying that speed of light could be constant if we get rid of the absolute time as speed = Distance/Time so if light wants to travel different distance keeping the speed constant then time should vary from place to place and the concept that time is universal constant was wiped off. Time changes from place to place example when you are near sun (Imagine that don’t try this at home) the time would fly very slowly than when you are at earth or in space. Gravity effects time as well. Einstein by making time variable quantity solved the constant nature of light and light finally got the letter ‘C’ and value 299,792,458 meters per second.

PROUD SONS OF INDIA(I): DR OBAID SIDDIQI

 Its no wonder Indians around the globe are conquering the Everests of their
 fields. The genes of curiosity and quest are embedded in our DNA and thousand 
years of subjugation and slavery hasn't infected even a tiny bit of it.

The intelligence of the Indians was never a question and never would be but patriotism of intelligent Indians was always questionable and would always be. Without making you turn pages of the history I would like to quote a recent example to prove my point. Recently an Indian born Nobel Laureate when asked about his Indian connection and if he would like to work in Indian research institutions like center for cellular and molecular biology commented that 'nationality is just accidental event' and ‘I would never like to work in Indian institutes’. The example is not individual opinion of a single person but of mass intelligent migrants even westerners know the fact. In sitcom 'Big Bang Theory' when Indian astrophysicist Rajesh Koothrappali faced problem of being deported he was ready to do even menial jobs in United States instead of going back and making significant contribution to the motherland. Its not critical writing to condemn actions of migrants but action to persuade one to think for a moment. Everybody has right for better career, future and education but he or she also have duty towards the country which bears ones costly education and lifestyle until one becomes able to go to Harvard, MIT or Cambridge. I know sometimes millions words are unable to make significant effect but life of a single person could do magic and I through lives of ten proud sons of India trying to convey the same message.

Obaid Siddiqi was born in Uttar Pradesh in the year 1932. He completed his early education in Aligarh Muslim University and then joined Indian Agricultural Research Institute Newdelhi. A hailstorm destroyed his crops and instead of waiting for next year he decided to venture into new field of biology. The field was Genetics. Obaid siddiqi wrote to Guido Pontecorvo for an opportunity to work in laboratory of Glasgow. He was called for the interview. Indian Agricultural research institute lost a star and genetics gained one.

On reaching Glasgow Obaid Siddiqi was taken directly to the laboratory. Confused when he queried when interview would be conducted he was told he was selected as he had came so far to take a chance in spite of risk of being rejected. Thus started career of a great biologist.

In 1961 impressed by his wonderful work as graduate student in Glasgow Obaid was called to work for Alan Garen's lab in long Island Newyork. The laboratory was birthplace of molecular biology and Obaid found himself surrounded by pioneers of the field. Obaid and Garen worked on the mechanism of production of proteins from the genetic code and working of the stop codons (stop switch in the genes). At the peak of his career and with company of wonderful comrades like of Alan Garen, Francis Crick, Seymour Benzer Obaid Siddiqi decided to come back to India to set up laboratory on Indian soil. Respecting his decision his colleagues and mentors wrote to Dr Homi Bhabha about this gifted young mind that was bent on serving his country. In one of the letter Pontecorvo wrote to Dr Bhabha “I think it would be very important for progress of biology India that he should go back to a job in which his abilities would be fully expressed. In fact I'm really baffled as to Why India continues to promote mediocre scientist politicians and does nothing to maintain the really good scientists”. Touched by the wonderful work experience and letter of references Dr Bhabha in spite of opposition from faculty members in opening biology wing of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research gave appointment to Dr Obaid Siddiqi to open molecular biology unit at TIFR. Dr Siddiqi in addition of working on multiple projects such as study of bacterial genetics and role of genes in working of brain cells made molecular biology wing of TIFR one of illustrious institution in the world. In fact one of his student Dr K VijayRaghavan current secretary Department of Biotechnology said “As students, we seemed to have taken it for granted and as “normal” that we would have the best courses conducted by the best. Going out of the country, we realized how privileged we had been and what a wonderful culture and environment the molecular biology unit and TIFR has given us, a culture of questioning and one that defines purpose in science by the quality of question and its answer, and not by the volume of herd opinion. That this culture lives on at TIFR today is testimony to the effectiveness of siddiqi and others like him”

Siddiqi founded another institute National centre for biological sciences with similar enthusiasm and hope. In twenty years with Siddiqi at the helm the institute made a significant difference in the molecular biology. Obaid Siddiqi never gave up to red tapism, lethargic bureaucrats and ignorant leaders. He tried to bring them in and if they were unmovable he used to wait patiently saying “they will all retire” suggesting that he would always be there to take things in control when winds would be favorable.

Sadly on July 26, 2013 while strolling near his home Obaid Siddiqi was hit by a moped. He succumbed to his injuries and one proud son of India left his motherland giving a message that before criticizing that Indian soil failed to produce world class researchers and scientist we should acknowledge the effort of one who fought against all the odds to conduct the research on Indian soil. Indian scientists are modest beings and its country's and countrymen’s duty to give them all the respect and privilege that they deserve. Take a minute of your life and pay a respect to someone who doesn't have bat in his hand and really making this country better place to live and work.

Refrences: Frontline (August,2013)

                    The Hindu (July, 27 2013)

                     National centre for biological sciences

Loon for Loonies: Balloon Powered Internet for everyone

 

Not so long time ago this writers of yours found him in a place where there was no net connection. Yes, loud and clear no net connection. For some of you cynic ones if you can call getting Google front page in fifteen minutes net connectivity then okay accept deepest apologies for my usage of phrase 'no net connection'.
I started a mission which continued for about ten months to hunt for decent internet connection. I interrogated (Yeah Interrogated) nearly all mobile shops owners and tried every mobile network before I went to the great Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited. BSNL officers nearly cried over my shoulder and expressed their inability to provide me broadband connection. Don't ask me why? I will try to remember everything they had told me and then write them in any another blog. I never gave up in spite of everything.  Idle chrome on my laptop always used to ignite my search but the day my bags were finally packed for leaving the place one thing was crystal clear to me. I failed
If you started thinking it’s an article painting trials and tribulations of an internet obsessed guy (Alright I am internet obsessed but it’s not about me) sorry to break your presumptions it’s just an attempt to demonstrate that there are several areas in the country without proper internet connection and many more areas without any connection at all.
Now if some hot head now would question what’s the need of internet in those areas or what would people in those areas would do with internet. Now please get any class eight textbook for noting advantages of internet I am not discussing them here. Alright I have few lines to spare. Internet could give a poor class eleventh class kid a chance to study with world class teachers and could help him compete for IITS, Medical, NDA. Internet could connect a community center health worker to world class doctors in renowned hospitals. Internet could guide a farmer about weather, soil conditions, loan schemes, government.  I should stop now or you would get bored but bottom line is all you of you bright ones are aware of advantages of internet.
GREAT PROBLEM Singular problem is. In a big and geographically diverse country as India (It’s not just for India. It holds true for every geographically diverse country) it’s too tough to manage an infrastructure that would be economically feasible for bringing high speed internet to all
ENTERS BALLOON  In July of last year that was 2013 Google brought something quite freaky out of its secret X lab (I seriously am working to find out if wolverine really got claws there) Project Loon.

Thirty solar powered balloons were released in the stratosphere in New Zealand’s Christchurch area and Canterbury. The selection of New Zealand for pilot was because of three reasons.  First New Zealand is large nation with several remote provinces second during the 2011 earthquakes several residents of Christchurch area lost internet connectivity for several days which delayed them to contact their friends and families and last New Zealand administration and regulation were too cooperative for Google officials so New Zealand became first nation to use Balloon powered Internet

HOW IT WORKS Google Balloon flows in the stratosphere (The same layer where ozone is there) above airplanes or weather interferences.  Air in stratosphere is calm, steady and if you go up or down in stratosphere the magnitude and direction of air changes. Google uses this property of stratosphere to control where its balloon would be. Software algorithms control the balloon’s altitude and hence the direction of its movement. Result multiple balloons could form a network in stratosphere that in turn would result in continuous network connectivity in every nook and corner.

WHAT IT MEANS July 2013 was just a pilot. There are several things like cost, internet regulations of different countries that’s to be considered before making the thing reality for the whole world but I hope Google would succeed in the effort and the conditions like Christchurch earthquake or Uttarakhand floods where many with mobiles and laptops were unable to contact anybody because of absence of connectivity would be stories of dark ages.

The Childs toy is turning smiles of millions. For Google says everyone should be everyone

Courtesy: Google Inc For more details about Google’s Project Loon click here

Master Artist Hubble

If for a time being you ignore the printed text in the photograph What will you think of this photograph.
I bet many of you would swear it to be artistic imagination and some of art lovers would even try to persuade me to give you name of the artist but I think you all intelligent life forms would have sherlock holmed (Yeah I have made it a word. By the way it means deduce/d) by now that it is a real time picture captured by floating magnanimous telescope named after famous american astronomer Edwin Hubble ( Wiki it if you don't know about him). By the way you guys are fifty percent right okay I can give you slightly more than seventy percent  but atleast you are twenty five percent wrong. Hubble images are too good,too colorful and too bright to be natural. There are artists hand involved in giving them this form.
The journey of creation of an Hubble image begins when Hubble captures several black and white raw images of an astronomical object say some galaxy far far away(No, Hubble never found Luke Skywalker). Thousands of images are captured to make a single image.
Multiple images are then stacked to complete the picture then advanced image processor gives color to the image. Images are not given randomly to make them more beautiful (Come on its not a fashion show its science there should be some logic to give them color). Colors are given on basic of wavelengths of atomic emission to make the characteristics of the picture noticeable to the naked eye which otherwise would be difficult to study and yes of course it also lights up our desktop background. Images are now graphically cleared and corrected for any persisting abnormality and so a picture is born

Critics call this betrayal to the ordinary people by presenting graphically altered picture but its not the case NASA never said these are raw images. If you go to www.Hubblesite.org You would find Hubble explaining the mechanism of creation of these images. Yes I have learnt from there only. I don't work for NASA, Hubble or George Clooney (Sorry Gravity still revolving in mind). Hubble through these images has given a dimension an opportunity to scientists,teachers,students,astronauts to study and see the objects far beyond the reach of human eyes because the only thing they had done is increasing the interest and attention. Every time I see these images I just remember star treks famous quote Space: the final frontier.

Courtesy: NASA and www.Hubblesite.org. If you want to know more about image creation click here