Scicomm
Simplicity is a deceptively simple thing. Recently, a scientist who was trying to explain something in general relativity to me did so in the following way: One simple way to understand … is as follows. Imagine that one sets up spherical polar coordinates, so that space is described by r, theta,
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I have an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering but I've always struggled with thermodynamics. To the uninitiated, this means most of the knowledge specific to mechanical engineering over other branches remains out of my reach. I would struggle even with the simpler concepts, and perhaps one of the
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In 1907, a New Zealander named Ernest Rutherford moved from McGill University in Canada to the University of Manchester. There, he conducted a series of experiments where he fired alpha particles1at different materials. When he found that the beams deviated by about 2º when fired through air, he figured that
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You probably haven't heard of the Chladni effect but you've likely seen it in action. Sprinkle some grains of sand on a thin metal plate and play a violin bow across it, and you'll notice that the grains bounce around for a bit before
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This post was originally published on October 6, 2012. I recently rediscovered it and decided to republish it with a few updates. Geometric symmetry in nature is often a sign of unperturbedness, as if nothing has interfered with a natural process and that its effects at each step are simply
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The debate about whether it is fair for scientists to expect science journalists to let them proofread articles in which they are quoted before going to print has reared its head once more, at least on Twitter, following one round of exchanges last year. The central animus is the same:
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Where did we come from? That's a really big question for anyone to answer. And if we want to answer such questions, we're going to have to break it down into smaller questions, and then break the smaller questions further until we have something we know
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Download e89pragatipodcast.mp3 A couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of being interviewed – together with the amazing Nandita Jayaraj – by Pavan Srinath on the Pragati Podcast. Our conversation was about science journalism in India, and both Nandita and Pavan were excellent interlocutors. I particularly liked Nandita's observations
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The following is the text of a speech I prepared to deliver at the 11th Young Investigators' Meeting in Guwahati on March 8, 2019. I wanted to use this opportunity to speak about education, which is one of science communication’s less known yet more important goals. I think
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Warning: profanity There are scientists who don’t want other scientists to communicate their work to the masses. There are scientists who want to but don’t have what they need to do it. And there are scientists who want to and are doing it. I love the last group.
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Science Day isn’t a very meaningful occasion in and of itself. It is the day C.V. Raman discovered the light-scattering effect named for him. Raman won a Nobel Prize for his discovery, and – by commemorating February 28 as ‘Science Day’ – India has come to celebrate the Nobel Prize
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Immense though the threat of war between India and Pakistan is right now, it's not the only thing happening in the world. This is The Wire's lead story right now: No better way to give peace a chance than to talk about all the different things