The Scientific Indian

And the winner of International Physics Olympiad is...

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India's Aakanksha Sarda, 18 year old from Bombay.

Posted by Selva at 6:12 PM • 0 Comments

The Injustice system in USA

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An economist article on the unjust justice system in USA.

Here's a case ACLU is defending: Sixteen Years in Prison for Videotaping the Police? A Slashdot comment with some rather painful statistics.

Isn't this something that Alexis de Tocqueville saw a long time ago? Tocqueville was a snob, one among the French privileged who was afraid of democracy in France. But he was a very smart and perceptive man and his observations and intuitions about America have been proven right in many ways. The above events are but a few of many. I fervently wish to be proven wrong in thinking that the tyranny of the ill-informed and mis-informed majority has come to America.

Posted by Selva at 12:00 PM • 0 Comments

The Genius of Ibn al-Haytham

Category: Prime Stream

Genius penetrates this world well and a humbled genius penetrates even better. Professor Jim Al-Khalili programme on BBC4 "Science and Islam" was an eye-opener for me, especially the details of the life of ibn al-Haytham, a medieval genius. The opening sentence of this post alludes to the fact that he thought he could tame the river Nile and realized shortly that he could not. This got him into trouble with the king (to whom he had promised a tamer Nile) who ordered his death. Ibn al-Haytham had to feign madness to escape death. Much humbled, al-Haytham dedicated his life to scientific pursuits and developed the most remarkable strategy we have for muddling-through this world: The Scientific Method.

Posted by Selva at 3:51 PM • 0 Comments

Simulation engine for physical stuff

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There are simulations and then there are simulations. This video is all over the intertubes. A simulation rendered by the Lagoa Multiphysics engine developed by Thiago Costa (works for Ubisoft).

Posted by Selva at 10:58 AM • 0 Comments

Charles, Prince of Piffle

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Hitchens in Slate:

A hereditary head of state, as Thomas Paine so crisply phrased it, is as absurd a proposition as a hereditary physician or a hereditary astronomer. To this innate absurdity, Prince Charles manages to bring fatuities that are entirely his own.

Posted by Selva at 9:02 AM • 0 Comments

Smart ladies are Apple-shaped

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I am not sayin it. Northwestern dudes say so.

Posted by Selva at 2:04 PM • 0 Comments

What's special about religion

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A court in Russia has convicted two people for offending religion. So, I ask the same question that Richard Dawkins and others have been asking for a while: What exactly is special about religion that it requires unquestioning respect? Why can't we criticise god for asking us to keep women as slaves, throw our first-born into fire? I mean, if you ask me to burn my child, I will send a stake so high up your bottom that you'd wish you weren't born. Isn't the idea of respect for religion one that of a bully who can't take criticism, when exposed for what it is, these high priests of bullying retaliate viciously. Would you want to be associated with bullies? If an exhibition offends someone, surely they don't have to go in gawk at the exhibits. No one wants bullies in an exhibition hall, anyway.

Posted by Selva at 8:57 AM • 0 Comments

Satellite designed by Indian students to be launched on Monday

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STUDSAT - Satellite designed by Indian students to be launched on Monday.

Posted by Selva at 4:57 AM • 0 Comments

Nuclear Explosions between 1945 - 1998

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A powerful and deeply shocking artistic rendition by Isao Hashimoto. From here.

The perverse Danse Macabre of our own times. When we see human folly rendered on a compressed historical canvas, it is all the more clear how precarious our personal survival is. Nidhi, my 3 year old daughter, saw me watching this and asked: What music is that, Dad? What shall I say. This is the nightmare I hope she doesn't have to wake up to.

Posted by Selva at 12:26 PM • 0 Comments

School Assembly Prayer

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Prayer, according to Martha, a clever girl, and therefore not a believer. From Julian Barnes novel "England, England":

Alfalfa, who farts in Devon,
Bellowed be thy name.
Thy wigwam come.
Thy swill be scum
In Bath, which is near the Severn.
Give us this day our sandwich spread,
And give us our bus-passes,
As we give those who bus-pass against us,
And lead us not into Penn station,
Butter the liver and the weevil.
For thine is the wigwam, the flowers and the story,
For ever and ever ARE MEN.

Posted by Selva at 8:27 AM • 0 Comments