Me, Science and Crap!!

There are times when you want to look back at your life and think about how the life has been all these years. Often, people do this at a very old age, scanning over the joys and tears that life has given them. I have known few people who want to go back in their past to change certain incidents… I have known people who have lost their love because they didn’t take a decision at right time… I have known people who missed out saying ‘sorry’ to people before it was too late… and so on. Life goes on fast… really fast. We meet people, we make relationships, we break traditions, we create new boundaries and suddenly one day we leave everything to ahead towards an unknown destination called “death”.

In this entire journey, there are occasions when people have helped us. When I look back at life, I find myself incredibly indebt to lot of people. I don’t know where they are now, I wish I could tell them that I miss them but the cruel life doesn’t give a damn opportunity.

Sometimes, a little favor from an unexpected person makes deep impact on your life. Long back, during my college days, along with my friends, I went to an excursion to Kerala. I got little over-excited looking at the water fall and fell into it. For a moment I thought I am going to sink into the water but by God’s grace, there was a large stone under water and I landed up on that. I was stood on that stone helplessly, with water almost till my neck until a friend of mine called Adinarayana helped me come out of water. It was very generous of him to run down there to save me. Once I came out of that freezing water, the next big challenge was finding dry clothes. My clothes were at hotel and no one had any extra clothes. It was early December with 3 degree centigrade temperature and there was no way I could be on wet clothes till we reach hotel. Then came the second unexpected help… the bus driver offered me his pant to wear, though it was little loose for me. I changed into his pant and borrowed couple of jackets from my friends. By the time, we reached the hotel for dinner, I was shivering with cold and had high fever. We reached a tiny restaurant somewhere in Munnar, Kerala for dinner. All my friends were busy scanning the menu and irritating the waiter with their stupid jokes. After couple of minutes, I don’t know how, a friend of mine called Srinivasulu, got a bowl of hot corn soup for me from the restaurant’s kitchen. I don’t know how he did it… it was one of the nicest gestures shown by any of my friends.

After almost three years, when I look back at these incidences, it still appears very fresh and very kind of them. I wish… I could give them a hug and thank them.

Heads (Common for both Regular and Commemorative coins):

Tails - Commemorative Coins: 

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Regular Design - Tails:

During my schooling, I was taught that summer and winter are caused due to earth getting either closer or far away from the sun respectively during its orbit to the sun. For years, I believed that this is true. Today, while on my way to the office, I tried to gaze towards the burning sun and suddenly a thought stuck to my mind. I recollected the discussion we had in a conference call couple of days back about the temperature at Hyderabad, India and Redmond, USA. Surprisingly, Redmond was having spring season whereas Hyderabad is having summer season. If what I was taught at school was correct, the earth should have same season irrespective of whether it’s India or USA. I tried to push my memory a little further to recollect, what are the time lines when earth is closest and farthest to sun. Earth happens to be closest to sun during January and farthest during July. For some reason, it appears that what I was taught at school doesn’t fit the equation!

A little research on the published articles revealed, that theory that says seasons are caused due to distance of earth from is sun is indeed false. The actual truth is something else. Apparently, the major factor that causes the seasons is tilted axis of Earth to the orbital plane. The earth’s axis is not perpendicular to the orbital plane and it actually 23.5° titled.

Here’s where the things get little complicated, probably one of the reasons why my teachers opted for a wrong but easy explanation instead of deep analysis. The tilt in the axis produces two important effects

1. Depending on the duration of the year, the North Pole and South Pole are either pointed towards the sun or away from the sun. Note that if the North pole is pointing towards the sun, the South pole is away from the sun. This is the cause for seasons on Northern and Southern Hemispheres of earth to be opposite.

2. Due to the tilt in the angle and the curved surface of earth, the angle of incidence of sun rays changes during the course of year causing the change in seasons. Note that, if the angle of incidence of sun rays is perpendicular to earth’s surface, the earth’s surface absorbs the maximum heat.

This figure taken from Jack William's The USA Today Weather Book gives a remarkable good representation of length of days at different seasons.

These two rupee commemorative coins are part of my collection, however there are few more coins that have been issued by Indian mints which I haven’t able to add to my collection.

It’s about 4 AM in the morning and from last 4 hours I am trying to record a video of a presentation on “Turning Point – Turmoil in Theoretical physics”. The worst thing is that I haven’t been able to complete it.

1. My English accent sucks.

2. I have lost fluency in English.

3. With the static camera angle and my constant movements, the presentation isn’t been properly captured.

Nonetheless, this is my first attempt before the camera and I have learnt a lot of things. I need to re-think about my confidence on public speaking. I was living in a fool-paradise, believing that I am still as good as what I was couple of years ago in terms of oratory skills. Fortunately, I have come out of it and I will try my best to get back to my best days.

Last couple of days have been psychologically very damaging… it almost feels like heartbroken. Everyone close to my heart is failing to understand me and it really hurts. I am trying my best not to lose concentration on the target but at the same time, I feel terribly bad at being in this state.

These days will never come back… the passion that I have today for theoretical physics will never remain the same… while these things do sound good… it affect my immediate priorities. Couple of days back, I was told that “I have time for writing blogs, collecting coins, creating theories but doesn’t have time for talking to people who care for you….” It was a huge eye-opener for me. I thing most of the time I am self-centric… when I have some good news… I drum about it and then I undergo some sort of hibernation until something good happens… Trying hard folks to change my bad-habits ... please bare with me. On one side, I know what I have done is wrong… but keep the constant feedback coming… I guess by now you would have understood that once I have been told about my mistake…I try hard to rectify it.

Below are the commemorative coins which are part of my collection:

The following are the coins that I am looking for…

* Photographed by Sumiya Faruq.

Journey of life teaches so many things and yet most of us attempt to repeat the mistakes. How often have I not told myself that time is the most valuable thing and yet when I spend all day doing virtually nothing… and this is happening from quite some time. Year 2005 was very special for me. It was this year when I first wrote a paper on solitons and in the summer holidays I went on to write the book Cosmos Redefined. The subsequent years haven’t produced the work anywhere close to the work I did in 2005.

3 months gone in 2009, I want to repeat the hard work and will power I showed in 2005. However, to add to my agony, I am miles away from the kind of concentration and dedication I had then. Distracted, frustrated and agitated with loneliness and wastage of time, I find myself in a situation where I have ruined my hopes of being a scientist.

This Friday, I did some shopping along with my father. I spend about 3 hours searching for books at Koti, Hyderabad and finally found two good books. “Topics in Algebra” by I.N. Herstein and “Introductory Quantum mechanics” by Richard L. Liboff. Planning to spend next two weeks reading the formal literature of these books and hopefully expecting that few ideas will fire up.

On a side note, I also got a print out of “Elegant Universe” by Brian Greene. I particularly don’t believe in superstrings though I am very fond of the idea of strings. Long back, when I read about string theory, I proposed a theory called “Thread theory”. Instead of strings, why can’t the matter be made up of threads? Now, when I think of it, I don’t think the idea was a bad one. Well, there you go… I found the topic for my research!

Thread theory ---- Here we go!

Check this out: 

As per the new channels, James Otis has kept few challenges to Indian Govt. to get the Gandhi’s Items.

1. Spread the message of Gandhi to at least 78 countries by conducting a world tour or educational events.

2. Increase the health care for Poor in India.

And what does the Indian Govt. say … We are sovereign country, we don’t’ listen to outsiders!

Common, what’s wrong with go ahead with the deal? This guy just wants to spread the message of Gandhi and so do we. So why are we getting pissed off if someone is demanding the same?

The reasons are simple - we don’t want anyone to question our policies. We don’t want to increase our budget for poor… who cares about poor? There were poor people in India from times immemorial… they have gone through even worse circumstances like slavery … so why do we care about them? Let us call out for all the rich Indians to go out there and purchase the Gandhi’s Items. That’s what we are fit for. And do we have to spread the message of Gandhi in 78 countries when we aren’t spreading his message in our own country?

And this brings back to our age old question… what can the people like you and I do at the point?

But before finding answer to that question, we have to answer few other questions.

Do we really believe in the principles preached by Mahatma Gandhi? Don’t we think our state today is directly due to the Gandhi’s Ideology of doing nothing and protesting peacefully?

Gandhi was a great man… the man of principles. Long back, during my school days I delivered a speech on Independence day – the summary of the speech was something like this.

“Independence to the nation is the greatest event that can occur to the nation. It’s like the birth of a child. And it occurs when the mother undergoes all the pain during those months of carrying the child inside her womb and labor pains she undergoes while delivering the child. This duration has an intense impact on the mindset of mother… it gives rise to the love towards the child. Every moment of pain the mother undergoes carrying the child, her love towards the child increases. It’s this pain that gives birth to the ever longing love towards the child even when the child grows up and hurts her. The question before us is did we undergo any such pain before we gave birth to this nation? We could have undergone that pain if there didn’t exist one man… Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi’s principles were unarguably the most intellectual at that moment but they lacked a vision for creating a great nation. They aimed more at giving birth to a nation but not simulating that love towards the nation. There were about 400 million people in India during the time of Independence and unfortunately, only a minute portion of the people in that 400 million underwent any pain. On one side, I am happy that my forefathers didn’t undergo that pain, but I am deeply concerned that we gave birth to a nation without stimulating love towards that nation deep inside us. On this Independence day- I call out for simulating that love… and for that love… we need to undergo pain. And we will certainly undergo pain when we fight against those corrupts, those criminals, those terrorists, those crooks, those politicians who don’t deserve to be part of our nation. Believe me, it’s painful to fight against our very own brothers and sisters but if we ever aim at “sampoorn swaraj”, we have to fight this battle.”

I don’t know how many students then understood my speech… I don’t know how many people now will understand my words … but the matter of fact remains is that we are an independent nation without love towards nation. We have all those patriotic songs but we never do anything to towards it.

And we finally reach back to our question - do you still believe in principles of Gandhi?

Gandhi got his education in a developed nation, this profound ideology works wonders for a developed nation but for an under-developed nation … the ideology might produce a quick independence but it didn’t prepare the people to deserve independence. All I can say is, one man’s genius left 400 million undeserving people fight among themselves on pity issues.

If you are getting pissed off with my words, let me say you that Mahatma Gandhi himself believed that we are not yet ready for Independence. Look what happened when we got Independence, first we broke off into multiple countries… people were more concerned about who remains upper-class and who remains lower class … people were more concerned towards which religion occupies the governing chair … we drafted a constitution and governance that was more or less similar to British Ideology … we divided states based on languages … we left the poor to remain poor… we adopted so called non-alignment movement which I still fail to understand when we had so good relations with USSR then … we gave the powers in the hands of a dynasty … we came up with reservation system to screw up our education system… we fought within ourselves in the name of religion … we supported the people who want to divide us… we continue to tolerate corrupts at every level of governance, some people even believe they are part of our culture … we became the world’s third largest nation to produce HIV infected people … and we still sing “Saare jahan se acha Hindusutan Hamara”!

Now I know, how pissed off we are reading all the stuff I have written… again the question is what can we do to change the state of our nation …

1. If you are corrupt/criminal/crook/terrorist/communal divider, you don’t deserve to live in this country. You will be killed by one of ‘us’ sooner or later.

2. If your father/mother/sister/brother/son/daughter/friend/relative is corrupt/criminal/crook/ terrorist/communal divider, you have to stop supporting these people and try to change them as soon as possible before one of ‘us’ kills them. It will be painful but it’s needed for the love of nation.

3. If you believe that you want to see a great, disciplined, developed, effective and harmonious nation anytime soon, you have to be one among ‘us’.

So, when will this “us” form?

My guess is very soon… as the education spreads and people find themselves jobless… they will start thinking about whose ass they need to kick for their state. And soon, they will realize that actual cause of their state is the existence of corrupts/criminals/crooks/terrorists/communal dividers - then they would start the historic war of actual Independence of our nation. This is lead to the formation of “us”.

For some reason, most of you ladies felt that my previous post was offensive and you took it as matter of pride to defend the attitude of fellow girls. Well, let me clarify, given an opportunity I would prefer to be on your side than speaking on the behalf of poor guys.

Out of all those comments and phone calls, I got this SMS from a friend of mine that said

Keep the gender issue apart, now what do you think is the right way to react to the proposal of a guy while keeping the friendship intact. One you made fun of or to be rude.

This is what I have replied politely,

See… I expect the girl to say… you are not meeting my expectations than saying I didn’t look at you that day.

Now, this turned out into a heavy debate and yours truly had to finally give an elaborate explanation that he is not against girls and he just feels that girls should react in much polite way than saying, I didn’t look at you that way!

Every person has certain expectations and defining those expectations before your friends can always help you in avoid misunderstandings. You need not go out on a stage and announce those expectations; just let them know in one of those friendly talks. It is very easy for a person to get confused or misunderstand friendly talks.

I am not an expert in this field but since I am entitled to keep an opinion, this is what I feel.

If a girl isn’t interested in a guy who has been her friend, this is how she needs to respond upon his proposal “See… you are a good guy and I respect you… but… you don’t meet my expectations to be that special one”

If a guy isn’t interested in a girl who has been her friend, this is how he needs to respond upon her proposal “See… you are a good girl and I respect you… but… I never looked at you that way”

Unfortunately, the way majority of the people react is quite opposite. Let me categorically explain the subtle difference in the way we perceive this statements if we are at receiving ends.

Let us review the statements I have defined…

If a girl says “you don’t meet my expectations to be that special one”. At maximum, the guy would ask what are her expectations and since you do have well defined expectations, let me him know about it. Most of them will understand unless you say I am expecting superman with property worth 10 billion to come and marry me.

If a guy says “… you are a good girl and I respect you… but… I never looked at you that way”. There is a great chance that the girl will take him positively. Looking at a girl in that way is generally perceived as wrong thing in India and when a guy says “he never looked at her that way”, it means he is not done anything wrong. Moreover, the guy can always say, I saw you like a sister or some other relation.

Now, let us hypothesize the reactions, when the reaction has been vice-versa to what I have said.

If a girl says “I never looked at you that way”

This is how a guy feels “What the f*** … am I not man enough? Never looked at me like a man… do I appear like a gay to her?

If a guy says “You don’t meet my expectations”

This is how a girl would feel “What the hell… don’t I have the physical assets to meet his requirements… what does he expect from a girl…”

Without being too philosophical or sarcastic here, I just wanted to explain you the situation on how to react! Of course, if you want make the other person feel like shit with your reaction, you are most welcomed to do so... but a little rewording can help you deal with the situation in much better way.

I was leafing through TV channels today and came across this comedy show where a stand-up comedian expressed his profound observation regarding the way women behave when proposed by men. Here’s an extract with little improvisations from yours truly.

Typical response of a girl when proposed by a guy who has been her friend from quite sometime…

Girl: I thought we are just good friends…

Guy: Yes… we still are … and we make a good couple too

Girl: I don’t know what to say … I never looked at you that way… you see, you are a great person… I like you a lot…. but … I can’t mix relations with friendship…

Guy: Why can’t we work this out?

Girl: please don’t take me in a wrong way … you deserve someone much better than me …

---- Silence ----

Girl: See… I want our friendship to continue … it is very valuable for me… you have always helped me in difficult times … been there when I called you up middle of the night for help ….

Guy: …. (Disappointed)

Girl: Now don’t be so disappointed … I will search you a good girl for you…

Personally, I feel nine out of ten guys have experienced this situation in their lives. What freaks them out this same girl going out with a completely stupid guy whom she has met just 10 days back! I have never understood what goes through the girl’s mind… I have never understood that sentence … “I didn’t look at you that way”. This situation is like… you are in an interview for a job that you desperately need and this is what the interviewer tells you at the end of your interview …

Interviewer: Your resume is one of the best I have seen…

You: Thank you.

Interviewer: You make a great fit to our company … your attitude … your skill set is exactly what we need for this job.

You: Thank you.

Interviewer: But we won’t be able to take you for the job. We prefer a less suitable candidate.

You: Why Sir?

Interviewer: You see … You are a great person… you deserve a much better company that ours

You: This is my dream company sir… I would like to work here.

Interviewer: It is your humbleness that you attended our interview… I don’t think our company will do justice to your talents. If you want, I can help you in identifying suitable company for you.

How would you feel at the end of such interview… that’s how guys feel being turned down with that stupid reason… You know… it still confuses me… what does a girl mean when she says “I never looked at you that way”? It generates so many questions….

1. Does she look at each guy in different ways and identify potential candidates who will fit her specific needs?

2. To be precise, where does she look?

3. How to make a girl look at ‘that’ way?

I bet even the girl can’t answer these questions… this is my theory about girls …

While being as friend with a guy, 90% of the girls put up an external character. A character that is completely different from what she is in reality. Even though you hear stories about her ‘adventures’ from your other friends, you would rather trust the girl than your other friends… basically you went dumb in her love… all the while, the girl would be feeling stupid about you. Basically… she wants you to take advantage of her closeness… doing something exciting …. but as a dumb guy who is in love… you would behave in such a predictable way … and eventually when you propose… she just turns you down by saying “I never looked at you that way”.

Moral of the story – Before proposing a girl… make her look at you the so called “that way”. Do something exciting … take control… be adventurous… don’t be a predictive dumb idiot… God has given you brain… use it…. and then see the after effects…

And for all the girls who are reading this blog… I love you all!

Believe me there are times when you have get so many thoughts and you find yourselves in such a helpless situation. I don’t know which thought I need to perceive. Books, papers, gym, robotic design, skateboarding, blogging, learning guitar … ah I am exhausted just thinking of all these. All of these get planned for weekend and when weekend arrives, I wake up at 2 PM afternoon, watch TV for a while (Today, I saw the movie called Rocky Balboa) and the weekend is over. Great! I can’t digest it so easily. I need to learn time-management.

The part of the problem is “being single”. The situation somehow makes you very careless and disorganized. At 22 ½, it’s really a wrong age for me for looking out for someone. I believe it’s the transition age… the age where you just want to have sex and nothing else. Of course, opportunities can be created and desires can be fulfilled but I want to rather go the orthodox way. Not because I like being orthodox but because of my nature. If I try it out once and say, I succeed and I like it … then I might get involved in doing it again and again, which I believe would do no good to my character in long term. I would rather go for that so called everlasting love… where two people make complete idiot of themselves and yet they like it. To be frank, even though life gives you lot of opportunities of being an idiot, there aren’t many opportunities where you would like to be one. Falling in love is one such opportunity where you want to be one.

Ah… Didn’t I just call all lovers as idiots? Let me take my words back. I spend couple of minutes thinking about it… I think they are most fortunate ones. The people who don’t have love are the idiots! Yeah, this sounds more convincing. They are idiots because… they are missing the creation’s most beautiful feeling … and there is no better reason than that. A feeling that can make even a dumb idiot sound more convincing than Einstein or Newton.... a feeling that can make even an useless idiot believe that he/she is most significant … a feeling that can make even a worse coward to take on the most powerful … a feeling that can make even a worst criminal confess his dreadful sins…. and vice-versa of all the actions that I just mentioned.

Basically, love is a very powerful weapon that can be used for one’s advantage or disadvantage, purely depending on the intellectual capabilities of a person. One reason why I earlier said lovers as idiots is because they neither using their love for their advantage or disadvantage. They are just living a stupid life! When you are in love, you can achieve so many things… you have the unconditional support … I don’t understand what’s stopping them. Maybe, what they call as love is not love at all. It might just be what they call… compromised life!

Having said that, it’s very frustrating though to be alone, typing this stupid blog which no one reads and hope of mercy from God. In a way, I am saving all these memories. Probably, when I am little old, I will read all of these again and have a good laugh.

Hopefully, the situation might change soon…it’s just that matter of time. I am looking forward for a gift from God very soon. INSHALLAH.

By the way, I saved some of my posts in another blog called http://mohdabubakr.blogspot.com and all my future posts would be posted both on http://nextnewton.spaces.live.com and http://mohdabubakr.blogspot.com

Often after the prayers at mosques, most of the Muslims in India participate in discussions on the world affairs and issues faced by Muslim community. These discussions take place in disorganized groups of ten to fifteen people and topics of discussions include liberation of Palestine, war crimes by Allied powers in Iraq and Afghanistan, etc. These discussions have a huge influence on the mindsets of lower class Indian Muslims who don’t have access to Internet and English Media. On 13^th February, after the Salat-al-Juma (afternoon prayers performed by Muslim on Friday), I saw a group of young and old men discussing something and they all had a cheer on their face. It was a surprise for me as I never seen such a broad cheer on their faces. Silently, I joined the group to know the discussion and the reason for their happiness. A middle aged man was sharing the content of Obama’s speech delivered on National Prayer breakfast which he had seen on Internet. Each person part of the group was cheering every single sentence of the speech. This was the first time in my life time I saw an American President commanding respect in the heart’s of these people.

I have seen the anger towards George Bush Sr., I have seen the anger towards Bill Clinton and I have seen the anger towards George Bush Jr. but when it comes to Barrack Obama there is a radical shift in the opinions. Even a common man thousands of miles away recognizes the sense of friendliness in his talks. On National Prayer breakfast, Obama called out the Golden rule – the love for fellow human beings irrespective of their religion and color. While what he spoke wasn’t something unknown to people but the manner in which it was conveyed had a profound impact on everyone who heard the speech. Quoting the verses directly from Bible, Torah and Hadith and expressing his trust in peace and dialogue is probably one of the finest speeches delivered by an American president since long time.

There is a difference between commanding respect and demanding respect – while waging wars in Afghanistan and Iraq tried to demand respect, Obama’s way of expressing his ideas on world peace and prosperity has commanded respect not just for himself but for the fellow Americans. Inherently, everyone understands the concept of peace - the problem arises when power induces arrogance among presidents and leaders. With thousands dead in Palestine and chaotic situation in Pakistan with Taliban taking over the western province, every move of Obama will be scrutinized and talked. The coming days will be the testing grounds for Obama on his capability to negotiate and establish peace and fight against terrorism. And as far as Taliban is concerned, clearly the momentum is towards Obama. Muslim communities across the world are not in the favor of Taliban’s extremist rule and Obama is going to have their full support in fighting against Taliban. But for the benefit of the innocent people living in western areas of Pakistan, if Obama negotiates a deal with Taliban in establishing democracy and human rights - it will become one of the greatest revolutions that have taken place in modern times.

Thank you for all the appreciation most of you gave me for my previous post “Freedom to question”. Of course, there were few criticisms too. I posted an abstract of it in a public forum as a reply to a question why Indian students are losing out on creativity. Subsequently, after I posted the abstract, the following was the comment

“I would disagree with the timelines. There were significant pioneering contributions from India in the fields of science, astronomy  and mathematics till ~1000 AD and am sure those would not have been made if people during that time were not questioning”

I followed with a question…

May I know the pioneering contributions from India in the fields of science, astronomy and mathematics till ~1000 AD? I know about “zero” being discovered in India. What else was discovered between 0 AD – 1000 AD ?

While there were several people who answered about the contributions done by Indians, some of which I wasn’t aware of, there was one reply that was very annoying.

Are you Indian?  I am not even talking abt the mind, body soul kind… Just plain citizenship wise, born and brought up in india, are you?

This was my reply to the above comment.

Thank you for that comment. You actually helped me in putting my word in a more understandable way. For your kind information, I am born and brought up in ‘Republic of India’. By mind, I want to work for scientific development of India, my soul I get touched by all the disheartening issues happening in our country and my body (Genetically, I believe I am Dravidian but I am waiting for genome sequence to get decoded and then I might undergo a test to know my ancestral origins.)… oh yeah.. when I die, my body will be mixed in Indian Soil.  Do you want to see a photocopy of my passport or birth certificate? ;-)

-- Continuing the discussion

In my earlier post, I stated that there is no freedom for questioning in India, look precisely that’s what happened here. I asked a question but in return my nationality gets questioned. Of course, asking someone’s nationality is also a question and I am OK with answering it. But what I want to highlight here is the manner in which it was questioned. It is not a particular person’s mistake - it is more of our general instinct. When someone questions us, instead of giving answers, we either try to silence them or question them such that they never ask questions again.

Note, this has happened in forum consisting of some of the most talented people of India. Imagine how hard it is for an ordinary person to ask a question in a public forum in India. He/she would get roasted with all sorts of comments until he/she compromises and adjusts with the people around.

Asking questions and finding right answers is of paramount importance when it comes to nation building. For that matter, asking questions and finding relevant answers is of paramount importance even when it comes to developing great software. I am sure many of you had brain storming sessions where every nook and corner of the application is questioned and discussed before it goes into market. Why? Because questions propel us to find right answers. And right answers help us in improving. Merely following what has been told to you ultimately results in collateral damage to the whole system.

Coming back to my question that I asked, May I know the pioneering contributions from India in the fields of science, astronomy and mathematics till ~1000 AD?

There is a reason why I asked that question. Scientific contributions have always existed in the darkest period of history. What makes the difference is whether it’s a pioneering contribution or just another contribution? No doubt, ‘zero’ was the pioneering contribution and I am sure there were many more contributions that we have failed to recognize and evangelize them globally such that contributors receive their formal recognition.

Part of the problem lies with the fact that we mixed our science with metaphysical reasons. Also, when you formally call something as science, one should be prepared for scientific scrutiny.

Consider for example the field of Vaastu-shastra, when my house was being constructed, someone suggested that Kitchen should have windows eastwards because it is Vaastu complaint. I asked him “why is it so?” He gave me some metaphysical reasons which had no relation with science. So, I spent some time researching and thinking, is there any scientifically valid reason for Kitchen having windows eastwards? And believe me, I found answers - sunlight consists of UV rays that kills bulk of the bacteria/germs. The intensity of UV spectrum of Sunlight increases from morning to noon and later decreases. Kitchens are generally the breeding grounds for bacteria and germs and having a window eastwards will bring in the UV rich sunlight killing the bacteria. Note, UV rays have harmful effects on humans, that’s why size of the window and it’s altitude also matters. Now, the obvious question arises that whether Vaastu-shastra is a branch of science or branch or something else? I believe that it started as a scientific study, but somehow when people failed to market it as science - they mixed some metaphysical reasons to sell it. Similar marketing tactics were used for other branches of sciences developed in India. When people started questioning about the validity of certain things, we started the culture of not questioning our elders. And even today’s that’s continuing.

Point to be noted, I am not trying to hurt anyone’s sentiments here. All am I saying is, we need to question to find the right answers. And unless we live in an environment where people are allowed to ask questions, there is a little chance of being the best in world in coming days.

During my engineering, I had an opportunity of visiting around 30 engineering colleges across Andhra Pradesh for papers at technical symposiums. My first technical paper was on ‘Analysis of Non Linear Schrodinger equations for Optical solitons’ which I presented at a National Level Symposium called Pragnya-2005 for which I received the best paper award. In the coming years, I touched upon different fields such as decoupling capacitors in VLSI, energy complexity in embedded systems, power frameworks in cellular communications, etc. One of the criticisms I always had from my professors was that I never attached myself to one field and I can only make big if I stick to one field. Probably, it was due to my curiosity and ability to question everything that propelled me to work on different fields. Sometimes, it was funny - I used to have long debates in class-rooms with professors on a particular question, disrupting the whole class. Sometimes, I was warned to keep quiet and I believe rest of the times, professors enjoyed debating with me.

While participation in every symposium was a unique experience, I often felt that there is something profoundly missing among the students. For most of them, a technical paper meant understanding something that has not been taught. Rarely, I got to see the ability to challenge a technical idea. Of course, their situation indirectly helped me in winning quite many ‘Best student paper awards’ but somewhere I felt guilty about it. Sometimes, I felt these students are too humble in accepting whatever they have been told than questioning why it is true. To make things worse, the attitude of being too humble has deeply affected their creativity. This problem arises not just at school or college but rather starts at home itself.

As per the values of general Indian family, children are told right from our childhood that it is not correct to question your elders and accept whatever they say. The unfortunate state is that, the child loses his/her ability to question about an issue/problem and over the period of time becomes non-creative. The non-creative child grows up and again preaches the same values to his/her children and this cycle has been continuing since past two thousand years. That’s precisely the reason why over last two thousand years, we have produces such less number of scientists and intellectuals. To make things more clear, let me categorically state certain examples

- Existence of superstition even today in most parts of India is an example of the inability of people to question its validity. “My forefathers believed, so I believe it too” … That’s the answer you find from these people when asked.

- Glorification of works done by ancestors is another habit of Indians. Just because, people merely follow what has been told to them than doing something creative, some primitive work done by ancestors becomes so sacred that it can’t questioned.

- Suppression of creativity in the name of religion, culture and traditions is rampant in most part of the country. People still treat scientific advances as foreign invasion on their religion, culture and traditions.

I can go on and on giving these kinds of examples. Believe me, most people reading this blog post would argue with me that “are you saying listening to elders is wrong?” than understanding that all am I saying is “a child should be given liberty to question the existing logic and come up with his/her own solutions if there exists a flaw”.

Imagine, the state of the same child who was forced never to question and challenge the custom/tradition/religion/culture goes to college/school, do you think he/she will question the teachers about validity of something doubtful in textbooks? How can you expect such child to challenge the scientific ideas when he/she isn’t given liberty to question at home? And all this makes, most of the Indian students become too humble to accept whatever they have been told.

Just another day, I was reading an interesting blog where there was an anonymous comment

“I don't know about ** in India but I work - as an Australian - for an Indian company. We did some 'cultural sensitivity' training when our company was taken over so that we would be aware of the differences. One of the key ones was the importance of hierarchy in the Indian culture. This means that the opinion/attitude/approach of the leaders has much more impact than it would in Western cultures. In general, if a senior staff member says something then people will go along with it even if they know it to be wrong. This would seem to tie in with a lot of what people have been saying here -even to the point that groups controlled from ******* are much more productive.

In terms of innovation; I had one of our Indian colleagues explain that in terms of the Indian education system. His point was that, with so much poverty in India, a large majority of the people are working to get out of their current social position. With few exceptions the most likely way to do this is through education but only the top graduates actually manage to do well. This leads to a great deal of competition in the system: to get into the right college you need to get good marks at the right secondary school and to do that you need good marks at the right primary school etc etc. To get good marks, you have to give the expected answers in all exams/test etc. You do not deviate from the lessons you have been taught or you may fail. Such an environment does not encourage thinking outside the box! I have seen many of the Indian staff grow enormously in their roles while seconded to this country. I cannot say the same for those that I need to deal with that remain off-shore.”

This comment fairly summarizes the point I am trying to convey. Without being too philosophical here, let me state the action items for all of us Indians who agree with me

1. Let us not restrain ourselves and following generations from questioning and challenging the existing ideas

2. In case, there is a flaw in any of our tradition/custom/religion/belief, let us have guts to accept it.

3. Let us try to be as scientific as possible. Science will not harm our culture but rather improves it.

4. We are known by what we are and not by what our ancestors were. Let us create a good identify for ourselves so that 500 years from now, when historians write about us, they write good things.

During my engineering, I was highly interested in Laplace transforms, Fourier transforms, differential calculus, vector calculus, etc. However, after the end of engineering and having spent last two years in core software industry, it seems like my command over engineering mathematics is lost. In fact, today, I am struggling to solve simple problems like finding a Fourier series for a given function. I feel quite ashamed to express this and definitely like to revamp my knowledge.

Part of my problem also lies in lack of proper exposure to applications of engineering mathematics. We study differential calculus, vector calculus, etc however seldom we are taught about how these fields can be applied in physics or engineering subjects. While, I did apply Fourier series expansions and transforms in communication system engineering, I still feel there was lack of depth in the subject.

Going ahead, without command over mathematics, it’s almost impossible to search for profound ideas in physics. Currently, I have ideas but to put down those ideas on paper, I need mathematical support. I have already spend last few years chasing wild dreams, now it’s the time to do something practical… something realistic. I am yet to receive formal acceptance about Calpanic Numbers from Math community. And that’s not because they don’t want but because I haven’t yet formally put it before them. I accuse myself for the delay.

Initially, I thought doing PhD and then start publishing these papers. However, PhD has become too complicated for me especially because the kind of entrance exams being conducted. For some reason, I am not getting a feel to prepare for exams. The situation is like this, whenever I start reading something, I want to go deep into it. Few days back, I decided to revamp my knowledge in basic electronics, I started with diodes and I spend almost 5 days just understanding different aspects of diodes. Basically, all that effort is not needed for an entrance exam. One needs to cover the whole breadth of syllabus. I don’t think I can resist myself going deep into the subject than just covering the subject just for the sake of an exam.

Next tasks for me

1. Revamp knowledge on Laplace transforms, Fourier transforms/series, partial differentiation, integral calculus, vector calculus and basic engineering mathematics.

2. Understand basic Group theory

3. Work on publishing Calpanic Numbers in some standard mathematical journal.

In 1931, Kurt Gödel came up with theorem that states that there exists at least one statement within a formal axiomatic theory that cannot be proved to be true. This theorem is famously known as “Gödel’s Incompleteness theorem”. This theorem not has makes a deep impact on the philosophy of mathematics but also describes the very nature of human life!

Let me make it clear this way by modifying the theorem.

There exists at least one wish within a human being that never gets fulfilled in his/her lifetime.

I know, that thing does sound like being rude to fate - however I have always noticed that incompleteness in my life. My mother says, God dislikes the dissatisfied people and one should be self-contained with what has been given to him/her. I want to make it clear that I am not dissatisfied with life, just that I am not satisfied too.

The other day I saw a movie called “Wanted”, I know I am watching a lot of movies now-a-days. It is again the same genre of movie where the hero doesn’t get the girl at the end. However, the movie is remarkably different that the typical movie in which hero falls in love. This movie deals with a group of assassins who kills people based on a fate machine. The theory revolves around a person who considered his life to be useless suddenly finds himself doing amazing stunts along with the group of assassins. And there enters Angelina Jolie… I still can’t forget her Lara Croft look, as gorgeous as ever. I won’t go in detail on the review of the movie but if you thought only Rajnikanth can play with bullets, watch this movie!!

Wow… what a movie! I know, not many of you have liked this movie and yet I found the movie incredibly well made. It was true cinematic journey of words, backgrounds and characters. I was literally in tears at the end. I have always liked tragic movies, the movies in which at the end the hero doesn’t get the girl. Whether it’s Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam or Titanic, there is some mysterious appeal in these movies which totally take me into different world. Another movie which recently enjoyed watching is “Cast Away”. Well, enjoyment means shedding few tears here.

Talking about movies, I was suggested to watch “Beautiful Mind” by a very special person and I was told that it resembles my life. And when I saw the movie, I was literally in tears for most part of it. Human mind is unexplainably complex and volatile. The movie taught me how important are stable relationships in life and how important it is to understand a person. For most part of my life, I have lived under isolation and loneliness. No, I didn’t study at a boarding school or stuck at an island. It was more about not getting along with people emotionally. I never found myself into the environment I have lived.

When I was 10 years old, my father told me a proverb, “two men looked out of bars - one saw the mud and the other saw the stars”. My father always made sure that I look at stars than mud. It was only during my engineering I realized, I am the one who saw the mud. And then I got the idea of digging the tunnel, I came out, purchased a telescope and saw more stars than the guy behind the bars. While I was digging the tunnel, the other guy who was watching the stars learnt about falling in love with nature. He saw the beautiful moon, twinkling stars and the vast sky. And on one special day, he saw an angel in the sky. He instantly fell in love with her. Little did he realize that he is behind the bars. He wanted to meet the angel, he wanted to speak with her but he was stuck there behind the bars looking at stars. I believe he is still there behind the bars. And the other guy, which was me, successfully dug the tunnel, earned money to purchase a telescope and saw the stars. I saw the barren moon, burning stars and the near empty sky. There was never a moment where I saw an angel flying across the sky with the telescope.

As the life went on, I once again revisited the proverb once my dad told me. I was happy that I was the guy who saw the mud, dug the tunnel, came out, purchased the telescope and was exploring the skies and universe. Suddenly, a thought changed my life. There weren’t two guys behind that bars. There was only me inside those bars. It was my heart that saw the stars and it was my brain that saw the mud. My heart is still behind those bars and that brain is with that telescope that only finds barren moon, burning stars and near empty sky.

That’s why there is loneliness in my life and that’s why I like movies in which hero doesn’t get the girl. I know, once again this post turned out to be about my life! Seriously, when I started out writing this one, I wanted to write about movies and science… but don’t know why the words took their own direction…

Apologize for staying away from blog. I was trying to prioritize works and somehow I felt I should blog until certain decisions are made. My research on Yang-Mills theory has just started - currently I am going through different books on Yang Mills and Quantum Field theories. It’s hard to do research while managing job, life and distractions. Anyhow, I am confident that Allah’s help is on the way.

Yesterday, I watched this movie called “Cast Away”. I am not a movie reviewer but certainly it’s an awesome movie. It made me recollect my childhood, the times when I was immensely fascinated with the stories of sailors. I read ‘Count of Monte Carlo’ when I was in 9^th class and it still remains one of the most fascinating books I have read.

I have decided to reduce crap on my blog and make it more scientific. Hence, I won’t post my bragging lectures on love, life and distractions.

Regards,

Mohd Abubakr.