Me, Science and Crap!!

Yesterday night, I watched an inspiring movie called “World’s fastest Indian”. It’s based on the life of Burt Munro, played by Anthony Hopkins. Burt Munro is a motorcyclist from New Zealand who spent 47 years in modifying a 1920 motorcycle model and eventually set the world record for reaching the highest speed for under 1000cc category at the age of 68 in 1967. His world record still holds good.

I was in tears while watching the movie. Munro purchased a motorcycle in 1920, whose maximum speed was 54 miles per hour. While working as a motorcycle salesman, Munro saved every possible penny to modify his motorcycle into a racing bike. After 18 years of relentless effort, Munro set the record for maximum speed clocked for New Zealand and Australia. His will power, enthusiasm and belief that his techniques can work deserve respect. He then spent next 20 years saving money further modify his motorcycle and participate in annual race at Bonneville, US. His journey of life was full of hardship and lack of money but he always believed that he could set the record. Imagine a 67 year old man with a 1920 motorcycle, participating in a race in 1967 and setting the world record!

After the movie got over, I stood in front of the mirror for about 30 minutes while interviewing myself. I wanted to see the inner me answering the most difficult questions. I wanted to see the light in my eyes if there is any, I wanted to see the expression over my face while feeling the pain of failure and pleasure of success. I asked myself,

· Will I be remembered by people long after I am gone?

· Do I have the passion and dedication that would lead to success?

· What distinguishes me from the rest of the crowd?

I heard myself giving answers to myself. I know, this is a strange exercise - however, it gives strong results. It will let you know what you are and where your life is heading. It will help you understand what success means to you.

While giving the answer, I felt that I wasn’t honest about my passion and dedication towards my goal. Right now, there are too many things going on in my brain. It’s crazy sometimes. You just don’t know what to do. I am going through something which I could like to call as ‘quantum vacuum fluctuations”. Right now, there is so much of vacuum in my life and its fluctuating like crazy. I am in love with a girl who thinks it will not work-out, nobody reads my research papers and then I get distracted by Kristen Stewart! I am just kidding about Kristen, though she is amazingly beautiful. I think she resembles the girl that I am madly in love with. Somebody told me that, if you are in love, you see her in every girl. I don’t know how far that’s true in this case.

Anyhow, jokes apart, I seriously feel, I need to rethink about my passion and dedication towards science. Time is passing by at a rapid pace and I have a long distance to cover. Alright, so I have decided to maintain a timesheet on where I am spending my time. Let me see, how accountable I am to myself.

I wanted to share with you a story…

An 11 year kid was challenged by a new mathematics teacher to solve a congruent triangles problem in front of the class. Without hesitation he picked up the chalk and solved the problem on the black board. When he turned around, he saw all the students and the teacher were laughing at him. He was convinced that he has solved the problem correctly but yet no one bothered to look at the solution. All he wanted from the teacher was to read at his solution before laughing at it, because he knew after reading the solution, the teacher won’t laugh at him.

12 years later, the very same kid decides to publish his research ideas in cosmological sciences in a top journal. Unfortunately, not even a single journal was ready to accept his work. Disappointed, he decides to submit to pre-print archive (http://arxiv.org). Even there, the moderators reject his work. There is nothing more hurting for a researcher than his work being rejected even before being read once. And when, he was going through all the rejections, there were those people, again laughing and pulling him down. All he wanted from people was to read his paper before laughing at it, because he knew after reading the paper, people won’t laugh at him.

Do you know why I told you the above story? That kid was me. Do you know why that teacher and students were laughing at me? I was using Hindi alphabets to represent the angles and sides instead of Greek mathematical symbols. My use of Hindi alphabets didn’t have any effect on the solution but yet, the teacher and the students felt it’s hilarious to use Hindi alphabets. And do you know why my paper got rejected everywhere? That’s because I wrote it in Hindi. Yes, I wrote a full-fledged cosmological sciences paper entirely in Hindi.

When ArXiv moderators rejected my paper, I felt bad at them. ArXiv has over half a million research papers but there never has been a paper written in Hindi. And when a paper written in Hindi was submitted, the moderators had no clue what it is. But you know what hurt me most? There are over 410 million people who speak in Hindi across the world and yet we don’t have even a single science journal that publishes papers written in Hindi. For that matter it’s not just Hindi, we don’t have a research journal in any of the native languages of India. It is as if, we Indians have given up that a native language speaking person can ever do research. That seriously hurts me. A language should never become a barrier for research and scientific ideas.

One fine day, I came across this website called viXra.org that helps the researchers to post papers on internet without any moderation. Of course, the no moderation policy has attracted lot of junk papers on viXra.org and my well-wishers suggested not to post the paper on viXra.org. I waited for while and it was hurting. Eventually, I decided to post the paper on viXra.org. In science, if something is correct, it will stand on its own and research should not depend on the reputation of journal but rather on its merit.

The paper is titled ‘फ़्रीडमन-लेमैट्रे-रोबर्टसन-वाकर ब्रह्माण्ड विज्ञान में असतत उर्जा की परतें’, which translates in English to ‘Discrete energy bands in Friedman-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker Cosmology’. You can download the PDF file of the paper from the below link

http://vixra.org/pdf/0910.0027v1.pdf

The below link contains the English abstract of the same paper.

http://vixra.org/abs/0910.0027

The actual Hindi abstract of the paper is given below for your quick reference

अज्ञात उर्जा (dark energy) और अज्ञात तत्व (dark matter) की संरचना और स्वभाव आधुनिक ब्रह्माण्ड विज्ञान (modern cosmology) के महत्वपूर्ण समस्याओं में से एक है। फ़्रीडमन-लेमैट्रे-रोबर्टसन-वाकर (Friedman-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker) ब्रह्माण्डीय सिध्दांत के दायरे मे, अज्ञात उर्जा और अज्ञात तत्व की व्याख्या करने के लिए कई संशोधित प्रस्तावो (modified proposals) की रचना की गई है, तथापि सम्पुर्ण समस्या का समाधान प्राप्त नही हुआ है। इस खोज्-पत्र मे, साधारण तत्व, अज्ञात तत्व और अज्ञात ऊर्जा युक्त असतत ऊर्जा परतो (discrete energy bands) की परिकल्पना (hypothesis) की गई है। बलो को सार्वभौमिक (global) तथा सीमित (local) बलो मे वर्गीकरण किया गया है जिसके आधार से, ब्रह्माण्ड में ऊर्जा के असतत परतो की परिकल्पना की गई हैं । अवलोकनीय साक्ष्य (Observational evidence) द्वारा हम असतत ऊर्जा परत की परिकल्पना प्रमाणित करते है ।

Now that the paper is there on internet, I want it to be read by all those who know Hindi. Believe me, you will understand it. Science isn’t that complex that it can’t be understood. In fact, it is beautiful. Trust me and give a read, you will enjoy it.

A lot of friends have asked me, why am I doing it when I can publish the same paper in English? Yes, I can easily publish the paper in English because I know English. But what about the 500 million odd people in India who don’t know English? What if the next Newton or Einstein is born among those 500 million people and just because he doesn’t know English, the world will not be able to recognize his/her research talent. I am afraid, by now we might have lost few such intelligent minds. There is a strong need to have research journals in our native languages. Scientific Research isn’t an alien thing that can only be done by developed nations. Some kid from a remote area of Bihar or Jharkhand who doesn’t know a bit of English can also come up with a spectacular scientific idea. And just because, we don’t have a forum, we will are losing such talent. And my intension behind writing this paper is to set an example that research can be done in our native languages and soon we will have scientific journals in our native languages. Insha’Allah.

Last thirty days have been the loneliest days of my life and I have no idea how long this would continue. It isn’t that I have never been lonely earlier but it wasn’t as painful as it is now. Every hour, every minute and every second, the waves of time make me feel the isolation. The roads which once enjoyed passing through today have become unappealing. The discussions in which I participated fail to attract me anymore. The songs that once made me happy seem like piece of noise. The coins and stamps which I collected passionately don’t give me happiness anymore. The stars and galaxies which I loved looking at through my telescope appear to be nothing but few dots in the empty space. Everything around appears so lifeless and disinteresting.

And then I hear her voice. It reminds me of the promises I have made, to myself, to her and to God. Yes, the promises. Every time she talked with me, it was not the ‘Abubakr’ that I am she was talking to, it was the ‘Abubakr’ that I wanted to be. Unfortunately, there is a huge difference between ‘Abubakr’ that he is and ‘Abubakr’ that he wants to be. For some reason, I was confident that someday I would be the ‘Abubakr’ that I wanted to be. But given my current state, I am failing miserably. Now, I feel like I have betrayed her and the rest of the people around me. I have failed to keep my promises.

This is my fight with myself. I don’t know why, I always believed that I can be a big scientist who unravels the deepest secrets of universe, experiments the craziest ideas and spreads around his intelligence. But somewhere, the life was not going in the correct direction. I was just living the life of a normal Indian, who spends his day working hard for his livelihood and returns home exhausted. There was nothing extra-ordinary, there was nothing intelligent and there was nothing special about me. And all the while, I was in some sort of identity crisis.

I would have never come out of that identify crisis had I not met her for those two days. I was there, in front on her and there was nothing special about me. I was just another guy, who has often spoken highly of himself but done nothing to prove it. And when that moment hit me, I was devastated. There I was, woken out of dream, facing reality. All I could say was… Will there be light in life?

And from last thirty days, I am searching every corner of my life, which led into that identity crisis. My heart still says, it wasn’t any identity crisis - it is actually what I am. May be, I have lost my way in between, but I shall soon be there. But then, if it was that easy, everyone around would have been a superhero.

Until I keep those promises, I am just living on the dead planet under isolation. And I promise, I shall keep those promise. I shall win her love and I shall win the respect.

I read about his heroics when I was a little child. A group of military officers led by a 27 year old Muammar al-Gaddafi, overthrew a pro-western government ruled by King Idris in Libya through a bloodless coup in 1969. Unlike, the military dictators, Gaddafi was neither the commander-in-chief of the army nor ruled the nation as a dictator. He handed over the nation to the people and established democracy. He didn’t hold any official post in the government but does remain as a de facto leader of Libya.

After 40 years of the revolution in Libya, on 23^th September 2009, Gaddafi delivered a speed at UN. While I don’t fully agree with all the things he spoke, but I do share some views common. It is well known that UN has become a puppet in the hands of veto-powered nations. It is courageous of Gaddafi to speak in UN about it and yes, the history will remember that someone finally spoke about it in public. The first 10 minutes of his speech were full of fireworks… he spoke about the reasons on establishment of UN, how the veto-powered nations are holding UN for ransom and why UN failed to prevent 65 wars that took place after the formation of UN.

According to UN charter, ‘all nations are equal irrespective of their economy and size’ and yet there are five nations that hold veto power. When UN was formed, the five victorious nations of World War II considered themselves superior than others and framed a constitution of UN that gave them an upper hand than rest of the countries. These five nations include United States of America, France, United Kingdom, Russia and China. These nations are permanent members of UN Security council and hold a veto power on all resolutions made within UN. The responsibility of the Security Council is to uphold peace and security in the world.

But the fact remains is, the permanent members of Security council itself are the ones creating non-violent situation in the world. Almost every conflict or the threat to the world has been created by these five nations. I can’t imagine, the President of the world’ most powerful country lies to the rest of the world that a tiny nation has so called ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and goes on for the war that killed thousands of innocent people.

Another discriminatory resolution passed by veto powered nations is “Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty” (NPT), which allows only the five veto-powered nations to have nuclear capabilities and rest of nations, should disarm and not test nuclear weapons. In the recent UN Council meeting, Obama called out India to sign NPT. India has outright rejected the proposal.

The question before all of us is, why do we have something called United Nations that cannot serve its purpose? Why can’t there be actual democracy in United Nations and no-veto powered nations? Why can’t all the nations be treated equally?

I guess… only the power and economy dictates the world. The nations that have power and economy do as they like and the nations like India, whose economies are dependent on these veto-powered nations, just keep silent. It’s the weaker nations like Libya raise their voices…but those voice just remain unheard.

We (Indians) need to say our next generations to stand on their own feet than being dependent on some nations whose foundational policies towards other nations are discriminatory.

"I remember that day, it was 12^th September 2001 and I was at my college as usual. None of students who were sitting in the front row talked with me for the first three hours of the day. At about 12:45, during the lunch break, I was questioned by a second-bench guy ‘are you a Muslim?’ I replied to him ‘yes’ politely. The guy who sat next to me, questioned, ‘do you know those terrorists?’ I asked him, ‘which terrorists?’ He and few others went on abuse Muslims, while the rest supported him. I wish I had punched him on his face, breaking his front teeth but I couldn’t. I was the lone Muslim in the class (Section JI-1, Gowtham Junior College, Ameerpet, Hyderabad) and I had no support in my favor whatsoever.

When I went back home, I was told by my mother that there has been a massive terrorist attack in New York and over 4000 people are believed to be dead. Soon, I realized why those guys were abusing me and my religion. For the next few days, I was constantly provoked by abuses and nick-names. Eventually I decided to vacate the first bench. Generally, in India, the most intelligent students of the class sit in first bench while the dull students sit at last rows. There was never a time in my life where I had sat at last bench until that day. Sitting alone in the last bench was not just psychologically damaging but had a worse impact on my studies. While, the rest of my classmates scored over 96% marks in intermediate first year, I obtained merely 90% marks. And the worst was yet to come, after intermediate second year, I failed in IIT Junior entrance exam.

8 years have passed by since 9/11 Twin tower attacks and even today people find still some way or the other to abuse Muslims in general as perpetrators of those attacks. And in all these 8 years, whenever I thought of 9/11 attacks, I always asked a question at myself, does Al-Qaeda have enough intelligence to carry out the most sophisticated attack that ever happened on this planet? Whenever, I saw about Al-Qaeda on news channels, the images of illiterate fanatic people were shown, who only knew of street fighting with guns. They never appeared in any sense to be capable of designing such a sophisticated attack. The answer that I always got, Al-Qaeda was only physically involved in the attacks, the brain behind the attacks is someone else because Al-Qaeda simply doesn’t have the intellectual talent to design such sophisticated attacks.

Until, yesterday, I believed that Americans were convinced that Al-Qaeda is intellectually and physically involved attacks but that changed after I came across Charlie Sheen’s video message to President Obama. There are Americans who think, there is more to 9/11 Twin tower attacks than we know. My life might not have as affected by 9/11 Twin tower attacks as those who have directly suffered the pain of losing their loved ones but as a Muslim, whose life is not same as it was prior to September 11^th 2001, I demand the United States Government to do a honest reinvestigation of 9/11 Twin Tower attacks. And when I say this, I have no hope. "

I had felt walking along with her in my dreams, but I never looked at her. We talked and we talked, and we probably walked all along the earth. The hills and the mountains, the valleys and the trenches, we crossed them all. We saw the darkness of the day and the brightness of the night. Every dream brought me closer to her. I spoke to her about my life, my science, my confusions, my weaknesses and my feelings towards her. She heard every word of mine with patience and dignity. There was never a time when she made me feel uncomfortable. She too spoke about herself, her thoughts, her understandings, about her life and about all. And my heart was touched every moment. I considered her as ‘Gift’ of God.

Before I could realize, the dream had taken a shape in reality. The feelings were exact, the talks were similar and my heart was touched every moment. She was simple, pure, clean, confused and amazingly interesting. I never understood what was so interesting in her that always attracted me. And as the dreams were, I never made an attempt to see her. I waited from the dawn to dusk, just to talk few words with her. This was the time when I was going through the transforming phase of my life. While, everyone around me marched towards their destinations, I was standing there, not understanding what life is. I didn’t understand, if there is life, what it should be like. And when I spoke with her, I saw what life could be.

During all those endless talks, I didn’t realize, I had turned 21 years old. Before the reality could kick hard at my face, God showered mercy on me. I secured a decent job for living. And the talks continued. Every day, I did my best to finish the office work as soon as possible and waited for her to come online. And then we talked until we got exhausted. The discussions were just like what I had seen in the dreams. The life was appearing beautiful. The discussions were on in reality and in dreams. I didn’t realize it was just ‘talks’ and there is more to life than just sharing a talk.

I told about her to my parents. I told that I want to marry her. It was then I was asked the hardest question of my life, ‘have you seen her?’ I didn’t know what to answer to that question.

About a year later, we met. It was just for few minutes. She was in hurry and I was tensed. Frankly, I never wanted to meet her. I just wanted those talks to continue forever. When I was about 12 or so, I realized that I have no charm unless I speak about science. Probably, God created me that way to avoid distractions in life. But most of the times, it left me hurt. And when I met her, the only thing that was going on in my mind was, what if, she finds me ugly… will she not talk with me again?

But she continued talking and I never dared to ask, what she thought of me. I can’t describe in words how happy I was then and how much I wanted to thank God. She was more beautiful than I imagined her to be. And the talks continued. Even today, I fail to understand, the mysterious force behind those talks. Probably, the most special thing about those talks was the genuineness. There was never a moment I felt taken back to express even the darkest secrets of my life. There was never a moment where I felt, I had to impress her or try to be a hero. I talked to her as I am.

As the talks proceeded, my heart was in its own world of happiness. Sometimes, I asked my heart to regain control, sometimes, I couldn’t help letting it go. I deeply fell in love with her. I can’t explain what it meant, what I wanted to achieve, all I knew was, I love her. When I said her about it, she was very polite. Sometimes she said, our beliefs are different and sometimes, she said things will not work out. We believed in same God and same Prophet, the difference in belief is man-made and I didn’t care about it. Probably, she didn’t want to break my heart, so she put it that way. Or maybe, it was something else, my heart never made an attempt to understand.

Another year passed by, the talks still continued. The heart was in love even more than ever. It was hard to imagine life in her absence. That’s when the cruel reality hit me. Her parents had found few potential candidates for her and those guys were in talks with her. The very thought of losing her, almost killed me. She tried consoling me, making me understand that it is not as simple as I believe it to be, but my heart found no reason to believe. Then came a moment, where things appeared to get serious. I feared that I would never see her again. I feared that I would never talk with her again. I feared that my dream would remain incomplete.

I travelled over thousand miles to meet her. And when I saw her, I was thunderstruck. The simple girl I have seen about a year back has turned into the stunningly beautiful lady I have ever seen. Of course, she was the God’s gift and it’s supposed to be beautiful, but didn’t know God’s been so kind. I couldn’t help asking myself, is she the girl who talked with me all these years? Is she the one for whom my heart is going mad? Is she the one for me?

As usual, she was very polite and dignified. There were hints of change in her but somewhere she was just the same. But yes, I wasn’t talking to a 19 year old girl but rather a 22 year old determined lady, who was living independently on her own. She was aware of her future and she was confident about what she is doing. We talked and we talked… and the day passed by. That night, I don’t know why, I woke up at middle of that night and I started crying loudly like a little kid. I didn’t know what was happening… I don’t know why it happened… but it was worse. I felt so helpless, so lonely, so isolated, so devastated, so destroyed and all I could do is, look up for God to help.

I think my brain had calculated that she would get married to someone else. She would no longer be the part of my dream. Someday, she would get busy with her life and would never talk with me. I prayed for a miracle… I prayed with my soul and heart.

The next day, I met her again. She looked more beautiful and elegant than ever. I have no words to describe, all I can say is, she is justified being my God’s gift. I had no words to say her. I just walked alongside her as silent as never. I wanted the time to stop, I wanted to turn and look into her eyes… I wanted to say her …. but I never realized that the day has come to an end. As a testimonial to the truth in my heart, I gave her the book of God. I don’t know, whether I will see her again. I don’t know whether she will be able to understand my unconditional love towards her. I will pray for her safety, for her happiness and for peace in her life.

Still my heart doesn’t understand all this worldly logistics, love is eternal.

Last night, I slept on my mother’s lap with tears rolling from my eyes. And I spoke non-sense of me being incapable, useless, physically challenged, idiot who doesn’t understand the reality, mentally disabled and what not. For a mother to listen such words about her son from her own son is a shattering experience. Deep in my heart, I knew, I was hurting her. I sincerely apologize for my words. And I want to say her that her son isn’t incapable. His name shall rise among the good. Insha’Allah.

And as far as my dream girl is concerned, my heart wants the dream to continue… maybe not on this planet but I am already in process of negotiating a deal with God for her hand in afterlife. And in return, I would do some great discoveries to take humanity ahead.

Every now and then, I keep thinking about the meaning of my life. Sometimes, I find an answer that convinces me and sometimes it hurts me deeply. Each one of us comes with different characters, aims, feelings and destinations but there is one thing common to all, the ‘death’. I would be untruthful if I say, ‘I don’t fear from death’. Yesterday, in my dream I saw my death. It was just like another dream, it wasn’t terrifying but the content of the dream shook me.

I was there, motionless looking at the people who have gathered to look at my dead body. I was there, helpless, unable to understand what would happen to me. I was there, powerless, lost in the jungle of memories. I could see a life, a selfish life, where every day and every night, I worked for myself, my ego and my pleasure. I could find no deed which I can say proudly to God. For that matter, the whole life appeared to be vague.

There I was… asking the question, what’s the meaning of life?

When I woke up, I realized that it was just a dream but a message to wake up. In pursuit of our selfish motives, we forget that our stay on this planet is temporary. Death is chasing us every moment and you never know when that moment will arrive. This deep uncertainty of life calls for rethinking on how we are living our lives.

I am convinced that there is life beyond death in some other form- else it makes no sense to define a short life compared to astronomical scales. But the knowledge that one can gain in this short span is critical for the success in the next phase. All of us are born with certain capabilities but there remains one capability common to all of us… the capability to love. Few days back, I read about the life story of an astronomer who dedicated his whole life in understanding a distant asteroid. My first thought was “whole life to study a single asteroid”? Then I realized, it’s the power of love.

Imagine, how happy God might have felt knowing that one person millions of miles away, made an attempt to understand a part of creation, which no one believed to be significant. There are millions of such unexplored objects in this universe, which are waiting to be loved and understood. For God, all of those objects are significant and He wouldn’t have made them if they weren’t. There is a reason why they exist.

Having said all that, the key idea I want you to take away is that, before the death reaches you, love the creation of God so much that even the death respects your love.

It was one of the biggest risks that Obama had taken since his arrival at Oval office and if the latest reports are to be believed, it appears to have paid off. In February, 2009 Pakistan’s Government announced a peace treaty with Taliban and imposed Sharia Law in Swat Valley. While, the rest of the world feared that such peace treaty would have dire consequences to common people in Pakistan as well to the rest of the world, there was one man who was thinking otherwise. Barack Obama, instead of opposing the peace treaty, welcomed it. As we shall see, this was the biggest political gamble that a President of America could have taken.

As expected by all, the so called ‘peace treaty’ allowed Taliban to come out in open to propagate their agendas. The agenda was simple, be under the constant fear of death and follow as they say, whether it is Islamic or un-Islamic. By the end of April 2009, demographics of the Swat Valley had changed. Taliban was threatening to take over Islamabad and the Nuclear Weapons of Pakistan. The offences done by Taliban to common people were all over media. For once, the citizens of Pakistan started realizing that Taliban isn’t what they expected it to be. The negative opinion about Taliban gained momentum and people wanted the Pakistan’s Government to react.

Prior to peace treaty between Taliban and Pakistan’s Government, the Oval office was running out of ideas in combating Taliban. Though an ally, Islamabad was never too sure in going head to head with Taliban. Taliban had huge influence over local tribes in Pakistan and the common people shared positive sentiments about Taliban, resulting in a deadlock between Pakistan and US in combating policies against Taliban. When Obama took over Oval office, he had to do something to break the deadlock. It was a daring move which could have easily backfired. Allowing Pakistan, an ally of US, to do a peace treaty with Taliban had suicidal consequences, but at the same time it offered a game plan for US. The game plan was simple and it was based on the assumption that Taliban won’t be satisfied with just Swat valley. Let Taliban take over streets of Swat, let Taliban spread the fear among local tribes, let Taliban spread its control beyond Swat valley and let Taliban threaten to take over Islamabad. All this will only result in bringing the Pakistan’s Government to their knees to fight against Taliban with the support of US. And that’s exactly what happened.

In early, May 2009, Pakistan’s Military with the support of US government went into combat with Taliban fighters in Swat Valley. Over two hundred thousand people fled the war zone, resulting in a huge humanitarian crisis. By June 2009, about two hundred Taliban’s fighters were killed and the Swat Valley was brought back under Pakistan’s Military control. While the US shared their intelligence with Pakistan’s Army in regaining Swat valley, it also helped Pentagon to get vital information from Pakistan Intelligence agencies on whereabouts of prominent leaders of Taliban.

On 7^th August 2009, Biatullah Mehsud, the leader of Taliban operations in Pakistan, was believed to be killed in CIA Missile strikes.

(Submitted to International Herald Tribune as Op-Ed article on 7th August 2009)

* Zürich (1897)     * Paris (1900)     * Heidelberg (1904)    * Roma (1908)    * Cambridge, U.K. (1912)    * Strasbourg (1920)    * Toronto (1924)     *Bologna (1928)     * Zürich (1932)    * Oslo (1936)    * Cambridge, USA (1950)    * Amsterdam (1954)    * Edinburgh (1958)    * Stockholm (1962)    * Moskva (1966)    * Nice (1970)    * Vancouver (1974)    * Helsinki (1978)    * Warszawa (1982, held in 1983)    * Berkeley (1986)    * Kyoto (1990)     * Zürich (1994)    * Berlin (1998)    * Beijing (2002) * Madrid (2006)

Every time I read about International Congress of Mathematicians and Fields Medal… I wondered when will the extraordinary league of mathematicians come down to India?… and finally my wait seems to be over… the biggest conference in the field of Mathematics ..the

“International Congress of Mathematicians” will be held at Hyderabad in August 2010. The conference will include awarding Fields Medals to the mathematicians (under 40 years age) who have done significant contributions in enhancing different fields of mathematics. It is the highest honor in field of mathematics, often referred as ‘Nobel Prize for Mathematics’.  It will also include over 150 lectures in various sub-fields within mathematics.

I don’t know who would get the Fields Medal this time around but certainly it will be one of the most memorable moments of my life to witness some of the greatest mathematicians on this planet receiving the highest honor.  I might end up in tears of joy watching that moment…  

My only wish, Grigori Perelman comes down to Hyderabad to give a lecture on Poincare Conjecture!

http://uohyd.icm2010.in/index.php

The biggest challenge before me now is to solve a significant problem, write a paper and get it accepted for this conference.  Anyone interested to collaborate, please email me at mohdabubakr@hotmail.com. We will have a brainstorming session on choosing the problem statement and let’s see whether we can get it solved and published in the conference.

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: 

\

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.