A tale of two cities

Today is the day to tell the tale of two cities, here, two major metros in our own country, viz. Chennai and Kolkata.

Good news first, plus our own city, so Chennai. The city is in a celebratory mood for its 385th birthday,  viz. August 22, 1639. as per East India Company records. The city is pulling out all stops with Heritage walks, exhibitions of vintage photos, food festivals and what have you. Every newspaper is pulling out its archival material. Needless to say, the flagship newspaper of Chennai, the Hindu,  has the best, given its premier position in the city and its long history. This is one week when we look forward to the new story on every page.  We can't do better than them, so here are some links. Meanwhile, happy birthday, our city by the Bay of Bengal.

This brings us to the second city, viz. the premier city by the eponymously named Bay, viz. Kolkata. Here, the mood is somber and furious, due to the horrific rape and murder of a young Kolkata doctor at her work place at a government hospital. The events that led to the crime highlight the lack of safety at the workplace for women, the rackets that occur in large public hospitals, the nexus between the goons, the politicians, the police, and sadly, the custodians of the hospital. All are presently blaming the others, and the city is virtually under siege. Meanwhile, a young and promising life has been lost, in the most tragic way. It is to be hoped that the turmoil will finally lead to long lasting improvement in working conditions and environment, and not to be forgotten once the candles blow out at the candle light vigils. There have been too many such cases, and nothing changes after the hue and cry is over. Here, the fact that the city is under a virtual shutdown, may finally lead to some serious measures. There are lessons here for everyone everywhere, and no room for complacency on anyone's part.

So here we have the best of times and the worst of times, both together. We look forward to less turbulent times and more equanimity.

This blog post is by Neelima Gupte and Sumathi Rao.

 

The Paris Olympics 2024

The 2024 Olympics kicked off in Paris yesterday. Since the greatest show on earth was opening in the greatest, or the most beautiful city on earth, we all expected a great opening. The very idea of an open air ceremony, all over the City of Light sounded wonderful, and justified plonking in front of the TV in the middle of the night. Alas, it was all a letdown. 

To begin with, the weather gods did not cooperate. This was good for the staff at the site. Sundry umbrella holders got their moment in the sun, (well, rain!) in front of an audience of billions world wide. The lighting and mechanics were superb, as might be expected of the French, the same could not be said of the entertainment, perhaps a matter of individual taste. Lady Gaga was reliable, if predictable. The Paris by the Seine had its moments, although our heart goes out to the teams shivering on the bateaux. They couldn't have liked it much. All the same, the boats gliding by the bridges, and the aerial view were pretty and theatrical. The theater, however, was startling, to say the least. We know times have changed, but so much camp is distasteful, most likely to most of the worldwide audience. The lady on the bridge and the new version of the French national anthem made up for it. Sorority? Merci, La belle France! We will remember. Celine Dion is supposed to have closed. Unfortunately, the eyes closed before this, will catch up today. 

Finally, it is all about, faster, higher, stronger! The athletes have spent years training for these two weeks. The triumphs and heartbreaks will hold us all spellbound. Everyone can't win but we can wish everyone their career best. Looking forward to your exploits, hang the medals tally. All the best. 

This blog post is by Neelima Gupte and Sumathi Rao. 

Here is the heartbreak. Vinesh Phogat. 100 gms between her and the Olympic gold. This gutsy girl deserved better luck. The IOA should really do a special case for her silver medal. She's earned it. 

They didn't,  it was sad , although as per rules.  The conspiracy theories are not relevant, but there definitely was unsympathetic consideration of the case. Don't retire Vinesh. There will be another Olympics!

Congratulations to the medal winners. The Indian contingent now reaches Bronze quite reliably. However, the Padukone advice to push harder is well taken. As we heard someone say, the teams now need more sports psychologists. Bindra was right when he said, there is only so much money can do.

Rahul Basu 04/03/1956-05/03/2011

Farewell My Friends 

 Farewell My Friends 

It was beautiful 

As long as it lasted 

The journey of my life. 

I have no regrets 

Whatsoever said

 The pain I’ll leave behind.

 Those dear hearts 

Who love and care... 

And the strings pulling 

At the heart and soul... 

The strong arms 

That held me up 

When my own strength 

Let me down. 

At the turning of my life 

I came across Good friends, 

Friends who stood by me 

Even when time raced me by. 

Farewell, farewell My friends

 I smile and Bid you goodbye.

 No, shed no tears 

For I need them not 

All I need is your smile.

 If you feel sad 

Do think of me 

For that’s what I’ll like 

When you live in the hearts 

Of those you love 

Remember then You never die. 

 Rabindranath Tagore

This blog post is by Neelima Gupte and Sumathi Rao

Ram Mandir post

No, this post is not about the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. This post is about a Ram Mandir in the 60s in Vivekanand Colony in Raipur M.P (now Chattisgarh). The children of the colony played all over the colony till 6.30 in the evening and finally landed up at the temple for the evening arti and even better, the evening prasad. The temple was brand new, and the idols were beautiful white marble. The pujari was enthusiastic, and decked out the idols in new clothes every day, with special clothes and ornaments for festival days. Parents sometimes landed up at arti time, to pick up their wandering children and also to see the latest decorations, and participate in the evening arti. Ram Navmi was big, with a cradle for the infant Ram, and a major pooja in the afternoon. It was great fun, and taught Hindu customs in a simple way to impressionable children. No politician ever landed up there, unless they lived nearby and also came to worship. Many temples in the country still function on the same basis, viz. as places of worship and community centres for the neighbourhood. Why then the hue and cry about one temple in a remote and contentious place with a national holiday to watch a ceremony on TV, and matching processions all over the place? Ram, the protector, is appealed to in times of distress via the Ram Raksha, the prayer we learnt after going home after the evening arti. The time has come to appeal to him to protect us from grandiose and dubious forms of worship, and to take us back to the simpler forms of our childhood days! This blog post is by Neelima Gupte and Sumathi Rao.

IPA Rahul Basu Memorial Award 2022

Here is a short summary of the work for which the IPA Rahul Basu Memorial award for 2022 was given.

The awardees:

Dr. Anupam Ray, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai Thesis Title: Unravelling the Mystery of Dark Matter with Stars & Black Holes.


Dr. Anuparam Ray won the award for his important contributions to astroparticle physics. Anupam improved the formalism of dark matter capture in stars using multiple scattering techniques.  He also studied the possibility that neutron stars could transmute into light black holes. One of the remarkable results he found was that asymmetric dark matter could accumulate inside neutron stars and transmute them into a low-mass black hole. These transmuted black holes could be lighter than allowed by the naive Chandrasekhar limit, and could find  relevance  for the unusual mass-gap objects being seen by LIGO. Another interesting direction in his work was the calculation of neutrino based constraints on the abundance of light primordial black holes.

Dr. Shubham Pandey, Indian Institute of Science Education and research Pune
Thesis title: Performance of High Granularity Calorimeter prototypes for the CMS HL-LHC upgrade in beam test experiments at CERN.

Dr Shubham Pandey was a part of  the efforts towards preparations for beam test experiments and data taking at CERN for high luminosity LHC operations.
He provided the first set of calibrations of calorimeters using muons in the beam test experiments, which led to alignment corrections and signal to noise studies. His analysis of pion data led to an algorithm which performed well across the full energy scale used in the experiment. His work superceded previous results and led to the identification of lacuna in calibration and resolved discrepancies in the scale, leading to improved final results. His thesis constitutes an important reference document for new analysers.

 The runners up:

Dr. Biswajit Sahoo, Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Prayagraj. Thesis title: Classical and Quantum Subleading Soft Theorem in Four Spacetime Dimensions.

Dr Biswajit and collaborators gave a proof of the a multiple soft graviton theorem in a general theory of matter coupled to graviton fields. He also verified this for a special case. They further extended this to the quantum version of the soft graviton theorem, and found logarithmic corrections similar to those found earlier for the classical case. He also added the case of electromagnetic radiation. Here, these logarithmic corrections determine the late time tail of the gravitational radiation emitted during any scattering or explosion, and could be observed in future gravitational wave experiments. Further analysis of these corrections was carried out via classical analysis.
To summarise, Dr Biswajit's thesis contained very sophisticated technical analysis with consequences which can in principle be tested in the classical limits and in experiments.

Dr. Samir Banik, National Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhubaneswar
Thesis title: Search for Lightly Ionizing Particles in SuperCDMS and simulation of neutron
backgrounds.
 

Dr Samir Banik's work is a very important contribution towards detectors of very low energies where lightly ionising particles can exhibit fractional charge. The thesis developed suitable modules in GEANT4 which is a universal simulation tool for nuclear and particle physics.
The simulation work done here is to be integrated in the official GEANT4 toolkit in future.
This was a highly commendable contribution. In addition, the thesis set very strong limits for fractional charges. These results provide an important step towards search of light charged particles and design of dark matter detectors in India.
 

It was a great pleasure to listen to the awardees present their work, exactly one year ago at IISER Mohali.

The depth and breadth of the thesis nominated and awarded speaks for the high level at which research is carried out in Particle Physics in the country.

Grateful thanks to the award committee and others who did the gruelling work of reading the 20+ nominations and narrowing them to 4, and also to the Indian Physics Association for administering this award. 

This (much delayed) blog post is by Neelima Gupte and Sumathi Rao.

 

 

Chandrayaan 3 lands on the moon

Chandrayaan 3 made a successful soft landing on the moon. India now joins the elite group of four countries which has managed to do this, the earlier three being the United States, Russia and China. 

 Image from lander Vikram

 The first pictures

Also happy Madras week.  Now that we have landed on the moon, maybe Chennai corporation can acquire from Isro the technology required to fix the lunar surface on the roads of  Velachery (our local suburb).

This post by Neelima Gupte and Sumathi Rao

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Rahul Basu 04/03/1956-05/03/2011

 The Good

The good are vulnerable
As any bird in flight,
They do not think of safety,
Are blind to possible extinction
And when most vulnerable
Are most themselves.
The good are real as the sun,
Are best perceived through clouds
Of casual corruption
That cannot kill the luminous sufficiency
That shines on city, sea and wilderness,
Fastidiously revealing
One man to another,
Who yet will not accept
Responsibilities of light.
The good incline to praise,
To have the knack of seeing that
The best is not destroyed
Although forever threatened.

Robert Burns.

This post is by Sumathi Rao and Neelima Gupte.