Meteoric rise

I cannot be the first person to be confused by the phrase 'meteoric rise' (another example is 'quantum leap'); you see meteors don't rise, they fall. But then recently I came across the story of Ensisheim meteorite; it fell in 1492 near the town of Ensisheim now in France. The thing is, after it was discovered and kings and such had taken its darshan, it was duly chained. It remained so for more than 300 years. Originally this was done to prevent it from taking flight again, in case it had mind to do so. Probably a common belief at the time. Does the phrase 'meteoric rise' has anything to do with this idea from pre-modern-science times? I wonder.

Why is it dark..

..when you close your eyes? The obvious answer is only part of the story. See this amazing post at Cosmic Variance for more.

Now when I was writing this, a similar question popped into my mind, where again the obvious answer is only part of the story. Why is it dark at night? I thought I will just find another post and link to it, but I could not find one (I am sure there are some), so I am writing it down myself.
Assume the universe is infinite, not only in space but also in time. In 17th century, when this question was first considered, this was a very reasonable assumption. In such a universe, wherever you look you will see a star. The stars get dimmer with the square of the distance, but their number increases with the square of distance too, assuming they are distributed uniformly. So at every distance, there is an equal amount of light output. Add infinite stars and you have infinite amount of light reaching you, even at night. This problem became known as Olbers' paradox. Of course, paradox means either your assumptions or your deduction is wrong. It turns out to be the former. Big bang theory tells us that universe does not extend infinitely in time, it came into existence 13.7bn years ago. So stars have not been shining forever, and only light from those within 13.7bn light years of us has reached us. And they won't keep shining forever either. And that is why, at this very moment, it is dark outside.

Bits from weekend

Made a trip to the British library after a long time. Usual interesting finds, about which you might see more in the future. On my way back, bought a copy of Mrityunjay. It's a gem of Marathi literature (also a winner of Dnyanpeeth award), but there is more to it. The year I was in 8th standard was filled with this book. Day and night I used to read and think about it. I may not read it cover to cover this time, but many pleasant hours of browsing surely lay ahead.

We all are eagerly waiting for Dark Knight Rises, but that is no reason for others in bollywood and hollywood to lose all hope and produce utter crap. But apparently that is what they are doing for a couple of months. Thankfully, the third iteration of MIB provides a welcome break. But first things first. This movie had 5 pre movie trailers, along with a sneak preview even longer. I welcomed this change. There was this new bond movie, Skyfall; the new spiderman movie (Trivia note: the guy who played Saverin in Social Network is the new spidey), and a new version of Total Recall (probably closer in storyline to the Philip K Dick novel on which it is based than the earlier version featuring Arnold S). All were bookmarked of course. Coming back to the movie, MIB3 retains some of the freshness of the original, which is a hard thing to do. The new villian is cool too, and the story is nicely integrated. Barring a couple of glitches, this is surely the tonic you will need to survive till July 20th.

Finished reading 'Quantum theory cannot hurt you' by Marcus Chown. The title is a little incomplete btw, about half of the book talks about relativity. And despite this, it's a small book, only 158 pages. It explains some things well, but handwaves others (ratio might be about 70/30). That is unavoidable for popular treatments; but I have read others and it was more apparent with this one. Interesting bits of trivia are aplenty though, they keep you reading even when you are familiar with the ideas. For example, the sun is getting lighter by 4 million tons per second (mass equivalent of its energy output). Or that if all the space were squeezed out of matter, the entire human race would fit in the volume of a sugar cube (because atoms are mostly empty space). But the best one probably is this quote,
"Black holes are where God divided by zero".

Enjoy!

Two approaches

'Intelligent design' and 'Evolution' are not just approaches to the question of how life came to be on earth [in that context, the first one is totally bogus], but are also problem solving strategies in general. In this latter context, I always favored ID. It is only now that I am (slowly) realizing that many of the larger questions of life can only be solved by Evolution. It lacks the beauty and the clarity of the former, but then it at least leads to a solution.

Recent (unrelated) snaps

My click-rate has gone high since getting The Note. Here is a recent sample. Now I am pretty bad with both theoretical and practical aspects of photography, but as (hopefully) can be seen, Note has a decent camera. Similar posts might be seen in the future too.

Gulmohar near my house. Reminds me of the fiery blossom I used to witness every summer in my grandparent's village.

A lazy shot on a lazy afternoon. With increasing distance you might spot part of my room, my terrace, my neighborhood, and probably eternity if you focus long enough on the middle section.

A bridge on my way to office. Can you guess which?

Instant messengers of the past ages, probably reminiscing about those ages on a tranquil evening. Taken during the snack hour at office.

Enjoy!

Tales of a checkup

[This again from the blogger app. Bad formatting and typos to be expected].

Company recently announced a medical checkup. Obviously my reaction was, "who'd get up so early?". But somehow people convinced me to go. Some points

I woke up on time, slid the heater (I have an immersion heater) into the bucket on time, and came back 15 minutes later. Only then I realized I had forgotten to turn on the switch. So much for being on time.

There were a great many tests, many of which I underwent for the first time. All were carried in a fairly low tech way though. Extraordinary amount of blood (at least by some accounts) was drained from people.

For the ECG, in addition to the electrodes, they also clamped my legs. Now I have seen (in movies) legs being clamped for only one reason, shock treatment. After this thought, I was laughing like an idiot through the whole test.

Breakfast was served at the place. Overall it was good, but the sandwich bread could have served as the source of raw dental profiling data.

My teeth received a complement compliment from the dentist, which they found rather amusing. But let's not forget I was standing between the guy and his lunch at the time.

As I said, there were quite a few tests, but one thing not mentined in the test case document was tested too. Our patience. The thing started at 8 and ended at 1. Thankfully friends from office were there so it was not boring.

Enjoy!

The deep range

[Apologies for formatting and any remaining typos. The blogger android app does not help with either].

Until quite recently, I had only read the space age science fiction of Arthur Clark, so when on a recent landmark trip I located 'The deep range', where sea is the stage, I immedietly picked it up. Just finished reading it.

Clark himself was an early underwater exploration enthusiast, as he relates in the preface. The book is a little different from his characteristic epic sagas though; it takes place in quite the near future and the science element is not miraculous, as is the wont of epics. Superb narrative and plot development, and interspersed bits of geniune wonder and wisdom are there as expected. And as one reviewer puts it on the back cover, "Enough crises to keep you reading avidly".

The book is an engaging read, but that is not the whole story. The topic of sea also brought back the roars  and the sparkles which etched themselves on my mind at the campfire at Diveagar in 2009. Getting reminded of them was as a great a pleasure as any.

Enjoy!

I like..

..that many more stars can be seen from Viman nagar as compared to Kothrud. Not as many as from Vadgaon though, and even that pales into insignificance against the star studded magnificience of Diveagar.

Some pretty cool special effects

located today just above my head.

And yes, have a nice weekend.

We ought to make that mandatory..

Error messages as Haiku.

There are many jewels in there, but here is my favorite

Error reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.

[Came across this while reading this article about BeOS. Worth a read though it is a little ranty].

Early morning browsing

Of course, you only live one life, and you make all your mistakes, and learn what not to do, and that's the end of you.

[From 'Surely you are joking, Mr Feynman', page 255]