Looking (only) for Nehru
I have a habit of watching one old Tamil film a day. Yesterday evening, I was watching a film released in 1987, called Ivargal Indiyargal ('They Are Indians'). In a scene in the film, an offic…
Satyendra Nath Bose
10 posts
PTI, celebrating scientists, and class/caste
PTI's decision to stick Anna Menon's name in a headline about the new SpaceX crew makes no sense.…
On anticipation and the history of science
In mid-2012, shortly after physicists working with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe had announced the discovery of a particle that looked a lot like the Higgs boson, there was some clamour in…
When cooling down really means slowing down
Consider this post the latest in a loosely defined series about atomic cooling techniques that I've been writing since June 2018. Atoms can't run a temperature, but things made up of atoms, l…
Relativity’s kin, the Bose-Einstein condensate, is 90 now
The BEC was Einstein's last major prediction and it took a revolution in quantum optics to be realised.…
The Nobel intent
About three weeks from now, the Nobel Foundation will announce the winners of the 2015 Nobel Prizes. Every year, commentators, opinionators and enthusiasts try to guess who will win the awards – some…
Gerald Guralnik (1936-2014)
Of the six scientists who came up with the idea of a Higgs boson in the mid-1960s, independently or in collaboration with others, I've met all of one. Tom Kibble was at the Institute of Mathematic…
The non-Nobel for Satyen Bose
Last week, as the Nobel Prizes were announced and Peter Higgs and Francois Englert won the highly coveted physics prize, dust was kicked up in India - just as it was in July and then in September 2012…
Would you just calm down about the Bose in the boson?
July, 2012 - A Higgs boson-like entity is spotted at the Large Hadron Collider. Indians decry the lack of celebration of S.N. Bose, the Bengali physicist whom bosons are named for. January, 2013 - Th…
The Indian Bose in the universal boson
Read this article. Do you think Indians are harping too much about the lack of mention of Satyendra Nath Bose's name in the media coverage of the CERN announcement last week? The articles in Hind…