36500 Days Ago

About 36,500 days ago, the man I admire the second-most published a paper called On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies. He was a patent examiner at the Swiss Patent Office in Berne. His name which I take with deep reverence was Albert Einstein. That paper introduced his theory of relativity to the world. For the record, a few lines from the introduction to the English translation of the paper:

. . . the unsuccessful attempts to discover any motion of the earth relatively to the “light medium,” suggest that the phenomena of electrodynamics as well as of mechanics possess no properties corresponding to the idea of absolute rest. They suggest rather that, as has already been shown to the first order of small quantities, the same laws of electrodynamics and optics will be valid for all frames of reference for which the equations of mechanics hold good.1 We will raise this conjecture (the purport of which will hereafter be called the “Principle of Relativity”) to the status of a postulate, and also introduce another postulate, which is only apparently irreconcilable with the former, namely, that light is always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity c which is independent of the state of motion of the emitting body. These two postulates suffice for the attainment of a simple and consistent theory of the electrodynamics of moving bodies based on Maxwell’s theory for stationary bodies. The introduction of a “luminiferous ether” will prove to be superfluous inasmuch as the view here to be developed will not require an “absolutely stationary space” provided with special properties, nor assign a velocity-vector to a point of the empty space in which electromagnetic processes take place.

[Thanks to Saheli’s Musings and Observations for the reminder.]

Teaching Adults to Think


Adults can be taught to think pretty much like a dog can be taught to walk upright on its hind legs. It is a nice amusing trick but does not get the dog very far. DeBono’s books are the equivalent of a dog-trainer’s handbook.

[Source: How to Think, to Fast, and to Wait.]

My Favorite Bits: A New Category

I have started categorizing the posts on this blog a bit at a time. I just added a category My Favorite Bits. One such is something which I call The Triple Point of the World at Zero Degrees Humanity. What I like about it is it rambles along and makes detours and finally reaches a conclusion that I found surprising.

As time permits I will add more to this category from the archives.

Swaggering Imbeciles

I have been reading and writing on the usenet for donkey’s years. It is a wonderful mine of information and an amazing sink of time. You could waste time like there is no tomorrow (or should that be the other way around?). Anyway, here is one gem from someone who writes under the pseudonym of Uncle Al.


Newly educated and semi-educated classes – social or intellectual – seek positions in government bureaucracies or social advocacy rather than in industry and commerce where competence is inarguably measured at the end of every business quarter. The growth of bureaucracies needed to absorb these swaggering imbeciles is precisely opposed to society’s growth and development both as direct philosophical enemy and as infinitely hungry sump to resources otherwise needed to support productive endeavors.

I like his expression swaggering imbeciles. Reminds me of the idiot politicians of India, especially the ruling dynasty.

Memory of Truths Never Known

tree silhouette

The beautiful things we shall write if we have talent are inside us, indistinct, like the memory of a melody which delights us though we are unable to recapture its outline. Those who are obsessed by this blurred memory of truths they have never known are the men who are gifted… Talent is like a sort of memory which will enable them finally to bring this indistinct music closer to them, to hear it clearly, to note it down…

Marcel Proust in Against Sainte-Beuve

Meditations on a New Education Model

Vipassana is a 2500-year old Buddhist meditation practice that claims its lineage to the Buddha himself. Various institutions carry on the tradition of teaching Vipassana and one such is led by Shri S.N.Goenka. Goenkaji, as he is known by his students, has his headquarters in Igatpuri, a small town near Nashik in Maharashtra, India. I came across Vipassana about 15 years ago in California through some American friends who are his students. Continue reading “Meditations on a New Education Model”

Story: Other Worlds to Sing In

At times I despaired but I don’t think I ever fully gave up hope that one day I will get internet connectivity from home. After a month and more calls than I would like to remember to VSNL, I did get connected today. So to celebrate my new-found freedom to post from home, I am offering you a story. It is called Other Worlds to Sing in. A short little story that is sweet. But I cannot read it without a lump in my throat. Here is the story aka Information, Please.

Life is a Random Draw

Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios, epitomizes what I believe about life. It is a random draw. Recently I came across a commencement speech he gave at Stanford University. There is a connection between Steve — you would not believe this one — and Hare Krishna!

I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.

Go figure.

Export Quality

Haldiram’s is perhaps the only brand known around the world which comes from Nagpur (my home town). They make a great variety of wonderful namkeens (traditional Indian salty snacks), sweets, and other stuff which can be lumped as Indian junk food. It may be my cultural chauvinism which is speaking but I think that Indian junk food (like Indian food in general) beats any other variety of junk food hands down.
Continue reading “Export Quality”