Reverse Osmosis

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When teachers were getting negligible pay (unlike today's IIT Profs who, I am told, are wallowing in a Take-Home of Rs 80K p.m. after the Sixth Pay Commission, which I missed by a hair-breadth, retiring in 2005 instead of 2006); Doctors, Engineers, Lawyers and even File-Pushers like IAS Officers used to twit:

"Those who Can't, Teach"

I have an Addendum:

"Those who no longer Teach, Blog"

Because, I find flippant Blogging an Analytic Continuation into the Complex Domain of flippant Teaching, with its plethora of zeros and singularities.

Amalendu, returning from an year at Germany, told me of a Pure Math Prof from Warsaw, who introduced himself, with a twinkle in his eyes: "I am Jarlowski, a Simple Pole".

I would have retorted: "I am gps, an Essential Singularity from KGP".

Prof BKR once told me in an M Sc Grand Viva that there are also what are called: 'Removable Singularities'. I asked him why they had not yet been removed from Phy Dept.

Jokes apart, here is something serious. A few hours after I posted my blog with the piquant title: "Beauty Spot", I received this computer-generated e-mail:

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Monday, May 17, 2010 12:34 AM
From: "Sheetal Sharma"
To: gps1943@yahoo.com

Hai,

Welcome to the glamorous world of beauty and fashion. The styles of fashion are changing everyday and to move with it is a necessity in today’s world. Whether you are a student, housewives, ladies, office goers or model we all want to look our best. And believe it or not it is not at all difficult sitting at home with no cost and no parlor fees. With some simple ideas and handy tips this world of fashion and beauty will look your own personal paradise. You can also visit my website at http://beautyfashiononline.com.

Since the styles of fashion are changing everyday i also welcome your overwhelming suggestions over this website.

Lets come together beautify and be a part of glamorous world.

Sheetal

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I guess I should scan the relevant Page from Sommerfeld's 'Optics' having the Vibration Spiral & Poisson Spot and send it to Sheetal in response to her request for "overwhelming suggestions". Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of Sommerfeld; maybe Aniket can help.

The title of today's blog: 'Reverse Osmosis' may elicit many e-mails from Water Purifying Companies. That would indeed be fun.

Osmosis was surely my favorite topic in Physical Chemistry. I had always wondered how the shriveled, wrinkled, dried brown grapes I fetched from the shop took on a glossy, full, and reddish meaty shape when they floated in my Payas.

And, all that talk about 'semi-permeable membranes' was truly 'potty' ('slightly crazy' in the British slang of our OBE).

[Joke: Talking of 'crazy' and 'semi-':

"My brother has shifted from Chemical Engineering to String Theory. Guess how old is he?"
"Must be 40"
"Arrey, how did you know?"
"Mine shifted from Chemical Engineering to Particle Physics Experiments; and he is only 20, and is the well-known semi-crack of the family"]

'Osmosis' is the well-known migration from Physics to Software, Banking, Biology, Genetics, Finance, Eng Lit, IAS etc...

'Reverse Osmosis' is the Minority Carrier Phenomenon of migration from Engineering to Physics, in our times.

When I joined Physics Department at IIT KGP, there were unfortunately only 2 Branches in which Professors did 'Serious' Research: 'Solid State Physics' and 'X-Rays'. HNB, who inherited the Headship was progressive and recruited SDM in Theoretical Physics and VVR in Experimental Nuclear Physics, along with gps, in whom he found an enthusiastic B Tech Teacher (CLR in a Faculty Meeting: "B Tech Teaching is like cleaning a shit-tank", to which myself and DB added: "Which is necessary for the hygiene of the Physics Dept")

After Dharam Vir & Co made me teach Relativity in Electrodynamics in 1969, there was this exodus from Calcutta to KGP of the best and brightest of its students; Reason: Cal Univ & Presidency College practically shut shop due to Naxalite violence in which many of its students were willy-nilly involved. So, most parents preferred the lesser evil of IIT KGP. And the toppers were wriggled into the top Branch, E & ECE (there was no CSE then) against their wishes, because Physics imbued the unwanted spirit of 'Progressive Revolutionaries' of the Feynman Age.

But their hearts were in Physics. I guessed this and made a suggestion to HNB that our Ist Year B Tech Syllabus be modernized to include at least Relativity if not QM (DB didn't join KGP then). He asked me to give a 'Talk' on Syllabus Revision in F-127 to the Faculty about my ideas. There was furor. A compromise was reached that the top branches like ECE and ME should have Relativity while the less-interested could continue with the old Pulleys and Wheatstone Bridges.

And, the Mouse who was asked to bell the Cat was myself.

In that batch, I remember the front-bencher PSM and the second-bencher (eventual PGM) SD were unusually delighted with as simple things as Length Contraction and Twin Paradox.

And went to the US and promptly shifted to Physics: PSM to Black-Hole Physics and SD to Semiconductor Physics [he used to write lead-articles in Physics Today (APS, USA Publication)].

35 years later, just before I retired, Sayan and a gentleman were waiting for me in front of my Ofice. Sayan said: "Here is someone you taught a long while ago and he was asking to meet you". "I said; Hi! PSM, how are you? I know you are in MatScience. Our student there, ST was talking about you."

PSM was very delighted that I not only remembered him, but also was tracking his world-line. We talked about SD, the KGP of 1970s, the usual nostalgia and all. He shifted to Cal a couple of years back. Big shot now; but for me the starry-eyed front-bench freshman, always.

Fast forward to 1990:

CSE has taken over. Anyone who is someone wanted to do Algorithms and Networking and what not. Physics has fallen by the wayside. Only determined young men pursued it and few could stick to it. 3 post-docs and yet no 'tenure-track'.

But, Black Holes, Quasars, Quantum Gravity, ToE were in the Air. Second Coming.

And, I and a handful of Physics Teachers had to fight tooth and nail to teach QM to every student of B Tech against the wishes of KLC, the Diro, who wanted to teach every B Tech First Year a Course on: 'Characterization of Materials'.

Thanx to some Progressive Engineering Teachers fond of Physics like Professor Joshi and Amalendu, we won hands down. And we started teaching a COMPULSORY QM Course of one semester in the 2nd Year for All B techs (a decade later, Sayan & Co saw to it that QM came down to First Year Jumbo, which I had to teach for the last 5 years of my stay at KGP).

In 1990, I was teaching my First Batch of Chemical Engineers this QM Course. Most students were just about forgiving, because apart from Cultural Value they could not find any use for QM in their Inks, Dyes, and Pulp Factories.

But this guy in the last bench, PC, was aglow. Always asking probing questions.

The last but one Class over; and I find in my Locker a fat envelope with 5 hand-written PT Sheets full of agony asking me how he could survive without Physics for the rest of his life. Apparently, he was madly in love with Physics ever since he knew himself but was forced into Chemical Engineering by his parents because Physics has 'no prospects'.

I asked him to meet me in my Office next evening. PC came and started literally sobbing. It was a difficult time for me and DB. He said he was determined to shift to Physics Dept. But unfortunately it was too late for a Branch Change: he was already in Second Year. He realized it and his agony was even more unbearable.

I asked him to meet me next day and we would see what could be done.

24 hours didn't cool his fervor.

I told him to continue in his Ch E. And prepare for AGRE in Physics the next day onwards. And show me his scores after 2 more years. And then I promised to move Heaven and Earth to see that he gets into some Grad-School or the other in Physics in the US. Meanwhile, he should meet me whenever he wants to, for 'coaching' in Physics one-on-one.

PC then on used to meet me quite often in the beginning but at times later on when he got the hang of AGRE Physics.

I clearly recall one late evening, when he brought his Griffiths and wanted to apply the Maxwell-Stress Tensor for the Electric Field of a single point charge...something no one does. We two sat down for 15 minutes and did the surface integral; And, lo and behold I understood for the first time the meaning of just not the Lines of Force but the Faraday Tubes of Induction, which we were forced to read from an unreadable book called Starling. My heart was full. The 'linear extension and lateral compression' that Faraday talked about much before Maxwell and his Stress-Tensor' were born canceled exactly to give zero force!

I sent him to the Summer School at Bangalore sponsored by IUCAA. He did very well there and one reco was guaranteed from Bangalore.

And I advised him to take up the Elective in the Cryogenics taught by the wonderful Physics Professor VRK. Another reco in place.

And, he topped the AGRE at KGP beating our own Physics students.

And for the first time I COMPOSED a Full Page Reco exclusively for him (for others I had the 'template' with the name and date changed year after year).

He applied to 14 places, most of them without the hefty Registration Fees.

He was modest, and was beyond himself when he got Admission and Fellowship with Fee Waiver from Leheigh.

And within a month he got everywhere he applied.

He went to Rochester. Changed to Minnesota the next semester.

Aniket met him at the Wilson High Energy Labs at Cornell a decade later.

I found that his Home Page contained my name, while I was looking for 'gps' entries.

A few months back I got a mail from him.

You might have guessed: PC stands for 'Pussy Cat'.

End of 'Reverse Osmosis'.

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