Somu has his Cosmology
And Pratik his Demo-gogy
They wrote a book
It has a great look
And cites my poor pedagogy
Dedicated to my younger colleagues Professors Somnath Bharadwaj and Pratik Khastigir
And indebted to Dr. Shyamal Chakrabarty (didn't do spell-checks) for this free-for-all art form...
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
Perverse Musings of a Past Physicist
1. You and I and all of us are the same age....about 15 billion years, give or take a billion...when the whole damn thing exploded with a Big Bang.
2. There is as little Physics in Metaphysics as there are bulls, bullets or tins in 'bulletins'.
3. Astrology is illogical...those who ply this trade are called: 'astrologers'; unlike biology, pathology, psychology, cosmology or even psephology.
4. Religion first gave us dignity; while Science said we were naked apes. Now, it is touch and go; mostly 'go'.
5. 'Blog' is not the ugliest word. Physics takes that cake for inventing a particle they named: 'Gluon'.
6. Life on the thin rind of this tiny planet around this tiny Sun around this tiny Galaxy around this Infinite Universe is but a freak accident...but doesn't mean it isn't sexy!
7. Obama is right...we need 'change'...for the better of course...; but, the Universe is expanding, cooling off and degrading without let.
8. They say our atmosphere is highly non-linear....a butterfly on my lawn deciding to flap its tiny wings could trigger a thunderbolt on the Everglades of Florida...or a lightning in my gloomy heart!
9. They say: 'East is East and West is West, the Twain shall never meet'. But, there is no East, nor West for a crazy seamless spinning sphere; only North and South; but do opposite poles attract?
10. The economy was liberalized and market flooded with UNCLE CHIPS; they cried foul: 'Give us silicon chips; not potato chips'. But, I can eat those, can they eat these? Waiting for 'bio-chip computing'... Dial, talk and EAT your cell phone!
11. All know that a spinning disk with colors on it looks white. Few know that a spinning disk with black and white looks colorful. It is all in the eye, not on the disk. Physiology is no more Physics than Sex is all Biology!
12. Computers go haywire when batteries go low. And brain goes haywire when Serotonin goes low. And brains go 'high' when Cocaine goes in. And computers come from brains...
13. First they said we are at rest and the Sun moves around us: 'Blind him...that heretic Galileo!'. Then Einstein said it is all the same: at rest or in motion; it all 'depends'... except those that 'spin', who are special. Now they say that most everything spins...those that make us up like electrons, protons and neutrons; and those we see and feel like photons and gravitons; even Black Holes that we don't see, but will surely feel if they pass us by.... That makes each of us special!
2. There is as little Physics in Metaphysics as there are bulls, bullets or tins in 'bulletins'.
3. Astrology is illogical...those who ply this trade are called: 'astrologers'; unlike biology, pathology, psychology, cosmology or even psephology.
4. Religion first gave us dignity; while Science said we were naked apes. Now, it is touch and go; mostly 'go'.
5. 'Blog' is not the ugliest word. Physics takes that cake for inventing a particle they named: 'Gluon'.
6. Life on the thin rind of this tiny planet around this tiny Sun around this tiny Galaxy around this Infinite Universe is but a freak accident...but doesn't mean it isn't sexy!
7. Obama is right...we need 'change'...for the better of course...; but, the Universe is expanding, cooling off and degrading without let.
8. They say our atmosphere is highly non-linear....a butterfly on my lawn deciding to flap its tiny wings could trigger a thunderbolt on the Everglades of Florida...or a lightning in my gloomy heart!
9. They say: 'East is East and West is West, the Twain shall never meet'. But, there is no East, nor West for a crazy seamless spinning sphere; only North and South; but do opposite poles attract?
10. The economy was liberalized and market flooded with UNCLE CHIPS; they cried foul: 'Give us silicon chips; not potato chips'. But, I can eat those, can they eat these? Waiting for 'bio-chip computing'... Dial, talk and EAT your cell phone!
11. All know that a spinning disk with colors on it looks white. Few know that a spinning disk with black and white looks colorful. It is all in the eye, not on the disk. Physiology is no more Physics than Sex is all Biology!
12. Computers go haywire when batteries go low. And brain goes haywire when Serotonin goes low. And brains go 'high' when Cocaine goes in. And computers come from brains...
13. First they said we are at rest and the Sun moves around us: 'Blind him...that heretic Galileo!'. Then Einstein said it is all the same: at rest or in motion; it all 'depends'... except those that 'spin', who are special. Now they say that most everything spins...those that make us up like electrons, protons and neutrons; and those we see and feel like photons and gravitons; even Black Holes that we don't see, but will surely feel if they pass us by.... That makes each of us special!
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Ladies First....when Tiger Knocks!
The Blame Game has reached Physicists...rightly or more rightly!
It all started with Politics.
Till the Second World War, ordinary Physicists had little to do directly with Politics.
Then came the discovery of Nuclear Fission, essentially by two dogged German Chemists, from where Physicists took over. And then Hitler and the Second World War. And fears that Hitler was on the verge of bullying the great German Theoretical Physicist Heisenberg into building the first ever Atom Bomb (wrong nomenclature and wronger fear, as it turned out).
War breeds fear. And St. Einstein was roped in to convince Roosevelt that he better outdo Hitler. And then, all the Physicists of the Free World were herded into the forlorn desert sands of New Mexico to build the first ever Bomb.
And then the US Military took over and then Hiroshima.
And then the Cold War.
"For the first time", it was said, "Physicists have known Sin".
And then came the Military-Industrial Complex which ran the US economy; and everyone was hiring Physicists to use their talents for building more and more deadly weapons like Laser Bombs and precision guidance systems like the Global Positioning System (which uses the General Relativity of St. Einstein who would be turning in his grave to know that his 'innocent' theory is being put to military purposes).
Lots of Physicists refused to work for the Military. But many did...with good reason. When 'brains' and 'money' marry, half the offspring would be useful to Defense and the other half to 'Mankind'. Great inventions came up for everyday use...like the cell phone (used by terrorists for 'remote-timing' their bombs) and the MRI and PET for anyone who can afford them. And Nobel Prizes in Cosmology came from Bell Telephones Labs!
And the number of Physics Doctorates jumped by leaps and bounds. Theoretical Physics acquired an aura earlier reserved for Engineering and Medicine. They were all over the place.
Big Money made Physicists dream bigger. They got from the Government whatever they asked...billions of bucks to build costlier and costlier machines to test their pet theories of the Origin of the Universe and the Theory of Everything (known popularly as the String Theory).
But every dream run has an end. The Cold War came to a close and the US was looking inwards...and the all-wise US Congress stopped funding the Biggest Machine ever to be built, and spent their money in Health Care and Housing...
Ah!... 'There is the rub'..as Hamlet would say.
Without machines to test their theories, Theoretical Physicists were reduced to Dreamers.
The best of the brains pursuing String Theory were forced to look for other avenues of making a living and using their prodigious talents.
Then came the Greed of "Off-Shore Capitalism".
The buzz word everywhere was "Finance, Finance, Finance".
One of my most talented students working as a Theoretical Physics Professor at a renowned College of London told me that his Doctoral students asked him for problems involving not 'analytical work' but 'heavy computational work.' He was surprised and asked them why. Pat came the reply that they want a job in Banking and Finance since there is no future in Theoretical Physics!
One of my best students, after doing world-class work at Princeton and Berkeley in String Theory shifted to problems involving statistical models which the Investment Bankers needed badly.
My nephew who is a graduate in Mechanical Engineering holds a software job in a reputed Multinational Bank in Singapore. He said that their boss is a Theoretical Nuclear Physicist.
And then came the Doomsday for Investment Banking and the World Economy.
Nowadays I constantly read articles where the Global Bank Mangers are blaming their Theoretical Physics Employees for writing such inscrutable software programs that they can no longer read their Balance Sheets and; 'God only knows where our money went'.
Neither Obama nor Chidambaram looks like figuring out what exactly to do....
When Politics, Military and Greed run the system, why blame the poor Physics chaps?
"Physicists First....when Recession Knocks"!
It all started with Politics.
Till the Second World War, ordinary Physicists had little to do directly with Politics.
Then came the discovery of Nuclear Fission, essentially by two dogged German Chemists, from where Physicists took over. And then Hitler and the Second World War. And fears that Hitler was on the verge of bullying the great German Theoretical Physicist Heisenberg into building the first ever Atom Bomb (wrong nomenclature and wronger fear, as it turned out).
War breeds fear. And St. Einstein was roped in to convince Roosevelt that he better outdo Hitler. And then, all the Physicists of the Free World were herded into the forlorn desert sands of New Mexico to build the first ever Bomb.
And then the US Military took over and then Hiroshima.
And then the Cold War.
"For the first time", it was said, "Physicists have known Sin".
And then came the Military-Industrial Complex which ran the US economy; and everyone was hiring Physicists to use their talents for building more and more deadly weapons like Laser Bombs and precision guidance systems like the Global Positioning System (which uses the General Relativity of St. Einstein who would be turning in his grave to know that his 'innocent' theory is being put to military purposes).
Lots of Physicists refused to work for the Military. But many did...with good reason. When 'brains' and 'money' marry, half the offspring would be useful to Defense and the other half to 'Mankind'. Great inventions came up for everyday use...like the cell phone (used by terrorists for 'remote-timing' their bombs) and the MRI and PET for anyone who can afford them. And Nobel Prizes in Cosmology came from Bell Telephones Labs!
And the number of Physics Doctorates jumped by leaps and bounds. Theoretical Physics acquired an aura earlier reserved for Engineering and Medicine. They were all over the place.
Big Money made Physicists dream bigger. They got from the Government whatever they asked...billions of bucks to build costlier and costlier machines to test their pet theories of the Origin of the Universe and the Theory of Everything (known popularly as the String Theory).
But every dream run has an end. The Cold War came to a close and the US was looking inwards...and the all-wise US Congress stopped funding the Biggest Machine ever to be built, and spent their money in Health Care and Housing...
Ah!... 'There is the rub'..as Hamlet would say.
Without machines to test their theories, Theoretical Physicists were reduced to Dreamers.
The best of the brains pursuing String Theory were forced to look for other avenues of making a living and using their prodigious talents.
Then came the Greed of "Off-Shore Capitalism".
The buzz word everywhere was "Finance, Finance, Finance".
One of my most talented students working as a Theoretical Physics Professor at a renowned College of London told me that his Doctoral students asked him for problems involving not 'analytical work' but 'heavy computational work.' He was surprised and asked them why. Pat came the reply that they want a job in Banking and Finance since there is no future in Theoretical Physics!
One of my best students, after doing world-class work at Princeton and Berkeley in String Theory shifted to problems involving statistical models which the Investment Bankers needed badly.
My nephew who is a graduate in Mechanical Engineering holds a software job in a reputed Multinational Bank in Singapore. He said that their boss is a Theoretical Nuclear Physicist.
And then came the Doomsday for Investment Banking and the World Economy.
Nowadays I constantly read articles where the Global Bank Mangers are blaming their Theoretical Physics Employees for writing such inscrutable software programs that they can no longer read their Balance Sheets and; 'God only knows where our money went'.
Neither Obama nor Chidambaram looks like figuring out what exactly to do....
When Politics, Military and Greed run the system, why blame the poor Physics chaps?
"Physicists First....when Recession Knocks"!
Friday, January 30, 2009
My Magnum Opus
Here is the link to my Magnum Opus:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2009/10/sudhansu-datta-majumdar-genius-who.html
and the ten blogs that follow
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hope it works.
I call it my Magnum Opus, because, as I wrote to Sri G. Ranga Rao, IAS recently, it is more about the living Me than about the dead Great Man; and the world I lived in.
I fondly hope that my blogspot survives me. That much mushiness is excusable, I believe.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2009/10/sudhansu-datta-majumdar-genius-who.html
and the ten blogs that follow
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hope it works.
I call it my Magnum Opus, because, as I wrote to Sri G. Ranga Rao, IAS recently, it is more about the living Me than about the dead Great Man; and the world I lived in.
I fondly hope that my blogspot survives me. That much mushiness is excusable, I believe.
Terrorists, Animals, and Judges
I haven't written for more than three months (unless you deem filling in some half a dozen inane online recommendation letters to the U.S. Universities a literary activity).
Simply because I am happy with my own present state of affairs: Like the lion in the Gir forest who is busy digesting the lamb he has just pushed into his belly and is in no mood to get cross with the mice that are crawling all over him. As Jerome K Jerome says, a full stomach is a better soporific than a clean conscience, and cheaper at that. One's own relation with the Universe is always 'relative'. And the warm Hyderabad winter sun is more soothing than that shining on the sands of the Gir forest.
So, when I opened my favorite newspaper, Deccan Chronicle, reclining on my bed after a long morning walk, I was struck by the top item in the Banner Gist on its Front Page: NATION: Terrorists are animals: SC judge..7.
I duly opened Page 7 and there it was: the report from which I quote excerpts: 'A senior judge of the Supreme Court on Tuesday likened terrorists killing innocent people to "animals" and said that they cannot be allowed to take benefit of human rights....adding that those who killed innocent people by no stretch of imagination are human beings. They are worth not more than animals.'
Let us hope that Justice Arijit Pasayat has been either 'misquoted' or 'his comments have been taken out of context'. Let us also hope that the cub reporter on his 'beat' has been mis-edited and the sub-editor of the Banner Gist denied of his due hike lately....
Still, I was upset enough to drag myself to the keyboard at once. I am no animal lover, I never kept pets, nor lectured on animal rights and sometimes I am irritated by the antics of the 'animal rights activists'. But I do read some good and wholesome books on the animal world and enjoy it vicariously.
So, I wrote a Letter to the Editor of DC under the title: "Terrorists, Animals and Judges". I append it below verbatim:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sir:
I am pained to read the report on Page 7 (highlighted as the top item on the banner of the Front Page of the Deccan Chronicle dated 28 January) in which 'a senior judge of the Supreme Court on Tuesday likened terrorists killing innocent people to "animals" '.
Jim Corbett, who killed many man-eaters, was at pains in his book, 'Jungle Lore', to emphasize that no animal kills another animal or human being except in hunger or self-defense.
No animal is a "terrorist", except hounds trained by men.
Mark Twain famously said: 'No animal except man blushes; or needs to'.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First thing next morning, when I opened the Editorial Page, I was delighted to find my Letter accorded the top honors in the Letters Column. But was amused by its changed title: 'Unfair Remark'. And the first operative sentence completely deleted. Not because of space. The letters below mine were at least thrice longer, but more 'innocent'. The Editor was obviously covering himself or herself, afraid possibly of 'contempt of court' summons from a Serving Senior Justice of the Supreme Court, quoted by name.
You will admit that the title:'Unfair Remark' was very fair to the Judge but was 'unfair' to the animal world and ME. 'Unfair', my foot! If it had to be a 'Remark', they could have called me up; and I would have supplied half a dozen juicy adjectives impromptu: e.g. perverse, preposterous, scandalous, insensitive, senseless, goofy and more.
You will see that the thing starting from Jim Corbett out of the blue is not merely a watered-down version of my original, but is deeply mystifying to the readers, if any.
I should have added to my Letter the sentence: "No animal is a jihadi, with his own crazy notions of Heaven and Hell and Holy War; and all of them devoid of 'religious bigotry' ".
Talking of bigotry, I am always reminded of Oliver Wendell Holmes's analogy between the mind of a bigot and the pupil of the eye: "The more light you pour into them, the more they contract".
Seeing analogies is the stuff of 'Parallel Thinking'.
Simply because I am happy with my own present state of affairs: Like the lion in the Gir forest who is busy digesting the lamb he has just pushed into his belly and is in no mood to get cross with the mice that are crawling all over him. As Jerome K Jerome says, a full stomach is a better soporific than a clean conscience, and cheaper at that. One's own relation with the Universe is always 'relative'. And the warm Hyderabad winter sun is more soothing than that shining on the sands of the Gir forest.
So, when I opened my favorite newspaper, Deccan Chronicle, reclining on my bed after a long morning walk, I was struck by the top item in the Banner Gist on its Front Page: NATION: Terrorists are animals: SC judge..7.
I duly opened Page 7 and there it was: the report from which I quote excerpts: 'A senior judge of the Supreme Court on Tuesday likened terrorists killing innocent people to "animals" and said that they cannot be allowed to take benefit of human rights....adding that those who killed innocent people by no stretch of imagination are human beings. They are worth not more than animals.'
Let us hope that Justice Arijit Pasayat has been either 'misquoted' or 'his comments have been taken out of context'. Let us also hope that the cub reporter on his 'beat' has been mis-edited and the sub-editor of the Banner Gist denied of his due hike lately....
Still, I was upset enough to drag myself to the keyboard at once. I am no animal lover, I never kept pets, nor lectured on animal rights and sometimes I am irritated by the antics of the 'animal rights activists'. But I do read some good and wholesome books on the animal world and enjoy it vicariously.
So, I wrote a Letter to the Editor of DC under the title: "Terrorists, Animals and Judges". I append it below verbatim:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sir:
I am pained to read the report on Page 7 (highlighted as the top item on the banner of the Front Page of the Deccan Chronicle dated 28 January) in which 'a senior judge of the Supreme Court on Tuesday likened terrorists killing innocent people to "animals" '.
Jim Corbett, who killed many man-eaters, was at pains in his book, 'Jungle Lore', to emphasize that no animal kills another animal or human being except in hunger or self-defense.
No animal is a "terrorist", except hounds trained by men.
Mark Twain famously said: 'No animal except man blushes; or needs to'.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First thing next morning, when I opened the Editorial Page, I was delighted to find my Letter accorded the top honors in the Letters Column. But was amused by its changed title: 'Unfair Remark'. And the first operative sentence completely deleted. Not because of space. The letters below mine were at least thrice longer, but more 'innocent'. The Editor was obviously covering himself or herself, afraid possibly of 'contempt of court' summons from a Serving Senior Justice of the Supreme Court, quoted by name.
You will admit that the title:'Unfair Remark' was very fair to the Judge but was 'unfair' to the animal world and ME. 'Unfair', my foot! If it had to be a 'Remark', they could have called me up; and I would have supplied half a dozen juicy adjectives impromptu: e.g. perverse, preposterous, scandalous, insensitive, senseless, goofy and more.
You will see that the thing starting from Jim Corbett out of the blue is not merely a watered-down version of my original, but is deeply mystifying to the readers, if any.
I should have added to my Letter the sentence: "No animal is a jihadi, with his own crazy notions of Heaven and Hell and Holy War; and all of them devoid of 'religious bigotry' ".
Talking of bigotry, I am always reminded of Oliver Wendell Holmes's analogy between the mind of a bigot and the pupil of the eye: "The more light you pour into them, the more they contract".
Seeing analogies is the stuff of 'Parallel Thinking'.
Friday, October 24, 2008
A scholar and a gentleman
***************************************************************************************************************
William Radice is a renowned Tagore scholar and I happened to read excerpts from his Santinketan prose pieces. They were very sensitive and very readable.
I had an amusing exchange with him about 8 years ago. I was then taking The Statesman at KGP. Every fortnight there used to be a piece by Radice in the Editorial spread, titled something like "Letter from England". They were eminently readable.
In one such episode, Radice posed a question and invited answers from readers, with a prize awarded for the best answer.
He described a game show from a TV channel in England. After the first round, the TV contestants were left with one choice out of three to bag the jackpot. Radice described the game show and said the viewers got to know the right choice, but he couldn't get the logic behind it. It involved a little bit of reasoning based on conditional compound probabilities. After describing the game, he invited Statesman readers to describe their answer along with their logic in 100 words or less in such simple English prose that a layman like him with no knowledge of the Probability Theory could follow clearly. The contest was open to readers under the age of !8 (school students). He announced a pot of Rosogollas from K.C. Das as a prize for the best entry.
After reading the puzzle late at night, I found it interesting, cracked it in a few minutes and composed a short piece of around 50 words trying to put my logic in the simplest possible English prose devoid of jargon. I then e-mailed my answer to him, with the disclaimer:"I am 58 years old and so not eligible for this contest. But I happen to be a teacher who is obliged to teach kids of 18 in a language which is the mother tongue of neither them nor me. So, I would be very happy if you could judge my answer for its lucidity and respond". And I gave out my address as a Professor of Physics at IIT KGP (W.B.).
Within half an hour I got a reply from Radice (evening for him) stating that he now understood clearly the logic behind the conundrum and my piece would help him as a benchmark for judging the eligible contestants. So far so good.
A month down the line, he announced the winning entry by a student of Xaviers Calcutta or such. He quoted it verbatim among the many responses and asked the winner to claim his prize on his account from KCD.
But, before quoting the winning entry, he had the courtesy to acknowledge in print: "I am indebted to an English teacher from Bengal, by name G.P.Sastry (58), whose answer helped me understand the logic and was useful in judging the contestants. Of course, Sastry declared that he was naturally ineligible for the contest".
Subsequently I thanked him for his attribution, but reminded him that I am unfortunately not an English teacher, but a Physics teacher as he can check from my address.
Prompt came his reply apologizing for the error and with the memorable sentence: "How difficult it is not to make mistakes!"
Great attitude!
Subsequently we had a few amusing mails and the thing naturally petered off. A couple of years later he visited IIT KGP for giving the Tagore Memorial Lecture in the Netaji Auditorium. As you can guess from my shy nature, I neither attended his Lecture nor met him.
A true scholar!
...Posted by Ishani
****************************************************************************************************************8
William Radice is a renowned Tagore scholar and I happened to read excerpts from his Santinketan prose pieces. They were very sensitive and very readable.
I had an amusing exchange with him about 8 years ago. I was then taking The Statesman at KGP. Every fortnight there used to be a piece by Radice in the Editorial spread, titled something like "Letter from England". They were eminently readable.
In one such episode, Radice posed a question and invited answers from readers, with a prize awarded for the best answer.
He described a game show from a TV channel in England. After the first round, the TV contestants were left with one choice out of three to bag the jackpot. Radice described the game show and said the viewers got to know the right choice, but he couldn't get the logic behind it. It involved a little bit of reasoning based on conditional compound probabilities. After describing the game, he invited Statesman readers to describe their answer along with their logic in 100 words or less in such simple English prose that a layman like him with no knowledge of the Probability Theory could follow clearly. The contest was open to readers under the age of !8 (school students). He announced a pot of Rosogollas from K.C. Das as a prize for the best entry.
After reading the puzzle late at night, I found it interesting, cracked it in a few minutes and composed a short piece of around 50 words trying to put my logic in the simplest possible English prose devoid of jargon. I then e-mailed my answer to him, with the disclaimer:"I am 58 years old and so not eligible for this contest. But I happen to be a teacher who is obliged to teach kids of 18 in a language which is the mother tongue of neither them nor me. So, I would be very happy if you could judge my answer for its lucidity and respond". And I gave out my address as a Professor of Physics at IIT KGP (W.B.).
Within half an hour I got a reply from Radice (evening for him) stating that he now understood clearly the logic behind the conundrum and my piece would help him as a benchmark for judging the eligible contestants. So far so good.
A month down the line, he announced the winning entry by a student of Xaviers Calcutta or such. He quoted it verbatim among the many responses and asked the winner to claim his prize on his account from KCD.
But, before quoting the winning entry, he had the courtesy to acknowledge in print: "I am indebted to an English teacher from Bengal, by name G.P.Sastry (58), whose answer helped me understand the logic and was useful in judging the contestants. Of course, Sastry declared that he was naturally ineligible for the contest".
Subsequently I thanked him for his attribution, but reminded him that I am unfortunately not an English teacher, but a Physics teacher as he can check from my address.
Prompt came his reply apologizing for the error and with the memorable sentence: "How difficult it is not to make mistakes!"
Great attitude!
Subsequently we had a few amusing mails and the thing naturally petered off. A couple of years later he visited IIT KGP for giving the Tagore Memorial Lecture in the Netaji Auditorium. As you can guess from my shy nature, I neither attended his Lecture nor met him.
A true scholar!
...Posted by Ishani
****************************************************************************************************************8
Friday, August 1, 2008
Professor C L Roy....a mosaic of memories
***********************************************************************************************************
Professor C L Roy
(A Mosaic of Memories)
A ‘failed experimental physics’ Research Scholar from Andhra University, Waltair, I found sanctuary as a Junior Physics Faculty at I.I.T. Kharagpur at the age of 21 in 1965. The change from a mofussil sambar-slurping town to the all-India environs of KGP was sudden and painful, although my ‘orientation period’ was softened by a research scholar friend (AVS) who was already a year old at KGP.
AVS was somewhat ecstatic in describing one C. L. Roy (yet to become a Dr.), who was about 5 years older to us, does Theoretical Physics all by himself without any guide, held high ranks in his Calcutta University days, returned recently from Denmark, and was well-known as a popular teacher.
One morning when we were sitting under the Canteen mango tree, AVS pointed out CLR homing in on the Canteen. A tall, slim man with a small paunch and an urbane gait, cigarette in one hand and a twirling wayside ‘quill’ in the other for picking his ear with, in jeans pants and T-shirt (quite novel those days), a pronounced aquiline nose; CLR made quite an impression on me, and I at once aspired to try and become a ‘failed theoretical physicist’, if nothing else.
As CLR drew nearer, AVS got up and introduced me as a newcomer to the Physics Department. CLR gave me a warm handshake and asked me where I did my M.Sc. from. I respectfully replied; “Andhra University
It took me quite a while to figure out how my colleagues at KGP addressed each other. The Bengalee juniors called their seniors as ‘…..da’, while the seniors called their juniors by their first names. The North Indians preferred to address each other rather ceremoniously as Mister this or Doctor that or Professor so, as the case maybe. Everyone called me ‘Hey, Sastry’, and I decided not to address them at all if I could, but cut and run.
An year or so later, I saw a Notice saying CLR will be giving a series of lectures on QM for the benefit of interested research scholars and junior faculty. During those days I was trying to teach myself QM rather unsuccessfully and so decided to attend his lectures and absorb as much as I can. I found him a wonderful teacher, with a booming voice and clear enunciation. But, after a few lectures, it was all going above my head and I gave up; but I learned quite a few tips on good teaching while attending CLR’s lectures. (After wading through dozens of books on QM, I rested only after reading Feynman Lectures Volume 3 and the two tomes of Sakurai.)
CLR kept on publishing papers on Solid State Theory, got his Doctorate, guided students single-mindedly, and kept up his reputation as a great teacher. Not only did he pursue front-end research in Relativistic Solid State Physics, but he pondered deeply over fun topics like the Foundations of QM, Zitterbewegung, Klein paradox and such. And published papers in Educational Physics Journals like the American Journal of Physics.
In 1975, I happened to inherit a course on ‘Special Relativity and Electrodynamics’ from CLR. By then, we got acquainted quite a bit, and I found him full of good humor and easy of access. I went to him to know what topic he liked to teach most in that course. He unhesitatingly replied: ‘Thomas Precession from Moller’. It was a new topic to me and I was curious to learn it. Although I never took to Moller, Thomas Precession turned out to be an obsession with me, and I relished absorbing its implications continually to the bitter end of most of 25 years, till Sayan happily relieved me from that Course (much like Hercules did Atlas).
Around 1985 the entire IIT student community, with the blessings of the Gymkhana, brought out an Assessment of ALL the teachers at IIT for the first and only time. All the 350 teachers were graded by students and their names published in a single roster ranking each teacher with an accompanying percentage score. No doubt there was much understandable rancor and anger at the hurried way they went about the exercise; but it set a healthy precedent for an improved form of student feedback. Personally, it helped me a lot to be held accountable every semester, and kept me on my toes.
In that first-ever exercise, CLR TOPPED the Physics Department with a high score of 85, and he was much pleased with it, deservedly. It sure was one of his ‘best moments’ at KGP.
A decade or so later, CLR took over as Head of the Physics Department (by ‘rotation’). During that decade, we had a belated Emergency declared at KGP, and every HoD was forced to hold faculty meetings every month and every faculty member was forced to attend them. And CLR wanted to bring a transparent democracy into the ‘system’.
His first meeting chairing as HoD turned out to be his ‘orientation period’. There were the ex-HoDs up front trying to ‘teach’ him administration; there were his immediate juniors with their own private agenda, and there were the back-benchers like GPS and DB out to have as much free Tea and fun as they could. That meeting sure was a ‘primer’ for CLR, but he did not wince nor give up his attempts at democratizing.
Soon after that meeting, CLR summoned me to his ‘chamber’ in the top floor. Apparently, chaste Theoreticians preferred to dwell in such desolate isolation far above the milling crowd. That reminded me of a lesson we had in our Matriculation English prose by Samuel Johnson: ‘The Advantages of living in a Garret’. The impoverished artists and writers of London
CLR told me that he was unhappy with the way his first faculty meeting went. I at once promised to abstain myself from faculty meetings then on, if I was in the way. He replied ‘No, not at all’. All he wanted from me was my presence and ‘constructive support’. I felt rather flattered and promised it on condition that he will not force me to attend the ponderous Senate Meetings, and drop me from all Committees. Both of us kept our words. No doubt CLR enlisted the support of many of his other younger colleagues, and things went on swimmingly then on. Indeed, Professor Srinivas used to tell me that the faculty meetings under CLR were the best he ever attended.
To be truthful, I did have a few personal agenda of mine. One was to make some QM compulsory for all branches of B.Tech. This materialized eventually and that course ran successfully for many years. The next was to get computers installed in every undergraduate lab. This too was achieved with the efforts of Professors CLR, M. L. Mukherjee and B. K. Mathur, who convinced the then Director. Another was the introduction of a course on Gravity and Cosmology in our UG curriculum. Those were the decades of the Big Bang, Black Holes, Quasars and CMBR; and students were raring to have such a course. However, this had to await the advent of a new Director full of enthusiasm for these topics. Alas, by then I was too old and too near my retirement to learn much from the new expertise infused into the Department.
During his headship, I came closer to CLR and we used to have mutual family visits. These introduced me to the human side of the couple and their sophisticated appreciation of the good things of life like literature, music, gardening, cooking etc. Mrs. CLR must have been very supportive of his single-minded pursuit of research and teaching. Unlike many of his colleagues, CLR continued his research and teaching activities much after his ‘retirement’, till the day he was struck down.
It feels good to remember CLR as this lonely individual, always lost in thought while on his ancient push-bike or sitting alone under the mango trees and pondering. Here was a teacher who cared for and loved his students and scholars who in their turn reciprocated most heartily.
A life worth admiring and emulating!
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