========================================================================
Like my father, my Ph. D. guide SDM was born during the First World War and grew up during the Second. Having seen the Freedom Struggle and the ‘Made in Britain’ Bengal Famine, SDM was fiercely anti-racist and anti-colonial. But the only thing he was equipped to do in life was Research in Theoretical Physics. Other than this and a great talent for English he was as innocent as a babe in the woods throughout his life.
Soon after his marriage, SDM and his newly-wed bride were visiting his in-law’s village in charming rural Bengal. Having nothing else to do, he was pursuing an idea he had of finding a new class of solutions to the famous General Relativity Equations of Einstein. And while returning from an evening walk, he hit the jackpot. Coming home entirely flushed, he pulled his wife aside and ‘announced’ that her husband would soon be a ‘famous man’. (Upon which she chided him for returning so late after dusk and ordered him to quickly wash his hands and get ready for ‘sumptuous loochies’.)
On returning to Calcutta, he wrote up his ‘invention’ and, wanting to teach the ‘goras’ a lesson, submitted it to the Bulletin of the Calcutta Mathematical Society just to show that Indian Science is no leaner and meaner than the Western.
To his bewilderment, his manuscript bounced from the Editor’s desk without as much as a ‘referee comment’. Disgusted, he sent it to the top class American Journal, Physical Review which accepted it without revision and published it urgently without the mandatory Abstract (the referee wrote it up himself!). Within a few months of its publication SDM did become a ‘famous man’ in Relativity circles and his outlandish work entered text books in no time.
Thereafter SDM never sent any of his papers to Indian Journals. To this day our Babu would promote only those candidates who publish in American Journals and trash all papers published in Indian Journals. This is God’s Truth. He would rather bring Harvard, Yale & MIT to India but not give academic and financial freedom to our own backyard IITs despite ‘intellectual’ hunger strikes.
SDM used to remark that the worth of any country is determined by the quality of its Physics Journals. And would say that China will never be any good because the ‘Acta Physica Sinica’ is worse than the ‘Indian Journal of Physics’.
During the Soviet regime USSR had the great good fortune of Landau and his school which lifted up the standards of Russian Physics Journals and also of the Communist East European nations like Poland and Czechoslovakia. The post-war Japan also had good Physics journals. I doubt if it is true nowadays.
All worthwhile Scientific Research and Invention continue to be American with crumbs thrown here and there…..none to India and China, which are boasting of becoming World Powers in the near future.
Yes; the US, Europe and Japan are turning out to be nations peopled by the old, the retired and the sick, while China and India will profusely breed young blood which can be exploited as ill-paid manufacturing and intellectual labor force. This advantage will certainly make them rich Economic Powers, but not Scientific Powers.
I will be watching from up there soon when the ‘New Caste System Among Nations’ (NCSAN) will be as follows:
1. The US will be the poor sick but learned Obama Brahmins. All other nations will take their intellectual inputs from the Navi Brahmins paying them a pittance other than great reverence.
2. China will be the New Khatriyas with their burgeoning arms and ammunitions and a vast army of Yellow Soldiers bereft of freedom and ideas but only taking orders from the Top Manchurian Kings and Mandarins.
3. India will be the New Baniyas, full of tricks to make money and invest it here and there to pile it up without paying their slave labor more than enough to keep their body and soul in ‘working’ condition.
4. Rest of the World will be Shudras, apart from:
5. Africa which will be the New SC.
6. Britain, Canada and Australia will turn Buddhist Dalit erecting statues of Newton and Hawking.
7. Shorn of oil revenue (the US will find alternate sources of Energy) the oil-rich Sheikdoms will vanish from the Earth like Dinosaurs having no new ideas how to cope with life apart from jihad.
This is the ‘Prediction of gps’, Allah be kind to his soul!
=================================================================================
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Mehsud mehsud
==============================================================================
Mehsud mehsud
Dear Hakimulla Bhai:
I was delighted at your statement that after Islamizing Pakistan you will turn your attention to India.
I keenly look forward to the Day! To my utter disgust I find India a totally irreligious and corrupting civilization (if you can call it that). Our forefathers from Ghazni to Aurangzeb tried hard to achieve what you laudably propose to do, but utterly failed.
Instead, they settled down here and got themselves corrupted thoroughly. (Akbar, the Great,…[no not the Allah Ho Akbar]…, even proposed a new mongrel religion that is neither here nor there).
I have been living in Nizam’s own Hyderabad for over 5 years now and I am distressed to find our Hyderabadi Muslim Bhais participating whole-heartedly in Ganesh Puja, Durga Puja, Diwali and even Bathkamma Puja.
On the other hand, the non-Muslims of Hyderbad, chiefly the Kafir Hindus, after gorging their full meals throughout the day during the Holy Ramzan month, eagerly queue up at Iftar time at the famed Hyderabadi Haleem outlets and gobble up all the available delicious Irani Haleem, leaving nothing to our starving Muslim bhais. (They even sell Veg Haleem nowadays for pony-tailed Brahmins).
Please do something about this as early as possible. But make sure you won’t settle down in Hyderabad and take to its mysterious ways (in which case I offer to be your mentor in the Hyderabadi culture, such as it is).
Happy Diwali!
Mehsud mehsud
Dear Hakimulla Bhai:
I was delighted at your statement that after Islamizing Pakistan you will turn your attention to India.
I keenly look forward to the Day! To my utter disgust I find India a totally irreligious and corrupting civilization (if you can call it that). Our forefathers from Ghazni to Aurangzeb tried hard to achieve what you laudably propose to do, but utterly failed.
Instead, they settled down here and got themselves corrupted thoroughly. (Akbar, the Great,…[no not the Allah Ho Akbar]…, even proposed a new mongrel religion that is neither here nor there).
I have been living in Nizam’s own Hyderabad for over 5 years now and I am distressed to find our Hyderabadi Muslim Bhais participating whole-heartedly in Ganesh Puja, Durga Puja, Diwali and even Bathkamma Puja.
On the other hand, the non-Muslims of Hyderbad, chiefly the Kafir Hindus, after gorging their full meals throughout the day during the Holy Ramzan month, eagerly queue up at Iftar time at the famed Hyderabadi Haleem outlets and gobble up all the available delicious Irani Haleem, leaving nothing to our starving Muslim bhais. (They even sell Veg Haleem nowadays for pony-tailed Brahmins).
Please do something about this as early as possible. But make sure you won’t settle down in Hyderabad and take to its mysterious ways (in which case I offer to be your mentor in the Hyderabadi culture, such as it is).
Happy Diwali!
DC: Midas Touch
===========================================================
Sir:
This is with reference to the news item on Page 4 of DC, 17 October, stating that the TTD authorities are going ahead with gold-plating the sanctum sanctorum of Lord Venkateswara in spite of apprehensions that it will damage the ancient inscriptions on the temple walls.
Apparently we are determined to transmute Lord Balajee into King Midas.
G. P. Sastry
G-4 Sri Sai Apartments
6-3-596/21/9
Erramanzil
Hyderabad 500 082
G.P.Sastry
http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/
Sir:
This is with reference to the news item on Page 4 of DC, 17 October, stating that the TTD authorities are going ahead with gold-plating the sanctum sanctorum of Lord Venkateswara in spite of apprehensions that it will damage the ancient inscriptions on the temple walls.
Apparently we are determined to transmute Lord Balajee into King Midas.
G. P. Sastry
G-4 Sri Sai Apartments
6-3-596/21/9
Erramanzil
Hyderabad 500 082
G.P.Sastry
http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Sudhansu Datta Majumdar (The Genius Who Touched My Life)
=========================================================================
This is not Homage; this is my homage, if you make allowances for my congenital irreverence. The middle vowel is ever present here, more so to apologize for lapses.
These stories are my recollection of events thirty five years past. That is a long while. Most of the players are sadly no more; and the rest are like me, senior citizens on their way. Professor Majumdar was 55 then, a good 30 years my senior. And memory falters; names forgot, and truth colored by the soft glow of nostalgia for long-lost youth and exuberance.
Genius is a buzzword, and controversial. By Genius, I mean what James Gleick meant writing about Feynman (we are in good company). Genius is one whose artistic or intellectual outputs are enjoyed by many; but how he got there, no one has a clue.
Thurber owned more than forty dogs in his lifetime. His frugal sketches of his dogs and his pieces on them (in particular: 'How to Name a Dog') are some of the most celebrated works in American humor. He says that when he goes out to his garden chair and calls his dogs, all of them run to him and lick him, except his bloodhound. This creature slowly follows his trail from the bathroom via the garden steps and finally winds his way to his chair and sits there unconcerned.
Mortified, Thurber says that the fellow is least interested where he is; but only how he got there!
Apparently there are no ‘intellectual bloodhounds’ winding their way through the labyrinthine mind of a genius.
I will be rewarded if these files give at least an inkling of the genius of Professor Majumdar, and his simple, artless, but charming personality.
For help gratefully received in this effort, please do see Acknowledgments.
Lastly, I can’t resist quoting from the Guru Granth Saheb:
=====================================================
Special Thanks: Sayan Kar has been the Engine as well as Guard of this train of thoughts. I thank him and his editorial team.
Disclaimer: Please don’t expect these files to contain any profound physics. There is none; no equations, no figures, and no references. These are merely stories. Anyone with a nodding acquaintance of the jargon of physics should be able to make out. The style is chatty, personal and almost gossipy. However, I took care to avoid hearsay and confined myself to what I know and what SDM told me.
Abbreviations:
SDM: Professor S. Datta Majumdar
HNB: Professor H. N. Bose
DB : Professor D. Basu
Sudhansu Datta Majumdar
(The Genius Who Touched My Life)
by
G. P. Sastry
These stories are my recollection of events thirty five years past. That is a long while. Most of the players are sadly no more; and the rest are like me, senior citizens on their way. Professor Majumdar was 55 then, a good 30 years my senior. And memory falters; names forgot, and truth colored by the soft glow of nostalgia for long-lost youth and exuberance.
Genius is a buzzword, and controversial. By Genius, I mean what James Gleick meant writing about Feynman (we are in good company). Genius is one whose artistic or intellectual outputs are enjoyed by many; but how he got there, no one has a clue.
Thurber owned more than forty dogs in his lifetime. His frugal sketches of his dogs and his pieces on them (in particular: 'How to Name a Dog') are some of the most celebrated works in American humor. He says that when he goes out to his garden chair and calls his dogs, all of them run to him and lick him, except his bloodhound. This creature slowly follows his trail from the bathroom via the garden steps and finally winds his way to his chair and sits there unconcerned.
Mortified, Thurber says that the fellow is least interested where he is; but only how he got there!
Apparently there are no ‘intellectual bloodhounds’ winding their way through the labyrinthine mind of a genius.
I will be rewarded if these files give at least an inkling of the genius of Professor Majumdar, and his simple, artless, but charming personality.
For help gratefully received in this effort, please do see Acknowledgments.
Lastly, I can’t resist quoting from the Guru Granth Saheb:
A hundred moons may blossom
A thousand suns may blaze
In this dazzling brilliance
Without my Guru, there is pitch darkness.
=====================================================
Special Thanks: Sayan Kar has been the Engine as well as Guard of this train of thoughts. I thank him and his editorial team.
Disclaimer: Please don’t expect these files to contain any profound physics. There is none; no equations, no figures, and no references. These are merely stories. Anyone with a nodding acquaintance of the jargon of physics should be able to make out. The style is chatty, personal and almost gossipy. However, I took care to avoid hearsay and confined myself to what I know and what SDM told me.
Abbreviations:
SDM: Professor S. Datta Majumdar
HNB: Professor H. N. Bose
DB : Professor D. Basu
SDM & GR
==============================================================================
Professor Sudhansu Datta Majumdar, the genius I met and worked with for 5 years, was profoundly modest and artless.
His classic 1947 article titled: ‘A Class of Exact Solutions of Einstein's Field Equations’ was first submitted for publication to The Bulletin of The Calcutta Mathematical Society, and was promptly rejected (Thank you BCMS!). He re-sent the manuscript, without the Abstract, to Physical Review (because the first page of the manuscript containing its Abstract was soiled by stains of the reviewer's teacup). This time, however, the reviewer saw the audacious originality and importance of the paper, and wrote the abstract himself, so that it could be quickly published (those were the days of snail mail).
It was hailed as a great work abroad and was sometimes cited as Weyl-Majumdar Solutions (with which SDM was immensely pleased).
But soon, SDM left GR and shifted to QM and then to Molecular Spectroscopy, Group Theory and Electrodynamics.
Meanwhile, Papapetrou did work similar to SDM's work in GR, continued in GR and became a famous GR expert. Articles in GR started appearing with ‘Papapetrou-Majumdar’ solutions. This irritated SDM, and rightly so. If I am not mistaken, it was Papapetrou who chaired the Conference where Kerr was presenting his work, and alerted the audience to stop gossiping and listen seriously to Kerr. And everyone knows how path-breaking the Kerr Solution turned out to be for Black Hole Research.
Had SDM stuck to GR, many felt he would have done what Kerr did, and become famous much before Kerr. This is of course a guess, but from what I saw of SDM, there is a lot of truth in it. The Kerr Solution was JUST his cup of tea!
Meanwhile, QM Field Theory was entering GR. SDM showed me some article where the word 'Papapetron' was coined. SDM was furious and asked if 'Majumdaron' would be any less musical!
I often wondered how important one’s surname could be if it has to get tagged to a Field-Theoretic ‘-on’. This led to the following limerick, inspired by Arundhuti Ganguly.:
SDM & GR
His classic 1947 article titled: ‘A Class of Exact Solutions of Einstein's Field Equations’ was first submitted for publication to The Bulletin of The Calcutta Mathematical Society, and was promptly rejected (Thank you BCMS!). He re-sent the manuscript, without the Abstract, to Physical Review (because the first page of the manuscript containing its Abstract was soiled by stains of the reviewer's teacup). This time, however, the reviewer saw the audacious originality and importance of the paper, and wrote the abstract himself, so that it could be quickly published (those were the days of snail mail).
It was hailed as a great work abroad and was sometimes cited as Weyl-Majumdar Solutions (with which SDM was immensely pleased).
But soon, SDM left GR and shifted to QM and then to Molecular Spectroscopy, Group Theory and Electrodynamics.
Meanwhile, Papapetrou did work similar to SDM's work in GR, continued in GR and became a famous GR expert. Articles in GR started appearing with ‘Papapetrou-Majumdar’ solutions. This irritated SDM, and rightly so. If I am not mistaken, it was Papapetrou who chaired the Conference where Kerr was presenting his work, and alerted the audience to stop gossiping and listen seriously to Kerr. And everyone knows how path-breaking the Kerr Solution turned out to be for Black Hole Research.
Had SDM stuck to GR, many felt he would have done what Kerr did, and become famous much before Kerr. This is of course a guess, but from what I saw of SDM, there is a lot of truth in it. The Kerr Solution was JUST his cup of tea!
Meanwhile, QM Field Theory was entering GR. SDM showed me some article where the word 'Papapetron' was coined. SDM was furious and asked if 'Majumdaron' would be any less musical!
I often wondered how important one’s surname could be if it has to get tagged to a Field-Theoretic ‘-on’. This led to the following limerick, inspired by Arundhuti Ganguly.:
A lot is in a name
(with apologies to Shakespeare)
Bose was a small-town Bengaaly
Bose rhymed with Rose lovingly
He counted Photons
All hailed them Bosons
God’s great he wasn’t a Ganguly!
SDM: India vs. England
============================================================================
SDM told me that he was a great fan of Dirac. (Who isn’t? Anyone with a keen sense of English prose, even if he is a novice in QM, would become a Dirac fan just for the charming first Chapter of his ‘Principles of QM’). So, he wished to collaborate with Dirac. A Fellowship was offered, but SDM had to scrape the barrel to buy ‘passage’. This must be in the early fifties, before he submitted his doctoral thesis.
SDM told me that this trip was an ‘unmitigated disaster’. The problem which Dirac gave SDM turned out to be ‘nonsensical’. And, his few attempts to talk to Dirac about it must have been futile, knowing the celebrated silences of Dirac (compare Feynman’s failed efforts to goad Dirac to converse). SDM got vexed soon enough and started working on his own problems. He disliked the English weather, felt depressed and was ‘not making any headway’. That was the context in which he made his famous pronouncement to one and all: ‘Dirac went senile in his forties’. I am sure that the problem which Dirac posed SDM never saw light of the day.
Meanwhile the HoD of Glasgow University (I hope my memory isn’t failing me here.) invited SDM to give a lecture to his colleagues. SDM went all the way and gave his ‘lecture’, which was a mere ploy by the HoD to drag him to Glasgow. The HoD invited SDM for a cup of tea at his home. SDM was pleased at this rare gesture. HoD put SDM at ease and made him talk about his work. After half an hour, listening quietly to SDM’s musings, the HoD pulled out an envelope from the pocket of his long coat, handed it to SDM and bade him good bye. SDM went to his lodgings, opened the envelope and found to his dismay that what he had over a cup of tea was an ‘interview’, and the enclosure in the envelope was an ‘official’ offer letter for SDM to join as a Senior Lecturer at Glasgow (SDM tells me that ‘it is a very honorable position’, lest I didn’t know).
He politely declined the offer without hesitation as he was already pining for Calcutta. As he told me, he ‘returned empty-handed’ to India in every sense.
His creativity peaked as soon as he hit the shores of Bengal, and in a few months his thesis was ready for submission. Many people suggested that he submit his thesis for a D.Phil. in one of the U.K. Universities, but SDM scoffed and declared that a D.Sc. from the University of Calcutta was ten times more ‘honorable’ than a D.Phil. of Oxford or Cambridge.
He showed me his ‘thesis’. It was just about 40 pages of typed matter followed by several ‘sumptuous’ reprints. It was in 3 parts: GR, Molecular Spectroscopy and Angular Momentum. Quite unrelated topics, apparently. I read his thesis (but not the reprints!) and as he used to brag, it truly deserved a Degree for English Literature.
Wheeler was one of his thesis referees. SDM told me that the ‘operative’ sentence in Wheeler’s Report was: ‘This is the first doctoral thesis in which I learned some new Physics’.
Noblesse Oblige!
SDM: India vs England
SDM told me that this trip was an ‘unmitigated disaster’. The problem which Dirac gave SDM turned out to be ‘nonsensical’. And, his few attempts to talk to Dirac about it must have been futile, knowing the celebrated silences of Dirac (compare Feynman’s failed efforts to goad Dirac to converse). SDM got vexed soon enough and started working on his own problems. He disliked the English weather, felt depressed and was ‘not making any headway’. That was the context in which he made his famous pronouncement to one and all: ‘Dirac went senile in his forties’. I am sure that the problem which Dirac posed SDM never saw light of the day.
Meanwhile the HoD of Glasgow University (I hope my memory isn’t failing me here.) invited SDM to give a lecture to his colleagues. SDM went all the way and gave his ‘lecture’, which was a mere ploy by the HoD to drag him to Glasgow. The HoD invited SDM for a cup of tea at his home. SDM was pleased at this rare gesture. HoD put SDM at ease and made him talk about his work. After half an hour, listening quietly to SDM’s musings, the HoD pulled out an envelope from the pocket of his long coat, handed it to SDM and bade him good bye. SDM went to his lodgings, opened the envelope and found to his dismay that what he had over a cup of tea was an ‘interview’, and the enclosure in the envelope was an ‘official’ offer letter for SDM to join as a Senior Lecturer at Glasgow (SDM tells me that ‘it is a very honorable position’, lest I didn’t know).
He politely declined the offer without hesitation as he was already pining for Calcutta. As he told me, he ‘returned empty-handed’ to India in every sense.
His creativity peaked as soon as he hit the shores of Bengal, and in a few months his thesis was ready for submission. Many people suggested that he submit his thesis for a D.Phil. in one of the U.K. Universities, but SDM scoffed and declared that a D.Sc. from the University of Calcutta was ten times more ‘honorable’ than a D.Phil. of Oxford or Cambridge.
He showed me his ‘thesis’. It was just about 40 pages of typed matter followed by several ‘sumptuous’ reprints. It was in 3 parts: GR, Molecular Spectroscopy and Angular Momentum. Quite unrelated topics, apparently. I read his thesis (but not the reprints!) and as he used to brag, it truly deserved a Degree for English Literature.
Wheeler was one of his thesis referees. SDM told me that the ‘operative’ sentence in Wheeler’s Report was: ‘This is the first doctoral thesis in which I learned some new Physics’.
Noblesse Oblige!
SDM: Mompi & Angular Momentum
===========================================================================
Once SDM told me the following story:
It must be early fifties. Mrs. SDM was having problem with her only delivery. The doctors then decided to try maybe one of the earliest Caesarian Sections in Calcutta. She was in the OT for more than an hour. While SDM was waiting outside, he told me, pointing to his head, that 'it got solved'. He was referring to the 'Majumdar formula' for CG coefficients of the rotation group.
For youngsters who haven't heard of it, there are only four formulae for the CG coefficients of the rotation group: Weyl formula, Van der Warden formula, Racah formula, and Majumdar formula. Each looks different. But they are equivalent. The specialty of Majumdar formula is that it comes from calculus, while the others come from group theory. His is unique. He showed that the weird CG coefficients appear as the coefficients of expansion of a hypergeometric function in a Taylor series. This led to the entire later work of DB and SDM and their students on the ‘master analytic functions' (all of them more complicated hypergeometric functions) of more intricate and important groups, like the Lorentz Group. DB knows all about it.
These four formulae are listed in a Russian book he showed me. He was rightly beaming with pride to be ranked alongside such stalwarts. He was ‘invited' for a Professorship at IIT KGP by Professor H.N.Bose, the then HoD. But the rules of IIT said that he had to appear before a ‘duly constituted selection committee’. He was unhappy, but the then Director Professor S.R.Sengupta was a fan of SDM. So he tried to make light of the formality of an interview. But, one of the members asked SDM what his ‘achievements’ were. SDM told him brusquely to go to the Library, pick up the Angular Momentum book and turn to Page so and so to learn of one of his achievements.
Once he told me somewhat wryly that Mompi, his daughter, refuses to learn math from him. I asked him why. He said he found the prescribed calculus book of Class XI very inadequate, so he started teaching ‘Limits’ for a fortnight. Then she gave up, once for all.
Analysis was his forte. He was past master in that field. And tried to reduce all problems of Physics to Analysis.
Mompi & Angular Momentum
It must be early fifties. Mrs. SDM was having problem with her only delivery. The doctors then decided to try maybe one of the earliest Caesarian Sections in Calcutta. She was in the OT for more than an hour. While SDM was waiting outside, he told me, pointing to his head, that 'it got solved'. He was referring to the 'Majumdar formula' for CG coefficients of the rotation group.
For youngsters who haven't heard of it, there are only four formulae for the CG coefficients of the rotation group: Weyl formula, Van der Warden formula, Racah formula, and Majumdar formula. Each looks different. But they are equivalent. The specialty of Majumdar formula is that it comes from calculus, while the others come from group theory. His is unique. He showed that the weird CG coefficients appear as the coefficients of expansion of a hypergeometric function in a Taylor series. This led to the entire later work of DB and SDM and their students on the ‘master analytic functions' (all of them more complicated hypergeometric functions) of more intricate and important groups, like the Lorentz Group. DB knows all about it.
These four formulae are listed in a Russian book he showed me. He was rightly beaming with pride to be ranked alongside such stalwarts. He was ‘invited' for a Professorship at IIT KGP by Professor H.N.Bose, the then HoD. But the rules of IIT said that he had to appear before a ‘duly constituted selection committee’. He was unhappy, but the then Director Professor S.R.Sengupta was a fan of SDM. So he tried to make light of the formality of an interview. But, one of the members asked SDM what his ‘achievements’ were. SDM told him brusquely to go to the Library, pick up the Angular Momentum book and turn to Page so and so to learn of one of his achievements.
Once he told me somewhat wryly that Mompi, his daughter, refuses to learn math from him. I asked him why. He said he found the prescribed calculus book of Class XI very inadequate, so he started teaching ‘Limits’ for a fortnight. Then she gave up, once for all.
Analysis was his forte. He was past master in that field. And tried to reduce all problems of Physics to Analysis.
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