Spin

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The monosyllabic four-letter word 'spin' governs everything from Quark to the Cosmos and beyond (the 'beyond' being the spin I put on every tale I tell).

Every child, like I did, meets spin first in the spinning top in their toy kit. My 6-month-old Ishani is fascinated by the spinning top and stares at it till it rolls and falls over (and then grabs and has a crack at it as at any other teething teaser).

The child's fascination is instinctively scientific, I guess. The top would fall head over its heels if it were not spinning. The sleeping top is a wonder to all; kids and Kleins.

I used to play with my father's glass paper weight with its distorted and magnified floral bubbles. Setting it spin, I saw what I later learned as a 'Tippe Top': sometimes, it would do the unexpected; roll over and spin on its wrong side. Much later, in the KGP-HWH Locals, plastic Tippe Tops were sold for a Rupee each. I bought a dozen and played with them endlessly, with my son.

Then of course, the 'ring tennis' in our school called for not only spin but wobble. When I read Feynman, I was delighted to read that his fascination with the relation of the spin to the wobble of a pancake (Frisbee) in an eating joint led him back to his Nobel-winning research work after his weary war-work.

Then again the spin we imparted to our ball-badminton made the game challenging. Ping-Pong, Tennis, Cricket, golf and most everything with a ball uses spin to give top, bottom, side- spins, swings, googlies and the works.

When I was 5, I used to look forward to visits to our Village Shiv Temple: there was this exotic tree (I can't name it in English). It had its fruit like a small ball attached with large triple 'rotor' blades turned upwards. When they dry in summer, they are feather-weight. And, when wind blows and detaches them from their stems, they fly a long distance, rotor blades spinning and giving them a wonderful buoyancy. They land on earth in a majestic descent like so many tiny helicopters. There were several of these huge trees on the roadside at KGP and I never tired of playing with them.

Anyone who thinks that the Mechancis of tops is trivial, beware! Klein (Felix) and Sommerfeld needed four hefty and tough Volumes to cover their theory: 'Theory of Tops'. Legend has it that Sommerfeld and his Guru, Klein, used to visit the sea-beach regularly to play with pebbles, setting them spin to verify their theory. There are the spherical tops, symmetric tops and asymmetric tops, with their parallels in molecules and their spectroscopy.

Once upon a time (I don't know now), The Royal Society of London used to have Christmas Lectures and Demos to which the Queen was the Special Invitee apart from the paying public. One of them used to be a Popular Scientific Lecture-Demo by an FRS. Two of these were printed as monographs: Perrry's 'Spinning Tops and Gyroscopes' and Boys's 'Soap Bubbles'. These two booklets are 'must-reads' for all and especially students of Physics.

Perry's booklet is wonderful. He demonstrates not only the basic stability imparted by spin, but also the directional stability of a gyroscope by locking a spinning one in a suit-case and asking an audience to hold it on his head and turn his head this way and that; with near-disastrous rollicking antics that followed.

And it was noted with delight that the stage after Perry's Lecture was taken by a professional juggler, most of whose tricks with hats and rings depended on 'spin'.

And, when I was a smoker, it was a delightful hobby to blow and watch the stability and twirling progress of smoke rings in the placid winter air of KGP. And what a pleasure it was to find an entire Chapter devoted to smoke-rings in Feynman; a lesson in viscosity of air!

That spin can shatter and kill was understood by our Gods: Lord Vishnu's Chakra (discus) is his deadly weapon. Also, in Krishna Leela,a demon called Vritthasur carries the child Krishna up and away before he dodges and kills the demon. Of course he was a Personification of Tornado (Twister) which is a common sight in the dusty hot plains of UP and Bihar (even Bengal and Bangladesh); not to speak of the vast unending plains of the US Mid-West.

And the grinder's wheel. Just by a couple of swings on his pedal he converts his carborundum wheel into one that sends sparks flying when touched by a steel axe. Not to talk of buffing machines used to polish gold ornaments.

Equally deadly visuals are those of bikini-clad beauties doing their somersaults on a gymnasium floor or on a diving board in a swimming pool, all of which depend on imparting themselves spins of various delicacies.


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Local to Global

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My childhood sea-side Village, Muthukur-Krishnapatnam, is unique in India: escalating from Local to Global Economy, Connectivity, and Environmental Degradation within the short span of my lifetime (67years).

Then it was a sleepy village with 90% of its requirements met within a semi-circle of 30 kilometers (the other semicircle is at sea).

Now only 10%.

Then there was no Electricity. We had oil-in-glass lamps with a cotton wick. The oil was vegetable oil ground in a local mill powered by bullocks going round and round in circles, with their eyes blindfolded to beguile them into believing they are in 'progress'. The oil seeds were grown in a neighboring village. The bullocks were home-grown. The cotton of the wick was from the nearby fields. The glass was manufactured in the Glass and Ceramic Factory 20 KM away.

Now it boasts of a 5000 MW Mega-Watt Super-Power Plant supplying Power to villages as far as 3000 KM away.

Then there was hardly a fishing boat venturing into its sea.

Now it has one of the biggest Ports in India with ships berthing from all corners of the East, exporting iron ore and importing many things.

Then it had a mini-bus running on coal-engine.

Now it has the most modern cars, trucks and buses owned by Big Business Tycoons.

Then it had a narrow strip of sandy bullock-cart road.

Now it is connected to a 6-lane Super Highway contracted to a Malaysian Firm.

Then there was only one pre-College school within 20 KM.

Now it has half a dozen Engineering Colleges and a Medical College attached to a Super-Specialty Hospital.

Then only 1% of its population traveled to the nearby city (Madras).

Now 50% of its population have close relatives and friends in West Asia and another 20% in the US.

Then owning a push-bike was a dream.

Now 50% of the families have an automobile (moped, scooter or car).

Then no one sent a telegram; the Post Office thrived on post-cards.

Now most every family has a cell-phone and the Post-Office is busy with Savings Accounts Operations.

There were only a handful of people having access to a national newspaper (the Hindu).

Now, every family has a 100-Channel Color TV and no one reads newspapers anymore.

Then there was only a Touring Cinema Talkies.

Now there are half a dozen Wide-Screen Cinema Halls within a radius of 10 KM.

Then most vegetables, rice and lentils were grown in the Village environs.

Now everything comes from the nearby Supermarket Chain.

Then 1% students of the Village went to the University.

Now 50% go to Engineering Colleges.

Then information traveled at the speed of the minibus.

Now it travels with the speed of light via the Internet.

Then we never saw a mosquito.

Now, one can't sleep in the open without mosquito-repellent creams, or All-Outs.

Then school-kids used to play outdoor games 5 hours a working day.

Now they play Video-Games 10 hours a day.

Then there was no obesity in the Village.

Now there is no wiry, healthy, lanky sportsman in the entire Village.

Then food was cooked in mud-pots on clay-stoves lit up by firewood gathered from the local trees.

Now in stainless steel vessels on gas-stoves lit by Gas from the West Asia Crude.

We kids were most happy then with hardly any tensions.

Now right from birth they are driven to compete with kids all over India and beyond.

Much gained.... but much else lost....like the Starry Heavens under clear skies!


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Gifter-Giftee Perplex

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Polonius:

Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 75–77
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Times have changed much from Shakespeare's. Children are born nowadays with a Credit Card or two in their Gift-Hampers.

For long, this business of 'gifting' has consumed a lot of my precious time, imagination, emotion, not to speak of mere money.

While it is true that 'cash' or one of its modern equivalents is the most convenient and thoughtless ways of 'gifting without tears', there is pleasure in the pain of thinking up a suitable article as a gift; for one wants to be appreciated and remembered for the gift one has made with some thought and feeling.

My eldest brother-in-law, Sri G. Ranga Rao, IAS, missed my Wedding since he was in Australia then (he graciously permitted me to go ahead without waiting for his return knowing the utmost hurry I was in to close the Deal and Consummate it before second thoughts prevailed on my bride's party).

But he made it up by bringing in the latest gadgets from Australia and showered them on me when I met him with my newly-wed wife to seek his blessings; and goodies that go with it.

Next summer, when my wife was away at Jalgaon with my new-born son, I was getting bored at KGP and decided to join the JEE Spot Valuation. I was lucky to meet Prof SKS from IIT Kanpur and we got along like two sailors on shore leave. I met him later too at IIT Delhi. He was one of the most sincere and capable physicists I met (sadly he passed away very young).

When he saw that I was using a brand-new gadget for calculations, he came down to my table and asked me where I bought that Calculator. I said that GRR brought it from Australia as my wedding gift. Next day, he saw my first-ever digital watch in India and asked me the same question and got the same reply. Next day, when I took out my leather wallet, he asked the same question and got the same reply. Next day happened to be my Wedding Anniversary, so my wife asked me to turn out in my new shirt. SKS came down and joked: "Don't tell me that your new shirt is also a gift from GRR". I had to say: "Yes, indeed it is!". He shook his head this way and that and went away thoughtfully.

But this is rare.

On one of my my son's Birthday Parties, he got 6 identical 'ships' from six of his friends because that good-looking ply-wood 'sail boat' was the latest arrival in Gole Bazaar, and everyone thought that he was the only one to spot it.

Since I was in the World of Academics, my students didn't have to think much what to gift me when they got good grades or good recos: they just gave me books. This was nice and easy too. I cherish them and remember them with pleasure whenever I reread their books.

There were also occasions when I myself chose the books my friends wished to gift me. Webster, Sneddon and Panofsky & Phiilips were my choice-gifts from my fiends. My literary uncle BRK loved pens and I always gifted him the latest and he still preserves them fondly.

The first question I asked my wife soon after our marriage was what gift should I give her to please and propitiate her as and when needed. She promptly replied; "I love saris, and could do with any number". So that problem was solved once for all.

To my parents, I decided that I gift them what they could happily use daily but would never spend on them themselves: like an Attached-Bathroom, Geyser, Inverter, Telephone, Water-Purifier to name the lot.

There was one gift that I had to refuse:

Prof BCB and I joined IIT KGP the same day May 1, 1965, he as a Professor in the Aero-Engg and I as an Associate Lecturer in Physics. He was 15 years older to me. But since he was (and is) a bachelor, he was staying in our Faculty Hostel with us for a while, driving a Fiat Millicento, the only car in the Campus then. He comes from an aristocratic family of Calcutta, and is rumored to be a close nephew of Comrade JB. He had his schooling in the best of Calcutta Schools and then spent 14 years in England before taking up his position at KGP. Somehow or the other despite our age and background chasm, we became fast family friends for the next 45 years (myself and my wife met him at KGP this January: at 80+, he still has an Office in the Wind-Tunnel Lab he set up there).

Whenever I used to visit his A-type Bungalow, I used to praise his Center-Piece: an antique, carved, rose-wood beauty with a Belgian Glass top etched with floral designs.

Soon after his retirement, he was leaving KGP to take up a prestigious assignment in Canada. He shifted all his heir-loom furniture to his sister's palatial home at Calcutta, but for that Center-Piece. He graciously offered it as a gift to me as well as a fond memento.

I at once declined, saying it is too precious for me, doesn't go with my deal-wood creaking sofa-cum-bed set, my naughty kid-son would break or scratch its glass-top, so on and so forth. But the real reason was that I believe family-heir-loom sets should not be broken up (I might have accepted the whole set ;-)

Again, I had a hunch that he would soon return from Canada and rejoin IIT KGP on some assignment or the other. And would get back his sofa-set from his sister's place and would be forlorn without that Center-Piece because nothing else in the market would match.

My hunch proved correct and I always felt happy whenever we visited him and saw that set beautifully intact, unmutilated.

He too must be happy!



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Books & Stagnant Brooks

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Myself and my eventual Ph D Guide SDM joined IIT KGP in 1965: he as a Senior Professor and me as a Junior Lecturer. It was his last decade of service and my first. He retired in 1975.

Ever since he joined KGP we used to see that he was getting by Post fat issues of the prestigious Journal 'Mathematical Reviews', published by the American Mathematical Society. Since there was no way he or any individual buying these expensive elephants, we concluded that he must be getting them free for being chosen as one of its Honored Reviewers.

When he retired from KGP out of his vast and spacious A-type Bungalow, we wondered how he would be able to shrink to the inevitable cramped apartment in Calcutta, bought or rented (I know now!). It is like the Camel of the 'Sermon on the Mount' trying to pass through the eye of that needle.

Since he was a lover of books and had a keen sense of humor, I myself gifted him a Thurber-Wodehouse set which he relished like a child. So, we guessed that whatever furniture and goods he might give away, he would carry his books; and we were not wrong.

I was a bachelor at that time waiting to get married and living in a C1 type Bungalow, which had practically no furniture and its Hall very like a football field. He knew this since he used to make surprise visits to my den to discus some point of Physics or the other (I had a framed picture of Ramana Maharshi whom I sort of admired. He once looked at it and asked if it was my father, to which I coolly replied: 'grandfather'; and then he asked what happened to that Lamy Equation that he dumped in my lap).

A week before he left the Campus, he called me to his Quarters and requested (ordered) me to safe-keep some books of his in my spacious Qrs till he could shift them to Calcutta. And he led me to a vast sea of bound volumes of Mathematical Reviews. Like the Daffodils of Wordsworth, I saw a ten thousand at a glance and shuddered.

Being the simpleton he was, I could see that he went to the expense of getting them bound in the Library Journal fashion, Volume per Volume in leather. He must have spent a large part of his meager salary on this.

I fetched my Rickshaw-Puller, Maninder, who looked at the pile and said he would need at least 3 trips and a good blackmail money. For the moment I asked him to dump them on the floor of my Hall.

Whenever I looked at it, the dump seemed to grow like sin in my inner eye and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to safe-keep them from 'ratification, termtitination and verminization' as long as they resided on the damp KGP floor. So I went to my friend, the Manager of the Faculty Hostel and asked him if I could borrow a huge Table that is strong enough to withstand a ton of books. He said ok with the proviso that I have to return it when he himself retires a decade later to get his: 'No-Dues Certificate'. Nice of him. So the 100 odd volumes were uploaded onto the bare Table by Maninder, awaiting the Command from SDM that I arrange to shift them to Calcutta.

A Commandment that never came!

I used to remind him of his legacy from time to time at intervals of six months or so by Post Card, to which he would probe what happened to the solution of that Lamy Equation; a silencing tactic on both sides.

When my wife joined me she wanted that Table badly since it could serve as a make-shift Dining Table. Then I had to do a 'Cost-Benefit Analysis' and say ok to her: Food for the stomach takes precedence over food for thought.

So, Maninder was engaged, this time, to upload the bound volumes of SDM to the Attic.

A decade later, I knew that SDM can no longer afford to shift them to his tiny flat at Calcutta nor ask me to destroy them, sell them as junk, or keep them forever till I retire 3 decades later, in which case he had to make a Will.

Typical SDM Conundrum.

Sometimes my brain works wonders.

I wrote to him to permit me to donate this complete set of Mathematical Reviews of 25 years to our Central Library which both of us loved and of which he was a Chairman for a 3-year term. I knew he would jump at it.

He did!

But my troubles merely started then: The Ma'am-in-Charge of 'Acquisition' asked me to go to hell when I proposed this gracious Donation from her ex-Chairman. She said they already have a set of this Collection and they have absolutely no space for a Duplicate, space-crunch being what it is. And she told me off saying that it would set a bad precedent as she would be flooded with all sorts of books donated by all sorts of retirees (meaning me too), and who would catalog them, shift them, track them and what not; the staff crunch being what it was.

I saw her point.

When I returned home my heart was sinking. Then I did something I had never done at IIT KGP: "Pull Strings". Professor SHR, a book-lover himself and the current Chairman of the Central Library happened to have a wife who was a distant cousin of my own wife.

So, you see the Game!

The Libarary Committee duly met and resolved to 'accept' SDM's Donation as a 'one-time-gift-not-to-be-quoted-as-a-precedent'.

The Ma'am at the Library never forgave me and I had to hide from her when our paths crossed in the alleys and by-lanes of our hallowed Central Library which till then was my 'home-away-from-home'.

And before shifting them to the Library (via Maninder) I thought I would make a rubber stamp: 'Donated by Professor S Datta Majumdar', buy a stamp-pad and ink.

When I brought this set home, my 5-year-old son took over and I happily outsourced the 'stamping work' to him.

After the job was done and all of us heaved several sighs of relief, I found that my son started stamping all my books, his books and the other Library books I borrowed before I could stop him.

I grabbed the rubber stamp from his hands, carried him on my scooter to the Lake, and gave him the utmost pleasure of throwing the damn thing as far as he could in its placid waters.

Returning home, I dreamed that one of our fishermen of the Technology Angling Society netted this stamp and gave it as a gift to his son, who started stamping his School books and his dad's books:

"Donated by Professor S Datta Majumdar".

And I woke up to the one and only genuine laughter this Deal ever gave me.

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Renunciation Woes

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Like Charity, Renunciation often tends to be loud and highly visible.

I suppose it would not be worthwhile otherwise.

Renunciation is a topic on which I can write a thesis. But here I confine myself to the trials, tribulations and embarrassments I had to undergo owing to other peoples' Renunciations.

Among Renunciations I include vows, vraths, donations and all such queer stuff.

That one's own Renunciations cause precipitate inconveniences to others, particularly, if the Renouncer happens to be in a position of Power and Politics is documented by Gandhiji's weird lifestyle.

Gandhiji, who was a strict vegetarian, had to depend on the abundantly available and cheap stuff like milk and groundnuts. Once, it seems, Gandhiji happened to visit the Goshala of one of his well-to-do (they were all flocking to him) chelas. And saw with his own eyes the cruelty to which his holy cows were routinely subjected in order to yield the maximum possible liters of milk (like being given painful injections of hormones). Gandhiji, on the spot, renounced milk, once and forever.

His hosts, followers, ashramites (like termites?) and khadi-topi-Congresswalas were bewildered and dismayed on what to feed Gandhiji. As such he was a lean and thin figure. Even the British were worried about his health, because his death could lead to riots and revolts: Gandhi alive is easier to deal with than Gandhi dead!

Eventually, the ever-compromising Congresswalas
proposed a formula: Gandhiji could perhaps be convinced to partake of Goat's milk as a substitute. They went with folded hands and explained their predicament. The ever-reasonable Gandhiji acquiesced when they told him that no one but goat-kids drink goat-milk and so goats are not subjected to painful injections (they are eaten whole!).

Thereafter his chelas had to buy tickets for a couple of milch-goats during his third-class travels (another Renunciation of his which prompted Sarojini Naidu, the sensible hilsa-eating Bengalee Bhadramahila, to remark that it cost the Congress a fortune to keep Gandhiji in penury).

At 13, I left home for College studies for a year, during which period I was staying with my uncle, YVS, a wonderful gentleman 15 years older to me. We became great friends. He was a smoker, fond of playing cards, Hindi film music, cricket; and a good sport all in all.

During the next summer holidays when I was back at home in my Village, he happened to be passing through on an official visit. I prevailed upon him to stay for lunch at my place and go ahead on his official work to the next village. He was very shy but agreed. I received him at our bus-stand and brought him home and he was welcomed warmly by one and all because he was too shy to visit anyone else's home. And I told my mother to cook the most delicious of the available vegetables of the season. We settled on lady-fingers, of which I had bought a tender bagful from the Village Market.

And, when we all squatted on the floor for our lunch, mother started serving the first of two courses: subji. He blushed and declined her offer of subji. My mother was perplexed and started serving the next item on the menu, the delicious sambar. He inspected that and rejected that too.

My mother made a guess and asked him if he had 'Renounced' lady-finger at Kashi during his recent trip there. He blushed pink and said yes. It so happened that I asked my mother to put my precious lady-fingers in both the items.

Tears were welling up my mother's eyes because there was nothing else on the menu except pickles and butter-milk. He was gracious and offered handsome apologies for his fault of not announcing his renouncing in advance. Very embarrassing to one and all. And as a recompense he charmingly agreed to drop down on his return trip in the evening and have dinner with us, this time fixing the menu as per his favorite dishes in advance. That meant he would be staying with us that night and we all had great fun and frolic with him. So, everything turned out for the best!

I happened to pass in flying colors that year and got a prestigious seat in the Andhra University Physics Integrated M Sc. A week before I was schedule to leave for Vizagh to join that great seat of learning sanctified by the footsteps of C V Raman, my mother announced that I had to visit Tirupati on a pilgrimage and get my head shaved clean (tonsured). I was stunned. I knew that Lord Balajee's most favorite item on his menu was the hair of his devotees, symbolizing the Ultimate Renunciation: EGO; because everyone is fond of their hair, as I was very much so of mine. I told my mother that it just can't be done because as a freshman at the University, I would be teased and ragged to death. We hit upon a compromise formula that I would postpone it to early next-year's Summer Vacation, since I would have 3 good months for my hair to grow back to its peak size. And I made my mother promise that she would never again make me a dark and unwilling Renouncer of my hair or anything else for that matter.

This Kashi thing is a gimmick in our families. Actually it is not at Kashi, but at Gaya on the compulsory way to Kashi. There is this famous age-old Vishnupada Temple (Ramakrsihna Paramahmasa visited it because his mother saw the Lord of this Temple in her dream before conceiving him).

Under its centuries-old Banyan tree, the pilgrim-couple, after offering holy tarpan to their
forefathers (as a sweetener for persecuting them while alive and fighting over their property after they are quietly dead) proceed to their Great Act of Renunciation:

Each of the two is supposed to give up forever one of their favorite vegetables and one of their loved fruit.

Since there were only a couple of good vegetables and an equal number of fruit in the Village Market, they and their kids would be forever foregoing half of the Village Produce if they do it sincerely. So, they hit upon a compromise: Both agree to renounce the same vegetable and the same fruit (a wonder!). And suddenly they remember that bitter-gourd (kariyala) and sour lime (unripe orange) happen to be their favorite stuff for the nonce! YVS was too sincere!

Hinduism has survived and prevailed over all other religions of this world by its ultimate flexibility: "Please All!" is its motto: "Sarve Janah Suknhino Bhavantu", including the here and the hereafter.

Let me conclude by quoting a light verse I blogged more than a year ago:

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Friday, March 27, 2009

Narayana, Narayana!
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"..Sixty is the age when all of us should renunciate worldly life": Quote attributed to N. R. Narayana Murthy in DC 27 March: Banner headline with Photo on Page 8 (italics mine):


DC's a law unto itself
Quoting Narayan's good self
It enunciates, denunciates
Pronunciates and Renunciates
As it pleases itself!

Webster should learn anew
How little English he knew!

Posted by G P Sastry (gps1943@yahoo.com) at 2:19 AM


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Why Blog?

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Not infrequently I do ask myself why I indulge in this crazy daily blogging.

The answers are many:

Within months of my retirement in August 2005, my phy.iitkgp.ernet.in account was blocked and deleted.

With this I lost my umbilical cord with my students and well-wishers and became a non-person, sort of.

I enjoyed my freedom from e-mailing for sometime. But some of my junior faculty at IIT KGP, for reasons best known to them, expressed their wish to make myself available to them in the cyberspace with an internet-account. So, I asked my son to create one for me. He chose Yahoo (gmail being nascent then). He asked me what I would like to have as my login. Obviously it would be 'gps1943', because my students call me names by this gps moniker; and 1943 reassures them that this is the same old buffoon they knew at IIT KGP.

As Sam Weller would say: "It is just one step from drinking to debauchery; and e-mail to blogspot". My son asked me what should be my blogspot title: Obviously 'gpsastry', no pseudonym. And my 'Profile' should just have my Yahoo e-mail id.

Rest as they say is history.

I went crazier than usual.

An unemployed pensioner should invent some diverting employment for himself if he wishes to remain physically and mentally healthy and not bore people around him to distraction.

First I tried reading. But it can't be a full-time activity, since books are expensive to buy and are a punishment on the dwidnling eyesight.

Writing creative pieces on a daily basis is a dashed tough activity and is like the proverbial mental-iceberg: choosing a topic takes about 8 hours of 'pondering'; composing mentally the 'material' takes about a couple of hours. So, 10 hours daily are spent with no strain on the eye (other than the 'inner' one). Actual blogging at the keyboard takes a couple of hours. This too can be done almost 'blindly'.

And when the piece is posted, there is this Jim Corbett feeling: "Something Attempted, Something Done". A great sense of pseudo-satisfaction.

And almost at once the question arises; what next for tomorrow?

And the twelve or so hours of mental activity is no hindrance to daily household chores like dropping the daughter-in-law at her place of work driving the decade-old Maruti 800 (which requires no brain in Hyderabadi honking traffic that moves at snail's pace if ever it does), buying vegetables, playing with the granddaughter, teasing the wife, and filling the drums with erratic water from the dry taps etc.

So, it is a full-time activity, much more demanding of 'inventive powers' than just teaching Physics at IIT KGP.

The bonus is that one does get in touch with old students at the steady rate of one a month, for mutual benefit.

Apart from that, it is like the Selfless Action of Gita: "Blog and Forget".

And I had this longstanding illusion that I am a 'humorist'.

Now, ask any 'humor-writer': it is ten times more demanding than just writing clean good serious prose; it is a pain in the neck.

But humor being essentially a self-deprecating activity, one can score some brownie points on others: Calling your self a donkey enables you to call others by implication asses; unbeknown to them.

That is highly rewarding.

So, these are briefly the virtues of daily blogging.

Just try for 3 months and tell me how tough it is and so how pleasantly triumphal.


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Thermodynamics & Marital Bliss

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Footnote on Page 77 of Bill Bryson's 'A Short History of Nearly Everything':


"The Chemist P. W. Atkins says: There are four laws of Thermodynamics. The third of them, the Second Law, was recognized first; the first, the Zeroth law, was formulated last; the First Law was second; the Third Law might not even be a Law in the sense of the others".

In the briefest terms, the Second Law states that a little energy is always wasted. You can't have a perpetual motion device because no matter how efficient, it will always lose energy and eventually run down. The First Law says that you can't create energy and the Third Law that you can't reduce temperature to absolute zero; there will always be some residual warmth.

As Dennis Overby notes, the three principal laws are sometimes expressed jocularly as:

(1) You can't win

(2) You can't break even

(3) You can't quit

*******************************************

A mild rewording would render these as the

"gps's Laws of Marital Bliss"

*******************************************

I read from this very readable book that most of the 18th and 19th Century British Scientists and Explorers were wealthy individuals of independent means free to pursue science as a hobby for pleasure.

And their 'wealth' came from the British Empire.

Before that there was hardly any British Science to speak of; or the means to keep the Empire down by the Guns propelled by these laws of science they discovered:

As it was put by Hilaire Belloc, in the words of the figure "Blood" in his poem "The Modern Traveler":

Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not.


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