Millmoss & Ponsonby

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As a sequel to my previous Post: ‘To Cite or not to Cite’, I am reminded of Thurber who, more than 60 years ago, parodied a fierce ongoing feud between two renowned Paleontologists. Below are extracts from his ‘Prehistoric Animals of the Middle West’ (from: ‘The Beast in Me and Other Animals’, Penguin, 1976 reprint):

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------- I lay my failure directly at the door of Dr Wilfred Ponsonby who, at the Meeting of the American Scientific Society in Baltimore in 1929, made the remark, "The old boy (Dr Millmoss) never dug of half as many specimens as he has dreamed up."

Although Dr Millmoss, quite naturally, was unable to perceive the wit in this damaging observation, which hung like a cloud over his last days, he was not without a sense of humor, and I believe, if he were alive today, he would take no little satisfaction in the fact that in the last five years Dr Ponsonby has labored under the delusion that he is married to a large South African butterfly.

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=========These models were all destroyed in fire in 1930. "All that I have to show for them ", the good Doctor (Millmoss) once told a friend, "is two divorces".

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==========The creature's eye was an integral part of its shell, a mistake made by Mother Nature, and not, as has been claimed by Ponsonby, "a bit of Millmoss butchery-botchery". The Mound Dweller is of interest today, even to me, principally because it was my friend’s first reconstruction, and led to his divorce from Alma Albrecht Millmoss.

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===========Dr Millmoss estimated that the Thake had inhabited the prairies of Illinois approximately three million years before the advent of the Christian era. Shortly after Dr Millmoss gave his model of the Thake to the world, Dr Ponsonby, in a lecture at William College that was notable for its lack of courtesy, asserted that the Thake bones that Dr Millmoss had found were in reality those of a pet Airedale and a pet pony buried together in one grave by their owner , c 1907. My own confidence in the authenticity of the Thake has never been shaken, although occasionally it becomes a figure in my nightmares, barking and neighing.

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============Like so many of Dr Millmoss’s restorations, the Queech was made the object of a particularly unfriendly and uncalled-for remark by Dr Ponsonby. At a dinner of the New York Society of Zoologists, held at the old Waldorf-Astoria some fifteen years ago, Ponsonby observed, "There is no doubt in my mind that this pussy cat belongs to the Great Plasticine Age."

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=============The final plate (Plate VIII) was one of the last things that Wesley Millmoss did, more for relaxation, I think, than in the interests of science. It shows his idea, admittedly a little fanciful, of the Middle-Western Man and Woman, three and half million years before the dawn of history. When I asked him if it was his conviction that Man had got up off all fours before Woman did, he gave me a pale, grave look and said simply, "He had to. He needed the head start."

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Even in death, Dr Wesley Millmoss did not escape the sharp and envious tongue of Dr Wilfred Ponsonby. Commenting upon the untimely passing of my great employer and friend, the New York Times observed that explorers in Africa might one day come upon the remains of a large, piano-shaped animal that ate Dr Millmoss, together with the bones of its distinguished and unfortunate prey. Upon reading this, Ponsonby turned to a group of his friends at the Explorers Club and said, "Too bad the old boy didn’t live to reconstruct that."

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To Cite or not to Cite

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This is the Age of 'International Patent Law' and 'Intellectual Property Rights' and stuff.

Much is at stake and we constantly read about legal battles that are raging over our age-old haldi, tulsi, basmati rice and even Tirupati laddu.

During my times, things were more casual by and large because I was told that the Soviet Bloc then didn't sign the Copyright Convention (?).

But there was always this dilemma in Scientific Writing how far should one go citing other people's work. If you are too truthful, it is tough to draw the border line and, as Aniket once said, everyone has to cite Webster since all the words that occur in every Article are to be found there. And Webster himself must have had a hard time citing his earlier lexicographers.

I recall that Einstein's 1905 Paper on Special Relativity has no name anywhere other than his own. Perhaps this was why Whittaker took such umbrage that he handed over all the credit to Poincare. I mean, an unknown young upstart ought to do the proper curtsies to join the Club.

There were several weighty issues:

First, should a predecessor's name be in the Title, or Abstract, or Introduction, or the Body, or Acknowledgments, or References, or even relegated to the Bibliography, or nowhere? Much depended on how BIG he was, and what exactly the fruit expected.

Again, the question of authors: How many should be in the byline and how many in the Acknowledgments, if any? There was a School of Thought to which my Guru SDM squarely belonged which held that the Credit for a Work is divided between its authors; and in decreasing shares along their order of precedence in the byline. There was a more progressive School of Thought which held that the more the merrier; and everyone gets all the Credit (which increases by their number) and the order in the byline should either be alphabetical or by Seniority or even by Juniority, or by lottery. Let me quote Weisskopf's celebrated Vow:

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*".....First of all, it was wonderful to work with Eugene (Wigner) and then there was another thing. This was my first paper of real significance. Of course, I am lucky with my name Weisskopf, to work with somebody after me in the alphabet. So then I made a vow, and said that from now on I will, all through my life, stick to the alphabetical order whenever I publish a paper with somebody else. That was not always easy. For example, when I wrote a book that perhaps some of you remember, namely "Theoretical Nuclear Physics" by Blatt and Weisskopf, the publisher said it must be Weisskopf and Blatt. I told the publisher that I made the vow and I cannot do it. The publisher said "but we must sell the book." Finally, I did convince the John Wiley Company by telling them that if it is Weisskopf and Blatt, the emphasis is on Blatt and not on Weisskopf".....
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Things reached such a pass that I was astounded when I saw an Experimental Paper in High Energy Physics in PRL that had a longer list of Authors (about 140) than the Article itself!

Then again, to cite or not to cite another's name in an 'independent' work if one comes across it in the Printer's Proof Stage. Even a nobody like me, on an absolutely wayside Paper in EJP, had to fight back the weird claims of a truculent Professor in a so-called Ivy League School of the USA who insisted I stole his work. He had to be shut up by pointing out that my Paper is part of a chain of a dozen Papers on the subject in JP(A), PRS, AJP etc over a dozen years, none of which he bothered to cite in his one-off Paper in AJP. I however gracefully offered to share my Nobel Money but not the Fame. Ivy League indeed!

It is never too good to outsource book-writing to one's Research Scholars. I myself was 'employed' officially while an RS at AU @ Rs. 250 p.m. for 2 months to help write what later turned out to be the first draft of a CBSE textbook for High School Students. It was woeful. I didn't know the subject myself thoroughly, never having taught it. And had to do a patchwork. I regret the entire thing and am going to donate that Rs 500 to Charity soon.

Then comes the Ph D Thesis. The 'Introduction' was supposed to make or mar the whole thing. It was received wisdom (thoroughly misplaced) that the Examiner would first turn to the Last Chapter called 'References' to see if his Papers were properly highlighted in bulk; and then in the 'Introduction' and 'Reprints of Papers' if any.

I also discovered that it was always safe to steer things towards Textbook Writers as Ph D Examiners for obvious reasons. The trick never failed.

[Last Laugh: Just as I was closing the File containing the Final Draft of 'Introduction' of my Ph D Thesis, my US-returned friend in Jeans and T-shirt and Pumps barged into my Room in our Faculty Hostel and asked if he could have a look at the thing. He was in the Dairy Sciences (IIT KGP had the richest Bio-Diversity then ).

I asked him to please go ahead. After ten minutes of close reading, he came out with the revealing remark:

"GP: I am sure you are cleverly steering it towards Fourier, or Bessel or Lorentz as one of your Examiners!"]

Bernard Levin's Theorem

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My Guru SDM, in his inimitable style told me one day that he happened to chance upon the current text prescribed for students of 'Logic' (yes, indeed there was this option for us to choose 'Logic' as an Arts subject). And waded through it cover to cover hoping it would benefit him in his Science studies. And threw it out of the window. I remember my sister who chose this subject mugging up queer Latin stuff like: 'post-hoc ergo propter hoc', syllogisms, and such weird conclusions like: "Romeo touches the tree; the tree touches Juliet's window; so Romeo touches Juliet".

SDM's own powers of observation and deduction were very typical, to say the least. He told me that one evening, when he was 5 years old, he didn't return home from a renowned Puja Pandal but stayed put there the whole night, while his folks launched Search Parties all over the place. Next morning when he returned home and was cornered, he let it out that he wanted to check if Durgamai really would descend from her pedestal and eat the sumptuous offerings that her devotees left there. On asking for his conclusions, he said either his folks were all deluding themselves by partaking her holy 'prosad' or she is too shy to eat while watched.

Another day when he was a Lecturer at the Calcutta University, he was walking down to his College lugging his trademark heavy bag bought in England. And while crossing the busy chaurasta midway, his shoe lace gave, and he put his bag down and was busy tying it up; when there was this shrill whistle from the Policeman manning the Traffic Island. He didn't bother much and continued his task leisurely. Upon which the cop came down from his pedestal and gave him a juicy drubbing for halting the traffic in the middle of the busy hour. He was mortified as he was escorted to the Traffic Island and helped in tying his laces.

He then crossed the road and stood there transfixed thinking. And when asked by his colleagues, he told them that he was wondering how this ill-paid Traffic Cop got so much Power to stop all traffic irrespective of whether they were Tatas, Birlas, or Dalmiyas; not to talk of esteemed Professors with Calcutta University D Scs under their belts. His conclusion: "The Policeman gets his tremendous Power straight from the Parliament; i.e. we people ourselves!"

When I joined IIT KGP, it was a very small place. There was only one gate into the Main Building, that is the Main Gate. And all Classes started sharp at 7 AM, broke off at 11 AM, and again from 1 PM to 4 PM. The minutes and seconds around these peak hours saw the heaviest traffic ever seen anywhere. All the 1000 students would rush into the Main Gate on their ramshackle push-bikes riding twosomes and threesomes. Mid-Road Collisions and broken teeth were a common sight. The Main Gate was a 'text-book bottle-neck' and the streamlined traffic till that constriction used to go haywire and become highly turbulent, with eddies and such.

Only one Security Guard could man that BC Roy Island. No one knew his real name: he was called Ram-Ramjee by everyone owing to his habit of mouthing 'Ram-Ram!' whenever someone tried to break his rules. The trouble was that all Major Departments were to the right as one nears the BC Roy Island from the Main Gate. And all students were intent on taking the right turn instead of going round the big Circle. But Ram-Ramjee would have none of it. He used to give them ultra-strong Bhojpuri stuff and pull down the cyclists from their seats and give them a sound drubbing; during which minute a couple of hundred cyclists would sneak in at breakneck speed much to his chagrin. It was a great sight to watch. And he didn't spare Teachers either. And after the traffic suddenly ceased at 7.05, he would go round the Institute looking for cycles parked outside their designated stands and mercilessly deflate them.

When he fell ill with fever one evening and the Doctor at B C Roy Hospital said it was due to his getting soaked in rain and advised him to take rest for a few days, he declined and was back at his beloved Post getting drenched again. Rumor had it that one of the Final Year students took up as his B Tech Project the design of a hands-free umbrella whose handle can be safely tucked into his belt with a sturdy but light 'snap-up' tackle. And our wry BC Roy Hall Colleague, Padmanabhan aptly called Ram-Ramjee then on: Chatranabhan.

A couple of years back there was this big news item in DC: A young and enthusiastic traffic cop manning the arterial Punjagutta Junction stopped a car, got it into the kerb and began chastising the Driver for not following the brand-new Seat-Belt Rule. The Driver coolly asked him for the Challan. But the cop insisted on haranguing him. At last, the Driver lost his cool and barked at him: "I am a High Court Judge". Upon which the young cop was reported saying that it made matters worse, because: "Ignorance of Law is no excuse", a standard judicial lingo. The Judge was aghast at getting the wrong end of the stick and had to pull out his mobile phone to talk to the Top Boss of the Police Department. Upon which the youthful cop said it made matters even more worse, because it violates the other Rule banning use of mobile phones while driving.

Apparently, his senior cops quickly came to the rescue, pulled the young one away and let the Judge go with appropriate apologies. I guess the young chap was shifted to a remote place in the outskirts, but with a 'three-star' entry in his Service Record; Police are always fed up listening to strictures from the Bench about their sloppy investigations in criminal cases.

In my experience during my times, outside of home, the most difficult relationship was between a Research Scholar and his Guide. It tended to be very one-sided while it lasted. The Guide had almost absolute Power over his Scholar till he gets his Degree Certificate. Anytime before that, the Guide could come in the way and spoil the Party. In such one-sided relationships, there was always a tendency for acrimony largely because in 5 long years, the Scholar gets to know too much about the Guide and his Work Ethic. Building and keeping a large School of Research going required much ripeness and tact from the Guide.

Here is the wonderful Theorem propounded by Bernard Levin:

"The less Power a man has, the more eager is he to wield it"

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POP Culture

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For the first 60 years of my life, till e-mail, attachments, and online submission of Papers to International Journals arrived, we were all tyrannized by the Post Office Protocol (POP) Culture (or the lack of it). The Department of Post and Telegraphs of India was a megalith monopoly and we were slaves to its whims and fancies.

I had earlier described how my Dream-Career in lies, falsehood, euphemism, hyperbole, prevarication, gul, and what SPK deliciously calls 'clever trimming' was launched by the overbearing overtures of a beedi-smelling Postman when I was just about 3. Here is the link for those who missed it:

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http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2009/10/seven-ages-of-lying-man.html

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[Aside: The Statesman was all enthu and pulled all stops to publish my Praise of Laziness, and two other insipid colored pieces; but when I submitted this absolutely truthful piece titled: 'Seven Ages of a (Lying) Man', it went into hibernation. Then on, both of us stood our ground: I declined to submit anything more and The Statesman decided that she had more than enough of me. Shyamal tells me that there were also wheels behind wheels and he should know. My blogspot is more tolerant of naked truth; as of now {;-)].

My next mortifying encounter with POP came when I was in my B Sc (Hons), and supposedly a wise guy. One day when I was at my father's place at Kovur, making daily Summer Vacation push-bike trips to the nearby District HQ town of Nellore, my father handed me a sealed envelope and asked me to go to the Office of the District Superintendent of Post Offices at James Gardens and drop it in the Box outside his august Office; which I did.

A couple of days later, the neighborhood Postman barged into our home guffawing loudly, pushed another sealed envelope into my father's hands, and demanded Rs. 0.75 on the spot. As my father glanced through the thing, his face fell and he coughed up the said number of coins as the Postman retreated triumphantly. I didn't get the default thrashing as I was too old for it, but got a juicy snubbing that rankles to this day.

Apparently, my Headmaster-father had a running fight with the Local Post Master at Kovur over a refund of Re 1.00 only that was due for his School. As the Local PM was dillying and dallying for reasons best known to him (I guess he had to foot it from his pocket for his past mistakes), my father lost his patience and wrote that stinking Complaint Letter to the HQ that I was to drop in the Box in front of his James Garden Office.

To this day I maintain that he was at fault for failing to specify that I had to drop it in the Toll-Free White Box but not the Blood Red One that demands stamps glued to it even for local mails.

I leave the rest to your imagination: the amusement of the Superintendent and his staff and their reply that went, "Whereas we appreciate your disgust over our delayed refund of Re 1.00 due to you, we are forced to charge you Rs. 1.75 as penalty for dropping your unstamped 'Bearing' Envelope in our Red Box. Kindly arrange for the prompt payment of Balance Rs. 0.75 after deducting the Re. 1.00 we owe you; Yours ever in service etc".

My father's ever-strained relations with his Postmen cost me dear in terms of anguish and agony a decade later when I was at home from KGP on a Puja Vacation. My friend at Kurnool was very ill when we parted and we agreed on daily updates via POP. Despite my dozen daily letters followed up by telegrams, there was a stony and painful silence from him. As I was fearing the worst and planning to make a trip to Kurnool in person, my friend and his cheerful wife arrived one morning at our doorsteps to our great relief. They were surprised at our dismay because they had religiously replied all my letters and telegrams, and were rather expecting to be received at the Railway Station and were wondering what could have gone wrong.

It turned out that the newly appointed ad hoc 'Contract Post-Man' demanded Rs 10.00 as his Puja Bakshish when my father offered him his usual Re. 1.00; which the CPM haughtily declined and my father pocketed. And as a revenge the the CPM 'deferred' all deliveries till the Regular Postman handed in the accumulated bundle (for Re. 1.00) much after we all had left for KGP!

I learned my lesson early and kept the best of relations with my neighborhood Postmen, Policemen and my SBI Bankers at IIT KGP.

Not so my Theoretical Physicist-friend and colleague Professor C L Roy.

[When Sayan conveyed the sad news of CLR's demise a couple of years back, I wrote up a 'piece' on him for our Departmental Magazine. SPK dryly said it was a 'word-picture' in ancient style not seen nowadays in mod-lit. Here is the link:

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http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html

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One day rumors spread in IIT that CLR had picked up a frightful row in our IIT SBI Branch which escalated to the level of the Branch Manager, who thereof "declared CLR: Persona Nongrata for 15 days", with Notices put up in the Bank to that effect.

I had the best of relations with CLR who was otherwise known for his reticence. So I cornered him and asked him if the rumors were true. He said 'yes' and seemed rather proud about it. I then asked him what exactly it meant: he wouldn't be let in, and refused Banking Services.

CLR replied:

"Not as bad as that; they only refused their traditional much-vaunted

"Service with a Smile!"


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Resolving Powers

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Once upon a time (I don't know now; much has changed after the Restructuring of the Curriculum), there was what was called the 4th Year Lab in the Physics Depatment at IIT KGP. Somehow or the other from the day I joined in 1965 till I retired 40 years later, I was always a fixture there, possibly because most of the Experiments there were in Electronics and I had a passing familiarity with the subject. And so I was 'allotted' Electronics Experiments for 'grading' purposes. And later, 'Spacetime Software' and 'Path Integral Software' for reasons I shall talk in a later post.

But it also had a Michelson Interferometer and a Fabry-Perot Interferometer sharing the same Sodium Lamp on opposite sides of it. Physical Optics always fascinated me and I believe, next to Thermodynamics, it is the toughest subject, mostly due to paucity of good books.

The two instruments were ok for a beginner: Enough Resolution to carry out the basic measurements and verify what is taught in the Theory. But, since I was not grading these experiments, students largely escaped my questions in the Lab Vivas except in the End-Term Viva, where I was always kind to a fault. But, before allotting the next Experiment, if I happen to be there, I used to insist that the Michelson students show me their 'white light fringes' and the Fabry-Perot show me the well-resolved Sodium Doublet 'ring systems'. By and large they did.

In the Grand Lab Viva I used to ask for the formula for the Chromatic Resolving Power (CRP) of the FP thing which they use to reel out in terms of Finesse or Reflection Coefficient. So far so good.

I then used to ask for the formula of the CRP of the Michelson thing. They would stare at me as if I was kidding them, because there is no such thing in any book. I used to leave it at that. They used to get the doublet separation by moving one of the mirrors (Fourier Transform Spectroscopy), but that doesn't mean any CRP.

For the last 5 years towards the end of my stay there, I was teaching the Jumbo First Year Theory Course in which I used to teach these two instruments rather intensively. In the end-sem Question Papers year after year, I used to sneak in this question of deriving the CRP of the Michelson Interferometer by giving enough hints leading them step by step. After all, it also has a formula for the Intensity of the fringe pattern in terms of 'theta'.

I used to ask them to derive [(delta theta)separation] and [(delta theta)width] precisely along the lines of the FP thing, equate the two for bare resolution to get the CRP. Doing so step by step as hinted, many students used to get the 'correct' result CRP = 2m where 'm' is the usual order of the ring. And then I used to ask them to justify the result by comparing it with the Grating CRP. In a flourish they would write that it is the same as Grating thing for N = 2, where N is the number of slits, or what is the same thing, the number of interfering beams. They used to get full marks till then, because Michelson is indeed a 2-beam Interferometer.

The next bit of the Question was that the answer is wrong, and that the CRP of the Michelson thing is precisely ZERO. And ask them to justify my statement and find the flaw in their logic. All, including quite a few tutors, apparently railed at this last bit and said gps is talking through his hat (no wonder), but the report reached only RSS and then KK, but never me directly; and as a rule, I never took steps against hearsay, rumor and calumny because there is no end to such things.

But, KK, being KK who suffered me in my Lectures and Labs for two long semesters each two decades ago, pinned me down. I told him that in any 2-beam interference like the double-slit, the dark fringes are as wide as the bright fringes and a blind application of the Rayleigh Criterion gives misleading results, because when the maximum of the second line of the doublet falls on the next minimum of the first line, the total Intensity, instead of showing the Rayleigh dip of 17%, just becomes uniform and the fringe pattern washes out as is well-known.

No double-slit can resolve any doublet, in any order, period. No 2-beam Interferometer can 'resolve' any doublet and so has to use the Fourier Transform method of moving one of the mirrors (Indeed Jenkins nd White mention that Michelson deduced that a line was a 'triplet' by plotting its Visibility over Distance and getting the complicated but beautiful Fourier Plots).

Then KK asked me what could be the minimum number of slits N of the grating that starts showing Resolution as given by the famous Grating CRP formula.

I told him I was just waiting for him to answer this question. This needs plotting the patterns of 3 slits, 4 slits, 5 slits and so on till the Rayleigh dip first appears. The formulae of the Intensity are easily well-known, but the rest of the calculation involves plotting graphs and superposing them, which is too laborious unless one writes a Computer Program to get the superposed Plots.

This was just KK's cup of Tea.

He did it and showed me his extensive Plots and got the answer to my question: "The minimum number N of slits after which the Grating CRP Formula CRP = mN starts making sense".

The answer is with KK. I forgot the number, maybe 5 or 6 or so.

Anyone interested can contact him or do it themselves.

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Sorry for this Heavy Blog. But I thought I should make amends somewhat for the usual levity once in a while.

Tomorrow, gossip again!


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Secret Life of gpsastry

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1. One gloomy morning when I was getting deeply worried about this helmet business, I took a couple of swigs of Hippocrene and entered my bath tub, opened the tap, and as water started swirling around my tummy I suddenly started losing weight!

"EUREKA!"

2. Another evening I was looking closely at my 'planet charts' and tried to make some sense of all that mess, what with only the Sun and the Fixed Stars going around me in circles, but all these wandering planets going crazily in circles on circles called 'epicycles' by that fool. I tried putting the Sun at the Center and redrawing the figures: My Goodness! All planets are circling and I too am a planet!

"Shut up! Want to be killed by Church a la Bruno?"

3. I ran way from London to escape being hit by plague and got hit on the head by that Adam's Apple. Suddenly I felt that I am going to be hit on my head next by that falling loony thing; with the same Universal G!

"Run! Take shelter in home!"

4. One morning at Cambridge I was fiddling with those Coulomb, Ampere, Faraday things and all at once that product of that Electrical thing and that Magnetic thing gave me this Light thing!

"Let there be Street Lights switched on in London!"

5. Another evening in Copenhagen I was getting worried about this Balmer series. And tried some nonsense postulates. And lo, and behold! That weird combination of e, c, h, m and stuff gave me the Rydberg Constant! And the Lyman, Paschen, Pfund and all else!

"Where has that Einstein gone? Fooling around again with those senseless tensors!"

6. This Term Zoology was bugging me till I realized that this pq minus qp is giving me that ih!

"Let me quickly do some Thought Experiments before Whittaker gives it to Hilbert this time!"

7. Fooling around in eating joints with plates and dishes flying around, I was sickening for some clean fun. And just thought 'Let me take that electron and make it go backward in time'. And there were all these little little arrows on the floor getting all the perturbation series terms in one swoop!

"O, what is the use? That Bohr is going to give it all away to that Schwinger in that Island!"

8. It is now one hour that I am standing here and wondering about all those ugly CG Tables. Arrre Baba!

"Eta tho hypergeometric function hoye jacchey!"

"Naa sir! Khoob mishti meye hoyeche!"

9. One morning in my Boarding House in Boston 150 years ago I was talking thus about deja vu on our Breakfast Table and this is what happened:

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"ALL AT ONCE A CONVICTION FLASHES THROUGH US THAT WE HAVE BEEN IN
THE SAME PRECISE CIRCUMSTANCES AS AT THE PRESENT INSTANT, ONCE OR
MANY TIMES BEFORE."

O, dear, yes!--said one of the company,--everybody has had that feeling.

The landlady didn't know anything about such notions; it was an idee in folks' heads, she expected.

The schoolmistress said, in a hesitating sort of way, that she knew the feeling well, and didn't like to experience it; it made her think she was a ghost, sometimes.

The young fellow whom they call John said he knew all about it; he had just lighted a cheroot the other day, when a tremendous conviction all at once came over him that he had done just that same thing ever so many times before. I looked severely at him, and his countenance immediately fell--ON THE SIDE TOWARD ME; I cannot answer for the other, for he can wink and laugh with either half of his face without the other half's knowing it.

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A little skullduggery

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I apologize for the awkward Title; as well as the awkward Content.

All men have egos. Intellectuals have insatiate egos.

During my time at IIT KGP there was a perennial stream of people claiming to have proved Einstein wrong. I don't know what exactly they had against him. They never bothered about Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrodinger or even Feynman, I don't know why.

Now, one of the bounden duties of the HoD of the prestigious Physics Department at IIT KGP is to educate, elucidate and illuminate the General Public who happen to be so inclined. So, he used to get on the average one 'Article' every year by an author claiming profusely and profoundly that Einstein was wrong thus and so.

And the HoD had to respond suitably.

[Aside: Unfortunately for me, I had to always strive to prove Einstein right to my students; that is what I got paid for, sort of. And I had to invent my own 'Thought Experiments' to buttress my claims that he was right once and again. Sumita cried to me that she had a tough time proving me right (needlessly) in her Grand Viva facing several Hassles who riled against any experiments that can't be performed in their Research Labs. All I could do to compensate was by acknowledging her in my famous Paper.]

Anyway the Hod, whoever he happened to be, used to forward the Article to me anonymously asking me to draft a suitable response as early as possible (before complaints reached higher and the highest authorities; my son tells me that the Project Manger's lingo for this is to 'escalate').

DB escaped this torture because no one ever dreamed of proving Gel'fand wrong; knowledgeable colleagues at worst claimed that Gel'fand was no Physicist, stop.

In the beginning I used to go through the weird logic, try and work out the steps if any, sweat myself and prepare a well-crafted essay defending Einstein as best as I could, by showing up inconsistencies, inaccuracies and pure cussedness in the Author's logic or lack of it.

The HoD would get it typed in his Official Letterhead and send it per Departmental Post under his Official Signature attested by HoD's glorious Rubber Stamp. I got nothing but intellectual satisfaction since it was my bounden duty to respond on behalf of Einstein. In hindsight I could have outsourced it to my Indrajit Mitras and Anikets, but the buck had after all to stop somewhere and it better did it with me.

After a couple of these attempts, I realized that the 'Article' must have been doing its rounds all over the world before dropping into my lap.

So, I used to keep it in cold storage for exactly a week and then draft the following blanket response:

"The ideas appear to be new and sound. The logic equally so. The Math is standard. I can find no obvious fault. However, I suggest that the Author send his 'Article' to a suitable Professional Journal, like Physical Review Letters".

The HoD whoever he was, would get that typed and signed and posted.

After all, I was nowhere in the picture!

But no harm came to our Hod either. The harm if any went to PRL's Editorial Assistants.

I did have one beautiful experience though.

One fine morning, Professor BC, the then HoD and a modest man, rushed into my Office, and dumped on me a hand-written Reply Post Card from a gentleman from Kamarpukur. He asked our HoD to please explain to him kindly (1) Chandrasekhar Limit (just when he got his belated Nobel) and (2) pH Meter, in the accompanying Reply-Paid Post Card.

That was indeed a delectable challenge.

I took about a couple of hours drafting samples on my Reprint Request Cards so as not to spoil his Card.

And gave it to BC. He read it, liked it and asked me if I would mind if he signed it.

I, of course, said it was my pleasure. Noblesse' Oblige!

To my surprise, BC walked into my Office after a fortnight and dumped in my lap another Post Card from the same gentleman thanking BC profusely by name for enlightening him; and praying for and conveying the Blessings of Sri Sri Ramakrishnadeb and Saradamai on BC and all his family members.

BC bent his head down and muttered: "These are for you!"; blushed and walked away before I could offer him Tea under my Mango Tree in the Co-Op Canteen.


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