Last Sunday

Well, what a lazy bundle of bones I am!
Last Sunday was extraordinary - a mix of Physics, Art, and Biology.
Professor Asokamani's lectures on basic Physics has become a routine - sort of a Sunday mass - for I never miss that nowadays.
Once it was over, Saravanan, my friend, took me to the museum.
It was a fittingly older building - living to its promises of antiquity - as if some medieval traveler has dropped a treasure as he passed by - only to the beholder to judge the elegance - with dropped jaws.



One thing I can never forget is the magnificent view of the portraits of the Governor Generals of pre-independent days.


Portrait of Stanley, after whom the Stanley Government Hospital has been named.
Then there were the so realistically and emotionally seducing paintings by the famous Raja Ravi Varma. I had never imagined that I'll be viewing them from a touching distance. Masterpieces!

'Lady with the Mirror' by Raja Ravi Varma


You ought to fall in love -either with the art, or with the artist.

There were a number of sculptures, some strangely missing their head, or arms - was it the looters' mark, or mishandling while transportation, or negligence - I wondered.

The Zoology section had lot in store - the sharks, the whales, the crabs, the turtles, the giant eagles, the elephant - all displaying their skeletons - and I guess most of them will be reserved to be found in museums, rather than their natural habitat, or the zoo.

And you shouldn't visit a museum empty-stomached. Result: You are likely to end your quest for specimen in a restaurant. We started our search, and with the circuitous traffic arrangements, we decided we have lunch at home. Well, the day is worth writing about. But I still missed the Connemara library (Picture below).

Sharing What I Learned

Though I'm not a proponent of the idea of sharing what one learns, I thought it's worthwhile to share a few things before they evade my volatile memory.

Multiferroics: Imagine a magnetic material displays multiple electronic, magnetic, and structural behaviors like ferroelectric, ferromagnetic, and ferroelastic (sounds like T.Rajendar's movies where he does everything - Story, screenplay, direction, production, acting(?), singing, and more than all, do all the talking?). But such materials do exist and they are known as multiferroic materials. These materials have been identified by Science magazine as one of the areas to watch this year for breakthroughs in research. If successful, it will lead to advanced chips that combine logical and memory functions, bringing electronics and spintronics together. (Get ready to coin a new term - Electrospinnics? uh.

Spin more of it at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/318/5858/1848
http://shell.cas.usf.edu/fml/multiferroic.html

ROI: Ever wondered what it expands as? I'd been thinking it's the Rate of Interest. Geek. No! It is the Returns on Investment. It's one of the hotwords in IT and other businesses now. ROI is a measure of how effectively your business uses the capital and generates profit. So. to sound more IT and techie, use such words as ROI. You'll be respected, or at least listened to, nerd!


And there is even a formula to calculate the ROI. As a rule of thumb, 3 years is taken as the minimum period to assess ROI. Perhaps the pundits thought it's not at all a business if it can't survive three years. OK. The formula is:

net benefit year 1 / (1+discount rate) + net benefit year 2 / (1+discount rate) + net benefit year 3 / (1+discount rate)) / initial cost

To dig deeper, click http://whatis.techtarget.com/wsearchResults/1,290214,sid9,00.html?query=ROI

Tonometer? Remember the peculiar instrument the American doctor in our movies, who comes just when the hero's mom or sis has to have an eye surgery uses to test the eye? Yea, you got it right! It's the tonometer, which is used to measure the interocular pressure IOP in the eye. This instrument is extremely useful in the diagnosis of glaucoma - a condition resulting due to increased interocular pressure.

Apply some more pressure on ur eye to check this out: http://healthguide.howstuffworks.com/tonometry-dictionary.htm


Heard of 'Chewing gum effect'? Even after a lot of googling, I found it difficult and at last, I got the answer from the thread of a forum on the same topic. It's the way people strain their tounge and mouth to pronounce words - rather like talking while chewing a bubble gum! Think about our access-conscious aunties twisting their tongues and rolling their eyes while uttering Americanized slangs.

Chew more of it @ http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t9616-15.htm

And a little bit of research about the much-hyped, and much-feared-in-India Wal-Mart: http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t9616-15.htm

OK. Hope that was a useful post. Read it with a chewing gum effect, not having to use a tonometer. Definitely, your knowledge ROI should have improved. I think mine has.

Remembering Hillary

Sorry about making this rather an obituary column. But Hillary is no more. No, not Hillary Clinton, even though she is in the process of ascension to the summit. I'm talking about one Sir Edmund Percival Hillary. Voila! The very man who, along with Norgay the Sherpa, conquered Mt. Everest on 29th May (that's my birthday!), not in 1981 but in 1953.

Sir Edmund Hillary with Tenzing Norgay

What do people achieve by setting their feet on top of a barren mountain? One may ask. But there is a sense of achievement - born out of a child's curiousity, an adventurer's perseverance, and a human being's tryst. I have the experience of climbing half a mountain, with my childhood friends, only to discover that the path ahead requires extreme physical and mental toughness. But there was a sense of childish pride - in seeing my home village and the green fields all over in a Lilliputian scale. We ate the mangoes we stole from a grove on the way to the hill. Then we dipped ourselves in a cool stream, and headed back home - with lots and lots of thorns and weeds and twigs making their mark on our bodies. Yet, we were proud. So think of Hillary's pride. He has conquered the world!

And the great man is no more. Sir Edmund Hillary died of a Heart Attack on 11 January 2008 at the age of 88. Everest will be weeping by now.

Jaipur Legs

I remember seeing, as a kid, a neighbor of mine having a funny-looking leg. It took time for me to identify it was fake. He used to ride his moped, walk in a funny-looking manner, and lead a life just like any other funny-looking guy.

Only at a later stage did I understand things like artificial legs, prosthetics and so on. And yesterday, I read the sad news about the death of the inventor of the so-called 'Jaipur Legs'. P.K. Sethi is his name. He had applied his innovation so that people who can't afford to the seemingly easier tasks that people like you and me can do can also walk proudly and do things we guys usually take for granted.

His innovation led to the realization of millions of dreams. To reduce the weight of the artificial legs that were in use, he came up with the idea of using vulcanized rubber which is more flexible and less massive. It is claimed that one can even climb up trees with these legs fitted.

When India is successfully implementing the Polio Eradication program, Sethi's contribution to the upliftment of disabled persons ought to be remembered.

Nadal in Chennai

Well, what a new year! For the first time in my life, I watched a tennis match 'live'. No. Why do people always want to watch something LIVE on television? My friend took me in his bike to the stadium of Sports Development Authority of Tamilnadu, Nungambakkam, Chennai. Never ask me how I managed to get the ticket for the match. I'm not going to tell that anyway. One thing is sure - I have to improve my bargaining skills yet. OK. Back to Tennis.

We - my friend and I - were given the 'Brown' seat o'er the top. But I assure you that it is from where the best view you can have in a tennis match. The stadium is a colorful one - forget the footprints on the chairs and the left-overs of that overrated pizza box - it IS a good stadium with all the basic facilities intact. I didn't check out the fire exit though. And who cares - even if you don't like tennis, you can at least admire the glittering cheerleaders.

I saw Vijay Amirtraj and Charu Sharma from a distance people call a stone throw away. The first match started exactly 6 minutes behind schedule. Robin Hasse (Netherlands) outwitted Marcos Baghdatis (Cyprus) in straight sets. The second seeded Marcos would not have imagined his new year will start the way it eventually did. Nevermind. The next match was what I and almost everyone came for - the brutally strong and powerful Rafael Nadal's match.



Nadal was clinical in his demolition act, save that dragged match point when his opponent - Mathew Montcourt of France, showed some resilience and earned a break point - only to face the brunt of facing Nadal for some more time. Though not the quickest in serve, this lad from Spain has that trademark backhand stuffed with power. You can try bullfighting instead of facing him in a tennis court. I wonder how brutal Federer could be despite his innocent smile.

The matches were worth the money, and we had a tremendous new year day. No bargain this time.