VISMAYA: History & Philosophy of Physics

Everything..

Written by

G V Pavan Kumar

; posted on

June 3, 2026

79,743 reads/views and counting…

Below is a reverse-chronological list of all the blogs posted on this site. Also, see the tag cloud at the end.

Ownership of writing through talking
Conversation with Suneeta Vardarajan
Perhaps…truth..
Conversation with Nagarjuna G.
Academia in the age of AI: Known Goals, searching for a better process
Process <–> Results
Navier-Stokes under an AI torch..
Conversation with Apratim Chatterji
A more realistic view of science through history..
Conversation with Nirmal Viswanathan
Some Ideas on Ideas…
Astronomy in Africa: Who is studying it?
20th Aug – remembering scientific temper..
Optics – Fields, Size and Vector Calculus
The Controversial Schrödinger
Blog stats – approx. 10 years
Schrödinger & Poetry
Even transients have to wait…
Popper’s first teacher
Making meaning…Shivarudrappa’s style
Unified view of Physics: a discussion
Rayleigh – criticize and resurrect..
A bird’s-eye view of physics research
Conversation with Ashutosh Jogalekar
What if….videos came before writing?
Criticism – just a science thing..
The 5 Maxwellians
Bohr’s handwriting
4 of the many ways to think…
Unified subject map of physics – 130 years
Scientific Lifestyle is Satyagraha
Conversation with Ashna Bajpai
Lab in Indian Schools
lab –> www
The only thing I am sure of.. and why ?
Everything..
Tiny value of the radiation pressure of sunlight on Earth
Posters & Thinking…
Conversation with Prasad Subramanian
When Chandra’s paper got rejected
Optical Momentum – Lectures
C1, C2 and life…
Feynman’s birthday with a Raman diagram
Chandra quotes Virginia Woolf
Scientific method..during morning jog
Writing Oates.. never turn away..
Book Talk – Dileep Mampallil
Snapshots from Yukawa’s archive
Why write by hand?
Inside and outside..
Bose in Rajya Sabha – a video
DeWitt is a ‘de-influencer’?
Conversation with Binay Panda
Oppenheimer on teaching..
Open Source – an example
Intensity Interferometer – connection to coherence
Pavan’s lectures on Quantum Optics
Born & Wolf to Mandel & Wolf
Conversation with Sanjit Mitra
JOSA-A paper on C V Raman
Long walk to knowledge…
Einstein in conversation with Shankland
Conversation with Sudipta Sarkar
Leggatt asked profound questions…
Bias for action…at what cost?
3 Thoughts on Scholarship in an AI-driven Age
Raman’s pronouncements..
Commitment to A Scientific Outlook
Conversation with Renny Thomas
Raman’s Optics – Historical Overview
Conversation with Debarati Chatterjee
OpenAI and Theoretical Physics
Conversation with Siddhesh Kamat
1937 – Rutherford’s letter to Raman
Scientific understanding and AI
AI hype..
Quantum States in Argand Diagrams: vacuum, coherent, and squeezed
Critical thinking – doodle
My Response to Kaplan
Conversation with Krishnendu Sengupta
Raman Effect – The paper that announced it…
26 Jan – Indian Republic Day…and a few more
C V Raman and long term thinking
Your voice…in the age of AI…
3 ways to make India more scientific..
Brillouin on Sommerfeld
Conversation with Srubabati Goswami
Five Aspects of the Fifth Pillar – A Philosophical Perspective
Raman-Chandra Letters
Saha and Bose translate Einstein
Icons of Science in India – some thoughts
ShuX in IISER Pune
Quantum Optics course – thoughts and notes
Raman in a marriage reception
Hedi Born’s picture
Conversation with Chaitanya Athale
On Criticism
Horizons – book reco
Lectures, Notes & Discussion – Topics, Papers, Books, etc.
How to Build Atomic LEGOs?
Teaching & Meaning
Create to Understand
Physics Ideas for Entrepreneurs
Raman essay and Open-Access
Opinion on maths
Quantum Optics – teaching in Jan 2026
Betty Archdale – 1939 cricket picture – Kannada magazine
Conversation with Satish Patil
Humanizing Science – A Conversation with a Student
Why is astronomy interesting? Chandra likes Wigner’s answer
Conversation with A.R.Venkatachalapathy
Polanyi’s quote
Rotational jamming – preprint
History of Maths in India – a good book
Random Walks in Polarization
Cartoon – Factory Workers
Conversation with Jyotishman Dasgupta
3 Questions for the AI age
‘We’gnana !
Conversation with Vijay Chikkadi
Have You Seen the Bird Flying? by D. R. Bendre
π and population
Conversation with Amit Agarwal
Ability to Wonder
Pursuit of Radiance – musical & philosophical
A telescope built over 20 years
Light pressure – Lebedev coin
Some writing advice (mainly physics) for UG students
Blog highlighted by SciRio
Builders of Modern Scientific India
Physics Nobel – 2025 : Schrödinger’s cat and her laboratory cousins
Meghnad Saha – lest we forget
Jane Goodall – what a life…
Gandhi, Tagore and Celebration of Ideas
Conversation with Aparna Deshpande
Satish Dhawan – truly a man for all seasons
Frankfurt in 5 hours…
Bach @ Leipzig
Leipzig – where Heisenberg worked…
Liquid Crystal Droplets + Plasmonic nanoparticle clusters
Sir MV on Education
Art and Chu – in Bell labs
Gardner’s Synthesis
Real is imaginary and vice versa
Chandra with Lalitha – 1940 – photo
When Chandra wrote to Hawking
Conversation with Arka Banerjee
Some Optical and IR observatories in India
Happy Independence Day & de Broglie’s birthday
A bit of advice…to students
Conversation with Kollegala Sharma
Light as EM wave – in Maxwell’s words
THE DIARY AND OBSERVATIONS OF THOMAS ALVA EDISON
A quantum survery – 3 thoughts
Conversation with Shivprasad Patil
Philosophy of Science – ideas – cartoon
A note on experimental physics
Conversation with Robert T. Pennock
Tony Tyson and a giant CCD camera
Sanskrit subhashita – don’t waste
ChatGPT – an experiment
Scientific Thinking – a short video
Conversation with Vipul Dutta
Conversation with Shubashree Desikan
ConForce 25 – highlights
More is Different – A Brief Overview
Hero’s Journey in Mechanics
Quartet of Modern World
YouTube as an Archival Source
Good books : Bohren & Huffman
Conversation with Vijaykumar Krishnamurthy
15 years at IISER Pune – Journey so far
Einstein – Science and its History & Philosophy
Soft Matter – emergence of a physics domain
Conversation with Bejoy Thomas
Einstein & experimental physics
Physics & Pratidhvani
He made physics more humane…
Optothermally induced active & chiral motion – a new paper
From Yukawa Archives: a draft, a letter & a rejection
Where Ideas Merge: A Visit to the Institute of Science Tokyo
Talk at Kyoto University
Kyoto digital archives 02 – Japan’s physics Who’s Who…
Kyoto digital archives 01 – Yukawa’s book
Maths, Mechanics & Eureka
Conversation with K. Sridhar
Floral colours, CV Raman and illustrations
Optical computing – review link and a few thoughts..
Physics Portal of Aristotle
Herschel, IR radiation and the 3 steps of science
A Global History of Physics
Engineering Civilizations
not sufficiently “crazy”
Nobel is secondary
arxiv preprint – Quantum Mechanics – historical papers
How does it connect to a measurement?
Science + History = ??
Culture of Science – Solo episodes
Conversations with Scientists, Historians, Philosophers, Writers etc.
All Episodes
CV Raman and Quantum Mechanics
Masterpiece: The Book of Optics by al-Haytham
Sadi Carnot & Thermodynamics
Current Science – Editorial Board
Hints Before a Discovery: The Case of Neutrons
Stern-Gerlach experiment – the first picture
Superstitions – Kepler, Galileo & Newton
Book alert – Science, Pseudoscience, and the Demarcation Problem
Conversation with Vinita Gowda
Listening spell-bound to Prof. Raman
Conversation with Vivek Polshettiwar
Conversation with Samrat Mukhopadhyay
Conversation with Karishma Kaushik
Conversation with Siddharth Tallur
Conversation with Sangeeta Kale
New domain – historyofscience.in
Willow in comparison – Google quantum chip
Why Read Books in the age of internet ?
FOLLOW THE MONEY – A useful model
Conversation with Ayan Banerjee
Conversation with Bhaskaran Muralidharan
Gold nanoparticles in sync – preprint
Learning & Happiness
Optothermal dynamics with broadband illumination – preprint
Conversation with Aninda Sinha
Conversation with Chaitra Redkar
Gerhard Herzberg – scientific life
Lilavati’s daughters – book link
Galdwell’s talk
Conversation with Gautam Menon
Article on Gerhard Herzberg
APL perspective article
meeting Niek after ~17 yrs
Open access : a few thoughts and books
Conversation with Chinmay Tumbe
Writing in the age of AI
Conversation with Ganesh Bagler
Physics Nobel 2024 – anywhere to everywhere
Physics is a point of view about the world
Conversation with Subhankar Bedanta
Open Science – UNESCO
Conversation with Anindya Datta
On open access books
Optothermal revolution – preprint
Conversation with Anindita Bhadra
Reading and meals..
Conversation with Urbasi Sinha
This is happiness
Einstein on Maxwell’s EM theory
Conversation with Sunil Nair
Quote by Gauss
How Optics is Transforming Our World
Conversation with Harinath Chakrapani
Conversation with Joyee Ghosh
The net forward..
Conversation with Joy Mitra
Questions as a class assignment
Conversation with Pramod Pillai
Conversation with Sivarama Krishnan
Academic Scientific Writing: A Case for Two Versions
Conversation with Jeevanjyoti Chakraborty
Raman & Quantum Mechanics
Expression as exploration – video
Workshop lecture at ICTS – Aug 2023
Masterpiece: The Book of Optics by al-Haytham
Sadi Carnot – a brief biography
Conversation with Sreejith G.J.
My article on Eunice Newton Foote in The India Forum
Conversation with Neeraja Dashaputre
How to tackle impatience ?
Conversation with Pushkar Sohoni
Discipline is a Talent – Federer’s point
Conversation with Guruswamy Kumaraswamy
Conversation with Venu Gopal Achanta
50 deg C – here to stay..
Raman & Gol Gumbaz
Conversation with Devapriya Chattopadhyay
Let’s talk physics…outdoors
Doodle video – Curiosity as a career
Doodle video – Science meets History
Conversation with Arnab Mukherjee
Video-essay on climbing
Why do people climb mountains?
Conversation with Dibakar Roy Chowdhury
Election in Pune and Zero shadow day
Conversation with Sundar Sarukkai
How confinement leads to emergence ?
Conversation with Mayurika Lahiri
Connection between science and creativity
A short comment on a bizarre claim – room temp SC
Why write interesting papers ?
Why liquid state is amazing ?
A Twitter thread on my Japan trip that inspired my podcast
Conversation with Snigdha Thakur
Music beats on a metal water can
Conversation with Sudipta Maiti
Heaviside को Maxwellian क्यों कहा जाता है?
Meditation on Questioning
Conversation with Jayant Murthy
Graviton-like modes – link and some questions
Some policies of my research
Graviton modes in solids: Old Argentinian wine in new Bottle ?
Conversation with Umakant Rapol
Asimov on lasers
Conversation with Sandhya Koushika
Questions: Substance and Form
Podcast : Leonardo, Rayleigh & blue sky research
Essay on Raman – now on arXiv
Conversation with Deepak Dhar
Conversation with Anisa Chorwadwala
Raman speaking in German
C.V. Raman as a Science Communicator: A Historical Perspective
Conversation with Akhlesh Lakhtakia
Conversation with B. Ananthanarayan
Conversation with Suresh Govindarajan
Quadcopters in 1950s
Einstein’s foreword on Newton’s Opticks
Earliest painting of a person wearing spectacles
Conversation with Susmita Adhikari
My Forward Moving Chakra
Robert Boyle’s project list
Tweet on Asimov
Conversation with Atikur Rahman
S.N. Bose in Rajya Sabha
Conversation with Shivakumar Jolad
Story of Eric Betzig
Tables turned…I was a guest on a podcast
Excerpt from Isaacson’s interview
Conversation with Ashish Arora
J.C. Bose and the measurement of refractive index
Electron Microscopy and Optical Holography: some notes from history
Mind, Pen & Paper – starting a video series
Conversation with Neeldhara Misra
New video – substack link
I am on Substack now
Teaching and its impact
Solo episode : 6 reasons why I do Science
A capitalistic Galileo ?
A paraphrased quote I liked
Some books on the history of thermodynamics
Solo podcast : A call from Varanasi
Peacock at NCL Pune
Solo podcast – Let go the ego!
Planck replies to Sommerfeld
My Bengaluru memo..
Conversation with Nirmal Raj
Western Ghats..a short video
John Michell and ‘dark stars’
Conversation with Angshuman Nag
Podcast and metrics
Conversation with Jasjeet Singh Bagla
Thinking in a Classroom
Conversation with Nirmalya Kajuri
Kumar Patel and CO2 laser- Baramati-Pune to Bell Labs
Natural home…at a parking lot in IISER Pune
Conversation with Srabanti Chaudhury
Curie and Raman – born on this day
Teaching LASERs – snapshots
Conversation with Sourabh Dube
Conversation with Kasturi Saha
Oscillating Chai (tea)
Twitter thread on Chandra
Conversation with Dibyendu Nandi
Why study history?
Conversation with Sudeshna Sinha
2023 Nobel in Sciences – A few observations and questions
2023 Nobel in Physics – Initial thoughts
अहिंसा, सत्याग्रह
Karnataka through ages
New paper – Emergence of Directional Rotation
Conversation with Vishwesha Guttal
Video on Shechtman and Nobel predictions…
Conversation with Biman Nath
Oliver Heaviside : A Maxwellian
Austin Kleon – inspirations
Conversation with Arindam Ghosh
Some lessons from Chandrayaan-3 : A video
Water droplets on a cobweb – video
Climate change – report link
Squirrel vs Gravity
Conversation with M.S. Santhanam
Sanskrit quote on learning..
Zijie Yan…gone too soon
Conversation with Kaneenika Sinha
Chandra quoting Milne..
Paragliding…
Veer dam backwaters…
10 things I learnt from Chandrayan 3
Amazing video by ISRO
Conversation with E Arunan
Active Collective Motion – a video
New episode – audio-visual podcast – An Indian Prof’s 15 lessons
Conversation with Ranjini Bandyopadhyay
Born before Oppenheimer: molecular quantum mechanics
A twitter thread on Born-Oppenheimer
Some ironies of publishing
Conversation with Amitabh Joshi
Conversation with Saptarshi Basu
My physics colloquium at IIT-Madras – Feb 2023
A thread on photography
Critical thinking in Indian STEM students
Conversation with Nagaraj Balasubramanian
Link to essays on Oppenheimer
Hydrophobic surface of leaves
New Episode : Conversation with Seema Sharma
New episode on podcast : Conversation with Sutirth Dey
A case for compassionate rationality
New episode on podcast : Conversation with Aditi Sen (De)
Speckles from boiling water
Ants as active matter
Leidenfrost effect in my kitchen
Podcast: Gripping History of Laser Invention
Kamala Sohonie and Iravati Karve
Two Chandrasekhars and their students
Michelson’s legend in a poem
June is for Joule
New episode on podcast
Galileo’s moon
New Episode : Ashkin’s Story – no prize to Nobel prize
New Episode : Science, Rationality and Compassion
New episode : Six Jugalbandis of Scientific Research
Namaste, Hola, Welcome!
Inspirations from Japan
Pratidhvani-Humanizing Science: podcast on reflections of Academic Scientist
Osaka and Optical Manipulation
Ocean, Okinawa and OIST…
New paper : Optothermoelectric trapping of single nano-diamonds
Two talks in Tokyo
Cup Noodles Museum – Food + Science + Technology + Inspiration
OMC 2023
Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop – History of Optical Manipulation
3 axis pendulum at Yokohama city : an introduction
Crepuscular rays in Pune and a surprise from Western Ghats
Science + History —> better Science
Toys, Geim and Gupta
Chomsky et al., on Chatgpt
Preamble to the discovery of Raman Effect
Geo-fractal…somewhere over south India
Soft Matter Optics – talk at ACS -India
Hot Brownian Colloids – talk
FCS workshop – talk slides
M. Visvesvaraya’s professional autobiography
My talk at ICTS
Review article – Plasmonic colloids + Optical Vortex
Basic advice to undergrads: written assignments
New paper :”Optothermal evolution of active colloidal matter in defocused laser trap”
A relevant book and its review
Indian Philosophy and Independent thought
Roadmap for optical tweezers is on arxiv
New paper : Microsphere can narrow emission from a 2D material on a mirror
Carlos’s kick
12 Years as a faculty member in India – 12 lessons
Sagan’s quote
Black hole image and optical vortex – an analogy
Scientific Philosophy and Mental Health
More surprises in Optical Momentum…
Maxwell connecting EM to light
OAM + SAM -New paper from my lab
Talks on C.V. Raman – YouTube links
Nanowire kink as an antenna for 2D material
Connection between science and empathy
Raman and Science Day
Announcement: my webinars on Science Day
Open-access publishing is not so open
64. Susskind’s view on philosophical Feynman
63. Pattern formation in my kitchen
62.The 51A.(h)
61. Free e-book on Discovering Light: Fun Experiments with Optics
60. An old message.. for the new year
59. Who is a physicist?
58. Optothermal Pulling of colloids using Nanowire Plasmons – my talk at Compflu 2021
57. Single nanoparticle driven thermoplasmonic tweezer : single-molecule SERS
56. “Paul Traps” video
55. Kindness in science
54. End-sem email to my class
53. Karnad’s preface to his memoir
52. Optothermal pulling and trapping..with nanowire plasmons
51. A case for Science + Philosophy
50. Nanowire-nanoparticle Raman Antenna
49. Optical Spin in Nanowire Plasmons
48. Test Match Cricket and Research
47. Nagendra, Weinberg and some memories…
46. Danish and fire at IISER
45. Scientific Gandhism
44. Beaming light with a bent-nanowire
43. Gadagkar’s article
42. New paper on WGMs via plasmonic nanowire
41. New paper
40. Tadashi’s practical application
39. Paper on nanophotonics of 2D material
38. K.S. Krishnan et al., – students related to the discovery of Raman effect
37. A call from Varanasi
36. Science for…?
35. Water droplets on hot tawa
34. Panoramic view
33. Laminar to turbulent flow..
32. Floating bubble…
31. Fluctuating Sun..on a surface
30. Post-Nobel blues and blackbody science
29. hBN crystal growth…..and a poem by Glück
28. Words of Berry
27. Question of Life
26. Trinocular View of Science
25. Ants@IISER as Active Matter
24. Bubbles in nimboo soda
23. Falling droplets….
Colloids in Choreographic Time Crystals
Science + Poetry –> Quo Vadis ?
Letter to My Undergrad Students
Updates – COVID times
References : mai yaha tu kaha
Raman’s Nephews
Soft Matter Physics + Photonics – my renewed interest
Importance of a failed experiment
Conversations in Research Life
Expression as Exploration
Physics Nobel….via Geetanjali
A Random Walk in Edinburgh
Curiosity as a Career
My Metaphoric Oxygen
Trapping Questions and Evolving Answers
Science Behind the Science Day
Why I do Science ?
Born and Wolf
Biological Lasers – Alive and Emitting
Polluted air…..why do we care ?
Colourful Sky in Leonardo’s Eye
Beginning of scattering

Tag cloud:

Everything..

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