Author: G.V. Pavan Kumar

Namaste, Hola & Welcome from G.V. Pavan Kumar. I am a Professor of Physics at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune, India. My research interests are : (1) Optics & Soft Matter: Optically Induced Forces – Assembly, Dynamics & Function; (2) History and Philosophy of Science – Ideas in Physical Sciences. I am interested in the historical and philosophical evolution of ideas and tools in the physical sciences and technology. I research the intellectual history of past scientists, innovators, and people driven by curiosity, and I write about them from an Indian and Asian perspective. My motivation is to humanize science. In the same spirit, I write and host my podcast Pratidhvani – Humanizing Science.

C1, C2 and life…

Dear Young People,

Below is a brief lesson that I share with those who ask me for career advice. I hope it will be useful to you.

Category 1 (C1): Honesty, humility, discipline, effort and compassion

is as important as

Category 2 (C2): Irreverence, creativity, drive, communication and risk-taking.

In this era, C1 may look boring and sound cynical, but C1 can give you as much of a competitive advantage as C2, especially in the long run.

Importantly, C1 will build your character. C1 is probably the best way to build self-confidence, and hence self-respect.

This is not to underplay C2, which is equally important. Just that C1 and C2 are not zero-sums.

C1 and C2 are incomplete lists, and you can always expand them and keep referring to them for directions in life.

Best Wishes,
from a fellow student

Chandra quotes Virginia Woolf

The well-known astrophysicist, S. Chandrasekhar, liked the writings of Virgina Woolf. In her words, he found a unique channel to philosophize his own work, as he did in 1957:

‘By accident, I found the following quotation from Virginia Wolff (Woolf) which expressed very accurately my attitude to my work of the past years. This quotation ends my Rumford Lecture.

“There is a square. There is an oblong. The players take the square and place it upon the oblong. They place it very accurately. They make a perfect dwelling place. The structure is now visible. What was inchoate is here stated. We are not so various or so mean. We have made oblongs and stood them upon squares. This is our triumph. This is our consolation.”’ (Chandrasekhar, 2010, p. 41)

Source:  Chandrasekhar, S. 2010. A Scientific Autobiography: S. Chandrasekhar: With Selected Correspondence. (posthumously published)

Note: The source spells Woolf as Wolff

Book Talk – Dileep Mampallil

Dileep Mampallil is an Associate Professor at IISER Tirupati, specializing in microfluidics and soft matter. As a prolific science communicator in Malayalam, he has authored books on evolutionary biology [molecular foundations and human origins] and the search for extraterrestrial life [cosmic evolution]. His latest book, We May Not Be Alone, Yet Alone, is written in English and explores the scientific quest for alien intelligence.

In this episode, he presents an overview of his recent book, motivated by some intriguing questions.