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.

Conversation with Gautam Menon

Gautam is a theoretical physicist who is driven by curiosity. His explorations include superconductivity, biophysics, active matter, public health, art, music etc.

He is a Professor & Dean at Ashoka University: https://www.ashoka.edu.in/profile/gautam-menon-2/.

In this episode, we discuss his intellectual journey until now.

References:

  1. Ashoka University. “Gautam Menon.” Accessed October 28, 2024. https://www.ashoka.edu.in/profile/gautam-menon-2/.
  2. “Gautam I. Menon’s Home Page.” Accessed October 28, 2024. https://www.imsc.res.in/~menon/.
  3. University, Ashoka. “Prof. Gautam Menon Is the New Dean of Research at Ashoka University.” Ashoka University, October 4, 2022. https://www.ashoka.edu.in/prof-gautam-menon-is-the-new-dean-of-research-at-ashoka-university/.
  4. X (formerly Twitter). “Gautam Menon (@MenonBioPhysics) / X,” January 14, 2022. https://x.com/menonbiophysics.
  5. IndiaBioscience. “Interdisciplinarity: How to Make It Work for You,” November 2, 2018. https://indiabioscience.org/columns/opinion/interdisciplinarity-how-to-make-it-work-for-you.
  6. Menon, Gautam I. “Active Matter.” arXiv, March 10, 2010. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1003.2032.
  7. “Science, Journalism, Media: Communicating Science in a Changing India.” Accessed October 28, 2024. https://www.imsc.res.in/~scimedia/index.html.

Article on Gerhard Herzberg

The October 2024 issue of Resonance, Journal of Science Education

highlights the life and science of Gerhard Herzberg.

He was one of the greatest molecular spectroscopists who laid the foundation of atomic and molecular quantum mechanics and deeply impacted molecular astrophysics and astrochemistry.

He lived an extraordinary life, first in Europe learning quantum mechanics and then escaping 1930s Germany as his wife was of Jewish origin. Then, he settled in Canada to build and lead his lab, which was considered the ‘mecca of spectroscopy’ at NRC, Ottowa.

I wrote a sci-biography article about him in this issue

Link to full edition: https://www.ias.ac.in/listing/articles/reso/029/10

If you don’t know – Resonance is a pedagogical journal published by the Indian Academy of Sciences. It is a true open-access journal. Free to read and does not charge the authors to publish.

Do explore the past editions. There are some absolute gems. https://www.ias.ac.in/listing/issues/reso

Open access : a few thoughts and books

I think that knowledge, especially academic knowledge, should be openly accessible to fellow researchers and the public. Given that most of the academic research in India is public-funded, it is imperative that our work is made available for anyone interested in reading and utilizing the knowledge. This makes a strong case for making our work open to access. Unfortunately, the open-access publication venture has been hijacked by some commercial publishers, who have misused the enthusiasm of academic researchers by converting it into a money-making opportunity via so-called ‘gold’ open-access models, where authors pay exorbitant article processing charges (APCs) to publish their work in the journals.

I have been searching literature to understand the philosophy and economics of open-access publishing models, and recently, by chance, I came across a couple of books by Peter Suber.

First is an open-access book on Open Access. Peter Suber has been a philosopher & open-access advocate for a long time. In this book, he explains what it really means to have open access to knowledge & the related philosophy, including its economics. Link to the book.

Second is a collection of writings on open-access publication (link), and as the online blurb says :

Influential writings make the case for open access to research, explore its implications, and document the early struggles and successes of the open access movement.

The green open-access model is very interesting and pertinent to countries such as India, and as per wiki it is defined as :

Green OA, is the practice of placing a version of an author’s manuscript into a repository, making it freely accessible for the scientific community.

The primary motivation of Open Access was
to provide Open Access to Knowledge to the READER of Publications and; to allow Open Access to AUTHORS Publication (unbiased publication of Knowledge)

Open access in the true sense, should neither have barriers to knowledge consumption nor to knowledge generation and dissemination. Therefore, APCs are a major hurdle to researchers and authors who do not have monetary support. This is most of the global south, and hence, a fair policy is needed to make it more democratic.

Conversation with Chinmay Tumbe

Chinmay is an author, historian and associate professor at IIM Ahmedabad: https://sites.google.com/site/chinmaytumbe/home.

We explored his intellectual landscape of becoming a writer and a historian. We discuss his writing process and his experience of researching and teaching business history in a scientific & engaging way.

Many related strands…

Listen as we humanize science with history…

References:

  1. “Chinmay Tumbe.” Accessed October 15, 2024. https://sites.google.com/site/chinmaytumbe/home.
  2. “Chinmay Tumbe | IIMA.” Accessed October 15, 2024. https://www.iima.ac.in/faculty-research/faculty-directory/Chinmay-Tumbe.
  3. “‪Chinmay Tumbe – ‪Google Scholar.” Accessed October 15, 2024. https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&btnA=1&user=MyvxhAUAAAAJ.
  4. “Chinmay Tumbe – History.” Accessed October 16, 2024. https://sites.google.com/site/chinmaytumbe/home/history.
  5. Diamond, Jared, and James A. Robinson. Natural Experiments of History. Reprint edition. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2011.
  6. Jha, Prabhat, Yashwant Deshmukh, Chinmay Tumbe, Wilson Suraweera, Aditi Bhowmick, Sankalp Sharma, Paul Novosad, et al. “COVID Mortality in India: National Survey Data and Health Facility Deaths.” Science 375, no. 6581 (February 11, 2022): 667–71. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abm5154.
  7. “Literature Festivals: India’s Vibrant History Scene.” Accessed October 15, 2024. https://historylitfest.com/.
  8. Tumbe, Chinmay. Age Of Pandemics (1817-1920): How They Shaped India and the World, 2020.
  9. ———. India Moving: A History of Migration. Vintage Books, 2018.
  10. X (formerly Twitter). “(1) Chinmay Tumbe (@ChinmayTumbe) / X,” June 9, 2024. https://x.com/chinmaytumbe.
  11. X (formerly Twitter). “HITCH (@BizEconHist) / X,” September 15, 2022. https://x.com/bizeconhist.

Writing in the age of AI

A contemporary question of interest: How can artificial intelligence (AI) influence writing?

Writing has two consequences – 1) a writer processing information and communicating it to an audience; 2) a reader processing the author’s information.

The first part has an element of personal touch, just like any art or craft (for example, pottery). One does write (or create a pot) partly because it gives some pleasure and helps one to understand something in the process. There is a gain of knowledge in writing. This pleasure and wisdom through writing cannot be replaced by an external agency like AI. This is because external tools like AI are assistants of thought, not internal replacements of thought. In that sense, no external tool can replace any amateur activity because something is done for the sake of the process. Writing as a tool of self-reflection cannot be replaced by something external.

So, where is the threat? Actually, it is professional writing which is under partial threat from AI. Wherever the end product is more important than the process of writing, AI can gain prominence, provided it is accurate. It is still a partial threat because a professional writer can create questions and combinations that may arise out of individual experiences. Those lived experiences are derived from “life“, and AI cannot be a substitute for such an internal experience.

Writing, like many human endeavors, is both internal and external. The former makes us human, and that is hard to replace. After all, the A in AI stands for artificial.

Conversation with Ganesh Bagler

Ganesh is a multifaceted researcher who brings together food and computation via Computational Gastronomy. He is a Professor at IIIT Delhi and is interested in various facets of food science and technology: https://www.iiitd.ac.in/bagler

What is his intellectual journey from Solapur to Delhi?

Watch as we humanize science…with plenty of ‘food for thought.’

References:

  1. Making Food Computable | Ganesh Bagler | TEDxIISERPune, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrHD3FKeUaE.
  2. “Complex Systems Lab IIIT Delhi Prof Ganesh Bagler.” Accessed October 12, 2024. https://cosylab.iiitd.edu.in/#wrapper.
  3. “Ganesh Bagler.” In Wikipedia, September 28, 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ganesh_Bagler&oldid=1248324012.
  4. “‪Ganesh Bagler – ‪Google Scholar.” Accessed October 12, 2024. https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=qyth_0QAAAAJ&hl=en.
  5. Jain, Anupam, Rakhi N K, and Ganesh Bagler. “Analysis of Food Pairing in Regional Cuisines of India.” PLoS ONE 10, no. 10 (October 2, 2015): e0139539. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0139539.
  6. Jain, Anupam, Rakhi N. K, and Ganesh Bagler. “Spices Form the Basis of Food Pairing in Indian Cuisine.” arXiv, February 12, 2015. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1502.03815.
  7. Bagler, Ganesh. “Analysis of the Airport Network of India as a Complex Weighted Network.” Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications 387, no. 12 (May 1, 2008): 2972–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physa.2008.01.077.
  8. Episode 15: Cracking the Flavor Code with Dr. Ganesh Bagler #beyondshodh #podcast #food #ai, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Es-0gqdpZU.
  9. MIT Technology Review. “Data Mining Indian Recipes Reveals New Food Pairing Phenomenon.” Accessed October 13, 2024. https://www.technologyreview.com/2015/02/25/169030/data-mining-indian-recipes-reveals-new-food-pairing-phenomenon/.
  10. Prof. Ganesh Bagler, Computational Gastronomy Pioneer, IIIT-Delhi, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYRXYAb55R8.