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.
Great to see Kamala Sohonie featured on google doodle today. She was (probably?) the 1st woman to get a science PhD in India – circa 1939. Also featured in the book “Lilavati’s Daughters” which I mentioned in my recent podcast
Going by the timelines, Iravati Karve got PhD in 1930, in anthropology, which is generally categorized as ‘social science’. Nevertheless, all inspiring. Iravati had deep connections with Pune, and taught Deccan College
Great to see Kamala Sohonie featured on google doodle. She was the 1st women to get a science PhD in India – circa 1939. Also featured in the book "Lilavati's Daughters" which I mentioned in my recent podcast
I discuss the legacy of two important individuals Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and Sivaramakrishna Chandrasekhar and their students. I highlight their styles of doing research and how they inspired important schools of thought. I emphasize the role of economic privilege and gender. I discuss Bimala Buti and mention about interesting books on women in science : Lilavatis Daughters and Lab Hopping.
Goodby, John W. “Sivaramakrishna Chandrasekhar (1930–2004).” Nature 428, no. 6986 (April 2004): 906–906. https://doi.org/10.1038/428906a.
Gray, G. W., G. R. Luckhurst, and E. P. Raynes. “Sivaramakrishna Chandrasekhar. 6 August 1930 — 8 March 2004: Elected FRS 1983.” Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 53 (January 2007): 127–41. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbm.2007.0015.
Wali, Kameshwar C. A Quest for Perspectives: Selected Works of S Chandrasekhar (With Commentary)(In 2 Volumes). IMPERIAL COLLEGE PRESS, 2001. https://doi.org/10.1142/p175.
Wali, Kameshwar C. S Chandrasekhar: The Man Behind the Legend. PUBLISHED BY IMPERIAL COLLEGE PRESS AND DISTRIBUTED BY WORLD SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING CO., 1997. https://doi.org/10.1142/p030.
Albert A Michelson. Image credit : Nobel Prize webpage
Albert Abraham Michelson was a celebrated American experimental physicist. He was associated with one of the most famous experiments in physics : Michelson-Morley Experiment, which formed an important input for Einstein’s special theory of relativity.
Michelson’s ability to design and develop optical instruments including the interferometer named after him, was one of vital elements in his legendary pursuit to measure velocity of light. He continued to refine this measurement over a period of 40 years or so.
He was also the first American to win a Nobel prize in science (physics, 1907). Americans adored him, and he shot up to fame with his ingenious experiments and became a folklore of United States.
(Yes, you read it right, there was another guy called Dayton Miller who played a critical role in refining the experiment initiated by Michelson and Morley )
In Swenson’s book, there are two stanzas from a poem by Edwin Herbert Lewis that highlights Michelson’s legend. Below I reproduce the same :
But in Kyerson rainbows murmur the music of heavenly things. Is not this stranger than heaven that a man should hear around The whole of earth and the half of heaven and see the shadow of sound? He gathereth up the iris from the plunging of planet’s rim With bright precision of fingers that Uriel envies him. But when from the plunging planet he spread out a hand to feel How fast the ether drifted back through flesh or stone or steel The fine fiducial fingers felt no ethereal breath. They penciled the night in a cross of light and found it still as death. Have the stars conspired against him? Do measurements only seem? Are time and space but shadows enmeshed in a private dream?
But dreaming or not, he measured. He made him a rainbow bar, And first he measured the measures of man, and then he measured a star. Now tell us how long is the metre, lest fire should steal it away? Ye shall fashion it new, immortal, of the crimson cadmium ray. Now tell us how big is Antares, a spear-point in the night? Four hundred million miles across a single point of light. He has taught a world to measure. They read the furnace and gauge By lines of the fringe of glory that knows nor aging nor age. Now this is the law of Ryerson and this is the price of peace- That men shall learn to measure or ever their strife shall cease.
E.H. Lewis
Indeed humans shall learn to measure or ever their strife shall cease…
A lot of stuff related to energy conversion has its connection to Joule's apparatus which explored mech. equivalent of heat. He also played a critical role in identifying resistive heating : detrimental to all of electronics including mobile phones.. https://t.co/nITRhyGcqA
How does science approach failure and ignorance? What is an experiment? What can we learn from a failed experiment? How ignorance plays a relevant role in science and technology? I discuss these and related issues in this episode.
Swenson, Loyd S. The Ethereal Aether; a History of the Michelson-Morley-Miller Aether-Drift Experiments, 1880-1930. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972. http://archive.org/details/etherealaetherhi0000swen.
Adam Grant [@AdamMGrant]. “Compassion Is Kinder and Healthier than Empathy. Evidence: When We Feel Others’ Pain, We Often Get Overwhelmed and Withdraw. When We Feel Concern for Their Pain, We Reach out and Help. The Point of Compassion Isn’t to Share Their Feelings. It’s to Care about Their Feelings. Https://T.Co/EHDwUxHUJd.” Tweet. Twitter, May 24, 2023. https://twitter.com/AdamMGrant/status/1661377095736389640.
In my research group, we study the interaction of light with soft-matter from a photonics viewpoint.
Until now, I have supervised 11 PhD theses, 11 MS theses, a few post-docs and several undergraduate students at IISER Pune (see my group members – past and present). I continue to learn a lot from them.
Another strand of my research is the history of science. I am interested in the historical evolution of ideas in physical sciences and technology. I research the life and work 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.
Writing has been an integral part of my life since my childhood (1980s), and I have been in the process since the ‘pre-internet’ era. I have been blogging since 2008 or so. You can access my old blog site here.
You can access and listen to my audio podcast – Pratidhvani – Humanizing Science, on -Spotify, YouTube (audio), Google Podcast or Apple podcast (all links below).
VISMAYA - History & Philosophy of Physics 