Conversation with Saptarshi Basu

Our youtube channel : https://www.youtube.com/@g.v.pavankumarlab2908/playlists

Please subscribe and share…

Saptarshi Basu is a ‘Pratt and Whitney Chair Professor’ at Mechanical Engineering department of Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru . Saptarshi lab webpage : https://www.saptarshibasulab.com/

His research interests include Multiphase transport processes. Atomization and sprays, Micro-nanoscale transport in droplets, Combustion.  In this episode we discuss his dreams, transition from Engineer to a Scientist, his philosophy on research, teaching and academia; Segments on covid related work, Rabindra sangeet & many other things

Listen as we humanize science…

spotify :

google podcast : https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9lMTcyMGUwYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw

apple podcast :

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-13-conversation-with-saptarshi-basu-dreams-droplets/id1687861465?i=1000622340022

References :

  1. “Saptarshi Basu | webpage : https://mecheng.iisc.ac.in/people/saptarshi-basu/.
  2. “Amazon.In.” Accessed July 15, 2023. https://www.amazon.in/Books-G-Venkataraman/s?rh=n%3A976389031%2Cp_27%3AG.+Venkataraman.
  3. Borderless. “Abhisar by Rabindranath Tagore,” September 14, 2021. https://borderlessjournal.com/2021/09/14/abhisar-by-rabindranath-tagore/.
  4. “College Street (Kolkata).” In Wikipedia, April 4, 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=College_Street_(Kolkata)&oldid=1148195301.
  5. “Manik Bandopadhyay.” In Wikipedia, March 5, 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Manik_Bandopadhyay&oldid=1142950285.
  6. “Park Street, Kolkata.” In Wikipedia, March 12, 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Park_Street,_Kolkata&oldid=1144224604.
  7. “Poem: Can Death Be Sleep, When Life Is But a Dream by John Keats.” Accessed July 15, 2023. https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/can-death-be-sleep-when-life-dream.
  8. Popova, Maria. “When Einstein Met Tagore: A Remarkable Meeting of Minds on the Edge of Science and Spirituality.” The Marginalian (blog), April 27, 2012. https://www.themarginalian.org/2012/04/27/when-einstein-met-tagore/.
  9. “Rabindranath Tagore.” In Wikipedia, July 5, 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rabindranath_Tagore&oldid=1163532295
  10. “Rabindranath Tagore – Verses – কথা – অভিসার (Abhisar).” Accessed July 15, 2023. https://www.tagoreweb.in/Verses/kotha-39/abhisar-1211.
  11. “Satyajit Ray.” In Wikipedia, July 14, 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Satyajit_Ray&oldid=1165363344.
  12. “South Point School.” In Wikipedia, June 1, 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=South_Point_School&oldid=1158045282.
  13. “Srinivasa Ramanujan.” In Wikipedia, June 2, 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Srinivasa_Ramanujan&oldid=1158140678
  14. “The Last Leaf.” In Wikipedia, March 22, 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Last_Leaf&oldid=1145991454.

Critical thinking in Indian STEM students

Conversation with Nagaraj Balasubramanian

Nagaraj is a cell biologist and an Associate Professor of Biology at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune.

He is a scientist who interfaces with society and has a keen sense aesthetics and love for music.

We discussed research/education/music+Spic-Macay/a fascinating story of a concert+small segment in Tamil+ a Hindi poem & many other things

Listen…as we humanize science

You can also listen at :

Youtube : https://youtu.be/IfAebdM6yIo

Google podcast : https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9lMTcyMGUwYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw/episode/NDY1MTQyMmUtNzQyMS00NTlhLTkyZjQtMGNhZWFmOGE3NTg0?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjA1JqdzJmAAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ

Apple podcast : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-12-conversation-with-nagaraj-balasubramanian-cell/id1687861465?i=1000621582402

Link to essays on Oppenheimer

Linked below is a fantastic, well researched & authentic biographical sketch of Oppenheimer – through a series of essays by Ashutosh Jogalekar

The movie has created a hype, and in India, people have taken interest for various reasons.

At the core – Oppenheimer was a scientist, in true spirit.

Essays on the life and times of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Ashutosh Jogalekar

New Episode : Conversation with Seema Sharma

Seema Sharma is an experimental particle physicist who was also part of the experimental discovery of Higgs Boson at CERN. She is an Associate Professor, in the department of physics at the Indian institute of Science education research, Pune – India.

    In this episode we discuss about her journey from Rajsamand Rajasthan, to TIFR Bombay, then to FermiLab US and then to IISER Pune. We did a deep dive on what it takes to be an experimental physicist. We discuss about the role of conceptual understanding of various topics in physics, including quantum physics, to do cutting edge experiments. She further revealed her understanding of doing mega science projects in large collaborative networks and how it has influenced her thinking. There is a small and nice segment in Hindi in which Seema explains about her research and motivations.

Listen…as we humanize science

google podcast link : https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9lMTcyMGUwYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw/episode/MzMzZjI5NDctZDQyMi00MWQ2LTg0YjQtN2Y0YjE2MGI2M2E2?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwioitCEjIiAAxUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ

youtube audio link : https://youtu.be/GPXzn5FxV4M

Seema Sharma’s Webpage: http://sites.iiserpune.ac.in/~seema/.

References:

  1. “Rajsamand.” In Wikipedia, January 19, 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rajsamand&oldid=1134565017
  2. “The Higgs Boson | CERN.” Accessed July 10, 2023. https://home.cern/science/physics/higgs-boson.
  3. “Tata Institute of Fundamental Research | TIFR.” Accessed July 10, 2023. https://www.tifr.res.in/.
  4. “Sunanda Banerjee.” Accessed July 10, 2023. http://iacs.res.in/athusers/index.php?navid=0&userid=IACS090.
  5. “Fermilab | Home.” Accessed July 10, 2023. https://www.fnal.gov/.
  6. “Home | CERN.” Accessed July 10, 2023. https://home.cern/.
  7. “Inquiring Minds.” Accessed July 10, 2023. https://www.fnal.gov/pub/inquiring/physics/index.html.
  8. “The Large Hadron Collider | CERN.” Accessed July 10, 2023. https://home.cern/science/accelerators/large-hadron-collider.
  9. Weinberg, Steven. “Four Golden Lessons.” Nature 426, no. 6965 (November 2003): 389–389. https://doi.org/10.1038/426389a.
  10. “William Dalrymple (Historian).” In Wikipedia, July 1, 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Dalrymple_(historian)&oldid=1162930456.

New episode on podcast : Conversation with Sutirth Dey

Sutirth Dey is an evolutionary biologist. He is a Professor of Biology at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune. In this conversation we discussed about his own evolution as a biologist, his career trajectory from Patna, Delhi, Bangalore to Pune, and how his knowledge, research and teaching has been influenced by the interactions he had over the years. There is a nice segment in Bengali and Hindi where he explains his research on evolutionary biology and ecology. We also discussed his deep interest in reading and Qawwali music, and many more things…

Listen, as we humanize science.

Spotify

Youtube

Google Podcast

Sutirth is on Twitter : https://twitter.com/SutirthDey.

References :

  1. “PBL@IISERPune.” Accessed June 30, 2023. https://sites.google.com/a/acads.iiserpune.ac.in/sdlab/.
  2. “PBL@IISERPune – Sutirth.” Accessed June 30, 2023. https://pbl.acads.iiserpune.ac.in/sutirth.
  3. “MolBioForAll.” Accessed June 30, 2023. https://sites.google.com/acads.iiserpune.ac.in/molbioforall/home.
  4. “Amitabh Joshi | Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research.” Accessed June 30, 2023. https://www.jncasr.ac.in/faculty/ajoshi.
  5. Anderson, P. W. “More Is Different.” Science 177, no. 4047 (August 4, 1972): 393–96. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.177.4047.393.
  6. “Biostatistics: A User’s Perspective.” Accessed June 30, 2023. https://sites.google.com/acads.iiserpune.ac.in/biostatscourse/home.
  7. Dey, Sutirth, and Amitabh Joshi. “Stability via Asynchrony in Drosophila Metapopulations with Low Migration Rates.” Science 312, no. 5772 (April 21, 2006): 434–36. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1125317.
  8. IndiaBioscience. “Standing Conventional Wisdom on Its Head,” July 14, 2017. https://indiabioscience.org/columns/conversations/standing-conventional-wisdom-on-its-head.
  9. “Mewa Singh.” In Wikipedia, May 24, 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mewa_Singh&oldid=1156769563.

A case for compassionate rationality

Nowadays, it is very common to see various advertisements and social media posts where blatantly unscientific and irrational suggestions are explicitly presented, and even celebrated.

Perhaps this is one of the best ways to avoid probabilistic thinking, which is not natural to human beings. Irrationality attracts a lot of people, and those who understand this utilize it for their benefit. It is the fastest way to group people into a stream as you don’t need to explain. The burden of explanation is always on the rational and not on the irrational. Essentially, it is an asymmetric game.

Generally, any explanation leads to more questions. These questions can further lead to enquiry and that has a cognitive cost. Irrationality does not have to pay that cost.

This has been happening for ages, just that their forms keep changing. It is important to emphasize that cultures across the world, including India, have elements of spirituality and rationality.

Most of the time, the spiritual element is over-emphasized, whereas the philosophical and rational aspect is not given the same prominence. If you dig deeper into any culture, it is the philosophical and rational that has elevated the thought process by asking probing questions, but it is the spiritual which captures the attention.

One way to overcome this problem is to emphasize the rational aspect of the culture. If people start appreciating the fact that there were many people from their own cultural roots who did think deeply and questioned everything, then there is a historical connection. Importantly it leads to a realization that rationality is not something foreign but a cultivated human behavior indigenous to ones own culture.

This is where I make a case for compassionate rationality. It is important that we take the path of patience and explain the gravitas of rationality and its cultural roots without being condescending in our tone and in our thoughts. We need to emphasize its benefits compared to blind faith. We need to make a strong case that rationality has a historical past in our own culture, and importantly it has utility in the present and in the future.

After all, being an atheist/rationalist is not incompatible with being an empathetic and compassionate person. One can still not believe in god and appreciate the cultural roots. One can still go to a temple/mosque/church/any place of worship and be in awe of the architectural beauty and creativity. One can still have a friend who is deeply religious, and have a meaningful argument.

One can still be rational and human.

References for further exploration:

Watson, Peter. “Ideas: A History from Fire to Freud.” Accessed May 26, 2023. https://peterwatsonauthor.com/books/ideas-a-history-from-fire-to-freud/.

Sen, Amartya. The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity. Penguin UK, 2006. https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/The_Argumentative_Indian/gcGiwyBS3YwC?hl=en&gbpv=0

Pinker, Steven. “Rationality.” Accessed May 26, 2023. https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Rationality/HT0NEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover.

Episode 4. Science, Rationality and Compassion, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewZIue55Zl0.