VISMAYA: History & Philosophy of Physics

Tag: science

  • Astronomy in Africa: Who is studying it?

    Africa and Africans have had rich knowledge about astronomy. The authors of a recent paper on arXiv explore some interesting issues of where that knowledge comes from and who is exploring it.

    The abstract reads:

    Africa has deep and diverse traditions of astronomical knowledge, ranging from archaeological astronomy, pharaonic stellar timekeeping, and manuscript astronomy in Timbuktu and the Sahel, to ecological seasonal astronomy in southern Africa and calendrical computation in the Ethiopian tradition. These multiple epistemic traditions form part of a long intellectual history that precedes and intersects with contemporary astronomy on the continent. In the context of this long-standing intellectual heritage, an important question arises regarding the contemporary circulation of African astronomical knowledge within the global scientific system. This study therefore examines where African astronomical knowledge is produced, validated, and circulated in modern scholarly communication. Using bibliometric data from the Web of Science Core Collection, our analysis investigates publication and citation patterns in the research area Astronomy and Astrophysics between 2000 and 2025, with particular attention to the publication venues of African scholars. The findings highlight a critical paradox: while African researchers are active contributors to global astronomical discovery, the intellectual capital generated through this work is largely stored, validated, and circulated through publication systems located outside the continent. This pattern reflects broader asymmetries within global scholarly communication, where dominant publishing infrastructures shape visibility, citation impact, and authority. By applying a decolonial lens to metrics such as citation impact and ownership, the paper calls for a critical reassessment of the academic practices that sustain epistemic coloniality. It concludes that achieving scientific equity requires a strategic shift in publication choices to build and fortify a sovereign African knowledge archive.

    There are some impressive snapshots of old manuscripts. An example is shown below:

    There are many more interesting points in the manuscript. Check it out.

    Reference to the paper:

    Koch, Rhea, and Amare Abebe. ‘From Timbuktu to SKA: Who Owns the Astronomy Knowledge Africa Produces?’ arXiv:2608.21119. Preprint, arXiv, 21 August 2026. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.21119.

  • Popper’s first teacher

    In his formative years, Karl Popper, the celebrated philosopher of science, had a cabinetmaker as his first teacher. His introduction to epistemology was through an apprenticeship in a furniture shop.

    As he mentions: “I believe I learned more about the theory of knowledge from my dear omniscient master Adalbert Pösch than from any other of my teachers. None did so much to turn me into a disciple of Socrates. For it was my master who taught me not only how very little I knew but also that any wisdom to which I might ever aspire could consist only in realizing more fully the infinity of my ignorance.” (Popper, 2002, p. 2)

    Hands + Mind, you see.

    ref: Popper, Karl R.; Unended Quest, p 2 (2002)

  • Scientific Lifestyle is Satyagraha

    In Sanskrit, the word Satyagraha (सत्याग्रह) is made of two parts: ‘Satya’ (सत्या) means truth. ‘Āgraha‘ (आग्रह) means insistence. In this blog, my aim is to connect the scientific thought process to the concept of Satyagraha.

    At the beginning of this year, I posted a doodle on three ways to make India more scientific. It drew quite a bit of attention across various platforms, including the one you are reading this message on.

    In that doodle, I mentioned three points on how to inculcate a scientific viewpoint among us:

    1. Speaking about science in our mother tongue. This means using our household language as a medium for scientific discussion.
    2. Encouraging people to ask questions. It goes without saying that the bedrock of our exploration is curiosity, and the primary prerequisite for curiosity is asking questions and trying to figure out the answers.
    3. Projecting scientific thinking as a lifestyle.

    It is the third point that is central to our discussion. So, what do we mean by projecting scientific thinking as a lifestyle? It means we should be able to incorporate scientific thought processes into our everyday lives. For example, utilizing simple mathematical and statistical thinking to understand the affairs of the world. Adopting it as a lifestyle also means making it a part of ourselves, such that it becomes an automatic way of looking at the world. This means it should become second nature for us to use a scientific viewpoint when observing our external world, especially when we have to make decisions. We have to actively seek scientific information and try to understand how it connects to our lives. The source of scientific information becomes important, and we should critically evaluate the source before we adopt it into our lives.

    This also brings us to the point of how to utilize scientific thinking without compromising our humility and compassion. Just because we are equipped with scientific thinking, it does not mean that we should be condescending. This is where patience, humility and compassion have a role to play. The ability to understand others’ viewpoints and then respond scientifically is one of the most important aspects of our scientific education. Even when we criticize someone’s viewpoint, our critique will hold value only if we try to refute it from a scientific perspective. Many complex issues do not have straightforward solutions. This does not mean that there is no solution at all, but to arrive at a solution, we need to understand the problem in detail. This understanding is essentially how we develop an appreciation for somebody else’s viewpoint. We should be patient enough to hear others’ perspectives and then evaluate them with as much information as is available. This is a gradually learned process.

    Another hallmark of scientific thinking is the willingness to change our viewpoints in light of new data that proves our old data wrong. This ability to self-correct is probably one of the greatest strengths of scientific thinking, and it is this trait that we must cultivate in our lives.

    What is important for fostering scientific thinking is knowing how to utilize it in our everyday lives and trying to explore what the actual truth is. Indian philosophical roots have a word for the pursuit and/or insistence of truth. It is called Satyagraha. Although people in India associate Satyagraha with the anti-colonial movement, its deeper philosophical meaning connects well to the pursuit of science and scientific thinking. Like all tools and thought processes, it is vital for us to ensure scientific thinking is utilized in the proper context and in a humane way. Rational thought from an Indian philosophy has a lesson for us: pursue the truth with intent. Science, after all, is Satyagraha (सत्याग्रह).

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  • Lab in Indian Schools

    I heard that some (dummy) schools across India skip the lab component of school education. If this is true, it is a major disservice to the intellectual development of a student and should be curtailed.

    Note: a class demo/YouTube video cannot compensate for a lab.

    At the heart of becoming good at building things is to experiment. A lab is a place to do such experiments, and in there, a student can think and learn by using their mind and hands. A lab is not just about equipment, but a form of thinking, which develops a(p)ttitude.

    This form of thinking is important not only for scientific pedagogy but also for the development of skills complementary to what one learns in a classroom.
    There is no serious education in STEM without exposure to a laboratory (including maths/computer science)

    Downstream in a society, a culture of lab is closely connected to thinking, questioning, tinkering, building, testing and manufacturing. And eventually economics.

    A culture of experimental thinking is fostered in a lab.

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  • Scientific method..during morning jog

  • Bose in Rajya Sabha – a video

    Here, I briefly describe SN Bose’s speech in the Indian Parliament (Rajya Sabha – 1954-55)

  • Conversation with Binay Panda

    Binay Panda is a Professor at JNU’s School of Biotechnology. The Oxford-educated scientist specializes in genome science, cancer genomics, and data integration, while advocating for open science and Indian biofoundries. He is also an avid long-distance cyclist.

    In this freewheeling conversation, we discuss his intellectual journey and his thoughts on doing science, particularly in India.

    References:

    ‘B. R. Panda | Official Website of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India’. Accessed 16 April 2026. https://www.jnu.ac.in/content/binaypanda.

    Mysite. ‘Home’. Accessed 16 April 2026. https://www.binaypandalab.org.

    Mysite. ‘Open Science’. Accessed 16 April 2026. https://www.binaypandalab.org/open-science.

    Mysite. ‘People’. Accessed 16 April 2026. https://www.binaypandalab.org/people.

    YouTube. ‘Science Frontiers’. Accessed 16 April 2026. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaNkEDS8jRgNZciARfza_ag.

    Sean B. Carroll. ‘The Story’. Accessed 16 April 2026. https://www.seanbcarroll.com/brave-genius-story.

    Dr. Sanjib Malik. Ek Doctor Ki Maut (1990) by Tapan Sinha [ Full Movie in 4K or Ultra HD  ]. 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qLFGW8SU38.

  • Oppenheimer on teaching..

    Oppenheimer on why scientists must teach…from a 1954 lecture…

    The New York Times published some parts of the lecture.

  • Born & Wolf to Mandel & Wolf

    There is an important connection between quantum optics and radio astronomy. Hanbury Brown and Twiss in the 1950s devised the intensity interferometer.

    Particularly, they were interested in measuring the ‘diameter of discrete radio sources’. The title of their seminal paper reads “A new type of interferometer for use in radio astronomy”. As the authors claimed in their paper: “The principle of the instrument is based upon the correlation between the rectified outputs of two independent receivers at each end of a baseline, and it is shown that the cross-correlation coefficient between these outputs is proportional to the square of the amplitude of the Fourier transform of the intensity distribution across the source.”(Brown and Twiss, 1954)

    First, they tested their technique in a laboratory situation and followed it up with a measurement of the diameter of Sirius. Their technique was a game-changer in measuring the diameter of bright stars.

    As the intensity interferometers were being developed, the laser was realized in the early 1960s. Unlike conventional light sources, laser light is coherent, and this brings in unique features that can be used to understand the nature of light. In the context of laser optics, intensity interferometers had immediate utility in studying coherence through correlation measurement. It was logical to combine lasers with intensity interferometers and study the correlation. This combination is what led to the discovery of some fascinating aspects of quantum properties of light, including anti-bunching.

    If the book by Born and Wolf is considered a classic on the electromagnetic theory of light, the quantum extrapolation is the book by Leonard Mandel and Emil Wolf titled Optical Coherence and Quantum Optics.

    This book discusses the interface of statistical optics, optical coherence, and quantum optics. The core argument of the book starts with probability theory and its connection to fluctuations of light and builds optical coherence, polarization, and eventually quantum optical effects of light. It is a well-written treatise on light with a flavor of experiments (Mandel did some pioneering experiments in quantum optics) and theoretical explanation (a hallmark of Wolf).

    In the preface of the book, they bring together the importance of intensity interferometers and the discovery of lasers and explain how and why it led to a deeper understanding of quantum optics:

    “Prior to the development of the first lasers in the 1960s, optical coherence was not a subject with which many scientists had much acquaintance, even though early contributions to the field were made by several distinguished physicists, including Max von Laue, Erwin Schrodinger and Frits Zernike. However, the situation changed once it was realized that the remarkable properties of laser light depended on its coherence. An earlier development that also triggered interest in optical coherence was a series of important experiments by Hanbury Brown and Twiss in the 1950s, showing that correlations between the fluctuations of mutually coherent beams of thermal light could be measured by photoelectric correlation and two-photon coincidence counting experiments. The interpretation of these experiments was, however, surrounded by controversy, which emphasized the need for understanding the coherence properties of light and their effect on the interaction between light and matter.” (Mandel and Wolf, 1995, p. 1)

    This further led to a series of studies on light-matter interaction from a coherence perspective, and included analysis of the fluctuation of light by understanding the randomness and the associated statistics of the fluctuations. Mandel, Wolf, Glauber, E.C.G. Surdarshan and many others across the world laid the foundation and connection between optical coherence and quantum optics. What started as a technical development in radio astronomy turned out to be a vital tool in quantum optics.

    This blog is part of my course blog on Quantum Optics.

    References:

    Brown, R. Hanbury, and R. Q. Twiss. ‘LXXIV. A New Type of Interferometer for Use in Radio Astronomy’. Philosophical Magazine 45, no. 366 (1954): 663–82. https://doi.org/10.1080/14786440708520475.

    Brown, R. Hanbury, and R. Q. Twiss. ‘Correlation between Photons in Two Coherent Beams of Light’. Nature 177, no. 4497 (1956): 27–29. https://doi.org/10.1038/177027a0.

    Hanbury Brown, R., and R. Q. Twiss. ‘A Test of a New Type of Stellar Interferometer on Sirius’. Nature 178, no. 4541 (1956): 1046–48. https://doi.org/10.1038/1781046a0.

    Mandel, Leonard, and Emil Wolf. Optical Coherence and Quantum Optics. 1st edn. Cambridge University Press, 1995. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139644105.

  • Conversation with Sanjit Mitra

    Sanjit Mitra is a Senior Professor at IUCAA, Pune, and explores gravitational wave astronomy. Serving as the science spokesperson, Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)-India and project coordinator, his research focuses on stochastic backgrounds, detector noise, and CMB analysis.

    In this episode, we discuss the science and technology behind LIGO and its Indian expansion.

    References:

    ‘Sanjit Mitra – IUCAA’ Accessed 26 March 2026. https://www.iucaa.in/en/faculty-research/sanjit.

    ‘Sanjit Mitra’. n.d. Accessed 26 March 2026. https://web.iucaa.in/~sanjit/home/About_Me.html.

    GW @ IUCAA. Accessed 26 March 2026. https://www.gw.iucaa.in/.

    LIGO-India. Accessed 26 March 2026. https://www.ligo-india.in/.

    ‘‪Sanjit Mitra‬ – ‪Google Scholar‬’. n.d. Accessed 26 March 2026. https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=1LVFYJ0AAAAJ&view_op=list_works.

    ‘LISA: Laser Interferometer Space Antenna’. n.d. Accessed 26 March 2026. https://lisa.nasa.gov/.