Lord of the Rings Day
War is on our minds, and in Tolkien's Middle-Earth saga, there were many of them.…
A Brahmin wedding
I was at a wedding this weekend. It had a distinct Omelas-like quality throughout. For most of the elders present, it was an oru naal koothu — a single-day celebration that has been many weeks in the…
Climate change, like quantum physics, will strain language
One of the defining features of quantum mechanics is that it shows up human language, and thought supported by that language, to be insufficient and limited. Many of the most popular languages of the…
Must war have consequences for scientists?
The Journal of Molecular Structure has temporarily banned manuscript submissions from scientists working at state science institutes in Russia. The decision extends the consequences of war beyond the…
'Aatmanirbharta through science'
The Week magazine distinguished itself last year by picking Indian Council of Medical Research chief Balram Bhargava as its 'person of the year' for 2021. And now, ahead of National Science Da…
NSD II
That the Modi government has been able to coopt National Science Day as well as it has speaks only to the occasion’s moral vacuity. India’s National Science Day is the day on which physicist C.V. Rama…
Art is something for cryptocurrencies to con
Cryptocurrencies have emerged as a way to fund art, and therefore supposedly support artists, using the Trojan horse of NFTs.…
For colours, dunk clay in water
It's not exactly that simple, but it's still a relatively simple way to produce a lovely palette of colours. Researchers from Norway and Germany have reported that when a synthetic clay called…
Streaming now: the 24/7 human centipede
Have you heard of 'Bigg Boss Ultimate'?…
If WordPress supports NFTs, should I boycott it?
"I make use of the tools available to me. That doesn't mean I have to applaud every advance in the field."…
Marie Curie: An icon or 'in the way'?
Who would have been the most iconic woman physicist of all time if the Nobel Prizes didn't exist?…
A nominal milestone
In 2018, I discovered that my blog posts since mid-2014 had taken on a somewhat different character than those before, becoming more critical and paralleling my increasing, and increasingly nagging, q…