Op-eds

182 posts

Playing the devil's advocate on Starlink

4 min read
Op-eds Science Challakere science city Elon Musk environmentalism India-based Neutrino Observatory ISRO Kulasekarapattinam low-cost internet Mauna Kea mega-constellation non-rivalry Outer Space Treaty satellite constellation space-based internet SpaceX Starlink Sterlite Thirty Meter Telescope Thoothukudi

After SpaceX began to launch its Starlink satellite constellation to facilitate global internet coverage, astronomers began complaining that the satellites are likely to interfere with stargazing sche…

The calculus of creative discipline

5 min read
Culture Op-eds classical mechanics creative discipline critical points Dan Shechtman differential calculus EPR paradox fantasy fiction Imre Lakatos JK Rowling Karl Popper literary criticism M John Harrison Malazan Book of the Fallen mathematical analysis nerdism Niels Bohr Paul Feyerabend Philosophy of Science quasicrystals replication crisis smooth functions Steven Erikson Thomas Kuhn Viriconium world-building

Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over world-building. World-building is dull. World-building literalises the urge to invent. World-building gives an unnece…

Why are the Nobel Prizes still relevant?

6 min read
Culture Op-eds Science Abhijit Banerjee Albert Einstein Appa Rao Podile Booker Prize Brian Keating Caltech Chien-Shiung Wu CV Raman Esther Duflo Fermilab Göran Hansson gender-based discrimination Hindutva Hugo Award impact factor Isaac Asimov John B Goodenough late capitalism Lise Meitner Margaret Atwood nationalism Nature journal Nobel laureates Nobel Prize prestige bias Prime Minister Narendra Modi sexism The Big Bang Theory Vera Rubin

Note: A condensed version of this post has been published in The Wire. Around this time last week, the world had nine new Nobel Prize winners in the sciences (physics, chemistry and medicine), all bu…

Two sides of the road and the gutter next to it

3 min read
Culture Op-eds bias Bob Woodward Donald Trump ignorance Jay Rosen Kary Mullis Nobel Prizes objectivity Omar Kelly Poynter Richard Feynman Surjit Bhalla Swarajya Mag The New York Times victim-blaming victimisation view from nowhere women in STEM

I have a mid-October deadline for an essay so obviously when I started reading up on the topic this morning, I ended up on a different part of the web – where I found this: a piece by a journalist tal…