Scicomm

331 posts

India's Delhi-only air pollution problem

3 min read
Analysis Scicomm CSIR National Environmental Engineering Research Institute CSIR NEERI decibels Deepavali Diwali festival of lights green firecrackers Heinz Nixdorf Recall human loudness noise pollution Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules 2000 sound pollution

I woke up this morning to a PTI report telling me Delhi's air quality had fallen to 'very poor' on Deepavali, the Hindu ostensible festival of lights, with many people defying the Supreme…

A revolutionary exoplanet

4 min read
Scicomm 51 Pegasi b brown dwarf CRIRES Didier Queloz Doppler spectroscopy ELODIE spectrograph exoplanets Grand Tack Model hot Jupiters Ignas Snellen James Peebles main sequence stars Michel Mayor NASA Kepler telescope Nice Model Nobel Prize for physics orbital velocity pegasean planets Physics Nobel Prize planetary migration Proxima Centauri radial velocity roaster planets Very Large Telescope Wolf 1061

In 1992, Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail became the first astronomers to publicly announce that they had discovered the first planets outside the Solar System, orbiting the dense core of a dead st…

Disentangling entanglement

9 min read
Scicomm Alain Aspect Albert Einstein Anton Zeilinger Boris Podolsky communication loophole detection loophole EPR paradox John Clauser John Stewart Bell Nathan Rosen Niels Bohr Nobel Prize for physics quantum entanglement Rober Hanson spooky action at a distance Wolf Prize

There has been considerable speculation if the winners of this year's Nobel Prize for physics, due to be announced at 2.30 pm IST on October 8, will include Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger. They&…

Moon landings

1 min read
Scicomm

Ahead of Chandrayaan 2’s date with the lunar surface on September 7, the following line has been bandied about in the Indian as well as foreign media: Only three countries – the US, Russia and China…

The simple tech that can pierce the Kashmir blackout

6 min read
Scicomm 35A Amit Shah amplitude modulation Article 370 Azad Hind Radio BBC World Service Bob Tanna Digital Radio Mondiale F region Ionosphere ionosphere absorption Kashmir Kashmir Valley Mehbooba Mufti Nariman Printer Omar Abdullah Politics news Prime Minister Narendra Modi radio broadcasting shortwave radio signal attenuation skip zone

On August 15, AFP reported that the BBC plans to expand its shortwave radio coverage in Kashmir “to ease the impact of a communications blackout imposed by the Centre”. The report added that “short wa…

Review: 'Mission Mangal' (2019)

6 min read
Culture Scicomm Akshay Kumar Bollywood Chandrayaan 2 frugal engineering frugal innovation GSLV Mk-III Hinduism Indian Space Research Organisation ISRO Make in India Mangalyaan Mars Orbiter Mission Mission Mangal NASA nationalism PSLV science communication Vidya Balan

This review assumes Tanul Thakur’s review as a preamble. There's the argument that ISRO isn't doing much by way of public outreach and trust in the media is at a low, and for many people – mo…

Of awards and women

3 min read
Op-eds Scicomm

The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was founded in 2012 by Yuri Milner to recognise those individuals who have made profound contributions to human knowledge. It is open to all physicists –…