Can gravitational waves be waylaid by gravity?
Yesterday, I learnt the answer is 'yes'. Gravitational waves can be gravitationally lensed. It seems obvious once you think about it, but not something that strikes you (assuming you're no…
Scicomm
331 posts
Alt-M.O.M.
Posters for a new TV show called M.O.M. – The Women Behind Mission Mangal, produced by Ekta Kapoor and distributed by AltBalaji, look strange. One poster shows four women, presumably the show's pr…
Making history at the speed of light
Last week, Sophia Gad-Nasr, an astroparticle physicist and PhD student at University of California, Irvine, tweeted this question: https://twitter.com/Astropartigirl/status/1135533079852773376 To wh…
To explain the world
Simplicity is a deceptively simple thing. Recently, a scientist who was trying to explain something in general relativity to me did so in the following way: One simple way to understand … is as follo…
The wind and the wall
I have an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering but I've always struggled with thermodynamics. To the uninitiated, this means most of the knowledge specific to mechanical engineering over…
A century of the proton
In 1907, a New Zealander named Ernest Rutherford moved from McGill University in Canada to the University of Manchester. There, he conducted a series of experiments where he fired alpha particles1at d…
The dance of the diamonds
You probably haven't heard of the Chladni effect but you've likely seen it in action. Sprinkle some grains of sand on a thin metal plate and play a violin bow across it, and you'll notice…
The symmetry incarnations
This post was originally published on October 6, 2012. I recently rediscovered it and decided to republish it with a few updates. Geometric symmetry in nature is often a sign of unperturbedness, as i…
On pre-approving articles before publication
The debate about whether it is fair for scientists to expect science journalists to let them proofread articles in which they are quoted before going to print has reared its head once more, at least o…
LHCb spots CP violation in charmed mesons
Where did we come from? That's a really big question for anyone to answer. And if we want to answer such questions, we're going to have to break it down into smaller questions, and then break…
Re: science journalism in India
Download e89pragatipodcast.mp3 A couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of being interviewed – together with the amazing Nandita Jayaraj – by Pavan Srinath on the Pragati Podcast. Our conversation was…
The informedness problem
The following is the text of a speech I prepared to deliver at the 11th Young Investigators' Meeting in Guwahati on March 8, 2019. I wanted to use this opportunity to speak about education, which…