First Day: It was a saturday (I think) and Sis had won some competition in school (extempore?), Mom had a half day, I was at home as well, Dad comes in, says : Lets go for a drive..! And we were like - in whose car? And he says he just bought a new car!! Hellooo??!!! :D
And tomorrow that car is gonna move on to its new owner, a car dealership.
I don't know what to say, feeling really melancholic about it.
When we bought the Omni, we were the only people I knew who had a Van. Mom was always asking WHY are we buying an EIGHT seater vehicle which is most commonly seen as a taxi? She still doesn't know the answer, but am sure she stopped caring long back.
There have been so many events where that car was central to the outcome.
I still remember the day when Dad had beat the shit outta me when I had refused to wash the car. And the time when he drove it like Schumi from Ruia to Colony because I had forgotten my documents before admission.
The trip to Goa - dad drove all the way alone, no other car could have been more comfortable with the space we had. The trip to Nagaon with JD, Kamlesh. And to Lonavala with JD, Kamlesh and Vidhi.
It was the car in which I learnt to drive. Dad taught me. I had none of the Balaji Motor Driving School bullshit. First Lesson, lasted for 15 min. I learnt - start the car, put it in first gear, move ahead, stop, put it in reverse gear, go back, stop. That's it. Definitely come a long way since. Guess I passed my driving the test when I drove the family back from Nagaon on a learners license.
Ferrying all the relatives from Dadar and Churchgate Stn to colony. Driving to Kharghar to see our new home under construction. Picking up Sis and her friends from the Stn everytime it was raining. I remember a crazy drive in a flooded Belapur when the water was so high all brakes failed and the floor carpet had gotten wet. The drive from Kharghar to Colony when the engine overheated near Nerul. The one time it punctured the tyre near Sion Circle.
It may have been a grossly under powered car, with bad suspension and huge body roll and no AC and whatever. For all its worth it was a car which always delivered what was asked of it. It was an awesome car. And apart from all this it gave our family 12 years worth of great memories.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Water
We know it is important, we know it is crucial, we know it is indispensable and yet we remain irresponsible while using it.
I can harp on and on about how it is important to conserve water, make sure that potable water is available to all etc. etc. except that I fail to identify with anything that has to do with people anymore. I mean at least in India do what you want but people are just not gonna improve. Fine the government never really made dams or divert water to areas which are perennially under drought, but what did the people do? They are just as content making the women do the walking and getting the water.
What interests me though is the chemical itself. The molecule, their collection, its properties. For example I was left amazed that the IR spectra of pure liquid water is not yet explained. For a molecule which is so simple, this is mind boggling. And what about the very weird physical properties? Expands on cooling, expands on heating as well!!! Weird melting and boiling points and so on. And that too so neat 0 as freezing, 100 as boiling (is this coz of the scale itself?? I dunno!!)
But something of even more interest is the structure that liquid water has. The molecules are always in association with on another via hydrogen bonds and thus liquid water isn't just loosely packed water molecules but instead a proper dynamic lattice of water molecules. This has huge implications in protein folding. No one quite knows exactly how a protein folds and attains its native structure. I have a few ideas of my own on this, one of which involves lots of water molecules..!!
I guess like last year, my this years Blog Action Day post is also defeating its own purpose, but then if this has gotten me back to my old blog then the purpose is served, at least for me!
I can harp on and on about how it is important to conserve water, make sure that potable water is available to all etc. etc. except that I fail to identify with anything that has to do with people anymore. I mean at least in India do what you want but people are just not gonna improve. Fine the government never really made dams or divert water to areas which are perennially under drought, but what did the people do? They are just as content making the women do the walking and getting the water.
What interests me though is the chemical itself. The molecule, their collection, its properties. For example I was left amazed that the IR spectra of pure liquid water is not yet explained. For a molecule which is so simple, this is mind boggling. And what about the very weird physical properties? Expands on cooling, expands on heating as well!!! Weird melting and boiling points and so on. And that too so neat 0 as freezing, 100 as boiling (is this coz of the scale itself?? I dunno!!)
But something of even more interest is the structure that liquid water has. The molecules are always in association with on another via hydrogen bonds and thus liquid water isn't just loosely packed water molecules but instead a proper dynamic lattice of water molecules. This has huge implications in protein folding. No one quite knows exactly how a protein folds and attains its native structure. I have a few ideas of my own on this, one of which involves lots of water molecules..!!
I guess like last year, my this years Blog Action Day post is also defeating its own purpose, but then if this has gotten me back to my old blog then the purpose is served, at least for me!
Monday, September 6, 2010
The Professor Index
I realized that very few people actually have the power to stop time in its very tracks..!! And all of them are College Professors.
But how do you quantitate the power of such people? So here is an index - The Professor Index, which is the ratio between Real Time : Apparent Time
Professor Index = Real Time/Apparent Time
Real Time is the duration for which the lecture was actually held.
Apparent Time is the time you thought the lecture went on for. Analogous to Feels Like Temperature.
The index is most accurately measured for a real time of 45 minutes because that is the average attention span of most individuals.
The higher the index the better is the professor.
Professor Index > 1 ---- Very Good -> Excellent -> AWESOME -> Start ur Own Religion
Professor Index = 1 ---- Good -> Fairly Decent
Professor Index < 1 ---- Bad -> Very Bad -> Pathetic -> Die -> Kill Me
This post was actually inspired by the man who is so powerfully strong in stopping time that his Index touches Avogadro's Number albeit in the negative power of ten.
Every morning from 9 onwards (till 10 real time) he stops time infinitely and I am left asking the question 'what am i being punished for??'.
But how do you quantitate the power of such people? So here is an index - The Professor Index, which is the ratio between Real Time : Apparent Time
Professor Index = Real Time/Apparent Time
Real Time is the duration for which the lecture was actually held.
Apparent Time is the time you thought the lecture went on for. Analogous to Feels Like Temperature.
The index is most accurately measured for a real time of 45 minutes because that is the average attention span of most individuals.
The higher the index the better is the professor.
Professor Index > 1 ---- Very Good -> Excellent -> AWESOME -> Start ur Own Religion
Professor Index = 1 ---- Good -> Fairly Decent
Professor Index < 1 ---- Bad -> Very Bad -> Pathetic -> Die -> Kill Me
This post was actually inspired by the man who is so powerfully strong in stopping time that his Index touches Avogadro's Number albeit in the negative power of ten.
Every morning from 9 onwards (till 10 real time) he stops time infinitely and I am left asking the question 'what am i being punished for??'.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Be the Maxwell's Demon
While reading up on Shannon's Entropy and Information Theory today I chanced upon the term "Maxwell's Demon". A term like this i find to be irresistible, so there I went to Wikipedia to read up and holy mother of god guess what did i find...??
Before venturing further allow me a discourse on Maxwell's Demon. The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system, which is not in an equilibrium, will increase over time to reach a maximum when the system attains equilibrium. But why does this happen? According to Maxwell it was because of statistical improbability. Let me elaborate, suppose there is a container with an opaque, insulating partition in between. Both partitions are filled up with the same gas; however there is no way the gases can mix or temperature change because of the partition. If the gases are at different temperatures then they will remain in the same state because this system is defined to be an isolated system.
If there was a small hole in the partition then the gases would start to mix, there would be temperature exchange and before long the gases will be in equilibrium, as would be expected by anyone familiar with second law of thermodynamics. Now instead of gases being in different temperature start with a box in perfect equilibrium. But there's a small change - we are gonna introduce the Maxwell's Demon inside the box. He is a small creature who is the gatekeeper of the hole. And he has decided that fast moving molecules are allowed to enter one compartment but slow moving molecules are not. Slowly the Demon will filter all fast moving molecules to one side of box and slow moving molecules will be on the other side. This will increase the temperature on one side of box and reduce it on the other side, entropy of the system will decrease... poof goes 2nd law.
Coming back to holy mother of god exclamation, it struck me amidst all this that my Blog actually has a game which enables player to BE THE MAXWELL'S DEMON.
The "Separate the Green and Red" game has been rechristened "Be the Maxwell's Demon". Cause essentially it represents the system described by Maxwell and while it is not an exact representation of the system (regarding speed of molecule - here its the color), in essence it can very easily describe the concept!!
To think an exercise in rigid body simulation in java could turn out to be so similar to some totally different concept all together...!! What can i say : It really did happen to me...!!! :P
P.s. : Such real life Demons do exist. Think about Dialysis membrane, membrane proteins etc. But they are ALL pseudo demons, because the systems are not perfectly isolated and the act of separation causes entropy to increase elsewhere in the universe, most of these require energy in some form or the other.
Before venturing further allow me a discourse on Maxwell's Demon. The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system, which is not in an equilibrium, will increase over time to reach a maximum when the system attains equilibrium. But why does this happen? According to Maxwell it was because of statistical improbability. Let me elaborate, suppose there is a container with an opaque, insulating partition in between. Both partitions are filled up with the same gas; however there is no way the gases can mix or temperature change because of the partition. If the gases are at different temperatures then they will remain in the same state because this system is defined to be an isolated system.
If there was a small hole in the partition then the gases would start to mix, there would be temperature exchange and before long the gases will be in equilibrium, as would be expected by anyone familiar with second law of thermodynamics. Now instead of gases being in different temperature start with a box in perfect equilibrium. But there's a small change - we are gonna introduce the Maxwell's Demon inside the box. He is a small creature who is the gatekeeper of the hole. And he has decided that fast moving molecules are allowed to enter one compartment but slow moving molecules are not. Slowly the Demon will filter all fast moving molecules to one side of box and slow moving molecules will be on the other side. This will increase the temperature on one side of box and reduce it on the other side, entropy of the system will decrease... poof goes 2nd law.
Coming back to holy mother of god exclamation, it struck me amidst all this that my Blog actually has a game which enables player to BE THE MAXWELL'S DEMON.
The "Separate the Green and Red" game has been rechristened "Be the Maxwell's Demon". Cause essentially it represents the system described by Maxwell and while it is not an exact representation of the system (regarding speed of molecule - here its the color), in essence it can very easily describe the concept!!
To think an exercise in rigid body simulation in java could turn out to be so similar to some totally different concept all together...!! What can i say : It really did happen to me...!!! :P
P.s. : Such real life Demons do exist. Think about Dialysis membrane, membrane proteins etc. But they are ALL pseudo demons, because the systems are not perfectly isolated and the act of separation causes entropy to increase elsewhere in the universe, most of these require energy in some form or the other.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Driving Forces of Evolution
What is the driving force of evolution??
What makes one species evolve into another??
Why does evolution occur??
Is it natural selection? or is it perhaps mutation?
The points below are what I understood after a bit of reading and thinking.
Natural Selection drives evolution. Since irrespective of the repertoire of different genes present in the gene pool, if one gene is not chosen above another gene (based on some criteria) then the relative frequencies of genes in gene pool will remain the same and consequently there wouldn't be any evolution.
So clearly some gene has to get selected over another, this selection criteria is called Natural Selection.
However for Natural Selection to work there must be sufficient diversity in the gene pool itself so that some or the other gene is good enough to pass the test proposed by selection. Thus rate of mutation also is a factor at driving evolution. Its observed that viruses mutate at a higher rate and (thus?) evolve at a higher rate too.
However, mutations can either make a gene better at passing the present selection test, or make it worse at it. If they make the gene worse then it will fail the test and disappear into oblivion. But generally mutations don't cause any significant change in the capability of a gene to pass a selection test. These 'neutral' mutations can accumulate to a large number over the span of time. Random drifts in such neutral mutations can result in some gene being replaced by another as result of random event. Might seem a little far fetched, but in the timescales that evolution works under its definitely plausible. And so random drifts in neutral mutations may drive evolution too.
Is there any bias for or against some particular mutation? Is it more likely for an 'A' to convert into 'G' or 'C' rather than a 'T'. Or for that matter any other combination of 'ATGC' in the above sentence. I don't know if such bias is proven, but this bias has been implicated as the reason for the observed GC content variations among closely related prokaryotic species.
Of course all these mechanisms are not mutually exclusive w.r.t gene or time. For different genes different factors would be responsible for evolution. But these forces probably are the reason why one species evolves into another with passage of time.
What makes one species evolve into another??
Why does evolution occur??
Is it natural selection? or is it perhaps mutation?
The points below are what I understood after a bit of reading and thinking.
Natural Selection drives evolution. Since irrespective of the repertoire of different genes present in the gene pool, if one gene is not chosen above another gene (based on some criteria) then the relative frequencies of genes in gene pool will remain the same and consequently there wouldn't be any evolution.
So clearly some gene has to get selected over another, this selection criteria is called Natural Selection.
However for Natural Selection to work there must be sufficient diversity in the gene pool itself so that some or the other gene is good enough to pass the test proposed by selection. Thus rate of mutation also is a factor at driving evolution. Its observed that viruses mutate at a higher rate and (thus?) evolve at a higher rate too.
However, mutations can either make a gene better at passing the present selection test, or make it worse at it. If they make the gene worse then it will fail the test and disappear into oblivion. But generally mutations don't cause any significant change in the capability of a gene to pass a selection test. These 'neutral' mutations can accumulate to a large number over the span of time. Random drifts in such neutral mutations can result in some gene being replaced by another as result of random event. Might seem a little far fetched, but in the timescales that evolution works under its definitely plausible. And so random drifts in neutral mutations may drive evolution too.
Is there any bias for or against some particular mutation? Is it more likely for an 'A' to convert into 'G' or 'C' rather than a 'T'. Or for that matter any other combination of 'ATGC' in the above sentence. I don't know if such bias is proven, but this bias has been implicated as the reason for the observed GC content variations among closely related prokaryotic species.
Of course all these mechanisms are not mutually exclusive w.r.t gene or time. For different genes different factors would be responsible for evolution. But these forces probably are the reason why one species evolves into another with passage of time.
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