Phenomenon is a word that is almost an antonym to itself. In Science it means an observable event; an occurrence with perhaps no special significance that needs to be analyzed using logic and reason. However, in popular usage it means an extraordinary event perceived directly by the senses without having to use logic or reasoning, evoking feelings that oscillate between astonishment and wonder. An example for its Science usage is the Supernova. An example for its popular usage is the music of Ilaiyaraja.
Entries from April 2009
Ilaiyaraja and the Curse of the Visual – Part 1
April 30, 2009 · 12 Comments
Categories: Carnatic Music · Muse
Tagged: agaya gangai, cinema music, ilaiyaraja, ilaiyaraja music review, ilayaraja, maestro, music, music directors, music reviews, rajinikanth, sridevi, tamil film music, tamil music
Book Read List Summer 2009
April 20, 2009 · 4 Comments
Book Read List Dec 2008 introduced me to Charles Stross, Neal Stephenson, Vernor Vinge, James Rollins, Donald Westlake, MAJ Sjowall and Per Wahloo. Although I am yet to finish reading Neal’s Cryptonomicon or Westlake’s Drowned Hopes and have just browsed Vernor’s A Fire upon the Deep, I am going to follow other books by these authors. Tom Sharpe (no warmth in his humor) and Steve Berry (boringly predictable) are axed from future reads. There is an house front agreement all of the page-turning yarns of James Rollins should be collected and read the next day. But not any of his horror alter ego books should ever be touched by our shaking hands. Alastair Reynolds remains in the shelf for comment.
Here is a partial Summer 2009 book read list that should be revised as the Summer soars.
Categories: Books · Read List
Tagged: Books, humor books, james rollins, john o'farrell, jug suraiya, lynne truss, malcolm gladwell, mystery books, salman rushdie, science books, umberto eco
Science according to Dr. Kamal Haasan
April 17, 2009 · 11 Comments
Today’s Cinema Plus carries an interview with Kamal Sir[*]. As usual Kamal’s uncanny wit shows up when inquired about why he is not into politics as his peers seem to do, when he quips
It is a matter of choice. None of them have learnt Bharatanatyam or Carnatic music. I have!
But he goes on to say this (talking about Dasavatharam his recent success in which he dons ten characters with aplomb):
It is a complex subject simply told. I haven’t used chaos theory as a solution. No theory could be a solution. The theory of relativity resulted in the atom bomb. Even Darwinism is being challenged. I have used chaos theory to explain the disorganised world we live in. Something seemingly innocuous may have unexpected larger consequences in the future. It has been used in the past in films such as The Butterfly Effect. Mine is a new interpretation.
Let me leave out ‘no theory could be a solution’ and its ilk and take three sentences.
Categories: Muse · Science Notes
Tagged: atom bomb, bad science, butterfly effect, chaos theory, dasavatharam, dasavatharam movie, kamal haasan, kamal hasan, pop culture, pop science, pseudo intellectuals, Science, tamil cinema
Stefan and the Polar Ice Caps
April 14, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Melting of polar ice caps is a topic of current interest due to global warming and its impact. But not long back in human history, in times of lesser pollution and implication, the inverse problem of solidification or growth of polar ice was of interest. During mid nineteenth century Arctic expeditions to study polar ice caps intended to obtain proper first hand information about those regions for scientific investigation. British and German expeditions to the Arctic regions recorded the time of growth of ice and the air temperature on several occasions, sitting in ships, either frozen up in winter quarters, or drifting with the ice. Data from such expeditions led to the formulation and partial solution of, what is known today as the Stefan problem or the moving boundary problem.
The working of Stefan’s diathermometer to measure the thermal conductivity of gases and how that knowledge helped him in predicting the T power fouth radiation law was explained earlier in two separate notes. This note is the third part that recounts Stefan’s analytical contribution to the understanding of solidification.
Categories: Lecture Notes · Science Notes · Thermal Sciences
Tagged: josef stefan, melting, numerical simulation, polar ice caps, polar ice growth, Research, Science, solidification, stefan, stefan problem
Nusselt, Biot numbers and Özisik
April 12, 2009 · 5 Comments
The non-dimensional representation of the convection heat transfer coefficient ‘h’ is identified as the Nusselt number, in honor of Wilhelm Nusselt. It can be written as
In Eq. (1), L is a characteristic length scale. For instance, if one needs to define the overall convection heat transfer coefficient for a (cold) flow over a (hot) flat plate, then L would represent the total finite length of the flat plate along the flow direction. The ‘k’ in Eq. (1) is the thermal conductivity of… let us wait and proceed.
Categories: Micro Muse · Thermal Sciences
Tagged: convection, heat transfer, Conduction, ozisik, nusselt number, biot number
