This Mir publication book is one of the first books I read about Quantum Physics outside the curriculum. This book is exactly as I like it… a combination of history and quantum physics.
This book is about the Odyssey of the modern physics. The author starts off with an attempt to obtain as many resources as possible, at a time when most of the torchbearers of modern physics were leaving this each on their heavenly abode. He starts of with visiting archives, meeting the remaining war-lords (I mean those who were the fore runners in making the theory of the sub- atomic world.)
The author of the book has a very different narration style, he starts with the need for a documenting the experiences of the great people who had started this race, and why it was already late for them to start…
The book greets us with a lot of anecdotes from the lives of these great men, making the journey all the more interesting…. The various people who started off this journey, what their individual thoughts were, how the interacted with each other, the various situations that got them to think in the way they thought to make a theory and much more… all these keep the interest on the high throughout.
Its starts of slowly not revealing much in the beginning, but as it goes on the story of the quantum theory’s birth keeps us engaged through out.
If you are a little patient to see through the first part of this book, its a wonderful book to read. Very informative… Go ahead and try out…
Blog
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“Probabilities of the Quantum World” – Daniel Danin
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Mulliangiri – 2
I had other trek plans, but did not find company as all others quit at the last minute. I asked Rajesh if I could join them at the last minute. Fortunately I could get in with them. It would be my second trek to Mulliangiri.
I met up with Rajesh and co. for the trek at the KSRTC bus stand. We got a small intro about each other before we got into the bus. Once in the bus, we started interacting with each other and then went on to sleep. The bus was to ChickMagalore. We reached ChikMagalore at around 4:30am. I recalled that the first bus was at 7:00 a.m. (from the last experience) and told it would be better searching for an alternate mode. We had our coffee at the hotel in the Bus Stand and then finished our morning wash there.
We then set out in search of a mode of transport, some suggested taking auto’s to the place… but all of us wanted to go together, so we searched for a Jeep or a Sumo. We finally got one, and after some discussion over the price, the driver agreed to drop us at the “SarpaHadi entrance.”
We unloaded our luggage… just looked around and then after some 15 min started our trek from the Sarpahadi. This time over the climate was much better. We started some time after the sun rise and it was a nice time to begin with. Once on serpentile route to the peak… take most of the turns to the left than the right this will take you to the peak more easily. We did loose our route for some time but then we got back to the main foot trail that would take us to the peak. We climbed slowly but steadily.
As we trekked to higher altitudes, the view got panoramic; we could spot villages in the distance when clouds did not cover them up. Just a bit higher and we found the milk white clouds came in to speak with the mountains; it looked like a sea of milk. We were fortunate enough to be above the clouds so it was clearly visible for us. The sun was just above these clouds as well – it was like the sun had opened the door of the cloudy house and just come out to do his days duty. This view is sure to make anyone happy – a really good one.
As we continued our uphill trek we found the rain clouds gathering nearby. We reached the peak in about 1 hours climb. The rain clouds were making the winds chillier. Some of us were a bit quicker than other and so we reached a small shelter where we waited for the others behind.. All of us got together and then we continued again till we reached the “Nandi temple” We took some food there and then continued till we reached the caves – yes caves just below the temple at the peak.
The last time I had been to the peak I did not attempt entering deep into the cave, this time I had company and so decided to explore them. We split our self into 2 teams and went exploring with torches in our hand. One of the caves is deeper while the other one is not all that deep. We found bats in there. We picked up some snaps there. The caves had patterns of sediments that had gathered in over the years. They looked really beautiful. For a moment I felt I had seen then patterns of Jupiter there, they were so similar in look.
After the cave expedition we got out to have our breakfast. We find water in the temple premise so we can use this place to wash our selves… but its going to be very cold out here. One of our companions Raghavendra had brought chapattis with him, and we were busy eating them. We got our FM mobile hand set and we could here the FM channels from
We resumed the trek after a break of about 1 hour. The clouds got denser now, but not yet like the last time I had been to this peak. The course was the same; we wanted to reach the road, as I had done this trek earlier… I could guide them on the correct path. I remembered the place where we had faltered the last time and so could easily trek the correct route. We got down from the peak and walked through the small flowery plants. There plants were purple in color and bloom once in twelve years, we were very happy to get a sight of the vast mountains in the surrounding all of whose peaks were covered with these flowers. We stood in between these flowers and picked up some real nice snaps and then continued on our trek.
We reached the Vivekananda Statue View point at around 12 noon. We took a brek here and looked at the awesome surrounding view. All of us decided to continue on to BabaBudangiri (DattaPeetha) form here.
Now comes the most exciting part of this trek for me, we had heavy luggage along so when we hat to get into the bus that was bound to the
The winding roads, the view we could get of the valley, the far off peaks, and the people on the way, the turns the bus used to make on the winding roads all this increased the excitement of being on the top of the bus. We almost fell off the roof at some of the curves but it was still some excitement in all that.
Around 30 min of roof top journey from the bus and we reached BabaBudanGiri. BabaBudan was instrumental in getting the coffee seeds to this coffee land -> great work man!!! Well now this is a controversial place… This place is held sacred by both Hindus and Muslims so generally there is tension that prevails during the functions… When we reached this place there were some preparations for “Datta Male” functions.
We reached this pace some and had our lunch packed at a small hotel there, and carried on our trek futher. From this place we decided to go to a nearby falls – “Manikya Dhara”. We decided to trek till the falls, and may be spend the night there and trek the next day to “Kemmangundi”. Well but as God would have it, he decided to make the weather bad. It started raining really heavily and we decided to cancel the trek to “Kemmangundi” and get back home.
We had carried along the tents to pitch for the night as well and erected them, but then all that went a waste. We had to pack up. We had pitched the tent beside a tree, and a lake… The bad weather just made the look very beautiful; it’s been a memorable scene. I think the lake had some special significance, a lot of devotes used to come there and dropping something in to the lake and then leaving it… We had our lunch besides this lake and then some of us went further to look at the “
All the naturalness of this beautiful falls seems to have been lost, there are steps built to get to the base of the falls, some sort of reservoirs to hold the water that falls so that people can have a bath there – Another surprising custom I found there was that, the dress in which you wet yourself at the falls is thrown out into the deep abyss that is in front of the falls. I don’t get the point as to how these clothes get disposed? Are they burnt are they left as it is? I don’t know… I some what was not happy with this setting. We have a small view point on the way to the falls from were we can actually get a nice view, but unfortunately due to bad view we could not sight anything. The place has been commercialized a lot – a lot of shops, a lot of plastic all around…. don’t feel comfortable some how.
We got some water filled front he waterfalls and started on our way back, we reached the camp that we planned and then decided we would get back. We reached the BabaBudan stop in at around 5:15pm. The bus started at 5:30 pm and we reached ChikMagalore in about
an hour and a quarter.
Surprisingly the climate of this town was normal, when compared to the bad weather of the
This was a memorable trek for me considering the But roof ride, the climate change that occurs, the cloud and sun view that I got in the morning, The serene lake – beside which we camped for some time… really an everlasting memory. -
“Ignited Minds”-APJ Abdul Kalam
This is one of the inspirational books by our president.. APJAK. I have read this book some time back and was impressed by the vision he shares with the younger generation.
He has dedicated this book to a girl – Snehal Thakkar… He has shared his vision so that many more people can share it and work towards achieving it. He gives clear messages to the people though his assertion on Dreams and the message it has. He highlights the importance of having a role model, the effect that teachers have on the students the way they give the initial casting to the life of the students during their initial.
He give something to pic for every individual in this book. If you like reading APJ don’t miss it… -
“Its My Life” – Sangeetha Shenoy
This is a very different book I have read, different in the sense the way the real life experiences have been presented. All the articles make me feel so close to what I have seen in the life of people in real life, which made this more interesting.
The style of writing make reading all the more fun as you feel – that’s the way I like to speak.
Some of the suggestions made to take care about elders made a lot of sense to me.. felt that would have made a lot of difference in case it was followed. I liked the pun that was intended in the last topic… I made the guess right at the beginning, as there was a mention of “yep he is a doctor”.
The narration has been exceptional and captivating in these articles. The lessons about financial management, self-independence are worth taking note of.
Thanks Sangeethaji for this wonderful collection.I would suggest every one read it at least once… they will make no mistakes. (some of the pages were not printed thanks to some goof up by the publisher… well still a lot to worth reading.)
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ArasinaGundi
Well I was on this trek as a plan for the next trek that I was organizing to Kodachadri in Jan. My cousin and I were the only two people on the trek. We set out from our native place… some 10km from Udupi at 645 a.m. We reached Udupi and then caught a bus that would take us to Kundaapura. We reached Kundaapura at 8:15 and waited for a bus to the famous temple town of
Kodachadri cross is an entry point of a trekking route – to the
We spoke with the two people working there and one of them agreed to come along with us. He took us into the forest, I am sure that if just has taken the directions and moved on my own I would have got lost. He guided us for some 45 min into the forest and told us.. not to take any deviation and then you will get a route that will take you to the falls. We thanked him and paid a small amount to him and then continued on.
We trekked for another 1 hr on the route he directed us and then we got a small board indicating a route to the “ArsinaGundi falls”. We took that route and some 20 minutes on the route and into the forest we reached the falls. Both of us were just too pleased to see the falls, our fatigue disappeared immediately. We were tired but the very sight of the falls was enough for us to forget all that… I went about taking some snaps while my cousin stood there enjoying the beauty of the falls.
We had brought some food from our home, we sat bu the falls, washed our hand and then continued on.. to the route that takes us to Kodachadri. We set out on this route and an hours trek though the forest we reached the asphalted road connecting Shimoga and Kodachadri.
This point is some 1.5 kms from Kollur temple. We reached Kollur at around 5:00pm. The last bus to Udupi was at 5:30-5:45pm.
We took that bus to Udupi and reached at 8:45. It was a nice trek; both of us had seen one of the best falls in our life. Every time I recall about this trek it fills my heart with happiness.
The falls is worth a visit, please keep the place free of plastic and non-degradable covers; this will keep the place worth a visit…. for a long time to come. -
Seetha Falls, Agumbe, Barakan View Point
I am always on the look out for falls. The last time I visited Seetha falls, I had seen a narrow stream making a falls far off. I wished I could know more about it. I went back to hostel and did a small research to find out that the small falls was called Barkana fall.
As usual we set out from college in 3 bikes; we set out early aroung 6:00 A.M. from the college and reached Karkala, then we took a route from Karkala that would take us to Hebri. We reached Hebri at around 7:30 am. We had out breakfast in a hotel near the bus stand and then packed some food to be taken up for the trek.
We set out from Hebri toward Someshwara, on the way we get a place called SeethaNadi – (The place is named after the river (Nadi in kannada means River) – Seetha that flows past this place). We see an Arch on the right side, thatz the route that you have to take… It’s around 10kms from here and we reach a bridge, you can cross the bridge in a 2 wheeler but not a four wheeler. We crossed this one and then reached the falls.
The falls was as usual at its best, dropping from a height of some 60 feet and making a very nice falls. It has a large lake in front of it, nice cold water in it, and a nice place to rest and have a chilling bath. You can swim here, but make sure you are good at swimming….
I took a small break from the group and wandered into the wilderness nearby… to look if I can find the origin of the falls… I only found a level above the falls and then came back.
We set out from the falls at around 12 noon, had our lunch at a bus stand that had a borewell nearby. After having our lunch we decide to go to the Agumbe and then to Barkana. We reached Agumbe and got the permission from the police station to enter into the forest – There is a naxal problem in these areas and its needed that we inform the police about any activity that we find in the forest.
Having acquired the permission we set out on the bikes towards the Barkan, around 3 Km into the forest and we reach the Barkana View Point… I cherish the memories of this view point – the view of the lush greenary, the wild vegetation, the sea far way, the surrounding mountains, the barkana falls at a distance… All this makes it more special than the Agumbe View Point. I wish I make the Narsimha Parvatha Trek some time that will take me through the barkana falls… Am waiting… let me see if I can do it some time.
We spent nearly an hour at the view point and then got back to Agumbe. We had our tiffin there and then went to the view point to wait for the sunset. We had a splendid sunset – one of the memorable ones in my life… We got down Agumbe and then back to College via Hebri, Karkala, Padubidre… We had our dinner at the very famous “Sonu Dhaba” and then got back to hostel.
Personally I feel not all that exciting trip except for the time spent at – Barkana, -
Sabeer Bhatia
Sabeer Bhatia
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I am sure – if you have been listening to the news with apt attention during the late 1997 or early 1998, you would not have missed the news of Microsoft taking over HoTMaiL. In this article I give a brief introduction of the co-founder of the HoTMaiL. The co-founder of the now famous HoTMaiL is none other than our very own
Sabeer was born in 1969 at
Schooling:
His parents placed great value on education. Sabeer grew up in
Some of the memorable incidents during his school life are here – “On parent-teacher days they would just say ‘Sir, why did you come? You don’t have to come! We tell Sabeer to solve the questions on the blackboard for us,’” says Bhatia senior. Once, Sabeer came home crying after an exam. He had not done badly; he just hadn’t had time to write down everything he knew.
He started his undergraduate education at the Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS), Pilani. In 1988 Sabeer won a full scholarship to the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech), in
Career:
At Stanford, he was inspired by entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs and Scott McNealy eventually deciding to become one himself. Instead pursuing a PhD after his Masters, he decided to join Apple computers.
Sabeer briefly worked for Apple Computers as a hardware engineer -he lasted nine months there, after that he joined a start up company called Firepower Systems Inc, where he spent two years.
The new dawn:
In his cubicle, he read about young men starting up for peanuts and selling out for millions. Sabeer pondered what the Net could do for him, and what he
could do for the Net. Then he had an idea.It was called Javasoft – a way of using the Web to create a personal database where surfers could keep schedules, to-do lists, family photos and so on. Bhatia showed the plan to Jack Smith, an Apple colleague and they got started. One evening Smith called Bhatia with an intriguing notion. Why not add e-mail to Javasoft? It was a small leap with revolutionary consequences: access to e-mail from any computer, anywhere on the planet. This was that rare thing, an idea so simple, so obvious; it was hard to believe no one had thought of it before. Bhatia saw the potential and panicked that someone would steal the idea. He sat up all night writing the business plan. “Then we wrote down all variations of mail – Speedmail, Hypermail, Supermail.” HoTMaiL made perfect sense: it included the letters “HTML” – the programming language used to write Web pages. A brand name was born.
In order to attract attention, the e-mail service was provided for free and revenue was obtained through the advertising on the website. Bhatia had $6,000 to his name. It was time to find investors. By the time he reached the offices of venture capitalists Draper Fisher Jurvetson, 19 doors had slammed behind him. Steve Jurvetson and his colleagues quickly saw the potential and put up $300,000. Bhatia and Smith stretched the money all the way to launch day, July 4, 1996. By year-end they were greeting their millionth customer. When Microsoft came knocking, 12 months later, they’d signed up nearly 10 million users.
Selling HoTMaiL to MS (Microsoft):
But what were 10 million subscribers worth? Was it $160 million as Microsoft said? More? Less? Sabeer polled his investors. Doug Carlisle, whose firm Menlo Ventures had pumped $1 million into Hotmail, guessed $200 million. Sabeer chided him for giving the lowest estimate and joked that he might hold out for a billion.
Sabeer didn’t know how to sell a company. But he did know how to buy onions. “In
Sabeer wouldn’t budge, and Microsoft’s representatives kept walking out, or rather storming. And shouting and swearing and hurling insults. But the Hotmail team had been warned of Microsoft’s tactics. “It was like a record being played,” says Jurvetson, “which we thought was pretty funny. It gave us a real sense of strength.” During the negotiations, he had bumped into a British backpacker in
At $200 million, Doug Carlisle started looking for a sculptor. At $350 million, Hotmail’s investors agreed: Sell. Sabeer returned to the table, alone, and once more said: “No.” The contract was inked on Dec. 30, 1997, Sabeer’s 29th birthday. The price: some three million Microsoft shares – worth $400 million at the time and twice that now. Today Hotmail users are signing up at the rate of 250,000 a day, and the firm is valued at some $6 billion. “I’m pretty sure Sabeer and Jack regret selling,” says Jurvetson. “Who knows what might have been?” Sabeer shrugs: “When we sold, it was considered an outrageous amount. In hindsight, yes, we sold too low. But I don’t regret it because at that time it was considered a great deal.”
After the
After selling Hotmail, Sabeer worked at Microsoft for about a year and in April 1999, he left the company to s
tart another website, Arzoo Inc, which was shut down when the dot-com bubble burst. In 2006, he re-launched Arzoo as a travel portal.He started a new website trying to capitalise on the emerging blogosphere – BlogEverywhere with co-founders Shiraz Kanga and Viraf Zack.
He also pushed for a project enabling access to the internet through cable television in Indian homes. However, due to bureaucratic problems it is very unlikely that this will reach completion.
Further future plans of his include the development of a new city in
Recognition:
Sabeer’s success has earned him widespread acclaim;
1. The venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson named him ‘Entrepreneur of the Year 1997’,
2. MIT chose him as one of 100 young innovators who are expected to have the greatest impact on technology and awarded ‘TR100’,
3. San Jose Mercury News and POV magazine selected him as one of the ten most successful entrepreneurs of 1998 and
4. Upside magazine’s list of top trendsetters in the New Economy named him ‘Elite 100’.
5. Named by TIME as one of the “People to Watch” in International Business (2002)
Src:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
/Sabeer_Bhatia http://www.pathfinder.com
/asiaweek/technology/990625 /bhatia.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk
/1402270.stm http://www.webindia123.com
/personal/abroad/sabeer.htm http://www.indobase.com
/indians-abroad/sabeer-bhatia .html http://www.engology.com
/eng5bhatia.htm -
“The Elegant universe” – Brian Greene
I just love this book. The title of the book is just apt with the content that he is presenting. His style has really made the name worth… the book is just elegant.
The book is about the concepts of modern therory of the sub-atomic world and the quest for the “Grand Unified theory.” He speaks in very simple and clear method which makes the book all the more interesting.
Brian is one of the experts in the domain of “String Theory”, this is thought to be “The Theory” that would lead us to a better understanding of the universe and find the single theread that could bind all the theories togather and give an explanation to all the observations using this single theory.
Brian has a very clear understanding about the concepts of Physics. I just love the way way he has expalined the concepts of relativity.. hez made it more clear than other books which I have read. He doesnt follow th eusungl style of assuming we send one person into space and things like that, but rather uses simple analogies to get the concept clear. The other part where he shows his brilliance in explaining the concept of plank’s constant. He then gets the concepts of dimentions that are curled up and things like it to explain the string theory.. as this theory has in itself 11 dimentions!!!, but he makes it look easy by the way he explains.
He later goes on to inform the reader about the differnt parts of this string theory and their various implications. He also gets a small amount of science to make information more complete.If you like physics and want to know much more about the modern developments in the latest attempt of grand unified theory… this is a must read… Nothing like it for a beginner. I advise you to go have a go at this book if you love physics.
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“The Argumentative Indian”-Dr Amartya Sen
This is a book tha tis a compiled edition of the number of essays that Dr Amartya Sen has written about various topics ranging from India’s history to its culture; Politics to Protests, Reason, its Diaspora included.
The book is a bit heavy if you dont have the patience to read though it. The vocabulary is good. I would advice not to search for links between the various essays and to look at them indivisually. Dont even attempt searching for a flow, you can easily start hating his style of narrration. If you dont read this book at a stretch and get some time for yourself to digest what he has told, this will be a good book, with all its knowlege and experience that is open to the world.
Dr Amartya gives the book the touch of an expert.. he has written it in a very verbose manner and one in which not many can follow. The book deals with a lot of topics and give a very broad view of those concepts. He has given some descrion about Ravindranath Tagore.. who seems to have had a lot of affect on his life. He deals with some nice and interesting concepts like the Sino-Indian relations and others. A very knowledeable book to read.. but be cautious that you expect that it is going to be hard for you in case you think it is for timepass… you will be utterly mistaken. -
“The Great Indian Dream”-Arindam Chaudhuri
Arindam Chaudhuri has written this book after his wel known mangement book – “Count Your Chickens before they hatch”. This book also revolves around the “India Centric – mangement theory.
This is an inspirational book in a lot of ways, but I sometime feel he is too idealistic and we must understand that not all these things are going to work as easily as he has mentioned in the book. He has started a foundation… to implement the dream that he has seen through this book.. and his success is mostly limited to West Bengal. I think it takes us to think over again and understand that though the idea that he has given is nice one it takes much more to implement it.
He tries to be over motivating… and seriously I think he has failed to convince me. His ideas are nice… but not in complete synch with my lines of thought. I would take it up with a pinch of salt, rather than just go by what he says word by word.
A nice book to read.. to think out of the box to a certain degree, some new ideas suggested, some open problems of the nation brought out.. but they I feel are not complete solutions that he has sugested…. go ahead and read in case you love to read and knoe more….