| Name | Institution | Areas of Interest | Publications |
| Thanu Padmanabhan | IUCAA, Pune | Classical General Relativity, Cosmology, Emergent Gravity, Quantum Gravity | INSPIRE |
| Romesh Kaul | IMSc Chennai, CTP Delhi | Black Hole Entropy, Loop Quantum Gravity, Knot Invariants, Mathematical Physics | INSPIRE |
| Golam Mortuza Hossain | IISER, Kolkata | Loop Quantum Gravity, Quantum Field Theory, Black Hole Entropy, Cosmology | INSPIRE |
| Sushant G. Ghosh | CTP, Delhi | Black Holes, Classical General Relativity, Gravitational Collapse | INSPIRE |
| Ghanshyam Date | IMSc, Chennai | Loop Quantum Gravity, Gravitational Waves, High Energy Theory, | INSPIRE |
| Arun K. Pati | QIC Group, HRI, Allahabad | Quantum Information, Quantum Computation, Geometric Phases | INSPIRE |
| Rathin Adhikari | CTP, Delhi | Standard Model Phenomenology, Baryogenesis, Cosmology, Supersymmetry | INSPIRE |
| Hemwati Nandan | Gurkul Kangri University, Haridwar | QCD, Classical General Relativity, Cosmology, | INSPIRE |
| Loganayagam R. | ICTS, Bengaluru | String Theory, Black Holes, Quantum Field Theory | INSPIRE |
| Kamal Lochan Panigrahi | IIT Kharagpur | String Theory, Quantum Gravity, High Energy Theory | INSPIRE |
Saturday, 13 January 2018
Theoretical Physics in India
There are many research centers and researchers in India working in hep-th (High Energy Physics, Theory), gr-qc (General Relativity/Quantum Cosmology) and quant-ph (Quantum Physics). However they are scattered all over the place and I have not been able to find a place which lists the names of places and individuals working in these fields in India. So, I figured, why not make a list! Here is my attempt at making one. It is, hopefully, a continuing work to be expanded over time. Naturally, this list reflects my own bias and is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all researchers in theoretical physics in India.
Thursday, 11 January 2018
Competitive Nationalism and (the myth of) Islamic Homogeneity
Recently the Chief Minister of Karnataka, Mr. Siddharamaiah, made the following observation on twitter regarding the recent communally motivated murders in the Dakshin Kannada (South Karnataka) district. Expressing grief as the deaths of both victims from different communities, he described the tragic incidents as the results of "competitive fanaticism" between extremists on either side
This expression, "competitive fanaticism", perfectly summarizes the favored tactic of certain elements of India's polity. The goal is too keep the embers of nationalism and religious identity burning just hot enough to maintain a state of constant dread in the general public, but not so hot that the fire gets out of hand and burns down the whole village. Of course, it is impossible to control the evolution of a system as complex as human society, no matter how resourceful any individual or group of individuals might be.
One nevers knows when the fire might burn just hot enough in one place at one time and set the whole system on flames. That is why it is important for leaders of good faith to soothe the upset nerves of people who are innocent victims of such competitive fanaticism, in addition to taking all possible steps using the state's machinery to tamp down on extremist elements of any hue.
Consider this. A Muslim from Maharashtra and a muslim from Bengal in the same room. How difficult or easy would it be for a general observer to realize that the two don't come from the same cultural backgrounds? Not difficult at all, right? Even if both have facial hair and are wearing skull caps or other items identifiable as being of Muslim origin, that won't mask the differences in speech, attitude, dietary preference, clothing habits and other cultural traits, between the two. So the obvious answer is "no, it would not be difficult at all to distinguish the different regional origins of the muslims"!
Now imagine that instead of two Muslims in that room, we have two Hindus, one from Kerala and another from Gujarat. What would be answer to the question in this case? In this case, the question would not even arise, because it is **understood** that Hindus are a not a monolithic homogenous culture and that is great diversity within the people of the subcontinent who identify themselves as being "Hindu". It should also be **understood** that Indians Muslims are also not a homogenous entity. There is as much (or as little) difference in the thinking, behavior, speech, appearance and overall cultural identify of Muslims from Karnataka and Bihar as would be found between any two Hindus from the same states.
However, the competitive fanaticism which is prevalent in today's politics is based in the fundamentally incorrect premise that Indian Muslims are a homogenous entity all sharing the exact same traits. This is, of course, a complete and malicious lie, whose purpose is to simply make the demonization of Muslims that much more convenient. After all, it is very easy to direct feelings of hate towards a single, undifferentiated entity, than to hate a vast and diverse population composed of many subcultures and tribes.
Thus in order to fight those who seek to poison social discourse and sow communal hatred, it important to do three things. First, to reach out with humility, compassion and empathy towards **all** who are affected by communal violence. Second, to take all possible legal steps to counter those who wish to spread communal propaganda and hate speech. And, third and most importantly, we must celebrate and propagate at every available opportunity the diversity of thoughts, lifestyles and cultures which exist amongst all religions, communities and regions in this vast land of India.
This expression, "competitive fanaticism", perfectly summarizes the favored tactic of certain elements of India's polity. The goal is too keep the embers of nationalism and religious identity burning just hot enough to maintain a state of constant dread in the general public, but not so hot that the fire gets out of hand and burns down the whole village. Of course, it is impossible to control the evolution of a system as complex as human society, no matter how resourceful any individual or group of individuals might be.
One nevers knows when the fire might burn just hot enough in one place at one time and set the whole system on flames. That is why it is important for leaders of good faith to soothe the upset nerves of people who are innocent victims of such competitive fanaticism, in addition to taking all possible steps using the state's machinery to tamp down on extremist elements of any hue.
Consider this. A Muslim from Maharashtra and a muslim from Bengal in the same room. How difficult or easy would it be for a general observer to realize that the two don't come from the same cultural backgrounds? Not difficult at all, right? Even if both have facial hair and are wearing skull caps or other items identifiable as being of Muslim origin, that won't mask the differences in speech, attitude, dietary preference, clothing habits and other cultural traits, between the two. So the obvious answer is "no, it would not be difficult at all to distinguish the different regional origins of the muslims"!
Now imagine that instead of two Muslims in that room, we have two Hindus, one from Kerala and another from Gujarat. What would be answer to the question in this case? In this case, the question would not even arise, because it is **understood** that Hindus are a not a monolithic homogenous culture and that is great diversity within the people of the subcontinent who identify themselves as being "Hindu". It should also be **understood** that Indians Muslims are also not a homogenous entity. There is as much (or as little) difference in the thinking, behavior, speech, appearance and overall cultural identify of Muslims from Karnataka and Bihar as would be found between any two Hindus from the same states.
However, the competitive fanaticism which is prevalent in today's politics is based in the fundamentally incorrect premise that Indian Muslims are a homogenous entity all sharing the exact same traits. This is, of course, a complete and malicious lie, whose purpose is to simply make the demonization of Muslims that much more convenient. After all, it is very easy to direct feelings of hate towards a single, undifferentiated entity, than to hate a vast and diverse population composed of many subcultures and tribes.
Thus in order to fight those who seek to poison social discourse and sow communal hatred, it important to do three things. First, to reach out with humility, compassion and empathy towards **all** who are affected by communal violence. Second, to take all possible legal steps to counter those who wish to spread communal propaganda and hate speech. And, third and most importantly, we must celebrate and propagate at every available opportunity the diversity of thoughts, lifestyles and cultures which exist amongst all religions, communities and regions in this vast land of India.
Sunday, 3 September 2017
Herniated Disc Exercises
Found a really nice set of five simple exercises for treating herniated or bulging discs. The exercises are:
[embed]https://youtu.be/b1_uxJRpQRM[/embed]
- Cat-cow
- Bird-dog
- Lying prone face down with elbows tucked in under your sides
- Superman - with your arms either by your side, or folded behind your head, or stretched out in front
- Cobra or Mackenzie press-ups.
[embed]https://youtu.be/b1_uxJRpQRM[/embed]
Wednesday, 9 August 2017
Fluctuation Dissipation in Quantum Gravity
In statistical mechanics we are mostly concerned with the statistical averages of various physical quantities when the system is in equilibrium.
Fluctuation is a common phenomenon in nature. Fluctuation means how much a quantity deviates from its average value. The average value of the thermodynamic observables and the size of their fluctuation about their equilibrium values can be predicted by equilibrium statistical mechanics.
Fluctuation is a common phenomenon in nature. Fluctuation means how much a quantity deviates from its average value. The average value of the thermodynamic observables and the size of their fluctuation about their equilibrium values can be predicted by equilibrium statistical mechanics.
Sunday, 6 August 2017
Speeding up Wordpress
One common problem with wordpress sites is that they can seem sluggish compared to, lets say, sites built with static or single-file CMSs such as grav. There are several online tools which can help you check how fast your site is and how to optimize its performance. Two of these are pingdom and Google's pagespeed insights.
Putting my site through these two tools yields the following results:
[caption id="attachment_158" align="alignnone" width="69"]
Result from tools.pingdom.com[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_159" align="alignnone" width="207"]
Results from Google Pagespeed Insights.[/caption]
A more comprehensive list of online tools for testing your wordpress site speed can be found here.
Nb: The fullscreen browser images were captured using the very useful Firefox plugin Fireshot.
Putting my site through these two tools yields the following results:
[caption id="attachment_158" align="alignnone" width="69"]
Result from tools.pingdom.com[/caption][caption id="attachment_159" align="alignnone" width="207"]
Results from Google Pagespeed Insights.[/caption]A more comprehensive list of online tools for testing your wordpress site speed can be found here.
Nb: The fullscreen browser images were captured using the very useful Firefox plugin Fireshot.
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