G V Pavan Kumar

I have updated my list of essays (free to read): historyofscience.in/2025/03/25/a-g…

@curiouswavefn can't agree more...many philosophers of physics rate Einstein and Bell as the most influential philosophers of physics of the 20th and 21st century...

@Pavan_KumarGV One of the deepest, most subtle thinkers of the 20th century. His writing is like fine wine, taking rumination and patience to truly appreciate, until it dawns on you like the morning sin.

Still going strong....still raising new questions...

Want to explore the universe? from smallest to the largest.. from observable to undetected.. from simplicity to complexity.. from curiosity to cutting-edge technology... If you love physics, we have something in common at IISER Pune & We are looking for you... See below advert..and apply if you qualify... & let that wavefuction collapse 🙂

@NishadMukherjee Indeed.. good to see that..

@Pavan_KumarGV Good to see all the investment in theoretical physics.

Prof. Jain, Theoretical Physics & Mumbai City... All great choices by Lodha group..well done.. Indian science needs more of this kind..

What if you had to study physics, chemistry, and biology not as part of entrance exams (JEE, Olympiad, NEET, etc) ? Would you still study them ?

14th of March is Einstein’s birthday. There is so much written about Einstein, and every time you read about him or a text written by him, there is always something interesting to learn. Recently, I came across a wonderful paper by Shankland, who compiled his conversation with Einstein over a period of ten years and published it in 1962 in the American Journal of Physics. Below are three excerpts from the paper to give you a taste of the conversation. I would urge you to read the conversation in full, and it is a delight. “When I asked him how he had learned of the Michelson-Morley experiment, he told me that he had become aware of it through the writings of H. A. Lorentz, but only after 1905 had it come to his attention! “Otherwise,” he said, “I would have mentioned it in my paper.” He continued to say the experimental results which had influenced him most were the observations on stellar aberration and Fizeau’s measurements on the speed of light in moving water. “They were enough,” he said. I reminded him that Michelson and Morley had made a very accurate determination at Case in 1886 of the Fresnel dragging coefficient with greatly improved techniques and showed him their values as given in my paper. To this he nodded agreement, but when I added that it seemed to me that Fizeau’s original result was only qualitative, he shook his pipe and smiled, “Oh it was better than that!” He thought Zeeman’s later precise repetition of this experiment was very beautiful. He seemed really delighted when I mentioned to him how elegant I had found (as a student) his method of obtaining the Fresnel dragging coefficient from his composition of velocities law of special relativity.” (Shankland 1963, 2) “I asked Professor Einstein how long he had worked on the Special Theory of Relativity before 1905. He told me that he had started at age 16 and worked for ten years; first as a student when, of course, he could only spend part-time on it, but the problem was always with him. He abandoned many fruitless attempts, “until at last it came to me that time was suspect!” Only then, after all his earlier efforts to obtain a theory consistent with the experimental facts had failed, was the development of the Special Theory of Relativity possible. This led him to comment at some length on the nature of mental processes in that they do not seem at all to move step by step to a solution, and he emphasized how devious a route our minds take through a problem. “It is only at the last that order seems at all possible in a problem.”” (Shankland 1963, 2) “Our conversation then returned to the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Special Theory of Relativity. I could not help feeling that this elegant special theory, the product of his youthful efforts, held the place nearest to his heart. I asked him if he felt that writing out the history of the ;v[ichelson-Morley experiment would be worthwhile. He said, “Yes, by all means, but you must write it as Mach wrote his Science of Mechanics.” Then he gave me his ideas on historical writing of science. “Nearly all historians of science are philologists and do not comprehend what physicists were aiming at, how they thought and wrestled with their problems. Even most of the work on Galileo is poorly done.” A means of writing must be found which conveys the thought processes that lead to discoveries. Physicists have been of little help in this because most of them have no “historical sense.” Mach’s Science of Mechanics, however, he considered one of the truly great books and a model for scientific historical writing. He said, “Mach did not know the real facts of how the early workers considered their problems,” but Einstein felt that Mach had sufficient insight so that what he says is very likely correct anyway.” (Shankland 1963, 4) There is a lot more to explore in the wonderful conversation paper. Shankland, R. S. 1963. ‘Conversations with Albert Einstein’. American Journal of Physics 31 (1): 47–57. Link in my blog

Ep 121 with Sudipta Sarkar Sudipta Sarkar is a Professor of Physics at IIT Gandhinagar, specializing in gravitation, black hole thermodynamics, gravitational waves, and quantum field theory in curved spacetime. He is also interested in the history of science, particular history of relativity and connected ideas. In this conversation, we discussed his intellectual journey and the research questions that he has been interested in.

links on my blog: historyofscience.in/2026/03/13/con… All 121 episodes: historyofscience.in/2025/03/12/all…

“Women of Mathematics” is more than just a photographic exhibition about mathematicians and theoretical physicists from around the world; it is also about who is permitted to be seen as a mathematician and whose stories are put up on walls. Pairing portraits with personal narratives, it becomes a deliberate act of visibility.

Do you think teaching makes you better at what you do? Medicine laureate Oliver Smithies did. “When you teach you have to understand, and so you learn more by teaching than you knew before and so teaching teaches you as well and that makes you have new thoughts. Your science is better for teaching,” he said. Smithies also believed that scientists “have to teach” because someone taught them and they owe it to their community. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2007 with two other laureates, for their discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells. Learn more about Oliver Smithies: nobelprize.org/prizes/medicin…

This needs more attention...

Our March issue features Jane Goodall whose studies revolutionized our understanding of primate behavior. Watch out for the issue which will soon be online at ias.ac.in #science #STEMeducation #education #STEM #research #researcher #biology #ecology #AnimalBehavior

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Now online... Rotational Jamming of Plasmonic Optical Matter Driven by Chiral Light | ACS Photonics pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac…

Physics is too big and beautiful to have narrow definitions. I like Hopefield's view: "What is physics? To me—growing up with a father and mother who were both physicists—physics was not subject matter. The atom, the troposphere, the nucleus, a piece of glass, the washing machine, my bicycle, the phonograph, a magnet—these were all incidentally the subject matter. The central idea was that the world is understandable, that you should be able to take anything apart, understand the relationships between its constituents, do experiments, and on that basis be able to develop a quantitative understanding of its behavior. Physics was a point of view that the world around us is, with effort, ingenuity, and adequate resources, understandable in a predictive and reasonably quantitative fashion. Being a physicist is a dedication to the quest for this kind of understanding." more here: historyofscience.in/2024/10/08/phy…

@Pavan_KumarGV Physics is not technology. Physics is studying natural motion Freefall Hydraulics Magnetism Sound Light Thermodynamics is not Physics. It creates artificial motion. So belongs in Technology. Technology is trial and error. 🧐 Once a machine functions theory matters not.

I was informed that Anthony Leggett passed away...he made physics wonderful by asking profound questions, as below: "......there is no good reason to accept this division of the world into a microscopic regime where QM reigns and a macroscopic one governed by classical physics; QM is a very ‘totalitarian’ theory, and if it applies to an individual and electrons, then it should prima facie equally apply to the macroscopic objects made up of them, including any devices which we have set up as measuring apparatus...." [1] [1] Leggett, A. J. ‘Realism and the Physical World’. Reports on Progress in Physics 71, no. 2 (2008): 022001. pic credit: Britannica hyperlinks on my blog

@lal_shiban Feel free to explore my blog...it has many questions too..mainly from physics research: historyofscience.in/2018/08/12/tra…

@Pavan_KumarGV Feel free to reply any question of my pinned tweet. It's a Q Paper.