Einstein's Brain

Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientific thinkers of modern times died in 1955, at the age 76, at Princeton. Hours after his demise, his brain was taken for scientific study to see if it could reveal the mystery of the genius. Einstein was cremated within 24 hours, his brain was taken out secretly without any public knowledge.

The autopsy on Einstein was the standard procedure, the official file of the autopsy has been missing. Einstein had blood to death due to a rupture in a blood vessel. The brain was removed in the autopsy. Einstein's brain was cut into 240 sections those were saved in alcohol solution. Dr. Thomas Harvey from the University Medical Center, Princeton was responsible for removing the brain of Einstein.

Nature or nurture dominates; are geniuses born or made is the content of this blog. To the question, what does it take to be a genius, Einstein answered that, its the ability to ask questions that only children would ask. His discoveries originated from the question: what happens when one rides along with the light. Einstein said it also takes continuous working, thinking on the solutions to the asked questions. Its because Einstein stayed with the problems for long times. 99 times the conclusion is wrong but the 100th time the conclusion is right. Now who wants to be the next genius, anyone?

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: Dr. Richard Feynman

This is a collections of thoughts mentioned in the above titled interview of Dr. Richard Feynman.

Can being a scientist deprive one of the ability of appreciating the beauty of nature as seen through an artist's eye? I think that the view of a scientist has for sure some overlaps with the views of an artist; and to add more there are additional dimensions that a science-bent person can use to enjoy the natural beauty from a different perspective/level.

Everything that Feynman was read to as a child was essentially translated into corresponding vivid imagery by his father. The example he gives, is of a T-Rex's dimensions compared to the size of their window. Feynman learned to do this visualization in his mind of whatever he read subsequently.

There is a difference between knowing the name of a concept and having an understanding of that concept. During his graduate school days, Feynman was interested in taking time off for doing his PhD research as though his work would protect civilizations. Something very similar thought every PhD student has while thinking of doing his PhD research.

Feynman won the Nobel prize in quantum electro-dynamics. He attributes the origin of his interest in the topic to rotational motion, electron rotation, to a particular day in his university cafeteria when he observed a student throw a circular wobble in air. Feynman was amused by the rate at which the blue dot at the center of the wobble was rotating as compared the the wobble itself. His work had all started with mere amusement in a particular observation followed by continued interest in studying similar behaviors in other physical systems.

Feynman seems to have a psychological troubles with getting honors like recognition awards etc. From his childhood his father had passed on a sort of disrespect to honors, hierarchy (like Pope, army ranks, etc.). Feynman also invented an alibi that he is irresponsible about administrative tasks because of his belief that for doing good physics one needs a long uninterrupted interval of time.

The best way to teach Physics is not to be history to be chaotic and to connect multiple thoughts. Feynman admits that he does not know how to make his teaching interesting. Learning depends on the personality of the student attempting to learn. There is no one unique best way of teaching science, in the opinion of Feynman.

An interesting thing Feynman says is that, if one is expecting science to give all the answers, to the wonderful questions about what we are , where we are going, the meaning of love; then its easy to become disillusioned and look for mystical answers. It might be that some questions does not have answers and they are just as they are.

The part/observation that does not conform to an understood phenomenon are considered interesting by researchers. Such observations and thoughts lead to new things and new knowledge.

Feynman's scientific views have undeniable effect on the faith/belief-system he has, this he acknowledges in his interview. One of the fundamental part of Feynsman's soul is to doubt, an interesting revelation and then ask to get clarification. It might be interesting to have doubt, not to know and to live as compared to a way life with belief that something is right and not be sure about its validity. One need not be frightened by not having answers to mysterious universe/things, ignorance is just a part of being human. No one knows all and everything.

The Buddha: A Crash Course

Buddha is believed to have lived 500 years before the advent of Christ. India is considered as the place of birth of Buddhism, the first world religion, a religion with out a god. Lumbini has documented as the place of birth of Buddha, according to the pillar found in this place. Kapilavastu, a place in India or Nepal(?) is known to be the place where Buddha stayed during his young days. There has been a palace that was discovered in this place of Kapilavastu. Maya, the then queen is considered as the mother of the Buddha. The birth-name of the Buddha was Siddhartha, unfortunately his mother passed away a few days after his birth. There were some special birth-marks (chakra) on Buddha at the time of birth.

Siddhartha from birth seemed to be more interested in understanding the nature of his surroundings than the military pursuits as expected of a prince. It was at the age of 9 that Siddhartha went out side the walls of his palace to see the real-world. He is thought to have seen a farmer planting seeds as a hard toiling work. Due to land tilling, he observed a fresh worm came visible that was then eaten away by a bird.

His first experience of a real outside the palace life. He felt his mind leading to a contemplative mode. He seemed to have thought why human beings have to leave in such a suffering way. Siddhartha for the first time got a glimpse of how the world was interconnected: if the farmer had not tilled the lad, the worm might not have been eaten away by the bird. All actions have consequences, this simple thought became the basis of what is now understood as "Karma". This event of thinking about the happenings around him led him into a trance; "Dhyana", thinking/meditating about the purpose life.

Siddhartha's father tried to entice him to keep on the track of taking the duty of the king of Kapilavastu. Siddhartha even married a princess but he was not able to take his mind off about the thinking on the nature of life and its suffering.

When Siddhartha set out on a journey to see the kingdom there were a total of 4 journeys that left an undeniable mark on him.

First, he noticed an old man, painfully making his way through the village. This sight made him realize the process of physical aging. Siddhartha was alarmed to learn about the undeniable fact of aging and that it no one can escape the same. Now, the reality was being to unveil itself to this young prince.

Secondly, he noticed a man suffering with disease and shocked about the truth that all can become infected with diseases. The protective wall of his fantasy of the palace was crumbling within Siddhartha.

Thirdly, Siddhartha was four men carrying a corpse on their shoulders. At this time he discovered that according to the popular belief then, every one is destined to be born and then die time and again. There seemed to solution, end about the misery of human living.

Siddhartha is to say the least was shocked. The fourth sight was a man wearing a simple robe and begging around the road-side. The question arose why would one want to be begging and living a simple life?

The above mentioned four journeys had tremendous effect on Siddhartha's life, who now had learned the meaning of non-permanence of life. he knew that he had to see answers about the various questions he had about the process of life. He escaped the palace through the eastern gate and was now on his journey to discover the meaning of life. He exchanged his jewellery, princely clothes for simple robe and set out into the world, all alone for the fist time. He wanted to come face to face with the reality of life. He encountered a widespread of human suffering in various cities, perhaps this is the reason why Buddhism stresses on the human suffering like a universal problem of human life.

Siddhartha realized that if he were to get an answer about getting rid of the suffering, he might have to challenge the then prevailing religion of Brahman religion. Those times, Brahmins were thought to have the sacred knowledge centered on knowing certain spiritual texts called Vedas (Knowledge). Brahmins knowledge was considered to be essential in performing various "right of passage" of life. But this knowledge was only passed on among Brahmins, from father to sons. At this time, the philosophy of Brahminism (Hinduism) was being questioned. Siddhartha thought that the solution of overcoming the miseries of life should be open to all humans rather than to a few class of people called Brahmins. Siddhartha is know to have said, one does not become a brahmin by birth, but instead by living a good life. Nothing is predispositioned by birth.

Buddha was looking for a new explanation of life and sought to meditation to understand the philosophy of life. Aim was to attain the alter form of existence. At first Siddhartha tries meditation, and then my ascetic form of living by fasting. Just when Siddhartha was getting worse in health due to fasting a young girl offered him a bowl of milk and rice. Then Siddhartha realized that if her were to continue to fast further, he might just die without having understood the purpose of life. Such past asceticism does not help a person in getting answers about life.

During the course of his ascetic living Siddhartha observed a musician tighten his stringed instrument, he observed that harmony and good music originated when the string was not too sloppy and not too tight. The string had to tightened just to the middle for the good music to arise. This middle was the state of mind, called enlightenment (ever lasting peace) he was looking for.

After 6 years of traveling Siddhartha reached Bodh-Gaya and decided to stay in the same place until he found a way to enlightenment. He gave himself the time to focus the mind by slowing down the rhythmic breathing. This helped him in quietening the mind. During this period, Maya (desire: psychological forces of the self mind) is seen to have tempted Siddhartha to get him out of meditation.

Siddhartha recognized that Maya itself is an aspect of himself. The total recognition of this fact was his enlightenment.

Thus Siddhartha became the awakened one "Buddha". If one removes desire from within, then one can get rid of dissatisfaction and sufferings of the life. This content became the central theme of Buddhism. It has four foundation noble truths:

1) There is suffering in life.
2) Diagnose the cause of that suffering that is, desire
3) There is a cure of this suffering
4) The prescription given by Buddha to attain a state of liberation

Morality, meditation, and wisdom are the stepping stones to enlightenment. Buddha dedicated rest of his life in helping his fellows in attaining liberation. Buddha, by some is considered as the one with the qualities of peace and non-violence.

According a Buddhist follower,
1. Buddhism in two words is: practice, mindfulness.

The following are also considered as prescribed by Buddhism:

Not to kill,
Not to steal,
No societal misconduct,
Not to tell a lie,
No indulgence to intoxicants.


After 8 years of his leaving of the palace, Buddha went back to his palace. Father had forgiven his son, his wife joined Buddha's sangha (monastery) and became his first women disciple. Before leaving again for this journey Buddha anointed his son as a member of his monastery.

Buddhism can be described as a religion, as the science of mind, a philosophy. Its unlike any other religion, Buddhism centers around the mind and has no concept of supreme god, instead the presence of the supreme teacher (the Buddha, the awakened one). For many people, its like an alternative to religion, sort of a therapeutic means to deal with the problems of life.

Meditation can be a means to be more effective in the society where one lives. This is one of the reasons many people are drawn towards Buddhism. In current times, Buddhism becomes a form of self improvement: a way of dealing with the stresses of life, a way of clarifying the goals of life.

To the best knowledge of one of the narrators, Buddha might have wanted to be known as a normal human being (unlike a magical/super-natural figure) . There have been comments to Buddha having bodily ailments such as back-ache and weakness. It is considered that Buddha died at the age of 80 due to food poisoning.

It is said that just before his passing away, Buddha fell into a state of trance on his journey from this world to Nirvana. After Buddha's life, his teachings were documented and his remains were preserved after the cremation. The remains of Buddha's were kept in the kingdom of king Ashoka (3 B.C.) , who himself was a follower of Buddha.

The narrator concludes by saying that, the irony of the legacy of the Buddha is that, after the Buddha's passing away, the person how preached the uselessness of rituals, cult, etc. ultimately himself is being followed as a cult using a ritual based system in the current times.

The path to Nirvana according to Buddhism lies in the mind of each and every one of us.

Growing the Mind

Is it possible to live with one hemi-sphere of the brain removed? Rather strange and scary it might sound, but there are people who have been living with one half of the brain. The reason for this strange surgery was very frequent seizures in the left-half of the brain. The subject Mr. Harrison had this surgery in a childhood age rather than after being adult. Perhaps that is why the remaining right half of his brain could take over the tasks of the missing left-half. This might not have been possible in older patients.

One is a mixture of genes one is born with and the environment in which one is raised. Our surroundings, our memories and everything we learned and experiences throughout our lives influence of who we become. The sculpting of who we are takes place inside the structural connections of our brain. How does the world leave its mark n each of us? How much of our brain connections are determined by our genes (predisposition connections).

Even the basic brain-connections of recognizing faces (such as parents, etc) are not made from the birth. How does a baby develop brain connections to recognize/respond to human faces?

Genes give a child the potential for mental skills and their experiences determines whether the actual skills develop.

The baby's brain the function of what the baby does, probably the baby builds its own brain from its experiences. In side a brain what changes are not the number of brain cells but the number of connections between these cells. Memory develops as we grow.

Each experiences is responsible in some manner for building the brain-connections. The brain has no use of too many idle connections, so it cuts back on those connections that are not reinforced with repeated experiences. How our individual brains takes shape depends on which connections are reinforced and which fail to stay the course. May be that's the reason why I am writing this blog for me to go through these thoughts sometime later.

First Among Equals

What are the differences between the brain of a chimp and a modern man?

Probably the essential features of a modern man's brain is its capacity to :
i). To works towards a goal,
ii). To device a plan of action,
iii). To keep track of changing circumstances by keeping the end goal in mind

Frontal lobe pays a vital part in developing mental plans for the future actions and then to follow them through. Without this ability, even though a person is well equipped with good skill-set, he/she might not be able to accomplish their goals successfully.

What special mental skills arise from the frontal lobe of the brain? There seems to be two small special areas of the frontal lobes are involved in keeping the final goal in mind while doing the current tasks.

Is planning a feature of humans or can Chimps also have a planning faculty of mind?

According to Georgia State university researchers, they have found that chimps have the faculty to plan ahead at least by 4-5 days. Their comprehension of words is at least that of 5-6 years old human babies.

Language Processing in the Brain:

Dr. Georgie Ojemann has done research on operating the brain and removing tissue that leads to severe epilepsy. In these type of operations, patients are kept awake and asked to keep counting and talking through out the operation. In the mean time the doctor is busy trying to map the useful (talk related) brain area using stickers (see the shown image) and then to chalk out the area that can be surgically removed.

It has also been observed that the language related area of the brain is not localized the same for all the patients. It is laid out differently for all the patients. Dr. Ojemann's team has mapped over 200 subject's brain for language areas and have not found any repetition of these localized language areas. Now these localized language-specific brain areas are not the same for multi-lingual patients. That is in two different languages the same physical object's name is stored in different areas of the brain. Also, there were different regions/clusters of brain areas dedicated to the objects/items groups like fruits, tools. There are complex non-universal locations of the language content.

In the Heat of the Moment

Are the facial expressions of humans specific to a particular tribe/race or are they universal among all? A research among tribes of Papua New Gunea revealed that the following six basic expressions of humans are nearly invariant among all irrespective of their location and social development.

The basic emotions are:
Happiness, Sadness, Disgust, Surprise, Anger, and Fear.

The question that arises is how are these core basic emotions generated by the brain? Our brain contains structures that we have inherited from our ancestors.

1) The brain step controls sleeping and breathing can be dated back to reptiles.
2) Limbic system is present in early mamals, and
3) The cortex linked to human higher thought process, logic and reason.


The feeling of disgust:
These three parts works together with (3) working on the top of hierarchy. Thoughts and emotions are totally intertwined. A mere thought can trigger an emotion. Dr. Disgust (Paul Rozin) investigates the origin of the smotion of disgust and has an observation that a child of age around 14 months can virtually attempt to eat anything irrespective of its appearance. This young child does not have the feeling of disgust about food, as commonly many elders have. Within few years individuals show the emotion of disgust towards certain foods without even tasting them.

Dr. Rozin believes that sophisticated adult 'disgust' reactions to abstract ideas all developed as a result to the basic response to 'disgust' taste. The feeling of disgust is supposed to be associated with the emotion of civilization. Is there a 'disgust center' in the brain, this hypothesis is checked via MRI. The anterior insula seems teo get activated as the emotion of disgust is stimulated. The same region also gets activated when one feels uncomfortable in the gut. This region of the brain also gets activated when one observes another person getting disgusted. Perhaps the same region gets activated as a warning signal to something disgusting that might occur in near future.

No such regions yet discovered for other feelings of: Happiness, Sadness, Surprise, Anger,

But there is such a region present for: Fear.

Emotion of Fear:

Fear is the most primal and powerful emotion of all other emotions.

Doug Bremer has done research on the aspect of fear and its response to the structure of brain. Why are some people more prone to be fearful after a long exposure/experience with a frearful environment.
One current theory is that fear involves two separate pathways in the brain. An potential threat activates amygdala part of the brain. Amygdala then sends chemicals that trigger responses of sweat and increased hear beat. Another second slower fear response in the brain routs through the cortex, this slower pathway weighs out the potential threat and if the fear was a false alarm, the second pathway shuts down the action of Amygdala and restores normal function of the brain. This prevents the fear response mechanism not be become overpowering by not allowing the clear thought process (which is needed for surviving the potential cause of fear).
Can this balance between the response of amygdala and the cortex region can be upset in a person due to repeated exposure to fearful situations.
In his research with people involved with fearful situations, Dr. Bremner found that the brain region that is responsible for the shutting down of the false fear alarm response isn't functioning as expected control subjects. This inability of shutting down the false-fear response leads to trauma associated with fearful situations. So even the slightest threat unleashes a full terror response in the subjects.
Why can't some people control their fear responses? The answer seems to come from the way people dwell on the past experiences/memories of the past fearful situations. Many subjects were able to recollect their fearful experiences of the past as if they occurred just yesterday.
Another part of the brain called the Hippocampus is also observed to play a vital role in memory. In patients with fearful emotional reminesences, this part of the brain generally is seen to decrease in volume, as observed from many subjects. Constant fear seems to affect the physical structure of the brain.
Ones personal experiences are woven into the fabric of ones brain.

Importance of emotions on value system:
Neurologist Dr. Antonio Damasio says that in ones takes away the emotions that differentiate pain, pleasure, pleasant, unpleasant, then its difficult to have a value system to operate effectively. How emotions influences a person when a person is making a non-logical and difficult decision. At all the time one tries to use logic, current knowledge, and also the experiences of the past events and their corresponding outcomes, the attached emotion to previously experienced event. Using a gambling based game whose rules are unknown to the player, Dr. Damasio concludes that "sematic markers" that refer to the past emotional feelings are used in making future decisions. Looks like unconsciously ones emotions always guiding ones every future move. They make us do what we are doing, worth doing.

Dr. Rebecca Turner on the emotion of Love:
What is it about being in love that creates power emotions, is the area of study of Dr. Turner. Why are the feelings associated with love seems to be uncontrollable?, especially when someone very close goes away. Can one quantify the feeling of love, an attempt is made by studying the harmone called Oxytocin in the blood. Oxytocin receptors are present through the human brain: in the limbic system, in the brain stem, these are the areas that are in control of the emotions observed by a person. Could the presence and reception of Oxytocin in the brain be responsible for the feeling of love? The study found that in women the level of this hormone in the blood seem to rise high when they undergo feeling of love and vice-versa happens upon the feeling of loneliness and sadness.
The level of Oxytocin can be used as a guage to measure the feeling of emotion of love, its patterns. However, how the the presence of this chemical produce the emotion in the brain is a complicated process itself.
Of course, one can always influence the way one feels by deliberately changing the chemistry in the brain. Its done pretty frequently by the consumption of coffee, red-bull, nicotine, etc.

In an experiment 4 subjects are given the same dosage of a stimulant but tow of them are informed that the dosage is a placebo and the other are told about the chemical. In principle, due to the same biochemical effect of the dosage, the effect of this chemical should be the same on all the 4 subjects.

But experiences of the effect of the drugs on 4 subjects were found to be different. The experiences depended on what they were expecting to receive. The subjective experience (feeling) of a subject was found to be highly influenced by the subjects understanding, interpretation of the situation in which the subject is present. So, even though the 4 subjects take the same dose their perceived effect is quite different for all of them depending on their individual understanding of the situation. The understanding of ones situation can be influenced by the prior knowledge, the future expectation of the subject.

The Root: Dr. Richard Dawkins

This is my compilation of few thoughts I gathered from a documentary by Dr. Dawkins about the possibility of morality as a consequence of Darwin's theory of evolution. I have this documented here just to keep track of various thoughts of scientists on various interesting topics. I do not have any specific thoughts on this myself, I am too busy with my studies and career to be thinking of these by myself. Of course, when ever there is an opportunity to learn a new way of thinking, I am interested in putting in my blog for reference, in case I am interested in getting back to this topic.

Irrational faith as thought by Dr. Richard Dawkins feeds the feeling of intolerance through out the world. According to Dr. Richard Dawkins, faith can lead to warped sense of morality. The author tries to get answers to the question if ancient mythologies should be taught in the society as truth, especially to impressionable children. Dawkins asks isn't it wierd to label a child's faith to be that of his/her parents? Just like nobody labels the political views of parents to their children. Children and of course too young to form opinion about politics, why isn't the same true about the question of faith about nature/universe.

All living/non-living things are effected by their surroundings. In this documentary the author asks the validity of justifying the cause of AIDS based on moral values (AIDS being the sins of wrong doings as per faith), the author asks a question about the justification of mixing health education with moral education. Here, I was reminded of a TV documentary on the effect of faith-based beliefs in a country "Papua New Guinea" and its effect on the children of that country being abandoned by families (for the fear propagated by their faith). I wasn't able to get the name of the movie in this country that fueled the child abandonment based on their faith.

The author says that, a child is genetically pre-programmed to accumulate knowledge from the figures of authority around it. For evolutionary reasons a child's brain is set up to believe what its told by its elders. This is because, there is just isn't any time for the child to experiment with warnings like don't go near fire, cliff-edge, unknown water body, etc. Any child that tries to apply his curiosity to these suggestions might put himself at risk. May be that's why its called its best to catch them young. So naturally, any child is likely to believe any thing that its being told even if its nonsense. May be in generations to come the same child will pass on the same un-questioned beliefs to its peers and its next generations.

One needs to be allowed to be heard and exposed to different perspectives, to investigate, and to develop the critical faculties to enable them to chose their best point of view from a set of presented views.

Can the idea of "hell" be used for moral policing, the author asks. Is it required to scare oneself for keeping them moral? Can there be faith-liberal/free moral belief system? if yes, how does one person decide what one should believe and otherwise? Can science reveal the true roots of morality? The author argues that, morality stems not from any old existing philosophies but from altruistic genes which got naturally selected from human evolutionary past.

Chimpanzees are like MS DOS and humans are MS Windows, that's interesting view point as far as morality is concerned. It was perhaps better to do good things for our own sake rather than as a way of following some passed-on philosophy. Kindness, generosity are thought to be innate to human nature. The author thinks there is a Darwinian explanation for this. The author claims that through human history we were exposed to conditions/environments that favored altruistic genes. Gene survival depended on nurturing ones family and on doing deals with our peers. Basically, its "I will scratch your back if you scratch my back" principle at work all the time. Morality is perhaps much older than religion itself, the author comments.

In chimpanzees; they live in family groups, the mothers look after their kids, they work in teams. In particular the chimp groups, they are particularly good in competing for status through public services. They compete for status by being good leaders, by settling disputes in their groups. Working together often produces mutual benefits for all those involved in the group.

Perhaps this is the reason why a group of people without any affiliations with any established thoughts of morals seem to find a common ground of living morally, having mutual empathy. Its probably driven by improved education, news paper editorials, news channels, novels, books. We have a marvelous gift of becoming aware of the fact that other people have minds just like ours. The gift of empathy is perhaps the foundation of morality from the scientific point of view. Where as established faiths/philosophies teaches one to be satisfied with passed-on thoughts/answers (which are not answers at all). Such thoughts discourage and cut-off the source of wonder present in the nature by giving very imaginative crude answers in the form of extra-terrestrial power/being.

Here, and now is all we have; an inspiration and an opportunity to make the best of our current opportunity of life. Make the best of the our time in this world. Get out and explore!

The Process of Non-Thinking: Dr. Richard Dawkins

This is some of the comments I gathered from a documentary of Dr. Richard Dawkins titled " The Root of All Evil". These are being documented here as I have some free time to write about what Dr. Dawkins thinks about this topic.

There seems to be a profound contradiction between science and religious beliefs. The idea of divine creator belittles the elegant reality of the universe. The assault on the senses (by faith based philosophies) appeals to humans and encourages them not to think, not to doubt, not to probe. Its partly due to the feeling of group solidarity that gives implicit reinforcement to the common thought that might be beyond reason.

Isn't bracing truth better than false hope? This of course is the epitaph of this documentary.

The author says people lean on faith as a crutch as a support mechanism. He mentions that as science and faith are deeply opposed they cannot possibly live together. I am not sure of this past statement, I have seen many scientists who have their respective faith-based belief systems and they seem to have some equilibrium possible between these apparent diametric paradigms.

Science is a process on looking for logical proofs and reasons to draw conclusions, faith by definition demands the suspensions of critical thinking faculty. A scientist is constantly asking questions and being skeptical about his findings and scientific models. Faith is in turn, about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time as in traditions. Faith thrives on unsolved mystery.

Today we know that the Sun instead of being an alpha male Sun male-god on a chariot is indeed a nuclear reactor producing heat and light. In past times humanity had no choice but to resort to unexplained supernatural entities.

Every body needs at the center of their life, some sense of the meaning of their existence (life). Do people of intellect have arrogance about their rational thinking? or is it the way they are perceived by others who don't want to change their belief-system? Its an interesting thing to think about.

Betrand Russell's analogy: there are a number of things one cannot disprove, does it mean that they exist?

Imagine there is a tea pot in an orbit around the sun, one cannot disapprove the existence of this pot around the sun because our current equipments are not sensitive enough to detect the presence of this small tea pot. Nobody but a lunatic might say that he/she might believe in the tea pot because they are not able to disprove its presence. Now suppose that every teacher, and the surrounding elders, politicians, etc have faith in this tea pot. And that the stories of the tea pot have been handed down from the generations, there are written documents talking about the existence of the tea pot. In such times if one disagrees to the existence of the tea pot can be thought to be an eccentric. There are infinite number of such things like tea pots that we can not disprove at the current time, does it mean that they can be perceived and believed to be existing?

Someone out there is yet another genius

Today I was watching a documentary on Albert Einstein's discovery of the famous equivalence of energy and mass equation. It started out by thoughts of Einstein: "it seems gods were laughing at him." This documentary covered a set of unrelated incidents that lead to the realization of E=mc^2. I do appreciate the fact that in science, its invariably a set of non-obvious observations that lead to understanding of something new. Einstein, from his childhood would pursue his fascinations about nature with much interest and determination. From the age of 16 Einstein was obsessed with the nature of light. Every one he met from that time on he badgered with the question about the nature of light. Now that one looks back at his life, only to find his quanta based explanation of light. Perhaps, it was good that he didn't leave his curiosity with his childhood days.

There is a historical allusion to Michael Faraday, son of a blacksmith who worked as a book binder in his youth. The documentary mentions that during early 19th century there was a society divided on the vocation in England. For this reason the son of a blacksmith was perhaps not given an opportunity of formal education and worked at a book-binding company. As a personal nature of Faraday would have it, he used his vocational opportunity to read scientific literature that passed through his work place. During his book publishing work career, one of Faraday's customers was a scientist who offered Faraday a ticket for a scientific seminar of Sir Humphry Davy (a keen follower of nitrous oxide (laughing gas) effects). This ticket that came into the hand of Faraday changed the life of Faraday and that of the scientific-thought in years to come. It is now said that Faraday was the most important discovery of Sir Davy.

Faraday thought of trade (business) to be a selfish enterprise and longed to do science that attempts to unveil the true-self of nature. Sir Davy introduced Faraday to his laboratory and got Faraday started with science. It is now a fact that, with time the pupil surpassed the master in trying to unveil the dual-braided nature of electricity and magnetism.

Scientific literature has been a most important medium in stimulating scientific thoughts and making scientists discuss and explain the observed scientific facts. For Faraday, a fascinating feature was the circular magnetic fields around current carrying wire. Faraday, like Einstein had a nature of thinking in terms of pictures and visualizations. This inclination to visualize is perhaps one of the most important gifts humans have and must attempt to utilize. The visualization based thinking of Faraday lead him to place many compasses around a current wire and to discover the circular magnetic field lines. Faraday now tried the reverse phenomenon by trying to move an electric wire due to the magnetic field of a permanent magnet. Something we now understand as the principle of an electric motor was then discovered by Faraday.

One can perhaps never be objective, being human is its reason. This observation of Faraday was labeled as plagiarism by Sir Davy, perhaps a disadvantage of being human. Sir Davy asked Faraday to take down the new paper on the thoughts of electricity and magnetism, but that was not to happen. Its only a matter of time that Faraday became a recognized member of the Royal Society in London. The observations of Faraday were later proven right by Maxwell by using mathematical basis. I think Faraday was a lucky scientist unlike Boltzmann to see his model come to be accepted during his life time.

The documentary now shifted to the young life of Einstein. His father showed him a compass that invoked a deep curiosity of understanding science. His interests were Physics, Maths, Philosophy and violin. There was a mention that the origins of equivalence of energy and matter were initially thought by a french tax-collector by name Laguarsie (this is my best guess of the name from the documentary).

There is an interesting mention of a French physicist Émilie du Châtelet who questioned the theory of motion of Newton. She supported the theory of Leibnitz about the theory of motion. She even published a book about her thoughts on the prevailing theories of motion. Her French translation of "The Principia" of Newton is considered as a much followed french text book in current day also. As shown in this documentary, all her life she had tried to rise above the limitations placed on her gender during old France days. Her scientific belief was that (Kinetic energy) energy of a moving body is proportional to the square of its velocity. It took another 100 years for this to become acceptable.

The documentary also talked about the contributions of a German scientist Otto Hahn and Austrian scientist Lisa Meitner. Lisa was a physicist working in the Chemistry laboratory of Otto Hahn in Germany. She was also the first women to be credited with professorship in Germany. Lisa had to leave Germany due to the second world war tensions in Germany. Her attempts to leave Germany to Europe on the pretext of conferences were all thwarted by German rule. But with the help of a colleague Lisa managed to get out of Germany to Sweden. Both Lisa and Otto were working on experiments to build up heavy nuclei from smaller ones by introducing neutrons into smaller nucleus. Hahn communicated with Lisa mentioning his confusions of not able to explain the smaller nuclear products from heavy Uranium nucleus. This experimental observation of Hahn was explained by Lisa and her nephew Otto Frisch by using Einstein's E=mc^2 formula, "Lisa had split the atom". But it turned out that it was Hahn who was awarded the 1994 Nobel prize of this finding. Lisa was refused the Nobel prize that she had deserved, according to this documentary.

It is interesting to know about the history of modern physics, all filled with its scientific pursuit, social dimensions, and human behavior.

Survival Machines: DNA

We are survival machines, but 'we' does not mean just people. Just as protein molecules are chains of amino acids, so DNA molecules are chains of nucleotides. A DNA molecule is too small to be seen, but its exact shape has been ingeniously worked out by indirect means. It consists of a pair of nucleotide chains twisted together in an elegant spiral; the 'double helix'; the 'immortal coil'. The nucleotide building blocks come in only four different kinds, whose names may be
shortened to A, T, C, and G. These are the same in all animals and plants. What differs is the order in which they are strung together.

This DNA can be regarded as a set of instructions for how to make a body, written in the A, T, C, G alphabet of the nucleotides. It is as though, in every room of a gigantic building, there was a book-case containing the architect's plans for the entire building. The 'book-case' in a cell is called the nucleus. The architect's plans run to 46 volumes in man-the number is different in other species. The 'volumes' are called chromosomes. They are visible under a microscope as long threads, and the genes are strung out along them in order.