Sunday, May 31, 2020

GREAT POETS : WALT WHITMAN

WALT WHITMAN's BIRTHDAY

He was born on this day in May, 1819.

Among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. 

He was part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works.

Whitman was also a teacher, a journalist and for three years during the American Civil War, famously a volunteer nurse. 

Seeing his brother George wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg, while serving with the Union Army in 1862 motivated him to visit and care for wounded soldiers. Whitman estimated he made 600 hospital visits and visited 100,000 wounded Union and Confederate soldiers during this time.

Grateful thanks to onthisday.com.

GREAT SCIENTISTS

”I am happy that I have managed to work since that dreadful day in September 1978 when I was diagnosed with MS. The twenty-five years have gone and, as predicted by the neurologist then, I now know the outcome.

I was not a bad case. I had attacks every 18 months from age 35 to 55, some quite bad, some small relapses. When I was 55 my neurologist put me into a trial for a new MS drug. This was very successful and opened up a whole new field of pharmacological drugs for the easing of MS.

Since then, I have been lucky in that I have never had another attack. I only battle the deadly fatigue that comes with the disease. I want to take this space to tell any budding scientist that, however bleak the future may seem due to illness or other problems, one cannot say you will not be successful.”

From 2016 Physics Laureate Michael Kosterlitz’s biography at Nobelprize.org: goo.gl/Q19mzE

#WorldMSDay

Saturday, May 30, 2020

GREAT SCIENTISTS

Happy 91st birthday to Peter Higgs, awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics for the theory of how particles acquire mass.

Learn more: https://bit.ly/2IgwEMq

Friday, May 29, 2020

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

GREAT WRITERS

A GIFT OF RUSTY

"Can I have a collection of Bond?" I asked the shop man looking at the stack of books kept in the shelves of the Readers' Paradise, a mostly visited book shop at the Steel Market road in Durgapur.

The shop man ,a thin,oily-haired fellow all in powerful specs resting on his bulbous nose-tip scrutinized me briefly and asked,"For whom are you going to buy this one?"

"For my student," I replied somewhat surprised for I was hardly prepared for such an interrogation. 

"Of which class?" he asked further looking through chink of his glass.

By the time the row of books displaying famous titles in bold letters of great authors like O Henry, Shakespeare,Saki,R.K.Narayan and many more were tempting me.But I answered,"She's in class eight."

The shop keeper disappeared soon after I finished my words behind a book shelf into darkness.

I found it somewhat strange.

After five or six minutes the man emerged from darkness to the LED light of the shop.

With his trembling, rickety fingers he was holding two books tha he put on the counter.

Now with a smile he told me,"Sir,ìf you take my suggestion you can have these ones...I think they're absolutely fit for your student."

I glanced at the titles.They were :THE ROOM ON THE ROOF  and THE BLUE UMBRELLA.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because the writer has beautifully penned the emotions and excitement of the teenagers in these books.Actually, my own grand daughter is fond of the books."he expressed beaming at me.

I purchased both of them going with his suggestion. 

After some weeks my student burst out in elation ,"Wow!sir.I've never read books like those you gifted me. They've simply jewels of thoughts and emotions.Ruskin Bond is a great writer!"

My gift was worthy of being called " A GIFT" at last.

Thanks Rusty.

Debasish Banerjee 
24.5.20

GREAT SCIENTISTS

GREAT SCIENTISTS

The man behind the 'Zeeman effect'.

Pieter Zeeman, born on 25 May 1865, was awarded the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics together with Hendrik Lorentz. In 1892 Lorentz presented his electron theory, which posited that in matter there are charged particles, electrons, that conduct electric current and whose oscillations give rise to light. Lorentz's electron theory could explain Zeeman's discovery that the spectral lines corresponding to different wavelengths split up into several lines under the influence of a magnetic field, also called the 'Zeeman effect'.

Zeeman worked as a professor as well as Director of the Physics Laboratory at the University of Amsterdam / Universiteit van Amsterdam. In 1923 a new laboratory, specially erected for him, was put at his disposal, a prominent feature being a concrete block weighing a quarter of a million kilograms, erected free from the floor, as a suitable platform for vibration-free experiments. The institute became known as the Zeeman Laboratory of Amsterdam University. Many world-famous scientists visited Zeeman there or worked with him for some time.

Photo: Physicists Albert Einstein and Paul Ehrenfest visiting Pieter Zeeman at his laboratory in Amsterdam, circa 1920s.

AFRICA DAY

Celebrating Africa Day and all our African Nobel Laureates, including Kofi Annan, Wangari Maathai, Nelson Mandela, Leymah Gbowee and Denis Mukwege who have all been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

#AfricaDay

GANDHIANA

Monday, May 25, 2020

GREAT SCIENTISTS

"I was affected in this way for a very long period of time, like 25 years, so it was quite a portion of a life's history." 

Nobel Laureate John Nash spent years living with schizophrenia. In 1994 he was awarded the Prize in Economic Sciences within the field of game theory. His famous equilibrium has found application in fields as diverse as computing, evolutionary biology and artificial intelligence. 

Today on #WorldSchizophreniaDay we remember Nobel Laureate John Nash, “a mathematical genius”.

Read his biography: https://bit.ly/35NWJvf

GANDHIANA

Sunday, May 24, 2020

Thursday, May 21, 2020

GREAT PIONEERS


May 21, 1927  

Aviator Charles Lindbergh, in the Spirit of St Louis, lands in Paris after the first solo air crossing of Atlantic.

Grateful thanks to onthisday.com.


Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. At the age of 25 in 1927, he went from obscurity as a U.S. Air Mail pilot to instantaneous world fame by winning the Orteig Prize for making a nonstop flight from New York to Paris. 

Grateful thanks to Wikipedia.

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

GANDHIANA

GREAT LIVES

ARSENIC ALBUM,  THE HOMEOPATHY MEDICINE, INTRODUCED BY YOU  200 YEARS AGO,  IS SAVING LIVES FROM COVID-19 TODAY.

MANKIND IS INDEBTED TO YOU, SIR! .

LONG LIVE YOUR NAME,  FAME AND YOUR GIFT TO MANKIND,  HOMEOPATHY! 


Saturday, May 16, 2020

GREAT SCIENTISTS : PIERRE CURIE

Remembering Nobel Laureate Pierre Curie, born #OTD 161 years ago, who admirably rejected the Nobel Prize unless he could share it with his wife Marie.

Thursday, May 7, 2020

GREAT LIVES

REMEMBERING TAGORE

GREAT INVENTORS: NIKOLA TESLA


NIKOLA TESLA - BIOGRAPHY

35,653 views
Aug 7, 2017
Unesoft

Nikola Tesla was born in 1856 in Smiljan, Croatia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father was a priest in the Serbian Orthodox church and his mother managed the family’s farm. In 1863 Tesla’s brother Daniel was killed in a riding accident. The shock of the loss unsettled the 7-year-old Tesla, who reported seeing visions—the first signs of his lifelong mental illnesses.
Tesla studied math and physics at the Technical University of Graz and philosophy at the University of Prague. In 1882, while on a walk, he came up with the idea for a brushless AC motor, making the first sketches of its rotating electromagnets in the sand of the path. Later that year he moved to Paris and got a job repairing direct current (DC) power plants with the Continental Edison Company. Two years later he immigrated to the United States.
NIKOLA TESLA AND THOMAS EDISON
Tesla arrived in New York in 1884 and was hired as an engineer at Thomas Edison’s Manhattan headquarters. He worked there for a year, impressing Edison with his diligence and ingenuity. At one point Edison told Tesla he would pay $50,000 for an improved design for his DC dynamos. After months of experimentation, Tesla presented a solution and asked for the money. Edison demurred, saying, “Tesla, you don’t understand our American humor.” Tesla quit soon after.

NIKOLA TESLA AND WESTINGHOUSE
After an unsuccessful attempt to start his own Tesla Electric Light Company and a stint digging ditches for $2 a day, Tesla found backers to support his research into alternating current. In 1887 and 1888 he was granted more than 30 patents for his inventions and invited to address the American Institute of Electrical Engineers on his work. His lecture caught the attention of George Westinghouse, the inventor who had launched the first AC power system near Boston and was Edison’s major competitor in the “Battle of the Currents.”

Westinghouse hired Tesla, licensed the patents for his AC motor and gave him his own lab. In 1889 Edison arranged for a convicted New York murderer to be put to death in an AC-powered electric chair—a stunt designed to show how dangerous the Westinghouse standard could be.

Buoyed by Westinghouse’s royalties, Tesla struck out on his own again. But Westinghouse was soon forced by his backers to renegotiate their contract, with Tesla relinquishing his royalty rights.

In the 1890s Tesla invented electric oscillators, meters, improved lights and the high-voltage transformer known as the Tesla coil. He also experimented with X-rays, gave short-range demonstrations of radio communication two years before Guglielmo Marconi and piloted a radio-controlled boat around a pool in Madison Square Garden. Together, Tesla and Westinghouse lit the 1891 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago and partnered with General Electric to install AC generators at Niagara Falls, creating the first modern power station.

NIKOLA TESLA’S FAILURES, DEATH AND LEGACY
In 1895 Tesla’s New York lab burned, destroying years’ worth of notes and equipment. Tesla relocated to Colorado Springs for two years, returning to New York in 1900. He secured backing from financier J.P. Morgan and began building a global communications network centered on a giant tower at Wardenclyffe, on Long Island. But funds ran out and Morgan balked at Tesla’s grandiose schemes.

Tesla lived his last decades in a New York hotel, working on new inventions even as his energy and mental health faded. His obsession with the number three and fastidious washing were dismissed as the eccentricities of genius. He spent his final years feeding—and, he claimed, communicating with—the city’s pigeons.

Grateful thanks to UNESOFT and YouTube.

GANDHIANA

Tuesday, May 5, 2020

GREAT WRITERS : J.R.R.TOLKIEN


JRR TOLKIEN '1892-1973' -

A STUDY OF THE MAKER OF MIDDLE-EARTH

742,045 views
Feb 13, 2013
MiddleOfMiddleEarth
5.46K subscribers
https://www.facebook.com/silmarillion...
https://www.facebook.com/TheHobbit.Mi...

J. R. R. TOLKIEN

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.

Born: January 3, 1892, Bloemfontein, Free State

Died: September 2, 1973, Bournemouth

Movies: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return Of The King, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Children: Christopher Tolkien, John Tolkien, Priscilla Tolkien, Michael Tolkien

Education: Exeter College, Oxford, University of Oxford


CHRISTOPHER TOLKIEN

Christopher Reuel Tolkien is the third and youngest son of the author J. R. R. Tolkien, and is best known as the editor of much of his father's posthumously published work.

Born: November 21, 1924 (age 88), Leeds

Spouse: Baillie Tolkien (m. 1967)

Children: Simon Tolkien, Rachel Clare Reuel Tolkien, Adam Reuel Tolkien

Siblings: John Tolkien, Priscilla Tolkien, Michael Tolkien

Parents: Edith Tolkien, J. R. R. Tolkien

Grateful thanks to MiddleOfMiddleEarth and YouTube.

Saturday, May 2, 2020

Friday, May 1, 2020

INSPIRING LIVES : THE GENIUS OF SRINIVASA RAMANUJAN



THE GENIUS OF SRINIVASA RAMANUJAN

Vigyan Prasar | IISER Pune
27,149 views•Sep 19, 2017
IISER Pune
5.63K subscribers

The Genius of Srinivasa Ramanujan is a documentary film features well-known number theorists from around the world associated with Ramanujan's oeuvre. Shot at various locations in Chennai, Namakkal, Kumbakonam, Erode and Cambridge, it highlights the trajectory of Ramanujkans’s seminal work and its relevance today. His scientific legacy continues to grow well beyond anything that previous generations of mathematicians could have ever imagined.

Production: Vigyan Prasar and Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune
Presenter: A Raghuram, Dept. of Mathematics, IISER Pune

Director: Nandan Kudhyadi
Science Media Centre, IISER Pune
https://sites.google.com/acads.iiserp...

Grateful thanks to Mr.A.aghuram, Mr.Nandan Kudhyadi,
Science Media Centre, IISER Pune, Vigyan Prasar and Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune and YouTube.