Nobel laureate Martin Perl: Young see things better

Nobel Physicist Dr. Martin L. Perl said that sound health, dedication, good colleagues and friends are necessary to be progress in one’s field. Basic and applied researches are equal and have great significance, he said.

CJ: Arindam Roy , 19 Dec 2008 Views:1737 Comments:0

ON THE fifth day (Friday, Dec 19) of the country’s first Science Conclave, at the Indian Institute of Information Technology-Allahabad (IIIT-A), several activities kept the participants busy throughout the day.

In the morning, an open panel discussion comprising of Prof Martin L Perl, Prof Harold (Harry) Walter Kroto, Prof Jerome Issac Friedman, Prof DN Talwar, Dr M D Tiwari, Prof GC Nandi, Prof Radhakrishna and Prof US Tiwari was organised in the huge pandal which discussed upon several aspects of science education in the world.

The panel members concluded that science and research can only be motivated with the help of all social classes, government, industries and educational institutions. The panel members replied a volley of questions asked by students and teachers present in the pandal.

Later, addressing the students Nobel Physicist Dr. Martin L. Perl said that sound health, dedication, good colleagues and friends are necessary to be progress in one’s field.
During the interactive session with students he enlisted these three things as important to keep going with one’s work.

He put forward some of the famous questions related to astronomical sciences like the possibility of life on other planets, whether space is curve or flat, etc and looking for newer methods to investigate into these areas, as he believed that the “young see the things better”.

Prof Perl said that the important thing in research is that you should never take any argument personally, on yourself. He emphasised on the fact that every research converges to give a proper result and the result should be such that it should be mutually agreed upon by everyone.

On being asked that how did he chose his field, he said that he was obsessed with the elementary particles of atom and also discussed about his perception of the Big Bang theory, the black hole, the new concept of “antigravity”, relative stability of elementary particles.

When asked that what other fields he would select if he has given an opportunity once again, he said that he would like to do research on medical sciences, specially brain and the nerve sensing.

Prof Perl also discussed his education till high school, his inclination of becoming a successful engineer to do some ‘interesting things’ and how he turned toward sciences on the suggestion of his professor that exploring sciences would be much ‘more interesting’. He also spoke about the availability of resources at that time in the US due to threat of Russian technologies.

He also dealt on religion, as it is the way of life and doing charity to help the poor is the best way of life, when asked about any religion constraints he had to face .There was a lot of discussion about the ethical issues hampering researches to which Dr. Mishra answered that researches must go on if it is in benefit of mankind.

Prof Perl also answered a query related to basic research and applied research, stating that both these are equal and have great significance.

He ended the session reiterating the effect that one should work in the areas of one’s interest and enjoy it to have the best output, and the work atmosphere should be full of good friends such that everyone is happy working together with due to respect for each and every person.

The mathematics department continued attracting a large number of students in the Science Conclave for attending the interactive session with Noble laureates. Prof Jerome Isaac Friedman answered the queries of the students. He was ready to enhance their knowledge.

Prof. Friedman inspired the students by telling them about his high school life and by informing how he got interested in Physics after reading a book on theory of relativity by Sir Albert Einstein. He asked the students to develop an interest in the field of science and enjoy the work which they do because this will give them the true satisfaction, even greater satisfaction than winning a Nobel Prize.

He also urged the students to enhance their knowledge about humanity because it is better to become a good human being first and a scientist later. For the students, who will form the future of the world, his message was to keep their mind open, to be ready to take risks and also not only to think about the problem but also the solutions to these problems.

Students asked their queries, which Prof Friedman answered, readily. There were questions relating to importance of mathematics and he answered by explaining the use of mathematics in every field of science, like physics, chemistry and biology. Especially for physics he said that both go hand in hand and without mathematics there would not be any development in modern physics.

He said that everything in mathematics represents something in the physical world but these are our constraints that we are able to understand only a few amongst them. Then there were many questions related to Hadron Collider, atomic clocks and also about the work related to the discovery of quarks and he took a great delight answering these queries.

( http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=154021 )

Education must get media’s attention: Atwal at IIIT-A

Mass media must give credence to education. The corporate sector and industry must support the study of science and its research and development, as they gain from it the most, said deputy speaker of the Lok Sabha, at IIIT-A.

CJ: Arindam Roy, 18 Dec 2008 Views:1170 Comments:0

THE MASS media should not confine itself to entertainment and sports. Education must get some attention from the mass media, which has emerged as a significant agent of social change.

These views were expressed by Charanjit Singh Atwal, deputy speaker, Lok Sabha, while addressing as the chief Guest at the Science Conclave at Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad (IIIT-A) here on Thursday (Dec 18).

He said once society realises the importance of science, parents will encourage children to opt for sciences and schools will provide better facilities for encouraging scientific study as a discipline. As is done in the western countries, the corporate sector and the industry must support the study of science and research in our centres of higher learning like the universities, IITs and IIITs, rather than leave it entirely to the state as they are the immediate beneficiaries of the advances in science.

“Similarly, we need to promote science events like this one to inculcate interest in science among the people; IIIT-A’s effort to hold Science Conclave is an innovative idea. Bagging the Noble prize is a lifetime task of ceaseless endeavor and constant study and only a few are fortunate enough to get it. The ability to interact with such versatile minds like Prof Claude Choen Tannudji, Prof Jerome Issac Friedman, Prof Harlold Kroto and Prof Martin L Perl is indeed very fortunate. I am sure it would prove to be very inspiring for the participating pool of scientists to learn several things from these scholars,” said the Atwal.

He said the TV, which is very popular now-a-days, hardly offers any science programmes to fire the imagination of the younger generations. “I am glad that AIR has a programme called science magazine named radio scope, though radio had lost much its earlier popularity to the TV. Gone were the days when children were made to listen to the radio classes at the school level as part of learning”.

Presiding over today’s function, Prof Raj Reddy from Carneige Mellon University spoke on the intelligence system. He said Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a big science, demanding a significant chunk of research and amount. In this age of huge budget deficits and many exciting ideas competing for constant research funds, it is only natural for a research manager to want to invest the research dollar wisely in activities.

Referring recent advances in AI, he said that what can we do today that we could not do thirty years ago? It is fortunate that AI has several areas in which there has been sustained research over the past twenty to thirty years. These areas are chess, natural language, speech, vision, robotics and expert systems.

He illustrated the progress by providing a historical perspective on some of these areas. Speech recognition has a long history of being one of the difficult problems in AI and computer science. As one goes from problem solving tasks to perceptual tasks, the problem characteristics change dramatically: knowledge poor to knowledge rich; low data rates to high data rates; slow response time (minutes to hours) to instantaneous response time. These characteristics taken together increase the computational complexity of the problem by several orders of magnitude.

Further, speech provides a challenging task domain, which embodies many of the requirements of intelligent behavior: operate in real time; exploit vast amounts of knowledge; tolerate erroneous data; use language and learn from the environment.
Voice input to computers offers a number of advantages. It provides a natural, hands-free, eyes-free, location- free input medium.

However, there are many as yet unsolved problems that prevent routine use of speech as an input device by non experts. These include cost, real-time response, speaker independence, robustness to variations such as noise, microphone, speech rate and loudness, and the ability to handle spontaneous speech phenomena such as repetitions and restarts. Satisfactory solutions to each of these problems can be expected within the next decade.

Recognition of unrestricted spontaneous continuous speech appears unsolvable at the present. However, by the addition of simple constraints, such as a clarification dialogue to resolve ambiguity, we believe it will be possible to develop systems capable of accepting very large vocabulary and continuous speech dictation before the turn of the century.

Work in speech recognition predates the invention of computers. However, serious work in speech recognition started in the late fifties with the availability of digital computers equipped with A/D converters. The problems of segmentation, classification, and pattern matching were explored in the sixties and a small vocabulary connected speech robot control task was demonstrated. In the early seventies, the role of syntax and semantics in connected speech recognition was explored and demonstrated as part of the speech understanding program.

Dr M D Tiwari, IIIT-A director in his welcome speech said Science Conclave had proved to be significant one. Students here had got a rare chance with interacting with five different Nobel scientists. He said this Conclave was set to revolutionise our present pattern of basic science subjects. Dr Tiwari presented the deputy Lok Sabha speaker a key of knowledge as a momento of the Science Conclave.

On Wednesday cultural evening, renowned Gazal singer Pinaz Masani enthralled the audience with her love, pain and patriotism based gazals. Students danced to the tune of Dama Dum Mast Kalandar.

( http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=153389 )

5 Nobel laureates at the Science Conclave, IIIT-A

On the second day of the Science Conclave 2008, at IIIT-A, five Nobel laureates dealt with the importance of fundamental science. They together formed an interesting spectrum. The audience was spellbound.

CJ: Arindam Roy , 16 Dec 2008 Views:1623 Comments:1


NOBEL LAUREATE Harold (Harry) Walter Kroto, began his short speech, at the second day’s inauguration ceremony, at the Science Conclave 2008, thus, “I will repeat what Henry VIII told his wife, before slaying her: I won’t keep you very long…”

He was speaking at the Indian Institute of Information Technology-Allahabad (IIIT-A), on Tuesday (Dec 16) afternoon.

Prof Kroto from UK, told the august gathering, “You brought us some good food, some good restaurants. Competition is unhealthy and counterproductive in science. Do sciences because you enjoy it, just as you might enjoy sports…I only hope England wins for a change.”

Nobel laureate Prof Claude Cohen Tannoudji remarked, “It’s fantastic to spend a week here amongst fellow scientists and students. Despite violence and hate, it’s nice to see scientists come together to promote science and culture.”

Another Nobel laureate Martin Lewis Perl, an American physicist, from California, lauded tremendous contribution that India has made to the US in general and California, from where he hailed, in particular. “It has brought the wonderful Indian dance, art and culture along with science.

There is a collaboration in science and culture between the US and India,” he said.

American physicist Jerome Issac Friedman, awarded Nobel Prize, in 1990, noted that the Conclave brought the brightest and best students together to discuss science and interact. “It’s up to the new generation to carry forward the tradition of science. In addition to great technology, we need great basic science. We should have true knowledge to support technology,” he said.

He cited the example of the discovery of transistor. He said that those responsible for its discovery had very good knowledge of quantum mechanics. He confessed that he enjoyed the decision to become a scientist. The students too would enjoy it.

Prof Slavnov Andrei Alekseevich, reminded the audience that the future of science does not only depend on the government but also on them. He smiled and added, “It doesn’t matter if you get a Nobel Prize or not.”

(http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=153226)

Nobel laureate Prof Kroto infects youth with passion

It was a treat for the youth at Science Conclave 2008, at IIIT-A, when they heard a Nobel laureate mix passion, humour and concepts of science, on Tuesday morning. Prof Harold Kroto asked them to enjoy science.

CJ: Arindam Roy , 16 Dec 2008 Views:1270 Comments:0


PROFESSOR HAROLD (Harry) Walter Kroto, Nobel Prize winner 1996 in Chemistry delivered a lecture here in the Indian Institute of Information Technology-Allahabad (IIIT-A). A huge crowd could be seen in the pandal, about 1800 students probably, sitting there with cent percent absorption, to see the man who has discovered Fullerene.

He inspired and infected the youth for taking fundamental science with his passion and humour.

One of them said, in a state of disbelief “Is this the man who developed C-60, which I have been reading about in my books from 7th grade?” And yes, he was there before them, in flesh and blood.

Prof Kroto who started off his speech with a blasting sound, to which he said, “This was just to wake you up, I myself sleep in some lectures.” It was a pretty surprise to the audience, which was in peels of laughter. Can a Noble Prize winner be so amusing, so funny? And yet how intellectual and innovative he has been throughout his life!

The Noble laureate throughout his lecture made sure that everybody was attentive by cracking jokes and by showing various humorous things. Many felt all this was least expected from a man of his wisdom. It was like a treat for the audience, because it helped them really well to get a hang of what the professor was talking about.

Prof Kroto, started of his presentation by showing his drawings, pictures of games he played in the university, the magazines he was involved in, etc. And then he said, “Just don’t do science, do everything else too.” Then as the lecture proceeded, he showed some of his friends during the university days, where to the surprise to all he showed the picture of Magneto from X-Men and Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings. He said, “Enjoy your work while you can”.

Prof Kroto started with some chemistry of how stars blow up. Humor could be seen in his slides and his presentation of the lecture. It was so amusing to see the students laugh and enjoy a lecture of a Nobel laureate.

He then moved to his discovery Fullerenes. His area of interest happens to be one of the hottest areas today, nanotechnology, where he talked about nano-tubes and nano-wires. He talked about the significance of Nanotechnology and how it will prove to be one of the most influential molecular devices.

Although in the midst of this chemistry jargon he didn’t’ forget to mention about his life, by showing the photographs of various colleagues and friends from throughout the globe.

He said, “Science is international in a way that nothing is!” He stressed upon how science above all religion and demographics unite the people across the globe. It doesn’t matter what language they speak, what they beliefs they have, he said “Science community is one community, which speaks one language,” and he also said, “As you work in this community you will make friends forever.”

Moving forward, he talked little more about Fullerenes like Ion Mobility Experiment, which he carried out to discover Fullerenes. He also talked more about the nanotubes, the birth of nanotubes and where the nanotechnology is going.

About nanotechnology, Professor Kroto said, “It’s not new at all it exists within you, within your body”. He showed how nanotech will be used to bundle together 10^15 nanotubes sticking together with the Vander-wall forces to make a structure 100 times stronger but yet lightweight.

He also talked about how molecules can be dynamic, they can move. He showed this with a very funny example of dog shaped molecule and how it moves because it drank a lot of Indian beer.

He also showed an example where zinc lattice was fused together with oxygen and ammonium and how the nitrogen atom moved, this concept of molecules being dynamic was one of the major things that he wanted to point out.

Concluding his lecture, he showed some of the programs he is running to help science. He guided students to take the help of the internet by showing some valuable programs like GEOSET. He urged students attending his lecture to use the internet to do research.

He said, “The crowd here has a huge capability of learning, so you go and ask your professor to get you this kind of facility to do research.” Overall the crowd seemed to enjoy his lecture. The professor mixed intelligence with humor and science, to explain to the gathering tough concepts.

(http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=153218 )

Chaddha Committee proposals approved: Arjun Singh

The Union HRD minister Arjun Singh informed that the Chaddha Committee recommendations for varsity teachers have been approved by the cabinet. A Bill has been placed for making primary education a Fundamental Right.


CJ: Arindam Roy, 16 Dec 2008 Views:880 Comments:0


THE CABINET has ratified and implemented the recommendations of the Chaddha Committee in a recent meeting. The university teachers, who were on an agitation mode, would be more than satisfied, as practically the entire report has been approved. Though it has taken 14 months, the varsity teachers would be satisfied, informed the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) minister, Arjun Singh.

He was talking to the media, during a press meet, at the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad (IIIT-A), on Tuesday (December 16) afternoon. The minister was here to participate in the Science Conclave 2008.

He agreed that there is an imbalance between education and infrastructure of resources. This needs to be rectified soon.

In reply to a political question, Singh said that the after thinking deep and searching for answers regarding the defeat of Congress in Madhya Pradesh, it can be said that the parameters of the people have changed. What is important to us is of no consequence to the electorate and vice-versa. The Bhartiya Janta Party’s (BJP) victory was due to the positive votes, he candidly accepted.

Regarding possible tie-ups with regional parties, in various states, ahead of the forthcoming general elections, the minister said that a felt-need has to be there both on the part of the regional parties and the Congress. It would depend on ‘paristhiti’ (condition).

Singh added that though a Bill for making primary education a Fundamental Right has placed in the Parliament on Monday (Dec 15), it may not become a law in this session, as general elections are round the corner.

He stated that two new Indian Institute of Technologies (IITs) are being set up at Indore (Madhya Pradesh) and Mandi (Himachal Pradesh). Regarding the upgradation of Beneras Hindu University Information Technology (BHU-IT) to the level IIT, Singh informed that the outlay has been provisioned in the 11th Five Year plan.

Rupees 40 to 50 thousand crores would be spent for higher education in the country, this includes IITs, National Institute of Technologies (NITs), universities, etc, in the 11th Five Year Plan.

In reply to a query about starting courses on cyber crime in the universities, in the light of escalation of terrorist attacks, Singh said that a two-year course postgraduate course is there in IIIT-A.

(http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=153209)