How confinement leads to emergence ?

New vlog post: I take, e.g. from the game of cricket (ft. Laxman, Dravid), soft matter physics, ants, Feynman’s seminar & a few other references to explain the emergence, self-organization and spontaneous order in our world

References:

“Second Test, 2000–01 Border–Gavaskar Trophy.” 2024. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Second_Test,_2000%E2%80%9301_Border%E2%80%93Gavaskar_Trophy&oldid=1207694527.

Araújo, Nuno A. M., Liesbeth M. C. Janssen, Thomas Barois, Guido Boffetta, Itai Cohen, Alessandro Corbetta, Olivier Dauchot, et al. 2023. “Steering Self-Organisation through Confinement.” Soft Matter 19 (9): 1695–1704. https://doi.org/10.1039/D2SM01562E.

arxiv link : https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.10059

FeynmanChaser, dir. 2008. Feynman Chaser – Imagination in a Straitjacket. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFBtlZfwEwM.

“Why Constraints Are Good for Innovation.” n.d. Accessed May 3, 2024. https://hbr.org/2019/11/why-constraints-are-good-for-innovation.

Tromp, Catrinel, and John Baer. 2022. “Creativity from Constraints: Theory and Applications to Education.” Thinking Skills and Creativity 46 (December): 101184. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2022.101184.

Conversation with Mayurika Lahiri

Mayurika is a cancer biologist and a senior faculty member at IISER Pune : https://www.iiserpune.ac.in/research/department/biology/people/faculty/regular-faculty/mayurika-lahiri/289

In this episode, we discuss her intellectual journey, how she became interested in molecular and cancer biology, her initiatives related to breast cancer research, and her role in the Genome India project.

We had a wonderful conversation about various aspects of science in India and tried to understand it through the lens of gender equity. Mayurika speaks about women’s representation in science and how and why it should improve.

There are many interesting strands in this conversation, and each branch enriches the discussion.

Listen, as we humanize science.

Google and Apple podcast

References :

1.      “Mayurika Lahiri – IISER Pune.” n.d. Accessed April 29, 2024. ⁠https://www.iiserpune.ac.in/research/department/biology/people/faculty/regular-faculty/mayurika-lahiri/289⁠.

2.     “Webpage of Her Lab.” n.d. Lahirilab. Accessed April 29, 2024. ⁠https://lahirilab.wixsite.com/lahirilab⁠.

3.     “Dr. Mayurika Lahiri: A Flagbearer of Breast-Cancer Research.” n.d. Accessed April 29, 2024. ⁠https://scicomm.iiserkol.ac.in/docs/1/pages/mayurika.html⁠.

4.     IISER Pune, dir. 2019. Episode 4, SciTalk@SMC Feat. Dr. Mayurika Lahiri (Associate Professor, IISER Pune). ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNIpb2cywtg⁠.

5.     IISER Pune Science Activity Centre, dir. 2023. International Women’s Day Celebration: Talk by Dr  Mayurika Lahiri. ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=S4l1HYxSKaE⁠.

6.     “Mayurika Lahiri (@MayurikaLahiri) / X.” 2024. X (Formerly Twitter). April 12, 2024. ⁠https://twitter.com/MayurikaLahiri⁠.

Why write interesting papers ?

A lesson I keep learning from Daan Frenkel: write interesting research papers. Thanks to Arghya Dutta (on X), who brought the paper below to my notice. https://arxiv.org/abs/1211.4440

Sometimes, interesting, well-written papers can have a deeper impact. Even otherwise, it would add clarity.

Scholarship + interesting writing >>>> prestige of the journal.

Don’t worship journals.

A common question when I say so is: what about academic assessment for jobs and promotion?

My answer is that academia (still) values consistent, scholarly output in reasonable journals.

It is very hard to reject scholarship. Aim for this as it is under your control.

Why liquid state is amazing ?

One of the research questions I am interested in is how light interacts with the liquid state of matter?

A related question is how is it different from the interaction of light with a solid state?

Specifically, I am interested in understanding how optical forces can influence the structure of liquid matter and if one can control such interaction.

The liquid state of matter is ubiquitous but not as well understood as the solid or gaseous state of matter. This is because the nature of interaction in liquid is intermediate between the other two states, and the way molecules and atoms interact depends on parameters that include interaction in classical and quantum physics.

Jean Perrin – Image courtesy: Nobel Foundation archive.

A connected question to this problem is how liquid behaves under and out of equilibrium. This classification is again non-trivial as it depends on the spatio-temporal scales under which one is making an observation. An important aspect of the liquid state is the local and global fluctuations, which complicate the problem. Jean Perrin, in his 1926 Nobel lecture, alludes to this problem very succinctly.

There is still much to learn about the liquid state, and enormous progress has been made from experimental and theoretical viewpoints. But there are some fascinating ‘landscapes’ yet to be fully explored in this domain.

Sometime in the future, I will write more about how this is done and what the historical context is, especially from an optical force viewpoint.

On a related note :

Here is an illustration of the Brownian motion of gold nanoparticles..imaged using a dark field optical trapping microscope..this is a custom-built system in my lab. We study the effect of laser traps on Brownian dynamics..more on this later.

Conversation with Snigdha Thakur

Snigdha is a computational soft condensed matter physicist and a senior faculty member at IISER Bhopal : https://sthakurlab.iiserb.ac.in/.

She uses computational physics to explore a variety of soft matter systems including active matter and of late biological systems.

In this conversation, we discuss her journey as a physicist, and how she developed interest in soft condensed matter. We also discuss about leadership in physics, as she has been the Chair of her department and a Dean at IISER Bhopal.

There are many things to learn from Snigdha and I enjoyed this discussion on various topics related to physics and pursuit of science.

Listen, as we humanize science.

Links on Google and Apple podcasts.

References:

  1. “Sthakur Group.” n.d. Accessed April 16, 2024. https://sthakurlab.iiserb.ac.in/.
  2. “‪Snigdha Thakur – ‪Google Scholar.” n.d. Accessed April 16, 2024. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=q3X-5pQAAAAJ&hl=en.
  3. Fourth Paradigm conference, dir. 2020. Designing Synthetic Nano Motors by Snigdha Thakur, IISER Bhopal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J8F2Wd9AzM.
  4. “Principal Investigator | Raymond Kapral Research Group.” n.d. Accessed April 18, 2024. https://sites.chem.utoronto.ca/rkapral/content/principal-investigator.
  5. Raman Research Institute, dir. 2018. Biomimetic Behaviour of Synthetic Particles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9BVx8_4D-k.
  6. “Sunil Kumar’s Home Page.” n.d. Accessed April 18, 2024. https://physics.iitm.ac.in/~sunil/.
  7. Thakur, Snigdha, and Raymond Kapral. 2012. “Collective Dynamics of Self-Propelled Sphere-Dimer Motors.” Physical Review E 85 (2): 026121. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.85.026121.

Music beats on a metal water can

If you have a metal water can, what do you do ?…well make a geeky music video🙂

I played the water can to generate beats & recorded the response.

You will see the periodic beats + colour-coded audio-visualisation. 📹

Enjoy !

#fun #experiment

A metal water can was played to generate music beats, and the acoustic response was recorded. You will see the periodic beats in the timeline and a colour-coded audio-visualisation of it. Enjoy !

Conversation with Sudipta Maiti

Sudipata is a molecular biophysicist who uses light and spectroscopy to study biologically relevant questions. He is a Professor at TIFR, Mumbai: http://www.biophotonics.co.in/

In this episode, we discussed what drew him to biophysics, his journey in establishing biophotonics as a research area in India, his motivation to start the FCS workshop and his thoughts on science in India. There are many other branches of discussion related to the pursuit of science, which the listeners may enjoy and learn from.

Listen as we humanize science.

On Google and Apple podcasts.

References:

  1. “Biophotonics Lab.” n.d. Biophotonics Lab. Accessed April 12, 2024. http://biophotonics.weebly.com/.
  2. “‪Sudipta Maiti – ‪Google Scholar.” n.d. Accessed April 12, 2024. https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=_exYXS8AAAAJ&hl=en.
  3. “Sudipta Maiti (@SudiptaMaiti13) / X.” 2024. X (Formerly Twitter). February 8, 2024. https://twitter.com/SudiptaMaiti13.
  4. Berg, Jeremy M., Lubert Stryer, John L. Tymoczko, and Gregory J. Gatto. 2015. Biochemistry. 8th ed. edition. New York: WH Freeman.
  5. Eaton, William A., and H. Peter Trommsdorff. 2013. “Robin Main Hochstrasser (1931–2013), Giant of Physical Chemistry.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110 (23): 9189–90. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1307692110.
  6. “Fluorescence India.” n.d. Accessed April 12, 2024. https://fluorescenceindia.org/.
  7. “Measuring Serotonin Distribution in Live Cells with Three-Photon Excitation | Science.” n.d. Accessed April 12, 2024. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.275.5299.530.
  8. “Watt W. Webb.” 2024. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Watt_W._Webb&oldid=1194542920.
  9. “Watt Webb, Biological Imaging Techniques Pioneer, Dies | Cornell Chronicle.” n.d. Accessed April 12, 2024. https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2020/11/watt-webb-biological-imaging-techniques-pioneer-dies.
  10. Zipfel, Warren, Chris Xu, Elliot Elson, and Sudipta Maiti. 2021. “Memorial Viewpoint for Watt W. Webb: An Experimentalist’s Experimentalist.” The Journal of Physical Chemistry B 125 (11): 2793–95. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.1c01045.