Beginning of scattering

Why a new blog, now ?

Well, I have been pondering for sometime to write about my research on light scattering. One of the main motivations of why I became a student of science was to understand  scattering of light. Be it the blue of the sky, the flying comets in space or a glowing molecule in a biological cell, light scattering has something to say on everything in this universe. This ubiquity of a physical process is worth exploring, and has lead me to take this intellectual journey.  In an essence, I was, and continue to be fascinated by the beautiful concept of how light scatters off matter of various scales, be it the size of galaxy or be it a tiny little atom.   Over the past 15 years or so, light scattering has been integral to everything I have been working on, and I think it is high time that I share the beauty of this subject through the posts in this blog. I intend to do this by exploring various aspects of light scattering – from fundamental theory to mind boggling applications.

History has a role – The field of light scattering itself has a very rich history, dating back to observations of Leonardo Da Vinci, spectacular opti’k’s  by Newton, marvelous explanations  by Rayleigh, creative experiments by Raman, connections by Tyndall, conditions by Kerker and so on….in fact the list is endless, and the story is compelling, which has to be said. As we take this journey, we will visit the masters, pick their brains, ask questions, and pester them for answers. This process, I promise, will be rewarding, and will hopefully keep you interested…

Lab stories – Another reason for starting this blog is to emphasize the experimental techniques in area of light-scattering research. Most of the times, the hard-fought battles of experimental laboratory researchers in unveiling the truth and beauties of nature goes unrecognized and under-represented, especially among general audience of science. Although, Einsteins and Maxwells of the world, deservingly get a lot of attention and applause for their theories, people like Bloembergen and Askins don’t get their share for the spectacular experiments they have performed. This blog, in way, is to compensate for such discrepancies.

Unity in diversity – An ulterior motive behind this venture is also to explore new aspects of light scattering in physics, which is evolving and taking new shape as I write. In this discussion about new physical concepts of light and matter, I wish to highlight its relevance and connection to various branches of science and technology. We will evidence how sub-branches of sciences progressed due to ideas and applications from light scattering. In this context, let me give you two examples: soft-matter physics and radiative transfer in astrophysics. A tremendous amount of information about nature of soft-matter and interstellar matter has been derived from light-scattering theories and experiments. As you may notice, the scales of these problems are tremendously different, but the underlying physics is essentially the same. In this blog I intend to showcase this unity of concepts in a diversity of problems in science and technology, how light scattering takes a center stage in this play.

Ultimately, what excites me to share this story is that I get to be a student all over again. This is a happy place to be for a professor: it keeps you grounded and engaged. After all, in the process of every learning and expression their is a concomitant enlightenment and scattering of thought. This is my intellectual kick to scatter forward…..