Toys, Geim and Gupta

Recently I came across an editorial in Nature Physics, titled as Physics is our playground, which emphasized how playfulness has had an important role in some of the major inventions and discoveries in physics.

A particular example of this is the discovery of graphene, and how it has evolved into one of the most important topics in condensed matter science. Nowadays graphene is used as ‘Lego’ blocks to build higher order structures and the so-called ‘Van der Walls’ heterostructures are one of the most exciting applications of 2D materials. What started as a playful project in the lab has now turned out to be an important part of emerging technologies.

Two important inferences can be drawn from the playful attitude towards doing science :

First is that making modular elements and stacking them creatively can lead to emergence of new structures and function. Anyone who has used lego blocks can immediately relate to it.

Second is that toys are powerful research and teaching aids. Please note, that I emphasized research and teaching here. This is because toy-models are ubiquitous in research, and they help us create modular state of a problem in which unnecessary details are discarded and only the essential parts are retained. This way of thinking has been extremely powerful in science and technology (for example : see ball and stick models in chemistry and mega-construction models in civil engineering )

When it comes to toys and education, there is no better example than the remarkable Arvind Gupta (see his TED talk). His philosophy of using toys as thinking aids is very inspiring. Being in Pune, I have had a few opportunities to attend his talks and interact with him (as part of an event at science activity center at IISER-Pune), and I found his approach both refreshing and implementable. Importantly, it also showed me how creativity can emerge from constraints. To re-emphasize this, let me quote APS news article on Andre Geim :

“Geim has said that his predominant research strategy is to use whatever research facilities are available to him and try to do something new with the equipment at hand. He calls this his “Lego doctrine”: “You have all these different pieces and you have to build something based strictly on the pieces you’ve got.””

Now this is an effective research strategy for experiments in India !

Chomsky et al., on Chatgpt

Chomsky et al., have some very interesting linguistic and philosophical points on chatGPT/AI and their variants (see NYT link).

To quote

“The human mind is not, like ChatGPT and its ilk, a lumbering statistical engine for pattern matching, gorging on hundreds of terabytes of data and extrapolating the most likely conversational response or most probable answer to a scientific question. On the contrary, the human mind is a surprisingly efficient and even elegant system that operates with small amounts of information; it seeks not to infer brute correlations among data points but to create explanations.”

The philosophical and ethical viewpoints expressed in this article are indeed noteworthy. What probably is even more important is the linguistic viewpoint which amalgamates language with human thought process, and that is what makes this article more interesting and unique.

My own take on Chatgpt has been ambivalent because I do see tremendous potential, but also some obvious faults in it. About a couple of months ago, I did try to play around with it, especially in the context of some obvious questions I had on optical forces, and the answers I got were far from satisfactory. At that time, I assumed that the algorithm had some work to do, and it was probably in the process of learning and getting better. The situation has not changed for better, and I do see some major flaws even now. Chomsky’s article highlighted the linguistic aspects which I had not come across in any other arguments against artificial intelligence-based answer generators, and there is some more food for thought here.

This is indeed an exciting time for machine learning-based approaches to train artificial thought process, but the question remains whether that process of thought can somehow emulate the capabilities of a human mind.

As humans, a part of us want to see this achievement, and a part of us do not want this to happen. Can an artificial intelligence system have such a dilemma?

Preamble to the discovery of Raman Effect

Today is India’s National Science Day. It celebrates the discovery of Raman effect on 28th February, 1928.

For more details on the discovery of the effect, and various human aspects related to it : you can see my past blogs here, here, here and here.

In this blog, I will briefly discuss about some of the work that directly influenced Raman’s thinking that further led to a remarkable discovery that we know by his name.

All creative pursuits are motivated by ideas from the past. No one gets their ideas in vacuum. All of us are influenced by the information which we perceive and receive. This means consciously or subconsciously the world that we are creating, both in our minds and in reality, is fundamentally influenced by the information in the world.

The discovery behind the Raman effect is no exception to this particular principle. In his formative years, C V Raman was heavily influenced by the research of Rayleigh and Helmholtz, and some classical thinkers including Euclid. Raman was also closely following the development of quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, and he was keenly studying the theoretical and experimental developments in this field.

Two aspects which played a crucial role in motivating Raman’s (Nobel prize winning) work was Compton scattering and Kramers-Heisenberg formula.

Compton scattering was as outstanding experimental achievement that revealed two aspects of light-matter interaction. First, it demonstrated inelastic scattering of electromagnetic radiation interacting with a quantum object (in this case free electrons) in the laboratory frame. Second is that it laid a foundation to revisit the wave-particle duality of light from an experimental viewpoint. Raman and Krishnan’s main paper on light scattering starts by explicitly referring to Compton effect, and motivates observation for optical analogue of Compton scattering.

To quote from Raman’s Nobel lecture :

“In interpreting the observed phenomena, the analogy with the Compton effect was adopted as the guiding principle. The work of Compton had gained general acceptance for the idea that the scattering of radiation is a unitary process in which the conservation principles hold good.”

Next is the Kramers-Heisenberg formula. This mathematical description gives the scattering cross section of a photon interacting with a quantum object (in this case electron). This formula uses second-order perturbation theory, and evokes the famous ‘sum of all the intermediate states’ for non-resonant optical interaction. PAM Dirac played a vital role in deriving this formula from a quantum mechanical framework of radiation. An important and logical consequence of this formula is the emergence of stimulated emission of radiation, and this has had deep implications in understanding LASERs. Raman was keenly studying the formula and made a brilliant conceptual connection between laboratory observation and this formula that revealed the scattering cross-section.

Again to quote from Raman’s Nobel lecture:

“The work of Kramers and Heisenberg, and the newer developments in quantum mechanics which have their root in Bohr’s correspondence principle seem to offer a promising way of approach towards an understanding of the experimental results.”

The above two concepts were important ideas that motivated Raman scattering experiments. Importantly it highlights the jugalbandi between theoretical intuition with concrete experimental observations, which forms the bedrock of modern physics.

Newton famously mentioned about the discoveries he made by ‘standing on the shoulders of the giants’. Various people involved in creative pursuits including scientists acknowledge the fact that new ideas emerge from convergence/mutation of old ideas. The harder part of creativity in science, or for that matter any art form, is to choose the right ideas to combine so that the ’emergent’ new idea has greater value compared to the individual parts. In that sense, science is a great form of creative activity that not only combines old ideas to create new valuable ideas, but also transforms the perspective of the individual seed ideas. Thus ideas combine and evolve.

So let us combine good ideas and evolve. Happy Science Day !

Sagan’s quote

Keynote address at CSICOP conference in 1987. “Do Science and the Bible Conflict?” Book by Judson Poling, p. 30, 2003

Even before the age of social media, Carl Sagan played a prominent role in communicating science to the public. His book ‘Cosmos’ is a classic, and his public lectures (a few are on YouTube) are certainly worth watching.

For me what is very impressive about Sagan’s communication is that he is not condescending by any means. This attitude is probably one the most important aspect in communicating science to society. The moment the public feels that scientific thinking is an elitist’s endeavour, they tend to repel.

Not only was Sagan an excellent scientist, but also a person who articulated the role of science in society, especially by contrasting it to religion and politics. A very famous quote of his is reproduced here, that highlights the value of scientific thinking, and how it elevates the human mind.

Quote reference: Keynote address at CSICOP conference in 1987. “Do Science and the Bible Conflict?” Book by Judson Poling, p. 30, 2003

Scientific Philosophy and Mental Health

Many a times, we are oblivious to the impact that Science has on an individual mind. It gets drowned in the collective impact. Curiosity is probably the most natural feeling of humans. If done right, Science cultivates and elevates this feeling. It may positively impact mental well-being too.

Increasingly, in Indian academia, mental well-being of all the stakeholders (students, faculty, admin etc.,) has emerged as an urgent and important issue that needs attention. Especially in a country such as India, where a loose order emerges out of chaos in almost all aspects of life, it is important to stay connected with oneself. Scientific curiosity may cater to this vital need.

The connection with oneself via science, or broadly speaking with any form of curiosity (arts/sports), is something we must harness. A major part of human development is to connect with oneself AND with the society. In this age of social media, sometimes, we may forget the former and focus only on the later. We will have to remind ourselves that being curious about anything is not being ‘childish’ but being human. Scientific curiosity and questioning is fundamental to our living, and this affects everything we do in our life.

To conclude let me quote from Bertrand Russell’s The Value of Philosophy :

“Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination, and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.”

Science as in philosophy, does cater to the highest good of humanity. What we under-appreciate is that it goes beyond the call, and impacts an individual’s mind. Academia should be a place to foster such an impact at various levels: individual, local and global. Perhaps that is the meaning of an “University”.

Talks on C.V. Raman – YouTube links

Below are the YouTube links to the 2 talks I gave on C.V. Raman on the occasion of India’s Science Day

The first talk is about : C.V. Raman: A brief History

Organized by IISER Pune Science Activity Centre
Age group 6 to 100: Students, Teachers, Science Enthusiasts and all Members of the Public

The second talk is about : C. V. Raman : History of Ideas

Organized by Science Club IISER Pune

Target audience: Science students and researchers

Connection between science and empathy

Apart from ideas, and the utilitarian, materialistic benefits,what can science offer to the society? This is a question I repeatedly ask myself in understanding a related question: ‘why I do what I do?’. This question, in my opinion, is also at the heart of social relevance of the pursuit of science.

A vital aspect which scientific research can indirectly teach and train its practitioners and its beneficiaries is the ability to empathize.

Empathy towards a fellow living creature, and not just human beings, requires oneself to suspend ones ego and understand something from a different perspective. This act needs patience, and the result is almost always enriching.

A quote (mis?)attributed to Plato puts it succinctly:

“The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self.”

One of the interesting aspects of scientific research is to study an idea or an object of interest from various different viewpoints. This ability to look at a particular thing from various conceptual angles enriches the understanding, and concomitantly clarifies the purpose.

Many a times one would be able to obtain an unexpected insight by looking at something from a different viewpoint.

The pursuit and the spirit of scientific enquiry essentially requires the same attributes as empathy, and hence the connection.

It is astonishing fact that we are witnessing a war among human beings in this day and age. Human beings are the most dominant creatures of our planet. This domination has already caused a severe problem in the form of climate change, and has drastically affected our own well being. War is the last thing you want at any circumstance.

If we have to overcome these problems, we cannot ignore science or empathy. In an essense, ignoring them is like reversing the benefits of human intellectual evolution.

We humans can do far better than this…