A 'vice' anecdote

People in our laboratory use a bench vice every now and then to hold a circuit board in place while soldering or de-soldering. While taking stock of all the stuff we had in the lab, a lab-mate asked a pertinent question "How many vices do we have?" to which my matter-of-fact answer was "innumerable".

Didn't get it? Check this out:

Vice - 1st meaning 

Vice - 2nd meaning

"Play and break the thinking loop"

Arindam Ghosh reveals the sportsman behind the scientist.

Interview by Lalit Patnaik
23 October 2010,

few days after IISc made it to the Super League stage of the KSCA Metro Shield 2010

[Download pdf file of this interview article here]

Arindam Ghosh, Assistant Professor of Physics, Indian Institute of Science is an accomplished scientist in the field of low-temperature nano-electronics. Amidst all the duties and responsibilities that entail his position, he always manages to find time for sports. The IISc cricket team has had his distinguished services for fourteen years now. Here's an attempt to get to know his story as a researcher who never gave up sports, more so cricket... read more

The Crow and the Pitcher - Reloaded

The Thirsty Crow and the Pitcher [Photo courtesy: Sonik Mishra]

All of us grew up hearing fables and stories. The tale of the thirsty crow and the pitcher is one of those oft repeated ones.

Here's a new version from "Complete the Story" section of dimdima.com

Once there was a crow that was very thirsty. It saw a pot on the terrace of a building. It looked inside the pot to see whether there is any water left. Yes! There was little water at the bottom. He remembered the story of the clever crow that had picked up small stones and put inside the pot to raise the water level up. The crow too looked around for small stones. Unfortunately there were no stones around. It was too tired to fly down to bring stones. It looked around and saw an old sofa lying at the other end of the terrace. It seems some one had discarded it as its spring and sponge had come out. It tried to pull out the springs but no success. The crow thought, “If I put the sponge in the pot it will absorb all the water and I won’t get even a single drop of water.” But the crow was determined to get the water from the pot? But how?

Here's the researcher's dig at completing the story.

Somebody might have faced a certain problem and found the solution with his ingenuity. His approach might have been well documented and appreciated. Years later somebody else might face the same problem with a slight change in circumstances. But it is this slight change that could require a distinctly different approach to solving the problem. Trying to follow the proven approach doesn't always work!

In this case, pebbles aren't available to the crow. So it starts looking around for things it can put inside the pot to bring up the water level. Essentially, it's following the same approach as its predecessor. Actually it doesn't even need the pebbles if it were to realize that it can easily put its head inside the pot and drink the water! The earlier crow didn't have that option as the pitcher had a narrow neck that didn't allow the crow's beak to reach the water.

The earlier crow with the narrow-neck pitcher.

Academic Spam

I received the following rather impressive email today on my institute mailbox. On googling a bit about "Lambert Academic Publishing", I discovered that it's actually an academic spam. See this for more information: http://chrisnf.blogspot.com/2009/06/academic-spam.html

So be careful and don't pay heed to such imposters.

Dear Lalit Patnaik,

I am writing on behalf of an international publishing house, Lambert Academic Publishing.

In the course of a research on the Indian Institute of Science, I came across a reference to your thesis on "An Investigation into Even Harmonic Injection in Pole Voltages of a Single-Phase Inverter". We are a international publisher whose aim is to make academic research available to a wider audience. LAP would be especially interested in publishing your dissertation in the form of a printed book.

Your reply including an e-mail address to which I can send an e-mail with further information in an attachment will be greatly appreciated.

I am looking forward to hearing from you, Kind regards,

Cristina Caus
Acquisition Editor

LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing AG & Co. KG Saarbrücken Dudweiler Landstraße 99, 66123 Saarbrücken Germany

Fon +49 681 3720-310
Fax +49 681 3720-3109
c.caus@lappublishing.com / www.lappublishing.com

Handelsregister Amtsgericht Saarbrücken HRA 10752 Partner with unlimited liability:
VDM Verwaltung Aktiengesellschaft

Board of Directors: Dr. Wolfgang Müller (CEO), Christoph Schulligen, Esther von Krosigk
Supervisory Board: Prof. Dr. Johannes G. Bischoff (Chairman), RA Thomas Bischoff, RA André Gottschalk

What's impressive is that they got my name, institute and paper title right. But I certainly haven't written a thesis with that title! And that's the telltale clue.