Recreating the Big Bang: For an Evidence of God Particle

                Its some time since words like "Higgs Boson", "God Particle", "Large Hadron Collider" are falling on our ears. It automatically generates curiosity in anybody's mind. Now, the recent news is that the search for this "God Particle" is almost over and the scientists working on it for last so many years will come out of those deep tunnels to reveal its existence or absence.

The story associated with these experiments goes as follows:

               Long back some time around 1964, a bunch of scientists including Peter Higgs were banging their heads to understand from where the hell all the sub-atomic particles like protons, electrons, neutrons get their masses.

               It was suggested that, after the Big Bang, the space was contained by an invisible field called "Higgs field". Every particle in our universe "swims" through this Higgs field. Any individual particle will experience a drag because of this field which can be referred to as a mass of the particle. The strength of this drag vary from particle to particle. As a result, some particles are heavier in nature than others. There are exceptions where the particles like "photon" do not interact with the Higgs field. Such particles experience a state of no mass. Hence, they are travel at such high speed. In absence of Higgs field, all particles will experience state of no mass and should travel with the speed of light.

              It is not possible to verify the presence of the Higgs field. So, for a better understanding of how the field interacts with the particles and impart them with their masses, it has been considered that there must be a particle present in this field which acts as a "mediator" responsible for transferring the force from the field on to all the particles. These force transferring particles which act as a "mediator" were termed “Higgs Boson” or more recently known by term "God particle". These particles gain their mass from the Higgs field and on interation with other particles imparts them their respective masses. The Higgs Bosons are like the dense spots in the field with heavy masses which are very unstable and readily decay into particles with relatively lower mass like protons.

             Apparently the "Higgs Boson" has heavy mass around 100 to 200 times the mass of proton and so unstable in nature and immediately gets converted into other sub atomic particles like protons, electrons or neutrons. Till date we have experimental evidence for all other known sub-atomic particles but the " Higgs Boson" still exist in theory.

            Scientists have been working to come up with an experimental evidence of "Higgs Boson". Its discovery could help to reveal many secrets associated with the origin of the universe in the context that associates with the mass and so matter.

           The experiment to prove existence of "God Particle" involves a set up called "Large Hadron Collider". It consists of a circular tunnel buried inside the earth with a circumference of 17 miles extended under the Swiss-French border. Two beams of protons are triggered in opposite directions through the tubes of this tunnel. At a calculated meeting point in the tunnel, these beams will smash into each other at a speed as close as possible to the speed of the light. 

 

           Scientists are predicting that this collision between proton beams will ultimately produce "Higgs Boson". These "Higgs Boson" will be very unstable and will immediately decay into stable, lower mass particles. Scientists study these decay process and the products to infer the existence of the "Higgs Boson". A spike in the graph may also be recorded to prove its existence which requires the detectors capable of detecting particles with a lifetime of a millionth of a billionth of a second.

          The two groups working separately on different such detectors ATLAS and CMS apparently have recorded such bumps in their recordings. But there is a lot still to be done to declare it as a discovery and avoid a situation where the recorded peaks may be a matter of chance and not a real effect. In spite, the search of "God particle" has reached a point where people will start openly discussing its artifact and not just its existence.

  The LHC representation and the information shared were taken from following links: 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/large-hadron-collider/8947263/Science-world-awaits-Cern-announcement-on-Higgs-boson.html 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/large-hadron-collider/8952584/Q-and-A-Higgs-boson.html

About the righteousness of the Hazare movement

I came across a discussion on Lokpal and how good and right is agitation by Anna Hazare.
Some claimed that people are following him blindly without being aware of the issues in it. It was also claimed that Anna's movement is hocus and more on the lines of blackmailing the government. I participated in the discussion putting down these points:

Why people want to discuss pros and cons of "Lokpal Bill"?
Because everybody know this word "Lokpal bill".
Can anybody tell five other bills which have been passed in Indian Parliament in last one year and what are pros and cons of those? I doubt anybody can! Atleast I do not know.
        This is the contribution of Anna Hazare. Because of him and his agitation, almost every Indian is today aware of this bill. They might be not knowing the pros and cons completely but simply the knowledge enough of its existence is itself a big difference in India. Its different when a common man who otherwise don't really care, is actively trying to understand a bill.
        This also has brought awareness about corruption. Two years back, the discussion about corruption used to revolve around the negative thought " India is very corrupt,Nothing can happen". So Anna Hazare brought this change, we are now trying to move away from this negative thought.

       Questioning the credibility of Anna Hazare is something I would avoid. This guy has lots of good deeds in his pocket. He was partly resoponsible for the RTI act which played crucial role in bringing out all the present famous scams we here everyday.Not to mention he first uses all the legally allowed methods to make his point.

       I don't think hunger strike is a way of black mail. It is a way of quiet protest. It will appear strong for two reasons: your reason has to be worthy enough for people to consider it and you should be strong enough to pull it on.
otherwise: nobody would care even if you die.
      There is a lady in Manipur on hunger strike for last 10 yrs. How many people in "India" were aware of  her name and the reason behind it and why nobody feels blackmailed because of her strike. (because she is not a significant figure and nobody really cares for the eastern states of India and their problems.)

      For an instant, even if we consider it as a kind of blackmail, I would say it is a better way. because it gives you time to think and take actions and most of the time it ends with some futuristic propositions of considering the demands.Realizing that the bill is under discussion since some time around 1963, are 50 yrs not a long time even by Indian standards to make a decision and worth blackmailing?

      Looking at the incidence that happened few days back with Sharad Pawar, Are we waiting for a kind of Blackmail where somebody holds all the MPs on gunpoint saying "OK, you do it now or you are dead"

      I prefer to go with Anna Hazare, and I don't see a real need to dig in deep for all the pros and cons of the bill because what all I know about lokpal is a lot more information than I know about any other bill passed till date.

Greece: Comeback Opportunity

 After 10 hrs of overnight marathon meeting finally the leaders of European Union came to a conclusion on how Greece can be helped to overcome the debt crisis.
So, the decision was made that Greece will undergo a "controlled default".
   The leaders put a word to the leading banks to bear as much as 50% of loss on their bond holdings with Greece. In addtion, Greece will receive more rescue loans (~100 billion euros) to repair their economy. Although this amount is less than the one decided earlier, it is expected that along the relaxation on bond holdings with banks, Greece should now be able to overcome the subsidised debt crisis.
   It is said that such a decision is taken to avoid first EU default. The decision apparently shows positive signs at present if market activities are to be believed. But it brings in few questions which might be asked in future.
   The decision might be responsible to set up a trend to overcome crisis situation.How will banks react if similar crisis appear in future? It will put the the credibility of all the nations on stake. The banks will try their best to avoid such crisis situatutions. Further how will EU tackle similar crisis situation which is standing at the doors of other european countries like Italy and Spain who bear much higher debt than Greece.

England White Wash

An incredible series win of 5-0 by Indian team over England might have come as a big surprise to many after their pathetic performance in England tour. But it was no surprise to me atleast. I always believed that the present Indian team is good and what happened in England was a bad dream worth forgetting.

         First of all, consider the back to back series arranged for the Indian players. Beginning with world cup followed by IPL immediately with a break of just 4 days was really a long and exhaustive schedule for any player to think of playing any more games.
        Inspite of that Indian players managed to do well in the immediately following West Indies tour. I personally do not find games against West Indies interesting because winning or loosing is all decided by the West Indian team and really does not depend on what is the calibre of their opponent team. On their day, nobody can beat West Indies but otherwise they know well how to loose an almost won match
        These back to back game series were more than enough to take out all energy and excitement out of any player to play any serious cricket. But then the Indian team had to immediately face one of most difficult tour of England. The adverse conditions of England are really discouraging. And to perform well in those conditions, one has to be in strong mental condition which obviously was not the condition with Indian team. The consequences of the England's adverse condition was evident from number of replacements we sent on this tour. If I am not wrong as many as eight players were replaced during the tour.
        The quality and strength of England team really doesn't matter. After  Flintoff, I really don't care for and find any charm in England team. 
        One would expect that inspite of all the reasons Indians should have given good performance being professional players. But I was ok with India's whitewash in England series. Because they have proved their mettle back here in India by making clean sweap against the same team they lost few days back.   
        So, Congratulations to Indian team for this success against England and Best Wishes for the Australian tour.

Ubuntu 11.10 - my experience

For some reason our administrator decided to update OS of my desktop. He installed latest version Ubuntu 11.10. My first impression was not very good. I did not find it userfriendly.

Main problem is accessing different windows you open. Say, you open a firefox window with many work related tabs opned in it. This window will minimize to the left sidebar under firefox icon that also is the desktop icon to access firefox. Now, if you want open another firefox window which should have pages not work related but say personal like gmail or youtube, you click on the same icon. Instead of what you wish, the same firefox window with work related pages which you minimized few moments back reappears. So, to distinguish work related pages from personal pages is not so stright forward. One option is you open your personal page in one of the tabs in work related firefox window and then drag and drop that tab out of the window. Then it allows you to have another firefox window. But why is needs to be tricky, it should be more straight forward.
Besides, this might work for simple tasks like Firefox or text editor, or office. I faced a problem while using a software called vmd used for visualisation of molecules and other related tasks. Normally you deal with 3-4 windows while working with vmd. one of them is the main window allowing you to open file, load properties etc, while another one is the molecule visualizer. Then you also need to open related windows dealing with different settings. If you minimize, all these windows will minimize under one icon in the left hand sidebar. If you try to open them again, it is a problem. Not all windows become active again. The visualizer window and one of the settings window were active while the main window governing all other windows never become active. So, only option was to restart vmd and reload all the files which is time consuming.I could not resolve this problem.
Another and main problem with Ubuntu 11.10 version was some graphic issue with some softwares. For example: not all options in vmd were visible. They were overlapping and it was difficult or almost impossible to access some of the options. This is a serious issue and nobody here has yet been able to resolve it.
So, finally we rolled back to the older version, Ubuntu 10.04 which is quite comforting. There are some issues with it but apparently not very serious. While rest of the OS is working good in English, Firefox and Office is all in French. But am sure I will get an easy solution to it.

Greece - A story to tell

    Few years back, Greece was known for many good reasons. Its history, connection to India with invasion of Alexander, Olympics, Amazing and beautiful nature, Touristic islands. But now it is known for altogether different reason - Bankruptsy!!
    Greece is under a great debt nearly 330 billion euros. It is on the edge of being declared Bankrupt or should we say it has already crossed that line. Fellow countries in the European Union are trying to help Greece by bailing out extended loans hoping Greece will recover from the Economic crisis at some point. But it is a long and difficult struggle which nobody is sure that Greece will manage to win.
    The main obstacle in the way to recovery is its well nurtered corrupt system. Along with Bulgaria and Romania, Greece is among the most corrupt countries in the 27-member European Union and the main challange infront of Greek government is to bring this corruption under control.
    Corruption exists at every nook and corner of Greece:
- All the transactions are done in cash, without any written record.   It allows one to avoid declaring their actual income, thereby,  paying less tax.
- As good as 33% of economic activities in the country are not accounted for. It reduces the possibility of government earning  through revenues to 67%
- It is said that tax evasion comes to Greeks as ancestoral gift. It shows connection back to Ottoman empire, when tax evasion was obseved as a resistance to foreign powers.Back then in 1800s, a British ambassador paid Ottomon officials in Athens to smuggle marble friezes decorating the perimeter of the Parthenon, the scared temple.
- Bribery in public offices is very common. Even the rates are fixed for most of the common tasks. People get fed up and finally succumb to the demands of public officers for bribe. It just delays all the activity and hampers the interests of different
  investors which ultimately leads to slow growth of economy.
- Even the ministers are not spotless. The prime minister comes from  a prominent political family which at more than once incidences  have been involved in the cases of corruption.

The greek government is trying to curb corruption and trying to bring the situation under control. But in doing so, they have to take strict decisions which may not be go well with the public.
- It is planning to put heavy taxes on leisurly articles, tobacco products and alcohols.
- It is also planning to cut down the number of jobs in public services.

This may lead to anger among the public which might end up with the revolt against the Government. Its a vicious cycle and nobody knows how to break that.

The situation is so worse that even the members of European nations are rethinking whether or not to help Greece anymore. It may ultimately lead to the expulsion of Greece from the European Union.

But even that is not so easy.Greece is just a beginning. If they are expelled from the European Union, what happens to all the loan that other countries and institutes offered to Greece. How will Greece repay back with no more security avaible from European Union. This will effect the economy of the conutries lending all the loan.

Other than that, there are other countries (Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Italy) which are following the same route as Greece. If Greece exits, European Union will be compelled at some point of the time to take similar actions to them. Considering the dependency of all these countries on each other, with no idea of repaying capacity of these countries, it may lead to another economic catastrophe, this time centered on Europe instead of USA. Ths situation will be worse than what happend 3 years back in USA.

Nobody knows the solution to this crisis and apparently everybody is confused about the coming days. The future of ecomonics is gloomy and globalization is showing its adverse effects.

Nobel Prize, 2011

Nobel Prize are awarded every year in the field of Science (Physics, chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace.For year 2011, the award recipients for Science have now been declared:

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Physics: The expansion of the universe is accelerating.

Saul Perlmutter:American astrophysicist from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Adam Riess :American astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University and the Space Telescope Science Institute.

Brian P. Schmidt: Professor, Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow
  Astrophysicist at the Australian National University Mount Stromlo Observatory and Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics.








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Chemistry: The discovery of quasicrystals

Daniel Shechtman : Professor of Materials Science at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, an Associate of the US Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory,
Professor of Materials Science at Iowa State University.
The story of how his discovery was ridiculed  long back in 1982 by his group members in Washington D.C. and how he was thrown out of the group for such crappy findings, which ultimately led him to the Nobel prize, is making rounds on the net.

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 Physiology or Medicine: Discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity. AND (Bruce Beutler & Jules Hoffmann)
Discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity (Ralph Steinman)

 Bruce Beutler:American immunologist and geneticist.Director of the Center for the Genetics of Host Defense at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas and Professor and Chairman of the Department of Genetics at The Scripps Research Institute, in La Jolla, California, USA. Nobel prize winner for the work on the activation of innate immunity along with Jules Hoffmann




Jules Hoffmann: French biologist.
Research director,National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS),Strasbourg, France.
President of the French Academy of Sciences.
Nobel prize winner for the work on the activation of innate immunity along with Bruce Beutler

Ralph Steinman:Canadian immunologist and cell biologist at Rockefeller University.
Nobel Prize for his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity.
He died 3 years at the age of 68 years and so an exceptional case.





More info available on www.nobelprize.org/

Je suis Apprendre le Français- sequel

      Some thing interesting is happening. Last time I took a French test conducted by my friends. The question paper then was all about the things they taught me during coffee time. Well, if you check, I did well then. But it was a test conducted by friends. It was no official. Finally, I had a chance to officially attempt a French language test. It was organized by my institute to check the knowledge of different French language enthusiasts and to allot them classes of different level. It included many things:
* multiple choice questions * choose the odd one out
* make use the noun, verb
* listen audio and answer
* read passages and answer
* write story and letter
       It was a difficult task for me to write letter and the story on the given topics. I tried but ended up writing some 3 lines. A disaster to say.So, actually I attempted 80 marks paper and I scored 43 out of it. Well, not bad. As a result I qualified for the second level A2. Which is quite motivating. So, today my classes are beginning and will keep you updated with the proceedings and developments. Wish me luck!!

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes is one of those movies which received cold treatment from me initially but then made it so large that it has made me wait desperately for the release of its sequel. I always pictured the "Planet of the apes" series as one where humans replaced by apes are struggling for their life and freedom. The theme never attracted me because its difficult to believe that apes can overpower humans. Atleast the history doesn't suggest that way. According to my belief, the earth was earlier ruled by Dinosaurs, presently by humans and for future there are two options. -Either Humans will detriorate this earth to such an extent that nature will have to click the refresh button like bringing Ice age back, thereby taking away powers from humans, giving to others or -the Artificial Intelligence that can take it over, a concept that made roots stronger with Matrix trilogy. In any case, unlike Dinosaurs, this time humans themselves will be responsible for their decline. In the first case scenario, the next creature to be in power could be anything, may be existing one or a total new evolution. In second case, humans make AI strong enough that they will overpower humans. Other than these I had no other possibilities in mind untill I saw "The rise of the planet of the apes".The logic behind the uprising of the apes made total sense to me. It fits the equation perfectly. Humans could be responsible for the uprising of apes. With such an option, not just apes but any creature can overpower humans. The movie just give a glimpse of what can happen in future. The movie is worth watching for the performance of Andy Serkis (one who played Gollum in LOTR) who played Caeser here, the leading ape.

It is also worth to watch the movie for the impressive special effects that diminishes the lines between reality and effects.And if it interests some, there is Freida Pinto (one from slumdog millionaire) in the movie. She has moulded herself very well to fit in the small piece of performance. Finally, I leave it to everybody's imagination: Nature itself destroyed first rulers Dinosaurs, the one with the all the physical power. Humans, the second one with mind power, will be responsible for their own destruction. The next generation of ruler will both be strong with physical and mind power. So, what will be the cause of their destruction?

Fair to execute after 20 years punishment!!

Today's highlight is the news about the 8 weeks stay order on the execution of Rajiv Gandhi's assassin(http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article2411422.ece?homepage=true)(Madras High Court stays execution of Rajiv case convicts for eight weeks ).While some people who feel these assasins should be executed are angry while there is another group who gave the sigh of relief atleast for 8 more weeks. After giving some thought, I got an altogether different view.
Just realized that its almost 20 years since Rajiv Gandhi's assasination. And what these assasins were doing till now? They were in Jail I guess and definitely must not be treated like king and queen. 20 years is a big time to spend behind the bars. 20 years is a "Generation". So those culprits have already missed one generation of their life doing nothing.
What they must be doing?Nothing more than thinking. Thinking about an incident that happened 20 years back. In initial days, they must be feeling triumphant for the task they carried out for their group who wanted Rajiv Gandhi dead.
With time passing this feeling must have subsidised and replaced with a guilt of killing a person. Initially they must have confronted their own feeling proving themselves that their act was right. But slowly this confrontation must also have been died down. I believe, now they are left only with this guilt. Now they might not be having any enthusiasm for life, no idea how to spend every next day coming.
Only thing remaining is feeling this guilt and waiting for the execution day. (It may be totally wrong but deep thinking on an incident for 20 years may should bring this change or else the culprit is insane).
I personally feel this is a torture.
Why should it take 20 years for an execution day to arrive(again prolonged by 8 weeks). They are getting double punishment of initially spending 20 years in Jail and then execution. If they were to be executed that should have happened immediately. Why it took 20 years?
On the contrary when I see that a terrorist responsible for deaths for ~2500 people in America was found out in another country and executed within 10 years, I feel sorry for our system. If a simple and straight case of finding culprits (in approachable range), running cases, getting decision, finalizing the decision through different sources and finally executing the culprits takes more than 20 years with still no assurance, then forget about other terrorists waiting for their execution.
There are two types: one where one gets scared of an insect and instinctively kills it. The story over. The second where one finds the insect troubling, put it in safe place (for the one) and then slowly tortures it either by pulling leg or breaking leg and doing similar stuff. By the time it dies(executed), it has already been through the hell's experience.
I think our system falls in this second type.
We call our system fair and non violent, but we forget our system is torturous for those culprits and their relatives.
We need to learn to end the story in time.

What I expect from Jan Lokpal Bill

Sitting far away from India I have been trying to keep connected to different activities happening back in India against corruption.I am in favor of Jan lokpal Bill and I am trying my bit to support it by all ways I can. That includes supporting the times campaign in raising voice for strong lokpal bill to forwarding different related emails to watching and supporting (read 'clicking on like button in facebook') different related videos uploaded on facebook.

Frankly speaking, I am not a follower of Anna Hazare, but I am following Mr. Kejariwal and I like the methodical and perfect way of Dr. Subramanyam Swami. The way they talk, way they put their points supported with proof is something I appreciate. But since I follow them and they are following Anna Hazare, I am also following Anna Hazare.

There was an one video on youtube where Mr. Karan Thapar was interviewing Mr. Kejariwal and he pointed out that going on hunger strike is nothing less than a black mail.

Mr. Kejriwal was not successful in rubbishing out this thought. But there could few reasons for that.
1) The time given to him to answer any particular question.
2) Mr. Thapar sound very aggresive host whose sole reason behind interview seems to point out flaws in Mr. Kejriwal's total idea of lok pal bill and his method of protest. Apparently, that is his way of taking interviews, that I realised after checking his interviews with other people like Ad. Ram Jeth Malani. But they did not succumed to his aggresiveness and that brings us to the the third reason.
3) Mr. Kejriwal appears a soft spoken person who makes his point quietly. He puts it correct and methodically provided the listener is patient.So, people like Mr. Kejariwal won't suceed if they come across some aggresive personality like Mr. Karan Thapar or for that reason Kapil Sibbal. At such places Dr. Subramanyam Swami is the right person to speak.

Inspite of the fact that Mr. Kejariwal did not succeed in making his point,it made me realize Hunger strike is not a black mail. And as Mr. Kejariwal explained its a way to make somebody realize he is wrong and guilty.Besides,our constitution does not give many other possibilities to make government realize they are wrong. All the provided possibilities go through the system of government which gets stopped somewhere enroute.So, if you do not want violent protests, hunger strike is the only way.

While I am following all this stuff, I came across this note that appeared in "The Hindu". You may read it here:
http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/society/article2343100.ece

titled: "Aren't we the real problem?"

It speaks about how even we are involved in day to day corruption and how this lokpal bill won't be able to overcome such petty issues of corruption.
I am not sure how lokpal bill addresses such issues. But this note brought a thought in ly mind about "What I expect as a success of Jan Lokpal Bill".
I am a person who won't be involved in corruption knowingly. But I am a careless guy and try least to make use of brain in day to day activities. I rely a lot on belief in people and that sometimes get me involved in corruption.How?

I will give two of my experiences:

I was travelling in Bus in Pune. The ticket cost me Rs. 12. But I don't had change. I had a note of Rs 10 and then directly Rs. 100. I offered Rs. 100 note. Conductor asked me for Rs. 10. I gave him Rs. 10 and in return he gave me a ticket of Rs. 12. I asked him about it and he just said "Its ok" and moved on to give tickets to others in the crowded bus. I didn't get the answer at that time. When my stop arrived and I was about to get down, he rushed to me and asked for the ticket. It was such a short time to think with all crowd around ready to get down that I did not give the second thought and gave him the ticket and got down. Once on earth I realized that I just bribed him with Rs. 10 and saved myself Rs.2 with this act. Possibly he was aware that there won't be any ticket checker waiting at the stop to cross check and made some money for himself.

Another incident is one while I was travelling from Pune to Kolhapur in a rented vehicle. At one of check post, the ticket cost 52 Rs. We gave Rs. 100 and he asked if we need a receipt. Since it was a one way ticket and receipt was not a compulsion. We thought "Let's save some paper" and said "no" to the reciept. He returned Rs 50 back instead of Rs. 48 and our vehicle moved on. The transaction was bit odd and by the time we realised that by not taking the reciept we actually bribed that guy with Rs 50 and saved ourself Rs 2, we came quite ahead of the check post.

That is courruption under ignorance according to me. I never wanted to save 2 Rs for myself. But I believed the system and the person involved blindly and thus fall prey to the corruption. After these incidences, I started believing the movies in which some government officer is shown to accept some money not as a bribe but later on raided by the IT officers to prove him guilty of taking bribe.

How do we come out of these kind of corruption practices?
One way is to become more alert in day to day activities.I will try to be alert for some time but my true nature will overcome soon. It is slightly difficult for people like me who prefer to believe people rather being critical. And this belief increases manyfolds when you have spent some big time outside India.

I think we need to have this belief in Indian community and I expect that Anna Hazare's Jan Lok pal bill should be strong enough to install this belief in Indian society also. For this reason, I