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Category Archives: Culture
Lord of the Rings Day
A happy Lord of the Rings Day to you. This year I almost didn’t write this post because I don’t have anything to say about The Lord of the Rings itself. Chiefly, I have tired of the antics of men. … Continue reading
The little things
Tungsten diboride (WB2) is extraordinarily stiff and resistant to deformation and scientists have long suspected it could be a superhard material, meaning it scores at least 40 gigapascal (GPa) on a hardness test. This is important because diamond, the hardest … Continue reading
The pleasures of rewatching
I’m afraid the answer is F.R.I.E.N.D.S. My sister and I watched it growing up, then rewatched it, the re-rewatched it, and now then have it playing in the background as I work. I have some problems with it but I’ve … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Op-eds
Tagged dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1876, Friends, Goundamani, Tamil cinema, Vadivelu
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Review: ‘Decolonial Keywords’ (2026)
Everyone who knows me knows that my intellectual coordinates are defined by scientific ideas, even when they’re about sociology or the humanities. This is why I found a new book, Decolonial Keywords: South Asian Thoughts and Attitudes, edited by anthropologists … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture, Science
Tagged Anna Tsing, Banu Subramaniam, COVID-19 pandemic, decolonising science, Harshana Rambukwella, history of science, Idu Mishmi, jugaad, majoritarian nationalism, National Science Day, Nobel Prizes, Pankaj Sekhsaria, poromboke, Renny Thomas, Roshan Praveen Xalxo, Sasanka Perera, shamanism, shunya
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Epstein or otherwise, Silicon Valley’s techno-elite know what they’re doing
The science writer Philip Ball has described “nerd tunnel vision” as the rationalisation scientists who maintained ties with Jeffrey Epstein after his 2008 conviction for soliciting underage sex offered, hinting at something more calculated than just oversight. “Nerd tunnel vision … Continue reading
A bad Sprite ad
One of the advertisements during the ongoing T20 cricket World Cup on Star Sports India has been for Sprite, the carbonated beverage from the Coca-Cola Company. In the ad, it’s a hot day, two people are irritated by the heat … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Scicomm
Tagged carbonated beverages, Coca-Cola Company, electrolytes, FSSAI, heat stress, Sprite, sugar
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From the Heisenberg cut to the Copenhagen interpretation
The following post was motivated by this exchange (on X.com), which prompted me to write out my understanding of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics and the part the Heisenberg cut plays in it. I haven’t gone into the variants … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Scicomm, Science
Tagged classical mechanics, cloud chamber, Copenhagen interpretation, Erwin Schrodinger, Heisenberg cut, Jim Baggott, John Bell, John von Neumann, many-worlds interpretation, matrix mechanics, Niels Bohr, Quantum mechanics, quantum superposition, Schrödinger's cat, uncertainty principle, wave mechanics, wavefunction, wavefunction collapse, Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli
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That humans quest for cosmic dawn
From ‘Cosmic dawn: the search for the primordial hydrogen signal’, Physics World, November 18, 2025: The EDGES instrument is a dipole antenna, which resembles a ping-pong table with a gap in the middle. It is mounted on a large metal … Continue reading
To be Indian is to set records
For all the ways in which the Indian people are divided these days, they’re seemingly united in their desire to set records. On January 22, a tinkerer named Sohan Rai, a.k.a. “Zikiguy”, said on Instagram that he and his team … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture, Science
Tagged Bharatiya Janata Party, gigantism, Guinness Book of World Records, Limca Book of Records, postcolonial identity, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Republic Day, Samanth Subramanian, Shubhanshu Shukla, Sohan Rai, space programme, Vinay Lal, world records
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My political views
When I first had any views at all, I think I was in the second year of my engineering studies, in 2007, and decided I was a right-winger. Of course I understood very little of what that meant at the … Continue reading