I wonder why !

I wonder why. I wonder why.
I wonder why I wonder.
I wonder why I wonder why
I wonder why I wonder !
-- Richard P. Feynman

The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch

Few days back, a good friend of mine - Aditya shared me a youtube link. I wasnt really excited about it... as the video was some 76 minutes long and So it would take few hours to buffer that. Rather I decided to download it so that i can see it afterwards. Well the video is about Randy Pausch, A 47 year old Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science Professor, and it was his last lecture. Randy was diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer in Sept 2006 and was told in August 2007 to expect a remaining three to six months of good health.

This lecture is titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". Before speaking, Pausch received a long standing ovation from a large crowd of over 400 colleagues and students. When he motioned them to sit down, saying, "Make me earn it," some in the audience shouted back, "You did!".

Few excerpts from the Wall Street Journal's article on Randy. I recommend all to read this article.

"Randy Pausch, a professor at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University, has become famous for the way in which he chose to say goodbye to his students and colleagues. His final lecture to them, delivered last September, turned into a phenomenon, viewed by millions on the Internet. Dying of pancreatic cancer, he showed a love of life and an approach to death that people have found inspiring. For many of us, his lecture has become a reminder that our own futures are similarly -- if not as drastically -- brief. His fate is ours, sped up."

I am embedding that video here for your reference - DON'T MISS IT !

Memristor - The Fourth Passive Circuit Element revealed

Memristor (Short for Memory Resistor)is all over the news today...Yesss the missing fourth fundamental passive circuit element has been discovered at last ! This is in no boubt a real big achievement.. and is something really new in the fundamental electronics.

Well, theorotically Memristor isnt anything new. It has existed in theory for last 37 years, But it is now, today that it has been discovered by four researchers at HP Labs’ Information and Quantum Systems Lab, led by R. Stanley Williams. In a paper published in today’s edition of Nature, researchers at HP Labs presented the mathematical model and a physical example of a 'memristor' – a blend of memory and resistor – which has the unique property of retaining a history of the information it has acquired.

And this can mean big implications ! One application for this research could be the development of a new kind of computer memory that would supplement and eventually replace today’s commonly used dynamic random access memory (DRAM). Computers using conventional DRAM lack the ability to retain information once they lose power. When power is restored to a DRAM-based computer, a slow, energy-consuming 'boot-up' process is necessary to retrieve data from a magnetic disk required to run the system. “A memory based on memristors could be 1000 times faster than magnetic disks and use much less power,” Williams says.

A memristor is essentially a resistor with memory. The actual resistance of the memristor changes depending on the amount of voltage and the time for which that voltage has been applied to the device. The IEEE Spectrum article has much more profound article on this and as is EETimes article. trust me, both are a must read!

And as IEEE Kirchoff Award winner Leon Chua( He was the one who predicted the existence of memristors) says about this discovery "now all the EE textbooks need to be changed" !!!

Achievers 08 - A salute to the torch bearers

Today i got a chance to attend a program organised by PUMBA called Achievers 08. The program was to felicitate some of the industry leaders and the achievers in their respective domains. The achievers list included some eminent personalities like -

Mr Dilip Chhabria, CEO and Chief Designer, DC Designs Pvt Ltd
Mr Achyut Godbole, MD, Softexcel Consultancy Services
Mr Ravi Pandit, Founder Chairman, KPIT Cummins Infosystems Ltd and
Mr Subhash Kapre, CEO, Serum Institute of India

Today was one of the most memorable days in my life that i got to listen to all those eminent personalities. To learn from their experiences was a great experience. To know more about the event - Click here for the PUMBA site.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke Dies

The visionary behind Communication Satellites Sir Arthur C. Clarke died today morning! He had always been ahead of his time. His vision of putting geostationary satellites in orbit totally changed our lives. It was Clarke who floated the idea of using geosynchronous satellites for communications long before such technology changed our world. Clarke's most important contribution to science may be in propagating the idea that geostationary satellites would be ideal telecommunications relays.

More on this - Here

Nokia Morph Concept

Wow ! Haven't seen anything like this before ! amazing !

Nokia has just rolled out its Morph concept. Morph is a concept demonstrating some of the possibilities nanotechnologies might enable in future communication devices. Morph can sense its environment, is energy harvesting and self cleaning. Morph is a flexible two-piece device that can adapt its shape to different use modes. Nanotechnology enables to have adaptive materials yet rigid forms on demand.

See this video of Morph for more !

Kimayagar...Hats off !

Our humans need to understand the world around us has inspired some of human kinds greatest discoveries - from unleashing the fearsome power of an atom, to uncovering the nature of light itself, to revealing the forces that hold our entire universe together. This journey of understanding has been astonishing and gives us an idea about what a human intellect can do. But many times we hardly seem to know much about the people who were the force behind these discoveries - the greatest minds ! Yes frankly, how many of you would know about 'Maxwell'? Well, had he not been there, we wouldn't have had all the Wireless communication, mobile, cell phones that we see everywhere these days; nothing ! If J.J. Thompson had not discovered electron, There wouldn't have been electronics ! Just imagine the world around us if those people had not discovered those things ! Yet, how much do we know about them?..

Well, this is what KIMAYAGAR, a book written in marathi by Mr Achyut Godbole, does. The way the author has narrated the greatest discoveries in science is really commendable. The stories of all those great minds - Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Bohr, Fynmann, Heisenberg, Planck and many more. This book is really a treasure! I loved reading it. It was like reading a story book. The science had never felt so easier to me.

I believe, if you want to learn about some discovery(say transistor), First follow the history behind the discovery. See how the people who discovered those things came to know about it. The things look a far lot easier if you do so.

In the process, i also searched on net for these greatest discoveries in physics and found two of the best videos i have seen. One, 100 greatest discoveries in physics, a TV show that was aired on Discovery Channel and second, BBC Atom. I wish i had seen these videos earlier - maybe during my school , or during my junior college! Better late than never !!

Just to add, KIMAYAGAR has inspired me to start a science series in my school. The series will be an attempt to create interest about science and maths in student's mind. I will be showing such videos to them - the basic purpose being Creating Interest! Though i was not able to know about these things when i was in school/college, i feel this should not happen with others! I am trying my best in that regard ! Long way to go before i sleep!

Thats it !