Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Lord Rutherford

I have been working on buiding an apparatus to study Rutherford's alpha scattering. I had to read his original papers. I also read Biographies on him. I came to know certain interesting stuff from these.

First of all, he did not get a Nobel prize for Physics for his alpha scattering experiment or the Nucleus concept. He had got the Nobel(1905) even before he did the alpha scattering expt(1909), and that too in Chemistry (a subject he didnt like very much!) . He got it for finding Radioactivity laws.

When Geiger and Marsden (his students) reported alpha particle reflection he said "It were as if you fired a 15" shell at a tissue paper and it bounces back and hits you". This statement is not very rare, but considered it worth putting here.

He did more than guesswork to prove that there is a nucleus.

He later proved that the alpha particle is nothing but a Helium nucleus, along with co-workers

He was very humble. He did not even put his name on the alpha scattering papers of Geiger and Marsden, as he only supervised the expt. He played an important role in Chadwick's discovery of the neutron. Even then he did not put his name on the paper.

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

Why do I need College?

Aaaarrrrgggghhhhh! College! Its such a waste of time! My life is so hectic and busy. I enjoy being busy on something productive. But, I have to go to college only to listen to boring lectures, the content of which I can enjoy and understand, which I can read on my own and enjoy. I have to sit through classes, even though I know all that stuff. You might say that, I may learn something that I did not read anywhere. Yes, to an extent. In fact, there are some classes, which I really love. But, I have to attend all the other dumb and boring classes, just to listen to a good one.

I am trying to collect money for a book on Quantum Mechanics that costs 100$. So, I am freelancing to get the money. There are this Quantum Mechanics and Electrodynamics classes I attend at the weekends, at the Planetarium(Bangalore). They are great, and I need to keep working on problems given there, and also work on practical sessions. This weekend course is what is more interesting and worth than the main college course of BSc.

I wanna dedicate 25% of my time on freelancing , 65% on REAP (the weekend classes I've been talkin about), 7% to household work and 3% to college. Unfortunately, I dont see a way through all this.

Any suggestions?

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

A strange person I met

I saw a strange girl named Amrita, last week. I still cant comprehend that such a person can exist. She has a phobia towards everything. Fear of crowds, fear of crossing roads, fear of dogs, fear of rain, fear of darkness, fear of getting hurt,................................ She doesnt like to eat, doesnt like to sleep.(she sleeps for 3 hrs a day).

We study in the same college, ( I have taken Phy, Chem & Math, and she has taken Chem and Bio). We had met earlier(around a year and a half ago), and sit in the same Chem class, every week. But, I never knew that she had all these problems. I came to know about her, when I was returning from a lecture by Prof. CNR Rao, at IISc (Bangalore).

I was just discussing something about the lecture with a friend of mine called Chandan, who was a classmate of hers. She was also there. So, we decided to go home, (which wasnt far away). But, she said she couldnt go the short way, because she could not cross the road, to catch a bus on the other side of the road. At first, I thought she was just kidding. On seeing Chandan and her taking the long route, however, I too decided to go the long way, because, I was discussing something serious with Chandan. Then, in her every step, I saw that strangeness of being scared of everything. It didnt take long for me to realize that she also had problems of short term memory. I felt like crying, thinking about her, on everything she would say. But, I composed myself and didnt allow any such signs to show, as it would make her feel worse.

Outwardly, she is very friendly and jovial. Amidst the strange feelings running through me then, we were laughing and laughing and laughing.......... throughout, for about an hour and a half.

According to Chandan she is probably in a state of hypnotism, in which she is scared of her fears, with no reasons. Whether it is true, time will tell. But, whatever be it, I just hope that there is some cure for this.

College Physics NewsLetter

Our college recently(Aug 25th) inaugurated a bimonthly Physics Newsletter. I am one of the editors. I also have written an article in the 10 page newsletter. I expected to feel something special doing this. But, somehow, it didn't happen that way. I dont know why!

My Site

Yeah! I have created a site to showcase the artwork I have created. The artwork was done as a part of my freelancing work, many of them which I found to be nice , but did not get selected, due to various reasons. I couldnt get a penny out of all the art so far, but, I know that the good days aren't far.

Here's my site : lancealot.topcities.com

Saturday, August 14, 2004

Wikipedia!

Hey folks! Do you know about wikipedia? It is an open encyclopaedia. That is, you can view it for free, and also contribute articles to it, in a very convenient matter. It is a great place to write articles, and also to search for anything you want. (It keeps popping up in many Google searches, meaning that it is quite popular). The website is www.wikipedia.org Check it out!

Thursday, August 05, 2004

Freelancing

I have begun freelancing now! You can have a look at my works on http://lancealot.topcities.com
Or
http://www.geocities.com/prince_of_lance_a_lot

Hey! If you wanna freelance too! I recommend ScriptLance. You get many new projects every day, in fact, by the minute!