Happy new year! Another year just passed. When I was a teenager, the start of a new year meant a lot. Mentally, it used to feel like the start of something completely new, as if time is not continuous between the end of a year and the start of a new year. An analogy to explain this is classical physics versus quantum physics. The flow of energy is considered discontinuous in quantum mechanics. This is how I used to feel about the flow of…
When I decided to pursue chemistry in my undergraduate studies, a lot of my relatives were critical of my decision. Where I come from, people consider physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, etc. as general subjects. Most people who were not in favor of my decision were like, ‘Why general subjects? They have fewer job opportunities and longer courses.’ They were perhaps correct from their point of view. After all, their comments were just a reflection of society’s popular beliefs. And how does society develop such…
Almost everyone I meet unequivocally agrees that reading is beneficial for our brains and overall well-being. Yet, they also accept that the art of reading is getting lost is today’s fast-fashion world. Attention is getting scattered all over, and undivided concentration is getting harder to access. It is not that people don’t try to get back to reading, but that they often give up. And the most probable reason is that many rely on their willpower when it comes to reading consistently. Willpower works…
I have not yet written a sequel of a previous essay. So this is going to be my first attempt. But first, why did I decide to write a sequel? A few days back, I was watching a video by Angela Duckworth (author of the famous book ‘Grit‘) in a commencement speech. I will talk more about that later. While watching it, a burst of current popped into my brain. This topic resonated deeply with me as one of my previous essays focused on…
Humans are social animals. In fact, one of the prominent reasons homo sapiens triumphed over other powerful species is because of our ability to work and hunt collectively. Today, we no longer live in jungles or even remote places. Humans today are part of connected societies, nations, and continents. Globalization has connected us to the entire world. But this entire phenomenon has also made some of us misbelieve that there is no need to be part of a society or nation or feel proud…
I never enjoyed those zombie movies. Somehow I found the idea of zombies itself disgusting. I mean, they are ugly, technically dead, but also not completely senseless. They aren’t free humans; almost like something possesses them, and they remain unaware of it. When I see younger humans (that counts even children) today, a lot of them remind me of those zombies. They are oversensitive, impatient, addicted to instant gratification, etc. Now, before you presume I am overreacting, hear me out. Technology makes information increasingly…
The term work-life balance has become a trending topic in India these days. Out of curiosity, I visited Google Trends to see how popular is the term in recent times. Turned out, it is really popular, especially after January 2024. Here is the Google trend result: What accounts for this sudden surge? With countries that are developing fast with an aspiration of becoming developed fast, this has been pretty normal, as evident from history. Japan, after world war 2 aspired to become a robust…
It is time to share some of my best reads in the 2nd half of 2024. I shared a list for the 1st half here. Over the years, I observed a dilemma among people I know about which form of books should they be reading. Just 20 years back, books meant a physical form of printed books. But today, e-books have become another form of books that are in some aspect more convenient. What form of books should we be reading then? In a…
I am fond of the English word “Meticulous,” which means showing great attention to detail. Not that I am meticulous in everything I do, but my experience and observation have led me to conclude that the smaller details often make a big difference in life. This may seem intuitive, but most of us overlook the smaller, often insignificant-looking details in our busy days. There is a fascinating story of Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian physician. He was working at the Vienna General Hospital in Austria…
Just eight years ago, I had never even heard of the term “peer review.” I often wondered how scientific knowledge found its way into classroom textbooks. Who decides what to include and whether it’s accurate? During my PhD, I first experienced peer review and how it works. It made sense then to me. scientific peers are the ones who evaluate the validity of findings and determine whether they should be published. Here’s a typical overview of how the scientific peer review process works: But…
