One fine spring morning way back in 1978, as a young microbiology professor was about to enter his lab at the John Hopkins University, Baltimore, he did his customary thing of glancing through the departmental soft board.

"DR. HAM SMITH WINS NOBEL PRIZE FOR MEDICINE."

The professor seems amused and stops to stare for a while. However, too many thoughts are bothering him about the work he had left off late last night. So he rushes and soon finds himself deeply engrossed in work in an empty lab. It was too early for anyone to come, senior professors or graduate students or even the lab assistants. But nothing was too early for this guy. The lab was empty too, when he had left last night. He had always been happy working. An hour later his mother calls him up. She asks whether he has had his breakfast. After a long awkward pause he replies hesitantly in affirmation. The mother knows her child is lying. But she does not complain. They talk of things in general and suddenly the guy excitedly tells his mother "Mama, I didn't know that there is another 'Hamilton Smith' right here at John Hopkins and he's just won the Nobel Prize". His mother fondly ridicules him to be oblivious to the fact that there is a professor of the same name as his in the same University. She ends by asking her son to send the guy a congratulatory note.

By evening the young professor's chamber is filled with hundreds of congratulatory notes. There ain't a second Hamilton Smith at John Hopkins.

The professor in question, Dr. Hamilton Smith won the Nobel for the discovery of restriction enzymes, bio-molecules used for snipping parts of DNA. Ask any Biology student and they'll tell you that this discovery is probably one of the main reasons why DNA Science has become DNA technology. Simply put, this guy's work has shaped our ability to create and modify the fundamental molecules that govern every aspect of our biological being. Even today if you visit the John Hopkins University, you shall find him working early each morning with a pipette in his hand.

Does the story show how humble this gentle intellectual giant is?

No, according to me. He has transcended 'humility'. Humility is a virtue for lesser mortals like me. This artist has transcended humility as he has transcended himself by uniting his mind, body and soul in the art. This man has shown the highest state of awareness for an artist. A state of awareness, where the artist is so consciously in unity with his art that he is blissfully unaware of himself.

Many people have read the Srimad Bhagwad Gita in my country and always make attempts to explain the philosophy behind it. Dr. Hamilton Smith has probably never read the Gita but he just did. Atleast to me.

P.S: This story was narrated by Juan Enriquez a leading expert on the economic and political impact of science at the TED Conference (Please visit http://www.ted.com ; BITSians may find the video on the LAN). I admit guilt to have used my imagination to make the story a bit more interesting. :)

"Surely You are Joking my Son"

A few days back i was confronted by the same question which had once troubled the great physicist Dr. Richard Feynman. However, it so happens that there were a few similarities and a few dissimilarities regarding the premise of this question. First the similarities; In both these cases this question was asked to them by their respective fathers (hero-figure to their sons) while their sons holidaying at home, away from their undergrad courses. Both these men expected to get a satisfactory answer to this question as they had spent a considerable amount of their fortune in sending their sons to respectable science colleges of their respective countries. Both sons failed to live up to their father’s expectations. The dissimilarities (are most obvious); one of them was one of the most original thinkers of all times and the other is the most wannabe original thinker of all times. Secondly Feynman’s story is what you would read in any of his books or see in any of his documentaries and my story i assure you, will get to read in my stupid blog. So, the choice is yours: Do you want to read the story of a man who changed the way we look at QED or a guy who still hasn’t able to figure out the working of the LED.

I’m pretty much sure 99% of the people must have closed my blog window. But throughout my life i able to make sense to the rest 1% so i shall ramble on…. Yes, so about the question which we faced (i should stop using ‘we’ now!) “What is light? Is it particle or wave?”

I found myself uncomfortably dumb. After gathering my thoughts I began explaining (with whatever poor understanding I have of the subject) to Baba that according to me it was neither, only sometimes in some experiments it shows characteristics of a particle and in some experiments it shows characteristics of a wave. As a silly example I offered: from a distance a red round object might be confused for an apple or a cricket ball as they are red and round. Might be either; might be neither.Or perhaps there ain’t difference between either. However, I was unable to convince Baba who through some source had come to the conclusion that light is both a particle and wave. With his very sweet and mischievous smile he said to me “Surely you are joking, my son.” After several futile attempts to express and impress, I gave up. However, this question kept bothering me (probably my own inability to convince myself lead to this commotion.)

2:30 A.M : On a piece of paper I wrote down the big question in block letters.

“IS LIGHT A PARTICLE OR A WAVE?”

Nearly 10 minutes of glancing at the paper and the question made absolutely no sense to me!!!! The explanation that shall follow is quite fuzzy but please bear with it.

Question1: What is light? Is it real?

Answer: Light is a form of energy and blah and blah and blah….(plz refer text books.) IT IS PROBABLY THE ONLY REAL THING.

Question2: What is particle/wave? Is it real?

Answer: Particles and Waves are nothing but creations of the human mind (which is essentially a pattern recognition machine). They are 2 imaginary word-concepts created by physicist so that they can make some sense of the things that are happening around them. In reality either may exist neither may exist or both might be the same thing (that is what we currently like to believe -The Wave-Particle Duality.)

So, all this time we have been trying to through our intellect fit in something as real as light within the narrow constraints of human imagination which is blinded by not only by perception and experience but also by prejudice. "Trying to explain the beauty and intricacies of nature by verification from human imagination". Is this what SCIENCE is all about? Is SCIENCE all about satisfying man’s fundamental requirement of trying to explain everything. Or is it about just staring at Mother Nature, totally taken in by her beauty and intricacy, totally overjoyed to have witnessed this spectacle, totally clueless and helpless? Being happy to know that you just don't know and you don't need to.

i don’t know. And that’s why i am not Richard Feynman.