mahendra-verma

These are my favorite physics and mathematics books that I hope a budding science enthusiast will find interesting and useful. Please keep in mind that the choices are always biased, hence you should develop your own taste.   High School and Intermediate Level: Resnick and Halliday: Principles of Physics H.  C. Verma: Concepts in Physics Kumar and Mittal: Nootan Intermediate Physics (in Hindi, not so popular at present) [Some good mathematics books] S. L. Loney: The elements of Coordinate Geometry; Plane Trignometry Hall and Knight: Higher Algebra Hall and Stevens: School Geometry Undergraduate level: R. P. Feynman: Feynman Lectures in Physics A. M. Purcell and D. J. Morin: Electricity and Magnetis A. Reif: Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics D. J. Tritton: Physical Fluid Dynamics S. H. Strogatz: Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos Mathews and Walker: Mathematical methods of Physics M. K. Verma: Introduction to Mechanics (my own book) Advanc

I did my undergraduate studies from IIT Madras, and entered IIT Kanpur for work as a faculty.  On the whole I have spent 25 years of my life in the IIT system so far, and I do owe a lot to it for what it gave to me. During my student days,  the environment was an eye opener for me, and it provided exposure to new worldview.  Just to name some of the topics that came up in our mid-night discussions were curved space-time, Godel Eschar Bach, Richard Bach, and many others.  It was very exciting for a kid coming from a small town.  Some classes were very fascinating, and they were the comparable to  my graduate courses at the University of Maryland at College Park.  There are raging debates in India on the contributions of IIT system to the nation.  Did it contribute enough to the development of nation? Did we create new technology, or inspire students to do the same? Why our IITs do not figure in the top 100 institutions of the world? Why don’t IITians appear as biggest names in sc

Several months before a summer vacation, almost every faculty is flooded with email requests for summer internship.  The volumes are so large and the requests are so generic that I just press delete button on those emails.  This phenomena has led me to write this blog to offer some unsolicited advise to students. Solving difficult academic problems take a large amount of time, typically extending much longer than three months of summer.  If a person is not trained in an area, he/she may not even be able to start on a problem. This is quite common to my area of research, fluid dynamics and turbulence, which is not covered in normal physics curriculum.  Thus, incentive to offer a single internship appears to be a waste of time for both sides, unless the student wishes to continue to work on a mutually agreed upon  project for a longer time after the start (say the next summer).  Unfortunately, most students work on different problems with different guides every summer, hence get n

Hundreds of thousands of students from IITs and other leading colleges in India go abroad for higher education (Masters and Ph. D.).  Of course, many students also choose indian academic institutions, but the first preference appears to be abroad. In this blog, I will argue how pursuing higher studies in India can fetch rich dividends to students.  A rider, my conclusions are general, but they are more aligned to physics research due to my familiarity in this field. In India, there is a significant research support to Ph D scholars.  For example, the institute or university, rather than the individual scientist, pays scholarship to the students.  Consequently, a student can choose to work on in unfashionable area with a professor who is not funded.  This is not possible in many western countries, specially USA.  Note that fundamental fields of science and engineering need to be supported for advancement of knowledge, even though it may not yield financial benefits right away.  S

Recently I read the Parmeswaran’s biography [1] of Sir C. V. Raman, India’s only Nobel laureate in Physics, as well as looked up at several other sources.  It is needless to say that Raman was highly committed, hardworking, and inspiring scientist.  I rather highlight a less-known fact about Raman: how publishing in Indian journal helped him win the Nobel prize, and how he supported Indian journals. Raman was intrigued by the deep-blue light of the Mediterranean sea during his travel to Europe in 1921.  He disbelieved Lord Rayleigh’s theory that it is due to the reflection of the sky.  After a series of works, the last conclusive experiment on the vibrational spectra of liquid was performed by Raman and Krishnan on 16 February 1928. Raman and Krishnan sent a telegram to Nature on the same that was published on 31 March 1928 with submission date as 16 Feb. 1928 [2]. Raman gave a public lecture on 16th March 1928 in Bangalore; his lecture was published in Indian J. of Physics [3].

In India, 1857 revolt against the British is termed as the “first struggle for the Indian freedom", "Sipoy mutiny",  "1857 revolt" etc.  It was spontaneous, and grew out of emotional discontent of native soldiers in the English army (East India Company), local chieftains, and part of populace.  The response from both the sides, Indian revolters as well as English army [1], were emotional, which led to killing of large number of people.   The rules of conflict was broken from both the sides that led to murder of innocent people, both Indian and English. The events of 1857 have certain similarities with several major emotional events of history.  According to me, in 1857, the desire for freedom and to dethrone unpopular rulers was similar to that seen in the French and American revolutions.  Incidentally, many centuries back (around 320 BC) duo of Chankya and Chandragupta successfully overthrew the Alexander’s army from India, and started a new Imperial tradi