Humans as Fermions

* The Fermions

Fermions are one set of fundamental particles and the other one are
bosons. The distinguishing factor between bosons and fermions is
that the fermions have half integral spins, whereas the boson have
integral spins. Their names suggest that the bosons were discovered
by S N Bose, an Indian physicist and fermions by E Fermi. Now
another this is that the fermions follow what is known as the Pauli
exclusion principle. That is to say you cannot have two fermions
which have all the quantum numbers same.

The Pauli exclusion principle is a quantum mechanical principle formulated by the Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli in 1925. In its simplest form for electrons in a single atom, it states that no two electrons can have the same four quantum numbers; that is, if n, l, and m_l are the same, m_s must be different such that the electrons have opposite spins. More generally, no two identical fermions (particles with half-integer spin) may occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. A more rigorous statement of this principle is that for two identical fermions, the total wave function is anti-symmetric.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauli_exclusion_principle

And electrons are fermions It is this principle which decides the electronic
configuration in atoms. The filling up principle or the aufbau
principle works according to the exclusion principle. So when near
to each other the electrons will tend to have different quantum
numbers. If all the quantum numbers are same for a given pair of
electrons, then they must have the spins opposite. But now if a
third electron is to be arranged in the same orbit, it simple cannot
be accommodate; it has to go in a different orbit. So that the
electrons behave, as if they do not like the proximity of each
other.

* Local trains
Now when observing humans when they are in a crowded environment
like a local train in Mumbai, I feel that the humans do behave
exactly like fermions. That is to say that they do not like the
proximity of each other, just like the electron do not like
proximity of each other in the electronic orbits. I have observed
this many a times in the local trains. Usually the trains are very
crowded. Even to get a position to stand comfortably is a privilege,
especially in the peak hours.

When you board the train at the starting station like the VT, then
what follows is closely analogous to filling up of the electronic
orbitals in the atom. The seats that are usually taken first are the
window seats. In the atom it would correspond to the first filling
of the principal quantum number. In the window seats also the
preference is to the seats for the windows which face the incoming
air, that is facing towards the direction of travel.

Then the seats are filled in the order of least occupancy. People
want to sit at the seats which are least occupied. Normally the
seats can take 3 people, and 4 with a bit of difficulty. But the
norm is that 4 people are seated on a single seat. Once all the seats
are filled up to 4 occupants, then people tend to stand in between
the seats. The analogy does not extend to the people who are
standing at the doors, there it is more like an ensemble of free
particles, which are jumping in and out of the compartments.

So coming back to the seating arrangements what I have observed is
that once the seats are filled with 4 occupants. That is the maximum
that our ‘seat’ orbital can take. The rest are occupied in between
states. They are like virtual states, ready to jump into the empty
seats as soon as one gets empty.

* The Law of 3
Lets assume that the people standing in between are like the
electron sea in metals. Now lets assume a situation in which there
are a few people who are standing in between seats and all the seats
are seated by 4 people. Now lets see what happens when one of the
person who is sitting stands up to get off the train. As soon as the
seat gets empty, one of the persons who is standing goes to fill in
the empty seat. As more and more people get off, the people who are
standing take up their seats. Finally we reach a state when there
are no more people who left are standing. Now all the seats have
four seated occupants. Now if a single person gets up. There is one
seat with just three people, but people don’t tend to move to that
seat. It just not worth the effort, by going from a 4 seated seat
again to a 4 seated seat, you don’t gain much. So you remain seated
where ever you are. But if you are one of the people who are seated
on the seat where the person just left from, you surely feel
relieved.

Now let us try to visualize the situation if 2 people from a single
seat leave off. Two people leaving from 2 different seats will not
help. It has to be 2 people who were seated on the same seat. After
this what we have is that, there is a seat where only 2 people are
seated and rest of the seats have 4 people seating on them. As soon
as this happens, a person from a 4 seater, will try to get to the 2
seater seat. This results in two 3 seater seats, whereas the rest
are 4 seaters. Even more if 3 people from the same seat go away, the
resulting changing of seats by people results in maximizing the
number of 3 seater seats. This is the law of behavior of people in a
local train ;). I call it the Law of 3. This just also touches on
the idea of what is called in psychology as personal space. We
are comfortable only within a certain distance from each other. And
make it a point to bring this into existence we make the movements.

Well this is just a vague analogy, to the actual behavior of the
fermions is much more involved, but nonetheless the analogy is worth
observing.

August 17, 2010August 22, 2023 The Mitr

A Mass charger for OLPC!

1
~~
I am currently working on deploying OLPCs [One Laptop Per Child] a.k.a.
the $ 100 laptop a.k.a. XO in India. The Green colored laptop looks
pretty with children being very happy to have one, and what is best
is that the children or their parents do not pay for it, but the
child gets to keep it, take it home and play with it!

More information at laptop.org, sugarlabs.org

2 Khairat
~~~~~~~~~

The first pilot was started in Khairat, sleepy tribal village about
60 kms from Mumbai. This will be the third year in Khairat. So a
generation of children are present who have been using the XO
consistently. Though we got on to this project last year, the Sugar
platform I already knew about. The parents tell us that the children
have developed special affinity with their laptops, at times even
not allowing their elder siblings to even touch it. Pedagogically
the support at Khairat has not been so good. The teacher their
Mr. Surve learned most of the activities with the Sugar on his
own. Along with the new and some upgraded activities, but thats
another story.

3 Charging Problems
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of the consistent problems that was faced in Khairat is how do
you charge the laptops. Though these laptops consume quite a less
amount of power as compared to normal ones, the fact remains that
they run on the battery and batteries tend to dicharged when
used. There was some solution provided in terms of a rotating wheel,
wherein a dynamo is used to charge the XOs. But this did not work
out well. The Khairat school is not very large about 23 students
across all the 4 grades of the primary. So to charge all the laptops
at the school, we needed to have 23 plug points, to put the cute
little green chargers in! If you scale it up, if you have to have lets say 100
deployments then, 100 plug points! The OLPC design team came up with
a charger which can charge upto 5 laptops, but then we need to
import that too, with the XOs. What we wanted is to charge a large
number of XO’s at one go. The desiderata was that technology should
be indegenious, cheap, and should be `open’. Open is used here in
the sense of being transparent to anyone who wants to repair or know
its workings. Also the problems of the charging at Khairat were
compounded by the fact that many of the chargers had gone bad. The
things were so bad that for the entire class of 23 students they had
only 5 working chargers, so that the students could not charge the
laptops, the scheme that was implemented in this case is that the
children would bring the laptops to the school, charge it there turn
by turn. All this was further complicated the `load-shedding’ of the
Electricity Board. The schedule of the electricity board is such
that it does not allow for continuous charging.

The first option that we tried was to get a similar charger from
Lamington Road. When we enquired we got one for about 200
rupees. But even if we get 20 of those, we did not have enough plug
points in the school. And even if they were there, the lenght of the
wire on the chargers isn’t much, so the students have to sit close
to the extensions. This isn’t by all means a very good idea, AC 230
V all near kids, in primary. Many of the chargers had bare wires,
and accidents can always happen. But this still doesn’t solve our
problem of mass charging. We needed a charging station. Since we did
not have one, we had to design one.

3.1 So what was to be done?
===========================

We tried to take a supply from a
We found that the rating on the chargers required them to charged
with above 6 V. What could give us a continuous supply of regulated
power and was cheap?

4 The Solution
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jude had an excellent idea. We use the standard SMPS [Switched Mode
Power Supply] which powers the regular desktops to charge the XOs. The
main purpose of the SMPS is to provide a regulated DC supply from the
AC mains, to which it is connected. The standard SMPS comes with two
levels of DC voltage as the output; one is 5 V and the other is 12
V. To operate a computer and its various parts both are needed. The 12
V supply is given to parts like the motors which operate inside the
HDDs. Whereas the 5 V supply acts like the logic 1, 0 V being
logic 0 for the binary operations to be performed on the digital
devices, that is the transistors. The current capacity of the SMPS is
about Amps. This is more than sufficient to safely charge about 10
XOs. So from one SMPS we can safely charge 10 XOs.

4.1 Now, how exactly it was to be done?
========================================

So what we did was to get the SMPS about Rs. 440 at Lamington
Road. Derive a power cable from one of the many outputs given
there. Then from that one output we would need to draw 10 outlets for
charging the XOs. The number 10 seemed to be reasonable to be drawn
from a 400 W SMPS.

Anyways so the steps for the construction went as follows:

Draw the 12 V supply from the SMPS, that is, the yellow wire and the
ground, the black.

The first thing that we did was to cut the first main wire for about a
metre. This wire was of 25 guage, the gauge has to be high for the
main cable as it has to draw power for all the 10 XOs.

Now for connecting the main power cable to the SMPS, we needed the
female connectors and join this to the output of power supply. This is
the same thing which goes inside your IDE drives. But in this case we
wil be deriving the 12 V supply and not touching the 6 V
supply. Making this connection requires a bit of skill, as we
discovered later, the joints were shaky, even after all the crimping
that we did. They had to redone at Jude’s office.

Now after the first metre of the main power cable, we attached 4 more
wires, 2 black and 2 red. One each black and red wires were braided
and ended in the DC jack for the XOs. So at the first `T’ joint we had
two outputs for the XOs. For the joint itself, we had 8 wires coming
there. So we soldered the wires. Jude suggested that we could get what
are known as `shorting caps’ for making the final product.

Now this step was repeated for the remaining 4 `T’s. So at the end
voila we had a mass charger for the OLPC.

5 The Short
~~~~~~~~~~~

So we tested our creation with 10 XOs, being charged simultaneously by
the charger. But there was a problem, the joints started to heat
up. There was a short some where in the circuit. We did not test for
continuity. So we had to redo the entire thing again. 🙁

The short was finally found in one of the DC jacks, which when twisted
and pressed, had a protrusion which actually punctured the other wire
and thus shorted the entire circuit. Finally after almost re-doing the
entire circuit, we were on our way to test our charger.

With all the XOs attached. The light on the battery indicator of the
XOs was red and amber. Then slowly after almost an hour, slowly one by
one, the XOs were being charged, indicated by the indicator becoming
green. 🙂

August 10, 2010August 22, 2023 The Mitr

Laboratory of The Mind

Having gone through the book Robert Browns Laboratory of Mind – Thought Experiments in Natural
Sciences, I have taken the following notes. Though the book starts with examples from a varied disciplines it culminates trying to interpret the EPR paradox in a way. Though an interesting book to read for a philosopher of science. I would have liked to see some detailed discussions on some of the thought experiments, the book could have been more aptly titled Thought Experiments in [Quantum] Sciences, though there is an entire chapter on Einstein, who is the master of such thought experiments, equaled only by Galileo.

Quotes

As I was sitting in my chair
I knew the bottom wasn’t there,
Nor legs nor back, but I just sat,
Ignoring little things like that.

Logic alone cannot give us great wealth of mathematical results.

since abstract objects if they did exist would be unknowable.

just as no experiment in physics is really crucial, so no argument
in philosophy is really conclusive. 73

In reality the very opposite happens. It is the theory which
decides what we can observe…’ 106

    the crucial difference between Einstein and those who make the
    correspondence with experimental fact the chief deciding factor
    for or against a theory: even though the ‘experimental facts’ at
    that time very clearly seemed to favor the theory of his opponents
    rather than his own, he finds the ad hoc character of their
    theories more significant and objectionable than an apparent
    disagreement between his theory and their ‘facts’. 120

    As Heisenberg put it, This probability function represents a
    mixture of two things, partly a fact and partly our knowledge of a
    fact’ (1958, 45). 128

    What is even meant by ‘an interpretation of the QM formalism’ is
    somewhat vague. Logicians have a precise notion of
    ‘interpretation’ or ‘model of a formal system’, but that won’t do
    here. To start with, the formalism is already partially
    interpreted; it is hooked to observational input and output in a
    clear and unambiguous way. This partial interpretation is called
    the minimal statistical interpretation. What it can do is handle
    everything observable. It is often favoured by those who advocate
    an instrumentalist outlook for scientific theories in general. But
    our interest is with how the world really works, not just with
    making successful observable predictions. Only those lacking a
    soul are content with the minimal statistical interpretation. 131

    In many (perhaps all) scientific theories, there are elements
    which are taken as just brute facts. For instance, in Newton’s
    physics, inertia is an unexplained explainer; it accounts for
    other phenomena, but is itself unaccounted for. Are EPR
    correlations like that? 146

* Questions
1. When we see one swan to be white we do not conclude immediately
   that all swans are white. But on the other hand we conclude that
   all gold atoms have the same atomic number 79. Why is there an
   asymmetry between the two modes of thought?

2. Why does 3>2 seems intuitively pretty obvious, whereas `proton is heavier than
electron’ does not?

3. Quine says, our conviction that 2+2=4 does not stem from laboratory
observations, no matter how carefully performed or often
repeated. Comment.

4. How would things be different if there were no abstract objects but
everything else, including our ‘intuitions’, remained the same?

5. Is Newton’s first law only vacuously true? Let me elaborate on
this. The first law as known states the following:

   /A body will continue its state motion or rest, unless it is acted
   upon by a force./

   Now how do we do this experiment in real? Can we have /any/ test
   body which is far away from any other body, so that there are /no/
   forces acting on the test body? If not, then how can we be assured
   about the validity of the first law?

6. Though we often now make fun of theories like phlogiston, caloric
   or aether, they were actually successful to some degree in their
   day and were believed by reasonable people. (Maxwell once said that
   the aether theory was the best confirmed in all science.) The
   physical world somehow or other contributed to the production of
   these rational, but false, beliefs. How is it that a (physical)
   world that contains no phlogiston, caloric, or aether can somehow
   be responsible for bringing about the phlogiston, caloric, and
   aether theories?

August 6, 2010August 22, 2023 The Mitr

Seeing Red

Recently I came across a book called Seeing Red by H. Arp.
The book questions the fundamental ideas in the Big Bang Cosmology.
The basic idea that is questioned is that the Distance-redshift relation; that
is the more redshift and object has more distant it is from us. This idea forms
the bedrock on which the Big Bang Theory rests. So questioning this idea is out
of question for the Big Bang theorists. But even when an observation occurs which
does not confirm these ideas, it is so to speak, swept under the carpet, literally. When
the data confirms the beliefs that they hold; namely the theory; then the instrument is
working fine, when it does not, it is noise; the instrument is faulty.

Also it points out in the red tapism in the scientific community, where one follows
the leader or gets isolated, as is the case with Arp. The opaqueness in the `peer review’
process is higlighted by numerous examples which arp cites in his interactions with
editors and referees for the prestigious journals in Astronomy. The very value of democratic
process in science is under question, so are the naive ideas of Popper who thought that scientists
always try to falsify their own theories. Here it seems it is the opposite case, with scientists
trying to suppress the observations which contradict with their own pet theories, by all
possible means, most of them un-ethical for a scientist, at least in theory. Along with the
journals, the conferences are also exposed, in which only the already set theories are entertained
with no data which questions the popular theories are allowed to be shown, which is the very
spirit of science. When every thing else fails the integrity of the person is under question.

The last chapter is a must read for all students of science.
Here are some of the quotes from the text:

Quotes from Seeing Red

**
09
“No matter how conclusive the evidence, we have the power to
minimize and suppress it.”

   12
   Scientists, particularly at the most prestigious institutions, regularly suppress and ridicule findings
   which contradict their current theories and assumptions.

   The average astronomer, however, would look at them and start to
   argue that they must be accidental, because astronomers now feel
   compelled to fit the observations to the theory and not vice versa.

   13
   But no matter how intimidatingly complex the calculation, no
   matter how small the probability of accident may be, the
   calculation does not tell you whether the result is true or not. In
   fact, no matter how significant the number is, scientists won’t
   believe if they don’t want to.

   14
   A reasonable response would be to notice such a case and say,
   “If I see a few more cases like this I will have to believe it is
   real.” Most astronomers say, “This violates proven physics
   [i.e. their assumptions] and therefore must be invalid. After all,
   no matter how improbable, it is only one case.”

17
The paper was also testimony to the fact that sensible analysis
of observations was being blocked and ignored, while the high
profile journals were submerged with a flood of elaborations of
incorrect assumptions which prevented anyone from remembering
anything important for more than a few years.

The establishment always confuses data with theories.

Clearly, the main purpose of these “review of the theory talks” was
to fix firmly in everyone’s mind what the party line was so that all
observations could be interpreted properly.

Shortly thereafter, the Space Telescope Science Institute
announced it was suspending the amateur program because it was “too
great a strain on its expert personnel.”

Professionals start out with a theory and only see those details
which can be interpreted in terms of that theory.

The reason the point is so sensitive is that the influential people
in the field know what the observations portend, but they are too
deeply committed to go back. The result will surely be to inexorably
push academic science toward a position akin to that of the medieval
church. But if that is the evolutionarily necessary solution, then
perhaps we should hasten the process of replacing the present system
with a more effective mode of doing science.

“Well I know you can’t be right, but I will help you where I can.”

Martin Elvis from the Cambridge Center for Astrophysics (CFA)
jumped up and said, “That’s noise.” I argued that you could see that
it was not noise.

One thing has been accomplished, though. I now understand what
should be called the statistics of nihilism. It can be reduced to a
very simple axiom: “No matter how many times something new has been
observed, it cannot be believed until it has been observed again.” I
have also reduced my attitude toward this form of statistics to an
axiom: “No matter how bad a thing you say about it, it is not bad
enough.”

“If you are wrong it doesn’t make any difference, if you are right it
is enormously important.”

175

I feel very strongly about what happened and I want to make my
position clear: Astrophysical Journal Letters is the normal journal
for publishing new observations from the Hubble Space Telescope. The
telescope cost billions of dollars of public funds. The vast
majority of page charges which pay for the publication of the
journal come from government supported contracts. The overriding,
first directive of the editor is to communicate important new
astronomical results. If the editorial process violates its primary
responsibility, it misuses public funds.

261

But the fatal flaw, it seems to me, is that people who are
interested in power are spurred by emotions which interfere with
their reason.

May 10, 2010August 22, 2023 The Mitr

Azlan Shah Cup 2010

Well so far so good.
We are the defending champions in the Azlan Shah Hockey tournament for 2010.
Last year we won it, I wrote a post about that here.

This years things aren’t looking bad either.

Our matches so far:

Thursday, May 6
China v India
India drew 1-1

Friday, May 7
Pakistan v India
India won 4-1

Sunday, May 9
South Korea v India
India won 3-2

Update 01:

Monday, May 10
Australia v India
India won 4-3

Yes! We did it!! Finally !!!
Forthcoming

Wednesday, May 12
India v Malaysia
India Lost 5 – 2

Saturday, May 15
India v Egypt
India won 7-1

Lets see how the results are and hope for the best.

Update:
From the official website: http://www.azlanshahcup.com

MEDIA RELEASE
Due to bad weather, the final between India and Korea was abandoned after 6 minutes and 14 seconds minutes of play. And after discussions and consultations beyween the Tournament Director Paul Richards, the Organising Committee, with the consent of His Royal Highness Sultan Azlan Shah decided that India ad Korea will be joint champions for the 19th edition of the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup. Both teams will receive 11 champions medals and arrangements will be made to send another 11 champions medals to both countries by the Organising Committee.
This is the 5th title for India and 2nd for Korea. And since the inception of the Azlan Shah Cup, this is the first time that teams have been declared joint champions.

So this year also we are the champs!!

May 6, 2010August 22, 2023 The Mitr

Anonymous Stranger

Last month I has a strange experience with a anonymous stranger.
I call the person anonymous is because the identity of that person is not known to me. I received a SMS which has some riddle like lines..
This led to an exchange of SMS which I am reporting here.
This is a monologue, which some people in the past have accused me of doing, for the reason that `Save sent msgs’ function is disabled on my phone. So feel free to fill in the in between SMS on my side, where you want to

It all started with these two messages from this number 902856xxxx
[The numbers at the beginning are YEAR:MONTH:DAY:HOURS:MINUTES]

2010:04:14:00:46: Yews over unwilling. Restless elated yet. Elated sumer amply relumes each..
2010:04:14:16:36: Each Not Chancing His Arrival Not To Ingenuity Not Green

I tried to call, then all other SMS came from this number, when 909612xxxx

2010:04:14:20:31: Dont dont dont call.. Look what happens when you do.. Now i have to text you from this number..
2010:04:15:20:35: so i assume you could not decipher the first two text s code
2010:04:16:21:15: Ok lets take it this way.. If you dont want me to text give me a missed and if you want dont react.. I highly suspect we have the prevalence of the former here.. So please go ahead..
2010:04:16:22:05: You know you are like pepin but of course in only your stubborn and nonchalant ways..
2010:04:17:09:41: Finally.. Not that i know what s m means but still its porgress.. Did you decode?
2010:04:17:09:47: Attitude.. It like it.. Infact i think you should patent it.. For obvious reasons you know..
2010:04:17:10:01: Ok now amit s again become pepin.. Tell me are my text so loathable or its just you..
2010:04:17:11:27: Ok so my texts are not good and you are intended upon talking in monosyllables.. At least we agree on one thing.. Its progress again..
2010:04:17:14:07: didnt intend upon disturbin bt i texted n it ws nt deleverin so i thought i hav troubled u 2 d extend of switchin off ur phone..wanted 2 ask if u really dont like.. I wont text.?
2010:04:17:14:11: Yea i know you want to say ‘your wish’.. cos i started.. But seriously you can say bluntly..
2010:04:17:14:16: Oh regarding choice between texting or not texting or something more difficult..
2010:04:17:14:22: Ah.. Thats what i meant by difficult.. No nothing.. Nothin at all infact.. Lets save us both some messages.. You : then why are you texting me. Me : nothing particular but i ll stop the moment you tell me to.. you: ….. Me : oks… Now you can complete..
2010:04:17:14:25: Flattered..
2010:04:17:14:25: At least pepin thinks i m worth hmmm s..
2010:04:17:14:28: Ok then.. Do think.. Do what you rmind says.. What is it saying now..
2010:04:17:14:36: Ok forget if you dont want to answer.. Or still wordless.?
2010:04:17:14:43: Come on pepin.. Ok dont try to know your mind. Its complex.. Ask me who has been trying to extract replys from you all week..
2010:04:17:14:45: Oh god.. Will you ever reply without me asking you a question..
2010:04:17:14:53: He was french dictator.. Reminds of you..
2010:04:17:14:59: Angry?
2010:04:17:15:02: Hmmm.. So you know him..
2010:04:17:15:13: Cute.. but dont know try to know him personaly.. not a nice guy..
2010:04:17:15:17: Why not.. I know all dictators personally..
2010:04:17:15:19: Ok.. Who s your ideal person.. O mean you admire the ideas of whom,, Somebody i would know..
2010:04:17:15:26: Lets see if i am a physicist if would like chandrashekhar or einstein or stephen hawking.. Read breif hostory of time? Its beautiful..
2010:04:17:15:30: Come on pepin… Say na..
2010:04:17:15:34: Khan
2010:04:17:15:38: ?
2010:04:17:15:44: Yeah y him.. He was worse than pepin.. Are you kidding..
2010:04:17:15:58: Please talk in more than one word.. Its difficult you know..
2010:04:17:16:30: Kay zhala..
2010:04:17:16:33: :-).. Am i very boring.. Yes you are interesting..
2010:04:17:16:55: That means yes?
2010:04:17:17:02: That is because you.. No first answer.. Am i really boring..
2010:04:17:17:03: Or moderately so..
2010:04:17:17:19: At least yes or no..
2010:04:17:17:24: Can you know if you ll talk to me..
2010:04:17:17:25: Did you realise this was your longest sentence
2010:04:17:17:26: No.. I m otherwise very boring.. Its better on text..
2010:04:17:17:27: Yup.. Your highness is gettin better..
2010:04:17:17:31: No.. I m otherwise very boring.. Its better on text..
2010:04:17:17:32: Yup.. Your highness is gettin better..
2010:04:17:17:35: You feelin it.? Because for me its like.. Come on girl.. Come up with something cool..
2010:04:17:17:48: The signal is bad here.. Airtel sucks.. And what else s going on..
2010:04:17:17:50: Ok mr pepin but please say more that two words..
2010:04:17:17:51: Okay chose one.. Sea or moutain.. Orange or red.. Cat or dog..
2010:04:17:17:54: Afraid? Of what 🙂 I have given up on studies.. How s your ph d going..
2010:04:17:17:59: No silly.. Given up means going okay okay..
2010:04:17:18:00: Y u got married..
2010:04:17:18:00: Sounding so sad like hmmm..
2010:04:17:18:02: Okay chose one.. Sea or mountain.. orange or red.. Cat or dog..
2010:04:17:18:04: Sea or moutain..
2010:04:17:18:05: Cat or dog..
2010:04:17:18:05: Yaar amit i dont know.. Y would otherwise i ask you..
2010:04:17:18:10: Ok.. You are somebosy who gets angry unexpectedly, likes travelling, loyal to very very limited people and.. Okay select one.. Eyes or nose..
2010:04:17:18:12: And think what people are from inside is more mp that what people look..
2010:04:17:18:13: .Am i correct or wrong. What percent
2010:04:17:18:24: You know this is what is unexpected.. The moment i think you are ok you become cold again.. Ok you only say since my talks are vague apparently
2010:04:17:18:27: Your game.?
2010:04:17:18:30: Cute but.. Anyways..
2010:04:17:18:32: Its just too early… And by the way mr pepin my knowing your identity is default.. And playing games.. Not my cup of tea
2010:04:17:18:33: Well you r naive.. Lets assume for the moment what you said was cute..
2010:04:17:18:35: Ok then it is.. Do you realise.. One sms includes more than sixty char nad you use just two of them.. National wastage..
2010:04:17:18:35: Ok fav author..?
2010:04:17:18:36: Coffee.?
2010:04:17:18:38: Amit say na..
2010:04:17:18:40: Say one.. You are such a spoilsport..
2010:04:17:18:45: Yeah since i am an expert on abbreviations that one beats me..
2010:04:17:18:47: Ok..
2010:04:17:18:51: Kay zhala again?
2010:04:17:19:10: So what does sm really mean
2010:04:17:19:11: No say na..
2010:04:17:19:12: Come on say na
2010:04:17:19:14: I understood that pepin.. But justified enough.. I m keeping my share of identity so you can keep your sm to yourself..
2010:04:17:19:16: No my initials are not that.. But whats that.. Where did you get it from..
2010:04:17:19:17: No ad they are not my initials..
2010:04:17:19:19: No.. Come on.. I m hidin.. Will not lie..
2010:04:17:19:21: Yeah.. I really dont know where you are getting that from but do tell me..
2010:04:17:19:21: Say na whats sm
2010:04:17:19:24: And you hav
e appeal for..?
2010:04:17:19:25: Seriously..
2010:04:17:19:27: No not why not at all.. Cool..
2010:04:17:19:33: Kay zhaka again?
2010:04:17:19:38: Ok.. Will text you once i am in a position to disclose my identity.. Take care..

I really don’t know what sense to make out of all this…

May 1, 2010August 22, 2023 The Mitr

Moving Images from Vietnam

April 5, 2010August 22, 2023 The Mitr

A long due rant…

Writing after a long time…

A long overdue rant…
Now a days I find a lot of hoo-halah going on about saving energy for a greener future and all that. They say it is the need of the hour. I don’t disagree with them. But there are somethings which are basically wrong in implementing the saving electricity in the current norms. Saving electricity would also mean, not to use it when it is not really needed. I will elaborate a bit on what I mean.

Rich get to eat, the [little bit] less rich do not…

I live in Mumbai, the erstwhile Bombay. Maharashtra is facing an acute shortage of power, they tell us. But Mumbai, being the financial capital of the country, needs to be lighted up, 24×7, 365 times in a year. I am told that people here can pay for the electricity that they use, it is much more needed here. Do they mean people elsewhere in the state cannot pay and they do not need energy? They do pay, and they do need energy too. Then why this bias, against the people who are not in Mumbai. Whereas Mumbai gets an UPS, the Un-interrupted Power Supply, the other cities are getting the IPS, not the Indian Police Service, but the Interrupted Power Supply. Ok. Granted that Mumbai is the financial hub and needs to be powered 24×7, but are people in Mumbai even bothered about the kind of power that they waste. Compare this with 12 and 14 hrs of load shedding in the villages. The entire life cycle of people there is now regulated by the cycle of load shedding. They need to water their farms in the night, as during day time there is no electricity for them to use.

Power in Mumbai is wasted because, they can afford to waste it, they know it has an UPS. In similar logic none of the metros should suffer, but this does not happen. All others except Mumbai suffer.

And what happens in Mumbai, huge billboards, flashing the products of corporate houses are lighted through the night. Why the hell should other common people suffer, in distant lands, so that the corporates can show off their products in the night time. Having the billboards itself is an eyesore across the city. A billboard bathing in flood lights is like poking the eyesore. Just shut the lights off the billboards. This is sheer lavish way of spending the sparse energy way we have. Another similar phenomena is the lighting that is put up on the hotels and shops and the neon signs on the building. Needless to say are the customers moths, who go to neon-lighted stores? And during Diwali and New Year times this particular phenomena reaches the peak. Just get over it.

And the ACs. They say 40% of the total power is consumed by the ACs. Most of the office buildings are dotted with ACs. The more you have better it is supposed to be. Are they must? Throughout the year? Maybe sometimes the heat is unbearable but isn’t weather in Mumbai ever good enough that we can just survive on humble old ceiling fan? Many of the so called modern constructions, especially buildings with glass faces are worst of the lot. They just lock the heat, making it a green house, which makes it harder to cool adding to the energy woes. This might be a good design for the Europeans and Americans but for us is it? Since the Europeans were tie and coat, we also do, and it is considered to be elite. Whether it suits our weather conditions or not is another issue altogether, about which few bother…

The centralized AC does not provide any flexibility to the end users, whether they want such conditioned air or not. It is just imposed upon them. The temperature is kept less than what you would find comfortable at 17 or 18 C. Then people who are working inside wear warm clothes; sweaters, jackets, caps and all the woollens. Is this rational? First you cool the place, so much that it becomes unbearably cold, then you put on clothes to get warm again! I was told that at an elite academic institute, the temperatures are so low, that users had to put electrical heaters, below their chairs, in order to be able to work, apart from the woollens and jackets!!

Mighty Magnificent Malls…

They say that so-so mall is the largest in Asia. This one has so-so features, this one has so many stores blah blah blah… To tell you the truth, all the malls I have visited across the country look the same to me. I mean from outside they may have varied designs, but from inside they are all the same. And why shouldn’t they be, they all serve just one purpose. Selling. And selling to you. In this case the form differs [at least externally], but the function remains the same. And what do these offer. Well almost all the malls offer the same things. They are statistically similar objects. I mean here and there, there will be variations, but on an average, they are all the same. They are also same for another reason, they are the most obscene wastage of scanty electrical power that we have. The entire mall is air-conditioned, they tell you! What the efff? Just think about how much power must be fed to the AC plant to cool such a huge place. And that too for what? So that some shopkeepers [mostly corporates] can sell their stuff to you! And you are paying the price, by purchasing the items in the mall. Why can’t they just keep the shops, air conditioned, that will surely save a lot of energy. Why the hell do you need the corridors, open spaces and the toilets air conditioned? Then they have escalators too. Are all of us too old to climb a few stairs? The normal stairs are hidden somewhere in the huge complex of the magnificent mall. So that they make it a point that you have to use the escalators!
One of the ways in which this can be salvaged somehow is that, each mall must keep one day in a week off. This will surely take some load off the main line.

Another point that I want to make is the sports matches. Why cannot we have all the matches in broad daylight? I think daylight, on a normal cloudless day is good enough for any sport. Are the players afraid of getting sun tan? I don’t think so. Just to fill coffers of a few, we are again spending our precious electrical energy on these activities, which can be easily avoided.

Smarter buildings and homes…

We now live in a digital society. By that I mean almost all of us are surrounded by electronic devices. Even if you think you are not a tech freak, which I am, just count the number of electronic devices you use daily. It can be cell phone, a music player, a digital camera, a handy cam, a computer, a laptop. The list will be different for you, but the same story is repeated almost with everyone. Now when you have so many devices, they need power to work. Alright most of them have a rechargeable set of batteries, which you can charge and use. And then for each of these devices, you have an adapter, which you have to put in the mains to use. The mains in India is at 230 V AC, most of the devices, that I use at least, are working at much lower DC voltages 3, 5, 9 and 12 V being the common ones. The adapters covert the AC of the mains line to DC. This is basically a step down transformer with a bridge rectifier. Now what happens to the excess power from the mains? This is just lost as heat to the ambient! How hot does your charger get at times? Now that we have so many devices which require DC power supply, won’t it be a logical solution to provide for a DC power line also. This will save so much power from the mains, being just used to heat the adapter. The power requirement [read wattage] of the DC line won’t be high. So this need not be even provided by the state. One can have independent inputs for each building. Fixing solar panelson the terrace, and then driving the DC line through these panels will an effective way. The new buildings that are coming up, can be made mandatory to have this structure. This will achieve two goals, as I see it. First one, it will make the load on the main line, by at least some amount. If you just take the cell phones, they say there are more
than 10 crore of them in India. Each one of them charges the other day, and this continues throughout the year. Even with a small wattage requirement for charging of just one cell phone, when scaled to a national level, the number is rather large. And then we say we don’t have enough power. The second one is that it will make the users independent producers of their own power. The initial cost maybe high, but in the long run, this will certainly pay off.

Some of the chargers, adapters that I have.

Apart from devices mentioned above, don’t think that your regular desktop computer is not wasting any power. Any regular desktop has a SMPS [Switched Mode Power Supply]. These are really devices which are the adapters for your desktop. They take in 230 V AC and convert it to 12 and 5 V DC supply. With CRT monitors it was almost impossible to have a complete DC system for desktop computers. But now with LCD and LED monitors, we can have a complete DC machine architecture. When you are using the normal UPS on a desktop machine, you are triply wasting power. First when you are converting 230 V AC to the 12 V DC in the battery [most of the UPS that I have seen have a12 V DC battery] in the UPS batteries. Secondly when the mains is off you are coverting 12 V DC into 230 V AC. Thirdly then you again convert this 230 V AC, which you have just now converted from a 12 V DC, to 5 and 12 V DC. Great! And this is how you want to achieve efficiency. Simple solutions to basic problems like these can cause a lot of energy to be saved…

Now I will divulge a bit from what I have said till now. Now the theme is a bit different…

The Problem of Vidharbha…

I come from Vidharbha, the land in the central part of India. The Eastern part of Maharastra. And also the powerhouse for the state. Most of the thermal power plants are in Vidharbha. The plight of people here is the worst. With so many power plants around, the region still faces acute shortage of power. The reason, the rest of the state has to be supplied the power. And mind you most of the ministers of the state are not from Vidharbha, so the people here are in the bottom of the priority list. Just remember the suicide of the farmers and what the state has done about it.
In my last visit I could see a paradoxical situation, which has been etched on my mind. I saw a thermal power plant, burning all its coal, giving out all its steam, producing all its electricity and transfering it all to the main power lines. But… But from where I was standing and watching this huge power plant fully in operation, there was no power. The load shedding was ON. The irony was that one could watch the power being generated in the plant, but it was not for the people whose land, air and water were polluted, it was for the elite people in the West…

October 12, 2009August 22, 2023 The Mitr

Love, but know not why

Love not me for comely grace,
For my pleasing eye or face,
Nor for any outward part;
No, nor for my constant heart:
For those may fail or turn ill, —
So thou and I shall sever.

Keep therefore a true woman’s eye,
And love me still, but know not why:
So hast thou the same reason still
To doat upon me ever.

– Anonymous