For a particular project, I had a requirement that the text be coloured as well as underlined. Now making text underlined in LaTeX has a default support in the form of \underline{text}, which simply produces an underlined text.
But what if you want to customise the underlining, for example, change the thickness of the underline, or its distance from the text baseline. Or simply you might want to have a different colour for the underline. There are several packages which allow you to customise this exact requirement.
For the present post I will choose the soul package which has some other goodies for typesetting as well. You can load the package with \usepackage{soul} Along with underlining, you have have strikeout and highlight. To setup the underline, soul package gives three options, underline depth, underline thickness and underline colour (page 12-13 of the package documentation).
You can set this in the preamble
\setul{⟨underline depth⟩}{⟨underline thickness⟩}
It is recommended that the units of these lengths are in ex, so that they are relative to the font size. For example,
\setul{0.3ex}{0.1ex}
To use it in the document \ul{underlined text} will produce
Another option is to set the colour of the underline. This can be done with
\setulcolor{gray}
With this option, the above code will look like
The color option can be changed anywhere in the document, so you can have change of colours as required. Defining in the preamble has a universal effect.
So far so good. Now in this case I wanted the underlined text to be of different colour. For this one can define a newcommand with text colour option.
A photo taken at eye of the Mooi River. I wish I had taken perhaps hundreds of photos, but alas I have only a few.
Whenever I go to an interesting place or look at something interesting, I try to take photos. Though recently in last couple of years this has gone down a bit. But now that I have a camera phone, I try to make up for it. When I am in the process of taking photos, I try to take as many angles and frames as possible. And at that time, it seems whatever photos I have taken are enough or sometimes even think that they are more than sufficient. All the angles and frames are covered. I try to take macro shots if its an object, and some full frame shots. And I am actually satisfied with the quality and quantity of the photos at that moment. And I smugly leave subjecting that subject to further assaults of the camera lens.
But then, when I look at the photos again, I realise that I have taken too few! I then realise a few more photos could have been better, maybe this frame or this angle is missing. And then I despair. While it would have made sense in the era of film cameras, to conserve the film, in the era of the digital, the preview makes it possible for us to delete something which was not good. So you can spend slightly more on experimenting with the photos. But alas, I still have hard time convincing myself that I have not taken enough photos, and always end up taking too few..
This is an interesting account of Nagpur state from late eighteenth century. It is part of a small book titled Journal Of A Route To Nagpore by Daniel Robinson Leckie. I have taken some liberty to replace the long s typeset as f with regular s. For example, coft is cost. Some of the names are in archaic English but one can make sense of the them. For example Peshwa is Paishwah. This account shows the extent of the Rajah of Nagpore’s territories as well as some peculiarities of the region. Some of the places that are mentioned are the fortifications, palace, Jumma Talao, Sakkardarah etc. The account also has a short, somewhat incorrect, history of the house of the Bhoslas. Leckie says the Nagpur Bhoslas were descended from Shivaji’s house which clearly was not the case. Also there are remarks on the current affairs of the Nagpur state with the Peshwa in Pune and Chatrapati in Satara.
ACCOUNT OF NAGPORE,
&c. &c.
NAGPORE, situated in 79º 46′ east longitude from Greenwich, and 21º 49′ north latitude, is the present capital of Gondwauna1, a name little known to Europeans, perhaps owing to the remote situation of it from our settlements, and the Rauj2 of that name having been dismembered before we possessed any territory in India, at which time the comparatively confined state of the affairs of the Company did not lead to geographical inquiries.
I have taken no small degree of pains to ascertain the boundaries of Gondwauna; and though I will not pretend to say that the information I have procured is in every respect: exact, yet it may serve to give a general idea of the extent of the country.
It is not amiss to observe, that the people of this place are by no means communicative, and very circumspedt in giving information, particularly to Europeans, and it has cost me no small degree of trouble to collect what trifling information this account contains.
Gondwauna is bounded on the north-east; by an imaginary line, drawn from the town of Belhare to the city of Ruttunpoor; on the south-east by such another imaginary line, drawn from Ruttunpoor through the village of Soormul (situated about five coss to the north-east of Nurrah, which last is laid down in the map), to the junction of the Oordah and Beingunga rivers; on the south-wedt by the Oordah (Wadha) river; and pn the north-east by that chain of mountains which separates it from Malwa.
When Gondwauna was partly reduced by Aulumgwer, he obliged a great number of the natives together with the Rajah, to embrace the Mahomedan religion ; and the country remained for a series of years in this situation, the Rajah paying a fort of homage to the Moghul, as lord paramount : when, in the beginning of the present century, Ragojee Bhooshla, descended from the great Sevagi, reduced the greatest part of Gondwauna, to the south of the Nurbudda, with the province of Berar. The lenity with which he treated the Gonde Rajah deserves particular mention, as it shows a trait of humanity in the Merhattahs worthy of the highest pitch of civilization. He not only abstained from all forts of personal violence, but allotted three lachs of rupees annually for the Gonde Rajah’s maintenance, and the fort for him to live in, by no means as a confinement. Burhaun Shah, the son of the conquered Rajah, has still handsome allowances, and the fort to live in ; and the confidence which the late Moodajee placed in him was great: for what could be a greater mark of it in the East, than putting his family and women under his charge when he went upon any warlike expedition? which he constantly did.
Ragojee was the founder of Nagpore, which he surrounded with a rampart, it being only an insignificant village appertaining to the fort prior to his capture of it. It is situated oh a high plain, is richly cultivated, and produces fine wheat, and bounded by hills to the north- west and south. The Nag Nudde, a rivulet running to the southward, gives name to the town.
The houses are generally meanly built and covered with tiles, and the streets are narrow and filthy. The only good building is the palace, begun by the late Moodajee, and now finishing by his fon, the present Rajah ; it is built of a blue done dug out of a quarry in large blocks on the western skirts of the town. The present Rajah, however, has destroyed the grand effect which would have been produced by the stone alone, by intermixing brick-work in the building. There is a very large and deep3 tank near the west gate, called Jumma Tallow, three sides of which are handsomely built up with masonry ; and the Rajah has a foundery to the southward of the town, called Shukerderri, where he calls tolerably good brass guns. There, with some few gardens of the Rajah’s, neatly laid out in walks planted with cypress-trees, and interspersed with fountains, are the only places of note at Nagpore.
It should appear that Major Rennell (Memoir, second edition, 4to. page 12) is not perfectly clear with regard to the idea he has formed of the Merhattah state, that all the chiefs owe a fort of obedience to the Paishwah, resembling that of the German Princes to the Emperor. The account I heard from the Dewaun4 in the Durbar5 was,
But the fine extensive country which the Paishwah occupies, together with the advantage of playing the Sattarah puppet, will always give him influence with the other chiefs.
“That there is a person whom they call the representative of the Rauj, who is kept in the fort of Sattarah, and he is treated with all imaginable respect when he makes his appearance at Poonah, which is only upon particular occassions ; and when at Sattarah he is supplied with every luxury, and magnificently attended. On the demise of this image of government the handsome son of some poor man is chosen to supply his room. The Paishwah is prime minister to the Merhattah state; the Rajah of Nagpore, &c. commander in chief of the armies ; and they, as well as the rest of the chiefs, call themselves. servants of the Rauj; and none acknowledges the least immediate authority of the Paishwah, but they are all bound in cafes of necessity to render mutual assistance to each other, for the public good of the constitution.’’
The present Rajah, Rogojee Bhooshla, the grandson of the Conqueror (Ragojee the first was succeeded by his eldest son, Jannojee who was succeeded by his brother Sabage, who was slain in battle by Moodajee, the father of the. present Rajah. I have not the particulars their histories) does not seem to be either adapted to civil or military business ; he is generally dressed plainly in white, but wears costly diamonds and pearls; his behaviour is courteous to strangers. His great penchant is for elephants and mares. He has about 200 of the former, the finest; I ever beheld; and they are fed so sumptuously with sugar-cane, treacle, ghee, &c.. and not unfrequently fowl pallow, that they become almost mad with lust, breaking their chains and doing great mischief, which is considered by the Merhattahs as fine sport. The principal people about the Rajah are, his brother, Munnea Bapoo, a very quiet young man; Bhowaunny Caulloo, the Dewaun, a shrewd old fellow, and his nephew, Pondrang, the commander and paymaster of the army; Siree Dhur, the Monshee; and Mahadajee Leshkery, the Rajah’s confident, who is consulted on all occasions.
The Rajah does not keep up above 10,000 horse, the pay of which, as is the custom among all native princes, is irregularly distributed. He has two battalions of Sepoys, armed and clothed like ours ; and although they have been drilled by black officers, formerly belonging either to the Nabob of Lucknow, or our service, yet they go through their exercise very badly, and I do not think they will be able to make a stand against any body of native Sepoys disciplined by European officers.
I have heard that the total collections of the Rajah’s dominions, including Ruttunpore and Cuttae, only amount to seventy lacks of rupees per annum. I will not, however, pretend to affirm that this is exact though I do not think it can much exceed that sum; for the Rajah’s country, notwithstanding the great extent of it, does not contain a proportionable quantity of cultivated land to that which is waste and occupied by forests.
It is generally supposed that Nagpore is the capital of Berar. This is evidently a mistake. The inhabitants of Nagpore talk relatively of Berar as an adjoining province, as we do of Bahar to Bengal; and it has been shown that Nagpore is a city of late date. Elichpour is the capital of Berar, by the accounts I have received from the natives, who represent it as a very ancient city, and much larger than Nagpore.
A custom prevails in this town, which I cannot forbear taking notice of, because it serves to prove that long usage will give a plausibility to things seemingly the most preposterous. The bramins and best people at Nagpore have women attendants upon their families, whom they breed up from their childhood, and are called Butkies, or Slauls. They attend on their masters and mistresses during the day-time, and are permitted to go to any man they please in the night; some of them become very rich, and they are in general very handsome, fine women.
Looking at this vast natural drama from their observation posts on the minute planet Earth as it revolves around the insignificant star called the sun, a handful of astronomers seek to gain an understanding of the cosmos. Using instruments constructed from materials found on their planet, they follow the activities in space from their observatories and launch rocket-borne telescopes from Earth. Some people confuse them with astrologers, but astronomers reject all such notions of kinship; others look up to them because their thoughts and ideas move in realms beyond the imagination of those of us engaged in everyday activities. Their work brings them a step closer to creation, at least to the creation of the uninhabited world, but they are sober scientists who do not attempt to adduce ethical norms from the phenomena they observe. Their involvement with cosmic matters does not make them better human beings. They are not motivated solely by a dedication to greater knowledge. As is true of other segments of human society, thoughts of competition and career advancement enter into their calculations; quite a few discoveries grew out of just such considerations. Yet this is not to deny, as we shall learn, that we find among them a passion for knowledge and much friendly cooperation. The fruit of their research is the work of human beings and as such is often imperfect, even erroneous. But despite setbacks the course of the science of astronomy, beginning with the Babylonians and culminating in modern astrophysics, has led ever forward.
What is naïve realism you may ask? To put simply naïve realism is a belief that whatever you see with your senses is the reality. There is nothing more to reality than what your sense perceptions bring to you. It is a direct unmediated access to reality. There is no “interpretation” involved.
In philosophy of perception and philosophy of mind, naïve realism (also known as direct realism, perceptual realism, or common sense realism) is the idea that the senses provide us with direct awareness of objects as they really are. When referred to as direct realism, naïve realism is often contrasted with indirect realism.
To put this in other words, naïve realism fails to distinguish between the phenomenal and the physical object. That is to say, all there is to the world is how we perceive it, nothing more.
Bertrand Russel gave a one line proof of why naïve realism is false. And this is the topic of this post. Also, the proof has some implications for science education, hence the interest.
Naive realism leads to physics, and physics, if true, shows that naive realism is false. Therefore naive realism, if true, is false; therefore it is false.
As quoted in Mary Henle – On the Distinction Between the Phenomenal and the Physical Object, John M. Nicholas (ed.), Images, Perception, and Knowledge, 187-193. (1977)
Henle in her rather short essay (quoted above) on this makes various philosophically oriented arguments to show that it is an easier position to defend when we make a distinction between the two.
But considering the “proof” of Russel, I would like to bring in evidence from science education which makes it even more compelling. There is a very rich body of literature on the theme of misconceptions or alternative conceptions among students and even teachers. Many of these arise simply because of a direct interpretation of events and objects around us.
Consider a simple example of Newton’s first law of motion.
In an inertial frame of reference, an object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by a force.
Now for the naïve realists this will never be possible, as they will never see an object going by itself without application of any force. In real world, friction will bring to halt bodies which are moving. Similar other examples from the misconceptions also do fit in this pattern. This is perhaps so because most of the science is counter-intuitive in nature. With our simple perception we can only do a limited science (perhaps create empirical laws). So one can perhaps say that learners with alternative conceptions hold naïve realist world-view (to some degree) and the role of science education is to change this.
Orwellian Days
To the Editor:
These are Orwellian days when war is peace and a xxx per cent national unemployment is a rising economy. Yet despite this deranged logic, there is more to be concerned about on the national scene, and that is the casual acceptance by the populace of almost every conceivable immoral or unethical practice on the part of the Administration. Whether it be the I.T.T. scandal, the Watergate bugging, the wheat deal or the bombing of civilians, it all seems to be accepted with a shrug. All this is ample evidence that we have died spiritually, and we are ready for totalitarianism. I remember once a high administration official was fired for accepting an overcoat as a gift.
Gordon Fels
Richmond, Oct. 16, 1972
What if someone told you that learners in high-school don’t actually need calculus as a compulsory subject for a career in STEM? Surely I would disagree. After all, without calculus how will they understand many of the topics in the STEM. For example basic Newtonian mechanics? Another line of thought that might be put forth is that calculus allows learners to develop an interest in mathematics and pursue it as a career. But swell, nothing could be farther from truth. From what I have experienced there are two major categories of students who take calculus in high school. The first category would be students who are just out of wits about calculus, its purpose and meaning. They just see it as another infliction upon them without any significance. They struggle with remembering the formulae and will just barely pass the course (and many times don’t). These students hate mathematics, calculus makes it worse. Integration is opposite of differentiation: but why teach it to us?
The other major category of students is the one who take on calculus but with a caveat. They are the ones who will score in the 80s and 90s in the examination, but they have cracked the exam system per se. And might not have any foundational knowledge of calculus. But someone might ask how can one score 95/100 and still not have foundational knowledge of the subject matter? This is the way to beat the system. These learners are usually drilled in solving problems of a particular type. It is no different than chug and slug. They see a particular problem – they apply a rote learned method to solve it and bingo there is a solution. I have seen students labour “problem sets” — typically hundreds of problems of a given type — to score in the 90s in the papers. This just gives them the ability to solve typical problems which are usually asked in the examinations. Since the examination does not ask for questions based on conceptual knowledge – it never gets tested. Perhaps even their teachers if asked conceptual questions will not be able to handle them — it will be treated like a radioactive waste and thrown out — since it will be out of syllabus.
There is a third minority (a real minority, and may not be real!, this might just be wishful thinking) who will actually understand the meaning and significance of the conceptual knowledge, and they might not score in the 90s. They might take a fancy for the subject due to calculus but the way syllabus is structured it is astonishing that any students have any fascination left for mathematics. Like someone had said: the fascination for mathematics cannot be taught it must be caught. And this is exactly what MAA and NCTM have said in their statement about dropping calculus from high-school.
What the members of the mathematical community—especially those in the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM)—have known for a long time is that the pump that is pushing more students into more advanced mathematics ever earlier is not just ineffective: It is counter-productive. Too many students are moving too fast through preliminary courses so that they can get calculus onto their high school transcripts. The result is that even if they are able to pass high school calculus, they have established an inadequate foundation on which to build the mathematical knowledge required for a STEM career. (emphasis added)
The problem stems from the fact that the foundational topics which are prerequisites for calculus are on shaky grounds. No wonder anything build on top of them is not solid. I remember having very rudimentary calculus in college chemistry, when it was not needed and high-flying into physical meaning of derivatives in physics which was not covered enough earlier. There is a certain mismatch between the expectations from the students and their actual knowledge of the discipline as they come to college from high-school.
Too many students are being accelerated, short-changing their preparation in and knowledge of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and other precalculus topics. Too many students experience a secondary school calculus course that drills on the techniques and procedures that will enable them to successfully answer standard problems, but are never challenged to encounter and understand the conceptual foundations of calculus. Too many students arrive at college Calculus I and see a course that looks like a review of what they learned the year before. By the time they realize that the expectations of this course are very different from what they had previously experienced, it is often too late to get up to speed.
Though they conclude that with enough solid conceptual background in these prerequisites it might be beneficial for the students to have a calculus course in the highschool.
Many people have written on the problem of what is taught in schools and why children don’t like what they study. One of the major issue seems to be there is no direct relevance to what children are taught in the school and their own personal and social lives. The content in the school textbooks has been dissected of any meaningful connections that the children could make in their real lives. The school tasks are decontextualised so that they become insulated from the real world. The quote below very nicely captures what I wanted to say on this issue.
These kinds of situated-learning tasks are different from most school tasks, because school tasks are decontextualized. Imagine learning tennis by being told the rules and practicing the forehand, backhand, and serve without ever playing or seeing a tennis match. If tennis were taught that way, it would be hard to see the point of what you were learning. But in school, students are taught algebra and Shakespeare without cognitive apprenticeship being given any idea of how they might be useful in their lives. That is not how a coach would teach you to play tennis. A coach might first show you how to grip and swing the racket, but very soon you would be hitting the ball and playing games. A good coach would have you go back and forth between playing games and working on particular skills – combining global and situated learning with focused local knowledge.
– Allan Collins – Cognitive Apprenticeship (The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences)
Papert too has some nice metaphors for this, and constructionism hence includes problems or projects which are personally meaningful to the learner so that they are contextualised withing the lives of the learners..
Ages in Chaos is a scientific biography of James Hutton by Stephen Baxter. Hutton was a Scottish scientist who also played his part in Scottish enlightenment. Hutton was the first to speculate on the idea deep time required for geological processes at the end of 1700s arguing with evidence he collected. He was trained as a medical doctor, practiced farming for 10 odd years and had continued his explorations of geology throughout. The prevalent theories of geology, called Neptunists, posited that water was the change agent. Hutton on the other hand posited that it was heat which was responsible for changes, hence Vulcanists. Also, another thing was that of time needed for this change. As others of his era, Hutton was deeply religious, like Newton, wanted to find evidence for creation as per bible.
During his time, especially popular was the idea of flood as per Bible, while the Earth was literally considered to be 6000 years old. This created a problem for Hutton, who was labelled to be atheist and heretic for suggesting that Earth is much older and that there was no design. But Hutton was a conformist and wanted to find a uniform evidence for all observable aspects. He was not like a modern scientist, as he is painted many times. The ideas were vehemently attacked on each point. Though he went to the field to find geological examples for this theory. James Watt, Black and John Playfair were his friends and provided him with evidence in the form of rock samples. During his lifetime, Hutton’s ideas will not find much audience. But due to his friends, his ideas sustained a a barrage of criticisms. Only in the next generation with Lyell this work would find acceptance. This idea of a deep time was crucial in formation Darwin’s theory.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/157978.Ages_in_Chaos
The book reads well mostly, but at times a complete lack of illustrations in the forms of geological artefacats and maps (of Scotland) makes it difficult to read well.
