Musings and Epiphanies

Physics and I.

Sun, 26 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I remember being an 11-year old kid in the 6th standard sitting in my math class when our maths teacher told us about exponents. I remember being in awe, feeling mature, thinking ‘Wow, we’re learning big boy stuff now, this is so cool!’.

I remember being a 16-year old kid in the 11th standard sitting in my physics class when our physics teacher told us that moment of inertia is a tensor. He further elaborated a bit on how tenors are different from vectors. I remember being in awe, feeling mature, thinking ‘Wow, we’re learning big boy stuff now, this is so cool!’.

I remember being a 20-year old kid in my 3rd year of college sitting in my General Relativity class when our instructor used variation of the Lagrangian to derive Einstein’s equation. I remember being in awe, feeling mature, thinking ‘Wow, this is what being a big boy feels like, this is so cool!’.

If you would have told the 11-year old me about tenors and that I would one day learn about them, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. If you would have told the 16-year old about Einstein’s equation and how one day I would have known how to derive it, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. Now, if you tell the 21-year old me anything, I probably will believe you, because I know that my knowledge is only restricted by how far I am willing to go. And guess what? I don’t think there is a limit.

I am not one of those people who were extremely good at something since the age of 10 or so and knew what they wanted to do in life. Prodigies; I guess that is what they are called. My goal in life at the age of 10 changed every week depending on the movie that I had recently watched or the comic I had recently read. I wanted to become Iron Man on one day and India’s best batsman on another. At the age of 14, I remember our maths teacher asking all of us what we wanted to become when we grew up, I remember telling him that I wanted to be an Aeronautical and Aerospace Engineer. Why? Because that was one field that sounded cool- build rockets for a living, hell yeah!

When I was 15, I used to watch Doraemon and Kitretsu. Both the shows involved using numerous sci-fi gadgets to carry out day-to-day tasks. I remember trying to figure out a way to build them. Once, in my chemistry class, our teacher told us that if you remove an electron from a neutral atom, the resulting cation will be smaller in size than the neutral atom as the same number of protons will now be attracting a smaller number of electrons. I remember how happy I was to know this because I thought I had just figured out how one of the Doraemon gadgets could be made, the small light, which when is made to illuminate an object shrinks it. My idea was that the small light will somehow knock off an electron from each atom in the object leading to shrinking of all the atoms and consequently the object itself. However, my dreams of a patent were broken when my teacher told me how I had not considered what I would do with all the free electrons and how I would prevent them from recombining with the cation.

When I was somewhere close to 17, I was watching a program on discovery in which the scientist (I don’t remember if it was Stephen Hawking or Michio Kaku, so I’ll stick with ‘scientist’) said that if a train was travelling around the earth at the speed of light it would make seven revolutions around the earth in one second. Now, if a kid started running from the back to the front in this moving train, one would think that the kid will be moving faster than the speed of light with respect to the earth. But that would be false, as time would have slowed down inside the train preventing the kid from ever travelling faster than the speed of light. Nature just wouldn’t allow it. This intrigued me. Time slowing down was new to me, rather fascinating to know that it wasn’t just sci-fi, this stuff was real. This was the first time I decided to do something about my curiosity, I decided to know more about this ‘time slowing down business’. That is how I learned the basics of special relativity; when I say basics I mean as much as the Wikipedia article could teach me. I felt a sense of accomplishment, a sense of satisfaction. This was not my first time experiencing these emotions, but this time it felt different.

I have always found it difficult to answer the question, ‘So, when did you start getting into physics?’. I always thought that there can’t be a single moment to point. Seems to me that all that I have told you till now is the best I can do. I was probably into physics as a 14-year old aeronautics enthusiast, or as a 15-year old ‘small gun’ builder, but I only realised it due to relativity. No points for guessing what I want to work on during my PhD! :D

New year, new summer!

Wed, 15 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The exams just ended one day back and it is good to be back home. While I am sure that for the next week or two I will still be troubled with nightmares about how I have an exam the next day and I have nothing prepared, or that I slept through the exam, etc., I am excited about the busy summer I am going to have. Why am I looking forward to being busy, you might ask. Well, because I am going to TIFR!

Going to Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, has been a dream of mine since the first year of my college. I had heard so much about it: the people, the culture, the research and what not. This summer, I finally get a chance to live that dream. I will be working on a summer internship under Prof. Tejinder Pal Singh on torsion gravity. This project is scheduled to begin on May 27, 2019, and end in August. First thing on the Things to do this summer list is: work on torsion gravity. We will be working on an original research problem involving torsion gravity and I am looking forward to it. I really hope the experience will be as fun as I am imagining it to be in my mind.

Next, I don’t remember if I have revealed this or not, I will be going to Penn State University, University Park Campus, to work under Prof. Bangalore S. Sathyaprakash on testing nonlinear gravity with gravitational waves. So, I will make sure I do my background work before reaching Pennsylvania and begin working on the project formally. By ‘background work’ I mean getting acquainted with the computational techniques related to gravitational wave detection as well as read up the theory on gravitational radiation. This will involve revising a bit of general relativity which is not a problem as it will help me with the summer project as well. So, the second point on the to-do list is: study about gravitational wave detection methods and the theory of gravitational radiation. I am planning to do the theory part of gravitational radiation using Carroll’s book, so I think I will have a good time.

Finally, I will be applying for a PhD in Physics this December. Yeah, time has flown by. For the same, I will be required to give the Physics GRE. Scoring well in the Physics GRE is important for me for two reasons. Firstly, I want to be a theoretical physicist. However, the PhD positions that are available for theoretical physicists are less and at a downward trend making the selection process highly selective and very competitive. Thus, to make sure I end up with the professor I want to work under, I want a spotless profile and, right now, Physics GRE seems like the last remaining brick. To perform well in it I will have to prepare well for it. Having searched for the best resource for the test, I have found it to be a book called Conquering the Physics GRE by Kahn. So, the third thing on the to-do list: prepare for the Physics GRE.

So, here’s the final to-do list for the summer-

Work on torsion gravity.
Study about gravitational wave detection methods and the theory of gravitational radiation.
Prepare for the Physics GRE.

I have learned from the last summer to not have too much on my plate; hoping three things would be manageable.

This semester is bonkers!

Sat, 16 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I cannot believe it, I really have an hour to myself? Guess I’ll write a post. This semester is truly bonkers! Am I tired? Yes. Am I frustrated? No. Why? Because this is my last semester of studying at BITS and what a way to go out! :D

Why am I ranting about this semester, you may think, I don’t even have 8 courses like my last semester. Well, take a seat, because I am going to tell you all about it.

I have two labs this semester. The first one is the Modern Physics lab and the second one is the Advanced Physics lab. Modern Physics Lab is on Tuesdays, 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., and Advanced Physics Lab is on Mondays and Wednesdays, yes, BOTH DAYS, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. All this for 2 credits and 3 credits respectively, are you kidding me?! You put in all that work week in and week out and what do you get? Only 60%-70% of the total marks for the course. So, having done all this, you grade still depends on that one final exam, meaning, no matter how hard you worked for the entire semester in the lab, if you screw up that one day of the final exam, you are done. Gone. Done for. I am spending 9 hours a week for 70% of 5 units, that is 9 hours a week for 3.5 credits, how is this legal?! The saving grace is the experiments in the Advanced Physics Lab. For once, the equipment works well, we are acquainted with the theory beforehand and it is an absolute joy to conduct those experiments. That sure takes the load off a bit. But wait, there is more to this semester than just labs.

I am taking Atomic and Molecular Physics this semester. The course utilises our knowledge in quantum mechanics to probe the atom, no, not just the single electron one, any atom! Our instructor has done well to highlight the pains taken by physicists to calculate the energy transitions of different atoms to higher and higher accuracy. You might feel why that is important. In short, if the theoretical value varies from the experimentally measured value, that means the theorists are still missing out on some phenomena that are playing a role in creating the above-mentioned deviation. Thus, calculating the values to higher accuracy and making sure they match the experimentally obtained values helps us validate our theories. This is exactly what I loke about physics! You don’t stop at a theory just because it looks good, you stop at it if it is validated by the experiments, no matter how ugly it might look.

I also have two other courses: Solid State Physics and Nuclear and Particle Physics, both of which are relatively easy. As the instructors in both these subjects take regular quizzes and assignments, I am usually up-to-date with whatever has been done in class, which certainly helps. There is nothing too new, too out-of-the-box in either of them which makes them easy to follow and retain. It is good to finally have two main courses in which I can get a bit laid-back and not compromise with my academic performance.

Finally, I am also doing a project under Dr Kinjal Banerjee on differential geometry. I started with Arnold’s book to understand the role of differential geometry in physics. At present, I am doing differential forms. On the side, I am also working on updating my dynamic viscosity of spacetime theory. I cannot say much about it at present, but, what I can tell you is that this time we are trying to use the general relativistic formalism to show that spacetime can be seen as made up of a viscous fluid. More on this later, if I make any considerable progress.

Not to forget, I am teaching a C.T.E. (Centre for Technical Education) sponsored course this semester. So, YAAY! The course I am teaching with two friends of mine is called Quantum Information and Applications. I am responsible for teaching the ‘quantum’ part, to familiarize students with quantum mechanics: the theory, the formalism and the notations. I have taken about six lectures till now and it has been so much fun. I have received some very positive feedback and I guess I am just happy that the students enjoyed studying it as much as I did teaching them.

So, all-in-all a rather eventful semester this one is proving to be. It is a busy one, sure, but I am having so much fun as well. One thing I do feel is that after juggling so many courses together and still managing to do well in them (hopefully), I have gained expertise in managing workload and stress. No matter how much work comes my way, I just remember that I was able to manage two degrees simultaneously while doing well in both, so there is nothing that I can’t do. This, believe it or not, is a real confidence booster when you really need one!

Reflections on semester 4-1

Thu, 10 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Semester 4-2 is about to begin. As I am a dualite, I will need to do two theses, both of which will be completed in my 5th year. This means that this semester will be my last semester of study of my BITS college life. How do I feel? Nostalgic? Sad? Anxious? Naaaah! Kinda excited to be honest, given I am so close to an entire year of just research and no exams! :D

Semester 4-1 went well. However, I am not entirely satisfied. The main reason for my frustration is the Statistical Mechanics course. I didn’t like the way the course was conducted. Firstly, I feel we weren’t taught the necessary things and there was a lot of focus on solving problems, even to the extent where I felt that to the instructor it was more important that we could solve things than knowing exactly what we are solving and why we are solving it that way! One merit of exams is that, even though you have a certain set of formulae, if the questions are devised wisely, you wouldn’t know exactly what formula/theory to apply where unless you are well-versed with why a certain formula/theory works at a certain place and doesn’t at another place. That is what I felt lacked in the Statistical Mechanics course. I knew what formula to apply either because we studied it recently or because the values given in the question could only be fit well in that formula. I realize that I shouldn’t put the blame on the instructor; my dissatisfaction might be a result of my own deficiency. Either way, I am unhappy about my knowledge in statistical mechanics. I feel that it is a bedrock in physics, one of the fundamental subjects. So, in my leisure time, I will try my best to get a better understanding of the subject. For the same, I plan to go through David Tong’s lecture notes on statistical mechanics. I only seldom referred to them during the course, but whenever I did I found them to be extremely helpful.

Another course I did in the last semester was Quantum Mechanics II, where we discussed symmetries, time-independent and time-dependent perturbation theories and scattering theory. To be honest, I felt that the course was easier than what I had heard. It involved the application of some basic principles in different conditions. The maths was involved in some cases, sure, but nothing was conceptually difficult, which I have come to notice is the case with all the physics courses I have studied till now. However, it was fun to learn all the mathematical techniques used by physicists to solve not-so-ideal problems. I remember a chemical faculty of mine dissing physicists in one of his classes saying that the physicists work in ideal conditions and far from the ‘real world problems’. Well, I guess he hasn’t heard of perturbation theory! ;)

I should really talk about my favourite course this semester, albeit the most demanding one as well: computational physics. Why was this my favourite course? Because of the instructor, Dr Toby Joseph. What a guy! He conducted the course so fluently: discussing the theory part in an elaborate manner, without jumping over things, and giving personal attention to each and every student during the labs. I remember during one of the labs he was down with cold, still, he sat with me for about 15 minutes helping me debug my code. I hope I can become even half the teacher he is. What I liked about the course was that it did not just focus on how to implement certain computational techniques, which is what I expected it will do, instead, it also involved learning about why these techniques work in the first place. This was a surprise, a welcomed one for sure.

I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t tell you about my Study Oriented Project under Prof. Gaurav Dar. Boy, this was a ride! My project was intended to be on Chaos Theory, understanding the physics and the mathematics behind the classical chaos theory and look at the properties of certain known chaotic systems. This project was indeed fun. Well, let me clarify that. The end result of understanding how things work, that was fun. The journey was tedious, but I still am happy that I went through it because the kind of mathematical rigour I was exposed to is exactly the kind of mathematical rigour I have to get used to. By the end of it, I was comfortable with it. Kinda awesome to see yourself grow, isn’t it! However, I haven’t told you about the best part of this project. While continuing this project, I was also working on a problem on the side. This is an open problem called the Collatz Conjecture. Maybe I’ll write a post on it. While many attempts have been made to resolve the conjecture, none of succeeded (to my knowledge), hence, the ‘open’ preceding the ‘problem’. What I was trying to do is to model the conjecture as a projective map and use the analysis techniques we use in nonlinear dynamics to learn more about the conjecture, maybe even solve it. SPOILER ALERT, we didn’t solve it, but some of the graphs I got were really interesting. So, while I am not planning to work on it any further for some time, I am sure that I will pick it up again when I am in a dearth of interesting things to do.

So, a rather eventful semester came to an end. I performed well in the exams too, got a perfect 10. I still get shivers whenever I open the grades window and I see a perfect 10 there. Surreal. However, every time I see it I do also feel like an imposter as if I don’t deserve it. I guess I need to work on my self-confidence. :)

Generally relative?!

Mon, 10 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Hello, fellow humans.

The semester is taking its toll on me. Not so much, but to the extent that I am not able to put my views into words on this blog on a monthly basis. But, guess what, here I am and I’ll be talking about general relativity.

I have always wanted to study general relativity, to understand Einstein’s famous equation,

\[G^{\mu \nu} = 8\pi G T^{\mu \nu}.\]

I first came across this equation when, in one of his Yotube videos, Prof. Michio Kaku talked about it and emphasized how beautiful it is that such a small and concise equation is able to explain so much. At that time, I only agreed with the beauty part, but now, I agree with the ‘explain so much’ part as well.

Let’s start at the start. I took a course in general relativity this semester. My hope was to understand the fundamentals and start working in the field. So, I was excited, also because the field seemed damn cool. We followed the book ‘Spacetime and Geometry’ by Sean Carroll and that was easily half the reason behind me enjoying this course. At first I felt that the book was a bit verbose, explaining too much where it wasn’t particularly necessary, but after going through some topics in the book that I didn’t understand well in the class I started appreciating the verbosity and the time taken by the author to explain things. Carroll understands what topics might confuse a student, a first-time reader, and gives it time and takes pain to explain the equations and involved derivations in words. Thus, I highly recommend reading this book if you wish to self-study the subject.

The second book that we referred to while doing this course was ‘General Relativity’ by Wald. Unlike Carroll’s version, I don’t recommend this book to a beginner. It is way too concise and mathematical for a first-time reader. However, having done an introductory course in gravity with Carroll, the book by Wald will be the best step forward as it will strengthen your grasp of the subject by improving your understanding of the mathematics involved, rather formally, sometimes tediously, but overall, gracefully.

Now let’s talk about the subject. I had already studied a bit of general relativity in the Theory of Relativity course. Well, that might be an overstatement. I had learned how to calculate things in general relativity, specifically, obtaining the geodesics, Killing vectors, Reimann tensor, Ricci tensor and scalar. So, I knew how to comment on the curvature related to a given metric, however, that was about it. This time on, I was able to understand what things meant, why does the equation of parallel transport, or geodesics, or the Friedmann equation looks the way it does. We also studied a bit of cosmology, where we started with deriving a few relations for the scale factor and, given an equation of state, commented on the evolution of specific type of matter in time. Overall, it was a fun experience. I realize that the course was introductory, but it was elaborate enough to not only make me capable enough to understand papers in the field but also to make me realize that this is the field I really want to work in, in the long run.

I have already told you half the reason behind enjoying the course, the other half was the instructor, Dr. Kinjal Banerjee. He was precise, concise, elaborate when required and emphasized a lot on doing the derivations by ourselves. He also paid attention to problem-solving, giving us problems after teaching a concept or two, which helped us understand the subject well. I don’t know if I have told you this: I love teaching people and whenever I take a course I always take notice of the teaching methods of the instructor. In doing so, I always keep a note of the good characteristics, ones I would want to inculcate when I am teaching, and reject the bad ones, ones I will make sure to never inhabit. Coming to Kinjal sir, I am certain that I will be taking a lot from his style and organisation.

While studying this subject, I also realized the importance of ‘leap of faith’ in physics. Knowing that the Einstein’s equation, the beautiful thing I mentioned in the beginning, was itself an educated leap of faith, I guess that is what differentiates physics from mathematics, the ‘human’ component, the intuition component, the component that makes the theory ‘physical’. However, that also makes the theory susceptible to being falsified. You might think that is a bad thing, but it really isn’t. This just means that there might be a better theory out there, which translates to more work for us aspiring physicists ;)

What could I have done better?

Sun, 15 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Hey, how are you?

My summer internship is finally over and I can say confidently that it was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. A major role in making the summer prolific was not the work but what I learned doing it. As I look back, I feel like I could have done so much more, that I wasn’t at my maximum efficiency, and so I would like to introspect a little to figure out what I could have done better.

Let me start by explaining you what I was involved in. No, not the topic, I have already talked about it earlier, but the program itself. As a part of the Summer Research Fellowship- 2018 at IIT Madras, I worked with a faculty member of the Department of Physics on a specific topic. The catch was that the faculty member I worked with wasn’t on campus for most of the time. So, after an initial meeting to discuss the topic broadly, it was on me to decide what problem statement I wanted to work on, gather resources to get acquainted with the problem and finally figure out a way to get through it. I was, and still am, happy about the freeom I was getting, intentionally or unintentionally, in the 60 days of research I was involved in as I feel that this is close to what my life as a researcher is going to be like. I felt it was favourable that I was getting to experience it first-hand at such an early stage in my life. Now, on to the things I could have done better.

Literature review- My project was entirely theoretical and exploratory, so a major, if not entire, part of it was literature review, which means to go through already done research related to the problem in order to get adequate knowledge to tackle it. In the initial stages of resource-hunting (is that a term though?), I got a book that introduced the concepts I required and was dedicated to the problem I wanted to solve. So, instead of looking further I decided to stick to that book. While that might not seem like a bad choice, in the final days of my internship while I was making my report I was surfing the web for some definitions to include when I came across many papers and review articles which explained the same stuff that was present in the book but in a more concise manner. The book took me 40-45 days to get in grips with the subject, the later-found papers could have done it in 20-25 days, I think.
Work Ethic- As I have mentioned earlier, a major struggle in my life is my fight with procastination. I came face to face with this nemesis of mine quite a few times during my stay at Madras. I had no restrictions as such, as the pace of my project was decided by me. Thus, wasting time was a temptation that was hard to avoid. I realized within the first few weeks itself that if I have to gain anything out of this experience I will have to build a good work ethic. A good work ethic should involve me making sure that I am being productive at a regular basis and working in a smart way. I was able to do that to some extent during the internhsip, but then again I think I could have done better.
Too many things at once- In an ealier post I told you about my plan for the summer. Now that I look back I realize that it wasn’t ambitious, rather, insidious. I had too much on my plate to begin with, which led to me not being able to give enough time to anything. One thing I realized the hard way was that trying too hard to get a lot done eventually leads one to not do anything at all. Trying to follow the schedule I set for myself to cope up with all that I had decided to accomplish, I was so exhausted after 3-4 days that I ended up just resting and doing nothing for the rest of the week. Who burns out in three days?, you’d ask, well, I did. I stil managed to do bits of everything I had planned, but nothing completely.

I guess that is all there was, or atleast all that I could remember. Making ammends to improve at all these fronts is crucial for me as it isn’t difficult to see how if these traits prevail then they can frustrate me from becoming a good researcher. As I still am at a learning age (going to be 21 :D) I think that attempting to improve now will be much more fruitful than to face the repurcussions later. I could go on and tell you what all I plan to do, but I remember my mother telling me that whenever we tell someone about our plans and goals, we somehow become less motivated to go through with them. I don’t see a reason why that should be true, but looking back it feels very relatable. So, I won’t tell you what I plan to do, atleast for now, but if it does amount to something considerable, I will let you know.

Introducing the problem of quantum to classical transition

Sun, 24 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

We know that macroscopic objects are governed by deterministic Newtonian laws, by which I mean that given an inital position, inital momentum and an expression describing the force on the system, I can describe exactly the motion of the system at all later times. When it comes to microscopic objects, objects that are very small, the laws that constitute our current understanding for such objects are very different, specifically for the ‘determinism’ part. The microscopic objects are described by the formalism of quantum mechanics. The basic feature of this formalism would be to assign a state to the system (just like in the case of macroscopic objects we assign an initial position and momentum) and then look at the evolution of that state in time which is described by the Schrodinger’s equation. But this approach is inherently probabilistic, i.e. the initial state describing the system is actually made up of a superposition of many possible states (or many possible outcomes) the system can be in and when a measurement is done on the state only then does the system decide that which state, among the numerous superimposed ones, does it want to reveal itself in. The system can reveal itself in any of the superimposed states according to a certain probability rule, i.e. it might be more probable for a system to reveal itself in one state over another state, or the appearance of all states might be equally probable.

Take the beautiful thought experiment of the Schrodinger’s cat. I’ll explain a version of it that I remember. Say a cat is kept in a closed box in which with the cat is a decaying radioactive substance such that in a given amount of time, say one hour, an atom of the radioactive substance may decay, but with equal probability it might not. If the decay does happen, it makes a hammer break a glass bottle containing a poison and if this poison is released, the cat dies. So, if I open the box, there is equal probability of observing that the cat is alive or dead. But if the box is still closed and I haven’t observed the cat, I don’t really know if the cat is alive or dead. So, to relate to the description of quantum mechanics I gave earlier, the cat is in a state which is a superposition of the state of it being alive and the state of it being dead, with equal probabilities. This is interpreted as the famous expression of the cat seemingly being both alive and dead when not observed. Opening the box and viewing the cat is an act of measurement. As soon as this measurement is made, quantum mechanics says that because of the act of measurement the state of the cat which was a superposition to begin with collapses to one of the two initally superimposed outcomes, i.e. you see the cat as alive or you see the cat as dead, but you will never see the cat as a superposition of both alive and dead (whatever seeing that could mean). Thus, the act of measurement collapses the state of the system into one of the possible outcomes (superimposed states).

Coming back after this detour to an introduction to quantum mechanics, it is weird how different the quantum and classical formalism are. One might think why it is so? We know that all macroscopic systems are made up of microscopic objects. Then why can’t we use some kind of averaged out Schrodinger’s equation that can explain the motion of macroscopic objects? Also, how does this determinism emerge from a probabilistic theory? When I am not looking at the moon, i.e. I am not observing it or making a measurement, does it still exist? This is the problem of quantum to classical transition, i.e. how does the classical reality emerge in an inherently quantum world.

The best we have so far to resolve this problem is the theory of quantum decoherence. Saving the jargon and a more mathematical introduction to the theory for a later post, I’ll try to give you a gist of what the theory entails. The theory states that all objects are constantly interacting with the environment around them. Here, an interaction could mean something as little as scattering of photons (light) off the surface of the object. Such interactions can be seen as measurements that are made on the objects by the environment. Thus, this interaction and monitoring by the environment is the reason why we see the world around us in a definite state and not as a superposition. This is the reason why the moon still exists even when we are not looking at it, because even though we are not observing it, the photons from the sun are still getting scattered off its surface, which can be seen as the sun making a measurement of the position of the moon. So, the theory of decoherence explain the emergence of classical nature from the quantum one by asserting that all systems are constantly monitored by the environment and this interaction is responsible for the familiar determinism.

My current research- Quantum to classical transition

Fri, 15 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

As you know (if you read my posts), I am doing a Summer Research Fellowship at IIT Madras. As a part of the same I have to work on a problem, something I don’t know much about but is interesting and difficult enough for it to take me two months to get acquainted with. Now that I am almost a month into my fellowship I guess it is time I should tell you about this problem.

What I am working on, officially, is: Quantum to classical transition. What do I mean by that? In brief, we know that quantum particles, which can be understood as particles too small to behave in a manner intuitive to us, for eg. an electron, obey the Schrodinger’s equation, which tells us how the state (wavefunction) of the particle evolves given a Hamiltonian (read: a function describing the energy associated with the system comprising of everything that affects the system). Okay, what I just described is something you might not know if you haven’t taken up quantum mechanics in a somewhat formal way. Anyways, what you do (or should?) know is that particles which are not so small, i.e. macroscopic particles; for eg. you, your house, a ball etc. are governed by Newton’s laws of motion. One might wonder: if every macroscopic thing is made up of a collection of microscopic particles itself, then why do we need two different laws for them? Can’t an averaged out Schrodinger’s equation do the trick, why are Newton’s laws required at all? And for once, let us accept that we do need two laws for some reason, we still fail to understand that why are the two regimes, the quantum and the classical are so different? Understanding the latter might give us some clue about needing two different laws. I won’t go into much detail on this as I plan to write another post discussing the physics behind all that I am working on, starting from the basic difference between the classical and the quantum world and ending with the insights I gained during my fellowship, which ends on July 15.

Having said all that, what am I actually doing currently? Well, my supervisor is kind enough to have given me the freedom to approach this problem in the way I want to. So, instead of working on the problem to the dot, I am looking at the measurement problem in quantum mechanics as a whole (to read more about the measurement problem refer to the Wikipedia article or wait for my future post on the topic, as mentioned earlier), which is a more general form of the quantum to classical transition problem. In doing so, I am studying about the theory of decoherence, which to give you a teaser is elegant to say the least, and the theory of weak continuous measurements. I aim to understand the two in a profound manner as I feel that only then will I be capable of doing something worthwhile using the two.

Given that I have only done a first course in quantum mechanics, working directly on decoherence sure feels like a big leap. But then, the more difficult the task the more I have to gain. So, onwards and upwards !

My struggles with procrastination

Thu, 07 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Procrastination, oh nemesis of mine. Procrastination might be the only habit of mine that I am not particularly proud of. To postpone the work to the very end and then get stressed and pull an all-nighter to complete it, sounds pretty illogical right? Well, that is what I tend to do. The exam week would be approaching, but instead of preparing for them beforehand, I’ll waste my time doing irrelevant stuff and then when the exams arrive I’ll find myself in a highly stressful environment which makes me hate the subjects I liked otherwise. Take the past semester itself: I had allowed a bunch of project work to pile up until the week before the exams, which had all the project deadlines, so the week before when everyone was studying for the exams, I was busy completing my projects and preparing for quizzes. All that did was that it kept me busy till April 28 and I had exams continuously from May 1 up til May 4. It was probably the only time I ever hoped that April had 31 days instead of 30.

Poor time management skills, I would say. But then, the same skills become super sharp when I am under pressure to perform. When I have to complete the entire syllabus in a day, or sometimes even less than that, I am able to do it without thinking of the amount of time I have been studying for. So, I guess the problem would be of not having foresight, or better, rather worse, not adhering to the actions that need to be taken in order to make the best out of the foreseen issue. Yes, that must be it. The subconcious realization that I can do it even if I start one day before doesn’t allow me, or rather discourages me, to start well in advance.

Even that wouldn’t be such a trouble if I actually utilized the time in which I am not preparing for exams for something productive. I end up wasting it for temporary pleasures, like watching a youtube video, listening to a song, watching an episode of a TV series; anything that will take my mind way from the impending doom, i.e. the upcoming exams and my lack of preparation for the same. That is something that I have to really work on, to start to look at the bigger picture,to prioritize my actions as per what really matters to me and not on the basis of what is more fun. I think my brain has now become habitual to me postoning my work till the end and watch a video instead and so that is my go-to response whenever any kind of not-so-urgent work presents itself. Habits, as you might have heard, are hard to alter. Well, one’s got to try!

You might ask, “Ish, I just saw your last post on your grades and you did pretty darn well! What is the problem then?”. Well, for once, I am looking at the bigger picture here, the larger goal, the goal that these grades will help me achieve. The goal being becoming a theoretical physicist and doing some original scientific research. To get to that, I will need to get a PhD first. That itself will be a 3-4 year journey towards learning how to do research and then making some original contributions to my field of choice. Now, the thing with research is, even though there is someone to guide you (generally called supervisor), you are pretty much on your own. You decide the problem, you find sufficient literature to understand it and you figure out how to solve it. Given the independence that research gives you (which is one of the things that attracted me to physics) you are also free to decide your schedule: when you work, when you sleep, what are your deadlines, etc. Now, given my struggles with procrastination, you see how my current habits can become a big problem in this pursuit. To do substantial research that can lead to worthy outcomes, I cannot afford to slag off, postpone actions, procrastinate, take it lite.

As I understand it, knowledge and hardwork are obviously two of the top qualities a good researcher must possess, but to add to that, two attributes which I think are more important would be discipline and perseverance. Knowledge can be acquired through hardwork, which is what college is for. But, discipline and perseverance cannot be taught; it has to be built from level zero. That is what I plan to do. I know I am hardworking, and to some extent exhibit a good amount of perseverance, but I have no self-control. Hence, discipline is a skill I need to acquire. Step-by-setp, one day at a time.

This calls for an action plan (as always). I need to build a schedule and stick to it, no matter what. I will leave in a few degrees of freedom to accomodate the uncertainty of life, but except that, my aim will be to follow it to the dot. I know that I will have to push myself to get things done at the start, but I’m hoping that as time goes on, I’ll become more accustomed to working by the rules and in a focussed manner. I will also be using some applications to help me through this, about which I will tell you once I have completed atleast 1 week without fail. Until then, wish me luck and hope for the best.

Got my grades for Year 3, Semester 2!

Fri, 01 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Finally got my grades for the semester that just ended, i.e. year 3 semester 2, or 3-2. And I NAILED IT! Yeah, I’ll brag a bit. I guess I deserve that much given the amount of work that went into this!

So, as you see, As in all except Process Dynamics and Control in which I got an A-. A short description of our grading system. We have a scale of 2 to 10. 10 = A, 9 = A-, 8 = B, and so on. The grading is relative, meaning that the top 5% in the class get an A (in general) and so on. Such a grading system in also called grading on a curve. The picture also shows two cumulative grades, my semester GPA (grade point average) which is 9.875 and my total GPA, also called the CGPA, an average of all my semester GPAs, which is 9.29. Though it is a decrease comparing to my last semester when I got a semester GPA of 10, but still, I am too happy to complain. So I won’t.

Chemical Engineering Lab II was by far the most taxing. 2 lab sessions of 3 hours each every week, 2 viva and 1 hand-written report per lab session, for the entire semester. To conclude the course, we needed to give a final exam and a viva. Continuous evaluation at its cruelest. Even though it was demanding, it was fun, to be honest. To see theory getting realized physically, moving from an ideal system approach to a real system and understanding what problems the real systems need to overcome to come closer to ideality, it is enlightening.

I am specially ecstatic about my result in Mathematical Mathods in Physics, Theory of Relativity and Transport Phenomena. Mathematical Methods in Physics was a bit boring for me, given that I already knew some of it, and learning about properties of Legendre and Bessel functions really doesn’t interest me much. Contour integrals, complex analysis and Green’s function were by far the best part of that course. Due to my lack of interest towards a considerable portion of the course, I faltered a bit in the first test. So, looking at the result now, I am happy that I was able to compensate for it in other evaluative components and the final exam.

Theory of Relativity, on the other hand, I took in my 2-1 as well, but I had to drop it when the instructor told me that I’ll need considerable knowledge of Electromagnetism to proceed, which I didn’t have then. Having the the Electromagnetism course in my 3-1, I took Theory of Relativity again in 3-2, and boy was it a rewarding experience. I was already familiar with special relativity, so that wasn’t a surprise. After special relativity, we went on to formulate a covariant form of Maxwell’s electromagnetic equations. I don’t know why, but it felt as if I was writing poetry. It was so fluent, the language was so beautiful. Every derivation gave birth to these majestic pieces of equations which when put together described all of electromagnetism in a covariant manner. We moved on to general relativity, the portion I was most excited about, and it did not disappoint. Though we did not dwelve into the mathematical rigour of the theory, given that this was a foundational course in relativity, we did learn how to find the Ricci scalar given a metric. I am omitting a lot of the details of the course here, explaining which would undermine the point of this post. Also, I was the Course Topper for this course, so that was good to know!

Finally, Transport Phenomena, my favourite course offered by the Chemical Department, and guess why, because it actually is a physics course. I was very nervous before the exam, trying problems again and again in order to assure myself that I understood stuff well. Turns out I did, given that I topped the final exam and was the Course Topper as well. These three courses I have mentioned specifically because they, in some manner, portray my knowledge in physics. Getting a good understanding in these subjects matters to me the most, and so, as I said earlier, I am “specially ecstatic” about doing well in these three.

In hindsight, all the stress I had to go through during the exams and in some small intervals during the semester, a good result like this one makes it all worth it. All the sleepless nights, early morning classes, missing out on fun activities due to workload, crazy schedules, everything seems worth it at the end. I guess that itself is what motivates me and drives me to do it again and again. So, to you who is reading this, if you want to take anything out of this, remember, when you have worked hard for days and feel burned out, and no destination is in sight, remember to not stop, because when you have succeeded and you look back, it will all be worth it.