Liberal vs Conservatives

Recently, I came across a statement:

"Conservatism holds back certain moral value whereas liberalism ignores it. It is like maths - either you make it or you deviate too much without any fruitful result."

This statement reminded me about Kurt Godel's work. Kurt Godel was a philosopher and a mathematician. And his seminal work was the mathematical proof that no logical system can be self-consistent. In other words, life is never black and white; there are always shades of gray, and this grayness ends up dominating everything. Mathematicians called it probability (and later refined some of the concepts to formulate theories on chaos and bifurcation); physicists termed it uncertainty. History today regards Einstein as the last of classical physicists who agreed with the Newtonian view of a deterministic universe that espoused the "is or is not" view. Post Einstein, the learned men of science and philosophy accepted grayness as an inevitable part of the universe we live in.

Conservatism preserves age old (moral) values and traditions. This is something important, and not to be taken lightly. It is required in this society. This does not however mean that ALL age old values are good.

Liberalism challenges age old values. In the eyes of a number of people, it shows a path to the progress. But, as many say, too much "liberalism" can destroy the social fabric. This does not mean that none of the age old values should be challenged. If that was the case, scientists would be unheard of and the priests would be ruling the world with the people accepting the "fact" that sun moves around the earth, which happens to be flat.

Evolution somehow seems to follow the laws of thermodynamics - the 2nd law of thermodynamics. This states that a natural process drives any system towards greater disorder, or higher entropy. This is what liberalism tends to do. It is inevitable. Not necessarily good, just inevitable. Conservative and liberal forces act counter to each other. Conservatives hold on to values, while liberals try to demolish them. In an ideal world, there would be a fruitful equilibrium, where the conservatives will protect the "good values" (honesty, fidelity, etc) while the liberals will destroy the "rotten" ones (eg: child marriage, violence against women, etc). Together, conservatism and liberalism are like the proverbial yin and yang. They exist together and lose their meaning in absence of the other.

There is a twist to the tale though. Each generation, by and large, have their own perceptions as to what is good and what is bad. And each generation think that they are right. As a consequence, the society evolves, seemingly leading towards greater chaos.

If a person were to be too judgmental, he would be in soup. For, to make a judgment, he would need a framework; a framework of rules that makes sense. Alas for the judgmental being, Godel shows that such logical systems can’t be self-consistent. Holes can be picked in his logic, and the more he tries to reason his judgment, the more he will end up tying himself in knots. It is a formidable challenge. How should this be overcome? In a world that is in a constant flux of change, what is "right" and what is "wrong"? How should we counter these challenges?

It is a tough question indeed, and one that seers and philosophers have struggled to answer (though many would claim to have found to the answer, only to be contradicted by another school of thought). There is an old saying that goes as "Aap bhala so jag bhala". "If you are good, all's well". At the heart of this statement is the idea that one should look inwards and control their action to the extent that they are at peace with themselves, rather than end up judging others. Paradoxical as it sounds, again draws the person outwards, because inevitably, their introspection leads them to ponder on their relation with others. This is tautological in nature. But it at least has the saving grace of not needing to be unduly being harsh on others. And self-introspection would have the benefit of helping one articulate their principles better to themselves. Not perfect their principles, Godel prohibits this, but refine and articulate them better.

Articulate them better, but to what end? As the generation changes, perceptions change again. Principles that are dear to me might now be redundant to the next generation. And they would have to find out their own solution to a degree of approximation (uncertainty) that is acceptable to them / best they could do.

Find out their own solution. May be that is the key after all. One can go through the philosophical body of work compiled by the great men over the ages, with each man contributing his thoughts and work in the context of his own time. But the context changes with generation. Therefore while one's thoughts could be influenced by those gone before him, they will ultimately need to be put in their own context; and this might just result in a slightly different school of thought, replete with its own context.

So what did this exercise show me? Nothing, save the fact that making judgment calls on others might be fool-hardy, because the fine line that depicts the ideal balance between conservatism and liberalism, between the yin and yang is a deeply personal definition, one that is apt to change from person to person. You never really make it, because you can never justify yourself logically. You never really deviate completely, because you will never be able to fault yourself completely. That is the nature of this universe. We plough through a quagmire which has hypothetical borders, but nor practical ones. At each instance, we make choices that are deeply personal rather than universal, depending on which region of the quagmire we are walking through. The more elegant and universality we try for, the greater the gamut of issues we struggle with and greater is the sense of helplessness that engulfs us. The fine-print, in some cases, may be easier to view than to get the big picture and handle it. To this person, one step at a time, introspection and refining of one's own principles and thoughts seem to be the way out. This at least allows for the fact that we exist in a flux that is constantly changing.

The most open world cup ever

The world cup is around the corner. And the good news is, this looks to be the most open World Cup ever. There are 14 teams in the fray, divided into two groups of 7. After a long-winded group stage, after almost a month, the teams enter the knockout stage.

Group A is relatively a straightforward group. There are 3 teams that will almost surely make the knockout stage - Aussies, Sri Lanka and Pakistan (despite their recent off-field turmoil, this team knows how to play). The kiwis might have been a shoo-in for the 4th position, but the recent downward trend in their form means they will actually have to fight it out against a resurgent Zimbabwean team. My money is still on the Kiwis to make the cut, but Zimbabweans may still pull of an upset.

Group B is, well, a group of death. 5 good teams, 4 quarterfinal spots and one will surely miss out. Add to the mix, the presence of Ireland, who, surely with Body Rankin and Pottersfield in their ranks have the ability to upset any of the big five on their day, the scenario becomes even more intriguing. Amongst the big five, I would favor the South Africans to cruise to the quarterfinals. But the four others are a mercurial lot. Team India has been relatively steady of late, but their fast bowling and lower order batting is still too fragile. Bangladesh, in my book, is the dark horse. West Indians are an inconsistet bunch, but with the likes of Roach, Gayle, Sarwan and their anchorman Chanderpaul are likely to give anyone a run for their money. The English team were riding a wave of confidence following their Ashes triumph. But alas, injuries to key cricketers and emerging whispers of fatigue means they will probably not be at their best. I would expect them to be the team that misses out (despite a lot of pundits thinking otherwise).

Group A might well turn out in the following order - 1) Sri Lanka 2) Australia 3) Pakistan 4) NZ / Zim

Group B is hard to predict. Depending on the form of the Indian team, the top position would either go to South Africa or India. I would imagine SA to emerge at the top during the league stage. India might come second, or even 3rd depending on how Bangladesh fares. If the Indians come second, expect the Bangladeshis to come third, with the West Indians rounding up the group.

This leaves us with different possibilities of the quarterfinal line ups. The one I think is most likely would be Sri Lanka - West Indies, Australia - Bangladesh, India - Pakistan, New Zealand - South Africa. At this stage it would be anyone's ball game, although Australia and South Africa would be the favorites to reach the semis. However, if things do indeed unfold this way, they would end up facing each other in the semis.

If I had to guess, I would expect an Australia - Sri Lanka final (unless the Proteans shrug off their choking habit!). Both India and Pakistan stand a decent chance of making the final though, depending on whether they are able to beat the Sri Lankans in the semi. Both are capable of that feat, but I feel that the Lankans hold a slight edge due to their solidity.

A short team review -

Australia (they are the defending world champs and ranked No 1 for a reason. Their one-day team looks a lot different from the test outfit. Losing Mike Hussey is a big blow, but they still have Watson in good nick to be backed up by David Hussey. Clarke, I feel, is slowly turning a corner and getting out of a rut. His footwork means he is more likely to come good now on sub-continent pitches as compared to his recent run in Australia. Haddin's aggressive style is more suited to the sub-continent featherbed pitches and the world cup might still be the place where he rediscovers his form. Still quite not an apt replacement for Gilchrist, but a dangerous player nonetheless. The bowling unit has four attackers in Lee, Tait, Johnson and Krejza, with decent back up from White and Smith. In addition, I would tip Watson to be a key bowler too - especially given that he is the only Aussie bowler who has some command on reverse swing. Probably one of the three teams who have the best chance of reaching the final),

Sri Lanka (they have a solid team with match-winners in Sangakarra, Muralitharan and Malinga plus they play in familiar conditions. Dilshan, at the top of the order, hasnt been as consistent as a player of his class should be. But with the Cup being played on the subcontinent, he could still fire on the grounds where he once unveiled his "Dilscoop". Lack of firepower in the middle order might be a problem area, although Angelo Matthews has progressed quietly and could pose a threat. In Jayawardene, they have another experienced bat who paces the innings beautifully, but he needs stay in form through out. All in all, the only chink for Lankans would be the lack of a good fourth bowler. Probably one of the three teams who have the best chance of reaching the final),

South Africa (quality wise, I would back them... but then, they still wear the "chokers" tag, like it or not. Steyn and Morkel have the ability to be the most potent opening attack and both have attributes that will make them a threat despite the pitches. Kallis is a first or second change bowler. Imran Tahir is a new face, paradoxically, with loads of experience, and how he fares might be critical. I would expect both Tahir and Botha to play, with Tahir attacking with his leg spin and Botha going defensive and drying up runs at his end with accurate off spin. SA would do well not to include Lopsy. Lopsy is good, but given his lack of pace and the fact that Indian pitches dont suit his style of swing, I could see him get tonked around if he plays. Robin Peterson is another player whom the Proteas would do well to keep on the bench. A lot depends on whether Graeme Smith and the thinktank have the guts to play two specialist spinners instead of South Africa's formulaic approach to playing 4 fast bowlers. And Faf du Pleiss, if he plays, should do so as a batsman who can be counted to bowl a few overs of leg spin if needed. A cover for Tahir, if Tahir's attacking methods go awry. Smith has an attacking leg spinner in his ranks; to get the most out of him, he needs to give Tahir a fairly long leash. Probably one of the three teams who have the best chance of reaching the final),

Pakistan (they perform well ONLY when the chips are down for them. And if the chips were ever down for them, then it is now. However, this team is still miles adrift of the class of 1992. They lack a bowler as potent as Wasim Akram, although Gul and Shoaib Akhtar, if he strikes form, may cover up. The spinners are good, but are no match for Mushtaq at his pomp. Even so, in familiar conditions, they will still be a handful. The batting looks better than many of their past line ups, but Younis Khan and Misbah notwithstanding, they still lack a player of Inzamam's calibre. Plus, as a skipper, Afridi is no Imran which is probably going to be the biggest difference. Pakistan should make the quarter-finals, given that they are in an easy group. Semi-finals are realistic too and an appearance in final is still within the realm of likelihood, although for an unpredictable bunch like this, I will reserve my opinion),

India (again, the team has class in batting , given the subcontinent conditions for this Cup. but the form book does not favor them. Gambhir, Sehwag and Sachin havent played much one dayers of late and might need some time to get in their groove. Their class remains unquestioned though, especially on familiar pitches. The middle order bats are a unpredictable bunch, especially given the recent dip Yuvraj and Dhoni's form. The spinners are good, but not exceptional like the earlier teams which had Kumble. The fast bowlers are prone to getting tonked, with the exception of Zaheer. Yet, this team has a rare bloody-minded tenacity that was absent from the teams of the 20th century and enough matchwinners who can turn the game single handed to make them the most unpredictable team in the Cup, possibly after Pakistan. A semi-final finish is a realistic prospect, and an appearance in final may not be out of bounds).

West Indies (yet another unpredictable team, but one, I suspect does not have enough firepower in the bowling department to go all the way. Quarterfinal should be the basic minimum for them, but a semi-final finish is not unlikely. Gayle, Sarwan and Samuels can all be a force in the one dayers. Pollard is exciting too, although I hope he doesnt follow the footsteps of Ricardo Powell. The bowling looks thin to me, with only Kemar Roach looking like a genuine threat on the subcontinent pitches. Suleiman Benn could yet have a good world cup, and that would help West Indies, but quite simply, they lack the class to progress beyond semi-finals),

England (they are tired. Quite simply, that means they have a real chance of getting knocked out in the group stage. Pietersen should come good. After all, this man is keyed on to te IPL and what better stage than India to show the IPL bigwigs that he deserves better. Bell is another player I feel will do well. The rest are really tired. Andrew Strauss is. Eoin Morgan, the one player who could have provided the fire works is nursing an injury. Stuart Broad isnt quite Freddie Flintoff, and he might have trouble filling Freddie's enforcer role. Anderson is a much improved bowler, and could yet be a threat with the new ball. Chris Tremlett is another bowler who should be relatively fresh. I feel the onus of being the enforcer should fall on Tremlett rather than Broad. Realistically, England needs an anchor who will bat until the end, and let all others play their shots around him. This is where I think they missed a trick by ignoring Cook. After all, that man is in prime form and was their best batsman in their most recent triumph, never mind it was a test),

Bangladesh (a lot depends on Tamim Iqbal's form with the bat. They have spinners who can choke out the opposition, although their pace attack is likely to be wanting, never mind the return of Mortaza. Ashraful may shine in the odd game, but Bangladesh will do well to go in with a plan B that anticipates Ashraful to fail. Quarterfinals is a distinct possibility, and semi-finals may not be out of reach. But they need to wait some more before they see themselves in the finals).

NewZealand (the Kiwis are in a temporary rut. They have the talent to upset the applecarts of many teams. Ross Taylor, Jesse Ryder, Brendon McCullum are all class acts. I would expect Ryder to shine, and for the Kiwi's sake hope Taylor and McCullum come good as well. In Guptill, they seem to have found a player who can anchor the innings. In James Franklin, they have one of the most underrated all rounders. Franklin's batting, combined with Styris provides a solidity to their lower order. Oram's return should boost the team too. And then there is captain Dan who has been New Zealands "to go" man in almost all situations. His bowling especially will be critical. Nate McCullum and Jeetan Patel would need to contribute as well. Southee still has some way to go before he succeds on the subcontinent conditions. The absence of bowlers like Bond and Geoff Allot will be the main issue with the Kiwis. Plus, the presence of a charismatic player liek Chris Cairns would have helped. Unfortunately, these players have hung up their shoes, and those are pretty big boots to be filled by the current crop. Nevertheless, given their track record in World Cup, one cant write them off. Quarterfinals is likely. Semis might be a long shot).

5 out of 14 teams have a fantastic chance of lifting the Cup - South Africa, Sri Lanka, Australia, India and Pakistan, probably in that order. After a long long time, this is going to be one hell of an open World Cup.

The gambler is back

Long break from blogging -- its been over an year. But, hopefully at some point I will resume writing blogs/essays at least on a monthly basis. Its been a hectic few months, but now that finally I graduated and started working as a post-doc its time to sit back a little and relax. Cant help recollecting a poem by W.H. Davies ...

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare?—

No time to stand beneath the boughs,

And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

2010 !!

The last I blogged here was Dec last year. Time for me to get in the one blog for this year, and this one will be about next year.

First off, the goals -

Professional goals

1. Graduate!! Be known as Dr Pratik Ray the next christmas.
2. Get a job/post-doc/anything that pays the bill and gets me some food.
3. Over this past year, I have become a bit of a self-taught person on Monte Carlo methods and ab-initio calculations. Hopefully, in 2010, I will be able to get my work involving both these methods published.

Un-professional goals ;)

1. Work harder on my pencil sketching. Continue my portrait series of physics icons (Feynman and Einstein done, plenty more to go, lol).
2. Photograph Yellowstone! This is something I had wanted to do for quite some time. Now that I have a nice new digital SLR + access to some cool lenses and filters, I should head off to Yellowstone in summer. Should be a nice road trip anyway.
3. Get my lifts up to Class II level, raw, for the 181 lb category. Class I or Masters level would be nice, but I will take Class II as well. I am relatively new to powerlifting, with my current total being a pathetic 770 lbs (Bench - 185 lbs, squats - 280 lbs, deadlift - 300 lbs), raw, this just about makes class IV. Class II has a minimum total of 1012 lbs, so this is going to be one hell of a struggle. A rough target break-up: bench-245 / squat-365/ deadlift - 405 (total-1015). All this, while staying in the same weight class (at 174 lbs, I can afford to go up 6-7 lbs and still make the class).

That' the lot for now. Will be back in 2010, write about my postdoc hunting and thesis writing experiences (and lessons learnt). 2009 was rather sedate. 2010 promises to be much more exciting. Anyway to whoever is reading this - wish you a very happy and prosperous new year.

Postscript: For those who are unaware, powerlifting is a sport where you aim to move unnecessarily massive amounts of weights using three specific movements - the flat bench press, the parallel back squat, and the deadlift. At some point, if I feel like it, I might put up my lifting routines as well, although this being a slightly different kind of blog, I might keep them separate.

Grad studies IV: The PhD timeline

The New Year’s just round the corner. Less than a week remains for 2008 to draw to an end. Today is Christmas night and probably a good time for a little bit of rumination and planning. Long time back I thought I would put up a series of articles on grad studies. Well, this post will have part of that too. Let me put down my thoughts about the PhD timeline. We shall start right at the beginning of a PhD program (ruminations, eh!), and go all the way till end (now, that’s planning, since I am only mid-way through). 

Roughly, a PhD program can be broken into 6 stages. The first stage is when the starry eyed kid enters a new department and a lifestyle (well, not always a new department, but a new lifestyle nonetheless – you start footing your bills, or at least most of the bills – all the while saving cash for beer and such stuff while earning basically peanuts). Fortunately, this stage has something in common with undergrad programs – namely, coursework. (Aside: many universities, especially in some European countries don’t require the students to take courses. However, in a large number of them, the students are “advised” to audit relevant advanced courses). A large chunk of the first year of graduate studies is spent doing coursework. The remainder of the time is best utilized in looking around for interesting research groups and topics. It is a very good idea to attend as many seminars as possible (I would say it’s a cardinal sin to miss any seminar, especially if it is given by a department faculty in at least the first semester). In all probability, the student will hardly be able to comprehend everything being said in the seminar. If you get 25% of the stuff being talked about you are doing just great. Attending a variety of seminars right at the beginning will help gain perspective as well as to zone in on a particular research group(s). Of course if you are one of those lucky (?) chaps who join as a RA committed to a certain group, then you can jump into the second stage of PhD concurrently while doing your coursework. 

The second stage is that of literature review. This is where you really start sinking your teeth into research. Basically, you bring yourself up to speed with what has happened in your field and what is happening. Science, humanities, engineering etc are ancients. People have studied these subjects and their sub-specialization for ages. So how do you compress the knowledge of few decades into one short 4 month semester? Thankfully, you can turn to review journals. Yes, the best way to get started on a literature review is review journals. Talk to the senior grad students and your advisors and make a list of the top review journals in your field. If they can mention a paper relevant to your research, that’s even better. Search the review journals for your research area. When you read the review paper, be sure to follow up with the cross-references that seem interesting. Review papers could be 40-100 pages long. By the time you are done with the paper, and some of the cross-references, probably 3 weeks or so have already passed. But the important thing is that now you probably have a not-so-shaky base in your field. So start searching for research papers in your field.  For a more detailed approach towards literature review, check my previous post. It’s a good idea to meet up with your advisor at least once every two weeks or so. The professors can more often than not, provide you with valuable leads and keywords for literature search. 

The third stage is when you set up a research problem. This is a tricky one. We don’t want a “percentage” problem which is not glamorous or spectacular in the least, but then they are the ones that can be relied upon to get decent results. We would like to have a challenging problem, but then it might take us a whole lot longer than we had bargained for to get a PhD. So there’s a fine line to be walked. Personally, I tried to get around it by phrasing the problem in two levels. On one level, I will be tackling a “percentage” problem, which should give me enough fodder to publish 3-4 solid, if not spectacular, papers. On another level, by tweaking the percentage problem a little bit, I can actually end up with a very interesting and challenging Multiscale problem. So, I spend a part of my time tackling the problem that is likely to give me solid results, and screw around the rest of time on the tough stuff. Usually, most universities require a written thesis proposal. Writing a good proposal at this stage can turn out to be helpful since this forces you to get your thoughts in order. (I will probably have a post later on about research proposals too). Unfortunately, in many cases, since the student is actually hired for a specific project of a faculty member, he/she normally does not have to spend much time fixing a problem. IMHO, trying to hone in on a research problem is a valuable experience, one that every PhD student should go through. In case you are one of the lucky chaps who gets a degree of freedom to frame his/her own problem, then it’s a good idea to meet up with your advisors at least once a week, may be even twice. Utilize the experience of faculty members to bounce ideas off them. I was lucky enough to be given a lot of freedom in framing my problem. And meeting my guides about once/twice a week helped. I was having 10 new ideas a week, and was soon finding out that 11 of them were rotten after talking it through with them – until I was finally able to crystallize my thoughts to carve out a couple of research problems. (BTW, it helps to have advisors who are always willing to spare time for the student, especially at this stage). 

The fourth stage is when you finally start doing the “real deal”, i.e. start setting up the actual experiments or simulations. Now, this is perhaps the stage that is the most frustrating (damn! I am in this stage right now). This is when you make instrument set ups / write codes for the problem you try to simulate. Most of the time, you end up encountering some drawback or other. And unless the drawbacks are successfully countered, there is no question of proceeding further. Hopeless as the stage may be, this is probably the most important stage of PhD – this is where you burn your hands and learn the nitty gritties of research. Once again, meeting once a week formally (and may be once more informally) with advisors help. It is also of immense help if the students develop some good people skills and start getting along nicely with the technicians and junior scientists. These are the people who provide the max help in fixing the niggling problems/making samples etc. (I also find it soothing to have a few gallons of coffee close at hand ;)

Congratulations. Having made past the fourth stage, you reach the fifth stage. The experimental set up is ready. The code seems to work well. You have a clear cut problem and line of action. Go ahead, get results. Analyze them, and write them up. Soon, publications will start to flow in (For grad students in most fields, 3-4 papers in 18 months is good enough to be considered as “flowing in”). This is the stage where max results can be obtained with minimum effort. Naturally, now with everything falling in to place slowly, like a jigsaw puzzle, its time to start feeling more and more confidence. Visits to advisor’s office are likely to reduce in frequency. However, the meetings will probably be much more intense and fruitful. Time to start hunting jobs / post doc positions. Thank god that you made a list of stalwarts in your field. If it’s a post doc you want, you already know whom to sound out. 

The sixth and last stage is the thesis writing stage. Now, I have already written a master’s thesis although I am still years away from writing a PhD thesis. My experience is that initially, thesis writing is a pleasurable activity. However, as you progress through the chapters you might start feeling a bit irate. It helps if you have already written up papers, since in such cases, thesis writing is a lot more about re-organizing stuff already written up rather than type in everything from scratch. This is also a good time to tie up the loose ends that become apparent only after you try writing up your work as a entirety (rather than in form of piecemeal papers). Following up those loose ends as much as is practically feasible would definitely add to quality of the thesis. It might even add another paper to the publications kitty. Once the thesis is written, its time to submit and defend the thesis, and yes, finally, throw a nice party J. 

A realistic timeline for a 5 year PhD would be to spend the first year on coursework, deciding a broad research area and find an appropriate research group and advisor in the department. The first half of second year (i.e. 3rd semester) can be devoted for litertature review. The second half (i.e. 4th semester) can be spent preparing for the comprehensive exams and research proposal. In fact, often the 2^nd stage (literature review) and 3^rd stage (problem definition and research proposal) overlap. The next 15 months or so (i.e. 3^rd year and a part of 4^th year) would be taken up with getting the stuff right – i.e. making the experimental set ups/coding. The next 15 months (remaining part of 4^th year and half of 5^th year) would involve doing the actual experiments and analyzing results. The last 6 months can be spent in writing up the thesis, following up loose ends and job/post-doc hunting.

Now of course, PhDs may have different duration too. In the process, no doubts you will end up re-evaluating a lot of stuff ;).

Grad studies III: Doing a literature review

When starting on a PhD program, or when jumping into a new field, one of the first steps would be to do a literature search. In my opinion, the best way to do a literature review is to actually read a literature review. Simple, right? So, if you are a new grad student, seek out older grad students / faculty and talk to them. Make a list of review journals in your field. Then methodically comb them volume by volume. Get the most recent review article and read it carefully. Watch out for the cross-references, and track down the ones that you might think are interesting. A good review paper is 40-100 pages long. So, take your time to read it, and then again re-read it (along with the cross-referenced papers that seem interesting to you). By the time you are done, you probably have a fairly decent idea of your field; at least decent enough for you to take the next step, the next step being seeking and reading research articles in your field. 

Now, at this stage, take some time out to find out about bibliographic programs that are available to you. Archiving the papers you read right from the start will save you lots of time later on, especially when you write research papers of your own. Personally, I find Endnote quite useful. But then, it is not free software. If your research group or library has a license, well and good. Otherwise, look for alternatives. And if you don’t have access to bibliographic software, you can still use good old Microsoft tools. In absence of softwares, to create a simple bibliographic file, simply open a Word document and create 3 columns. Each row is one record. The first column is the paper title. The second one has the author name and the third one has the keywords. If you have this information down, you can easily search for what you want later on. 

Anyway, let’s move on to actually searching the papers. How do you search? Simple enough – use a search engine. For science and engineering, useful search engines are SciFinder scholar (this is not a freeware though), scirus, engineering village and google scholar. My favorites are the ScFinder scholar and scirus. In addition to using search engines, there is another method that I have found useful which is sort of the opposite of looking up references – i.e. look at citations. Use any good citation database (Web of Science works well for me, since that is what our university subscribes to. Scopus is good too). Once you find a paper of interest, look up the citation database to find out papers that have cited this paper you were interested in. Chances are, a fair amount of the papers citing the paper of your interest will also have information of interest to you. Apart from this, it is also useful to open a new email account and subscribe to email alerts from a number of top journals in your field. It takes less than 5 minutes to scan through the table of contents in the email alerts, and is a good way of staying updated. 

So much about searching papers. Once you have found a paper, how do you read it? While I said one should read the review paper (referred to above) very carefully, I think how one reads the subsequent papers is quite different. Don’t read the whole paper at first! No, your time is too precious. First read the title. If you find it interesting, proceed to the abstract, otherwise dump the paper. Still interested? Proceed to the conclusions. Still liking it? Good for you. Now, read through the paper starting at introduction, all the way through to the results and discussions segment. 

There, you have it. Few simple principles, but fairly effective.

At last!

At last, the D-day came and went by. Finally the PhD prelims are over. Luckily it went of pretty well, and so, now I am officially an A.B.D. student (All but dissertation). Going through the process made me realize how useful the prelims are for somebody like me. Apart from getting a couple of interesting suggestions from the committee members, this was an excuse for reviewing the basic materials science fundamentals once again (something, which I admit, I am a bit weak in).

Years of regimental studies in BTech and MTech and I drifted in a state where exam preps meant:
1. Analyzing the last 6 years question papers (by the time I was done with Tech degrees, it was down to 3 yrs)
2. Pinpointing the key areas and cover 70% of the class notes accordingly. No books allowed, at any stage
3. Invent mnemonics for stuff I found tough.
4. Set aside a time period @ 4 min per class note page (now, I was conscientious in taking notes and attending classes - so on an average, had 200 pages of notes, which translated to 140 pages of readable notes for semester exams. Preferably set aside a time that is around 10 hrs before the exam. I.e. exam at 8.30am implies, start studying at 10.30pm the previous night.
5. Write the exam and forget what I read.

Naturally, all these contributed to my weak fundamentals. Prelims was a different cup of tea. With all my labmates working in a totally different area from mine, I had almost no idea of what to expect. So, other than focusing on research, it was back to basics for me. I didnt read up as much as I wanted to, but even then, managed to cover basics of mechanical behavior, thermo and kinetics, some aspects of solidification, microscopy, x-ray diffraction, etc. Not the best I could have done, but a fairly decent prep by all means.

Well, the prelims went well and are now done and dusted with. Time to look ahead towards research, afresh.

Grad studies - II: Exploring academia as an undergrad

In my last post on grad studies, I made a list of topics that I thought were important from a prospective/current graduate student's point of view. This post follows up on that one with an essay on exploring the academic world while an undergrad.

Exploring the academic world as an undergrad is both useful and daunting. It is useful since it helps you make a very important career choice - whether to continue in academia or jump into the "real" world. Exploring the academic and research world as an undergrad can be a daunting prospect as well, because, often, you dont know where to start. So, how should you undertake this little exploration? Let me try to answer this in an anecdotal manner followed by a few general comments.

I was lucky in my "explorations". Fed up with text book metal extraction stuff, I had partly made up my mind by the end of 2nd year to opt out of metallurgy asap (i.e. immediately after BTech) and get a software job. However, as luck would have it, we went to IISc Bangalore on a study trip during the 3rd year of BTech. We went to meet our erstwhile college seniors, who were ME students at IISc. And in doing so, at some point of time during that trip I found myself standing in front of Prof. Ranganathan's lab. They had a wonderful poster outside the lab highlighting the work of Eric Lord and S. Ranganathan on geometry of quasicrystals. Ever since my school days, I had loved geometry and math. The reason I found metallurgy so stultifying in undergrad days was because it seemed bereft of mathematical beauty. That one poster gave me hope that there may be a lot more to metallurgy than I learnt from undergrad courses. Subsequently, I spent months searching up quasicrystals on the internet. I garnered some information, found some research papers, a short monograph, and just as importantly, made email contact with a number of scientists and professors working on this field who kindly directed me to a few valuable resources. I searched up people who worked on quasicrystals. I applied and got an internship in Prof Chattopadhyay's lab. Although I finally didnt work on quasicrystals and nor did i have much success on my internship project on solidification I gained valuable experience and insight to the research world.

I was lucky to come across the poster. Such luck is not uncommon, but it doesnt come the way of everyone. So what should you do if you didnt have "luck". Well, first of all, there should be a resolve not to trash your discipline unless you have given it a good shot - meaning, dont think of switching lanes too early. Secondly, think clearly about what you are passionate about (in my case, it was numbers, math and geometry). Then talk to professors to see whether you are able to tie up your passions in any research field (IMHO, you should be able to do this!! That's the beauty of research). I cant over-stress how important this step is. Thirdly, walk through the library. Look at books that professors havent ever suggested. Often such books turn out to be specialized books and may be a bit tough, but, they have the advantage of offering you a glimpse on how things may look at the research level. No professor at undergrad level asks you to browse through the "Physical Metallurgy Vol 1,2 &3" by Cahn and Haasen. But having done just that, I found an useful article by Walter Steurer on quasicrystals, which helped me fuel my interest on. Lastly, keep your eyes and ears open for research projects. Nothing matches gaining experience on the job. So, working on a research project part time in your college, or a summer internship in a research lab helps you no end.

To summarize:
1. Be positive and dont equate coursework with research; often research is infinitely more interesting than coursework. So, before giving up on higher studies/research, give it a honest shot.
2. Never give up on your passions; and, always look for research fields where the topics about you are passionate has a key role.
3. Write to people; whether grad students, or scientists or professors (in your university and elsewhere) with a short note on your area of interest, the sort of work you visualize that you would love and ask for guidance. However, do proper research on the net on whom to write to, and dont make your letters too generic.
4. Dont just live on the net. The college library (however big or small that may be) is a resource as fantastic as the net. Just browsing through the book shelves may be an immensely rewarding experience.
5. Look out for research openings for undergrads. Hands on experience in research at undergrad level is invaluable.

The changing face of cricket

Cricket. What connotations does this one word have for someone who has even a bit of idea about the game? Today, probably, the word will have different connotations for different people. But not too long ago, the one phrase that was synonymous with cricket was the "gentleman's game".

The game of cricket is centuries old. For sure, the game was being played on village greens as early as 16th centuries. The game was initially popular amongst the farming and the metal working community, and slowly evolved from there on. Like most sports, in the early days, cricket was a game played honestly by hardworking men almost as a social activity. The game those days was fueled on by their passion. In the early days, cricket teams flourished in the countryside under the patronage of the dukes and earls, in general the gentry. Blacksmiths and woodcutters, peasants and the occasional gentry would assemble together during a lunch break. Lunch breaks used to be more like net sessions with a bowler being allowed to bowl a certain number of overs and the batsmen being allowed to bat out a certain number of deliveries (irrespective of whether they got out or not).

International matches started much later in 1844 and slowly, the professional cricketer came into being - ones who played for money and prize and made a career out of the game. No longer was the game just a social occasion for the players (although till 1980s when there were limited number of matches, it still was a social occasion for the paying public). A match had to be won and the approach was to damn aesthetics and win the game. mostly, win it hard and fair. The early professional cricketer still had at their core some of the gentlemanly values - they wanted to win, but win fair and square and not "at all costs". Many of the professionals during this ear (late 19th century to mid 20th century) had regular day jobs - a famous example being Don Bradman. While they played for money, the money that they earned was not solely linked to cricket. Despite being professionals they could still afford to treat it not as a guerilla war but a battle of the more honorable kind.

With more and more international matches being played out between countries who were neighbors, or countries who were at loggerheads (India - Pakistan?), the games started getting a nationalistic tinge. Ian Chappell's growling Aussies surface in 1970s. Players, who purportedly played for national pride and so thought that winning the game was the be all and end all (so what, if later on many of them defected to Kerry Packer for money, pride be damned). They defended their actions under the thought "cricket is a game for grown up men. One should be able to take a bit of lip and stay focussed on the game, etc.". (aside: when did grown up men have to resort to childish snipes at each other and make petulant remarks?). But, at least, in the defense of Chappell's Aussies, despite the gladiatorial air with which they played the game, they still went out with their opponents after the match. Chappell's Aussies represented a transitional breed of cricketers.

The modern cricketer is a much meaner version of the Aussies. True, some of the comments exchanged on the field would leave you wondering whether or laugh or to fume, but an increasingly large number of comments were becoming personal, racial and abusive. Today, the cricketer's income is totally dependent on the game. They get sponsorships for their success on the field and equally importantly, for their eye catching ability and newsworthiness. In addition, advent of cricket leagues like ICL and IPL means large salaries directly from the game itself. The game of cricket is creating moneyed individuals. In itself, that is not bad. The professional cricketer reaches where he is by sheer dint of hard work and sacrifices from an early age. But, money after all is the root of all evils. With money comes an ego, the size of which in many (but thankfully not all) cases is directly proportional to the bank balances. In such an era, can someone afford to nurture the gentlemanly values at the cost of losing a match, losing publicity for himself and forgoing a few quick bucks? Slowly, more and more players are starting to answer this with a resounding "No".

Today, the modern pro plays the game in the gladiatorial ampitheater of Eden Gardens or Melbourne cricket ground with their teams having outlandish names like "Knight Riders" and "Daredevils". Money talks, as do abuses. Players cheat, because they believe they should "give no quarters because they ask for none".

Centuries ago, in the sepia tinted days, simple minded honest folks worked hard at the nets in bright sunshine in the village greens trying to perfect a straight drive or get their leg breaks to turn a mile. An era of camradeire abounded and cheating and abusing was not called for, nor tolerated. Just as the samurai perfected his breathing and the stroke of his sword with a sense of spirituality, the early practitioners of cricket tried to perfect their art not for fame or money, but for the sake of perfection. That, in essence, described the spirit of cricket. This is the spirit that is being abused by all and sundry related to the game. The spirit that has all but died out today.

Truth be said, cricket is a microcosm of the society we live in. Society has changed. So has the game.

Grad studies - I: incoherent ponderings

The jobless grad student inside me is surfacing yet again. This Friday night was spent in two parts. Admittedly though, both turned out to be fruitful.

The first part was a dinner organized by the Brazilian-Portuguese students association. The food was sumptuous, the cultural programs were nice too (maculele, a capoeira demonstration, and you guessed it, a samba band). Goes without a saying that chicks were hot too :) Hope I get to go to Brazil for a conference some day ;)

The second part was spent on making my website. Well, here's the crucial part. I put in a link to a "resources" page, with the noble intention of collecting lots of links on the web on various topics related to materials research as well as grad studies. Well, I am yet to put up links on materials research, but I did put in a few of my favorite links pertaining to grad studies. The page is by no means complete, but it is hopefully a decent start.

In my blog, I am hoping to put up a few short essays (all opinions my own only) on graduate studies. Obviously *few* essays will relate to *few* important aspects (or at least, what I consider important) of grad studies. This post though, is basically to list these aspects, lest I forget them later.

1. Why enter a grad program?
2. Exploring academia while an undergrad
3. Where to apply (choosing universities/ grad studies in India or abroad)
4. Standardized tests, SOPs, letters of recommendations, etc.
5. Choosing an adviser/PhD guide/major professor
6. The PhD timeline
7. Soft skills
8. How to go about the literature review
9. Framing a research problem and the preliminary research proposal
10. Writing the thesis
11. Life after PhD

11 topics! huh! hope I maintain the motivation to write stuff on all these.
By the way, some of the most interesting articles on grad studies can be found in Prof Abinandanan's blog under the label higher ed-advice.