Science meets Science Fiction : The Moment of Truth?

September 10th could be the biggest day in the history of mankind. It could be the day some of the most intriguing questions of life get answered. It could be the day we find out the true nature of the universe. If some others are to be believed it is the the day the entire world could come to an end. It could of course also end up being just another depressing, quiz filled rainy day in SPJIMR, Mumbai, as far as I am concerned.

But being the eternal optimist that I am, I do believe that September 10th will be something special, because on this day the Large hadron collider, the largest particle accelerator ever built (by CERN) is going to go operational.

For the uninitiated who don't know what the LHC is and what it is capable of, it is the similar to the device mentioned in Dan Brown's(remember him) 'Angels and Demons' which produces the dark matter. And for further info read this:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/03/god-particle/achenbach-text
Just quoting from the above article:

"Starting sometime in the coming months, two beams of particles will race in opposite directions around the tunnel, which forms an underground ring 17 miles in circumference. The particles will be guided by more than a thousand cylindrical, supercooled magnets, linked like sausages. At four locations the beams will converge, sending the particles crashing into each other at nearly the speed of light. If all goes right, matter will be transformed by the violent collisions into wads of energy, which will in turn condense back into various intriguing types of particles, some of them never seen before. That's the essence of experimental particle physics: You smash stuff together and see what other stuff comes out."

So what so special about this particular smashing exercise? Well the stuff they expect to come out might tell us some very interesting things, answers to questions you have never thought of asking. For instance ever wonder, if matter is made of atoms which in turn are made of protons, electrons and neutrons, then what are the protons made of (everything has to be made of something right) ? Fundamentally it could give us what comprises the mass of the universe.

Now if all that was nice and pleasant, the real question is what else will happen? And if some doomsday mongers are to be believed then this experiment will result in giant black holes and wormholes which will cause the world to disappear into itself. And although the ideas seems ridiculous to most individuals, it has actually caused legal issues for CERN, producing lawsuits preventing the machine from starting up.

Personally I am not a physics enthusiast, but I did try to read up about the whole black hole concerns on wiki and well couldn't make head or tail of it. But then it got me thinking if the world were to dissolve in a black hole, how would it happen. I mean think about it, how will you kick the bucket, if you do actually kick the bucket in this scenario. Or will I exist in some other parallel universe. Or will I just stop existing. I mean I can imagine just sitting in class breaking my head on Working Capital management one second and then the next second I stop existing !!! Would I even know that my time on this planet is up? Correction would I know that the whole planet's time is up? And what about all the stuff that we have learnt about, souls, aatma, parmatama, salvation etc etc..I mean are you eligible for entry into heaven if you don't actually die. Or will you soul be wandering around the universe aimlessly? And what about God? Imagine that God could be just sitting around his office happily going about His job of monitoring humanity and all of a sudden he realises that humanity has disappeared and He's lost his job?


And wait a minute..what if this is my last blog post ever. Should I be wasting it talking about particle accelerators, black holes, souls and divine unemployment. So ask yourself, if you could write one single post on one topic only, what would be your last post on this planet? Your parting message to humanity.

Would you try and wax philosophy? Would you attend to unfinished business like vent your anger on someone, or tell a girl you have a crush on that you like her? Or would you just say a nice goodbye to all your loved ones? And how would all of this affect your life if you ended up posting a doomsday message and the world in fact did not end on the next day.

And the most important in this series of questions - would you give a rat's ass if the world actually came to an end at an arbit point of time tomorrow? Knowing that you are not going to leave behind any loved ones, or that all your dreams and hopes are going to vanish along with you. And that you wont be leaving behind any unfinished business, cause the business itself no longer exists.
Finally...How can anyone have feeling about an event that you can never foresee coming and after it has occurred you no longer exist.Would the event make a difference in your life, in the way that you think, in any decision that you make?
Think about it......

As for me I honestly don't know.

But all I will say is one thing, if the world has to come to an end tomorrow, all I would ask is that it happens before my IT in Business quiz.

As for last words (if the world were to collapse on itself), I will go with Karl Marx on this one -"Last words are for those who haven't said enough in a lifetime".

Ciao.

Dont Panic!!!!!

The Futility of Rankings

We as a race are generally obsessed with lists and orders (I am sure all of you remember the Mercedes advertisement) and even more obsessed with comparisons. The fact is proven by the no. of blogs and sites on the net devoted entirely to lists and the fact that we come out with rankings for everything and anything under the sun, whether it be colleges, movies, travel destinations, in fact I think you will find that if you can name an object, someone somewhere has been kind enough (or jobless enough) to come up with a ranking system for it. Now, if you ask me rankings are, for a lack of more articulate terminology, a load of crap. And possibly the most futile activity on this planet (well okay maybe sessions of the Indian parliament are a little more futile).


Now for a little background on why I have decided to spend my precious time on talking about a futile activity. About a couple of months ago my alma mater Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) was ranked no. 10 in India by India Today. This caused one hyper active dude from IIIT- Hyderabad to rant and rave about what a crap hole VIT is and how the world should be engulfed in a giant ball of flame just because somehow VIT was ranked better than IIIT-H (maybe he didnt say those exact words, but I can paraphrase right). Now my 1st reaction was, dude get a life and secondly why do you care so much. And then I realised that he cares because unfortunately the rest of our ranking obsessed nation does. And I realised this when all my friends were somehow aghast by Mr.IIIT's rant and responded in kind. And then when a short while back Outlook came up with it's ranking (VIT placed 5th in list of Private colleges) a friend of mine, Baldy (check out the YDNTN's various blog) did a brilliant comparison between IIIT-H and VIT (my quant prof would have been proud of u Baldy) to basically try and refute the IIITian. And you understand where these guys are comin from, because they feel that the reputation of our Alma mater is at stake. However observe carefully the method of rankings and think aout it and you realise how deeply flawed the whole system is. For instance the entire ranking system is a cyclic process, consider a college ranked no.1 in the country, it attracts the best students, students who add to its intellectual capital (one of the categories commonly used for ranking colleges ). Which means that the college ranked higher will always have a higher quality intake and a college with higher quality intake will have a higher rank. The same goes for placements as well, college with higher ranks have better placements leading to stronger alumni which means better placements which means a better rank. Same goes even in the business world, a brand ranked as the most powerful in the world will obviously increase its brand power and the ranking will only make it more secure. Simply put rankings beget better rankings and once the cycle is formed it's almost impossible to break. And the best example would be the college rankings in India, anyone want to bet against the IIT's and IIM's being atop rankings 20 years from now, I wouldn't. And another thing about rankings is that its all about perception, what appears better is ranked better and so natural progression leads people to think that its better. And I have no better example than the 2 colleges I belong to, VIT and SP Jain. SP, I think is amongst the best B-Schools in the country, I didnt think so before coming here but now I do, I dont think they should be in the so called second rung below the IIM's, in fact I dont think the IIM's are a rung above,because the way we do things here is so different from the IIM's that there is no comparison between them. And I think this holds true for all good colleges, because the best do things differently and it is not possible to compare them. And then there is VIT a place which has supposedly broken into the top rankings, why because they have great buildings, a great infrastructure and above all else excellent PR. But I for one honestly believe that a good college should be much more (sorry to Baldy and the guys, I know you wont agree with me). And ultimately a ranking system is just that a slap in the face of originality and a an advocate of conformism, because it force us to align with a percieved view of what is good and what is not.



And whats really messed up about this whole system is that the ranking clouds judgement often preventing us from looking into the truth. I was just reading yesterday that Jet Airways is India's most powerful brand, one of only 2 brands to have gotten a AA+ rating from the Economic Times brand finance study. Now here are a few points to note about Jet Airways:

1) Known for its lack of punctuality. (Ask any frequent flier)

2) Not great in service either.

3) Its one of the only companies in the stock market, which neither appreciates in value and neither do they give dividend to shareholders.

And they are India's most powerful brand.

Quite how and why that happened I dont know. And once again you only look at the reverance people attach to colleges in India, again i have to give the example of IIT's and IIM's (this is not an anti IIT/IIM piece) where people aim for a specific college without even being concerned about the actual kind of education that they really want. The no. of people who have buried their creativity, desire and dreams all to study in the best college in the country is endless. Rankings began as a system to help people without access to information. Today they have began an endless nuisance which is often biased and does nothing but confound our brain. And they are now completely redundant given that most information we need to make an individual assesment is readily available anyway. Unfortunately we being the practitioners of herd mentality would rather follow the crowd rather than trust our own judgement and research.



Finally I'll close this post by quoting TV Journalist Bill Maher, who said "Saying that Iam no.1...in the world is like saying that my wife is the best wife in the whole world. Which is so idiotic, because all that matters is that my wife should be the best for me" . Couldn't have described it better, myself. So next time you want to make a decision look for the facts and do your own research.

It's been a good Weekend...

First of all a little fact about life at SP, we consider our weekends to be Wednesday night and Thursday (Thur is the only day off for us), but since the rest of the world still considers Saturday and Sunday as weekends, for their convenience I'll refer to them as such.

And this has been a good, wait scratch that out, excellent weekend.

To start of with, Man Utd got their rear ends handed to them on Friday night by Zenit St.Petersburg in the UEFA super cup. Which also proved what I told all those annoying Man U fans, who happened to be my roomates a year back, that without Cristiano Ronaldo, Man Utd is like the Apple portfolio without the iPod, big name with a lot of stature but absolutely no substance (I have reserved my judgement for the iPhone for later).

And then we had a quiz on ITB (IT in Business) on Saturday, which I managed to survive with absolutely no preparation. After that I was able to watch Arsenal return to their old self against Newcastle with a fab performance (it was like watching poetry in motion).

And then today I had an Operations Management mid-term which I yet again survived. And I also came to a very important realisation. The fundamental difference between a B-School and Engg is that the performance in a test is not directly related to the amount you study. Which suits me just fine!!!! I almost wanted to scream out "Im Lovin it!!!" after the test, but then realised best not to anger the almighty test Gods, who haven't been particularly kind to me this trimester. The icing(s) on the cake came when, Chelsea and Liverpool both drew, and just on a side note, Liverpool have now officially become the most boring football team on the planet. And those good for nothing snobs, AC Milan also got what they deserved, losing their first match of the season (no team has ever done well after stealing players from Arsenal).

Well now I'm off trying to study for my FSA (Financial Statement Analysis) Mid term tomorrow. Hopefully my good weekend will spill over to the week also.

Random Thought for the Day: "Fast, Cheap, and Good... pick two. If it's fast and cheap, it won't be good. If it's cheap and good, it won't be fast. If it's fast and good, it won't be cheap." Fast, cheap and good... pick two words to live by. - Tom Waits

Cheers.

Arsenal and SP Rock

I had to Go away to Come Back.....

Well I am back! After a self imposed 3 month blogospheric exile, which was partially due to the fact that I had nothing to say and partially due to the fact that I was still adjusting to life in a B-School. But it took a really eventful trip, to a wonderful place to finally bring me back to my blog. The place we went to is this amazing but little known place called Anandwan.

Anandwan for those who don't know about is a small community, situated at a few hours drive from Nagpur. It was started around 1951 by Baba Amte as a refuge for lepers and other sections of the society who were treated by outcastes by the rest of the society. Today Anandwan spreads over 200 acres and houses 3500 people all of whom have been rejected by our so called 'normal' society. Yet these people run a self sufficient, self sustained community which is as good as an example of innovation and management that I have seen in a long while. The people at Anandwan have turned the barren land in the middle of nowhere into a fertile, well irrigated area which significantly outperforms the rest of the region in terms of agricultural productivity. Their industry is not limited to agriculture alone, they also have workshops where they manufacture all the various tools and implements that they need, include wheelchairs for lepers, which have come into high demand across the country. They also produce exquisite handicrafts, garments, beds, artistic wall hangings, greeting cards and much much more. In fact anything and everything needed in the colony (except salt and oil) is self generated. And you will be immediately struck by the serenity of the environment, and the greenery and cleanliness. And I was amazed by the amount of technical creativity that you could find in this place. One example was a dam used for water irrigation which was constructed by using discarded rubber tyres and reinforced by using waste plastic. They manufacture solid damage proof houses without any steel or timber and make slippers out of rubber tyres.

But what makes this place really amazing is the dedication of the people out there.We met a few members of the Late Baba Amte's family, who have dedicated their lives to their father's ideal and have even taken his cause further. Dr Vikas Amte, Baba Amte's son and now the head of the organization, is currently working in a small town of Yewatmal (an isolated forest area), looking for solutions to the problems of farmer suicides plaguing the area, through irrigation and rain water harvesting, with a team of only 100 men. The group of Anandwan have even extended their activities to nearby tribal areas to improve the poor living conditions there.

So why am I writing about all of this? It's because amongst all the amazing things that came out of Anandwan, what was also glaring was the fact that this incredible place is still mired in anonymity. And the fact is that the stigma associated with leprosy has ensured that these people who were treated as outcastes in 1951 are still treated the same. And worse still, in a nation where we are so quick to applaud and hail the so called miracle workers, we still have not begin to recognise the true workers, like the people at Anandwan. The politicians, the media, the corporates, everybody stays miles away from this place. And consider the fact that this is a place which has received international acclaim and awards, with several documentaries and business studies being done on it and it has been so grossly overlooked by our countrymen. The very fact that no one (myself included) I knew, had even heard of this place, shows how fickle minded a nation we truly are. So I come back to the point, why this post? I don't want to be over-dramatic and say that this place has inspired me to devote my life to social service, I don't know if I will ever have the courage for that. But I can at least do this one simple thing, spread the word about this place. At least let people know that in this insane, competitive world, we have a place ruled by humanity and compassion. So for all those who read this, please do me a favor, tell someone about this place, anyone, your friend, your neighbor, your family, whoever is the nearest to you. If you don't want to, direct them to this post. But tell them. This is an extraordinary place, which has been forsaken by our leaders, ignored by our media and abandoned by our society. At least lets give them the recognition they deserve. Who knows you might just lead the next bright social activist towards a great cause?

"If everyone cared and nobody cried,

If everyone loved and nobody lied

If everyone shared and swallowed their pride

Then we'd see the day when nobody died" - Nickelback

Random Thoughts-1

It took me 3 trips to Landmark and 7 hours, but I finally finished Chetan Bhagats -"The 3 Mistakes of My life". And well truth be told it wasn't that bad a book. A neat package of religion, politics and cricket, Mr Bhagat sure knows what sells in India doesn't he, mixed together with his usual collection of youthful drama. One good thing i will say about Bhagat is that his characters have tended to become more mature with each book. Though his books could use a little more realism ( for instance why would the Australian government offer citizenship to a 13 yr old school boy, just because he might be a cricketing prodigy and as if Australian citizenship can be so easily given away). And finally for a book so attached to cricket, Chetan Bhagat shows a remarkable lack of knowledge about the game and has even got his facts wrong on a couple of occasions. Nonetheless I would say a timepass book (but then I did read it for free).

Sticking to cricket, the Super Kings (my fave team) have made it to the IPL semis at Mumbai Indians' expense.A terrific achievement considering that no team was hit as badly as Chennai by the mid series departure of the Aussies and Kiwis, and that a large portion of their success is due to the local talent in the team. Well all in all I would say its a fair result, the 4 most consistent teams made it to the Semis. As far as the Indians go, there is only word to describe them, Chokers, they have lost their last 3 matches in the final over of the game, twice due to sloppy fileding and bowling. All in all Lalit Modi and co must be delighted with the 1st edition of the IPL so far, its been closer than anyone could have asked for. Lets hope the Semis and Finals don't dissapoint.

In other happenings, I've started reading this book called "The 10 most Beautiful Experiments", a really good book so far, especially for science lovers, a lovely tribute to the ingeniuty of scientists. Hopefully I'll be able to finish it in couple of more trips to Landmark.

Lastly, I heard the 2 new songs of Coldplay's lates album, "Violet Hill" and "Viva La Vida", and I cant wait for the full album to come out."Violet Hill" is probably one of Coldplay's best ever songs, and the the album seems to have a completely different sound to the typical Coldplay stuff.

Random Thought for the Day - "A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. "

A Slap and a Slip..Not Great Sports But Lots of Entertainment

I saw the UEFAChampions League final last night, and the entire game could could have probably been summed up by the weather, started of bright enough but ended up becoming a damp squib,atleast in the footballing sense. But even though the match didn't make for the most classic of football matches it sure made for one hell of a TV Drama.


First of all to begin with, Roman Abramovich couldn't have asked for a venue to see his greatest dream come to fruition, to see his team win the greatest prize in European Football on his home turf must have been the ultimate dream. Then as the game began Cristiano Ronaldo was determined to prove his worth and boy did he do just that. Then came Frank Lampard's turn to add the masala to this game, a man who scored of the spot, days after his mother's death to get Chelsea here, got them the precious equalizer. From this point on it was more about dramatic little moments than the continous flowing good football. Chelsea who probably were lucky to go into half time level were probably unlucky to have not won the match outright. So onto extra time and the football got no better but the drama got more intense. John Terry, who only 2 weeks back was stretchered of the field with a broken arm, made one of the great saves of the day to keep Chelsea in the game. And then it really got fun..Didier Drogba goes and pulls of a combo of Zidane and Harbajan Singh..imagine this could very well be the last act Drogba pulls for Chelsea ( considering that he could have atleast smacked Ronaldo, he has one coming). So on to the finale and the man who put the ball in the back of the net 42 times from often incredible positions couldnt put it in from 6 yards out. You would think that was drama enough, but then John Terry goes from hero to villain in 30 minutes (kinda like those soaps) and his slip up (literally) cost Chelsea the champions league. And for the last act of this gripping drama it came down to two men, Ryan Giggs,who has played at the same Club for 16 years and Nicolas Anelka who has hardly spent more than a year at the same club. And ina fitting finale, it was the veteran who became Man Utd's highest capped player ever in this match, who scored what would be the winning penalty, and Roman Abramovich watched 13 million pounds go down the drain as Anelka condemned his team to fate aptly described by his nickname, The Sulk.


On the whole given that Man Utd had a tougher group and knockout fixtures, I hate to admit it, but they did deserve the trophy.

On a different note as an incredible season of European football come to an end, I cant help but say that this has been possibly the best season of football I have witnessed. For the first time 4 leagues in Europe (England, Italy, France and Scotland) all were decided in the last game of the season, and we had one of the best Champions league competitions in quite a while, an utter unknown Zenit St. Petersburg, picked up the UEFA cup, thrashing the mighty Bayern Munich along the way. Add to that Milan didn't make it to next years Champions League, Valencia had to stave of relegation and of course who could forget England being knocked out of the Euro qualifiers. But my favorite tournament of the year had to be the FA cup, the oldest tournament in the world provided the most drama of any competition across Europe, consider the likes of Havnt and Waterlooville a team which doesn't even play in a professional league, taking on Liverpool at Anfield and taking the lead not once but twice, Barnsley knocking out Liverpool and Chelsea, and Portsmouth who knocked out Man Utd, going on to become the first team out of the Big 4 to win the competition in 13 years.

What a season of football, with the European Championships just around the corner, it's still not over, and in the spirit of football, I will be rooting for Switzerland or Croatia to pull of a big upset and lift the championship.

Immigrant Song

Sorry to disappoint any rock fans (who might have picked up on the reference) but this post is not about the classic Led Zep song, rather it is about the tune most politicians seem to be whistling nowadays. Illegal immigration has become the mantra of any politician who wants to create a stir. Just a couple of weeks back the Italian Prime Minister during his campaign speech, promised to rid his country of the "Army of Evil" that is the illegal immigrant population of Italy, strong words coming from a man who is famous for his Mafia ties and whose football club was docked points for match fixing. Immigration is one of the hottest issues in the US presidential elections, particularly with the Republicans. Closer to home, who can forget Raj Thackeray's outbursts against immigrants from within his own country. Basically it seems that the easiest way to stir up the voters is by telling that there are evil men who come from lands unknown and take away their food, money and jobs and are responsible for all the crimes committed against them. And somehow it seems to work, look at the actions of the people in Mumbai, they actually had to name their IPL team the Indians as a response in solidarity, almost as if the feeling of being an Indian was being lost, or consider the fact that t 1 in 8 Italians fear immigrants ( a number which was 1 in 20 less than 5 years ago) , and McCain's popularity with the Republicans soared when he supported strong anti-immigration measures. Why is that all of a sudden there is this outrage against immigrants ?
Now consider the facts , the largest crime syndicate in Italy is the Mafia, which of course does not comprise of immigrants ( another interesting bit of info - southern Italy which is dominated by the Mafia is the most economically backward section of Italy) , the American economy is in the crapper because of a useless war and a housing bubble, neither had anything to do with immigrants and as far as Mumbai is concerned, the city would be nothing if not for the immigrant population, for instance what would have happened if the Ambanis had been denied entry into Maharashtra. The fact also is that these immigrants do the most menial jobs which the local population of any place would never touch. I mean think of it, these people wash toilets, clean houses, sit on roadside stalls in the middle of summer for a meagre living and yet it is these luxuries which politicians want to take away. I guess people just find it easy to blame someone else for their problems, especially if that someone happens to be completely different from them.
And somehow I don't understand the outrage against immigration. Think about it, if I was born in Bombay, Bangalore or New York and not some war torn part of Croatia, an African Desert or a village in Bihar, then its just my good fortune. I have absolutely no right to deny anyone else the same opportunity that I've had. Most immigrants are people who leave hopeless old lives behind, just to be able to survive, I mean nobody wants to leave their home for the heck of it.
Also anti-immigration is just pure selfishness, basically we don't want to share what we have, for instance the Americans use 25% of world resources for 4% of its population and yet they are concerned about immigrants, I mean given the amount of resources they use, they should probably accommodate more people. Also most local population were immigrants at some point of time, the oldest Americans themselves are illegal immigrants.
In an ideal world everybody would be born equal, with the same opportunities available to all, but that isn't the case. The oppprtunities you have depend a lot on the circumstances you were born into, and I guess everybody has the right to seek opportunity wherever it lies and just because we have doesn't mean we can deny it to others. And again most places are better of for immigrants , take the Mughals for instance, what would Indian culture, art and literature have been without them, or the impact which the Irish and Italians have had on USA. Eventually I hope people realise that migration and immigration are what make the world tick. I would end with a quote from the song which gave this post its title -
"So now you'd better stop and rebuild your ruins,
For peace and trust can win the day
Despite all your losing. " - Led Zeppelin, Immigrant Song