Indian Power Sector Charts

Fig 1. Sources of power for India across the years

Fig 2. Per capita power consumption as of 2015

Fig 3. Coal power capacity as of 2015

Fig 4. Gas power capacity as of 2015

Fig 5. Diesel power capacity as of 2015

Fig 6. Nuclear power capacity as of 2015

Fig 7. Hydel power capacity as of 2015

Fig 8. Renewable (non-Hydel) power capacity as of 2015

Source: States of India by installed power capacity

Earthquake graph

Source: en.wikipedia.org

ఏదీ … దూకుడు!

మెట్రో రైలు ప్రాజెక్టు వేగం తగ్గిందా?
ప్రధాన నగరంలో వేధిస్తున్న సమస్యలు
పనులు నెమ్మదించాయంటున్న గణాంకాలు
ఈనాడు, హైదరాబాద్

ప్రారంభంలో మాదిరి నగరంలో మెట్రో రైలు ప్రాజెక్ట్ పనులు ఆశించినంత వేగంగా జరగడం లేదా? ఇదివరకు రాత్రికి రాత్రే చకచకా స్థంబాలు వేలిసేవి. పనులు హడావుడిగా కనిపించేవి. ఆ వేగానికి పలు జాతీయ, అంతర్జాతీయ రికార్డులు నమొదయ్యాయి. ఇటీవల కాలంలో ప్రధాన నగరంలో ఎదురవుతున్న పలు ఇబ్బందుల వాళ్ళ మెట్రో పనుల్లో వేగం తగ్గిందన్న భావాన వ్యక్తమవుతోంది.
అపాయింటెడ్ తేదీ 2012 జూన్ 5 … అయినప్పటికీ ప్రాజెక్టు నిర్మాణ సంస్థ ఎల్ అండ్ టీ రెండు నెలల ముందే పనులకు శ్రీకారం చుట్టింది. అప్పటి నుంచి ఐదేళ్ళలో ప్రాజెక్టు పూర్తి చేయాలనేది ఒప్పందం. అందుకే ఏప్రిల్ చివరలో పనులు మొదలు పెట్టింది. ఉప్పల్ - నాగోల్ మార్గంలో తొలి పునాది పడింది. ఆపై వెయ్యి పునాదుల మార్కును 2013 నవంబర్ 4 నాటికి చేరుకుంది. దాదాపు 18 నెలల కాలంలోనే వీటిని పూర్తి చేశారు. అదే విధంగా జరిగితే ఈ పాటికే రెండు వేల పునాది పనులు పూర్తవ్వాలి. కానీ 21 నెలలైనా 1,936 మాత్రమె పూర్తి చేయగలిగారు. మెట్రో స్థంబాల పనుల పురోగతి మాత్రం ప్రారంభం నుంచి ఒకే వేగంతో సాగుతున్నాయి. ఇప్పటి వరకు 1,824 స్థంబాల నిర్మాణం పూర్తయింది.
ఎందుకిలా .. ?
సాధారణంగా పనులు జరిగే కొద్దీ వేగం పెరగాలి. ప్రారంభంలో కొత్త కాబట్టి ఎంగినీర్లు, సిబ్బంధి ఎక్కువ సమయం తీసుకోవటం సహజం. మొదట్లో ఒక స్పాన్ను బిగించేందుకు రెండు వారాలు పడితే సమయం గడిచేకొద్దీ ఆ అనుభవంతో అందులో సగం సమయంలోనే పూర్తి చేస్తారు. భద్రతాపరంగా రాజీ లేకుండానే వీటిని చేయాలి. ఒక ప్రాంతంలో పూర్తయితే పూర్తిగా వేరే ప్రాంతంపై దృష్టి పెట్టె అవకాశం ఉంటుంది. వీటన్నింటితో వేగం పెరగాలి కానీ గణాంకాలు మాత్రం మరోలా చెబుతున్నాయి. ప్రస్తుతం పనులు ప్రధాన నగరంలో చేపడుతుండటంతో ఇక్కడ పలు సవాళ్లు మందగమనానికి కారణమని నిర్మాణ సంస్థ అంటోంది. ప్రారంభంలో ఎలాంటి అవరోధాలు లేని ప్రాంతంలో పనులు చేపట్టారు. మూడు కారిడార్లలో అవకాసం ఉన్న చోస్తాల్లా పూర్తి చేశారు. ఇప్పుడు జరుగుతున్నవన్నీ కోర్ ఏరియాలోనే ఉన్నాయి. స్పాన్ల పనుల్లో మందగమనానికి కారణం నిర్మాణ సమష్ట దృష్టి అంతా ఎప్పుడు రైల్వే వంతెనలపై ఉండటమేనని ఎల్ అండ్ టీ అధికారి ఒకరు తెలిపారు. ఒక్కో అర్వోబీ పూర్తి చేయడానికి దాదాపు ఆరు నెలలు పడుతుంది. ఇప్పటికే భరత్ నగర్లో ఒకటి పూర్తయింది. రెండోది ఆలుగడ్డ బావి దగ్గర ప్రారంభించేందుకు కసరత్తు మొదలెట్టారు. కూడళ్ళలోనూ పంజాగుట్ట, మోజంజాహి మార్కెట్ వద్ద ఆబ్లిగేటరీ స్పాన్లు నిర్మించేందుకు ఆరు నెలలు పడుతుంది. ఈ కారణాల వల్ల గణాంకాలలో వేగం తగ్గినట్టు అనిపించినా .. పనులు ఇదివరకు మాదిరే జరుగుతున్నాయని ఎల్ అండ్ టీ అధికారి చెప్పారు.
స్పాన్లలో మందగమనం
రెండు స్థంబాల మధ్య గడ్డర్ల సాయంతో నిర్మిస్తున్న స్పాన్ల పనులు అనుకున్నంత వేగంగా జరగడం లేదు. వెయ్యి స్పాన్లను 20 నెలల్లో పూర్తి చేశారు. సరిగ్గా ఏడాది కిందట ఇది అంతరాతీయ రికార్డు. ఇంత తక్కువ సమయంలో ఎవరూ ఇన్ని పూర్తి చేయలేదు. ఆ తర్వాత పనుల్లో వేగం మందగించింది. పది దాటి పన్నెండు నెలలు కావోస్తున్నాయి. దాదాపు 600 స్పాన్లు పూర్తి కావాలి, 517 మాత్రమే పూర్తయ్యాయి.

A world with cars

I am happy and the world knows it. They are wishing me birthday wishes. While I am busy thanking the 30,000 businesses, groups and people that wished me, my assistant directs my attention to a group of young people trying to create a game on how life was when cars were around. As I see how they are creating scenarios for their games, I was stuck by how close to real life these young people seem to be designing them. As I wondered, they send me a clip.

I play the clip and find myself in the middle of a dusty, crowded road. The buildings looked old, like they were out of the early 21st century. People were walking, travelling on personal vehicles, motorbikes and cars. I know this place. This was a place I've lived in in my early 20s. My assistant tells me that I can now buy personal music albums by saying 'Yes.' Just as I was about to say 'Yes,' I was distracted by a loud crashing noise. I turn my head to see a car crash involving two old world cars. I go close to the accident scene and see people helping the occupants to safety. The two people involved looked safe, but shaken. One of the drivers is wearing one of those suits managers used to wear till 10 years ago. He was in a fit of anger about how his new luxury car was damaged. It all looked funny to me; how an educated guy like that could call that box of metal luxury and more interestingly why he expected safety while driving one of those stupid machines? I was about to tell this to the manager guy when the clip ended abruptly.

I got a message from one of the group members saying that the manager like guy was his father, who forbid buying another car in their lives. Now, I understand their fascination with cars. Much of the world changed from looking at owning a car as a right of passage to a higher economic level to an unnecessary luxury to a relic of the past in the last 20 years. Many of them changed and have changed with the world, but few could not accept the changes that the world brought about and still longed for the old days.

As I tilt my head a little to the right, I see my 10 Chinese co-passengers. Their country had much hatred for cars and have been instrumental in our moving on to better transportation methods. 运气 was touted as the next big thing of the century. It is so sad that an electric car company named 'Luck' had to meet the fate it did. On the other hand, it is not really surprising, that a company that depended on people travelling met that fate.

I tell the group designing the game that 'It is sometimes exciting to imagine a world where we still had electric cars and we still planned our travels individually. We ran that experiment for more than 150 years and it took us nowhere except requiring more investment. They were unsafe, took space, cost money, wanted us to travel, provide regular service. and the result was still nowhere close to what we have now. It was right for us to have moved on to smarter modes of transport that make our journeys more social.' I tell them to build services that the all-knowing assistants of today make possible. My assistant tells me that 60% of Osaka is in agreement with my sentiment.A French girl joins in saying that it feels like the future has arrived and things will stay this way for all time to come. I nod in agreement, smiling at the logo of 运气.

That's so stupid

That's right; the Government's latest decision is so stupid.

Why do we often blame the Government on seemingly irrational decisions it so often takes? Because deep down, we were taught that the Government is supposed to take decisions which are in the interest of the nation. This is in spite of years of evidence that they fail to do so. Why do we not revise the model we have in our minds of the Government? Why don't we start seeing Government, not as an infallible entity, but being run by people who put their self interests above others'.

Suppose we start with this model now. We no longer fret about the everyday horror decisions the Government makes because they are no longer a surprise in your model. Suddenly, we become free to find ways to envision a system where humans have no part to play, rather than trying to trying to make our Government agents work according to the model in our minds.

The agency problem in the Government is not going to go away, no matter who comes to power. The system which puts too much control in someone's hands will always be subverted. Some systems have less corruption, not because the people running them are angels, but because no one person has control over the system and its resources. When the power with a select few is taken away, the reason to bribe them is also taken away. That is a system which runs without corruption.

So, next time you catch the Government taking another seemingly stupid decision, be in a state where you can congratulate yourself for having foreseen this. The more the number of people who realize this, the more we stop fighting each and every decision the Government takes and start finding ways to remove one more power from the Government.

Things to ponder: Do you think India would have progressed as much without the economic reforms of the 1990s, but just from the public and the opposition keeping a track of the Government's functioning through debate? If you think it would be possible, what made it so difficult before the reforms and what makes it so difficult in the areas without the reforms?

Why would you be blocked on an online forum?

I registered myself on a forum today and posted quite a thoughtful response to a question (IMO, anyway). After making that my first post, I went on posting in a couple of other threads and created a thread too on a Physics blog on the environment. 


Suddenly, after a few min, I find myself logged out and unable to login again. I fond that my id had been deleted. It could have been the moderator, it could also be a technical glitch, I’d never probably know. But, what was telling was that, if it was indeed the moderator, she would have taken the decision based on me breaking some rule, not looking at the quality of my response. Then, it occurred to me how it makes sense that the moderator might just do that. My response was important for me, but was one among the many the moderator has to deal with everyday. Her mode of action would obviously be based on her needs, rather than mine. This is what we fail to see very often about systems, their designs and workings, esp. when humans are involved. 


I hope to revisit this topic and take it to some useful conclusion in later posts.

Living like Bacteria

Bacteria grow exponentially so long as there are plenty of nutrients and resources exceed wastes. When growth from nutrients starts equaling the inhibition from waste products, their populations level off. As bacteria continue to use nutrients in this phase, they enter a stage of large scale population decline.

We have been growing exponentially recently, thanks to all the new found resources on the planet and our knowledge of using them. Our population has increased from 2 billion to 7 billion in the last 100 years.

What happens when the resources are all used up? Are we already seeing the waste buildup fighting back? Can we find wisdom found wanting all through this resource rich feast and avert the destiny of a bacterial colony?

Never tell everything to _________

Secrets are important because

How do you like the new design?

This is what addictions look like.

Facebook is different afterall

When I feel particularly bad about my achievements, I remove them from my Facebook profile and feel good.

I wouldn't have cared what my profile on any other website would have said. But, Facebook has become my online identity without me realizing it.

Time to say goodbye to you, sneaky!!!

Whose fault was it at the New Delhi Railway Station?

I was pushed onto a lady yesterday at the crowded New Delhi Railway Station. She was angry at me. I apologized and moved on. That she was angry at me felt unfair to me when it was some other guy who pushed me. 

While that looked unfair, me being angry on the guy who pushed me looked completely fair until the absurdity of the whole thing hit me. It is highly likely that the guy who pushed me did so because someone else pushed him.

In other words, while punishing the messengers for the messages is something that comes naturally to us, it is probably not the right thing to do.

Computers, Thinkers and Feelers

Computers don't think or feel. They are computational devices. The basic building block of a computer's brain is a transistor. The transistor is packaged into either a NAND gate, a NOR gate or a NOT gate. These gates make up everything else in a computer. Mathematics is represented as a function of these three Boolean functions. That the three gates can represent mathematics is not an accident, but a conscious decision on the part of the developers. It was discovered that all basic mathematical operations were achievable through these three functions. It is no wonder then, a machine built with the help of these transistors would be good at computations or at using mathematics.

The way our brain thinks or feels is different from the way it does mathematics. In fact, our computers mimic the way do mathematics and that explains the existence of those gates. Computers have an upper hand over us, just because they carry out our methodology much quicker thanks to the function of gates being tied to the speed of inputs given to the transistors.

Thinking does not feel as stressful or unnatural as computing, and feeling even less so. This should indicate that we compute differently than we think or feel. So, to make a thinking machine, we need to break down the thinking process into its individual steps. If we can do that, we should start basic functions which can be used to represent the whole thinking/ feeling process. Once these functions are developed, we will have a hope of generating machines which think and feel the way we do. This, of course depends on we finding the processes of thinking, being able to represent them as a function of basic processes, being able to design components which replicate these processes and link them in a way that represents the human capabilities. We will also need a new system of 'somethings' (like binary, a system of numbers). Till that day, we will only have machines which fake thinking or feeling, not real Thinkers or Feelers.

We will have interesting situations when machines could think and/or feel. Given how we had to make a computer's computational processes on the lines of those used by humans, will we be able to make our thinkers or feelers very different from us?  Can we stop them from having needs and wants of their own? What do we do when this machine does not feel like working? How do you destroy such a machine which does not want to die?

Alienology Question Paper (Makeup)

Answer all the questions. All the questions carry equal marks.


Q.1. Businesspersons recognize this as a familiar scenario. 'How do you sell to someone who does not need something?' The case for businesspersons is simplified by the fact that they deal with humans, who have emotions, albeit to varying degrees, and these make it simpler to make them take decisions which don't gel with their logic.

How one can get something from an alien who has no need or desire. Do all aliens feel a need to connect to others? What if the aliens would rather remain aloof? How would you interact with such an alien?

How do you deal with an alien who is purely logical? How do you exchange something with it when you have nothing to exchange which it deems worthy? How do you deal with aliens who do not even subscribe to logic as we know it? Is logic universal? Is it tied to the mathematical system we use, which is incidentally based on a set of human made axioms? Is it tied to our senses? Had we accepted that sun moves around the earth and earth if flat (believing what we see) and tried to explain this world, would we probably have succeeded with a different set of theories, and probably a different logic?

Q.2. Imagine a planet with just one living being. Describe its life. Integrate insights from the previous answer into this.

Q.3. How is life different on planets with life form that live for hundreds of millions of years different from life on earth? How is it different from the planet in Q.2.? Would your answer have differed if you had not thought of the planet in Q.2?

Former MLA passes away

April 3, 2012

Staff Reporter

Hyderabad: Former MLA of Zindabad, Bacchabuddi (90) died after a brief illness in a hospital here on Sunday. Party leaders and supporters thronged the hospital on hearing the news and blocked the surrounding roads for 2 hrs before the police intervened. His son Bakkaabuddi, MP of Chippaluru, speaking to the media said that it would be difficult for anyone to fill the shoes of his visionary father. Party leaders, his friends and followers expressed condolences to the bereaved family. Party leaders remembered how Bacchabuddi, the first MLA to the Zindabad constituency after its formation in 1978 used to garner support cutting across party lines. His initiatives of getting a statue of a freedom fighter constructed in the Zindabad constituency was welcomed by all. Similar was the response, when he decided to rename all the schools of the constituency after the first Governor of the country. He never acted on anything that made anyone protest. He is survived by his wife and two sons.

Personal and career highlights:

• Bacchabuddi got the construction of the 5000 MW Vidyutsagar dam stopped in 1978 to save 20 acres of land belonging to the downtrodden from being drowned.

• He was the chief accused in the Rs.6,50,000 crore Cowdung scam.

• He was also embroiled in the Cricket scam of the 90s.

• He was never convicted in any of the 316 pending criminal cases in which he was prime accused, for lack of evidence.

• Allegations of money distribution during elections against him were never conclusively proved.

• He was the founder of the 'Punyapurusha' party, which was set up on the plank of subsidised living, which later merged  with the Congress.

• He introduced the free petrol scheme in 1987, which still runs in the state.

• He was the first politician from the state to have been invited by the Oxford University to speak on 'How to subsidise during good times and suffer during bad times'

• 30 out of the 45 statues in the Zindabad constituency were dedicated to him.

• His son Bakkaabuddi, became the youngest MLA ever in the constituency in 1992 and later went on to become the MP of Chippaluru.

• Recently, he was in the news for his vocal support of 60% caste based reservation in posts of higher learning and research.

The story of Kito-Katso

Kito-Katso was a vampire in the Northern Hills. No one knows where he came from. But, legend has it that he was born in an egg wrapped in the finest silk. He grew up to be one of the greatest bats that ever lived or died.

He sided with the rats early in his life earning him the title ‘Dog’s Might’. Not everyone was convinced of his methods, but no one ever questioned his might. One most occasions, he would find support from his bat brethren at the drop of a dropping. He picked up these skills on the fly and at night. His youth was known as the Golden Blackswan period of the Pleading Kingdom. The kingdom flourished with overflowing granaries and unending fun. He would go for a hunt with a hundred billion bats every evening and return home alone. This was a regular feature in the kingdom and the batlings treated this hero as their God.

Things got better with every passing night, until one day it rained and the world turned upside down. Kito-Katso tried everything he could to calm down the bats, but nothing helped. They revolted against him as if it was his fault that it rained.

Kito-Katso flew, flew in shame. He flew at day, he flew at night until one day he reached the Northern Hills. This was the place rumoured to be the panacea of all of life’s ills. Cautiously, Kito-Katso entered the hall which guarded the Hills. He felt shrill sounds on his back that almost killed him. He fell to the ceiling and there he lay motionless. 

Several days had passed before he opened his eyes to the rays of the moon. He felt alive, only in a different way. The shrill voices were those of dogs, he knew to be from the Kingdom. They must have come to harm him he felt. Kito-Katso tried to stand up, but could not. He saw that his shoe laces were tied. He knew this was a trick of the wretched dogs. With one forceful movement of both the wings, he took off. He knew neither sky nor land, he flew so high he lost sight. He untied his shoe laces and threw away his shoes only to find that his feet stinked. He dashed towards a body of water and went to its bottom before he came back. He felt better, unlike the last time he touched water.

Then he heard the laughter of the dogs. The dogs came marching in on water and stood in front of him. They bent their tails and flew away. Kito-Katso could not believe what he just saw. He never believed his neice when she said dead dogs have their tails bent. But, he is seeing it in front of his eyes as the dogs flew away.

The miracle suddenly told him the story of his life and the death of his Kingdom. The Pleading Kingdom was of bats was at once turned into the Pleading Kingdom of Vampires by the rain and the magic of the Northern Hills brought him back to life. He could now see why water felt painful the last time he touched it.

The bats still speak of the evil King who turned into a vampire. Kito-Katso is now used to the unpleasant red of the water. As for me, I still think that the dogs shouldn’t have fooled Kito-Katso.

Managers' Jargon

|	0	Balanced	|	0	Management	|	0	Contingency
|	1	Total	|	1	Organization	|	1	Hardware (or Software)
|	2	Integrated	|	2	Reciprocal	|	2	Projection
|	3	Compatible	|	3	Monitored	|	3	Time frame
|	4	Synchronized	|	4	Digital	|	4	Concept
|	5	Optimal	|	5	Modular	|	5	Programming
|	6	Responsive	|	6	Transitional	|	6	Mobility
|	7	Functional	|	7	Incremental	|	7	Capability
|	8	Parallel	|	8	Third-generation	|	8	Flexibility
|	9	Systemized	|	9	Policy	|	9	Options

Just select any three-digit number; then use the corresponding words from the above grid, e.g., 257: "integrated modular capability".

You can even propose "systemized reciprocal options" (929) to achieve "optimal transitional flexibility" (568), so that we can think of an "integrated monitored projection" (232).

Try using these words in your everyday speech.

Courtesy: A professor's e-mail.

Friends in Business

The traditional media as we know it gathered its power because it held the power to transmit information quickly across the globe to a wide audience. In its early days, it used the emerging technologies of the time to facilitate this. The high cost of these technologies meant that the power was concentrated with the rich media companies. In the present day, as the Internet became ubiquitous and the power of sharing that it brought became more obvious, the traditional media started to lose its power to blogs and expressions of citizen journalism.

Into this scenario came the now wildly popular Facebook which threatens to topple media empires and establish a new way of sharing and getting information. This is only to be expected. If we look at the source of the power the media holds, it is from its role of letting people know what is happening in their surroundings and shaping their opinions. Facebook does the same, only in a more personalized way. The traditional media still has the edge when it comes to delivering news about the happenings around the world, but Facebook comes up trumps when it comes to delivering news of the personal world. Its success is dependent on twin factors:

1) The willingness of its users to share happenings in their worlds.

2) The willingness of user's friends to notice and react to it.

These two factors arise out of the importance people give to their personal worlds compared to the world at large. This love of the personal over the impersonal is also what makes Facebook so much more powerful than the traditional media at shaping public perception.

What this means for corporations is that there is no longer a single world where corporations can use mass means of communication to get their message across, but multiple personal worlds linked to each other through personal connections. The information that is generated and shared between these worlds comes not as much from external sources, as it comes from other worlds connected to them. The traditional media no longer tells people what they ought to do, it is the personal networks developed by the people which do that. So, corporations of the future can get to their consumers not by beaming advertisements, but by 'becoming friends' with its consumers and leveraging their networks to make more friends. The more friends a company has in this web of worlds, the more its potential customers. The question therefore before companies is something that had been around for ages, 'How do I make friends?'

Horizontal rains

This time I am blogging on a topic of general interest to many people; planets which can allow horizontal rains to occur and the implications of its occurrence for life on those planets. Horizontal rains are strictly not rains since they do not touch the ground; they travel parallel to the surface of the planet. When someone says that the rain is horizontal, it means that the distance between the center of gravity of the rain droplet and the point on the surface at intersection of the line segment joining the center of gravity of the rain droplet and the center of gravity of the planet with the solid surface of the planet is constant.

I believe that there are at least two scenarios which we will broach here where such rain is possible.

1) The rain could exist if it occurs with a certain velocity and at a distance from the center of the planet where it is in free fall like the geostationary satellites which orbit the earth. One way the rain could form at that height is through a collision of the planet with a large space object reducing the planet's size and leaving the rain in orbit. It could also form when the atmosphere of the planet is denser than the rain leading to a situation where the rain is pushed to the height of the geosynchronous orbit. The velocity in this case could to be acquired from collisions which happened in the past or as a result of the ionization of liquid particles in the strong magnetic field of the star and the star's changing magnetic field creating an electric field which drives the ionized rain.

2) The rain could also occur when the liquid on the surface of the planet is a superfluid. (Superfluids have no viscosity, hence can flow endlessly). The necessary condition here is that the superfluid has to be trapped in its heavy atmosphere allowing it to flow endlessly and close to its surface. The atmosphere should take the form of the surface upon which it rests allowing the rain to flow in it while maintaining a constant distance from the surface. The reason we need a heavy atmosphere in this case is because it needs to be of uniform thickness and accurately mimic the planet's solid surface.

There are a few other scenarios which we have not explicitly considered here. For example, one with extremely low density liquids floating above the gaseous atmosphere; or extremely small and low density planets having their geosynchronous orbit very close to their surface. These can be considered to be special cases of the first two scenarios which were mentioned earlier. It is important to note here that gaseous planets with small sizes do not fit the bill of small low density planers because the low mass makes them inherently unstable. So, the small low density planets mentioned above should have a solid surface made of low density materials (think aerogels).

The implications for life of having a horizontal rain on their planet depends on the specific scenario in which this is occuring. In the case of the rain circling the planet in the geosynchronous orbit, the life on the planet would have to be based not on the liquid that circles them, but on something else. Alternatively it could gain energy from the electric field generated by the ionized rain. Note that no magnetic field is created on the planet's surface in this case because the ionized particles in the rain are stationary with respect to the surface.

The implications in case of a superfluid rain are more difficult to ascertain as uncertainty exists regarding the existence of life in an environment where the liquid in the body does not have viscosity. If the liquid of the rain is different from the primary liquid needed for life on the planet, then one implication is that life there should not show toxicity for the rain. This is necessitated by the ability of the superfluid rain to enter the body through the pores. Alternatively, the life on the planet could be completely solid requiring no pores; indicating a lack of need for metabolism. The existence of life without need for liquids and metabolism is not impossible considering that many of the man-made objects which mimic life have neither liquids nor pores and a general definition of life is yet to be agreed upon.

As a closing note it is important to note what the blog post leaves out. It does not question the laws of physics; and it does not explore in detail the various ways in which life can exist. Horizontal rains and implications for aquatic life is another omission which could turn out to be extremely interesting.

Rotating landscapes

This is not some obscure Physics concept I am trying to introduce here. This blog post deals with the very familiar phenomenon of landscapes giving an illusion of rotation when we are travelling and the implications of it on 3d vision and future video systems.

Consider two poles to your right, one close to you and the other far away. Now, start walking in a line perpendicular to the line segment between the bases of the two poles. As you walk a certain distance, you will see that the angle with which you have to rotate the head to keep seeing the poles is different. The angle changed more for the closer pole than for the farther pole. This is a simple geometric concept.

Now consider poles which are placed close to each other between the two original poles. The closest pole travelled the greatest angle, the next pole a little less and the farthest the least. When you consider this kind of a motion where you see different distances travelling by different angles, our brain approximates it to a circle. This is what shows you rotating landscapes while travelling. This illusion becomes all the more apparent when the brain is clearly able to differentiate between the differences in angles made by different points. In other words, the effect is more noticeable when we have the farthest point at a very long distance and the speed of the closest point is high, as in the case of train travel. But, this circular motion never feels perfect because the farthest pole that we are focusing on is not really stationary, but moving. You can observe a perfect circular motion if you can focus on infinity and observe everything else out of the corner of your eye.

It now makes sense to move on to a useful related concept, the illusion of distant objects like the moon appearing to move with us when we are moving. This is just an extension of the rotating landscapes concept we just discussed. Consider the moon to the father pole or a point. If you look at the moon while moving, closer points like tress and building and people (if you are a kid) start making larger angles than the moon and hence move back. But, why did the moon not move back with a small angle? The answer is that, it did and the brain did not recognize it that way. We can observe the moon moving back only when we can compare it with a reference which is farther away from the moon. Our eyes have a problem guaging accurately such large distances and hence cannot locate reliably a reference point among the stars. The only reference points we are now left with are objects on the earth. These references make much larger angles than the moon, hence the objects move back with respect to the stationary moon or in other words, the moon moves forward with respect to those objects. This motion is same as the motion of our body, creating the illusion that the moon moves with us.

One aspect we touched upon while discussing about far away reference points is that the eyes cannot gauge very large distances accurately. To understand why, we need to understand how our eyes, more accurately the brain measures distances. As we all know, the brain makes use of images from two eyes which are slightly separated in space. The object which the two eyes perceive is different because the two eyes are spaced apart. The brain with its own algorithm makes use of the difference in these images to create a 3-dimensional view of the world. At a sufficiently large distance, the images in the two eyes are not different enough for the brain to calculate its distance. This is why, while a you can see the curvature of a marble which is close by, you see the moon as a flat surface. Seeing how we do not see far away objects in 3D, we would not know which star is a reliable farther reference to the moon because of our inability to gauge the distance of either. While, it is still possible to see that the moon is closer to us than the stars, and even see that some stars are closer to us than the others, the overwhelming impact of the close references cannot by overridden by these weak references.

The implication of it all is that we see only what our brain shows us. You see rotation where there is none and you see 2D where there is 3D all because of the brain’s algorithm in calculating 3D images and using angles to calculate distances. This could probably be an indication to the way of achieving 3d displays.

Walking on swinging slabs

Today, I was walking on a footpath made of cement slabs placed over a steel grid. I stepped over a cement block and I lost control before my autonomic nervous system saved me.

What happened was that the steel grid under one of the slabs was disfigured causing it to swing a little when anyone steps over it. Why and how does this swinging motion of the slab affect ones gait?

This can be understood by understanding how we walk. Put simply, we walk by taking steps and each step involves lifting the knee with the thigh muscles and giving the shinbone a forward velocity. This gives the step going forward some elevation as well as a forward velocity.

When we step on an accelerating platform like that swinging slab; as the slab is swinging downwards, the upward velocity the knee reaches with respect to the ground decreases. Hence, the foot does not reach the necessary elevation with respect to ground to make the next step.

There is a factor which leads to a decrease in the distance the knee can travel with respect to the surface it is standing too.

The force a leg can exert to lift the knee depends on the normal force the other leg can experience. In an accelerating platform like the swinging slab, the normal force that is exerted on the standing leg decreases because of psuedo forces acting upwards in the slab's frame of reference. When the normal force decreases, the force available for lifting the knee decreases. Hence, the height to which the knee can be lifted decreases with respect to the slab.

These two effects combine to create a situation where we cannot take a proper step after stepping on a swinging slab. The autonomic nervous system usually steps in in such situations to correct for the loss of height and velocity and corrects our course by causing an involuntary jerk.

Interested readers can calculate the amount of normal force lost when we step on a swinging slab by approximating it to be a cuboid and considering the force exerted by the foot to be a point force at a distance 'd' from the axis of the slab as follows: mg*d = I*alpha

where m is the mass of the person, g the gravitational constant, I is the moment of inertia of the slab and alpha the angular acceleration of the slab. From the value of alpha, the linear acceleration (a) of the foot located at a distance d from the axis can be calculated as 'a = d*alpha'. The decrease in normal force then becomes m*a.

Look out for my next post on rotating landscapes.