Engineering evolving by natural selection

The marvelous Richard Dawkins gives a short account of contraptions made by a German engineer that gradually 'evolved' from crude starting materials. Include a wind harnessing system of propellors inspired by the principles of bird flight, and an 'intelligently designed' (!) foil that is engineered by 'natural selection' to minimize air drag. This presentation should put to rest one of the many misconceptions about evolution- that it is so 'random' and hinges upon such a fortuitous happenstance, that it simply could not have taken place naturally in such a 'short' time. An illuminating presentation lasting only a few minutes



These days, I have strongly started to think that it is relatively easy to harbour doubts about evolution if one has not read into it in some detail. For example, questions about the improbability of complex life arising 'randomly' by mutations from simple chemical precursors in a short period of time, is what can be only called the "argument from incredulity"- we find it hard to believe simply because we cannot readily imagine it. No wonder the 'intelligent designees' can hoodwink people in a hardbeat. A more incredulous stance would actually be the belief that simply because something is incomprehensible to us human beings means that it cannot have taken place in nature. Talk about smug and self-centered satisfaction!

A little glance into some of the details of evolution should be enough to convince us of the utter beauty, logic and very much probable simplicity of the process. In retrospect, evolution should look infinitely more simple and beautiful than the transcendental and much more complex process of some inconceivable super-designer designing such a complex world.

Pretty much says it...



Actually it's even worse; "What facts can we make up to support it?"
From What is pseudoscience?

Sam...

SAM…

I first met Sadashiv a.k.a ‘Sam’ Patil in the summer of 2000. The venue was Raman Hall, the auditorium of the Department of Physics at Pune University, and we were listening to a talk by Prof. Yashwant Waghmare, former director of IIT Kanpur, about the history of the Indian atomic energy program. Dr. Waghmare was describing how Homi Bhabha, the architect of modern nuclear India, pioneered nuclear reactor development in the rapidly developing nation in the 50s and 60s. The reactors were given the now well-known incandescent sounding names- Apsara, Cyrus, Pornima, Zerlina etc., each of which curiously is an acronym for a longer technical name. While Dr. Waghmare was describing this phase of the program, a bald man wearing a cap who was sitting in front of me suddenly got up and quipped, “Do some of these names reflect Bhabha’s Zoroastrian origins and inclinations?” Dr. Waghmare, having no idea, said so. Later, one of my friends introduced the man to me as ‘Sam Patil’. In his hand, he held a copy of Robert Jungk’s ‘Brighter than a thousand suns’. This early book is a somewhat idealistic (and even inaccurate in parts) history of the atomic pioneers. But it is a wonderful introduction to the topic for a beginner, and reads like a fast paced, nostalgic novel. The copy showed considerable wear and tear, an indication of having been read several times.

The man was much older than us, about my father’s age, but he insisted that we call him ‘Sam’, a play on his own nickname, 'Sham'. When I introduced myself, Sam asked me, “Are you Bhau Jogalekar’s son by any chance?” I was surprised that this man called my father by his old nickname, which only close relatives and friends use (Bhau literally means brother in Marathi). When I said that I was, he looked happy, and said that he and Bhau Jogalekar went back a long time, to college days. He said that he would meet me again, and asked me to say hello to my father on his behalf. After that, he launched into an enthusiastic espousal of Jungk’s book. Till that time, my knowledge of atomic energy was quite sketchy, and upon his recommendation, I borrowed the book from Prof. Rajeev Pathak (a well-known physicist, teacher and good friend) and was impressed by its heady description of the heydays of physics.

I went home and told my father about Sam. He immediately recognized him; “O Sam, that happy-go-lucky man”. Then he told me about how he came to know him, back in the late 1960s.
Sam came from a well off family that had educational leanings. He secured admission for studying engineering in COEP, but got bored and dropped out after a year. During that time, many bright students were studying the sciences, and Sam decided to study physics, one of his pet interests. Accordingly, he did his BSc. in physics, and enrolled for his MSc. at Pune University. It was there that he met my father who was then doing his M.A. Sam became an occasional part of my father’s group which involved mostly hostelites and out of towners. Some of the members and acquaintances of that group included Anil Gore (Head of the Statistics Department), Naresh Dadhich (director of IUCAA) and Anil Awchat (the writer and social activist). Even though Sam had decided to study advanced physics, he was too much of a dilettante and free bird to pay attention to formal studies. Like before, he dropped out, and took up a carpenter’s profession, a previous hobby in which he could let his creative abilities manifest themselves. In fact, when I asked my father about him, my father pointed out several objects in our home, including a coffee table and an entire large wardrobe lined with rosewood paneling, which Sam had made for us. Sam’s interest in science shone through the furniture; the coffee table is shaped like a Mobius strip, that wondrous mathematical object which quite astonishingly has only one surface.

In spite of his profession as a carpenter, Sam’s real passions were two; the history of physics, and invention. He is the only person I have met in my life who was an actual, full-time, inventor. The problem was that just like many dilettantes, Sam never had the patience or the perspicacity to convert either physics or invention or carpentry into a serious, well-paying profession. Since his father was well off, he did not care much about money; at first because he could get it, and later simply because he had no need for it. Sam gave up all efforts at being well off himself, so that he could indulge in his hobbies. He was interested in science as much as anyone I have ever heard of. To slake his thirst for knowledge, he traveled all over the country, going to conferences, science congresses, and exhibitions, probing, asking questions, meeting and getting to know leading scientists, visiting their institutes, and collecting interesting physics based gadgets that piqued his inventor’s mind. He lived in a small, extremely dilapidated room on BMCC Road, and in that small room, he had dozens of gadgets that he had invented. These gadgets frequently were constructed from the simplest of materials, and used to demonstrate key principles like those of magnetism, mechanics, waves, and optics. I was quite struck by his interests and his inventions the first time I visited his place.

Sam knew that these inventions would not bring him money. As far as I know, the occasional carpentering that he did was his only source of income; perhaps he earned some meagre amount from informal sales of some of his toys. I am quite sure that all the money from this side-venture went into traveling, book buying, and building these toys. For Sam, books and these toys were his life. He used to travel around the city on his ramshackle bicycle, attending every exhibition or competition related to science that was ever organized. I remember meeting him several times; at a neuroscience meeting, at many physics competitions, at the Indian science congress, and at college exhibitions. He was a great and incessant talker (one of his qualities that used to irk my father!), and used to be ready to spend hours talking about his favourite topics with me or anyone else who was interested, quite oblivious to the inconvenience and impatience of his listeners. Inside his small shack, he used to spend almost all his time building toys and reading.

My father always lamented that Sam was a very intelligent man, who wasted his abilities by indulging in these ‘hobbies’ of his. He said that even as a carpenter, Sam would have been a success, if he had stuck with it seriously and professionally. To be frank, he did not always encourage me to spend a lot of time with Sam, because he feared that I might end up like him; a dilettante who is not a success in life (and even now, quite independent of Sam, he still does!) Many times when I did not study, both he and my mother used to say half-jokingly, “Don’t procrastinate; you will end up like Sam”. There was some truth in what they said, based both on Sam’s inclinations, and my own. What’s the use of knowledge if it’s not put to good use? What is the use of having ability, if one does not have staying power? Sam used to fondly remember circumstances when he had asked a question in the middle of a lecture to a famous scientist, which the learned man could not answer. My father used to say, so what; after all, is Sam the famous scientist?

Although my parents’ criticism of Sam was quite valid, I appreciated the fact that Sam was a man who truly followed his own destiny. I suspect that he was aware of all the things which people like my parents said about him, but he had long decided that they would not matter to him. He was a non-conformist who let his heart lead him to his true callings. He eschewed money, fame, or even respect from the supposed higher middle class of society, much of which gauges a man by his success and his social status. I liked him, and while receptive to my father’s warnings, was always ready to listen to him talk.

Sometimes Sam used to come to my place and give me a book to read, or show me one of his inventions. He used to praise the Karanji or Patties that my mother used to offer him. My father used to meet him and, hiding his impatience, used to listen to our rants about Oppenheimer and Fermi. I think Sam was happy that he had renewed his old friend’s acquaintance through his friend’s son. I can say that he had also found a new friend in the son. He once gave me Silvan Schweber’s ‘In the shadow of the bomb’, an excellent contrasting study of Hans Bethe and Oppenheimer, based on their life, times, and personalities. Sam had a profound and diverse knowledge of the history of physics and also the events which accompanied its growth, an interest that he infectiously transmitted to me. He used to say that out of all the physics pioneers, his favourite was the Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard. The comparison and coincidence could not have been more apt. Szilard was a maverick scientist, a non-conformist, and a brilliant prophet. Just like Sam, Szilard was a peripatetic who lived out of a suitcase, never held a formal university post, and despised official academic scientific research. Yet, this genius in the shadows was more prescient and saw further into the future than anyone else, and today stands as one of the most important scientists of the century: the foremost herald of the atomic age (It was Szilard who, in 1933, long before fission in Uranium was discovered and long before anyone else thought about it, had the first inkling about possible and vast amounts of energy from a fission like process)

As my own knowledge about these matters grew, I used to take pleasure in telling Sam facts which he did not know, and seeing him chuckle at the mention of a particularly amusing one. He also read widely into every imaginable subject, and you could really discuss anything under the sun with him. He may not have been a scientist, but his enthusiasm for science outgrew that of most scientists that I have come across.

Probably the most memorable trip concerned the time when he took me out for a hearty breakfast at a small, typically Maharashtrian restaurant in front of Food World on Bhandarkar Road. After we finished eating, he brought out a wonderful and amusing toy that he had bought in Delhi. It consisted of two pink ‘magnetic hearts’ that swung on a small hinge on a long metal wire. One heart had the makeup and face of a girl, and the other of a boy. All you had to do was set the two hearts in circular motion. Like a couple who are angry at one another, the hearts would first swing away. Then, just like a couple who gradually make up with each other, the hearts would start coming closer, although in a haphazard manner. Finally, in a rib-tickling oscillatory motion, they finally settled down very close to each other in a diffident kiss. All these movements were governed by the intricate interplay and geometry of the magnets in the contraption. After witnessing the hearts’ endearing performance in the restaurant, I found myself hysterically laughing, and also being fascinated by the complex physics of magnetism that governed their motion. I could see that I shared my excitement with all the waiters in the restaurant. It is undoubtedly the simple, amusing things like these, that hide the most profound principles of science. That’s what makes it worth studying.

I met Sam many times, a few times in his dilapidated den of books and toys, many times in the most diverse events connected with science, and a couple of times when he visited my place. It was difficult to contact him because he neither owned a phone nor had an email address. Even when you visited him, more often than not he would be gone to some scientific event in or out of town.

When I visited India last December, I made up my mind to meet Sam. After coming to the US, I have updated myself considerably about science, history and technology, thanks to the magnificent library here. I was sure that Sam would love to hear tidbits from my bag of new facts. I would have contacted him much earlier if he had a phone. Because of his relative inaccessibility and other things that came up, meeting him kept on getting postponed, although I resolved to try to do it before I left.

On the morning of December 21, I woke up and was having coffee, when my mother gave me the news. Sam had died in an accident late the previous evening. He had been traveling on his cycle, when he collided with a speeding motorcycle. He passed away before he could make it to the hospital. I felt like our conversation, which had not even yet taken place, had broken off forever in midsentence. Sakal had his obituary as a small piece, in which they noted that he was an inventor. Sam would have liked that. I have kept the cutout.

I will always remember Sam as a man who went after his heart, and neglected the conventional dictates of society and worldly life. He may have been criticized and may not have been well off, but he was one of those who tossed tradition and convention aside, and did it cheerfully. He recognized why it is that mankind wonders at nature, at the cosmos, and human life. In him, I could get a glimpse of the raw, innocent curiosity that we should all have about the world around us. It is also a harsh and true fact that such sincere explorers are frequently not recognized by society as a valuable addition to its kind. But that is the price they pay for being mavericks.

Sam was in a significant way, responsible for introducing me to the heroes of physics and atomic energy, and inculcating a lifelong interest in the history and philosophy of science that will always give me solace; I believe this will be a connection that goes beyond my conscious awareness of it. The fact that I could not meet him before he passed away will always gnaw at my conscience to some extent, as would the cruel fact that he passed away in a tragic road accident. But after the incident, all my life, whenever I read or hear anything about Enrico Fermi or Leo Szilard, about the philosophy of science, or especially about a new, amusing invention, I will always ask myself,
“What would Sam think of this?”…

It was a little suprising for me to see ACS president Ann Nalley not just praise, but wholeheartedly believe in Bush's 'American Competitiveness Initiative', and his endorsements of the importance of science and technological research to the progress of the country which he listed in his state of the union address.

Isn't Nalley (or others who hold similar views) counting her chickens before they are hatched? We must remember that the lofty sounding programme was only one of scores of such initiatives enumerated by Bush in the address. Well, there are State of the Union addresses and there are State of the Union addresses...out of all the topics that the president mandatorily has to cover in about an hour and a half, including health care, national security, and social security, I would think that it would not be surprising if science ranks low again in terms of actual efforts and concrete steps. I would think that we should wait; first of all for a practical and significant demonstration of this commitment to science and technology basic research, and secondly, to see that such proposals make it through without actually having been twisted, modified, and conveniently interpreted so much, that they have lost all semblance to the original. It is all too easy, and well-known, for politicians to have their sincere faith in the adage; 'It's only the thought that counts' (India Uncut)

Did you say research?

It's been about 3 years since I started off as a PhD. student, and by this time, I have become as they say, a sadder but wiser man. Even the perpetual reading about science and scientists that I indulged in ever since a kid is no match for what the flavour of scientific research actually tastes like. So here is a distillation of some common lessons that I learnt through rather uncommon and meandering, not to mention excruciating, ways. More will be forthcoming, of course, as I suffer more:

1. Research involves ideas, not answers: Probably the hardest thing to come to terms with. Unfortunately, the way we are taught science in school and college is as a set of results, theorems and laws. Start doing actual research, and one quickly realises that about ninety percent (and I am being highly optimistic here) of research is clerical work, donkey work, monkey work, whatever you would like to call it. It is the last ten percent that scientists usually can die for. But most of what is routinely done is a far cry from the world of cut and dried facts that are encountered in textbooks. The average scientist or student can well spend spend most of his or her time in going down blind alleys, solving mundane but intractable problems that seem to have sprung up out of the blue, troubleshooting errors that don't even seem related to what you are doing, and most excruciatingly, getting unexpectedly stranded at the very beginning of a project for ages so that it seems that you are never ever going to progress to the juicy, creative part. In fact, this is the single most important situation that drove me to tears; getting stuck up with something that I least expected, that is the most boring yet essential part of the project, and that by itself is anything but creative work as such. You tend to lose all hope if the beginning is where you seem to be stuck till the very end. And yet, you have to endure.

In a nutshell then, if you don't enjoy the doing much more than the fruits, which would be rare if they exist in the first place, research is not for you. If you think that you want to do research to build a better washing machine or mouse trap, or to mix more nutritious cereal, or to find quick fixes for practical problems plaguing humanity, think again, at least if you are thinking about academic research. That might never happen possibly till you are halfway through your career, and possibly till your grandson is halfway through his. Moreover, since science has become a highly collaborative effort these days, it is very rarely that one gets to sample a Eureka Moment, when he can revel in the ecstasy of an idea that is his and his alone. Enjoy the labours more than the fruit then, and don't expect practical results unfolding daily before your eyes. Throw in an infinite reservoir of patience and tolerance, and you could be well on your way to becoming a scientist. Otherwise, GE, IBM (Google?) and Lucent Technologies always beckon you, but most of what the public perceives of these companies is definitely not the kind of research I am talking about here. So that's a different ball game you want to be involved in then.

On a side note, there was a time when high quality academic style research was being pursued in these corporations. Note the bonanza of physics Nobel prizes gathered by IBM in the 80s for example. But predictably, as companies became more enamoured with stock holders than with the fruits of pure research, so have the standards of pure research in these companies declined over the years, and in fact that's a rift in American science that is being vigorously discussed today.

One key fact that today's politicians and administrators should keep on reminding themselves about, is that it is a hard and proven fact that most research that is hazy and improbable in its time usually turns out to have practical consequences, and sometimes enormous ones, in the future. The atomic bomb, microwave devices, semiconductors, medicines, MRI, lasers, and genetic engineering are but a few examples of the kind of research that started off as mere curiosity in the ways of the natural world, and led to multibillion dollar practical technologies.

2. It's hard to know what's important: James Bryant Conant holds the distinction of being one of America's top notch organic chemists, president of Harvard, and one of the leaders of the Manhattan Project...all this being possible in the 1930s of course. When his student Frank Westheimer, again a Nobel calibre chemist, went to him with an idea for a research project he had, he was told that if he was successful in the project, he would be a "footnote to a footnote" in the history of science. While Westheimer did turn out to be much more than a footnote in his career, the message here is clear and has been enumerated by a number of successful researchers- 'Work on important stuff'.
While it's easy to inculcate this Olympian ideal in your mind, it's only when you start doing research that you realise with a lot of consternation and ask the question- 'What's the important stuff??'. Usually, your advisor would have an idea about what's important. But more often than not, you may also land up with some speculative project that, IF successful, MAY turn out to be quite important. But science and progress being what they are, it's naive to expect that all these ifs and mays would materialize and especially till the end of your PhD. The compensation for this uncertainty, as I can testify to a minor extent, is the joy of discovery, no matter how trivial, and the excitement about the future that is compunded with the uncertainty. Also is the compensatory feeling that what you are doing is a part, no matter how small, of a grand enterprise that will bear frution someday. Moreover, echoing good old Tom's words, if you survive the tears and the frustration, maybe you too can beam with triumph someday and say "I have not failed...I have found ten thousand ways that do not work". But try telling that to your PhD. committee.

In my own experience then, most of the work I have done until now has involved mainly groping in the dark, massive amounts of clerical work that never end, and frustration heaped on top of more frustration. Why then, do we do this? Ask why people climb mountains, collect insects in the Brazilian rainforest, compose poetry, wait for eternity to meet their loved ones, arduously spend a Sunday in baking that exotic dish, and prove three hundred year old equations with no practical significance whatsoever, and we see the answer. It's the joy of the discovery that counts. But like other contrasting qualities, it's value is felt only when you go through its other wicked half- pain. And once in a while, yes, we do end up discovering a new kind of microwave oven too...

Science in a straitjacket

It's simple. If countries want scientific collaboration with other countries, they have to learn to empathize with the whole global enterprise of science and scientists, and understand its nature. If they really do, then they would understand that asking questions like the ones they asked to Prof. Goverdhan Mehta of IISc. before rejecting his visa application for attending a scientific conference in Florida, are not consequential, even if they are necessary as a formality. Asking a chemist "Can your work be used for making chemical weapons?", is like asking Isaac Newton, "Can your calculus be used for making missiles?". Although the answer to both questions is a resounding yes in principle, both the question and the answer don't make sense at all, because then that means that every scientist (or engineer for that matter) should in theory be considered a security risk. Dr. Mehta, an internationally recognised organic chemist and former director of the Indian Institute of Science, has said that he felt humiliated by the questioning at the US consulate, which seemed to hint that he was actually hiding information from them. On the other hand, this is not a new incident, and has happened scores of times before with lesser known scientists.

Almost any competent scientist, given enough time and resources, can harness his expertise for making weapons of mass destruction in one way or the other. Another trivial point is that you don't need to be a scientist in order to "work on WMDs". Even the most mundane technician at Los Alamos, for example, could be said to have "worked on the atomic bomb". So that's another inconsequential point. And the general point was already driven home more than enough during the Manhattan project, when the most "pure" of scientists built the atomic bomb. Science can of course, always be used for good and bad. But governments have to understand that by stifling the flow of scientific information because of the tenuous possibility that it may be used for dangerous purposes, they are stifling the much larger amount of good that can arise from the flow of that information. Of course, there do have been cases like the infamous A Q Khan case, where high profile top scientists have engaged in unethical and terrorist like acts. But one sparrow cannot make a bird, especially when the scientist in question has an unusually clean track record of being not just the leading organic chemist in his country, but also one who has done more than many others to further the national and international cause of science in peace. It's not surprising that many Indian scientists think that we should just stop all scientific collaboration with the US. In this age when national priorities have become particularly complicated, governments should put in extra efforts to separate the wheat of honest efforts and collaborations from the chaff of underhanded aims and insidious objectives, without colouring these issues with their own prejudices in the first place. Should we stop collaborating with all scientists because in theory, they can put their expertise to malicious use? There is a big difference between perceived and real threats, and now more than ever, we really need to weed out the differences between them.

Also, I do think that just like in other matters, there is bias based on nationality involved here too. A couple of years ago, there was a story about a well-known US chemist, who had wanted to demonstrate how easy it is for terrorists to order the chemicals necessary for making chemical weapons. To this end, he ordered a dozen or so of the basic chemical ingredients of nerve gases from Aldrich, the leading producer of laboratory chemicals in the world. Within a few weeks, he photographed himself sitting in his office, surrounded by canisters containing chemicals that would make enough nerve gas to wipe out a big city. While he obviously did this to make a point and in good faith, I did not hear about him being rejected a passport by the US State Department, or a visa by any other country. If an Indian scientist had done this, would he ever have received a US visa in his life?

Science has the potential to do many things, and politicians would do well not to interfere in the normal spread of pure knowledge that is necessary for progress in science. Governments are looking for completely risk free scenarios, and within that narrow and naive definition, no scientist is 'risk free'. But by imposing their own convenient norms and ignoring the big picture where pure and general scientific knowledge brings about much good, they are actually putting society at much greater risk in the future. Especially the current administration, with its false tunnel vision of pseudo pious motives (like their ludicrous and objectionable handling of the morning after pill related 'Plan B'), should take note. It's them who have to lose the most. And if you really want to shoot yourself in the foot, at least don't stand on someone else's feet.

P.S: Thanks for the previous good wishes by the way. The report went OK, and I stay alive for at least another year.

The end of determinism...

Nancy Thorndike Greenspan has finally come out with an authoritative biography of Max Born. It is high time I say. Born is one of the most publicly underappreciated scientists of the century. Few people apart from historians of physics or physicists have heard about him. This is a little unfortunate, because not only was he a scientific great in a century of greats, but he was also one of the premier physics teachers of the century, an illustrious author, and a man of great and wide learning and conscience.

Born occupied the chair of physics at Gottingen University, which was the preeminent world center of theoretical physics during the century. Sojourning through Europe and Germany before, he had studied under some of the greats of the time, including David Hilbert. Born came to Gottingen, endowed with a deep understanding of not only science, but of literature, philosophy, and poetry. He fit the image of the dignified, intellectual professor in every sense.
A partial listing of Born’s students, assistants and collaborators is essentially a list of the most important physicists of the century; Heisenberg, Pauli, Oppenheimer, Dirac, Teller, Maria Goeppert Mayer, and Pascual Jordan, to name a few. The fact that the man trained no less than nine future Nobel Laureates in physics is testament enough to his erudition as a scientist and teacher. Born came to Gottingen and almost single handedly made it into the Mecca of physics to which flocked the most remarkable men and women in the field. In this Mecca, the stampedes were only for satisfying the thirst for knowledge. The quiet, amiable pacifist, who loved science for its pure beauty, worked with a dozen of the physicists who contributed to the atomic bomb. He also worked with C. V. Raman in India for a year in Bangalore.

But Born was more than an outstanding physicist; he will always also be remembered as a very compassionate, conscientious, and kind man. Most of the premier scientists in the world were his personal friends. His relations with his students were always gentle and even deferential. His correspondence with Einstein, a special confidante, is well known and still in print in book form (although Einstein's disagreements with Born's quantum probability is also well-known). When Hitler came to power in 1933, Born, like most others, faced a series of crises. In a time when the doors of fate were shut in the face of the most talented scientists in the world, it was Born who made sure that his students found respectable jobs. It was he who wrote letters to Bohr, to Einstein, and to Robert Millikan (at Caltech) to recommend promising and needy Jewish researchers who could not have gotten jobs anywhere else; and in fact who would certainly have faced worse than simply lack of jobs.
Born himself had to emigrate to Scotland, to Edinburgh, where he worked and lived for the rest of his years.

As a scientist, Born would be remembered most as the progenitor of the concept of probability in quantum physics, a concept that is not only the bedrock of the science itself, but also that of the myriad and bizarre ramifications arising out of it. The most central entity in quantum theory, the wavefunction, is Born’s invention. On it rests the entire edifice of atomic and nuclear and particle physics, as well as the many practical applications in our life that originate in quantum theory. It would not be an exaggeration to say that once we know the wavefunction for a system, we can calculate almost anything about it that we want to. It is the starting point for all forays into the domain of the small. From Newton's determinism to Born's indeterminism, we have come a long way indeed.

Born’s Nobel Prize came extremely belatedly, in 1954, when all of his students had already gotten it. It seems fit to think that, as important as the wavefunction was, Born got it for a lifetime of scientific achievement. Apart from quantum theory, he made powerful contributions to atomic physics, to solid-state physics, and to optics. In each of these fields, Born penned a book that became the classic of its time. In addition to technical works, he also wrote insightful books on philosophy, the social impact of science, and popular science.

Nancy Greenspan’s book is aptly and hauntingly titled The End of the Certain World, an allusion to the implication of Born’s discovery; that we live in a non-deterministic universe where nothing is certain. Like electron waves embodied in their probability distributions, we are nothing but will o wisps in the vast expanse of the world, and of history. And yet, like the electron, we make a difference in the fabric of space-time due to our sheer existence; modern physics buffs may like to say that we hold the power to collapse the wavefunctions of uncertainty and unreason. I would also like to think that the title of the book refers to the ominous political atmosphere of the times that led to the bloodiest and most brutal century in all of history. That was the end of the certain time of trust that human beings knew.
Born has passed into history, but his work lives on. Nancy Greenspan has done us a service.

As an amusing side note, the singer and actress Olivia Newton John (of Grease fame) is Born’s granddaughter.

What a pity!
IN Eyring, Walter, and Kimball's classic 1944 edition of "Quantum Chemistry", the authors, on pg. 23, call "E=hv" as the "Einstein Principle". Old Planck may weep in his grave when he hears this!!

HANS ALBRECHT BETHE: PHYSICIST EXTRAORDINAIRE (1906-2005)

Hans Bethe, one of the true titans of twentieth century physics, and probably the greatest scientist who was alive, is dead at 98. A Nobel Laureate, he was Professor emeritus at Cornell University, where he had been ever since 1935. Among many outstanding discoveries, he was especially noted for his discovery of the nuclear processes that fuel the stars. With him, a remarkable and extraordinary age; the golden age of physics and the atomic age, finally passes into history.

When I heard this news, I got a sinking feeling in my heart, and immediately wanted to write about him to 'get it out of my system'. He was one of my favourite scientists. It is strange what impact unrelated people from past ages and faraway places make on you. Frankly, I was awaiting this news for some time now (you have to be realistic; he was in his nineties). Strangely, even though the news is quite saddening, it fills me with the kind of pensive peace that fills you upon hearing about an inevitability. So here's my humble two cents...my tribute to this great man.

It would be very difficult for me to write about Bethe in a short space. However, I will make an attempt to write a short biography on the spur of the moment, based on what I have read about him and the period which he lived in. Bethe was one of my most admired scientific figures, and I first encountered him many years ago, when I read Robert Jungk's classic 'Brighter than a thousand suns'.. He was a scientist and humanitarian by the highest standards that could possibly be applied to anybody. He made pioneering contributions in almost every branch of modern physics. In many of these, he set the trends, and built the foundations upon which all future research was built. Most importantly, he was the last great survivor and one of the prime participants of an era which changed the face of our world and our existence forever; the nuclear age, preceded by the great age of the birth of modern physics. First, as head of the theoretical division of the Manhattan Project, and then as a member of many committees on nuclear disarmament, arms control, and nuclear power, Bethe in many ways represented the conscience of the scientist. He personally knew most of the outstanding physicists of the century. Even a partial list of his friends, teachers, and associates reads as a list of the greatest minds of our time; Niels Bohr, Arnold Sommerfeld, Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, Freeman Dyson, Robert Wilson, Edward Teller, and John von Neumann, to name just a few. To many of these, his was a reassuring presence, and his strong personality was frequently a support to them in many ways.

EARLY YEARS:
Hans Albrecht Bethe was born in Strasbourg, Germany in 1906. His father was a medical physiologist. Ever since he was a child, Hans was fascinated by numbers and had an outstanding natural mathematical ability. The household was a quiet one; later, Hans's mother would have to be admitted to an asylum. Clumsiness with his hands decided Hans's destiny early on. Fortunately, he was born, and would live his life, in a time when our perception of the physical world was being changed completely; the dual edifices of quantum theory and relativity were demolishing earlier conceptions of space and time, and casting completely knew and astoundingly unintuitive light on our view of space and time, and matter. Mathematics was essential for understanding these abstract theories, and Bethe's talents could not have been better suited for the task.
Bethe attended the schools in Strasbourg, and for his PhD., decided to apprentice himself to Arnold Sommerfeld at Munich, who along with Niels Bohr, was probably the greatest teacher of theoretical physics in the world. Bethe was one of his favourite students, and during his tenure in Munich, he met and formed long-lasting associations with the great physicists of the time; at that time, students all over the world were flocking to Europe to immerse themselves in the study of the new quantum theory. At nearby Gottingen, a host of remarkable men of the likes of Max Born, Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli and others were turning over the world of physics on its head. In Cambridge, men like Rutherford and Paul Dirac were creating and discovering fantastic facets of the atomic world. And in Copenhagen, Niels Bohr held court on the most intricate secrets of the quantum. It was a time such as no other, and Bethe benefited enormously.

MIDDLE YEARS AND SCIENTIFIC WORK:
After getting his PhD. Bethe spent a summer working with Enrico Fermi's famous group in Rome. This was a revelation to him. While Sommerfeld was a great physicist and teacher, his style was excessively mathematical and formal. From Fermi, Bethe learned how to do 'back of the envelope' calculations, and to not use complicated mathematics when the result could be obtained much more simply. These dual qualities that he picked up from Sommerfeld and Fermi would make Bethe a force to be reckoned with in the world of physics.
All seemed good for Bethe's future, and he accepted a post at the University of Tubingen. But as fate would have it, Hitler came to power in 1933 and issued the laws which decreed that anyone with a Jewish background could not occupy a respectable job in the country. One of Bethe's grandparents was a Jew; more than adequate a reason to warrant his dismissal from his job. When Bethe wrote to the well-known physicist Hans Geiger (of the Geiger counter fame), Geiger's reply was cold and completely unsympathetic. Bethe was fortunately offered a position at Cornell, and that would be his home away from home after that forever. Because of him, the University would become one of the finest centres of physics in the world. Bethe arrived in America in 1935, and almost immediately established himself as one of the leading physicists of his day. He wrote a famous article on the quantum mechanics of one and two electron systems during this time. Robert Bacher, who later became chief of the experimental division of the Manhattan Project, recalled how Bethe sat at a desk in a small room, and under a dim light there, wrote the entire article almost without a break. This event characterises two very important qualities in Bethe, stamina and and a quiet and indefatigable persistence, qualities that he would be quite famous for later.
While at Cornell, Bethe also met his future wife, Rose, who was the daughter of one of his Professors in Germany, the distinguished experimental physicist Paul Ewald. Throughout his life, Rose was to provide him with a quiet, strong and unwavering source of support and strength. They have two children, Henry and Monica, and three grandchildren.
It was during the 1930s that Bethe also wrote his famous articles on Nuclear Physics, that were published in the Reviews of Modern Physics. Together, these three massive review articles summarised almost everything that was known about the physics of nuclear systems until the time. They became known as 'Bethe's Bible' and served as a standard reference for the state of the science for many years.
Another important contribution that Bethe made during those years, which was crucial for chemistry, concrened the treatment of molecules and atoms in electric fields. This was the harbringer of 'crystal field theory' something that even I learnt about during my BSc.
The idea that finally got Bethe the Nobel Prize germinated at a conference in Ithaca, New York, that was organised to discuss nuclear reactions. The question turned to the origin of energy in the stars. A few years earlier, the physicists Rowan Atkinson and Fritz Houtermans had hypothesized that nuclear fusion could be responsible for the energy of the sun and stars. However, nobody knew the exact mechanism by which this took place. Bethe recounts how, on a train trip after the conference, he solved the problem in its essentiality. Bethe's work during that time marked the beginning of modern nuclear astrophysics, upon which almost all future developments are based. With these breakthroughs, Bethe put Cornell on the world-physics map.

THE WAR YEARS- LOS ALAMOS:
With 1939 came war. Bethe, who was not still a US citizen, could not technically work on classified war projects. By that time, many other brilliant scientists had emigrated from Europe to the United States to flee Nazism. These included John von Neumann, George Gamow, and the most famous of them all; Albert Einstein (who had taken up residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton). One scientist who was to become perhaps the most controversial post-war physicist in the United States had also left his native Hungary- Edward Teller. Teller, who was teaching at George Washington University, was Bethe's friend, and the two decided to see if they could possibly make a contribution to the war. They made a cross-country trip to California, where the distinguished aeronautical physicist from Hungary, Theodor von Karman was working. Karman suggested that they work on the mechanism by which shock waves are propagated. This study would be very useful to the development of ballistics and missile launches. During the trip back home, Teller and Bethe came up with a treatment of the problem which became classified. Another important contribution that they made concerned the penetration of armor piercing shells and bullets.

In 1942, Bethe's life witnessed an important change, when Robert Oppenheimer invited him to participate in a top-secret Government project to produce a practical weapon in the form of a bomb. Initially Bethe did not believe that a chain reaction could be sustained in a practical manner in Uranium. In fact, before the war began and before fission was discovered, interestingly, he had strenuously argued against fission. But when he saw the first self-sustaining chain reacting pile that Enrico Fermi had constructed under the football stands of the University of Chicago, Bethe became convinced of the feasibility of the project. Before embarking on anything, he had a discussion with his wife, and decided that he must play his role before the Nazis could possibly get their hands on such a weapon. By this time, Bethe was a citizen, and in the summer of 1942, he took part in a secret discussion at Berkeley that discussed the theory behind a potential atomic weapon. The discussion was presided over by Oppenheimer, and Bethe called the time one of the most intellectually exciting times that he had participated in. During this time, an ominous possibility was raised by Teller; that the atomic bomb could potentially ignite the atmosphere of the earth. While Oppenheimer thought the possibility serious enough to go to Michigan and discuss it with Nobel Laureate Arthur Compton (one of the administrative heads of the project), Bethe, with his usual cool and calm attitude, did an all-night calculation and ruled out the possibility.

The culmination of this and many other events finally led to the establishment of the famous bomb laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Bethe found the time he spent here the most challenging time of his life. He enjoyed hiking in the mountains and developed a lifelong love of the outdoors. For the project, Oppenheimer made Bethe the head of the important theoretical division, probably the most dominant division in the laboratory. This was a move that highly irked the volatile Teller. However, Oppenheimer had good reason to take this step. After the war, Bethe himself testified that his slow, prodding, and persistent approach to problems was seen more as an asset than Teller's rash and brilliant attitude. To placate Teller, Oppenheimer let him pursue his own ominous ideas; the precursors to the development of a hydrogen bomb. However, sadly after this, relations between Teller and Bethe were always strained.

The rest of the Manhattan Project is history. During the development of the bomb, many moral and ethical dilemmas came up. Bethe was not really involved with facing these dilemmas. Not because he did not care; in fact far from it, as became clear after the war, but because at the time, as head of an important division, his job was to ensure that the project was led to fruition. Although he did participate in many discussions related to choice of targets, strategy of dropping the bomb etc., his first priority was to make sure the weapon would work. Finally, after three years of tremendous hard work and creativity, the first atomic bomb was exploded in the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945. An anecdote just before the test demonstrates Bethe's essential qualities. Just before the test, in a dummy explosion, doubt was cast about whether the bomb would work or not. The situation became very tense, especially for Oppenheimer, and the resolution of the problem depended on understanding the working of an important instrument designed to validate the test results. Bethe again stayed up all night and did calculations that indicated, that the machine had a flaw which would not have let it distinguish between a successful and unsuccessful test. The problem was solved and everybody breathed easy. Characteristic Bethe.
Of course, the bombs were finally used then, and it marked the beginning of a new age. Again, we don't know if Bethe had anything profound to say about the implications of the terrible weapon he had helped to create. Throughout his life, he used to say, 'I am not a philosopher'.

LATER YEARS: ARMS CONTROL:
After the war, Bethe wanted to immediately return to his life's pursuit- pure physics. He himself said that 'just like the soldiers, we had done our job, and now just like them, we wanted to go back to our universities to do what we liked best'.
By this time, because of the war work, Bethe had also become a superb applied scientist, in addition to being an extraordinary pure physicist. His persistent approach to problems earned him the nickname 'The Battleship', except that this equally formidable vessel usually boomed with laughter. In the words of Richard Feynman, who by now was his close friend and colleague, he was 'absolutely top-notch at calculation'. He knew literally hundreds of mathematical tricks that could simplify complex mathematical problems. However, when the situation demanded, he had tremendous energy and could also do extensive and tedious numerical work to get the solution. On rare occasions, his candor could be jarring. When asked by the physicist Victor Weiskopf about the complexity of a problem, he replied, 'For me, it would take three days, for you it would take three weeks'. This was not supposed to be a put-off in any way; it was a true fact that Weiskopf acknowledged. At Cornell, Bethe shared a close relationship with Feynman. During his time at Los Alamos, Feynman had used Bethe as his sounding board. This trend continued at Cornell, where Bethe was a reassuring presence for Feynman; he had lost his wife to tuberculosis during the war. People could hear the two arguing volubly many times; they called Feynman 'The Mosquito Boat'. At Cornell, Bethe trained many outstanding physicists, most notably the English physicist Freeman Dyson, who he called his most brilliant student. He was the centre of Cornell's scientific universe.

At Cornell, Bethe was interested in the new fields of particle physics and quantum electrodynamics; the interaction of light with matter. In order to map out future developments in physics, a series of distinguished conferences was organised, with Oppenheimer as presiding chair. To these conferences came the most brilliant breed of the young masters, in addition to the old school of experts. These included John Wheeler, Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger, and Freeman Dyson, all of whom were going to play key roles in the development of physics in post-war America. Memorable during these conferences was Schwinger's marathon lecture, lasting for several hours. Purportedly, only Fermi and Bethe, who were known for their tremendous stamina, were alert (and awake) at the end of the lecture. At the conference, the most interesting and baffling problem that was discussed was of the so called Lamb Shift, relating to the difference in the energy levels of an electron. While nobody was making any headaway with the problem, Bethe provided the first calculation that indicated the way out of the difficulty. Again, he worked out the essential steps of the problem on a train journey. This gave an impetus to researchers like Feynman, who became the pioneers of modern quantum electrodynamics.

In the early 1950s, the Cold War started raging, and the paranoia of McCarthysm gripped the country. After the Soviets exploded their A-bomb, and the leakage of information through espionage became known, President Truman ordered a crash program to develop the H-bomb. At the helm of the effort was Bethe's old friend, Edward Teller. In 1950, Bethe wrote an article arguing against H-bomb development. But Teller tried to persuade Bethe to help him on the project. After a lot of deliberation, Bethe agreed to be a consultant on the project at Los Alamos, mainly because of the very interesting physics that it involved, and because at first he thought the project so unlikely, that he wanted to work on it merely to prove it impossible. After the H-bomb was developed however, Bethe became an outspoken critic of nuclear development. He served on the scientific advisory committee to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. He began to make a case for discontinuation of nuclear testing. In 1963, Bethe was one of the driving forces behind the Limited Test Ban Treaty.
In 1954, Oppenheimer was put on trial and lost his security clearance during a much publicised hearing. Bethe unequivocally testified in favour of Oppenheimer; throughout his life he held him in great regard, and tried in vain to persuade Teller against testifying against the brilliant and committed scientist. Teller's testimony was particularly damning, and this event further and permanently widened the rift between him and Bethe. When Oppenheimer died in 1967, Bethe remarked that he felt almost as if he had lost an older brother.

In 1967, Bethe won the Nobel Prize for his work in deducing the source of energy in the stars. Freeman Dyson says that the Nobel Committe could have considered awarding the prize for many other contributions that he made. However, this discovery is particularly important; it is a deep and fundamental discovery related to our cosmic origins.

In 1968, Bethe essentially broke off with the Government. In a courageous article in Scientific American with the IBM physicist Richard Garwin, he laid down points that argued against the deployment of an anti ballistic missile system that the US Government was developing, ostensibly against Chinese ballistic missile attacks. In the article, the two authors argued how ANY system that the US could develop could not possibly contain such an attack; in fact if anything, it would lead to bitter war between the two sides. I have read this article and it is a remarkable model of clarity and candor. This event demonstrates Bethe's conviction and integrity as a humanitarian, assets that he continued to exemplify.
In 1983, at President Reagan's initiative, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) or 'Star Wars' system was conceived, that was designed to act as a 'missile shield' for a possible Soviet attack. (Teller, again, was one of the chief architects). Bethe and Garwin, along with Cornell physicist Kurt Gottfried, wrote another aticle akin to the earlier one, arguing against the futility of the system and the enormous sums of money that were being spent on its development.
In 1985, after the Chernobyl disaster, Bethe put together a committee of experts that analysed the accident. They cited human error and a fundamentally faulty design as the cause, and so ruled out the accident happening in any reasonably good US reactor. Bethe was always an outspoken advocate of electricity from nuclear power, and believed that it represented the best hope of the world for the future energy crisis. He served on many committees that investigated reactor technology and its development. His assesments will surely be borne out by time.

All through the 1970s, 80s and 90s, Bethe kept working on cutting edge problems in physics, mainly astrophysics, and 'political physics', as he called arms disarmament. He still carried his old slide-rule with him, and had no problem digesting reams of supercomputer printouts. Even after retiring and facing a debilitating condition that affects muscles and which limited the use of his left arm, he kept coming to his department everyday. He loved to lie in his bathtub for 45 minutes everyday; he said it got his thoughts in order. His hobbies included mountain climbing (his lifelong love) and stamp collecting; about the latter, he said that it is the only situation which enables all the countries in the world to live together in peace...
In the 1980s, well in his own eighties, Bethe started a collaboration with Gerald Brown of SUNY Stony Brook. Together, they published many articles about nuclear processes, especially in supernovae. In the mid 1980s, Bethe wrote an important article discussing the famous solar neutrino problem. Distinguished colleagues of his attest that they don't know of any scientist in the history of physics who has done such important work in his eighties. A couple of years ago, he gave a set of lectures on quantum physics to his neighbours to tell them of that wondrous age in which he had participated. We are lucky they are online. The videos of this lecture are available here.

In 1999, at the ripe old age of 93, this grand old man of science wrote a petition opposing the United States senate's decision to reject the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). In it, Bethe outlined how this act is, if anything, going to lessen the US's advantage in maintaining a nuclear initiative. In the petition, as someone who was more worthy to comment on this than anybody else, he made an appeal to all scientists to desist working on nuclear weapons development.

BETHE'S CHARACTER AND LEGACY:
During my earlier readings, whenever I used to read about the atomic pioneers, Bethe always stood out as the quiet, brilliant, morally strong and unwavering, and concerned scientist that he was. Hans Bethe's life is an extraordinary example of achievement, concern and humanitarianism. He was a true giant of science. His colleague, the distinguished physicist Robert Wilson, said that his quintessential quality was 'responsibility'. Bethe shared his responsibility for his personal life, his personal and professional advancement, for physics in America, and for world physics. He participated in one of the most exciting ages in scientific history, and his stewardship in that age contributed a paradigm shift in our perception of science, politics and humanity.
He is the perfect example of the scientist-citizen. In his research he was indefatigable, and demonstrated extraordinary brilliance and perseverance. He was one of the last 'universalists' who contributed to virtually every branch of modern physics. In his public life, he was a quiet worker who went along doing his job and executing his responsibilities with characteristic fervor. When the time arose though, he was not one to shirk from being an outspoken advocate or opponent.
His colleagues always spoke fondly of him and with great reverence; I do not remember having read a single bad opinion about him uttered by anyone, including the sharp-tongued Oppenheimer.
Hans Bethe's life, in my opinion teaches us many things. It teaches us love for science and a basic love for our fellowmen. It demonstrates the responsibility that scientists have towards the public and the world. And it teaches us never to lose our wonder for the universe, and never to lose our conviction towards humanity and most importantly, oneself. It is truly an extraordinary life.
He will be sorely missed.

GP120 UNDRESSED...

Kudos to Harvard/Howard Hughes Institute ('The Aviator' guy!) and Scripps Research Institute researchers for solving the structures of two key proteins that HIV uses to hijack cell machinery. One of these, gp120, is a surface viral protein and is particularly diabolical, and crucial for the virus to bind and recognise helper T cells. These studies mark a major advance in the understanding of the disease and would hopefully point the way toward a vaccine/cure.

Tragically, one of the lead authors on the Harvard paper is Don Wiley, a biochemist who was found dead in 2001 under sudden and suspicious circumstances. That's a long story in its own right, and you can read about it here. Among other things, suspicions that his death was a murder were based on the fact that he worked with insidious viruses which could have bioterrorism prospects. Wiley was a student of William Lipscomb, Nobel Laureate, who in turn was a student of the legendary Linus Pauling. Lipscomb got the Nobel for studies of boranes, but later switched to impressive structural studies of proteins.

This important paper would be a fitting tribute to Wiley's memory.

Here are a few excerpts from the news article:

"Dennis Burton and Ian Wilson, immunologists at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, have looked at 4E10, the most broadly acting HIV antibody known so far. They have worked out the structure that it has when it is bound to gp41, the protein (or antigen) that it recognizes on the virus's surface, and they have published their results in Immunity. The pair hope to use the information to design a vaccine that will stimulate the production of antibodies like 4E10. "We can make a mimic of the antigen that will elicit the same type of antibodies we initially studied," says Wilson. He and Burton call the approach retrovaccinology."

"The structure of the second protein is published in this week's Nature by researchers led by the structural biologist Stephen Harrison of Harvard Medical School, Boston. They reveal the crystal structure of the virus surface protein gp120 from the simian immunodeficiency virus, which is closely related to HIV.The researchers studied the structure of the protein as it is before it binds to a helper T cell, a type of immune cell that HIV infects. The bound structure was solved several years ago, so the new information helps to show how the molecule changes shape when it recognizes and binds to the cell."