How to Customize Graphs in Mathematica

Innovation- No more a fancy word

Whenever I go to any conference or some sort of it, the commonest word I find is ‘Innovation’. Innovation, out of box thinking, creativity and many other similar jargons are setting new trends of fashion in our old-fashioned R and D sector. It is applauding and also inspiring, but worthless unless, we understand these words completely. Most of the people, I find, confuse with the implication of such words and hence its implementation looks like a fool’s dream.

People working as team-lead in R and D sectors are religiously sent to the top-most management colleges to understand innovation. They are taught how he/she can sow the seed of innovation and how this plant of innovation can be further nurtured.

The term innovation is generic in nature and it means a novel idea that can bring desirable and fruitful changes. The seed of any innovation is an Idea-an Idea specific to that particular ecosystem which is the result of the sacrifices of so many ideas which are referred as bad ideas. But these bad ideas are those who steps us up to the good idea. What I think Ideas are never good or bad. Even what we say a bad idea is the one which is not good.

The question how to fuel innovation is of utmost importance and its solution, perhaps, is the unrestricted flow of ideas without any binary discrimination of ideas into good and bad. People need to be encouraged for providing ideas. The best way is to provide incentive and recognition for every idea. There may be question on its feasibility for taking so many ideas as implementing those is a huge task and it demands people’s support as well as monetary support. But getting one innovative idea can pay back all the expenditure incurred. There are many examples which show how one idea saved millions for an industry.

 There are many cases; I have witnessed myself, where Ideas are ruthlessly sentenced to capital punishment for being impractical and ridiculous. In such situation, not only it kills one idea, but also it chokes the passage of the stream of ideas forever. It is discouraging not only for that person but also for his colleagues. Such environment will never taste the success of innovation.

Particularly, R & D sectors  are too orthodox to spend any amount of money to encourage innovation. For them, Innovation is just a fancy word which decorates the language. Even, they have made innovation centre but it is only limited to higher authorities and hence, it never permeates to the people it really needs.

 For a long time, we have been begging to other countries for technology, now it is time to revert it back. We often talk about being a leader, not merely a follower. Innovation is one of the tools which can step up to such heights but before this, we need to wash away the orthodox mentality of not-to-change. Investment for Innovation should not be understood as useless but should be accepted as a worthwhile investment.

Black Holes And Baby Universes and other essays

Mind is a marvellous thing. From the beginning of civilization, human has always tried to know the mystery, miracles and destiny. His search is still going on. Is it going to end or is it never ending process? What is the origin of universe? What is its future? Is everything determined? There are these thousands of question which stirs the mind and make us feel how ignorant we are, about this grand universe.

But Stephen Hawking has made it an exception. His book “Black Holes and Baby Universes and other essays” has streamlined these complex issue in such a simple narrative format with a stimulating wit that even a non-scientific person can understand. The book is collection of essays which he wrote over the period 1976 to 1992.

It contains fourteen chapters, elucidated in autobiographical way. The first few of the essays deal with his childhood, his studies in Oxford and Cambridge and how he coped with his incurable disease precisely known as Motor Neuron Disease. His lines are motivating and encouraging. In one of his essay, he writes,” Before my condition was diagnosed, I had been very bored to life. There had seemed to be anything worth doing. But shortly after I came out of hospital, I dreamt that I was going to be executed. I suddenly realized that there were lot of worthwhile things I could do if I were reprieved.” There are other captivating moments like how he saw the boy, suffering with leukaemia and realized that there were people worse off than him. In the next chapters, he has dealt with public attitude towards science. About the conventional studies of science in schools, he writes, “Science, in schools, is often presented in dry and uninteresting manner. Children learnt it by rote to pass the examination, and they don’t see its relevance to the world around them.”

In further chapters, he explains what a complete and unified theory is and if there is such theory how we can model it. He says that modelling physical reality comprises two parts. First we have to find the local laws that govern various physical quantities and second we should have sets of boundary conditions that tell us the state of some regions of the universe at a certain time and what effects propagates into it subsequently from the rest of the universe.

He further explains what was the greatest mistake made by Einstein (which Einstein himself accepted) and how he realized it.  A detailed discussion was made on the origin of universe, starting with different school of thoughts and then reaching to the modern concept of singularity that most of the scientists accept. He gives us optimistic thought of finding the one of the complex question,” How did the universe begin.” But why it bothers to exist, will be mystery.”

In the next chapters he explains the quantum mechanics of black holes, black holes and baby universe and rules out any possibility of space travel in near future due to uncertainty principle .In his essay entitled “Is everything determined?”  He says,” yes, it is. But it might as well not be, because we can never know what is determined. “

About the future of universe, he lucidly explains the different possibility of universe in future. Presenting a clear meaning of some complex jargon of modern physics words like ‘chaos’, ‘singularity’, ‘critical density’, ’law of inflation’ he simply proves his outstanding ability to simply complex things with such an ease. 

 Read this book, you will as enjoy as you enjoy your favourite science fiction movie. You will never find such a simple scientific book, without any equation (except E=m.c^2), on such a convoluted topic.