ThePanda

(This entry is dedicated to all those who have been inspired by the big chunk of cheese up there in the night sky.)

I have never really been too interested in astronomy, even the amateur kind. I know that’s kindda unusual for most people who fall in love with physics, but somehow the night sky never held much of an attraction for me. Sure I spent many a nights in a dark jungle peering into a binocular, looking at Hale-Bopp as it made its circuit, but that was more about observing this huge beautiful thing in the sky, than about any real fascination with the night sky itself. The essential problem was observing anything, my father had telescopes, but those were terrestrial ones, which didn’t really have the kind of magnification that could show the details on the surface of the moon. Admittedly there is an observatory in Delhi, problem being it’s a 40 minute drive from my house, and the last time I was there they were showing a movie on asteroid strikes, and there was no mention of signing up for observatory time.

So here I am, neutral towards astronomy, though I’d admit I’ve looked on with some distaste at the myriad of people who talk about their love for astrophysics and the beauty that it reveals. I admittedly like more of the particle part of it, it is weirder for one, a lot crazier, and it’s one of those things which refuse to confirm to logic, and I find that fun because people keep tripping all over themselves to explain how it all works. Admittedly I haven’t done anything which connects to particle physics as it is done now, in fact the only really nice thing I feel I have ever done in physics is to work on the negative refraction of light, and that was fun.

We had guests over for dinner yesterday, it wasn’t because of anything, it was a dinner party for a dinner parties sake, and that was good, because the people coming over are generally interesting and it’s rather fun talking to them. Oh and I got a pack of Ferro Roches. Somewhere down the line, my father started telling this guy (he does photography too) about his new 500mm mirror lens (go figure), and one thing led to another and eventually they started discussing the lenses capabilities as a telescope (my father owns one of those Nikon lens to telescope inter-converter) and we eventually ended up outside with a tripod and the 500mm lens attached to the telescope thing. Now my backyard has this huge jungle (it’s a part of the green belt which runs through a tiny part of Delhi) extending behind it, and because there have been unpleasant incidents involving people walking in from this particular jungle, most of it is fenced out, and we have huge sodium lamps lighted all through the night. The intensity of light therefore makes it impossible for anyone to observe anything other than the moon on a clear night, so the obvious thing to point the telescope (50x, basically magnification in x’s for that particular inter-converter is (focal length)/10) at was the moon. Now there was no full moon, somewhere in the middle of its waxing (or waning, I am not sure which) period, but the telescope picked up somethings which I had never really seen before. These three huge craters (I know they were huge, because most of the other crater’s weren’t visible) which seemed to define on of the diameters of the moon, and this huge mountain type thing (more like a mountain range) which started off somewhere on its circumference, and boy were they beautiful. And I think I might actually like astronomy and stuff, not because I am smitten by the physics which goes in, I still feel particle physics is more interesting (but then that’s me), but because it is awfully beautiful, and it’s fun, besides Brown has an astronomy club and a pretty powerful telescope somewhere on campus (I think, because I remember reading about it somewhere) and I can see the other more beautiful sights in the night sky, oh and did I tell you I got to eat ferro roches.

Ze Panda

As I get closer to the day of departure, and approach the point where I start counting in weeks rather than in months, the days before departure become increasingly interesting. For one I have suddenly started running into newer sides of people I have long known, sides whose existence I wasn’t aware of, . This entry is a testament to the new, usually scary sides to people which the days before departure seems to reveal.

The Travelers

Perhaps the least populated, and most outspoken of all groups, the travelers are invariably close to me or my parents, and have usually taken n>1 trips to the US. This group, rather unfortunately, includes my parents. The travelers’ as a group take pleasure in providing you with advice, some of which is asked for, and advice in ways which scare you to the bones. The travelers’ don’t just tell you about airports and airport lounges, they will also tell you all about this friend of their friend who was mugged in one airport or the other, they will tell you about people who have lost luggage while flying, people who have had money stolen, and essentially every scary travel story anyone would ever tell you. Ask them about airports in America, and they won’t tell you about the nicer airports, about the crowded airports (JFK, Chicago O’Hare, LAX), preferring to rather regale you with their tales of small, dark and lonely airports where they spent a few hours around midnight. Ask them about immigration queues in India and in the US, and they won’t stick to telling you about how immigration in the US works or what you’re supposed to do in an immigration (hey this is my first trip), and would instead tell you all about this rude immigration guy at the airport in Delhi who flicked their pen the last time they were there. Now there’s no denying this groups wisdom or good intentions, and I know they are merely telling me worse case scenarios and how I should prepare for them (best preparation advice I have heard till now came from a Harvard graduate who basically advices people to keep their passports safe and keep $10 in their socks, as he puts it everything else would always work out), and while under normal circumstances I would have been more than happy to listen to all of these disaster stories (hey I like disaster stories, they are usually funny), these are not normal circumstances. I am going to leave in another eight weeks, I am going to be traveling alone (my choice, in case anyone was wondering, I don’t want my parents traveling with me) and am going to be taking my first international flight ever, and I can do without all of these scary stories. The problem is these people are usually very supportive and they hardly ever try to dissuade me from anything, and well the scary stories are a new development, and that has kindda left me with no alternatives, I have to listen to each of their tales. But well since everyone’s already engaged in scaring me to death, I would be more than happy to hear your scariest travel story.

The Advice Seekers

The most benign and least troublesome of all groups, the advice seekers are those who know where they want to apply, know how they have to go about applying, but need a little reassurance and help. I actually love helping the advice seekers because I used to be one of these last year, and generally they are interesting people trying to better their lives and get to college. They are usually courteous, understand the time constraints which I face at times, have a great sense of humor, and are people you can really count on as friends. Except for calling up a few times when I am busy napping, they haven’t really done anything which has either irritated or saddened or scared me. These guys are fun.

The Extractors

The extractors, despite the few traits which they seem to share with the advice seekers, are a group unto themselves. The extractors usually don’t do their research before calling you up, and expect that you’d fill those gaps for them. I don’t really mind doing their research for them, since it’s usually fun and I’d have repeated most of their research either ways. But that’s not the problem with the extractors, the extractors as a group seek highly subjective advice, advice on things such as choosing between two colleges (for example ASU vs. UIowa, and I hadn’t even applied to either of these), advice on whether they should attend a college or not, advice on what their essays should be about, advice on whether they should ask for application fee waivers or not and the like. Now I know there are people out there who advice other people on such things, but the problem is that I am invariably unacquainted with the extractors, and there are too many things I don’t know about. Besides I am usually guarded about subjective advise, because I will invariably look at things from my viewpoint and the moment I give out advice on something which is affected by my viewpoint, the other persons views become unimportant and I believe people themselves know what is best for them. I seem to anger most of the extractors, and thankfully I have not had to talk to any of these guys on a regular basis. Perhaps one of the most irritating groups.

The Farewellers

The farewellers are these group of people, neither well meaning, nor very friendly, who seem to end each conversation in a goodbye forever tone, and even if you are supposed to meet them the next day, they act as if you are gonna be gone for ever. Now for most of these guys, this is weird behavior, I have heard some of these people thanking me, and these people don’t thank anyone, I have seen them wave goodbye, and that is something no one has ever seen them do. All in all one of the weirdest groups of people.

And finally there are the fair-weathers’ but everyone seems to know a few of those, and writing about them is superfluous. Oh and some of these groups do intersect.

Ze Panda

I have always found it enjoyable to find out about people, I do that before every interview, and with almost every unknown, but friendly e-mail that I get. It’s morbidly fascinating to read about people you do not know, but may eventually run into, it really tells you a lot about the diversity of the world and it teaches you quite a few things. People after all have too many interests and Googling interests is fun (hmm I first discovered blogging while googling someone’s name, so it can’t be harming me much). Besides I always try and find out as much as I can about people, social engineering I guess.

But either ways, yesterday night I was kindda getting bored. Somehow I ended up at TheFacebook and I have been smitten since. This thing is fun, search for people on weird criterions (my favorite criterion as of now is mailbox numbers, searching for people who have mailboxes around mine) and going through their profiles is fun, and it’s a nice way to wile away time. The facebook also got me thinking about my school’s alumni network, and now I am kindda wishing that they shifted over to something like this.

Ze Panda
still dreaming about thefacebook

P.S. I was going to write another one of my hideous “Days before Departure”, but something came up, expect one of those tonight.

For long I have not dipped my feet into the policies and actions of the people and the government of India, not because I have not found thing I am antagonistic towards, rather because my comments on the affairs of this country are considered to be hypocritical by some, they feel that while I take the liberty of commenting on the affairs of India, I don’t vote, I am going to be studying outside this country and I admittedly do not participate in the political process. However for better or for worse, much like that of those who are born of Indian parentage, whether in India or outside is connected to the affairs of this country, because no matter where I am, what I do, I will forever be considered an Indian, because I share a common set of attributes with the billion or so people who happen to belong to this group. The fact that I am going to be connected to this country for better or for worse means that the policies and actions of the Government and the people affect me, because they form a large part of the picture which is projected outside and that image directly or indirectly does affect people’s attitudes towards me, maybe not the attitudes of people who know me well enough but still the attitudes of a majority of the people in this world, and therefore I cannot let actions which I feel are wrong go by unnoticed.

A little more than 54 years ago a bunch of people came together in a huge hall and signed a document which began with the words “We the people of India”, not “We the representatives of the people of India”, not “We the members of the constituent assembly” but “We the people of India”, because it is the people who are guarantors of the constitution, unless the people of India accept the sanctity and validity of this document, it’s nothing more than a heap of paper. Sure you can implement constitutions by force of arms alone, however not only would such an implementation take away power from the people, but it would at the end of the day be a farce. At that point of time those people in that hall guaranteed a few things to all people Indian, some of which I like (freedom of speech which I seem to be using right now) and some which I don’t really approve of (economic equality), but either ways since those were guaranteed to the people, they are something we live with. From back when I was in 6th grade (I was 11) our civics teacher used to hammer these six fundamental rights into us, rights which were constitutionally guaranteed, and rights which could not be taken away by any person or government. Now one of the primary rights guaranteed to me by the constitution is the Right to Life, and except for special circumstances in which the courts can suspend this, no one has the authority to suspend this right, no matter which country you belong to (unlike a few other countries, all our fundamental rights are not guaranteed to people of all nations in India, and the exclusion is not limited to the right to vote and hold political office, rather it includes such things as the right to go to any part of India, and others), no matter where you are, no matter what your current status is. Now the fundamental rights are a protection against dictatorial regimes, they are a protection against government control beyond a certain extent, they are the rights which ultimately lead to the creation of a democracy, they are inalienable rights which the government cannot snatch away from us, because doing so would hamper the development of the people, and would lead to the end of democracy, and yet it does.

Yesterday a few policemen in this particular state just happened to kill four people sitting in a car, on charges of conspiracy to assassinate the chief minister of this particular state, they declared that these people were terrorists. Today it turns out that at least one of those people was not a terrorist, in fact she was an innocent bystander not involved in either part who was caught in a hasty piece of action. She wasn’t caught in cross fire, no one’s even sure if those people fired at the police or not, but yet they died, all four of them did. Now you have a police force which says it was justified in its actions, you have politicians coming up and telling you all about how they’re going to get people to investigate this incident, and you have all sorts of weird things in progress. Now at the end of all of these investigations, the worst that is going to happen is that a bunch of policemen are going to be suspended and some one will take disciplinary action against them. That’s OK if it is the first time round, unfortunately it isn’t. Time and again similar incidents have cropped up in the same state, under the same government, with the same police force, and similar enquiries have led to similar results in each case, obviously the state (as in the government) is not scared of such incidents. People talk of charging one person or the other (the policemen) with murder, of charging someone with manslaughter (a few of the superiors I’d guess), and other such cute legalities, sadly what people fail to recognize is that these crimes were not committed by private citizens, the government does not deny the fact that these actions are consistent with its policies, and the entire operation was in all probability approved by people in there, they merely call this a mistake, one of the many mistakes seem to be committing, and yet they don’t learn their lessons from these “mistakes”. A state (as in the government) does not commit murder, murders are committed by private individuals, the state has in fact committed a crime more grievous than murder, the state has violated the victims right to life, and in doing so has attacked the very basis of Indian democracy, the very basis of our trust in the constitution and the very words which begin the constitution. No one seems to care about this little piece of detail, and I am surprised, because if a state can get away with a violation of this right, violating any other right should be way simpler, and yet nothing happens.

There I said all I wanted to say, I can’t tell anyone what to do, that would be hypocritical since I wouldn’t do anything myself, but well this is what I feel, and this is my voice, and since democracy is pretty much based on the principle “vox populi, vox dei” I have thrown in my 20¢ (umm actually 25 paisa).

Ze Panda

Questions abound on the randomness of this universe (blame entropy and the second law of thermodynamics), but I am kindda confused. Why would this rather irritating spammer who is delusionally related to Lauren Kabila think that I’d believe Lauren Kabila’s wife anymore than Lauren Kabila’s banker, son or lawyer? After all each one of them is asking me for money, so I am really wondering, how’s the wife any better than the lawyer or the son…

Ze Panda
mystified

Two nights ago, in a rather melodramatic mood, one of my friend goes on to IM me about how he knows absolutely zilch, in fact he spends close to three minutes proving his theories of zilchiness, in a scientific manner, with almost no logical errors (I guess he went for debates). Now this guy obviously knows a lot more than zilch, at least as long as we are sticking to the official definition of zilch (zero or nothing at all), hell everyone who tells you he knows zilch, actually knows a lot more, since he knows what knowing zilch. Now me on the other hand, I have absolutely no idea what knowing zilch is, complaining about the rather limited extents of my knowledge, and intelligence is often detrimental to my having a nice long debate with people, and I therefore stay away from zilchiness. Sadly zilch doesn’t stay away from me, oh no zilch always sticks to me, which is why I get to hear statements like “Dude, my marks are zilch” (from a guy who has a cool 88% compared to my measly 80), “I couldn’t answer zilch” (guy ended up with a 100 on his zilchee test), “You know this phone is worth zilch” (A Rs. 25000 (~$555) thing that I’d so love to have), and so on and so forth. Hell zilch seems to love everyone who talks to me, actually more like everyone who talks to me seems to love zilch.

Now I don’t know if you have ever tried this, but the effects of having a mild headache, while worrying about packages lost in the black-hole that is the postal system are similar to having a pan-galactic gargle blaster, in so much that it allows you to actually feel the force, and think about such utterly zilchy things as zilch itself. I should know, ‘coz similar conditions last night set me on a collision course with zilch and it’s definitions, and after a night’s worth of deep thought, I have decided that I do not agree with the definition of zilch. Oh no I can’t change your views on this, you can go right ahead and believe all you want in the original zilchy definition of zilch, but I have a new perspective and a new definition, and despite the potential communication gaps it is likely to create, I am going to stick to my guns, God save zilch.

Careful observation of zilch, and zilch laden statements over the past 18 years (for a majority of which I didn’t even know what zilch was, shows you how objective an observer I am) have led me to the conclusion that the people who work over at the dictionary makers made a mistake, the informal definition of zilch cannot be zero, since it’s hardly ever used to denote zero. Not only is zilch mathematically anything but zero, even figuratively it ain’t zero, and before some wise ass gets this rather stupid idea, zilch does not tend towards zero, in fact zilch is intelligent, it always steers clear of zero, after all a zilch-zero collision would leave little in terms of utility for zilch. Zilch is a far more interesting phenomena as compared to zero, in fact the panda predicts that in another 20 years some chimp working in some math department would come up with a theory of zilch as advanced as quantum mechanics (or maybe link zilch to all those extra dimensions in M-Theory, Calabi-Yau spaces aren’t exactly working out after all) and end up with a Field’s for his effort, the panda would of course be slogging away, waiting to receive the Nobel or the Field’s for more worthy causes. Zilch is like one of those ubiquitous, undeterminable sub-atomic particles, zilch much like photons in QED sniffs out multiple paths, and the users brain, analyzes both results and then uses the path which it finds most appropriate, and that usually has nothing to do with the atoms inside the users brain or zero, or any other number for that matter. Now contrary to what the past definition may have led you to believe, zilch is not God, it ain’t the devil either and it’s nowhere near being a worthy party conversation starter (imagine having a conversation on zilch and it’s uses with your date). Zilch in short is a comparison between all that we have and all that the known universe has to offer, zilch is the one parameter which defines our insignificance in the huge obtrusive universe which we happen to inhabit, zilch is a comparison between us and us inverted, and the day we found out what zilch exactly is all of us would end up dead, or rather mindlessly numbed, astounded by the sheer magnitude of the universe and our insignificance in their, zilch in essence is what the Total Perspective Vortex was dreamed up for. Now most of us don’t realize the grave aspects of zilch, we are rather adept as surviving as energy-churning zombies with absolutely no idea of the true magnitudes of anything, we survive in a virtual universe of our own creation where zilch doesn’t make us look insignificant, we survive because we are ignorant, and surviving is usually a good thing, it’s not cool (rather hot from my perspective) but it’s good nevertheless. Zilch isn’t a particle or a thing, zilch is the medium, zilch is the force, zilch is what we are suspended in, and mentioning zilch is a grave injustice to the magnitude of zilch itself, for all of us are zilch.

May the zilch be with you….

Ze Panda (!Zilch)

P.S. I know a few who would be offended by this post, well think of this as one of those things which tend to insignificantly increase the quantity that is truly zilch, and insignificant increases are good.

No contrary to what the subject may indicate I have not received my package yet, and yes this post is limited in it’s appeal, mostly because it deals with my experiences and questions, other universities may be following different procedures and may have different names for their things. Oh yes now coming back to my post, for those who are unaware of this fact, the Indian Postal Services are a beast of a system, manned mostly by chimps, and are perhaps the most unpredictable of services ever to come into existence, which is why first class airmails from the United States can take anything between 3 days and a month to arrive. That is what makes things rather interesting for those going off to college outside of India, umm well at least that’s what makes things extremely tense and interesting for me. Oh and this is broken into parts.

The Acceptance
If you’re lucky, and you usually are, the acceptances would arrive by courier, there’s nothing as nice and warm as seeing your acceptance a day after you saw it online (Brown doesn’t send likely letters, why I do not know), but if by some chance acceptances from your particular colleges are sent by regular airmail, God help you as you wait for your goodies. Oh and since these come in in early April, the postal service is usually reliable and pretty efficient, which means that on an average you should be able to receive the packet within 7 days, oh and time between postage and delivery is directly proportional to the size of the packet, so it’s not exactly fun. Oh and Brown did courier my accept, TNT as I remember.

The Early Mailers
These are those interesting pieces of information you receive throughout April, information which is supposed to convince you to join a particular university (why, well because they accepted you, and they aren’t averse to getting $$s from the richer ones amongst you) and most of which is pretty interesting. These come in little envelopes which can obviously contain li’l more than a letter and hence pass through pretty quickly. These you’d receive in 5 days at most, often earlier, and these lull you into a false sense of hope that the Indian postal service has reformed its ways. Don’t believe everything that you feel, the worse is yet to come….

The Summer Mailers
So you have selected your college, sent in your acceptance (and deposit if your college has one, Brown didn’t yahoo) and are now eagerly anticipating course selection. Don’t ‘coz the course selection material is going to be delayed beyond belief, it’s natural for it to be delayed because chimps can guess the importance of that particular package. Besides it’s summer, it’s too hot to work, and while the postman may continue working, the sorters need frequent breaks. Fewer mails get sorted and you can have anything up to a months worth of wait. Crazy period of time, keep that cellphone and all of that money right next to you, that’s what helps, oh and the e-mail addy too. These are basically going to be the last of them mails you receive before arriving at college, unfortunately there are far too many of these and quite a few of them have deadlines (you’d think they dispensed off with those and essays after accepting you, but acceptance is only the beginning). The most exciting and interesting mails, by far, are sent at this point of time, receiving them is unfortunately a pain (oh and universities are pretty versatile, and usually ready to help you out with problems such as mail delivery).....

Ze Panda