The train journey

Train journey in itself is fascinating. One can see all sorts of peculiar things . I myself have traveled through train during my college time. My greatest achievement has been surviving through the general compartments several times. Its nothing to be amazed about. Its quite common in college life. The cheapest and most entertaining means of transport.
You can smell pakoras,samosas and all kinds of fried items, sometimes chutney dripping over u, cold drink wala chai wala all trying to make business in the same tiny little compartment. Its amazing if u notice how much food can be consumed in so little time just because its all happening in train. The mere fact of their being in train justifies their eating all sorts of nonsense which otherwise they neither would see nor think bout.
How people survive the horrendous time and moments and actually enjoy them by adding fun elements they discover in those moments. The scenery outside, the faces of new ppl, the fact that they are on wheels ..... U can see ppl bored, children screaming, couples admiring, guys oogling, girls makin faces at others, oldies relaxing or very troubled ppl singing sellin stuff to make some money to eat a single meal. A real life's all stages woven into those few moments.
I ve heard ppl meet n make friends forever, couple fight n never meet again, all at and in same place ... A train.

Ten Rupee coin released !!!

The most awaited ten rupee coin will be in your hands in a few days. No more taking care of old torn notes.. however it'll increase the weight of ur pockets for sure ;)

The look: The obverse side has the lion capitol with numeral 10 and year of manufacture. On reverse side, a double line cross with a dot in each pellet of cross and denomination written in Hindi and English around.

This design has been prepared by National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad with the theme of Unity in Diversity. The outer side metal is Nickel-Bronze and the inner side metal is Ferrous Steel. The weight of the coin would be 8 grams and the diameter would be 28 mm.

The coins are being minted at mainly Noida and Mumbai mint

Cheers to coin collectors !!

Lovers, by Rene Magritte

"My painting is visible images which conceal nothing... they evoke mystery and indeed when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question 'What does that mean'? It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable."
Rene Magritte

Its one of the most famous works by Rene Magritte !!

India to have its own liquid telescope

New Delhi: For a small town, Devasthal has astronomical ambitions.
Next year, the town in Uttarakhand will host a unique telescope, only among a handful of its kind in the world, that uses a big, spinning bowl of liquid—and not the usual glass mirrors—to focus light from celestial objects.
The telescope, with its 4m wide dish, will cost only one-hundredth of its equivalent-sized glass-mirrored counterpart, and is much easier to maintain, say scientists associated with the project, making it a potential candidate for futuristic space and lunar observatories.

Far-sighted: A file photo of a 6m diameter liquid mirror telescope at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. The liquid mirror telescope at Devasthal, Uttarakhand is modelled on this telescope. Paul Hickson (UBC) / Nasa

The International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT), as it is called, is part of an agreement between the University of Belgium and the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), an autonomous organization funded by the Centre’s department of science and technology.
“We will not be really involved in the construction and such,” said Ram Sagar, director of ARIES, “We will be handling the operations and maintenance part of it.”
Sagar said the telescope would not cost more than Rs1.5 crore. “The glass mirror equivalent would be anywhere near Rs150 crore,” he added.
Like in a camera, the primary dish in a telescope collects light from a source and focuses it to a point. From here, a complex arrangement of lenses magnifies the image for the human eye.
The bigger the primary mirror, greater the chances of catching light, and therefore, “seeing” a distant, elusive celestial body. However, such mirrors are extremely expensive to make. Polishing their surfaces and chiselling them to a parabola (the most effective geometric shape for focusing light) are what adds to the cost.
In ILMT, mercury is filled in a parabolic dish, which is rotated at a constant speed.
That a liquid spun in a container naturally acquires a parabolic shape has been known to physicists since centuries.
But Isaac Newton, who is credited with the design of the modern reflector telescope, and knew this property of liquids, didn’t have electric motors and charge-coupled devices (CCD), for making such a telescope.
An electric motor turns the dish in ILMT and a CCD—like in digital cameras—allows you to take pictures without a photographic film.
Sagar said that mercury is the most popularly used liquid for such mirrors. “It’s a highly reflective liquid, can peer as far into the sky as its mirror-equivalent and the images are as clear,” he added.
However, because the mercury can spill, the telescope can only look straight up and cannot be rotated like the mirror telescopes.
“So, you may have to have a series of these telescopes to increase the collection area. You can have 20-30 such telescopes instead of the rotating ones,” said Sagar.
Ravi Subramanhyan, director at the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore founded by late Nobel laureate C.V. Raman, said that such a telescope would be a boost to Indian astronomy. “This, and another 3.6m dish telescope being built in the same spot, would be among the largest optical telescopes in India. That would draw more collaborative efforts among scientists in India, as well as abroad,” he said.
India and Belgium are collaborating on a 3.6m dish telescope, which promises to be the biggest optical telescope in India. “Since we were anyway building this telescope, the Belgian scientists requested that we host the liquid mirror one, too,” said Sagar, “so that’s how this telescope is being built here.”
With several lunar missions proposed by the US, China and even India, and the discovery of a class of liquids, called ionic fluids, that have mercury’s reflective properties, but don’t freeze in the moon’s harsh winters, liquid mirror telescopes are slowly becoming more than an academic exercise.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), the US space agency, last year commissioned a research project to develop liquid mirror telescopes for lunar observatories.

Lunar observatories are useful, in that there’s a much greater chance of telescopes catching radiation from undetected, unknown bodies. That’s because the moon doesn’t have an atmosphere, which on earth prevents a wide range of radiation from reaching land-based telescopes

One of my recent Fav!!

"Teardrops On My Guitar"

Drew looks at me, I fake a smile so he won't see
That I want and I'm needing everything that we should be
I'll bet she's beautiful, that girl he talks about
And she's got everything that I have to live without

Drew talks to me, I laugh cause it's just so funny
That I can't even see anyone when he's with me
He says he's so in love, he's finally got it right,
I wonder if he knows he's all I think about at night

[Chorus:]

He's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar
The only thing that keeps me wishing on a wishing star
He's the song in the car I keep singing, don't know why I do

Drew walks by me, can he tell that I can't breathe?
And there he goes, so perfectly,
The kind of flawless I wish I could be
She'd better hold him tight, give him all her love
Look in those beautiful eyes and know she's lucky cause

[Chorus]
He's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar
The only thing that keeps me wishing on a wishing star
He's the song in the car I keep singing, don't know why I do

So I drive home alone, as I turn out the light
I'll put his picture down and maybe
Get some sleep tonight

He's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar
The only one who's got enough of me to break my heart
He's the song in the car I keep singing, don't know why I do
He's the time taken up, but there's never enough
And he's all that I need to fall into..

Drew looks at me, I fake a smile so he won't see.