The Buddha was not Aware of Simple Harmonic Motion

I have read a number of books about the Buddha and on Buddhism. I have also listened to hours of descriptions and explanations of what the Buddha said, on YouTube. The net result? I am no better off than when I started out more than 20 years earlier, longer than what the Buddha took to achieve the so-called Nirvana.

The lectures, particularly on YouTube, tie themselves up in knots trying to answer, “In the absence of soul (anatta, permanent self or essence), what exactly gets reborn in Buddhist philosophy?”

Well, I am not a Buddhist in most of the general senses in which followers of Buddhism slot themselves, but still I am one in a distinctly particular sense – empiricism. There are, to be sure, who are also dyed-in-the-wool empiricists and I am proud to be associated with them, even if only by myself.

One late evening I was working in the office trying to tackle a tricky design effort with multiple pathways to design, and also for checking the design (these are not to be done by the same person, but in my desire to submit as flawless document as I can, I ignored that prohibition). These two did not match and I was at my wits’ end. Then, out of the blue it struck me who is it who is working on the problem, the designer or the design-checker? Which Raghu am I? It is at that moment, before I had read anything about the Buddha or being aware of it in any meaningful sense, it dawned on me that “Raghu” is a dog-tag hung around the neck. That is all it is.

 It helps to identify you after your death (or, when you are on the cusp of dying) in the armed forces. Then, I had this light-bulb moment – “Raghu” comes alive only when the identity refers to something/someone which/who is not there anymore–the identity is real but what it identifies is not. Go figure.

"I" had a brief discussion on this with a colleague who was also slaving away in another cubicle. "I" think "I" confused him because “I” was on the same boat (from this point on, "I" will be discarding the “...” and its declensions in identifying the individual to make the reading visually smoother). The light-bulb was of a low wattage.

The idea came to me out of the blue when I was least aware that I was even thinking.

No, I am not claiming that I am a Buddha; only that I could be one billionth of him.

Now I claim that the Buddha, even at his supreme enhanced level of self-awareness, was not able to bring the idea in its wholesomeness to his disciples. This is why there are so many interpretations, but none making anyone the wiser than the next one.

The question about being “reborn” still stayed unanswered within me.

I am used to asking my students to do a thought experiment when I began to tech Simple Harmonic Motion (SHM).

In this thought experiment, we would assume that the earth is a perfect, homogenous (no variation in the material distribution within it) sphere, and there is no air resistance in the hole. A hole has been dug straight through the center of the earth from a point on it to the point precisely antipodal to it. Imagine a stone being dropped (zero velocity) at one. The questions are whether the stone would reach the antipodal point, and if it did reach, what would be its velocity and acceleration as it emerged “out” at the diametrically opposite point.

The answers? Yes, the stone would reach the antipodal point and, its acceleration is ‘g’, the acceleration due to gravity (by definition) and the velocity is zero (directed towards the centre). The stone would keep accelerating under ‘g’ as per its position within the earth, reducing as the distance between the stone and the centre of the earth reduces, (refer to the sketch of variation of ‘g’ within the earth) overshooting the centre, and coming to zero velocity at the antipodal opening.

 

This behaviour of the stone is repeated numerous times, but the stone remains the same; it is just as a goldfish sees outside from the bowl and by the time it returns to its starting point, it cannot remember that it has seen the scene earlier! This is SHM!

Now, include friction.

To gain traction with Buddhism, I suggest that each location has a memory associated with it, but symmetrical about the centre, and there is friction–we slow down, perhaps millions of times, and finally we come to the centre and rest. Friction is the desire/craving. The seeker sheds it layer by layer till she becomes the thus gone–Tathagata. For the Buddha, it took six or seven years. For ordinary mortals, a lifetime would not be sufficient.

This is Nirvana!  

Raghuram Ekambaram

 

Eliza Dolittle and Prof. Henry Higgins were wrong!

 

Eliza Dolittle and Prof. Henry Higgins were wrong!

Visual reports on the effects of monsoon in urban and peri-urban areas

I just looked at the topographic map of Spain and the title of this blog post–in the aftermath of flash floods in the Valencia region–automatically popped out. The region is almost like stretches of the Indian Western Ghats – steep mountains and narrow strips of land between the slopes and the sea, Arabian in India and Mediterranean in Spain.

Higgins and Dolittle sang their way into my heart when I learned to understand spoken English. And, I can now say they were totally wrong. More than 200 people perished in the flash floods caused by rain in the mountainous region of Valencia, the fabled home of Valencia orange. Speculating, the natural paths of flood waters were blocked off by real estate development. People died. Just Google, “Real Estate Development in Valencia,” to check this bold statement of mine.

It is now monsoon season up and down the eastern coastal areas of India, where it does rain copiously.

“I am helpless. My (rented) house has been inundated. What can I do?” is what you would hear from anyone ensconced in his/her home in a normally non-flooded area and having recently purchased a property in a flood-prone area.

Well, not much now; yet, there was something they could have done prior to purchasing the area. Leave the path of drainage of floodwaters untouched. You restrict the right of way of flood waters and they take revenge.

On top of that, vast institutional areas, both public and private, drain rain waters on to public roads. In developed countries, there is a penalty for such uncivil actions. Not in India. Again, the bogey man is corruption in government and not on the part of the public (both individual and corporate) that promotes this corruption.

Do I ever see a visual of how the recently (over the past 50 years, say) built-up area was a conduit for flood waters prior to that period? No. The past is never treated as a fount of relevant knowledge, except in religion.

When a built-up and populated area is under a deluge, TV reporting–the “visual reports” in the strap line–is focused on the flooded living rooms, bed rooms and kitchens, toilets backing-up in private homes, and such and how the governments, from the local to state, is unresponsive. But, not a word about the landlords; if they are the owners, so be it.

When there is encroachment in the flood plains of rivers, there is a huge cry about how people on the bottom most rung of the populace are treated as vote-banks. It is never acknowledged that propertied people do the same, in multiples, to gain a voice in the government – treat the natural storm water drain course as unadulterated real estate bounty.

Yes, the pressures of giving the ever increasing population a place to live do tell on everyone, most significantly on the local governments and their minions. You, then, a have cocktail of palms to be greased.

So then, what is the list? Start from civil society and climb gradually, not missing a step, up to the government authorities. Am I saying that if everyone is corrupt we should just avoid looking at everyone? No, not in the least.

Look at oneself, first.

My cousin, now dead, did this. He is in Heaven, I presume.

Raghuram Ekambaram

    

 

“You Prophets and Priests Made the Gods...”

There are a few marginally progressive thoughts in The Ten Commandments. In this short post, I am stepping beyond the thesis–Hebrews are God’s Chosen People–that supports the movie, and, in the process undermining it. Should be a fun read.

When Ramses II asserts his claim to the throne of Egypt, his father, Ramses, says that only he who can rule Egypt will follow him, and here comes the kicker: “I owe that to my fathers, not to my sons.” This is a slap in the face of the custom of unchecked, untested and automatic inheritance! John Kenneth Galbraith, the author of The Affluent Society, would have applauded, had he been there then!

When the Nile ran red with blood, and Ramses II excoriates his ministers, generals and all and sundry, “You prophets and priests made the gods that you may prey upon the fears of men.”  Well this is seriously progressive, but Ramses II capitulates later when his faith in HIS god (not necessarily invoking the god of his retinue) was shattered. So, was he serious earlier? Yes, in the heat of that moment, he was. But, not later when he faced disaster and insanity crept up on him.

There is something parallel in a mythical story of Hinduism. You could be a nonbeliever all through your life, but with your last breath if you utter Lord Rama’s name, you are all ready to ascend to heaven!

Moses, during the Exodus from Egypt repeatedly asks God to relieve the misery of His people. God obliges, Pillar of Cloud, Pillar of Fire and on such. A subordinate asking his boss to help him (the subordinate). Indeed progressive, as the usual arrow points in the opposite direction.

“What have I left undone?” This was the last query Moses posed to God, in a desperate attempt to get a response. This question has been at the cusp of my lips whenever I had taken the draft of anything I had done to my boss, at his insistence. And, to his discredit, he has always plucked something from the left field bleachers and says, “[T]his, that and that too.”

Where is the progressiveness in this? Admitting that your subordinate has completed whatever you had asked, and it is time to give him credit, unasked. God was taken to task by Moses. This in my book is a progressive thought.

The ultimate progressive statement from Moses, then a skeptic: "If this god is God, he would live on every mountain. He would not be the God of Ishmael or Israel alone, but of all men." Yet, the skeptic becomes a believer. This transformation is regressive, under pressure from Zephorah, who later becomes Moses' wife. 

Again, in my mind, a woman evil doer! I am NOT an MCP. But, per my earlier post, I am! Make what you will of me. 

So, The Ten Commandments is not all bad but to get the good, progressive ideas, one needs to dig deeper; unfortunately, this is precisely what religion forbids you to do.

C’est la vie!

Raghuram Ekambaram

                                  James Bond 007 took me for a spin with his English!

My English is not so bad. How bad? Bad enough that I cannot avoid spotting what seems to be an egregious error in what James Bond says in Skyfall.

In that movie, Bond buys a drink for the villain’s moll – par for the course. What follows next is something I could hardly digest. He requests her to, “Bring me to him.” The “him” is the villain.

Does the sentence have any meaning? Don’t you bring someone far nearer? Should this not have been, “Take me to him”? Did the script writer screw up? Did Daniel Craig make a big boo-boo? Did the director choose not to re-shoot that particular three or four second segment, profit could take a hit?

Questions and more questions. I must thank my stars that I did not notice such an error in Spectre. On November 2, two days from today, I hope to see no such miscues when I will sit glued down in front of my TV at 8:45 PM to watch the latest offering (in India) from the Bond stable, No Time to Die.

In The Ten Commandments, Ramses II orders his general, once The Lord thy God of Moses parted the Red Sea and hadn’t yet closed it to, “Bring him [Moses] to me alive”. That was in 1956. Now it is the twenty first century. Did it matter? English is known/cursed for its plasticity. Did English change so much that word-order did not matter anymore–interchange “him” and “me” in the quoted line in Skyfall.

I tell you why this bothers me. When I watch a Hollywood movie, I keep a mental register of the turns of phrases native English speakers speak (thank their script writers!). While this may do not matter much in my facility with the language, at least I am aware. Now, Skyfall has taken me one step, at least, backwards.

All of this started when I submitted a guest column to the campus newspaper eons ago. In that, I used fully as the adverbial modifier for well. That was changed by the editor to full well. I knew I was grammatically correct.

So, I approached someone who was an English Litt graduate from University of Iowa and was doing further studies where I was doing my Ph.D. He was very clear on the issue: “You are right grammatically, but not in usage. It has been a while since fully lost the y.”   

If anyone could clarify what Bond said/should have said, I would be eternally thankful. I would not experience vertigo for being spun so hard.

Raghuram Ekambaram

P. S. If there are any errors of grammar, do not spin me hard; tell me softly and I would listen.

 

ChatGPTization of Engineering Education

This post is in response to an article in The Hindu (Education Plus) carrying the title, “Engineering a change?” with the strap line, “What kind of impact will Artificial Intelligence and technological innovations have on education in this domain?” I thought it could be interesting and started reading it in a serious mood. Then, reality hit me.

The article I have cited above is of the Premium category and is open only to Subscribers of the The Hindu Group (THG) space on the internet. Hence, this post is likely to be longer than what I feel my readers will be comfortable with (I will be quoting extensively from the newspaper article).

Just to show how I respond to, with undisguised contempt for, ChatGPT, I am giving a link to an earlier blog post of mine here. You would be primed now for my ChatGPT colored bile problem.

The third sentence in the impugned article starts off, “As an academician in India, how will these new developments affect learning in our students?” The way the author goes on about LLMs, I am entitled to assume that he would have run his article through ChatGPT which failed to mark/remark that there is no subject in the sentence. If he did not take it to ChatGPT, the question is, “Why did he not...?” No confidence in it? That is irony.

The above is elementary. Not the next extract: “Such AI tools ...brought libraries and expert contents to a student’s fingertips.” The writer forgot the maxim, paraphrasing, “Easy to get, easy to forget.” No effort, no obligation to remember, for the simple reason you can get it any time. Learning without memory? Is this learning at all?

Lugging books to and between and from hostels or home or library was part of learning. Go back to the so-called days of “Gurukul”: “Sishyas” (students) bent their backs and knees to complete the tasks in the forest hermitage; the “learning” did not come cheap, labor-wise. Whatever they learnt had a cost. But, with AI, you do not value learning on this score. Devalue LLM, please.

“AI tools and search engines will come up with a good answer mostly sans blemish.” (Italics not in the original). I am all for this; if, a teacher is able to accommodate that “mostly sans blemish,” in grading a test/examination paper That is, blemish or not, full credit to be given, mostly. Yuck ...

This point is made in my earlier post (link given), with disgust, in the original!

“[E]ngineering courses are high on theory and low on practice.” Just as the author has “[E]xperiences of several years doing the rounds of several engineering campuses and witnessing first-hand the teaching-learning at work...”, I have had one decade of truly experiencing, “the learning-teaching experience” in engineering education in a private institution in the central region of Tamil Nadu.

My experience, thus, carries more premium, in my not-so-humble opinion. I can defend my strong condemnation of such an evaluation of the engineering courses as stated by the author. It is not the courses, their contents, by themselves, which have this skew. It is in the interest of the edupreneurs’ penchant for getting higher and higher RoI. Stuff a class with the maximum number allowed (and a few more, like 62 v. 60) and create as many sections as she wants.

In this recurring scenario, no single teacher would venture into a class and endeavour to show practical situations where the theory would apply, and how the analysis should be fine tuned by altering or discarding the assumptions one makes in the beginning of the theory. This is from my personal experience.

Most teachers would shy away lest they be caught with their pants down or saree blown away.

It is always about the needs of the industries; never about students gaining insights beyond what is taught in class, beyond what is practiced at work. Graduates are indentured labourers. We are going back to the middle ages, if not backwards beyond that.

“What is the difference between data and information?”, the author asks final year students from the CSE/IT streams. He expects that the response to this question by itself will expose the level of curiosity of the interviewee! Nonsense. She would merely regurgitate what she had crammed into her brain the day of the interview.

I would stop here, though I have many more bones to pick, I can feel readers are beginning to yawn.

Raghuram Ekambaram

 

 

https://nonexpert.blogspot.com/2024/07/how-bad-is-chatgpt-i-am-not-sure-but-i.html

The Ten Commandments

 

The Ten Commandments (1956) of Cecil B. DeMille

I was not yet out of my single digit age in the early 1960s. That is when my parents took me to see the movie, The Ten Commandments.

Why they did that, I failed to ask when they were alive, and now I cannot ask. A huge gap in the history of my upbringing. Getting personal here, but I need that to soothe my conscience, to speculate why my parents did what they did, not only in this matter but in many..

When the parting of the Red Sea came on the scene, the audience fell silent and my parents shushed me. And, that scene made an impact on me. I have that scene etched in my brain. I was in the US, one state removed from the eastern shore, for more than 12 years. And, I am happy that I did not visit the western coast, particularly the LA area. That is weird, isn’t it?

Had I made the pilgrimage to Hollywood studios, I would have been told how the sea split and joined again, devouring the Egyptian army and lapping the feet of the Exodusees once they reached the shores of Sinai. That would have been a true disaster, for me. The magic of that scene, as imbibed in the unfolding years of my childhood would have been lost.

I have watched the full movie, segment-wise, on YouTube (Faith genre) maybe two dozen times, and even today I feel the magic of not only that scene, but also the waters of the Nile turning into blood, the creeping “night mist”, as Yul Brynner, famously claimed, and taking his generals down contemptuously for being afraid, (my father did not explain to me who is “a first born” perhaps because I am his first-born!), the staff of Moses turning into serpents and on and on. I thank my parents for taking me to see that movie.

The following is an unsequential list of the other scenes on which I have comments:

Anne Baxter, as Nefertiti, steals the scene when she confronts Rameses (the younger) when he returned from the Red Sea without the blood of Moses on his sword. The contempt in her face when her husband was about to strike her–in the face of death– is unforgettable.

In the scene when the palace courtiers warn Ramses (elder) of a deliverer of the Jews being born in Egypt, his edict was announced as from “Ramses the First”. This was bad. Why? Ramses I, the “First” emerges only after Ramses II is christened! Before then the “I’ carries no heft. Those of you who have seen any missive from the GoI would notice that the first paragraph is unnumbered, and the numbering starts with “2” in the second paragraph; I have wondered about it for long and conclude that the letter writer though he thought he could finish it in one paragraph, could not. Hence, the “2” leading the second paragraph, without the “1” in its preceding one!

When the Jews are released from “Bondage” (the way it is pronounced by the two Ramses, and Moses, almost “Bandage”, grates on my nerves), the wheel of their carts are almost solid (with two small segments carved out from around the inside of the perimeter of the wheel), but the wheel of the Pharaohs’ chariot and those of his army men were of the spokes-and-wheel type. That is a technical point, torque and angular motion, showing the Egyptians as ahead of the Jews – not so now!

The cinemascopic scene in which Nefertiti watches the Pharaoh’s army leave Goshen (?), and a number of scenes of similar effects as warranted by the script, are breathtaking. Perhaps those who saw (I have not seen) “Cleopatra” from the stable of the same director would respond with a “Meh...”

I knew that the scene of the “Burning Bush” has been retained in my mindscape from the 1960s. In one of the Tamil stage dramas of R. S. Manohar, the holy fire in a ritual was nothing more than strips of orange paper with a pedestal fan from outside of the scene blowing air to flutter strips! Was something similar done in The Ten Commandments’ “Burning Bush” scene? I don’t know. It is good that I have stayed without knowing for more than six decades. It is still magic for me.

I will stop here. I would continue to watch the movie and if I came across any more such comments, I would not fail to register it in my space.

Raghuram Ekambaram  

 

Honest is What Honest Does

I start this post with a full disclosure: till about six months ago, I was fond of using the phrase, “Honestly speaking...”, or, “To be honest ...” whenever I wanted to make a point that was tenuously connected to, or somewhat detached from mainstream ideas. This was in my classes, in my conversations with friends and foes in the academia, and relatives too. This was pointed out by my wife.

As I disputed her at my risk, I did not risk disputing her. From then on, I merely stated my position and let its strength carry it through. It had a success rate right of three-sigma on the frequency distribution curve. That is, the idea did not need my help of declaration of honesty.

Now, I am going full bore against the same phrases.

If someone were to try to tell you something and starts off, “To be honest...,” or, alternatively, “Honestly speaking...”, beware. You could expect one of the following two: one, the statement will be trivial that carries zero relevance to honesty. This is not too consequential; triviality breeds no success or failures.

The second one is more dangerous. The moment the listener responds, she hurls herself into the abyss of dishonesty as she has already ceded the space in which dishonesty prevails.

If we were to equate honesty with truth, we would find it is valid. To bring clarity to this statement, I would resort to a mythological story that I heard with my head resting on the lap of my mother’s elder sister, nearly 60 years ago. Yes, it has stayed with me that long, and strength undiminished.

Goddess Parvathi was to be betrothed to Lord Siva and the groom’s party was arriving at the bride’s house in full regalia. Our lady was half-hiding in the balcony, ever anxious to look at her husband-to-be, and pestering the bridesmaids. They showed the man leading the parade, dressed in warrior nines, riding a white steed, and exhibiting a commanding presence. They pointed him to her. Parvathi, disgusted, let out a strong, “NO!”

Then came the second and again, the maids saw and asked whether this was the one. Again, the same reaction. And, on it went. Then came a man, dressed in tiger skin, hair all matted, bare chested, with a garland of skull bones, and walking tall (Clint Eastwood would make a movie of that title later!). He could not be, the maids satisfied themselves: “No, not this beggarly man ...”, and did not mention him to the Goddess. Then, piqued by the commotion on the street, Parvathi emerged out of her hiding and looked. She knew, that very instant, this was him; did not have to ask anyone.

Truth needs no adornment. It cannot hide itself. It is always manifest. Honesty is the same. It does not need anyone’s assertion that it is honest!

I have tested this many times in the classroom. I have deliberately led the students on the wrong path, referring to the wrong equations, getting stuck, trying to untie the knots to make students uncomfortable. Then, wandering here and there, I come to the true path, honest (I did not need that "honest" here). Lo and behold, students, in unison cry out, “Yes, this is correct!”

That made my day.

Honesty does not have to do anything. It just is.

Raghuram Ekambaram

    

Measuring Ph.D

 Many years ago I posted a blog bemoaning the tendencies to measure everything, even those that cannot be measured. I am unable to recall in which space and under which title I posted it. Hence, I am unable to give a link to it. Now, I have an opportunity to visit the subject.

I read a newspaper article, “UGC to recognize ‘outstanding’ Ph.D research with award,” in The Hindu of October 8, 2024. Ouch ...

There are more and detailed “ouch...”es to come in the article. For example, “[O]ne each from five disciplines...”. In this post, I’d endeavour to bring out the not-too-hidden idiocies of this.

Can the value of a Ph.D thesis be measured?

Let me take the case of one Mr. Richard P. Feynman RPF). It was in the early 1940s RPF’s services were deemed crucial for a national mission, and though he had done much work– perhaps some here, some there and some elsewhere and everywhere; his advisor and the other big poobahs of the Physics department and the Graduate School of Princeton decided that he should just “write-up” his dissertation, defend it and get out, and join the super-secret mission to develop a nuclear device as a “Doctor” before Germany did it. His thesis was put in its place, to be rarely referenced, I believe. Let us hear Feynman himself on this, his initial foray into the theory:

So what happened to the old theory that I fell in love with as a youth [in high school and UG work] ? Well, I would say it’s become an old lady, that has very little attractive left in her and the young today will not have their hearts pound anymore when they look at her. 

The epilogue is, RPF won the Nobel Prize for Physics, for work much beyond what he did for his Ph.D, which was more or less gifted. If you wished to know more, go here, to the last page.

 Pretty much the same thing happened with Mr. Albert Einstein, though not with his Ph.D degree work. It was felt by the Nobel Prize Committee for Physics that he had done a lot of work and produced stunning work (recall Feynman, but time going negative!), but his epoch defining work –accelerated frames of reference, gravity– had not been experimentally verified. This had become a sine qua non conferring the Nobel Prize in Physics. And the prize was to be awarded for work done and validated in the year immediately preceding the announcement. But, the foundations of photoelectric work were experimentally verified many years earlier, in 1887. Einstein was awarded the physics Nobel for his work in 1905 in 1919. Tut, tut... The saving grace was that photoelectric work launched Quantum Electro Dynamics, QED, which ironically Einstein hated!

UGC must have had at least an inkling of the two instances mentioned above. The lingering doubt I have is did UGC think that its award had greater value than the Nobel? Yes. “Ouch” number one.

“Ouch...” number two. “...five disciplines, nominate one each from each discipline ...”.  This when the UGC is beating its breast about breaking down the silos of disciplines, the fashionable phrase being “multi-disciplinary”! So I ask, are the silos to be demolished or reinforced? One of the disciplines is “Sciences (including agricultural, medical sciences)”. Should we try to unweave the rainbow (from the title of one of the books by Prof. Richard Dawkins) of the two colours, agricultural and medical sciences? If we tried, we would reach the unitary field of biology–it is all biology, one human, and the other plants. It will further divide into bio-engineering and bio-technology. I do not know the difference between the two; excuse me if they are the same. “Ouch...”

The last mentioned discipline in the article is “[C]ommerce and management”. Paul Krugman, an American economist, was awarded the Economics, faux Nobel just as Amartya Sen earlier, in 2008. The citation reads, inter alia, “...for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity...”

Trade = Commerce and Location of Economic Activity = Management, remembering that logistics IS management! I conclude then that “management” CANNOT include work on logistics, as it is covered under “commerce”! Again, siloizing! “Ouch...” again!

One more example, merely to test the reader’s patience! The Nobel for Physics in 2024 has gone to two scientists, one paving the way for AI, and the other, going further back, to neural networks. Physics, as we understand now, has minimal input into the neither natural nor artificial neural network, save Boltzmann Statistics (not Physics) developed in thermodynamics (physics and chemistry coming together) – Sabine Hossenfelder, a German Physicist who seems to have soured on Ph.D, has this to say. It is fortunate/unfortunate for physics that there is no Nobel–at least a faux Nobel–for computer software. I would relish the day Elon Musk gets a Nobel, at least a faux Nobel.

The reason for this new award under the flag of the UGC took my breath away–admissions for Ph.D programmes have gone through the roof, the Y-on-Y rate is 10 percent. So, UGC, through the allure of a national award wants to increase it, damn the quality of a dissertation.

 Raghuram Ekambaram