Three Score and Ten?

Is the Dr.Hiranandani you mention the same person who is, very tragically, in the news today? If so the poor man seems to have been depressed. How terrible to have extinguished himself in such a manner. This comes quite soon after the eminent cardiologist Dr. Cherian commited suicide in Chennai a few months ago. Dr. Cherian was a family friend and most of us had no clue about his state of mind. Depression is so insidious, an unseen treachery that nudges a mind to die, mentally or physically. ``Physician, heal thyself`` did not happen here.

Re: # 17
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Best lines, I feel, in a great poem by one of my fave-poets Dylan Thomas.
Very aptly quoted, swarrier; u must be a poet at heart. Anything forthcoming that u could share with us?!

Re: # 17
In a language other than English, there is an accepted adage which says that the oil lamp burns more brightly and flares up just before it burns out and so does life at the end of a person`s life-span. So a flaring up before snuffing out may be the way to Go!! (I think it refers in particular to a life that is coming to a gradual end rather than abrupt or accidental endings.) Down to earth and interesting views by Gopalakrishnan...thanks and please keep writing!!

Just a poem by Dylan Thomas,

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

3 scores and ten may have a different meaning altogether. It`s like 7 days and 7 nights in god`s time is supposed to be much longer in ours or the 5000 years of human history is more like a few hundered thousand years.

Re: # 14
Yep Boltzmann took his own life because of what he felt was his inability to convince other scientists of the validity of his statistical methods. . He was a manic-depressive. I still have Dijkstra`s ``A discipline of programming`` with me. Bought for Rs10 in Bombay a long time ago.
And I have had the pleasure of having lunch with D Ritchie.

swarrier #12

{{What other prizes are named after Alan Turing?}}

I’m sorry, my post was carelessly worded. I should have written ‘suicides’, though even that isn’t perfectly phrased. The field of theoretical computer science has two prizes named after people who died by their own hand. They are the Machtey Award (the student paper award at the IEEE FOCS conference) and the Godel Prize. This is in addition to the Turing Award (where the pool of potential awardees is much larger). Titans from computing’s founding generation, like Donald Knuth, Marvin Minsky, John McCarthy, C A R Hoare, are still around and active to greater or lesser degrees. The great Edsger Dijkstra passed on in 2002.

Among other noted scientists who committed suicide Ludwig Boltzmann is probably the best known.

#10, Swarrier,
That was funny LOL.

Hey Meesta Tally Man
Tally me banana. De yo Dee ee yo.:)

AlephNull
What other prizes are named after Alan Turing? I didn`t read your post till Nasah brought it up. One of my favourite poet`s died young? John Keats . He was 26 I think.

Re: # 2

``{{The brilliant mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan died at 33. The great seer Sankara died at 32. Their fame is enormous. Sometimes god seems to give a choice between fame and longevity.}}

Along the same lines, Mozart at almost 36, Evariste Galois at 20 (from wounds sustained in a duel), Niels Abel at 26 (tuberculosis), etc. No longer are such tragedies common in the west. In the developed world of today,....(AlephNull)

may be back in those good old days God had not evolved enough to know how to poduce antibiotics fron His fungi....

....compared to HIS own eternal life span -- HE could not do much for His Mozarts and His Abel`s life spans in those plagued days -- that avergaed around 30....

good to see ur posts

#9
Salim you remind me of the old Harry Belafonte lyric
Man Smart Women Smarter

A verse in that goes something like this

In the Garden of Eden, Adam built a home
When Eve meet snake, she start to roam
Many a night , Adam spent in pain
For whenever Eve was Abel(le) she was raising Cain.

And not biblically accurate but another verse in the same song.

Old Methuselah spent all his life in tears,
lived without woman for 900 years
One day he decided to have some fun,
The poor man never lived to see nine hundred and one.

Gopalakrishnan,
Very well written and quite interesting with some unexpected humor sprinkled here and there. Thank you for an enjoyable article. Adam lived for 930 years! One question, how many of those years were pre-apple and how many were post-apple? More importantly, how many were pre-Eve and how many post-Eve? :)

An interesting read!

regards

nice article !!!

i just wish it was 4 scores, 1 dozen, 3 braces and 2... to complete a century that is

Re: # 5
Har Gobind Khurana would technically be an Indian and not Pakistani as would Chandrasekhar Subramanyam. In any case both of them got their Nobel prizes as American citizens. They went to the US as Indian citizens.
In any case I agree with you, we name far too many streets after our politicians. But then it is nice that we have the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Raman Research Institute etc..
We`ve now even got a Jack Welch Technology Centre in Bangalore.-)

Re: # 4
Thanks for your note.
I need to be corrected. It is nice to see Giants rememberd and respected with reverence by their county men.