Tragic Deaths of Three Great Scientists

Nothing out of the ordinary compared to the tragic deaths of other members of humanity, regardless of what they did to spend their time. So your point was ... ?

yes exactly -- what is the point of this writer`s pieces generally?????

I like this article Gill Sahib. Edwin Armstrong came to my mind who invented FM-radio and was driven to death by none other than FCC. One of those individuals who lived a life of passion just like the ones you mentioned.


``Life of the mind, there is no road-map for it`` - Barton Fink

Raw_Dust:

Thank God my article did appeal to you and you took the time to say so. I feel sorry for omar_r_quraishi and fuji who didn`t see any point in the article. It appears that the article particulaly offended Mr. Quraishy who questioned the relevance of my other articles too. I am only human; I`m sorry if I let them down. But it`s the honest truth that I spent a lot of time in writing the articles particularly of `scientific flavor`.

Wishing you well,

Mohammad Gill

Gill Sahib, I may not always agree with your conclusions but I
appreciate the effort you put in writing about topics related to
science.

plancherel:

That`s okay with me. People hold diffetrent views even on the results which are derived mathematically in the scientific theories. There is usually not much room for disgreement in such situations if the basic derivation is mathematically sound. Such disagreements mostly arise from the assumptions which go into the derivation.

My essays are not that much logical although I do try to keep my personal prejudice out of the arguments. Thanks for your feedback.

Mohammad Gill

Dear Freethinker: Thank you for an informative article. I found the highlighted passages quite interesting. I would like to also thank Chowk for publishing your educational and informative work. Your hard work, passion for the subject and dedication is quite evident and admirable. On another note, you have also highlighted several points under the heading of this article. I do not know if that was intentional or unintentional :) Still, you have a lot going on here... Probably, that meets or exceeds the ideas of your own freethinking in some way or shape. I definitely enjoyed reading your contribution.

I.
[Then I started thinking how many other great scientists and intellectuals were victims of peer rejection, social mores, religious dogmas, self-inflicted introverted tortures, etc. The names started popping up in my mind. Among them was Socrates (469-399BCE) who was forced to death by drinking a cup of hemlock, Archimedes (287-212BCE) who was put to death by a Roman soldier who thought he was ignored and not given due respect by Archimedes who at that moment was in deep thought pondering over a mathematical problem.]

II.
[Then there was Hypatia of Alexandria (-415CE), who was a great mathematician and astronomer of her time, and a woman of supreme beauty. Being a woman mathematician and astrologer in 4th century Alexandria was a dangerous occupation. The Council of Laodicea had outlawed divination in 364 CE and forbade to practice mathematics and astrology. Canon 36 states: They, who are of the priest-hood, or of the clergy, shall not be magicians, enchanters, or astrologers; nor shall they make what are called amulets, which are chains for their own souls. And those who wear such, we commend to be cast out of the Church. In 1415 CE when she was returning home from teaching, Hypatia was set upon by a Christian mob and was dragged into a church where she was stripped naked, killed, and the skin scraped from her body by sharp objects. Religious obsession truly drives people mad; they become beasts.]

III.
[Boltzmann’s equation is inscribed on his tombstone in memory of his prominent contributions to physics, in particular to thermodynamics. ]

Regards.

Freethinker:

[People hold diffetrent views even on the results which are derived mathematically in the scientific theories. There is usually not much room for disgreement in such situations if the basic derivation is mathematically sound. Such disagreements mostly arise from the assumptions which go into the derivation. ]

Freethinking with some boundary conditions ?

I liked the above.

ZaraJ:
Thanks for your posts. Yes. the boundary conditions are essential part of a mathematical theory. wishing you well,

Mohammad Gill

A more recent example is that of Yutaka Taniyama, a Japanese mathematician, who committed suicide in 1958. He along with Goro Shimura gave the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture. In early eighties it was shown that proof of this conjecture is equivalent to the proof of Fermat`s last theorem. It was this conjecture which was proved by Andrew Wiles ten years ago.

The following is from an article by Dijon Surendran.

In November 1957, he met a girl called Misako Suzuki and they got engaged a few months later. By the time of his 31st birthday they were busy preparing for their wedding. Five days later, he killed himself. The suicide note was three pages long, and included this extract:

``Until yesterday I have had no definite intention of killing myself. But more than a few must have noticed I have been tired both physically and mentally. As to the cause of my suicide, I don`t quite understand it myself, but it is not the result of a particular incident, nor of a specific matter. Merely may I say, I am in the frame of mind that I lost confidence in my future. There may be some to whom my suicide will be troubling or a blow to a certain degree. I sincerely hope that this incident will cast no dark shadow over the future of that person. At any rate I cannot deny that this is a kind of betrayal, but please excuse it as my last act in my own way, as I have been doing all my life.``

He then went on to describe how his belongings were to be shared out, which books had to be returned to which library, where he was with the courses he was teaching, and so on. Meticulous and considerate to the end.

His friends were utterly shocked and his fiancee killed herself less than a month later `to join him`.

i read stuff from mr. gill once in a while, but this is the last straw.

like others this article is very inane and childish. what is the big deal here? carl sagan sensationalized the story of hypatia in cosmos ( and that is probably where this writer got the story from and added his own bit of tear-jerking pathos to it). scientists, like other people, have perished in all sort of ways, in wars, through disease, murders, suicides, etc. etc. how is the death of any one of these folks more tragic? wasn`t copernicus` death tragic (not being able to talk about his life work), or ibn-sina`s (running from one place to another), or einstein`s (his hopes of elegant unified theories dashed), or galois (killed in a stupid duel over a girl). why do you need to sensationalize for the sake of doing it?

hypatia was killed because she like other scholars had become too disjointed and separated from the society she was a part of. there was a problem in the way classical scholarship had evolved to pursue abstract ideas and not for the general benefit of the society. did anyone discuss her arrogance or the complete isolation of the cadre of scholars from the rest of the humanity? was the issue entirely because of suppression of ideas?

did the writer have the intelligence to understand what the society at that time was generally going through? no, because the sorry sources he copied the passages from do not discuss it.

boltzmann, now what is unusual about a genius having psychological problems? is he the first or the last to go through that? so what exactly is the point of feeling sorry for a suicidal psycopath who happened to be good at physics?

btw, this whole thing of boltzmann`s equation being one of the most beautiful equations in physics is another whole lot of crock, which comes directly from a popular science book written by some english major.

if the writer, mr. gill, really knew what he was talking about he would have pointed out that there a fundamental difference in the two equations. boltzmann`s equation is a definition: the elegance lies in identifying W. einstein`s equation is a derivation, a logical result of the principles of relativity. (why didn`t you pick the definition of the partition function as a contender for this ``beauty prize``? )

but since this is chowk, we should stay at the surface level now shouldn`t we...

the previous articles by the author are similar. he goes through previously published articles/books or broadcast shows, copies stuff indiscriminately, throws in his blend of spice and voila we have another intellectual tear-jerker CHOLLYWOOD (chowk + hollywood) release. why don`t you just write about what you really know as opposed to have memorized from popular science books.

as usual intensely frustrating for someone who happens to know what mr. gill writes about.

Dear Mr. Fuji:

Apparently, the papers that I have published at Chowk were not suitable for you and others who have superior knowledge in the areas in which I wrote. But every one is not so well-informed as you are; many others did like what I wrote. For the sake of clarification, I didn’t read Carl Sagan for my information on Hypatia; had I known that he had written about her, I sure would have used that source also. For the sake of readers’ information, I provide the reference which I use in compiling a paper. I do admit, my knowledge in the areas outside of my specialty is second-hand. My work may appear trivial to those who have first-hand knowledge in these areas. My papers are not meant for those specialists.

Let me explain why I do what I do. I have mentioned at other places and on other occasions also that professionally, I am a civil engineer. For nearly thirty to thirty five years, I didn’t do anything but hydraulics. I have published some modest original work in hydraulics in refereed research journals; so writing and publishing is nothing new to me. Chowk is not the only venue where I have published my work. I have published work on some other websites also which are much more critical and demanding before they accept a paper for publication.

For example, I submitted one of my papers on a philosophical topic for publishing on a website which as a matter of routine policy, accepted papers only after obtaining peer reviews from specialists. They got my paper reviewed by one of the professors of philosophy and after some adjustments, the paper was accepted and published. Even then, my paper may be of only marginal interest to those who are experts in the field. Such experts don’t have to read my papers and get irritated.

Reading is my pastime and I enjoy sharing whatever modest knowledge I acquire with other non-specialists. This is how I am going to spend my retirement which is due next year. So you should bear with me or else avoid reading my work.

Without continuing any further, all that I can say is that if you and others of superior knowledge find my papers too simplistic and naïve, you should not waste your time in reading them. They are not meant for you. It will be much productive and generally beneficial if you and other specialists find time to write better and more knowledgeable papers and publish them on Chowk because there probably is suitable readership here which will appreciate such works and be grateful for your efforts.

In the end, I like to thank you for sharing your frustration with me and other readers; I wish I was less irritating to you. Wishing you well,

Mohammad Gill

#11: An unpleasant and incoherent post.

Freethinker:
[ It will be much productive and generally beneficial if you and other specialists find time to write better and more knowledgeable papers and publish them on Chowk because there probably is suitable readership here which will appreciate such works and be grateful for your efforts. ]

Good advice!

mr gill

with all due respect, this piece lacks coherence and seems little more than a cut and paste job. Reliance on sources does not a coherent essay make. Yes, there are tidbits here and there but even for a reader such as I am (very far from being a physicist but having studied the topic briefly in university) is far from satisfactory.

unfortunately, on the plus side, I`d have to say there are far worse submissions (the recent one on bogus spirituality springs to mind) in Chowk. I appreciate your intent and sincerity but if you could get some informal feedback from people who are willing to review it (prior to chowk submission), it could make the product more palatable.

unfortunately it is clear that chowk editors either lack the knowledge or unwilling to put the effort required to vet submissions.

I agree that fuji was abrasive but it does seem he has valid points. maybe fuji can write a piece and enhance the intellectual level :-)

Dear warpster:

I appreciate objective comments and the suggestions for improving quality. I am learning new things all the time. In real life, the response and reaction from the readers is varied and different. I usually feel sorry and deficient if any of my pieces fails to touch a chord. I am sorry if this paper went astray and wobbling. Probably, I am the one who empathaized with my subjects more than the readers. Selection of the three scientists for the paper was just personal and largely arbitrary. This didn`t mean that they somehow suffered more than numerous others. And from personal point of view, I don`t know others sufficiently well to write about them.

First time, when I read about Turing`s fateful death (several years back), it shocked me. I had come across bits and pieces about Hypatia, here and there, and she intrigued me in a different way. Another woman comes to mind, Albert Einstein`s first wife. Her son from Einstein, Hans Einstein, was a civil enineer who did pioneer work in sediment transport in rivers. Hans wanted to find out if her mother had factually contributed to the development of Theory of Special Relativity which was published by his father. He asked several of his physicist friends to dig out. No evidence could be found to support Hans` conjectur; Theory of Special Relativity was exclusively Albert`s work. Such tid-bits and anecdotes interest some readers while others may find them trivial. Life is a mixed bag of everything.

Thanks for your feedback.

Mohammad Gill

dear mr. gill,

thank you for taking my sharp critique very kindly. i do respect what you`re doing, and see the value in it. i do get to be abrasive once in a while, so i apologize for that. i hope you continue your work and contribution to chowk.

all the best from the curmudgeon!