Tragic Deaths of Three Great Scientists 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!

Tragic Deaths of Three Great Scientists 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.

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 ... ?

Prophecy and the Mullah: Hotel Mohenjodaro any government that puts a man on the moon before educating its people or creating broad economic prosperity is a tyranny and should be replaced. that govt is not better than a deluded monarchy.

as for the ``prophesy``, every man and his donkey knew that the race was on to put a man on the moon (Kennedy said that in early 60`s) and one did not have to look further than saudi arabia to see a mullah-cracy in action.

i think the (original and current) writer should have thought this through.

Experience Technology at tens of millions of dollars per theater, how many billions would be needed to produce and use imax for education? isn`t there a more efficient use of money to educate people?

p.s. how much money are you getting for advertising imax?

Ten Myths about Ragging all you guys are missing the point:

ragging is a way to establish the ranking of a new male in the pack

dogs, wolves, apes, humans all define the hierarchy of the pack

better to do it formally than to duke it out!