Bucketing Down with a Shower

Well, yes, the title is a cheeky way to say that water is wasted when using a shower. But before starting any argument, let me confess that I use a shower daily, not because I like it, but because I have no luxury of using a bucket (In the west, you would find a lot of wastage of resources and energy). But somehow, there are a lot of people who are convinced that a shower wastes less water than a bucket bath. I do not think so. India has been facing water shortage since times unknown and we have come to a conclusion that using a bucket is the best way out. I support this 'tradition.' By the way, California too has just realised it. Maybe in few years time, we would be seeing buckets in every bathroom in California atleast.

One Quora explanation tells us to plug the water in the bath tub, take a shower and compare the water levels with the volume of a bucket. It is absolutely nonsense. Probably the writer got confused between a bucket and the bath tub (I am scared of the wastage created by a tub bath, so I will not even talk about it). I decided to do a simple experiment in a hostel bathroom in India. The reason for choosing a hostel bathroom is because generally in hostels, the shower faucets are clogged in most of the pores (the reason for this is a research problem no one has ever probed into) and thus I am literally using the slowest possible shower faucet. I filled a one liter mug with the water from the shower. It took me a bit more than 12 seconds for the mug to fill. That would mean 5 liters per minute and assuming 5 minutes for a bath, it consumed 25 liters of water. Assuming that those who believe that they are conserving water by taking showers will also bathe very fast, I cut down the bath time to a very very modest 3 minutes which brings down the consumption to 15 liters. Now, according to Milton, selling its products on Flipkart, the common bucket is 18 liters in volume, thus making a shower bath better, mathematically (in reality, it is not, you know! :-P)
However, to give an edge to shower faucets, I have made a lot of assumptions above. I have also not considered the initial wastage that generally occurs while using a shower and also the fact that a bucket is never filled to the brim (even the volume is calculated likewise).

Now, instead of my calculations, I look at the American "Faucet Flow Rate Regulations" (yes, there are such regulations), framed in 1994 (I really wonder if the US knows about a bucket! I am kidding, it does, Amazon.com sells them). According to the regulations, the maximum allowed flow rate is 2.5 gallons per minute which is about 9.4 liters per minute. The aim is to bring that down to 1.2 gpm but that is only in California but let me assume this is the norm everywhere. Even though it is a huge, huge assumption, let me go ahead and say that every shower faucet in the US urinates 1.2 gpm or 4.5 liters per minute, rounded off. An average person showers for 8 minutes. That would mean 36 liters of water in total. Phew! Again, the 'conservationists' who believe shower bath is good would let's say bathe for only 5 minutes which makes the count 22.5 liters of water. Again in the shower's defense, let us assume that a common bucket has a volume of 22 liters. The shower still uses more water!

However, I am showering no praises on bucket bath. That is because in the true defense of those in support of a shower bath over bucket bath, I have always taken into account that those who go for bucket bath only use one bucket of water which might not be true. Using two or more buckets of water makes it way water consuming than a regular shower bath. But hey, I have assumed so much for the shower players, I can make this small assumption as well. Just keep in mind that there are millions who are still thirsty while we bathe daily/weekly. Overall, "a" bucket bath is way better than shower in the present circumstances at least! Also, c'mon, with a bucket bath, one can reach any particular spot on the body but that is not possible with a shower bath. Most importantly, you can take your time in a bucket bath without having to worry about turning off knobs. What is the point of taking a bath if one cannot stand and wonder or recollect the lyrics of a really long song!

Some disturbing links:
https://www.unicef.org/drought/drought-countries.htm
http://www.wri.org/blog/2015/06/global-tour-7-recent-droughts
https://www.drought.gov/gdm/current-conditions
http://www.seametrics.com/blog/global-water-crisis-facts/

From Mukhi to Talkie - Gravitational Waves

We have seen in the James Bond movie, Golden Eye when Sean Bean falls to death on the huge antenna in Puerto Rico. 'For England!' He fell onto the largest dish antenna in the world. It is a radio wave detector and works exactly like the Direct to Home dish antennas that we have at home. This type of an antenna is very powerful over the traditional rod antennae in that the gain is quite high due to its parabolic shape. To detect electromagnetic waves, fractal antennas are used (open up your phones, you will find one) and are efficient apart from being space efficient. But these are not the only waves that are discovered. Scientists in the future are going to face a crisis, for the amount of knowledge one should possess about a subject is increasing enormously. Exactly a hundred years ago, one of the greatest men to have ever lived, Albert Einstein predicted the existence of a new set of waves called the Gravitational waves and the doubts were confirmed in 1993.

Celestial bodies in space-time

 The universe is so huge and old that time and space are certain dimensions (to know more, do not contact the author, contact your nearest library). The best illustration for this is the famous stretched plastic sheet on which heavy objects when placed, create a curvature. However, the universe is not just a plane and this sheet or the space-time is everywhere, say. Now if there is a disturbance, just like ripples in water, there would waves created, called Gravitational waves. The mathematics behind it is much more than just four lines in English as above. It is quite easy to visualize this in terms of ripples in water when two bodies revolving around each other merge to form a single mass. Gravitational waves were first asserted to a binary pulsar (basically two star collision). This was 1.3 billion years ago, roughly when the Earth was learning to form continents. It is exciting enough to know what happened to Netaji Subhash Bose not more than hundred years ago. Now imagine if you could know what happened much before San Jose formed!

LIGO confirms G-wave

To understand optical interferometry, one should understand light (of course, no one did completely). What we all know about light till now should be revisited, forgotten and changed. Light can be defined using two things: phase and polarisation. Phase would be enough for now. When two light waves of same wavelength with a constant phase difference meet, they interfere constructively or destructively. This is the principle essentially used by a Michelson interferometer. The two arms in a Michelson interferometer are not of the same length. This extra length in one arm provides extra distance for light to travel through it and when it hits a mirror, it goes back 'later' than light from the other arm. This gives rise to temporal coherence, i.e phase difference due to time. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a huge Michelson interferometer. The gravitational wave when it reaches the interferometer, distorts the space dimension, thereby changing the relative length of both the arms. This gives rise to temporal coherence which is observed when laser is passed through both the arms and thus the distortion in the arm length can be found out which gives all the information one needs to know about the gravitational wave. Indeed it would be like un-muting a talkie movie. From a silent movie (mukhi) to a talkie movie! 
Ironically, one can call this an achievement of the optics community.

LIGO Livingston interferometer. Each arm is so long that both dont fit into the same frame 

Actually, more than the gravitational waves, the interferometer is a scientific and engineering wonder. The mirrors literally are suspended in thin air. The up-gradation to the present LIGO is like replacing a two gear system with five gear system, it dramatically increases efficiency. Same thing with the mirrors, they were improvised from a single pendulum to four pendulum. The arms are as long as 4 Km because the distortion created would be so small that it is tough to identify it. Even the laser used has a high coherence length. To avoid noise from Earthly things like traffic, dogs barking and men sneezing, two non local interferometers are built to corroborate the data which happened recently. Both the interferometers in Hanford and Livingston gave the same readings. There are similar projects VIRGO in Europe and IndIGO in India(coming soon, say in just eight years by which the entire universe could possibly be mapped).

The confirmation of gravitational waves not only proves Einstein to be a super human, it also helps mankind in its understanding of the universe and encourages generations to come to be curious without consequence.
For Curiosity!   

Transforming through Technology!

I belong to that generation of the "1990's kids." I only knew to read Tinkle Digest in my free time, play cricket alone by bouncing the ball off the wall, run with a stick and a tyre on roads with street friends and vanish from home on Sunday mornings to play football with school friends. The only time I had access to television was when I visited my grand parents place. I used to fight with my grand father for the remote, especially at 6:30 PM when there used to be both Tom & Jerry and News simultaneously. Almost always, I used to win, with my grand mother being the ultimate judge!!

Like every other typical Indian, I love cricket and follow it better than the Pope follows religion. It might be in the air, in the waters and in my blood. Naturally, I inherited another important trait from my father in following cricket especially with us having no television. To listen to commentary on Radio! During a match, I might be out in the garden, watering the plants, out on the streets playing Seven Stones game or I might be doing my homework. These never bothered me. I just used to tune to the commentary on radio. Few overs in Hindi and few overs in English. Hey, it offered me free language classes!! One more advantage it had over T.V. I carried it wherever I went. No wonder, people say "glued to the T.V" but never "glued to the Radio." It was a gadget, connected to the world even when I was on the move.

The radio became better and better. It never allowed me to leave it. I had it on my MP3 player, my car, my phone and now, my tablet. Of course, even I advanced to listening to songs of various genres across the globe and again the ever developing technology allowed me to store whatever songs or audio bits I wanted. 64 Giga Byte storage?! Well, in my childhood, we used to carefully chose various songs, painfully putting aside a lot of nice songs to accommodate as many songs as possible in one Compact Drive. Now, I am actually carrying various videos, half of which I never saw twice!! I sit in a public bus, leaving the traffic tensions to the driver and enjoy a song by Linkin Park or an episode of House. I sit in an autorikshaw in an unknown city and take the help of the Global Positioning System on my mobile phone to see if the driver is taking the proper route or not, silently thanking technological developments. I sit in a movie theatre and tell the entire world that I am watching the movie feeling as if I acted in it!! Even our Prime Minister has a lot to thank technology for!

Whatever the other technological developments are, I thank all the scientists involved in developing technologies. It helps me connect to my parents and best buddies from anywhere using a mobile! That itself is a blessing! I did experience that feeling when I had to search for a public telephone for miles to contact my parents when I went for an adventure tour in Kashmir. I am more than grateful to technology for keeping me updated on the scores in various matches, commonwealth games, olympics, FIFA world cup, cricket or my favourite Tennis, where ever I am!

Air Conditioned Helmets!!

Well, half of the useful innovations have come from research in defense and sports. The Global Positioning System, quantum computing and nanofabrics are examples. It's well known, I guess that the defense research is spearheaded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, USA. And, in sports, innovation is most required and possible in FormulaOne.

The Edgewood Chemical Biological Center of the US Army came up with the idea of an air conditioned fan for soldiers to 'beat the heat' in battles. There is a battery at the back of the helmet. A fan pulls in the air and filters are arranged so that good air sweeps across the face evenly, inside the helmet. While exhaling, it gets interesting.The air valve closes, and the helmet gets over pressurised as   This system was developed to use less power. Even the weight of the helmet could be reduced. Helmets are also made of Kevlar, the same one used to make bullet proof vests.

All helmets are not as safe as the F1 helmets!! :( :(

Point is, once developed, this technology could be used in Formula One too. The F1 drivers are no different from astronauts except that they only fly but don't float!! Safety first! From the shoe to the suit to the helmet, care is taken in design. The F1 helmets need to be extremely light(Lewis Hamilton would not want more head weight!) and strong at the same time. They are made of Kevlar and a layer of carbon fiber and most importantly, fire resistant, Aramide(for fire resistance, drivers first cover themselves from head to toe; from Balaclava to Socks with Nomex, a low weight, fire proof material). The visor is made of polycarbonate strips which can be removed one by one if necessary. Of course, there is an air filter too, to not allow huge particles enter the helmet onto the face!

In F1, especially, with new norms and rules coming up almost every year, the teams have to design fast cars and win under these regulations. For this, the weight and height of the driver matters so much that if not driving, the driver would be at the gym only! Also, the heat inside the car matters too, so much that drivers get heat acclimatisation  training to adjust to those conditions and not "get cooked" inside the car! So, how about an air conditioned helmet for Formula One.

I actually got this idea two years back but could not continue due to economic issues :p :p. Well, I am not saying that the DARPA consulted me for the cool helmets!! Just, I want to make one. Using some mild coolants, not like dry ice or something. No, I do not want to freeze the insides of the helmet. But a coolant, which, when the air is sucked in, makes it just cooler than the surrounding temperatures, I hope!!

"Hail" the Storm!

"Yesterday, as we were trying to write a program on Matlab in our lab, we heard stone pelting sounds. We ran outside to see hailstones falling. This is my third hail storm!!", said a student of my university excitedly. Well, I did not miss it too. 'If not now, then when' is the motto and here I am, suffering from cold and severe head ache. Anyway, it was a very nice experience, hail hitting on us and we hitting on others!! And....hostel room being flooded!!

Hail Stones 

Actually, one of my friends asked, "Why do these hail storms occur only in summer?" Well, they do not occur only in summer (by the way, it is not summer yet!) but summer heat gives a boost. That is all. Basically, every thunderstorm cumulonimbus cloud brings with it ice pieces, but these melt before they reach us. But the hail storm goes much higher and thick ice stones form and fall. A hot surface would only boost it because air near the surface gets hotter and more wind and the clouds get better push towards the hail forming region. As a matter of fact, hail storms are really dangerous(of course!, the very reason enough to play in hailstorm!) and create a lot of damage to crops. Silver Iodide cannons and missiles are developed to tackle this issue. By the way, these are not part of those generally occurring Mango Showers. These are something else. Actually, there is a depression in the South Pacific!

This on one side. The other thing is that we are awaiting a drought. Yes, I typed it right. A drought only. It might be not so joyous to hear that a storm brings a drought with it. According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and some other research institutes, an El Nino is 75% likely to occur this year, bringing along with it, a drought in India, Australia and parts of Africa. It seems in India, it had occurred last in 2009 leaving damages never seen in the last 40 years. Since one of the results of El Nino is rise in surface pressure in Indian Ocean and subsequent spread of warm water from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific carrying the rains with it, we can be sure of a drought in India. For a country which looks towards the skies to grow crops, this is a devastating news. By the way, El Nino is the other word for Baby Jesus since it generally occurs during the time of Christmas!

El Nino

A publication in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences, USA gave a very early warning of El Nino this year. For once, let us believe Remote Sensing and not New Year predictions and do all we can to save ourselves from a possible disaster. First let it be started off with better storage of food grains by the Food Corporation of India (heyy...I am not joking, it should be done!!)

Fostering Scientific Temper!!

National Science Day! This is the day when Sir C.V.Raman proposed his "Raman Effect."(I won't tell about this...search for it if interested!) Being aspiring "scientists," we, the students of the University of Hyderabad celebrate this day by getting kids from various schools and colleges to the university, show them some of the exciting works of research going on in the university, make them listen to the scientists who do that research and provide them food!! And we call ourselves, the Junior Science Club!

Talking about science and scientific temper, after three years of trying to swim in the waters of science,(didn't learn to swim though!!) all I understood is science can get as exciting as river rafting does for me!! Everything is science is what is written on the shirts many volunteers wore during this Science Day celebrations, the Vigyanotasav, the festival for the scientific minds. I am convinced. Yes!

Oersted experiment, thermostat, 2 stroke, 4 stroke engines, Tunnelling Electron Microscope, Raman Spectrometer,...the list goes on. Looks simple, but they are exciting. New results everyday. New students every year. New concepts every fortnight! Recognition after a generation! Science and as a result, technology is evolving so much that most of the topics, for example optics have to be revisited once again! They are no more the same ones we learnt in our high school.

On this science festival we broke our fast with seminars, devoured known but forgotten concepts, gulped down information on Taxonomy, Interference and Hydrogen peroxide. The day was worth its caption.

Fostering Scientific Temper 

Charles Kettering...Life Saver!!

Date: November 13, 2013
Time: 2017 hours
Place: Indiranagar-Kondapur-Miyapur-Linagampally belt, Hyderabad

For the first time in my life, I went out on to a very busy road on gear bike at night! That is not the point. The point is, it was a bloodily-peak traffic time. Yeah, this is routine in Hyderabad but not for me, not on a motorbike! I have been driving gear-less bikes fearlessly on the same roads for many years now and I am quite comfortable in any condition of traffic. But this was very very different!!

The traffic was so severe (or I think I felt it that way!!) that I had no time to even shift gears beyond the first. I could have used the second easily say my friends...I do not know. I had no first hand experience too back then and obviously I had no choice. The bike too had no choice but to keep stopping quite few times!!

Frustrated, it was at this juncture that I told my friend sitting pillion to me, who was as good as I was in driving on such roads, that I would put the picture of the inventor of the SWITCH START!!, whoever it was as my profile picture of my facebook account once I reopen the account after 5 months ( I decided not to open my account from the U.S.Open last year to the Australian Open this year!!)

Gave a kick start to my life with the switch-start!!

Thank You Charles.F.Kettering for inventing the switch start. I know and can tell out of experience what a difference you made to the world!! This is just one of his great inventions! There are many other benefitial things like refrigerants, light weight engines, leaded fuel etc.. I do not care about the other inventions for now and I sincerely thank him for the switch start and hence this picture!
He founded the Delco company and holds close to 200 patents. I hope to become such an inventor cum entrepreneur like him. Of course there is Thomas.Alva.Edison too but he was not my life saver!!  

What a Start!!

Happy new year people!!
A beautiful start this year for me. I passed in all the subjects in my last semester. I started trying to fulfill my new year resolution and I hear, if not all, mostly good news!
Two brilliant news pieces.

One. We have launched GSLV(Geo Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle) successfully using completely indigenous technology. For years we did not have the proper cryogenic technology and the developed nations never shared that technology with us. Finally, like how we proved our self sustainability through 'Chandrayaan,' we could finally build our own GSLV. Recently I was talking to an American space scientist about India in space science and he was showing pity on us for not being able to produce proper GSLVs. Now I show him this piece of news. Hello sir!!

Ah! the other grand opening this year is a little distance towards the west to India. At Doha, the 'Spain Bull,' Rafael Nadal has won the Qatar Open by defeating Gael Monfils in the final. This is the first time he has won a tournament in the opening week of the year!!

So, many firsts...beautiful start...wait for LEGEN many other good DARY posts too!! 

Amartya Sen's Talk

People do not get a nobel prize just like that. They have something in them which others do not have. They carry some energy with them. Dr.Amartya Sen is one of them. Though I do not agree with all of his ideas, I got enchanted by the way he spoke yesterday in my university. Only Dr.M.S.Swaminathan and Dr.Subramanya Swamy were the other persons who I saw in person could speak like that, mesmerising the audience under any circumstances.

Bharatratna, Sri Amartya Sen was to give a talk on "Are Coffee Houses Important for Education" after receiving the honoris causa from the University of Hyderabad which ofcourse was announced 22 years back!! As he occupied the stage to speak on the subject, he was interrupted by a mob which started shouting slogans against the university and that he should speak on caste and not on coffee!! His reply of course was that he was involved in more agitatations than those people and that they should know how to agitate and not prevent someone from speaking.

Interaction with us, students...na actually, he was saying no to autographs!!

But the thing that I liked the most was that he spoke, in that situation. He imparted caste system in India with coffee houses. He promised he would not speak about coffee houses and spoke about how he and his friends used coffee houses during their time to discuss politics, society and science. He kept reminding us, the audience at an interval of every five sentences that he still was not speaking about coffee houses. Wow! What a diplomat. One reason he got his Nobel!!

One story he told was about a Swed who interviewed him after the news of his Nobel achievement came who was surprised that Amartya Sen was given the Nobel prize by those people!! He had fans even before he became a laurette and people(his students included) were betting on him to get the prize!
Finally, I would say I am lucky I could attend talks by giants like Amartya Sen, M.S.Swaminathan, Subramanya Swamy, C.N.R.Rao and Abdul kalam.

In the event of his "Are Coffee Houses important for Education," I would like to ask Dr.Amartya Sen,
"Are Wine Shops important for the Society?"      

A Perfect Yorker in the Blockhole!!

Maybe I am overexcited and all. In fact one month back, on November 5, I was running around in my college madly congratulating everyone who I met. No I am not exaggerating. People asked me why one has to get that high! After all, it is well known that PSLV(Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) is almost always a success. Does someone need to run around shouting about that?!? But it is not often that you get news in India which make you very happy and proud! I reply, people thought Archimedes was mad as he was running naked on the streets. Only he knew that his idea would change the state the world was in back then! 

Just yesterday, the slingshot throw was a success. From Geo centric to Sun centric. The Mars Orbiter Mission was fired towards Mars. A perfect yorker in the blockhole uprooting all the three stumps!! It will reach its destination by September, next year. Not only the news that the launch of the would be 'First Successful Asian Probe to Mars' was victorious but that it was made entirely using indigenous technology has had a massive impact on me. I am one guy aspiring to be an entrepreneur and I have no target smaller than the space field. Naturally, this particular leap in technology is a sweet news to me and maybe many others like me too!!

Talking about few components in the 15 kg payload that were indigenous, one can include

Mars Colour Camera: a color camera to obtain Mars topography
Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer:  a Spectrograph detailing mineralogy information
Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser:  a quadrupole spectrometer studying in-situ atmospheric composition (neutral)
Methane Sensor for Mars: specially designed payload; aiming at studying the emission band of methane (remote sensing) I think this is the most important one.
Lyman Alpha Photometer: by measuring hydrogen to deuterium ratio it estimates atmospheric losses
 
Do not worry about the use of each component.

After the success of  'Chandrayaan,' the entire world is now looking at 'Mangalyaan.' While Chandrayaan found traces of water on the Moon, a breakthrough in the space field, Mangalyaan is more of a "show-off" which I strongly recommend. This is the right time for India to display what wonders She can do!!

India is growing fast in the space market. With the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) finishing projects at around 40 times cheaper than the world's leading space agencies, India is set to occupy atleast a quarter of the space market which is estimated at around $250 billion. No wonder the world's interested in 'Mangalyaan.'

However, India is still depending on other countries to maneuver the Mars Orbiter Mission. The Canberra station had acquired the spacecraft for tracking it. Still for controlling the craft, help is taken from the U.S.
It would be just good if we are self sustained in such operations too!! What say lady?!!

Diwali Bonanza...Curiosity comes cheaper!!

A very Happy Diwali to all!!
The cracker bursting started with Rohit Sharma's innings against Australia in Bengaluru. The entire country was busy in firing rockets yesterday for Diwali. But the real bonanza came from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) starting the count down for the firing of a real rocket, a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) carrying "Mangalyaan," the Mars Orbiter for the first time from India. If successful, India will be on par with the U.S, Russia, Japan and Europe.

Scientists at work for Mangalyaan

The Mars Orbiter Mission is all set to carry the 1337 KG satellite to 'Angarak'(Mars). Mars is also called "ArunaGraha" or the 'Red Planet.' Different payloads are being carried about which I will soon come up with an article once the PSLV C-25 successfully ejects the satellite into its orbit. This shall be a historic moment in the history of India. Considering the excellent record of PSLVs, I am extremely positive about the success of Mangalyaan. The countdown for 56 hours has started at 6:08 AM on Sunday and the pre-tests have given pretty satisfactory results. Tuesday will witness a miracle in the clear skies of Sriharikota, an island launch center for ISRO about 100 KMs away from Chennai.

This "Mangalyaan" has become very popular not only among India but also in countries like the U.S. The United States also sent lucky peanuts or something like that to India for good luck. There is also a collaboration between National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and ISRO in this Mars Orbiter Mission. Not only the U.S but other space giants like Russia, Japan, Europe, China and Israel are awaiting this wonderful mission.

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2013/10/31/india-mars-mission.cnn.html

The great thing about this Mission is the cost of it. It costed rupees 450 crores which is about just 73 Million U S dollars. This really is "peanuts" compared to the cost of 'Curiosity' rover sent by NASA-JPL which costed about 2.5 billion U S dollars. Mangalyaan has almost the same features as that of Curiosity. Maybe this is the reason why everybody is looking into India's mission right now. But the saddest part is that when everybody including few strongest and developed nations are looking at this wonderful mission in awe, we Indians are busy in criticising that a lot of money is wasted!! Pathetic!!
The reason why it is so less in cost is that we Indians do not work for money. All the scientist at ISRO work only for national pride. To take India higher. To make Indians stronger. To make the future generations prouder.

Frontiers in Physics

Okay..there was this physics conference that took place in my university three days back. This is the first proper conference in a single field that I attended. I actually went to the conference because I felt little pity for them since they suspended our classes so we can attend the seminars. For the professors, it was a routine conference with all those nonsense discussions, un-laughable jokes and all! But for me it was an experience. A good one overall!

Apart from the lunch, I liked few talks too!! Though I either drifted off to some thoughts or to sleep during few talks, those I could successfully listen to, without sleeping were ones involving Optical Waveguide arrays, Semiconductor nano structures, Halogenation in nano structure development, Spintronics and Phenomenon of Extra Dimensions. I used to wake up when I hear clapping. I tried hard not to feel sick when a student of my class asked doubts which made no sense to me( but the speaker says,"very good doubt"). If the seminars were bad, the poster session was a disaster. Out of the twenty or so posters put up, I was familiar with one or two and I could only understand the meaning of the titles of hardly 15 posters. The matter below the title, I think it was written either in Mandarin or Spanish with occasional English!!

Lunch was brilliant. Did not miss it. The curd they served need extra mentioning. All three days it was good. I am bored of three continuous days of Gulab Jamun. Strangely, I did not sleep in the any of the talks which were after lunch( maybe I did not listen to the talks!)

My ID Card- I was tempted to put a photo of the lunch coupon 

However, few talks like those about tracking devices in the Large Hadron Collider(LHC), results of LHC, The dark Universe, and most importantly the talk about patterns in Ultra Thin Sheets were outstanding only because I understood them. The talk about Thin sheets is the best because I participated in discussions too! 

Clearly, I could understand almost nothing in the conference. But I now know what areas is research happening. What the demands of the world are. I also now know how best to enjoy a conference- by bunking!!

Apart from all this I felt happy because I was able to interact. Not only with professors but also with my seniors, research scholars and my friends. A longer session for such interactions was the only missing pepper in the soup. My friends and I used this conference as a platform where we can meet people who enjoy research and to learn from them. For now, I am in a stage in which I can enjoy good jokes, tea and food! That's all. Lastly, the social awareness speech given by the chairperson showed what role teachers can play in creating a good student! Thanks to all those Frontiers in Physics!!