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The Three Crises in Feynman's Life

Richard Feynman was a legendary physicist. Of course, he was a damn fine physicist. But another reason that his name is so well-known is that he was fond of telling stories of interesting events in his life and these anecdotes have become very  popular. There are many books filled with these stories, many of which I have read.  The last one I read was a comic: Feynman by Ottaviani and Myrick. At first, I did not like the weird shapes of people in the pages. But after reading through,  I feel that the funny shapes better carry the spirit of the Feynman stories. The one thing that stayed with me after reading the book, even though I sort of knew a bit about it from the other books, was the fact that there were multiple instances in his career when Feynman was in the doldrums with respect to his work. You hear often the stories of his exceptional calculating ability or his practical pranks... the stories of the incomparably smart and inimitably funny Feynman! But it is also ...
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The Legend of the Cup

 Once there was a cup It broke, but did not give up The cup said it will live through the pain If, for the world, there could be some gain Thus it served and leaked, but never creaked Always putting its best lip forward One night a lot was put on its head "I have survived lots, will survive this", the cup said The cups around then chirped up "We know you don't want to give up But know this, you are not alone We will be here, after you are gone" The next morning, the cup was dead It had given up, and moved on ahead.

Fixed Mindset vs Growth Mindset

 There is a very interesting TED talk by Carol Dweck where she talks about the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. The terminology fixed vs growth here should be taken as a person's belief about his or her attributes. People with a fixed mindset believe that they are pigeonholed with a certain set of immutable abilities, while people with a growth mindset are aware that they their abilities can improve. This awareness, as far as I understand, need not be taken as something they are consciously aware of, but its effect is seen in how they react to their success or failure in tasks. Carol talks about various experiments with children which laid bare the existence of these mindsets. Most interesting is the response of children with these two mindsets as the difficulty of tasks is increased. Growth mindset people often see a more difficult task as an opportunity for them to grow, while fixed mindset people are petrified! For fixed mindset folks, they and their abi...

Why is there so little of sex in our lives?

Why do humans (and most other animals that I know) have only two sexes? Only male and female? Of course, I am cognizant of the fact that other genders do exist and the sex column in applications these days has not only male and female. But still, the majority of humans, and majority in other animals I know, are divided into males and females. In fact, Wikipedia defines sex as "Organisms of many species are specialized into male and female varieties, each known as a sex" Further, you need a male and a female for the important act of procreation. But why is there not a male, a female and a gmale? Why is it not that a male and female always gave birth to a male, a female and a gmale gave birth to a female and a gmale and a male gave birth to a gmale? A much interesting rock, papers, scissors form of procreation!  Well, first of us let us find out if there are such cases in the animal kingdom. Of course, there are species which are not divided by gender. Of these, I think, there...

The Fruit of Life

 Is life an onion? You peel it and you cry Keep peeling and crying And finally peel off to get nothing Or is life a mango? You eat and it is sweet You keep eating and you have eaten Now you don't know what to do with the seed Or maybe a banana? You eat and you are happy You drop the peel, take a step And fall flat on your back!

Hero

We all need heroes, especially in times like this. I too had a hero. COVID happened, and he disappeared. He lived in the building in front of mine. Many mornings I would see him wade out into his balcony to take his towel. Just this act made him a hero to me, or rather the manner in which he did it. He always came out on his balcony in his birthday suit. I have difficulty coming out on the balcony without my wristwatch! This man had guts, gumption, conviction... all the eyes in the world could not shake his resolution! But he was not an idiotic Don Quixote, charging madly with his lance at the windmills of the world. He always came out at such an angle that you could only see his back. He was challenging the customs of a world sensitive to what they see but insensitive to what they feel. Brave and intelligent, brown when in the nude, he was my hero! But from this March, when COVID reached Chile, I have not seen him. Where has my hero disappeared? Afraid of the disease, does he now co...