Start the Ph. D. with great enthusiasm. The problem assigned is not earthshaking but good enough. Which means it is doable in finite time - the single most important trait of a Ph. D. problem. The experiments are already funded for the next three years. There are enough computers with capacity to smoke the simulations big time for free. There is ample stipend for four years. So you dream of just waiting for a while before long your student breezes through the degree and go…

But your ‘advisor dreams’ are what they are because reality is what it is:

The above is a representative sample page of a Ph. D. thesis I am correcting. It requires English language correction. That is fine with me, as me and some of my students are not born with an English tongue. We only have our mother tongue. Unfortunately, the sample above shows also lack of basic understanding of the entrusted research - after four years through the degree.

My bad, I presume.

Perhaps sympathizing with me, you may now promulgate: throw such students out; why should they come to do research if they aren’t sincere? can’t we find better students if we raise their pay; let the student wait for enough years before she learns the ropes of research; etc. etc.

All I can say at this stage is: you don’t know India.

[the title is an old acad. joke, first heard from Ramesh Mahadevan]

First the Thanks. Following bloggers linked to some of the recent stuff here. A big thanks guys (no gals in this list ;( ):

Abi at nanopolitan linked to the promotions@edu cartoon and tribute to Anil Kumble.

Guru at Entertaining Research, linked to the Individual and Empire in Academics write-up and again the parody on Peter Roebuck’s recent essay on Dhoni.

Martin at The Layscience linked to the Individual and Empire in Academics write-up in Praxis edition 4, a blog carnival of Scientific Life. Check the other links at the carnival. If interested to host the carnival at your blog, write to Martin or leave a comment at his blog.

Sunny at Saree Dreams (why didn’t I get the idea to start a blog like this where I could ‘officially’ ogle) linked to the Your Saree Horoscope note.

Vijay at Scanman’s Notes makes a mention of me (and Lakshmi) in his 4th podcast that talks about serendipity and zemblanity in medical profession from his personal side…

——-

Now for three blog links

Lorentz Transformations explained at backreaction

Allyson Beatrice in a guest post ‘the universe makes a lotta gas‘ writes why scientists are adorable at the Cocktail Party Physics

Stephen Fry says Don’t Mind Your Language…

If you want to reward Saints with Money, you will always fail. Those who are Saints don’t need the Money, and those who accept Money as reward are not Saints.

The double lecture by M.S. KrishnaGopalan and his daughter Marnada for Hindustanica’s Bharat Subject Utsav, in association with Sri Parthasarathy Swamy Dabha, served to stress the basic truth that intense discipline prepared an educationist for lecturing loftiness. To cite an instance his rendering of the portion ‘Second Law of Thermodynamics’ (Entropy) captured the mood in which Clausius composed the portion. All that can render sorrow heroic was gathered around compositions after the loss of the idol. KrishnaGopalan chose this one at the beginning to create the proper ennobling atmosphere for the lecture as a whole. It was pure educational eloquence and not barren technical exaggeration.

KrishnaGopalan’s subject picture of Thermodynamics in his mind and its emotional contours found vent in telling expression and this faculty was coupled with educational finesse. The sweet and short exposition followed by the portion, ‘Thermostatics,’ proclaimed him as a great educationist full worthy of his stature. Rendered with superb vividness it spoke of his loyalty to the purity of Classroom education scoring compromises. It also emphasised another pertinent aspect namely education and lecture ought not to be dissociated.

A listener would have been really amazed at how ecstatic it was when he connected his appreciative instincts to the true purpose of education — sublimation. This came to the fore in the rendering of the Phase Change, ‘Latent Heat.’ With his heightened ability to consciously tap the beauty of the piece, he got lost in his own sensitivity to taste its aesthetic grandeur. The broader the base of discipline, the higher the peak of performance!

All the solid graces of Phase Change were touched upon by Marnada in her exposition. Insights emerged with penetrative depth. It was Phase Change with grace and dignity unsullied, tempting listeners to take note of her talent trained by her father.

V. Naidyajathan on the computer played the role of a teaching assistant in such a way that a knowledgeable listener could weigh the general trend of emptiness of stridency of black board against his power point persuasion. Like vocal lecture computer too can evoke sleep.

———-

The above review should make perfect sense for all of us who understand and appreciate the music reviews of Shri. SVK that appear in the Friday supplements of Hindu news paper. For the uninitiated, here is the alphabetical glossary of substitution for the italicized words. Explanation is below the list.

alapana - exposition
artistic - scientific
beats - black board
bhava - sleep
carnatic music - Clasroom education
kutcheri - pErurai (discourse)
kirtana - portion
laya accompanist - teaching assistant
melody - lecture
mridangam - computer
music - education, lecture
musician - educationist
percussive - power point
Played - Rendered
raga - subject
rasika - listener
recital - lecture
song - portion
Tyagaraja - Clausius
violin duet - double lecture

Ananda Bhairavi - Thermodynamics
Evarimata - Latent Heat
Khambodi song - Phase Change
Marivere Gati - Thermostatics
Sancharas - Insights

The words on the RHS gives you the above Thermodynamics lecture review ‘written’ by this ‘lecture critic’ (with the RHS words italicized in the review).

Replacing those words with the words on the LHS results in this week’s original music review by Shri SVK on the violin concert of Shri . M. S. Gopalakrishnan and Smt. Narmada accompanied by Shri . J. Vaidyanathan on the mridangam.

Portions of the SVK review with the LHS words is given below for your kind perusal and comparison with the above Thermodynamics review.

The violin duet by M.S. Gopalakrishnan and his daughter Narmada for Carnatica’s Bharat Sangeeth Utsav, in association with Sri Parthasarathy Swamy Sabha, served to stress the basic truth that intense discipline prepared a musician for sangita’s loftiness. To cite an instance his rendering of the song ‘Nenendu Vedakudura’ (Karnataka Behag) captured the mood in which Tyagaraja composed the kirtana. All that can render sorrow heroic was gathered around compositions after the loss of the idol. Gopalakrishnan chose this one at the beginning to create the proper ennobling atmosphere for the recital as a whole. It was pure musical eloquence and not barren technical exaggeration.

Gopalakrishnan’s raga picture of Ananda Bhairavi in his mind and its emotional contours found vent in telling expression and this faculty was coupled with artistic finesse. The sweet and short alapana followed by the song, ‘Marivere Gati,’ proclaimed him as a great musician full worthy of his stature. Played with superb vividness it spoke of his loyalty to the purity of Carnatic music scoring compromises. It also emphasised another pertinent aspect namely music and melody ought not to be dissociated.

A rasika would have been really amazed at how ecstatic it was when he connected his appreciative instincts to the true purpose of music — sublimation. This came to the fore in the rendering of the Khambodi song, ‘Evarimata.’ With his heightened ability to consciously tap the beauty of the piece, he got lost in his own sensitivity to taste its aesthetic grandeur. The broader the base of discipline, the higher the peak of performance!

All the solid graces of Khambodi were touched upon by Narmada in her alapana. Sancharas emerged with penetrative depth. It was Khambodi with grace and dignity unsullied, tempting rasikas to take note of her talent trained by her father.

J. Vaidyanathan on the mridangam played the role of a laya accompanist in such a way that a knowledgeable listener could weigh the general trend of emptiness of stridency of beats against his percussive persuasion. Like vocal music mridangam too can evoke bhava.

———-

Observe how both review make perfect sense in their respective domains. Art IS Science, in the eyes of critics.

The day someone actually does a review of my Thermodynamics lectures this way, I would seriously contemplate retiring. I can afford to do it. I feel sorry for the unfortunate musicians, who can’t quit performing after being reviewed this way…

El Naschie is the editor in chief of the journal Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, published by Elsevier.

El Naschie is the (or one of the) author(s) of over 300 papers published in the journal Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, published by Elsevier.

El Naschie has authored five papers in the upcoming Dec 2008 edition of the journal Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, published by Elsevier.

The individual papers in the journal Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, published by Elsevier doesn’t carry the date of submission, revision and acceptance information, which is a service to the author for establishing precedence of publication and importantly, how long it took for the peer review process.

Abuse of vested power is my syllogism, not only from the above facts but also from what John Baez, the respected mathematical physicist, first wrote about this issue (see below).

This Chaos… journal costs $4520 per year and my institute library buys it forcibly at a reduced rate, bundled in with other Elsevier journals.

I wonder why….

————

There is more to The Case of M. S. El Naschie.

At least one of his five papers in Dec 2008 issue, according to John Baez,

consists of undisciplined numerology larded with impressive buzzwords.

A thorough demolition of the (lack of) scientific merit of the paper is done at n-Category cafe by John Baez at the above link. Proof for self-plagiarism by El Naschie is also documented there.

Jacques Distler writes about the above issue

So, let me review (as best as I can understand).

1. We have a crackpot.
2. Said crackpot is editor of a journal — possibly, at one time, a journal which carried serious work, but now entirely given over to publishing crackpottery.
3. Said journal is published by a well-known, if somewhat evil, publishing house.

1) is not terribly shocking. There are plenty of crackpots, and we mostly just try to ignore them.
2) is also not terribly shocking. There are a number of examples of formerly respectable journals, which now publish mostly sludge. In this case, it’s not clear to me that Chaos, Solitons, and Fractals was ever really respectable. At best, we’ve seen some evidence that — in its early days — some respectable people were not-yet aware that it was ill-advised to publish there.
3) is the most serious bit. If Elsevier were not evil, would we proceed differently?

Sabine and Stefan at Backreaction in a post titled Chaos, Solitons and Self-Promotion writes this

[...] The reason we got interested in this topic is that El Naschie lists himself on his website as a “distinguised Fellow of the Physics Institute of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt” - the Institute where we both made our PhD. However, this “Fellowship” has not been awarded by the physics department, but by a private association, called the “Frankfurter Förderverein für physikalische Grundlagenforschung” (Frankfurt association for the support of basic research in phyiscs).

To quote another relevant portion from Zoran Škoda’s comment (in John Baez’s earlier post) that started all this

[...] In some of his January 2008 articles the main editor is quoting a Frankfurt Univ. affiliation, which had some truth in distant past but he is not in capacity to do it now. I was told that there is an investigation about using this affiliation now. I contacted some of the associate editors, most of whom did not respond to my question how such a behaviour is allowed. Two of them told me that they will quit from the editorial board, and one that his name was put on the editorial page without his consent!

I can see an Indian from Hyderabad as one of the associate editor for this Chaos… journal. I could only hope he would respond in a suitable way to his Indian physics community and colleagues to throw some light on how such abuse is tolerated in the journal for so long.

Elsevier publishes IJHMT, one of the top journals in the field of Heat Transfer. Perhaps with some territorial pride I could state that the mere thought of such editorial power abuse doesn’t enter into the editorial board of IJHMT. But it is disturbing that elsewhere in the same publishing firm (and in academia) things stink.

Sometime back we noted the 2008 Heat Transfer Gallery published by the ASME Journal of Heat Transfer.

Here is the Gallery of Fluid Motion for 2008 organized by the Division of Fluid Dynamics of the American Physical Society. The abstracts and short explanations for these videos are published in the Physics of Fluids journal.

A snapshot from the winning entry is given below. The video captures the impact dynamics of a millimeter-size milk drop splashing on a superhydrophobic spinning substrate (created by smearing soot) with a hole for nucleation. Click on the image to see the Quicktime video.

impact dynamics of milk drop onto a superhydrophobic spinning substrate

Credits: “BLACK HOLE” NUCLEATION IN A SPLASH OF MILK by Laurent Courbin, James C. Bird, Andrew Belmonte, and Howard A. Stone: Here is the one page explanation as PDF file (DOI: 10.1063/1.2973667)

There is also the Gallery of Fluid Motion 2007

Poet Peter Rebuke lived in and roamed the streets of India for most of his life before he went to Somerset to oust Viv Richards and realized he was after all an Australian patriot, nay, nationalist. That realization made him a Pillar of Cricket. So he became a Cricket ‘Column’ist.

While in India he used to watch gully cricket daily and sip chai from dirty cups. He never missed matches between Ranchi (Street) Rats captained by Dhoni and Bengal Bandicoots captained by Dada. In fact, he even managed to get free season tickets to all the IPL matches held in M. A. Chidambaram Stadium by posing himself as the Manager for Chennai 28 team.

I reveal at the end of this note the ancient wisdom I overheard from his sports writing persona. But before that, we take a look at his recent wisdom.

Thus spake Poet Peter Rebuke at Cric info recently:

He enters the arena with one thought in his mind: the uncompromising pursuit of victory. It is a liberating, empowering simplicity. And it is going to take India to the top of the rankings, and without an excess of celebration. Dhoni brings to Indian cricket not hope but expectation. It is the bravest force in sport.

[...] He plays a ruthless game because with every bone in his body he wants to win, [...]

The same Australian Poet Peter Rebuke writes in the Sydney Morning Herald recently:

If the victory was deserved, though, the manner of its final attainment left much to be desired. [...]

But India stooped to conquer. Only 21.3 overs were bowled in the morning session, a ruse designed to slow the scoring and to bring bad light into play in the event of the Australians putting up a sustained fight.

Fieldsmen dawdled, the drinks break lasted seven minutes, balls were thrown over bowlers’ heads, leather-flingers trudged back to their marks, an inexperienced captain took an eternity to set his field. Deliveries came along about once a week - an acceptable rate from Woolworths but not the stuff of positive cricket. In short, India went to the very edge of the laws of the game. Supporters may argue Australia have long followed this strategy but new champions must adopt the strengths of the deposed, not their faults.

If this is the best Test cricket has to offer, then it is not worth the bother. For all the weight it carries, it is still a game. Slow over-rates are a blight and an insult to the paying public.

Unfortunately, the ‘captain’ in the latter quote is the He and the Dhoni in the first quote.

When juxtaposed this way, these pieces of writing are called double talk, in decent common sense speak. In Indian cricket fan talk, it is called terrific writing. In objective sports writing parlance, it is called shut the fok up Peter.

[In passing, notice above how Peter agrees Australians are guilty of this strategy and it worked for them at times, to make them champions. But Indians should not copy it when they want to become champions. BTW, the Indian batsmen have scored more runs and the Indian bowlers have taken more wickets than the Australians in this series. So they won. What other strength he is talking about for the Indians to adopt from the defeated champion Australians?]

This double talk from Peter is new for me. He does mention he is not impressed about Dhoni’s tactics in his Cricinfo article on Dhoni. But he also asserts about the single minded pursuit of Dhoni in the same article. Should we take the first one as Peter’s opinion on Cricket and the second one on Dhoni, the cricketer?

Also, I thought only music critics are capable (only) of flowery muddle. I am wrong. Peter stoops to conquer me in his CricInfo article on Dhoni. Article? nay, a left-handed Eulogy, if you read it carefully.

Here are some samples. All ‘He’ below refers to Dhoni (and She refers to Peter).

He did not come to cricket as a youthful dreamer but as a young street rat.

I learn two things from this. Dhoni is a young street rat. Also, young street rats don’t dream.

Anyway, such pretension of Peter about Indian streets and its illiterate rats is not new. But the next one clean bowled me.

He is Obama in white Clothes

Someone please caution Obama not to wear white clothes any longer. Indians in New Jersey might go berserk when they realize Dhoni is their President. Bobby Jindal might have a cardiac arrest.

He celebrates victory because he is proudly Indian, not because he is against anyone else.

Yes, everyone else here (including all the cricketers and Dada) celebrate Indian victory because we are against Australians. And now we know how to celebrate.

He fights to the last because Ranchi boys do not quit or cry.

booohoooh, that is not true; Tamil boys also don’t cry. Ask Srikkanth, the head selector. He never cried but chanted Surya Namaskaram and Hanuman Chalisa when facing Wasim Akram…

To him Indianness is not a cause.

Did you check with him to make sure Indianness is also not an effect for him?

He is a patriot not a nationalist.

a street rat, a nationalist, obama in white clothes

Ho, so Dhoni is an US-Isreal missile and not his country’s list? Good for him. Seriously, here is the meaning of these two words

patriot: a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion.

nationalist: a member of a political group advocating or fighting for national independence

Now it is clear what Dhoni is. Dhoni is not one who loves his country. He is a politico fighting for independence. Perhaps from the Colony? But Peter stoops to conquer. He also writes

He is not post-colonial, he is post-politics.

Amazing, isn’t it? Let me add some more in the spirit of the above gem.

He (Dhoni) is not post-office, he is post-erized. He is not post-poned, he is post-mortemed (by Peter).

And so on. Only, no one pays me the bucks when I write such nonsense.

As I mentioned at the start, here is the ancient wisdom: Until now I was thinking the chant SuklAmbaratharam (text) was written by some old Indian on some old Indian God. But Poet Pithamagar Peter ‘Split Tongue’ Roebuck cleared my ignorance. That chant was written by Peter on Dhoni. It goes like this in Sanskrit in India

Om, SuklAmbaradharam Dhonim, sasi varnam glovedbhujam, prasanna vadhanam dhyayeth, sarva cricket-vignaupashanthaye…

In English translation, it goes like this in all media that Peter pens, Indians read and Australians skip (like cricinfo):

Om, White Clothed Dhoni, the Beginner of Everything, Fair complexioned, Wielding Gloved Hands, Smiling radiant Faced, Meditate on Him for the Clearing of All (Indian Cricketing) Obstacles.

So I hope, no no, I expect you all realize the wisden, no wisdom of poet peter’s words. As an Indian cricket fan, after reciting the above chant throughout the cricket match and if possible three days after it is over, you will realize India victorious, Australia meritorious, Poet Peter Roll-in-bucks.

I didn’t create this puzzle. I solved it some years back over a drink (and earned the wrath of a group of guys). It came up when thinking about another puzzle.

Puzzle: There are three electrical switches on the ground/first floor.  They are connected correspondingly to three filament bulbs on the thirteenth floor at different locations. The building has no lift. You need to know which switch is for which light and obviously don’t want to climb the stairs more than once.

How will you figure this in one go?

[all bulbs and their electrical connection work fine; no foul play involved in the puzzle formulation; no extra information is necessary.]

My answer is hidden below. Let me know if you have any other clever solution.

Answer: Switch on one light, Switch on another one for a while and switch it off. Go to the thirtheenth floor and touch the two bulbs that are ‘off’; the warmer one corresponds to the switch you turned on and off. The rest is straightforward for you to figure out the correspondence in one go.

Individual or Empire? Should we remain individual scientists or should I forge or join a research group for pursuing research. This is not an age old question, if we reckon the time span of human thought and scientific inquiry.

Science, until recently, has been an individual pursuit. There are reasons in our history and her-story on how it became a group pursuit. Industrial revolution, academic institutions, World Wars, funding based research, scientists (and Science) migration, state-run funding agencies, peer review, Ph. D. degree, academic business models, tenure track, publish or perish, research grants, proposal based funding, funding based Science, post docs, research sans teaching professors, research empires, professors as research managers, quantity as quality, scientists as entrepreneurs, students as workers, the sequence is telling.

But Individuals remain. Why? Because the Individual and the Empire are part of the academic social order as it strives for growth, writes Prof. Bejan [1]

Empire building is a phenomenon that dominates todays research landscape. Large groups, national priorities and research centers dwarf the spontaneous individual investigators. Administrators and the thirst for higher rankings encourage this trend. Yet, the individuals do not disappear. This paper explains why.

When a paper abstract begins that way, most of us are hooked. Let me summarize the contents of [1] here.

Any research academic organization is made of A population of researchers (faculty, scientists) and usually comprising of research groups (at least one represented by A₁) and the remaining individuals A₀. The symbol A mean all the properties (the magnitudes) that differentiate between a small A0 and a large A1, for example, numbers of researchers, floor space, paid salaries, and the cost of pursuing the projects located on A0 and A1. The idea is represented in the accompanying figure.

Figure adapted from [1]

Constructal Theory proposed by Prof. Bejan [2] is an idea that is ten years young [3]. The theory by using a double optimization method, states for a finite-size flow system to persist in time (to survive) it must evolve such that it provides easier and easier access to its currents. That the generation of design (configuration) in nature is a physics phenomenon and can be predicted by theory is the colophon (see End Note).

The shapes or geometry of a variety of structure in nature and engineering is attempted using the theory. Examples include [4] heat sink designs cooling electronics, natural tree shapes, river basins, shape and size of road networks, Zipf function, Pyramids, social networks. In the context of the paper [1] that is related to social dynamics and networks, the theory states

[...] the institution is a flow system with architecture, which evolves in time so that its streams flow with progressively greater ease

More people, ideas and information flow through it, more visible (V ) an institution becomes. Obviously for this to happen, two properties are necessary, Production P of good creative ideas and its publishing and Support S, funding, shelter and peace for the special individuals who are creative.

Regarding Support, to quote from the paper [1],

A reasonable assumption is that the support Si received by the research unit Ai is proportional to the size of the unit. This is true if one thinks of size as being represented by salaries, or by the number of those who work on Ai. The struggle for research grants, however, reveals a bias toward larger grants.

Often we have observed in our institutions, bigger funds goes to bigger research groups (A₁). What size is big depends on the size of the institute A. It is encouraged by the funding agencies to form big groups with a director and a team of researchers. Sometimes such teams reduce to a professor and a group of assistant (to) professor(s). So, to increase Support S for an organization, it is lucrative to form large research groups. The administration of organizations usually offer internal incentives (promotions etc.) to form such groups to maximize their Support. It is an open secret - particularly in the USA - that one should ‘network’ to succeed in academia. Compared to such networks, the individual investigators have lesser funding chance.

But S alone doesn’t contribute to the growth of an organization. Because S is not P, the Production of good creative ideas and its flow in an out of the organization.

Each organization is marked by its Visibility (V) or how renowned it becomes. This depends on P and S. One could expect then bigger a research group that is formed within an organization and more such groups, more S and more P. With simple analysis (algebra), the author shows in [1] that the formation of the big group (A1, see above figure) actually has the opposite effect on global support (S) and global idea production (P). By constuctal theory arguments, it is shown in [1] that for maximizing the visibility V of an organization, both the group (A₁) and the individuals (A₀) are required to keep doing what they are good at. They don’t need to swap places or migrate towards the other.

Figure adapted from [1]

To explain this without the involved equations, observe the accompanying figure.

It identifies the individual position (marked by the plus symbols) of the creative folk of an hypothetical organization. The Visibility, since it is a product of Support and Production of ideas (V = SP), can be traced as an hyperbola in this plane. The global objective for the organization, as it grows, is to acquire maximum visibility in time. This objective requires each of the position to move as far away as possible from the origin. Because, for each position in the S-P plane will be connected by a hyperbola (xy ~ C) and an unique hyperbola that traces the maximum visibility (C = C_max) at a given time of life of an organization. The visibility of each creative individual, depending on the choice of how to spend her professional time, is identified with a position in the S-P plane (C ≤ C_max). Importantly, it doesn’t matter whether one grows by moving along the abscissa or the ordinate. Improving their visibility by pushing their hyperbola towards the maximum, already makes them contribute to the global objective - the Visibility of the organization.

Individuals will not vanish. And neither they need to coalesce into large research groups to maximize the global objective of the organization. By being creative and Producing ideas, they will still serve the organization, with or without Support.

The later part of the paper discusses the necessary conditions for emergence of a large group in an organization. I shall skip it for brevity of this note. However, substantial portions of the Conclusions of the paper is worth quoting

The theoretical framework proposed in this paper explains [...] self-organization in contemporary research: [...]

From the individuals perspective, the counting of the large-group idea (e.g., one scientific paper) on the same basis as one idea-paper published by an individual investigator is openly unfair. The single paper produced by the group required N1 paid salaries, not one, i.e., a lot more than one idea-paper produced by one individual. In Fig. 2 then, the y value of professor j should be divided by the average number of coauthors that appear on js papers.

Here is why researchers should be interested in the self-organization phenomenon discussed in this paper:

First, the apparent conflict between research empires and individuals is not a conflict: it is a balance that serves the institution as a whole.

Second, the idea that one can predict research self-organization on the same basis as design in nature and engineering is worthy of discussion, especially among researchers.

Finally, or I should say firstly, those who coerce their colleagues into large groups (to generate funding, and to beef up their own CVs) are acting against the self-organizing nature of the institution, i.e., against the global interest. Complete coalescence into large groups does not happen and will not happen.

I think the conclusions are valid for organizations that value and thrive on creative work. Organizations such as objective educational institutions.

Finally, the paper is not about regimented work and organizations that morph to do such work. A poignant note from [1]

The creative are not workers in a factory, or slaves on a plantation. Their own creativity defines the work and the institution. If the work is predefined (prioritized, planned, dictated), as some administrators mold their institutions nowadays, then the work is not creative, and it is not the subject of this article.

Having observed the growth of some organizations and their adopted means for achieving that growth, I enjoyed reading the paper. One of the instances that a ‘research paper’ made me smile.

End Note: Constructal Theory is not explained in detail in this note. If interested, browse [4], or read [2] and [3].

References

1. Constructal Self-organization of Research: Empire Building Versus the Individual Investigator, A. Bejan, Int. J. of Design Nature and Ecodynamics. Vol. 3, No. 3 (2008) 113.
2. Shape and Structure, A. Bejan (2001) - Amazon Link
3. Design with Constructal Theory, A. Bejan (2008) - Wiley Link
4. Constructal Theory Website http://constructal.org.

Most of us are coffee or tea drinkers. Most of us hold the ear of the coffee cup in our right hand and sip. Even during office hours, we visit the nearby coffee shops at regular intervals.

The traffic percentage of the total population in an organization frequenting nearby coffee shops daily is better than that for a blog from the corresponding internet population. This makes it very difficult for the canteen to maintain hygiene standards, even though they wash and clean the cups after each use. The wash essentially is just a dip and tumble out of a turgid bath.

In a public coffee shop a better way to drink your coffee is by holding the cup in your left hand.

If the coffee comes in a davara tumbler then use the davara to drink the coffee. The davara also went only for the turgid bath, but you have a choice between a tumbler that could retain other’s atoms in its rim and a davara without those atoms.

[the alternate title of this note is restau-rant, but then I remembered not to rant and ascend this into a blog. So I settled for something vaguely intelligent]