My thoughts on and your responses to interesting topics in the Physical Sciences
There is a well-known paper by the famous scientist and Nobel laureate C. V. Raman about the harmonic drums of India – the mridangam and the tabla. While the paper was written in the 1930s, it is quite detailed and refreshing in its clear description of how these instruments work. This post attempts to popularize … Read More “The Indian musical drums” »
I was listening to an academic talk and someone mentioned the “Rule of 72”. Apparently invented by Einstein, it is a simple numerical approximation that helps you understand the power of compound interest. This, according to legend, became popular when interest rates offered on deposits by the Swiss National Bank dropped to in the 1930s. … Read More “The Rule of 72 – and what does the Swiss National Bank have to do with it” »
The Bakhshali manuscript is an artifact discovered in 1881, near the town of Peshawar (in then British India, but now in present-day Pakistan). It is beautifully described in an article in the online magazine of the American Mathematical Society and I spent a few hours fascinated by the description in the article (written excellently by … Read More “Bucking down to the Bakhshali manuscript” »
