To be or not to be....: October 2009

http://www.newscientist.com/special/swine-flu-myths-that-could-endanger-your-life

and its not cheerful at all.

Ring Ring ! Einstein ?

This is a hubble telescope photo of a very rare phenomenon - a double Einstein ring. Einstein rings are formed due to gravitational lensing - massive bodies (galaxies, black holes, stars etc) bend light which passes by them, just like an optical lens. If the massive body is exactly between us and the more distant light emmitting object, then we see a ring of light called an Einstein ring. And when there are two massive bodies between us and the light emmitting object, which are far away from each other and all perfectly aligned, we see two Einstein rings, as in this photo. As you can imagine, something like this is quite improbable, so its quite a nice little photo :-) And appareantly this will reveal all sorts of things about dark matter and what not, because one of the ways dark matter can be detected is by its gravitational lensing effect.

Supari Hanuman

This is a hanuman temple in the old town, its tiny and very well known. It has been renovated by the looks of it, but the setting and the peepal tree behind it suggest respectable antiquity. The roads that weave around it on all sides are narrow and this photo has been taken from the widest of them. The temple is unique in the sense that on all sides, the road begins almost where the wall of the inner sanctum ends. The whole city, with all its faiths and people is its mandapam, what are a thousand pillars ?

To be or not to be....

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Swine Flu Article on New Scientist Magazine

Pale Blue Dot

The Cosmos

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