Author: Pradeep

  • Me is back

    It has been a tumultuous month of May. I was in Kerala with my folks for nearly 3 weeks and am now back in Mumbai. Will start contributing to Wikipedia from this month as well. Regular blogging should resume soon.

  • Trip to Kerala

    We’re going on vacation to Kerala. We’re leaving on May 11 and will be back on May 30. Will continue to update the blog and add pictures when I get near an internet connection.

  • Weather – Renewables – Space

    I’m in a period of re-definition. I’m re-defining what are my core goals and what are my add-on goals. I am a guy with various interests and I’m as passionate about one as the other. This makes things interesting when trying to make a career choice. The three things on top of my mind right now are – weather, renewables and space. Writing has slipped in and out of this. Whatever I do, I want to be able to do all of these and much more in my time.

  • Chai and Why: Origami and Mathematics

    Chai and Why? is a public outreach effort of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). Today I went to the session on “Origami and Mathematics”. This begins a series of Chai and Why? concentrated on children during the vacation season.

    Today’s talk was by Vijay Arolkar and Mimansa Vahia. Before the talk, Sanjana Kapoor turned up and announced the Prithvi Theater’s Summer Workshop and the idea of having Prithvi Theater and its partners do special activities for kids during the summer. She even hung around till a few minutes into the talk.

    Vijay Arolkar began the talk. He introduced his guru Prof. Natarajan who then introduced this group – Origami Mitra which met twice a month at Dadar. Few of its members were also present in the audience. Arolkar is a member of the TIFR’s Low Temperature Facility. His talk was filled with demonstrations that vowed the audience by some innovative techniques of forming basic shapes and models.

    Mimansa Vahia, a PhD student in the Maths department at TIFR, took over and spoke about the axioms of origami and providing a strong theoretical basis for origami which enabled its application in mathematics. The example that stood and that got repeated throughout the day was the trisection of an angle which was made possible by origami.

    The areas of application held more interest for me. Origami has formed the basis for several interesting applications like packing airbags, crumple zones in cars, camera lens, self folding sheets, folding of solar panels on a spacecraft, fitting space telescopes into compact launch vehicles etc. Origami has made available ways of packing airbags once certain parameters about its usage is known. It has been used to determine crumple zones in cars, places where the cars can fail on impact while causing minimum injury to its passengers. Its application has also enabled multiple camera lens to be replaced by a single lens having diamond shaped crystals arranged in a fashion that enables multiple reflections of the light passing through giving it the same effect that multiple optical lens do. This arrangement was arrived at using origami though the original one uses crystals. This enables camera lens miniaturisation and has been found in 2010. Self folding sheets are sheets which fold in certain ways on the passage of electric currents. The Miura fold is what has been used in the solar panels of spacecrafts.

    This was followed by a hands-on paper folding experience in which we made a paper box, a fan, a speaking penguin and a toppling toy. We got to bring these home (although they didn’t let us keep the TIFR folder on which we built these models) and I even showed my brother how to make a toppling toy for himself.

    A paper box made from A4 size paper. Image Credit: Pradeep Mohandas

    A fan. Credit: Pradeep Mohandas


    A Talking Penguin. Image Credit: Pradeep Mohandas
    Toppling Toy. Image Credit: Pradeep Mohandas

    This was my first experience in a hands-on workshop at Chai and Why? and I must say that it was fun. I was folding paper after a very very long time and unlike my school experience of crafts, I had a lot of fun. I hope I can attend a few meetings with Origami Mitra and re-ignite my dead crafty characteristics.

    I will unfortunately miss the next two sessions of Chai and Why? called  Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star since I’ll be in Kerala.

    [While looking for links, I found that the Origami article on Wikipedia has some fun links to explore and also the webpage of Robert Lang whose name continuously popped up along with a picture of him with a 5m telescope. Also many of the spacecrafts have a page where you can get instructions of how to build their paper models. HobbySpace is a good place to start in this regard.]

  • Visit to Shirdi

    The last time I had been to Shirdi was as a 9 year old. I don’t remember much about that place and when my friend Pranav mentioned that he had plans to go there, I decided to join him. This was last Sunday. The plan was to leave on Friday night, reach there on Saturday morning, have an audience at Shirdi with Sai Baba and then head to Shani Shingnapur and then return back to Mumbai on Saturday night.

    Pranav and I met at the private bus hub near Diamond Garden, Chembur to board the bus. The Dolphin Volvo bus arrived and boarded the bus and we departed at 10.45 pm. At 1.30 pm we arrived at our first stop and I woke up after trying to sleep. There were seat bugs (for want of a better name). My elbows were swollen with seat bug bite and it seemed that it was a general experience among passengers and not a particular experience with me. After a general patting down, I had a bite-less night.

    We reached Shirdi at 5.55 am and we got a room that allowed us to bathe and change for Rs. 60. It was the top of someone’s home which was being lent for a daily or for bathing purposes. Since Shirdi is a holy place, it is general practice to be bathed and fresh. The room and bathroom were clean and also had a provision for hot water. The hot water was flowing through a plastic pipe generally used for electric purposes – which concerned me a bit but I used cold water.

    Pranav led the way to the samadhi. There is as usual a very long line. The early hour and some smart maneuvering meant that we could make some time and only had to wait for about an hour and a half. The serpentine line went through a hall, down a flight of steps, up another flight of steps and suddenly we were inside the samadhi. When you reach in, the first thing that strikes you is how Hindu the place is for someone who had practised both Hinduism and Islam. Second was the amount of gold the place had for the man who believed in simplicity. We then went to some adjoining centers which were places where Sai Baba stayed, prayed, cooked etc. We then went to the shrine of a person who worked with Sai Baba and began the search for a jeep that would take us to Shani Shingnapur.

    It is an interesting experience to discuss travel plans sitting inside a temple. We planned here on whether to go to Shani Shingnapur after breakfast or not. The decision was to head to Shani Shingnapur, a temple dedicated to Shani, the god Saturn, without breakfast. Pranav had been going on about this temple since the day we decided to head to Shirdi. He told me about the idea behind wearing orange clothes and a wet body while entering the temple and had even suggested I carry my orange clothes with me. He then helpfully pointed out that the orange clothes were available there on rent.

    Pranav described the experience in the jeep best by comparing it with NASCAR. We joked that the drivers were more of an expert in reminding people about God than a priest in the temple. Pranav got the jolt of his life when the jeep passed in front of the temple. People wearing ordinary clothes were walking into the temple. A passenger in the front seat seemed equally jolted and asked about it to the driver. The driver explained that the Government thought it was a waste of time for devotees to be following rituals and decided to do away with it. So it was that we visited the temple without Pranav’s “orange clothes and wet body”.

    The temple here is much simpler. The God is represented by a black rock on which devotees offer mustard oil which is poured on the rock. Some brought small plastic packets of oil, some small plastic bottles of oil and some even brought a cannister of oil! At the exit, we found a medical camp being conducted by the doctors from Ahmednagar Govt. Civil Hospital. This was my first round of blood donation. After a round of weight checks and jotting down personal details I was asked to press a “Squeeze-me” ball for about 5 mins to drive out a packet of blood. For my squeezing, I got a certificate, a unique identification number and a medal.

    I felt a bit tired on the way back where I and Pranav had to be squeezed in with an older gentleman from Kolkata. On return to Shirdi, we had lunch (a much needed one) and took our bus back to Mumbai. This bus too suffered with lack of passengers. Efforts to revive passenger count by waiting for a hour and a half at Nashik failed and so the bus left following an internal revolt by passengers. We reached Mumbai an hour later than we would have.

  • Visit to the temple built by a sweet shop owner

    I finally managed to graduate from my bachelors course in Mechanical Engineering. As congratulations poured in, some of my close relatives also let me know of their prayers and their expectations of my fulfilling them. The first one that I heard of was -“the most famous Ganapati temple in Pune”. Although this relative told me the name of this temple, I could not remember it no matter how hard I tried. Even while writing the title of this post, I could not remember the name of the temple without referring to my searches for the temple on Google.

    While asking friends about the temple I continuously asked about the “temple built by a sweet owner” and they got it and named the temple. Despite several repetitions, I was not able to remember the name of the Dagadusheth Halwai Ganapati Temple.The temple was built by a sweet shop owner, on the advice of the guru a year after the death of a son.

    I decided to go on Sunday – for no foreseeable reason. In the morning, I woke up later than I wanted to and then left for the bus stand after a breakfast of upma.I went to the Maitri Park stop and hoped to catch Shivneri (an air-conditioned bus that travels between Pune and Mumbai at 15 minute intervals). I looked for the ticket counter when a co-passenger suggested that I talk to the conductor and buy a ticket from him. Chance encounter – good advise. I asked the conductor if it was possible to buy the ticket directly – when he said yes, I leapt in.

    The early morning wake up, even though it was late, meant that I wanted some sleep. The air conditioned environs and an empty co-passengers seat meant I could sleep well. I woke up once or twice but had good sleep all the way till Pune. There, aided by Google Maps, I got off at Shivajinagar, Pune and took a rickshaw to the temple.

    The auto rickshaw driver was helpful to give me directions to get to the temple as I got off. I took one picture of the sideways of the temple – a multi-storeyed structure with intricate stone and wood work. It almost seemed like a Palace. But, the temple looked totally out of place in its locality. It also has an open structure whereby the idol is seen from the road and is open to a 180 degrees field of view. The queue was small probably because it was late morning on a Sunday and the hawkers didn’t trouble you and the persons who kept your shoe were kind and polite. As I walked in, prayed and sat down for some time soaking in the surroundings, I think I liked this open structure compared to the closed and fortress like Siddhivinayak. The temple is known to be very powerful and you felt it when you sat there. I wasn’t able to sit cross-legged or did not try. There were kind devotees who shared laddus. Inside, there was no push for you to pray fast and move. Everyone prayed at their own speed and in their own styles.

    I enjoyed the temple and will probably go there every time I visit Pune.

  • PSLV C-16 mission successful

    Dr Kasturirangan, former ISRO Chairman described today’s successful PSLV-C16 mission the best. “Thank you for a wonderful though tense 18 minutes”. At the end of the 18 minutes, all the stages of the PSLV hadperformed very well and placed in orbit 3 satellites – RESOURCESAT-2, YOUTHSAT and XSat.

    This, the first launch of 2011 was done under some tremendous pressures to get it right. This Forbes article that came out a day ago best summarizes the trouble that ISRO has had beginning all the way from the failed GSLV launch in April 2010. The only positive in the last one year has been the PSLV launch. This put extra pressure on the PSLV team to perform well.

    Today morning began with this report in the Times of India regarding the GSLV failure of December, 2010. The report implicates a design flaw in the GSLV’s payload fairing which caused the fairing to deform and caused the connectors to snap. This led to a loss of computer control of the four strap-on boosters of the GSLV which caused it to veer off track. The vehicle disintegrated even as the Range Safety Officer destroyed the vehicle for purposes of safety. I thought this could not be a great way to start a launch day! However, these words spoken by Madhavan Nair made sense: “A successful flight of the GSLV is not an impossibility”. Now that we had a fix on what the problem was, it could be corrected and we could have a GSLV flight later this year or early next year.

    I was as tense as ever and was surfing the channels and keeping a watch on my twitter account and looking at webcasts which many people had requested a link to. The webcast seemed down although Doordarshan flashed a message about the time when the transmission from Sriharikota would begin – 9:40 am. As the message flashed, the webcast came back online even though it was running through news reports.

    As the national channel of Doordarshan went through the documentary about the testing and integrations of the PSLV and the satellites, I kept tweeting the minutes to lift-off at ten minute intervals. By this time I was really tense! The PSLV stood majestically on the launch pad. Close to 14 minutes, the Automatic Launch Sequence was started and the rocket went completely under computer control. 3 minutes…the tension in my living room seemed comparable to the tension in the mission control. The former ISRO chiefs and Russian and Singaporean delegates looked anxiously and seemed to talk to avoid tension of silence. The check out was being read in the south Indian accent in the background – perhaps to provide some comic relief.

    As the countdown started 10 … 9 … 8 ……. 3 … 2… 1, the mood in my living room and mission control went into silence as the PSLV rose in splendour and rose above the launch pad. I remembered the GSLV launch and was praying that the PSLV would not lose altitude and fall into the Bay. But, it rose and rose until it went into a cloud bank and erupted out as a round of applause went throughout the room as the Air-lit strap-on boosters fired on cue. Throughout its major timeline events – Stage 1 seperation, Stage 2 ignition, heat shield seperation, Stage 2 seperation, Stage 3 ignition, Stage 3 seperation, Stage 4 ignition, RESOURCESAT-2 deployment and YOUTHSAT and XSat deployments, the mission almost followed the mission plan.

    It was all smiles in the Mission Control and at home, as ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan congratulated his team members and immediately went to meet M G K Menon and Kasturirangan who had smiles on their faces. Afterward, as the Minister of State spoke or the former ISRO Chairmen spoke or as the Directors of the Center and the PSLV Mission Director spoke, there was a huge smile and a great sense of relief in everyone’s faces. Conspicuous by his absence was former ISRO Chairman Madhavan Nair who was the first Mission Director of the PSLV.

    As they began to break up, the clamor from my brother grew because he wanted to play on the computer. I just felt relief. I am sure this was a great confidence booster for ISRO. I hope they will use this boost to work positively towards the other 3 launches scheduled for this year and the various other projects that ISRO has jam packed throughout 2011. There is now a huge backlog for ISRO to clear. And as Kasturirangan said, Thank You, ISRO for a wonderful and tense 18 minutes today morning.

  • Two Interesting Videos from India

    I am sure you have heard of the brilliant TED and TEDx conferences. The talks provided here are a wonderful stream of information that I usually share with friends on my facebook and twitter channels. I listen to these talks during my early morning walks. Today morning, I had the opportunity to hear two wonderful talks.

    The first one is by Dr. Vishwajeet Kumar

    TEDxChange – Vishwajeet Kumar

    This one handles the question of child care after birth and how innovative solutions were suggested by the community in rural Uttar Pradesh. The main thrust is the special scenario in India which makes it vital to involve the community in changing medical practices and how small changes can make a big difference.

    The second video is by Manoj Kumar:

    TEDxChange – Manoj Kumar

    This video concerns a new form of data collection that collects data by talking to mothers and learning of various connections between practices and social concerns.

  • Swimming Pool in Chembur

    I have been around in Chembur since 1992 or so. Since then, the town has changed a lot. The municipal swimming facility in Chembur, now called General Arun Kumar Vaidya Swimming Pool. This was part of the overall naming and renaming exercise undertaken by the right-wing Shiv Sena which swept into power in 1994 in the state of Maharashtra. I do not recollect what this pool was called before being named so.

    My experience in this swimming pool has not been great. When I tried to learn swimming here as a kid my skin got discolored and as a result I lost interest in swimming. From then on, I have passed in front of the pool several times without caring to learn its proper name (something I am interested in but not of importance since people just call it Swimming Pool). Hence for a very long time, this pool and its activities didn’t have my interest.

    Recently, there was a news report in the local newspaper, Mumbai Mirror reported that there was a danger that the pool may be handed over to private parties through improper channels. The pool has apparently not been used for the past two years and the municipal corporation is spending approximately Rs. 16 lakhs. The picture is murky and RTI activists are digging for information.

    This revived an interest in swimming and also revived an urge to spread the word about what was happening to this public space. The first thing to do was to find out what it is called. The above report swaps the names of the two pools at Chembur and Kandivali. The one at Chembur is called the General  Arunkumar Vaidya taran talav. An interest arose in learning more about the General and I reached the Bharat Rakshak website and found the information I was looking for.

    The General has served India during the Indo-Pakistan Wars of 1965 and 1971 and as Chief of Army Staff he planned Operation Bluestar. Like Indira Gandhi who ordered the Operation, the General was also assassinated for his role in the Operation in Pune in 1986. The General was awarded the Maha Vir Chakra and the Padma Vibhushan.

    Interestingly, in the early 2000s, a Sikh businessman operated his hotel out of the premises when the swimming pool was in the name of the General. I am not sure if he knew about the General or his role in the Operation. The hotel did not have good food and so even that didn’t provide me a reason to go there. It inevitably closed operations. Now, the fore ground of the swimming pool is being used for parking vehicles.

  • PSLV-C16 ready for lift-off on April 20

    So, this ISRO press release was posted on the web on April 17, 2011 which stated that the Launch Authorisation Board has given the green signal to the scientists and engineers to proceed with the launch on April 20, 2011. As per press reports, this Launch Authorisation Board is a bunch of people who come and inspect the launch vehicle and spacecrafts and ensure everything looks okay and then give the thumbs up.

    Thence, engineers and scientists spring into action and in ISRO’s words –

    During the Count Down, propellant-filling operations of the liquid propellant second stage (PS2) and fourth stage (PS4) of the launch vehicle will be carried out. Mandatory checks on the launch vehicle and spacecraft – including charging of batteries and pressurisation of propellant tanks will be performed. Readiness of launch infrastructure such as tracking radar systems and communication networks will also be checked.

    The countdown, does not start at 15 seconds before the lift-off. It actually starts 54 hours before lift-off and that is when all the things described above takes place. So, the lift off will begin around 4 am (IST) on April 18, 2011.

    ISRO scientists and engineers have been a worried lot. Two of their rockets have fallen into the Bay of Bengal and their top brass have been embroiled in a “scam” that it has never witnessed before. Word is that ISRO is taking extra precautions on this one. Some are even saying that ISRO is in a mess. The PSLV has so far had a great track record and they are pinning their expectations on this vehicle to mark the turning point in its fortunes in the past few months. Whatever others might say, I believe that ISRO engineers will give it their best shot.

    ISRO has not written or aggregated information about the various satellites in one place and I thought I could do that here and use it as a reference, just in case. So, first we look at our main payload – Resourcesat-2:

    RESOURCESAT-2 is a follow on mission to RESOURCESAT-1 to provide data continuity to Indian and global users. It carries three optical Remote sensing payloads, LISS-3, LISS-4 & AWIFS. It also carries additional AO payload known as AIS (Automatic Information System) from COMDEV, Canada as an experimental payload for ship surveillance in VHF band to derive position, speed and other information of ships. Compared to RESOURCESAT-1, LISS-4 multi-spectral swath has been enhanced from 23 km to 70 km based on user needs. Suitable changes including miniaturisation in payload electronics have been incorporated in RESOURCESAT-2. The satellite is slated for launch during first quarter of 2011.

    Then we look at the Indo-Russian collaboration, YOUTHSAT:
    In recent years, it has been realised that there is a need to develop a comprehensive understanding of the complex processes of the ionosphere-thermosphere system including its response to the various external forces such as solar radiation during active space weather conditions so as to reach a level of predictive capability. One of the most important aspects still to be understood is the temporal and spatial variability in electron density distribution over the low and equatorial latitudes, and the role of certain large scale neutral and plasma processes therein. To address these issues related to the cause, i.e. solar variability and effect, thermosphere-ionosphere changes, an Indo Russian satellite mission ‘YOUTHSAT’ is planned, which is scheduled to be launched in the first quarter of 2011.Apart from the Russian payload SOLRAD for monitoring the solar X- and g rays fluxes, two Indian payloads: a dual frequency beacon payload for ionospheric tomography named RaBIT (Radio Beacon for Ionospheric Tomography) and an airglow imaging payload namely LiVHySI (Limb Viewing Hyper Spectral Imager), will be onboard this satellite. These two Indian payloads have been developed and undergoing different stages of tests and evaluations at VSSC/SAC/ISAC respectively.For the RaBIT experiment, the already existing CRABEX ground network to receive the beacon signals will be extended to stations located in Russia in the polar latitudes. This would make this receiver chain to be the longest in the world, enabling development of ionospheric tomograms spanning equator to the North Pole.Through the LiVHySI experiment, simultaneous altitudinal profiles of a range of airglow emissions (Hyper Spectral) emanating from the atmosphere between 80-600km altitudes and their spatial distribution across the globe will be obtained. These profiles, in conjunction with the tomograms and solar flux measurements, will help us in understanding and quantifying various chemical, neutral and electro-dynamical processes prevalent in the ionosphere-thermosphere system. 

    The last one is on the Singaporean XSat-1:


    This is a developmental project undertaken by CREST (Centre For Research in Satellite Technologies) with partners such as CRISP (Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing, NUS), and overseas collaborators (SaTReCi, ISRO, DLR, DTU etc.).

    Objectives

    The XSAT project objectives are:
    (1) To develop a low cost micro-satellite bus capable of performing remote sensing operation in near real-time scenarios
    (2) To build-up in country capability (resources and facilities) in satellite engineering
    (3) To promote academic interest for R&D in this areaThe two bits about RESOURCESAT-2 and YOUTHSAT are from the ISRO Annual Report 2010-11 and the information on XSat-1 is from here.

    Best of luck, team ISRO!