Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe (P.S.) Simon Singh
It had been a long time since I read any science book. Big Bang by Simon Singh turned out to be such a refreshing read that I recommend it to anyone who is even mildly interested in science.
Simon Singh has the rare advantage of being both a scientist and a journalist. What impressed me most about this book is the simplicity of Singh’s approach to explaining complicated concepts and theories. The book has a distinct historical perspective and story-telling narrative to it. You will not find obscure mathematical equations in this book. Notion, not notation.
I am also most impressed by the vast amount of background information that the author provides to the reader. There were so many scientific theories and facts that I had studied in high school and then promptly forgotten. All those came rushing back to me when reading this book. Simon Singh goes all the way back to the Greeks, but it is astounding how he manages to keep the chain of logic in tact, without veering too much off-topic.
The target audience of this book is the general public. Someone already familiar with the details of the Big Bang theory may not be too impressed with this book. Although a lot of historical perspective is provided, this book does not speak too much about the details of the theory itself. The ending also seems ubrupt.
Nevertheless, I strongly recommend reading this book.
The video that is a huge rave on the Internet right now — Will Ferrell and his two year old daughter. This is so funny. It’s got 19 million views so far over just a few days.
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Having welcomed Mothers’ Day, Women’s Day and Valentine’s Day with open arms, we are now ready for indigenous sales inducing festivals. Akshaya Trithiya is perhaps the first in this breed, and there is nothing to indicate that it is going to be the last.Two years back, nobody had heard of Akshaya Trithiya. Last year, newspapers carried advertisements telling people how auspicious it was to bring home gold on this holy day. No, they said, it was absolutely vital that you do so. Gold jewellers laughed their way to the banks. Apparently this did not go unnoticed by the banks. So this year, they decided to sell gold coins themselves. This time, the advertisements were on newspapers, television screens, FM radio and the glass panes of every ATM.
I am not particularly against all such synthetic festivals. Mothers’ Day gives otherwise busy people a chance to remember their old mothers. If a Hallmark made money on it, that’s just as well. The feeling of love that underlies the idea is perhaps worth the commercialisation.
What bothers me about Akshaya Trithiya is that the idea behind it is one of so called auspiciousness. This reeks of religion and superstition. An unrelated contemporary event is celebrity actress Aishwarya Rai marrying two trees and a stone idol before marrying actor Abhishek Bachchan, just so that her human husband would not have to bear the consequences of her inauspicious horoscope. Such heavily advertised retrograde ideas force the society’s mind backwards, whereas we should now be focusing all our efforts in the opposite direction.
Last year, “a very conservative estimate” put gold purchases on that day at 38 tonnes, compared with a daily average sale of two tonnes.
What is common to the power equipment producer BHEL, space research organisation ISRO and AIR Corporation Employees Cooperative Society? All of them have bought gold coins in bulk (from Indian Bank) to distribute among their employees.
Sales of gold coins in the run up to this year’s Akshaya Trithiya are 50 per cent higher than in the comparable period of last year.
A tenth of Tanishq’s annual sales of around Rs 1,000 crore takes place on this one day.
The World Gold Council has announced that the star, otherwise known as Baa, from Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi will be used to promote Akshaye Trithya, an important Hindu festival.
Madhumita Dutta, from the World Gold Council, said that the organisation is committed to women seeing gold as the fashion accessory of choice.
According to Hindu mythology, on this day the Treta Yuga began; and the Ganges River, the most holy and sacred river of India, descended to the earth from the heaven.
Every once in a while, a movie is made that rises and stands above the crowd. It doesn’t make any sense — critics give the movie close-to-zero ratings, the actors are hideous not too good looking, there’s no story to speak of. And yet, the movie is a super hit.
We’ve seen a thousand movies like this — boy sees girl, falls in love, woos her, her wedding has already been arranged and so on. On the positive side, the movie does have some great camera work, soul stirring music, excellent visual scenery and reasonably good acting. But are these enough? Apparently, yes.
I doubt if anybody can explain the success of this movie. But it is hard for anybody to miss that special way in which the movie connects to the audience. I guess that’s all it takes.
David Baldacci is absolutely the master narrator. As you read this book, you can very well imagine yourself to be at the very crime scene.
Although high on the popularity chart, the President of the United States of has a darker side that very few people have seen. While routinely bedding Kathy Sullivan, the young wife of an old billionaire, Kathy gets killed. This entire episode is witnessed by a burglar who happens to be at the Sullivan house at the same time by sheer coincidence. Will the most powerful man on the planet get away with his henious crime? Will a measly burglar be able to pull the president down from his echelon of power?
Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie is a collection of 14 short mysteries solved by the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. The pace of each story is brisk, and the book makes for light reading.
The stories themselves are quite original. The suspense in the mysteries is also quite well maintained till the end. But there are a couple of stories that are annoying, where a lot is not revealed until the very end when Poirot, very patronizingly, tells Captain Hastings (his companion) the entire story in a new light and admonishes him for not making use of his mental faculties. It sometimes feels that Captain Hastings is the embodiment of the reader himself into the story.
Interwoven has named Joe Cowan as the new CEO last week.
Interwoven, a provider of content management solutions, has made known that its board of directors has named Joseph L. Cowan as the company’s chief executive officer, effective. Cowan has also been appointed to the company’s board of directors. Max Carnecchia continues to serve as Interwoven’s president.
Cowan brings to Interwoven a proven track record in executive management of enterprise software companies with broad product portfolios and global operations. Most recently Cowan served as chief executive officer of Manugistics Group, a provider of demand and Supply Chain Management (SCM) solutions. Prior to joining Manugistics, Cowan was president and chief executive officer at EXE Technologies.
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