My Science School

Gitanjali is a collection of poems by the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore received the Nobel Prize for Literature, largely for the English translation, Song Offerings. It is part of the UNESCO Collection of Representative Works.

Rabindranath Tagore was the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore, a leader of the Brahmo Samaj, which was a new religious sect in nineteenth-century Bengal and which attempted a revival of the ultimate monistic basis of Hinduism as laid down in the Upanishads. He was educated at home; and although at seventeen he was sent to England for formal schooling, he did not finish his studies there. In his mature years, in addition to his many-sided literary activities, he managed the family estates, a project which brought him into close touch with common humanity and increased his interest in social reforms. He also started an experimental school at Shantiniketan where he tried his Upanishadic ideals of education. From time to time he participated in the Indian nationalist movement, though in his own non-sentimental and visionary way; and Gandhi, the political father of modern India, was his devoted friend. Tagore was knighted by the ruling British Government in 1915, but within a few years he resigned the honour as a protest against British policies in India.

Tagore had early success as a writer in his native Bengal. With his translations of some of his poems he became rapidly known in the West. In fact his fame attained a luminous height, taking him across continents on lecture tours and tours of friendship. For the world he became the voice of India’s spiritual heritage; and for India, especially for Bengal, he became a great living institution.

 

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Sarojini Naidu was an Indian political activist and poet. A proponent of civil rights, women's emancipation, and anti-imperialistic ideas, she was an important figure in India's struggle for independence from colonial rule. Naidu's work as a poet earned her the sobriquet 'the Nightingale of India', or 'Bharat Kokila'.

This poet-freedom fighter born in 1879 was the first of several children to Dr. Aghore Nath Chattopadhyay, Principal of Nizam College, Hyderabad, and Barada Sundari Devi, a Bengali poet. As a student, Sarojini was bright and soon she excelled in many languages including Bengali, Urdu, Telugu and Persian besides English. The Nizam of Hyderabad on reading Sarojini’s Persian play, Maher Muneer, sent by her father was so impressed with the young woman he granted her a scholarship to study in King’s College and later she went on to Girton College in Cambridge.

She was introduced to Gopal Krishna Gokhale who in turn put her on to other prominent political figures of the time like Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, C. P. Ramaswami Iyer and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Sarojini famously referred to Gandhiji once as “Mickey Mouse”. She played a leading role in the Civil Disobedience Movement and was imprisoned thrice.

She worked alongside Nehru for the welfare of the Indigo workers of Champaran in Bihar and fought vehemently with the British for rights. Sarojini Naidu travelled all over the country and held forth on dignity of labour, women’s emancipation and nationalism.

Sarojini was made President of the Indian National Congress in 1925. She founded the Women’s Indian Association with Dr Annie Besant. She travelled to Europe, the US and UK. After Independence, she became the first woman governor of an Indian state, the United Provinces now known as UP.

 

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Govind Swarup was a radio astronomer and one of the pioneers of radio astronomy, known not only for his many important research contributions in several areas of astronomy and astrophysics, but also for his outstanding achievements in building ingenious, innovative and powerful observational facilities for front-line research in radio astronomy. He was the key scientist behind concept, design and installation of the Ooty Radio Telescope (India) and the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) near Pune. Under his leadership, a strong group in radio astrophysics has been built at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research that is comparable to the best in the world.

Prof Swarup was born in Thakurdwara, now in the state of Uttar Pradesh, on March 23, 1929. He obtained his undergraduate education at Allahabad University and then joined the National Physical Laboratory in Delhi. After a stint in Australia building telescopes at Pott’s Hill near Sydney, Prof Swarup moved to the US, where he obtained a PhD from Stanford University. At the back of his mind, always, was the thought to return to India to establish the newly emerging field of radio astronomy.

Initially he joined National Physical laboratory for two years. Returning from Stanford to India in March 1963, he joined TIFR as a Reader at the request of Dr. Homi Bhabha. In 1965, he became Associate Professor, Professor in 1970, and Professor of Eminence in 1989. He became Project Director of the GMRT in 1987, Centre Director of the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) of TIFR in 1993 and retired from TIFR in 1994.

 

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Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell is an astrophysicist from Northern Ireland who, as a postgraduate student, discovered the first radio pulsars in 1967.[9] She was credited with "one of the most significant scientific achievements of the 20th century".

Burnell was a PhD student at Cambridge at the time and was working with her supervisor Hewish to make radio observations of the universe. She ended up discovering a pulsar using a vast radio telescope occupying an area of 4.5 acres that was designed by Hewish and joined him and the team of five when the construction of the telescope was about to begin. The telescope was built to measure the random brightness flickers of a different category of celestial objects called quasars.

The telescope took over two years to build and the team started operating it in July 1967. As per Burnell, she had the sole responsibility of operating the telescope and analysing its data output, which amounted to 96-feet of chart paper everyday, which she analysed by hand.

In the 1977 article, titled, “Little Green Men, White Dwarfs or Pulsars?”, Burnell wrote that the story of the discovery of pulsars began in the middle of 1960s when the technique of interplanetary scintillation (IPS) was discovered. This technique involved the fluctuation in the emission of radio signals from a compact radio source such as a quasar and was chosen by Hewish to pick out quasars. While analysing the telescope’s output, Burnell saw that there were unexpected markings on the chart that were recorded approximately every 1.33 seconds.

 

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Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies celestial objects at radio frequencies. The first detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was in 1932, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories observed radiation coming from the Milky Way. Subsequent observations have identified a number of different sources of radio emission. These include stars and galaxies, as well as entirely new classes of objects, such as radio galaxies, quasars, pulsars, and masers. The discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation, regarded as evidence for the Big Bang theory, was made through radio astronomy.

Radio astronomers use different techniques to observe objects in the radio spectrum. Instruments may simply be pointed at an energetic radio source to analyze its emission. To "image" a region of the sky in more detail, multiple overlapping scans can be recorded and pieced together in a mosaic image. The type of instrument used depends on the strength of the signal and the amount of detail needed.

Observations from the Earth's surface are limited to wavelengths that can pass through the atmosphere. At low frequencies, or long wavelengths, transmission is limited by the ionosphere, which reflects waves with frequencies less than its characteristic plasma frequency. Water vapor interferes with radio astronomy at higher frequencies, which has led to building radio observatories that conduct observations at millimeter wavelengths at very high and dry sites, in order to minimize the water vapor content in the line of sight. Finally, transmitting devices on earth may cause radio-frequency interference. Because of this, many radio observatories are built at remote places.

 

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Early life

His parents worked on the world’s first commercially-built computer, Ferranti Mark-I. After graduating from school, Berners-Lee opted to study Science at Oxford University. He thought it might be more practical to study Science as it combined his interests in Electronics and Maths. In fact, it turned out to be more than just a pragmatic choice as it opened up a world of knowledge for him.

A love for trains

When he was 1, Berners-Lee went to a school located between two railway tracks. He used to encounter a lot of trains on his way, and he started trainspotting, an activity of watching trains and writing down the numbers each engine has. When he was in college, he even made a computer out of an old television set. He bought the set from a repair shop. And assembling the computer cost him only five pounds (approximately Rs 500.)

Bringing the world closer

While working at the European Laboratory for Particle-Physics (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, a 25-year-old Berners-Lee began tinkering with a software programme to connect the world. He worked with Belgian systems engineer Robert Cailliau to refine the proposal for a hypertext system, which eventually led to the creation of the World Wide Web. He also created the first web browser and editor. The world’s first website, http://info.cern.ch, was launched on August 6, 1991. It explained the World Wide Web concept and gave users an introduction to getting started with their own websites. Right from the start, Berners-Lee recognized that the Web could either be a boon or bane. According to his website, Berners-Lee hopes that the web can be used as a communication tool and can help people understand each other.

The future is Solid

Over the last few years however, there have been many instances of big tech companies using the Internet to infringe upon the privacy of their uses. Disappointed by this, in November 2020, Berners-Lee announced his comeback with a project to decentralize the Internet and secure the users’ privacy. His new project, Solid, aims to restore the control of the Internet to its users and “redirect” the Web to his original vision of a democractic and equal network of information. He stated on his website that the current web had became “a driver of inequality and division”. He doesn’t like the fact that his invention is now being ruled by a handful of tech giants who demand personal information from users in exchange for their services.

Oh really?

• Burners-Lee was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004.


• In college, Berners-Lee built a computer out of an old television set.


• The first website was info.cern.ch, hosted by CERN, on Tim’s desktop computer.


• It is estimated today that just under 40% of the world’s population has Internet access.


• Berners-Lee worked as a teacher at MIT in Boston.

 

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From "The Little Mermaid" and The Ugly Duckling" to "The Emperor and his New Clothes and "The Steadfast Tin Soldier, fairytales written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen have been our childhood companions. But did you know that Andersen's life too was no less than a fairy tale? Read on to know more...

Early life

Born in 1805 in Odense, Denmark, Andersen came from an extremely poor family. His father worked as a shoemaker and mother was a washerwoman. Thanks to his father, Andersen had a rich imagination and a love for storytelling. Tragedy struck when Andersen lost his father at the age of 11.

After his father's death, Andersen moved to Copenhagen, hoping to become an actor. He was gifted with an exceptional voice. However, his voice soon lost its special quality and a disappointed Andersen was about to return home empty-handed when he met Jonas Collin, director of the Royal Danish Theatre. Collin funded Andersen's education after seeing his talent for spinning stories and realising he needed to go to school.

However, school tuned out to be a bitter experience for Andersen. He was much older than the other students, and the schoolmaster found endless ways to make fun of him. Finally, Andersen completed his schooling with the help of a private tutor. He later attended and graduated from Copenhagen University. Andersen spent many years travelling and writing poems, books, and plays, which met with some success. In 1835, he published his first novel, "The Improvisatore", and the same year, he published his first collection of fairy tales, known as "Fairy Tales Told for Children", but was later renamed "New Fairy Tales and Stories".

Fairy tale ending

Andersen put many pieces of his own life into his fairy tales. For instance, "The Little Mermaid" features the mermaid moving from one world to another something Andersen experienced when he rose from poverty. Similarly, he drew upon his mother's past to write "The Little Match Girl", a story full of compassion for the underprivileged. His personal experiences are also reflected in "The Ugly Duckling", which points out that sometimes the qualities that make you feel lonely, different and out of place are the very qualities that, when properly used, can make you shine.

In 1867, he returned to Odense, and the last of his fairy tales was published in 1872. After a long illness, he died in Copenhagen on August 4, 1875. In honour of his legacy, a Hans Christian Andersen statue along with the Little Mermaid was erected in 1913. Another statue of the author is in New York City's Central Park.

Oh really?

• The Little Mermaid" and "The Snow Queen" stories are actually tragedies, they had unhappy endings. But the tone of the stories was made lighter when they were adapted into films by Disney.


• Two museums, H.C. Andersen Hus and H.C. Andersens Barndomshjem, are dedicated to the author in his hometown of Odense. In addition, there's a statue in Central Park, New York, commemorating Andersen and his story, "The Ugly Duckling"


• Andersen's fairy tales have been translated into more than 125 languages.

Legacy continues

The Hans Christian Andersen Awards are bestowed upon a children's writer and an illustrator for their "lasting contribution to children's literature". The writing award was inaugurated in 1956, the illustration award in 1966. The writing award is also called the "Nobel Prize for children's literature".

 

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Stanley Martin Lieber, better known as Stan Lee, is credited with creating iconic characters and infusing superheroes with personalities and emotions, making them more human and relatable. But did you know he started writing comics for Marvel at the age of 172 Read on to know about the figurehead of Marvel Comics, who ushered in a new age of comics.

Early life

Lee was born on December 28, 1922 in the middle of the Great Depression. Struggling to make ends meet, Lee and his family lived in a tiny, cramped apartment in the bustling city of New York. In this confined atmosphere, he threw himself into books, reading everything, including Mark Twain, Jules Verne Hardy Boys and Jonathan Swift. Reading enabled him to hone his sense of adventure and creativity, thus he began scribbling his own comics.

The Marvel years

A lucky break at 17 landed him a job as an assistant at "Timely Publications", which would later turn into "Marvel Comics". Although he loved writing his own comic books, the thought of working for a comic books company never crossed his mind. At "Timely", his job was far from glamorous. He had to bring coffee and sandwiches for the team, fill inkwells and erase the pencil lines under the ink.

Adventures of the Human Eraser

Erasing pages everyday gave him the idea for a new superhero, ‘The human eraser’. The idea never took off, but he got a chance to write for the third issue of "Captain America". It was called

"Captain America foils the Traitor's Revenge". This was the first story he wrote, coming up with the idea that the superhero can use his shield as a weapon, a move that became widely popular among fans. Impressed with his work, Lee was made editor at just 17! But after 20 years into the job, Lee grew unhappy with Martin Goodman, the owner of the company, as he was demanding run-of-the mill characters. Lee was on the verge of quitting when his wife Joan advised him to write one book the way he'd like to and see what happened. She told him that even if Goodman didn't like it. Lee had nothing to lose anyway. What followed were the golden years of the company.

POW!

Responding to competition from DC's Justice League, Lee came up with "The Fantastic Four". What set the characters apart was that Lee gave them real emotions and problems. In the same vein, he created Peter Parker as an average, socially awkward kid, who turns into Spider-Man. The character was different from the typical macho heroes and villains of the time, and became instantly popular as fans could easily relate to him. In 2001, Lee started his own company POW Entertainment, along with Gill Champion and Arthur Lieberman. He remained Marvel's honorary chairman and was the executive producer of the Marvel films. He made it a point to appear in a cameo in every single Marvel film. Lee passed away on November 12, 2018, but his legacy continues to live on.

Lee's Lore

Name:

Stanley Martin Lieber

Born:

December 22, 1922

Died: November 12, 2018,

Popular works:

• "The Fantastic Four",


• "The Hulk",


• "Amazing Spider Man",


• "Doctor Strange", "Avengers"

The marvel method

In 1981, Lee and artist Jack Kirby created ‘The Fantastic Four' about four astronauts who acquire superpowers after a cosmic incident. One year later, Lee and artist Steve Ditko created "Spider-Man". Lee, Kirby, and Ditko adopted a collaborative workflow that came to be known as "the Marvel method".

Oh really?

• Stan Lee signed all his comics with the word "Excelsior!" and wrote 'nuff said’ at the end of some stories


• A 16-year-old George RR Martin, wrote a fan letter to Lee, pointing out a flaw in one of the editions of Fantastic Four


• In 2015, Lee's graphic memoir "Amazing Fantastic Incredible: A Marvelous Memoir was published.


• In the memoir, Lee revealed that Hulk's green colour was a result of a printer’s mistake. The character was actually supposed to be grey.


• Before he got his break in the comic books industry, Lee wrote obituaries for a local paper.


• Lee has a cameo appearance in all Marvel films.

The controversy

In 2018, Stan Lee was accused of behaving inappropriately towards nurses caring for him at his home. However, Lee's lawyer had "categorically denied" the accusations.

 

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From jasper and Jinx to Tom and Jerry

One of the most beloved rivalries in history is back! Wamer Bros, has released the first trailer of the upcoming "Tom & Jerry" film. It is the first movie to feature the legendary cat and mouse duo in almost three decades, and the setting is at a wedding in New York!

The film will be an eye-popping blend of classic animation and live action. While Tom and Jerry will retain their cartoon avatars, the rest of the world around them will be in live-action mode. In director Tim Story's "Tom & Jerry", the eternal frenemies will have to do the unthinkable... work together to save the day.

The cat and mouse duo was dreamt up by creators William(Bill) Hanna and Joseph (Joe) Barbera, who worked with MGM’s animation department. The studio was desperate while their competitors were coming up with hit characters like Porky Pig and Mickey Mouse.

Both the animators began brainstorming. Barbera wanted to create a simple cat and mouse cartoon, with conflict and chase, even though it had been done countless times before. So, Jasper and Jinx, who later became Tom and Jerry, were born.

The first episode featuring Jasper and Jinx Titled “Puss Gets the Boot” released in 1940 and won the studio and Oscar nomination for best animated short. But Hanna and barbera were not given any credit for it.

Scripting success

Buoyed by the success of “Puss gets the Boot”, the creators continued to develop the cat-and-mouse these on their own, even though their supervisor Fred Quimby didn’t want any more cat and mouse cartoons. And, the result was “Tom and Jerry”. The characters first appeared in 1941’s ‘The Midnight Snack.”

Modelled after the “Puss Gets the Boot” characters with minor alterations, the series followed Jerry, the rodent who continually outwitted his feline foe, Tom. Having grown up watching silent films starring Charlie Chaplin, the creators knew their cartoons could be funny without dialogue. Music composed by Scott Bradley underscored the action and Tom's trademark human-like scream was voiced by Hanna himself

Two decades later, their department at MGM was closed down in 1957 when the studio realised they could make money simply through re-runs of the shorts already created by Hanna and Barbera.

So the duo went on to set up their own production company, creating legendary characters such as Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear and hit shows like 'The Flintstones", "Top Cat", "Scooby Doo", "The Smurfs" and even "Charlotte's Web".

A new direction

Meanwhile, the production of "Tom and Jerry" was taken over by Chuck Jones, best known for his work on Looney Tunes at Warner Brothers. Jones gave Tom a new avatar with thicker eyebrows and a twisted face resembling the Grinch, one of Dr. Seuss's characters.

 

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