The Welcome Rain

Mumbai has been hopelessly inundated by a very early monsoon – about two weeks too early. (Was it just yesterday that we were complaining about the temperatures?)

There is something about water falling from the sky that makes hearts soar and minds leap.

Something that goes back to primeval times perhaps when the first life forms arose from the oceans.

When it rains, you just want to stand and stop and stare. Dream a little maybe.

The best place to the see the monsoon break is from the seashore. With the institute close to the ocean, life seems just perfect.

In MEI, the place to savor the pleasure of the first rains of the season is in the library with its full-length glass windows. So you can sample the raging fury of nature and the voluptuous waves of the ocean (that only a monsoon can bring) without actually getting drenched.

Too bad I can’t spend all my time in the library. For now I shall take solace in this glorious picture. (taken by V.L. , I think).

Linkety Link

Its that time of the year again folks, when I put together all the great links that i have recieved for you to peruse at your pleasure. (actually no I put them here so that I dont misplace them)

1) The Gamma Song : This is a brilliant geeky parody of the famous Llama song. Best part of it is that it is entirely desi - made by two intrepid students of IIT, Kanpur who blog here and here. Link courtesy of A.B.

2) Mozart : Ever since I saw Amadeus which is about the life and times of Mozart - particularly about his rivalry with his closest competetitor Salieri, I can't get over the music of Mozart. Here is link that takes you to several of his works. My personal favourite is Symphony no 25 which incidently is also the tune used by Titan to market their watches. Pox on the critters for not acknowledging Mozart in their ads!

3) Physics Jokes: there is thread over at one of my favourite blogs about science jokes more specifically physics jokes. Here is my favourite though i needed the help of Maths expert S.L. to figure it out!

The cocky exponential function e^x is strolling along the road insulting the functions he sees walking by. He scoffs at a wandering polynomial for the shortness of its Taylor series. He snickers at a passing smooth function of compact support and its glaring lack of a convergent power series about many of its points. He positively laughs as he passes |x| for being nondifferentiable at the origin. He smiles, thinking to himself, “Damn, it’s great to be e^x. I’m real analytic everywhere. I’m my own derivative. I blow up faster than anybody and shrink faster too. All the other functions suck.”

Lost in his own egomania, he collides with the constant function 3, who is running in terror in the opposite direction.

“What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you look where you’re going?” demands e^x. He then sees the fear in 3’s eyes and says “You look terrified!”

“I am!” says the panicky 3. “There’s a differential operator just around the corner. If he differentiates me, I’ll be reduced to nothing! I’ve got to get away!” With that, 3 continues to dash off.

“Stupid constant,” thinks e^x. “I’ve got nothing to fear from a differential operator. He can keep differentiating me as long as he wants, and I’ll still be there.”

So he scouts off to find the operator and gloat in his smooth glory. He rounds the corner and defiantly introduces himself to the operator. “Hi. I’m e^x.”

“Hi. I’m d / dy.”

4)A different sort of wine: If anyone ever gets around to making this, remember you read it here first. Link provided by T.S. so you can blame him for the consequences.