An Academic Pilgrimage

Göttingen. It is a small town in the heart of Germany, with several lines of farms and a few small industries. But very few other places in the world have been home to such a stellar population. Many great personalities have been associated with The Georg-August University of Göttingen such as the Brothers Grimm, Heinrich Heine and Otto von Bismarck. The University was founded in 1737 by King George II of Great Britain (who was also the Elector of Hanover) and so far, 45 Nobel Laureates have studied, taught or worked at the University. (And of course, there have been many great Scientists who have graced the town in the pre-Nobel era. Giving Nobel or Fields medal to the likes of Gauss and Riemann would be an insult). 

So when I was visiting my friends there for Easter, we decided to pay homage to the giants of academia that have graced the land of Göttingen.

House of Richard Courant (Mathematician):

House of Hermann Weyl (Mathematician and Theoretical Physicist):

House of Edmund Landau (Mathematician):

House of Carl Ludwig Siegel (Mathematician):

House of Hermann Minkowski (Mathematician):

House of Carld Freidrich Gauss (Mathematician & Physicist):

House of Ezequiel Uricoechea (Chemist, Linguist and Polymath):

The statue of Wilhelm Weber (Physicist) and Carl Freidrich Gauss:

Statue of Freidrich Wöhler (Chemist):

Tomb of Carl Freidrich Gauss:

House of Walther Nernst (Physical Chemist & Physicist)

The Institute of Theoretical Physics (Old Building):

Max Born was the head of the department

Victor Weisskoff (Physicist):

and Carl Freidrich von Weizsäcker

Werner Heisenberg and Wolfgang Pauli also worked here for some time.


House of Max von Laue (Physicist):

House of Emmy Noether (Mathematician and Theoretical Physicist):

House of Bernhard Riemann (Mathematician):

Applying for Ph.D. in Europe

Recently many people have asked me about the application procedure for Ph.D. in Germany, and answering the same questions to everybody individually is a pain, so I have decided to write this post about a general application procedure for PhD in Germany (or Europe in general).

Selecting the topic: The first and most important step is to decide which topic you want to work on. If you are unsure of the topic, then you can go through profiles of some researchers to know what they are working on and which topics might interest you. You can also talk to your professors, advisers or colleagues about the topic that you may want to work on. The topic should be scientifically important and feasible in the given time frame and budget. Once you have decided the topic(s), you can start the planning for applications.

Application Procedure: There are usually two ways to apply for a position. The traditional method is to look at the profiles of different researchers and see who is working on the topics you are interested in, and approaching them for a PhD position. You can email them stating your interest in working on the topic with him/her. If they have an open position, they will inform you about the detailed application procedure. Having a one-to-one conversation with them will be helpful in understanding (a) what your thoughts are about the topic and (b) what do they expect from you.

The second way is to apply to some graduate schools or research schools or standard application procedures of certain institutes or via some scholarship programs such as DAAD or Erasmus Mundus etc.. This method is helpful because most of these schools have a fixed budget which is independent of the budget of the researchers. Also due to standard procedures, you don't have to contact each and every person at that institute individually.

To have better chances at selection, it is advised to follow both the paths.

The application usually requires you to submit following documents:

1. A brief, concise curriculum vitae. The CV should contain objective information about your academic career, such as your grades at undergraduate and masters level, performance at entrance/qualification examinations, publications, projects you have worked on, schools & conferences attended and co-curricular activities.

2. Statement of Purpose: In this statement, you are expected to describe your broad aims during your Ph.D., why you are applying at that place, what are your expectations, and how will the institute benefit from you. It can also be used to assert certain qualities about you which are not stated in your CV. (This is similar to the statement you have to submit when you apply to Universities in USA.)

3. Research interest: Along with the application, you have to submit your research interest wherein you have to explain which topic you want to work on, why are you interested in that topic, and what are your ideas or inputs you have on that topic.

4. Letters of recommendation: Usually you have to submit at least 2 letters of recommendation from people who know you well, for example, someone who has guided you during a project, or a person who has taught you courses at bachelor's or master's level.

These are the documents that you would require for application, although the particulars may differ from case to case. The whole procedure from deciding the topic till the successful submission of the application usually takes few months, so it's always good to start early!

Science and Education on YouTube

Most of the netizens think of YouTube as a place for entertainment videos, a place where they can watch videos of adorable cats, or listen to the songs of their favourite artists, or find highlights of the football matches they missed. And it is true. But there are some people on the internet (including at YouTube) who want to change this image, and use this free platform to improve the human life altogether.

If you want to learn something new, you will find plenty of channels and videos where you can begin, from violin lessons to cooking to photography, YouTube has everything. But I want to focus mostly on Science and Education on YouTube. Not-so-recently, I have come across many channels that portray different aspects of Science, Education, and Learning. The main characteristics of these videos are that most of these are short videos with high school to undergrad level difficulty, thus they are perfect for most of the viewers who are interested. Here is the list. (It may be updated from time to time.)

1. MinutePhysics:
   I must begin with the first channel I came across and my favourite channel of all. Henry Reich, the presenter, uses the method of “time-lapsed drawings” to shed light on different topics in Physics. If you want to learn and understand the concepts of Physics but don't want to get involved in the math nor do you want to attend long science talks, then this is the right place for you. Everything that is related to Physics, from Newton's laws to Quantum tunnneling, you will find it on this channel. This is a cool video of Henry explaining his motivation and philosophy behind his videos and the process of making videos.
   
   
2. Veritasium:
   Derek Muller is an Australian with a degree in Engineering Physics and a Ph.D. in Physics Education Research. He is the host of the video blogging channel Veritasium (which, as he claims, means “The element of Truth”). He usually makes videos about popular misconceptions in physics. (And other times he makes many more cool videos, from Science music, to super slow motion videos and plenty of science stuff from his travels.) I had a few misconceptions about some topics and his videos helped immensely to understand what is really happening.
   
   
3. Crash Course:
   As the name suggests, this is a place to get short crash courses on different topics. This channel was created by brothers John and Hank Green (also known as the Vlogbrothers). John Green gave an awesome crash course on World History and recently finished the crash course on Literature and will be starting with the crash course on American History. While Hank completed a crash course on Biology and is presenting a course on Ecology. Why these videos are great? First reason is that they are really compact and yet provide enough information on the subject and make the viewer interested in pursuing the details about the topic. Second reason is the style of presentation. (There's not much point in explaining their styles. It is better you have a look, and I can bet you won't regret it.)
   
   
4. SciShow: A chennel hosted by Hank Green, “where the Sciecne goes”. Anything and everything related to science is here and is a place to disucss stuff related to Science. Hank talks about Science News, Experiments, Great Minds, basics of Astronomy, Physics, Biology, Geology, and Chemistry, and the most interesting of them all the "I don't think it means what you think it means" series where he explains the popular misconceptions.
   
   
5. CGPGrey:
   Colin Gregory Palmer Grey is a London based Yankee who makes videos to simplify complex ideas. In his series “Grey Explains Things” he takes up complicated and misunderstood ideas and simplifies them. One of his classics is the difference between London, England and the City of London. Some of his videos have gone viral over the internet, making him an instant celebrity, although he prefers not to reveal his face on camera.
   
   
6. TEDEd:
   TEDEd is an educational channel of TED.com. It is an online library of short, and concise videos whose ingredients are: cool animations, lucid narrations and high school level difficulty. This makes these videos extremely enjoyable at the same time being highly educational.
   
   
7. Vihart:
   Vihart is a channel by Victoria Hart, who is a “recreational mathemusician” and a mathematics professional at the Khan Academy. She has turned the doodling on the back pages of the notebook in boring maths classes to interesting personalized video doodles while discussing different topics in mathematics.
   
   
8. Vsauce:
   Vsauce is an educational YouTube channel created by Michael Stevens. In his most interesting videos he answers some popular and intriguing questions. The way he jumps from one topic to another in a videos is quite amusing. He also has many other series where he talks about cool stuff on the internet.
   
   
9. SmarterEveryDay:
   Smarter Every Day is a channel by Destin. He describes his project as: “I explore the world using science. That's pretty much all there is to it. The goal is simple. Instead of just setting money aside for my 3 kids' college fund, I spend it on making videos to educate the masses. Any donations I receive or revenue from the videos then becomes the college fund. This makes me more aggressive at saving for their college, and EVERYBODY GETS TO LEARN!” I can assure you, he has plenty of cool stuff on his channel, which includes, a extremely high resolution picture of Machu Pichu, extreme Slow-Mo shots of some amazing and newly discovered species in the Amazon, and Guns!
   
   
10. All Channels of video journalist Brady Haran:
    Sixty Symbols, Periodic Table of Videos, Deep Sky Videos, Numberphile, Testtube, Backstage Science.