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.

The Future of Learning

Many of us (including me and some of my friends) have gone through high school and college, cursing the way certain subjects were taught. It's not the fault of the teachers but the fault of the system. And with the changing times and technological advancement, the education system has to evolve too. Given the fact that there is generally a lack of good teachers around the whole world, we need to come up with something which will solve the problem of education. So being an addicted internet user, I was browsing through some YouTube videos when I came across a video about some basic topics on physics by a channel MinutePhysics, and I was fascinated with it! In the following days, I found few more channels which had similar educational yet interesting videos. So while I was getting more and more educational video recommendations, I bumped into a few TED talks about changing the educational system, and this post is about them. (Even if you don't read my commentary about the videos, I strongly suggest you should watch all of them.)

What is really the problem of the public education system?

The first one that I came across was by Sir Ken Robinson on what is wrong with the current education system (Do Schools Kill Creativity?) in which he talks about how education destroys creativity. As he says in the talk “Everybody is born as an artist, but we are educated out of creativity.” Who does actually benefit from the current system? As he points out, the education system was developed in the interest of industrialization and in the image of it. Schools are organised like factory lines, producing workers. We should stop teaching in schools with the production line mentlity. In other video (Bring on the Learning Revolution – I especially love the part between 10-15 min) he talks about reforming the education system to help kids to discover what they love to do rather than standardising everything. (I should mention here that I have become a great fan of Sir Robinson. He has such a great sense of humour and a British accent! No wonder his talks are so interesting!)

What can we do about it?

The talks from Sir Robinson summarize what is wrong with the education system. But what can we do about it? There is a brilliant talk by Sugata Mitra (SugataMitra's new expetiments in self teaching) on a radically new experiment and I don't want to take away any surprises by talking about it so you should go ahead right away and see it.

(Now assuming you have seen the above mentioned video) That was one way to reform education. What else can we do? Here is a talk by Salman Khan (No, not THAT Salman Khan) about how he got the idea about creating small videos about different topics which grew so much and went on to become one of the largest online high-school and undergrad level learning website. (Let's use video to reinvent education) (My favourite line - “If Isaac Newton had done YouTube videos about Calculus, I wouldn't have to!”) You can also go through this video for Khan's motivation and ideas (Year 2060: EducationPredictions)

And Salman Khan isn't the only one doing this, there are plenty of others who are following the same tracks where they want to convolve (YouTube like) videos to teach common things to students with exercises on websites which will monitor their progress, while teachers can focus on individual educational needs of children.

Another interesting video that I came across was by John Green. (PaperTown Academy) He talks about his thoughts as a student on growing up and getting a job, how he became a learner, and how the online community encourages students to get engaged into learning in a very entertaining way!

To finish off this compilation, I would recommend you to watch the following video (The Future of Learning, Networked Society ).

You can see that we are on the verge of a significant change in the educational system and it has already began and all of us should do whatever possible to improve the lives of the next generations!

Miroslav Klose – The Unsung Hero on the Green Turf

Miroslav Klose is the most familiar name in modern German Football. Those who have seen (any of) the last three world cups do not need a separate introduction of this goalscoring machine. The striker has been on the pinnacle of the German football for more than a decade now and was arguably the best striker of the last decade on the international level. He has the ability to score goals from almost any position. Although he is a right-footed player, he can score fantastic goals from left foot also, his powerful headers seem to burst the net. He doesn’t need a second touch to score a goal and can improvise from any situation to put the ball in the net. He is the ultimate predator. And who can forget his somersault celebrations? His different styles of flips are one more reason why he is favourite among the fans. The coaching staff of the German National team surely understand his importance to the team. Even when he is out of form, he is always included in the team, because when he wears the German colours, he will score goals.

Miroslav Klose

Klose comes from a sporting family. His mother, Barbara Jeż, was a member of Poland’s National Handball team, while his father, Josef Klose, was a professional footballer. He began his professional career at FC Homburg and played his club football at Homburg, Kaiserslautern, Werder Bremen and Bayern Munich, before leaving for Lazio last summer (2011). But it is not the club football that made him so famous. It is the international matches, especially the big competitions, that put him in the limelight. He has scored 14 goals in three World Cups finals, and he is tied with fellow German Legend Gerd Muller and just 1 goal behind Ronaldo in the all time WC goalscorers list. Klose is also the only player to have scored five or more goals in consecutive World Cups, as well as the only player to have scored at least four in three different tournaments. This is enough to make him a Legend. In 2001, he made a statement that in 10 years he would be the best German goal-scorer of all times. Well, he came very Klose to that. He is now just 5 goals behind Gerd Muller with a tally of 63 goals in 113 appearances.

Although sometimes regarded as a player whose success comes to full fruition more for country than club, Klose’s Bundesliga career was one of great accomplishment also. Playing for FC Kaiserslautern, Werder Bremen and Bayern Munich, Klose scored 126 goals in 316 league appearances, adding another 27 goals in European competition and 21 in Cup contests. He has scored an average of 0.40 goals per game, which is nearly equal to Raul’s tally of 0.41. But the pundits and critics always overlook this.

Another most important attribute of the German is his honesty and love of football. Klose is well known among his fellow players as being just and fair in his play (Which is hardly found in other players these days). He is never in the news for the wrong reasons. Even when he was not getting a regular first team action at Bayern recently, he never made a fuss about it publicly. Because of a series of injuries and the rise of Mario Gomez meant that Klose would be a second choice. Bayern were ready to offer him a year’s contract, but he wanted two years. Unfortunately no agreement was reached between the two and Klose was available in the transfer market. He received many lucrative offers from the Russian clubs but he turned them down and signed for Lazio in Italy. In today’s world where players change their loyalties for an increment, Klose certainly stood out as an exception. He is already back in form with 8 goals in 13 matches for Lazio and going strong! He is sure to play in the Euro ‘12 and is hoping to stay fit for the FIFA WC 2014 after which he wishes to hang his boots.

Here is an interesting fact about the right-footed striker: While playing with Werder Bremen he appeared to be fouled by the Bielefeld goalkeeper and given a penalty kick. Klose knowing he had not been fouled let the referee know and the call was revoked. He is admired by his fellow players for this. Could you possible picture Ronaldo or Messi doing the same? I don’t think so.

Such gentlemen are hard to find in modern times. I wish him all the best for his future at Lazio and I hope he will shine again in the club football and will continue to entertain us with his trademark somersaults.

भुलेश्वर मंदिर:

भुलेश्वर मंदिर:

भुलेश्वर हे पुण्यापासून साधारण ५५ किमी अंतरावर स्थित शंकराचे मंदिर आहे. हे मंदिर अंदाजे ख्रिस्तजन्मानंतर १२३० साली चौल्य वंशाच्या राजांनी हे मंदिर बांधले. तर काही जाणकारांच्या मते मुख्य मंदिराचे बांधकाम ८ व्या शतकामध्ये पांडव (?) वंशाच्या काळात झाले आणि बाह्य भिंतीचे काम १३ व्या शतकामध्ये झाले. पण एका गोष्टीवर सर्वांचे एकमत आहे कि मूळ मंदिराचे बांधकाम आधी झाले आणि त्यानंतर काही वर्षांनी बाह्य भिंत बांधली गेली. ( मंदिरासाठी वापरलेला दगड आणि भिंतीसाठी वापरलेला दगड हे पूर्णपणे वेगळे आहेत ). पेशव्यांचे गुरु श्री ब्रह्मेंद्र स्वामी (Dhawadshikar) ह्यांनी १८ व्या शतकामध्ये ह्या मंदिराचा जीर्णोद्धार केला.

ज्या डोंगरावर हे मंदिर स्थित आहे त्याला दौलतमंगल किल्ला (मंगळगड) म्हणतात. हा किल्ला १६३४ मध्ये मुरार जगदेव ह्याने बांधला. (ह्या मुरार जग्देवाने पुण्यावर १६३० मध्ये हल्ला केला आणि गाढवाचा नांगर फिरवला. त्याने हा किल्ला पुण्यावर नजर ठेवण्यासाठी बांधला).

हे मंदिर शिवलिंग, तसेच मंदिराच्या भिंतीवरील कलाकुसरीसाठी तसेच अत्यंत सुरेख आणि रेखीव मूर्तींसाठी अत्यंत प्रसिद्ध आहे.. तसेच भारतीय स्थापत्याचा एक उत्तम नमुना आहे. भाविकांची अशी श्रद्धा आहे कि जर आपली इच्छा पूर्ण झाली (देवाचा कौल मिळाला) तर देवाच्या पिंडीखाली ठेवला जाणारा प्रसाद गायब होतो. ह्या मंदिराचे दुसरे महत्त्व असे कि ह्या ठिकाणी पार्वती आणि शंकराने एकत्र नृत्य केले आणि पुढे कैलास पर्वतावर जाऊन लग्न केले असे मानले जाते.

ह्या मंदिरावर मुसलमान राज्यकर्त्यांची अनेक आक्रमणे झाली. त्यांनी ह्या मंदिराच्या अनेक मूर्ती तोडून टाकल्या, कलाकुसरीचा संपूर्ण नाश केला.. अनेक मूर्तींचे हात पाय आणि डोकी उडवली आहेत, तसेच त्यांचा नाश करण्याचा पुरेपूर प्रयत्न केला आहे. मंदिराचे हे भग्न रूप पाहून मन विशण्ण होते.

मंदिराकडे जाण्याचा मार्ग:

पुणे - सोलापूर महामार्गावर साधारण ४५ किमी अंतरावर यवत गावाच्या जवळ उजवीकडे मंदिराकडे जायला एक फाटा आहे. येथून ७ किमी अंतरावर हे मंदिर आहे. जाताना वाटेत अत्यंत तीव्र चढ असलेला घात लागतो. त्यामुळे वाहने सुस्थितीत असल्याची खात्री करून मगच जावे.

अधिक माहितीसाठी संपर्क साधा:

http://bhuleshwar.com

येथे काही छायाचित्रांच्या लिंक्स देत आहे.

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Bhuleshwar

http://www.flickr.com/photos/soumitra911/3371746061/sizes/l/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vikrantdate/3839944746/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/awesh/3886966829/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ruhiclicks/2073666558/

मी काढलेली  छायाचित्रे:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/borkarabhijeet05/sets/72157626407645325/

Why?

I have been selected for the Visiting Students Research Programme (popularly VSRP) at National Centre for Radio Astronomy (NCRA-TIFR) for Summer 2011 and I will be working on ‘modelling the gas distribution in high-redshift galaxies and relating this to galaxies in the local Universe’.

When I told about this to my friends, many of my friends (mostly form engineering or finance background) asked me, “Why do you want to work on something like that?” Their criticism clearly pointing towards the fact that such a topic does not affect the humanity, not in the direct sense. Such a study will not increase the mileage of a car, nor will it solve the problem of power deficiency.

Ever since Man acquired the ability of thinking, He has been wondering “why what we see is the way it is?” He observed what was happening around and tried to deduce the laws governing different phenomena. To seek knowledge, to understand the surroundings is the fundamental character of humans. For thousands of years Man questioned everything that was happening around him and hunted for answers. He formulated theories about occurrences in his environment. Using these theories he created tools and machines for His assist.

One of the greatest and glorious examples of this is Sir Isaac Newton (I know many people curse this name) and the Theory of Gravitation. (The “apple falling from tree” story is a myth). There’s an interesting story about Newton. After completion of his high school, his mother wanted him to give up studies and start managing his deceased father’s farms. (‘Wish he had followed his mom’s advice!’ you’ll say!) It was his Uncle’s and Schoolteacher’s continuous requests to his mother made her change mind and let him go to Cambridge. Back to my point, the theory of gravitation is a marvel. What makes you roll down the hills is the same thing that makes the moon go around the earth! Isn’t that amazing? Now nobody had asked Newton to do this, to come up with a theory of Gravity. It was the inquisitive nature of his that asked the questions ‘why does the moon go round the earth? Who or what makes it do that? Why an up thrown ball comes down?’ And he thought about these and he found the answer. (It’s not that easy, try for yourself!)

After developing this theory, he came to know that every ball thrown upwards doesn’t necessarily have to come down. (Read escape velocity). And because of this idle musing of his, we have artificial satellites which, you know what they are used for...

A similar example can be given about the theory of Atoms. For thousands of years people had wondered ‘everything we see, what it is made up of?’ The Greeks thought all material were made up of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. They came up with the concept of an ‘Atom’, an indivisible particle of matter. (Indian philosophers also came up with similar theory independently.) Experiments done in the following two millennia confirmed this hypothesis. (Although E, A, F and W lost their place as fundamental entities, the idea of Atom was confirmed.) In the late 19th Century it was observed that the atom is divisible and was made up of positive and negatively charged parts and thus electron was discovered. In the early 20th century, as a result of efforts by Rutherford, Bohr and later Schrodinger, Dirac and many others, different models of atoms came forward and were refined time and again to give a proper model of an atom. Using this model the working of semiconductors could be explained. It was further used to develop better semiconductors and transistors which make up every tech gadget you use today.

The aim of physical science is to explain what happens around us, to explain every event that has happened, based on logical judgment. Develop a theory based on the evidences and observations. Use this theory to make predictions about further experiments and observations. If your theory can explain it, well and good; otherwise you will have to improve it (or someone else will).

“As long as Physical Science exists, the highest goal to which it aspires is the solution of the problem of embracing all natural phenomena, observed and still to be observed, in one simple principle which will allow all past and, especially, future occurrences to be calculated” – So said Max Planck, the Father of Quantum Theory.

Now going back to my project topic, the aim is to develop a consistent theory to describe the formation of galaxies in the early Universe by studying the gas dynamics of these galaxies and comparing these with the dwarf galaxies in the neighbourhood of our local galaxy cluster. If this works, great! If not, it will imply that there are some hidden unknown parameters that are affecting the evolution of galaxies. Then there will be a need of a theory that incorporates these unknown factors.

But above all this, there is one obsession that we do all this for, ‘pleasure’! As the greatest mind of the 20th Century, Richard Feynman said, “Physics is like Sex! It may give some fruitful results, but that’s not why we do it.”

Experiments with Death

I was riding my Splendor with the usual 45 kmph speed through the city. I thought somebody called me from the roadside, some friend yelling my name. I looked behind on the Footpath. Suddenly a bus comes speeding from left and BANG!!!!

I feel the blood coming off my head. The hot fluid rushing out of my brain spreads over the road. The pain of the broken spine is unbearable. My vision is blurring. I cannot move a bit. My hand is trembling. And then everything goes dark, Forever....

This was just one of my "Gedanken Experiments" (Thought Experiment) about my own death. I was asked many times "Do you Fear DEATH?" and my answer was always "NO I don't". They kept saying "You are bluffing, When you will actually see death, you will be damn frightened". I say Go To Hell.

Another example of such Thought Experiment.

I am trying to climb a difficult part of a cliff. I try to traverse it from the left. Suddenly the rock I am standing on breaks into small pieces. I am put off balance. I try to catch the cliff but in vain. I go down skidding, bumping the almost vertical cliff and hit the ground very hard. End of the Game.

Now a very interesting question comes forward. Why to do this? The First quickest answer that comes to my mind is Because It is Fun. But it is the least Important. The most important is the analysis of the Aftermath of the situation i.e. What will happen if this happens? If I die, how will people react?

Use your imagination here. being a physics student I am used to such problems. You are given a situation. Put the parameters in there and try simulation. Here parameters being Nature and Behavior of the nearest persons in your life or the ones you want to test.

For example

1. If I die with a road accident, how will my friends react. What will others say? "He was always a rash driver", "Too careless" etc or may be something else? Left for the reader as an exercise :-)

Similarly experimenting the death of your nearest people helps a lot. How will be your life if one of your parents dies? "Have you gone Mad Mr. Borkar?" okay lets face it. Everybody who is born is certainly going to die. BY this rule You, Your Parents, Your Siblings, Your Partner, Your kids, Your Friends, everybody is going to die. So simulating such situation helps you a lot.

Try it. For example if one of your sibling dies. How will that change your life? Again put the parameters in and simulate. You will see different people reacting differently. And it helps a lot in determining the course of your life.

Now if you think I am mad, Thank you. :-)

Being a Physicist

Being a Physicist is a really tough job.

Firstly doing physics is not as easy as people might think. Its a hell difficult a job.

Secondly the main problem is can you keep yourself motivated enough to continue working in the same field. Because Physics is a really boring subject if you are not doing a very fantastic job i.e. a Nobel Quality research. The worst times are when you are a UG or a PG student and you don't know about your Future. Then you keep thinking will I be able to keep myself motivated for atleast next 40 years of my life? Because the job you are doing will hardly get any recognition at all unless you are doing a Noble Stuff which is a pure rarity. The project you'll be working will be known to only a handful of people. You will get a decent Salary, no problem with that, but the name and fame will not be there. Unlike performing artists, who get attention even if they are performing on the smaller stage, hardly anybody notices your work. So the only thing you can do then is love whatever you are doing and enjoy the subject.

I would suggest to all those students who want to pursue a career in physics, just think about it many times and don't take hasty decisions. It will cost you a life. Because when you are deep into it, its really difficult to come out of it.

I have faced the same situation myself many times, wondering whether I would be able to do it, but I have emerged positive on that.