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Latest Activity: Apr 26, 2015

A writer is someone on whom "nothing is lost." - Henry James

Words differently arranged have different meanings, and meanings differently arranged have a different effect - Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician

All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time - Earnest Hemingway

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people - Thomas Mann

The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. - Albert Einstein

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 26, 2015 at 11:27am: Do scientists make better writers?

Are scientists better writers? I am talking of trained scientists, engineers and medics. They write good works of art better than` most of those writers trained in art, cultural studies and literature. This cultural experience is not only confined to contemporary arts but from time immemorial, nor from one culture but across diverse cultures.

Africa has very many cases of scientists who have prospered in the art sector. Both male and female. The likes of Yusuf Dawood, a surgeon, passionately writing with a knack of a Russian. Dawood is actually Anton Chekhov of Kenya. The literary prizes he has received out-number the science prizes on his name. I personally treasure him as a saint of African literature in regard to his novel Water under the Bridge. This literary virtue equally extends to another Kenyan; the late Grace Ogot (RIP), a clinical nurse turned a literary guru. By the time of her death, towards the end of last month, I was coincidentally reading her short story, ‘The Bamboo Hut’ in the anthology African Short Story. This story by Ogot is lively, feminist, Africanist, gender focused and contemporary in values and tastes. Lenrie Peters, Cyprian Ekwensi and Elechi Amadi cannot be forgotten. These scientists all come from West Africa. Peters is a surgeon, Ekwensi is a pharmacist, and Amadi is a chemical engineer. But the world does not know them for science. They are all known as pillars of African literature. Ekwensi is Known for his three novels: Burning Grass, People of the City, and Loko Town. His short story, ‘The Grazing Field Law’ is also classical in its own way. Amadi is at peak of African literature. Especially, the novel and drama. ‘The Concubine’ and ‘The Great Ponds’ are Amadi’s two novels that made him to look larger than life. His drama Isiburu stands tall like in the mountains of African theatre. The great virtue of these African scientists that became writers is that they don’t bore you with didacticism. Their works are reader-focused.
https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000159685/do-scientists-ma...
By Alexander Opicho

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 27, 2014 at 5:44am: Often, we worry about spelling and grammar in our papers and articles
However, what you investigate and how you investigate ideas/ theories/matter is much more important!
Is the problem important? Is the method elegant and powerful?
Or would other methods work better? +mistakes made in the
beginning are hard to undo later...

http://www.liacs.nl/~bvstrien/stuva_files/slides1411-sciencetalent.pdf

3 . Principles of ideas
Get many ideas (Pauling)
Do proper quality check/design optimization (Joule)
Use techniques like visualisation (Einstein)

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 17, 2014 at 2:34pm: Shakespeare's surprising legacy

On the eve of his 450th birthday, explore how science influenced Shakespeare

Poet. Playwright. Scientist? William Shakespeare is known for being many things - but never a scientist.

This week, you can discover how the Bard's imagination was fired by an insatiable curiosity for the natural world, from cosmology to medicine to psychology.
Shakespeare's small grammatical twists unleash a tempest in the brain
-
New Scientist magazine - 19 April 2014
http://www.newscientist.com/issue/2965?

--

What Shakespeare Knew about Science [Excerpt]

William Shakespeare may well have been more aware of his era’s science—including the Copernican view that the planets revolve around the sun—than has generally been thought

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-shakespeare-knew-abo...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 25, 2014 at 6:24am: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116170/jane-austen-game-theorist...
Can science explain literature perfectly?

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 21, 2013 at 6:13am: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=writing-can-help-i...
Writing Can Help Injuries Heal Faster

Expressive writing may lead to faster recovery from injury

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 22, 2013 at 7:17am: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-a-computer-pro...
How a Computer Program Helped Reveal J. K. Rowling as Author of A Cuckoo’s Calling

Author of the Harry Potter books has a distinct linguistic signature

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 14, 2013 at 7:07am: I just read a dumb article about rituals of writers. Dumb because I never practice any rituals before writing. Writing itself gives a kick and I don't need any other! Your brain burns, burns, burns and burns and it can be cooled down and get relieved only when you put all that fuel on a piece of paper! It is all in your mind, if you can't read your own mind, yes, you need external assistance!

You can read the article there: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/literally-psyched/2013/08/12/ca...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 16, 2013 at 5:57am: Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa just now
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http://www.thehindu.com/features/the-yin-thing/writing-and-experime...
Writing and experimenting
In Britain’s often ill-tempered culture wars where—like Twain scientists and literary intellectuals are destined never to meet, Sunetra Gupta is among the exceptions: a well-known scientist and an equally well-known writer. She has just been honoured for her contribution to science but through the medium of art!

Professor Gupta was among a select group of female scientists whose specially commissioned portrait sketches were shown at the Royal Society’s "Great Women in Science’’ show as part of its prestigious summer science exhibition in London. A rare honour, it confirmed her status as a true representative of C. P. Snow’s "two cultures" _ someone who is able so effortlessly to straddle the perceived gap between science and art.

Like Snow, she doesn’t see a division between art and science and believes that they are simply different ways of expressing ideas.

"A mathematical equation can be as beautiful as a Keats’ poem," she said in a BBC interview.

Asked whether she saw herself primarily as a scientist or a novelist, Prof Gupta, who has written five novels one of which was long listed for the Orange Prize, replied: "I think of myself as both. What I want to do is to shed some sort of light—some minor illumination—on human condition. I use different languages to explore it. I think certain languages are more appropriate like the language of mathematics for understanding the physical world—and other languages such as poetry are more appropriate when you are trying to understand what’s going on inside yourself."

Her inclusion in the art show was specifically a recognition of her achievements as a woman scientist in an environment that is not exactly friendly to female professionals.