Symmetry

"In everything… uniformity is undesirable. Leaving something incomplete makes it interesting, and gives one the feeling that there is room for growth… Even when building the imperial palace, they always leave one place unfinished.”

- Japanese Essays In Idleness, 14th Century

The world turns on symmetry -- from the spin of subatomic particles to the dizzying beauty of an arabesque. But there's more to it than meets the eye. Here, Oxford mathematician Marcus du Sautoy offers a glimpse of the invisible numbers that marry all symmetrical objects.

Feynman on 'Why' Questions, Nature and Chess

humorous encounter of a physicist and a person...



while I'm at it, here is Feynman's cool talk on the laws of nature and chess:

"But if you realise all the time what's kind of wonderful that is if we expand our experience into wilder and wilder regions of experience every once and a while we have these integrations in which everything is pulled together in a unification which turns out to be simpler than it looked before."

Symphony of Science

Neat!! Music and accompanying video is made by synthesizing speeches of many brilliant scientists (Feynman, Sagan, Hawkins etc.,) talking about science, life and the universe!





If you'd like to hear more (or download) visit the Symphony of Science website.

Liquid Helium II: The Superfluid

Professor Alfred Leitner walks you through and acquaints you with the many interesting properties of liquid helium. I can't resist to comment on the difference in quality of the content between this video and many 'science' videos on Discovery Channel...it's like a difference between watching a good quality movie, for example "Becket" (1964), versus not-so-good-quality movie, for example "Dude, Where is my car? (2000)". I hope Discovery channel takes a note of this video and draws appropriate conclusions hopefully resulting in less 'hype' and greater quality. Good videos are not only visually pleasing but also intellectually invigorating.
     

Biomimetic Nanoadhesives

Research Papers: Read & Write

Another useful resources to check out:
1. Prof. Whitesides' group: Writing a Paper
2. Keshav - How to Read a Research Paper