What is Good Arts, Science & Technology?

1. What is Good Arts, Science & Technology? Dr Ashok Rao Former Head, Network Project, CEDT, IISc, Bangalore-560012, India < ashokrao.mys@gmail.com >

2. Outline of Presentation • Why we need to look at such a Question? • Why is it so difficult to answer such a question? • What (can) constitute Good A, S & T ? • Is this idea of Good; Lasting, Consistent & Objective? • Is this “Goodness” universal? Or very Specific to A,S & T ? • Why only a few of such people are remembered and a great majority forgotten? • What kind of representation can we do for good A,S & T ? • What is the impact of such representation? • Discussion and conclusion (motivation to do A, S & T) • To motivate for Excellence.

3. Why we need to look at such a Question? • Arts & Science has shifted from an Individuals “Hobby”, Philosophers Pastime , Religious, Exclusive Adventurer’s (male only), broadly defined domain to one of: • Professional, Widespread, Middle class ventures, Institutional, Well (narrow) defined & Career oriented. • From Informal to extremely formal including Funded, Sponsored, Targeted and Criminally Oriented activity. ( Lord Kelvin, Lord Rayleigh, take the case of Arthur Cayley, a Mathematician, but..., even worse if one was a woman; Leelavathi, EmmeyNoether, Ingrid Daubechies) • It is phenomenally expensive and entry barriers are very high now (LHC, Hubble Telescope, Pharma/ Drugs).

4. Why it is so difficult to answer such a question? • It is well known that the ratios of people involved in A, S & T the world over is : • About 90 % do Bad / Poor A, S & T • About 9 % do Mediocre / Average A, S & T • About 1 % do Good / Excellent A, S & T • (What Scale are these?) • Geniuses (SrinivasRamanujam, Einstein) are excluded from this type of analysis.

5. What (can) constitute Good A, S & T? Try answering who is good / best? And Why ?

6. Who is the Best? And Why? • SachinTendulkar • RahulDravid • Anil Kumble • V V S Lakshman • M.S. Dhoni

7. Who now? • Suppose we add the following to the earlier list; • Kapil Dev • Sunil Gavaskar • G.R. Viswanath • B.S . Chandrashekar

8. What about now? • Suppose we make further additions; • Gary Sobers • Donald Bradman • Vivian Richards • Dennis Lillie

9. Now find out who is best & why? • Suppose we make diverse changes; • ViswanathAnand • Roger Federer • Nadia Comanacii • William Sisters • DhyanChand • RafalNadal

10. What about now? • Suppose we make dramatic / Universal changes; • Pele • Rod Laver • Gary Casporov • Mohammed Ali • Jesse Owens • Mark Spitz

11. What (can) constitute Good A, S & T? • Thus it is very difficult to “Judge or Evaluate”; • It can be Subjective (can be found in Nobel Committees) • Difficult to compare over years of change & domain. • What was elementary and valuable then is hardly of reckoning now. • Case of formula for (1+2+ …. (n-1) + n ) = n (n+1) / 2. • Gauss did this ………………, Now you cannot get reward for doing this. The Nobel Prize winning ideas of past are routine matters of class room teaching now.

12. What (can) constitute Good A, S & T? Yet few things can be observed, All sportspersons discussed are: • Stalwarts, Role Models in their domain. • Have shown World class performance. • Some have been very consistent and persistently the best over years • They are all EXCELLENT by any standards.

13. What is Excellence? Excellence is difficult to define but obvious to see and experience. Competence, Intense, Creative, Innovative, Out of Box thinking, Brave, Mature, Diverse, Patience, Clear, Curiosity, Persistence. PASSION & Love for Subject. PS: Note LUCK is not a factor.

14. So what is Good? • One can intuitively and in most cases “recognize” good A, S & T. Some dramatic examples: • Plato : One of the greatest Philosophers of all times. • Gauss: One of the greatest Mathematician of all times. • Pananni : One of the greatest Scholars / Linguist of all times. • Madame Curie: Nobel Prize in Physics & Nobel Prize in Chemistry. • Bardeen: Two NOBEL prizes in Physics (1956, 1972). • Nash: Nobel prize after spending ~ 25 years in mental asylum. • Who invented numeral “zero”. Why there is no Nobel Prize for this, even if it is THE most useful thing ever invented. • Even better , the invention of Wheel.

15. Were they doing Good Arts, Science & Technology? Oliver Heaviside Thomas Alva Edison Alexander Graham Bell Nikolai Tesla Wright Brothers John Von Neumann Watson & krick Denis Gabor Klienrock Jack Kilby Hounsfield MdYunus • Archimedes • Erthosthenes • Galileo Galilee • Leonardo-Da-Vinci • Johannes Kepler • Rene Descartes • Isaac Newton • Charles Darwin • James Maxwell • Henry Rutherford • Madame Curie • William Rontgen • Henri Poincarre

16. Were they doing Good Arts, Science & Technology? • AryaBhatta • Bhaskaracharya • SrinivasRananujam • J.C. Bose • S.N.Bose • C.V.Raman • S.Chandrashekar • Y.SubbaRao • Harish Chandra • G.N.Ramchandra • HargobindKhurana • Venkatraman • Chankaya (vishnusharma) • Kalidasa • Panini • Tansen • M.K .Gandhi • R.Tagore • K.S. Karantha • Bhimsen Joshi • GangubaiHangal • M.Vishveshwariah • Mohamed Yunus • AmartyaSen

17. How to Classify / Represent Excellence • Winners of Nobel Prize • But there are so few of them • The cases of A.Sommerfield or Oliver Heaviside • Newton never won the Nobel Prize • What about Leo Sizlard? • What is Nobel Prize all about? • Alfred Nobel and Ludwig Nobel (1888, Merchant of death is dead, changed the will) • Mathematics does not have Nobel Prize • What about Jean Paul Sarte? M.K.Gandhi?

18. How to Represent Excellence • We will develop a simple way to represent excellence in Arts, Science & Technology • It should be “Objective (enough)”. • It should be possible to generalize / extend the concept. • Who are the three best “Scientists” of all times? • And Why these three? • What characterizes the work by these three?

19. This slide Is left Intentionally blank

20. Simple Graphical Representation, Co-ordinate System y-axis I II origin x-axis III IV

21. Y (-X,+Y) (+X,+Y) X (-X,-Y) (+X,-Y)

22. 12 11 10 9 8 7 What Scale is this? What does it mean? 6 Y 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 X

23. 1000 What Scale is this? What does it mean? 100 Y 10 1 1 10 100 1000 X

24. 1000 (X,Y) 100 Y X –Axis: Impact on Society Y- Axis: Impact on Arts, Science 10 1 1 10 100 1000 X

25. 1000 100 Y 10 1 1 10 100 1000 X

26. 1000 100 Y 10 1 1 10 100 1000 X

27. Project Manhattan Hitler Napoleon Alexander Cesar Gulf War AE LP IN Y W Bro’s TAE AGB (-X,+Y) (+X,+Y) JCB X AoU @ birth (-X,-Y) (+X,-Y) MoS in Their career M VC’s of M UoI Politicians (BSY, HDDG) Taliban 99% of academic Leaders in India Pope / RL / Mutt Heads Caste based groups Most Mgmt’s the world over

28. LP; Louis Pasture: Pasture’s Quadrant 1000 100 Y Maximum +ve Impact on Society And Maximum + ve Impact on Arts & Science 10 Microbiology, Pharmacology, Biochemistry, Cell biology. 1 1 10 100 1000 X

29. Y (-X,+Y) PQ: (+X,+Y) X (-X,-Y) (+X,-Y)

30. Look Carefully About 90 % do Bad / Poor A, S & T (Most state Universities and Colleges in India) About 9 % do Mediocre / Average A, S & T (Most IIT’s, IISER, JNCSR, IIM’s, CSIR lab’s, Central Univ., IUCAA,IIAP,RRL’s in India) About 1 % do Good / Excellent A, S & T (Few (not all) in IISc, TIFR, ISI, TISS, few IIT’s and exceptionally few in the above systems)

31. G t B Project Manhattan Hitler Napoleon Alexander Cesar Gulf War AE LP L da V IN Y W Bro’s TAE AGB (-X,+Y) (+X,+Y) JCB X AoU @ birth (-X,-Y) (+X,-Y) MoS in Their career M VC’s of M UoI Politicians (BSY, HDDG) Taliban 95% of academic Leaders in India Pope / RL / Mutt Heads Caste based groups Most Mgmt’s world over

32. 1000 Thinkers 100 Reformers Y 10 1 Performers 1 10 100 1000 X

33. Thinkers (Liberal / Radical) Reformers (Balanced Actors) Y Performers (People of Action) Pretenders (Politicians/ Beaurecrats) X Incompetent Buffoons (aspirants of VC/Dir) Fundamentalists (Caste/Language Ideology, etc)

34. What is the future ? • Modern Education is Interesting, Challenging and Provides for a career. • Most technologies in the long run are Unsustainable. • Future lies in benign science & technology • Biology-Life Sciences (CowD, CamD), Climate & its ramifications, Sustainable Scientific research (not like LHC). • Merger of S & T and Social Sciences. • Be in Pastures’ / Buddha's / Leonardo-Da-Vinci Quadrant, closer to 45% line. • The future is determined by Z-axis.

35. Remembrances (+ +) • Gautama, Mahavira, Chanakya , Thiruvallavur • Charvaka , AryaBhatta , Panini , Susrutha • Shankara / Ramanuja / Madhwa • J.C. Bose (**) , R.Tagore • SrinivasRamanujam , Y. SubbaRao (***) • Harish Chandra , G.N. Ramachandra (****) • K.S.Karantha , (C.V.Raman)

36. Summary There is no Alternative to Excellence (Do not chase Nobel Prize, you must / will get it (if you deserve) on your journey in Science & Technology) Competence, Intense, Creative, Innovative, Brave, Out of Box thinking, Mature, Diverse, Patience, Clear, Curiosity, Cross-Inter disciplinary thinking Persistence, PASSION & LOVE for Learning.

37. Thank You Any Questions? Reference: Donald E. Stokes; “Pastures Quadrant “ , Brookings Institutional Press, Washington D.C.1997