Topical

Sunday Column 27-08-2023

One of my school friend once asked me: We have learned about sin theta, cos theta, tan theta etc, in our schools and colleges, but never use them in real life. What is the use of learning these things?

You can very well ask this to the scientists who put Chaandryan 3 on moon. Without these thetas they would have never succeeded in achieving this. These scientists live in the world of thetas. Imagine yourself lighting a rocket during Diwali. You put it in the bottle without worrying about the angle, the thetas. Most of the time the rocket goes into your neighbour’s house. Imagine the scientist doing this!!!

Sending a spacecraft to the moon is very complicated, It involves hundreds of thousands of calculation using, you guessed it, the thetas. Now you will claim that computer does this these days. Yeah right, but who writes the code to these calculations??? Blasting the rocket into space is one thing. Putting the payload into correct orbits involves firing of those onboard engines. This firing duration is calculated down to the fraction of a second. A little more or little less can put the payload of the track. Space stations located around the globe track the mooncraft 24/7. Course corrections are calculated and onboard engines are fired to execute these manoeuvres.

Radio-telemetry is used to talk with the space craft. Pulse-code-modulated signals are used to communicate. In simple terms, these are nothing but ones and zeros like in our PC, riding on radio signals.

Point is, all this requires use of precise mathematics involving those thetas we learned in school.

In the last few days, countless references have been made in media about those saree clad, mangalsutra wielding women scientists who worked on this mission. Do I sense a gender bias even while acknowledging the contribution of these women scientists? YES, I DO. When you talk about the PM, do you make a mention of his zabba? Do you remark about the lungis warn by the Chidambarams, the Naidus. Do you mention the Dhoti warn by Mr. Mallikarjun Kharge, the current congress president? Then why invoke the saree, the mangalsutra, the bindi, when you talk about these woman scientists?

During my work at TIFR, I had the privilege of working with many lady scientists. My PhD co-guide, Prof. Vaijayanti Palkar was mainly instrumental in my getting the doctorate. Having joined at the lowest rung of the scientific cadre, she retired as a Professor from TIFR, then joined IIT, Mumbai, and continued her research work for another few years. She is a tireless worker. Even while doing scientific research 9-10 hours a day, she nurtured her family, raised her daughters and was a perfect house wife too.

Another lady I would like to mention is Mrs. Bhagyashri Chalke. She is my junior at TIFR. She is equally tireless, braves 4 hours of train journey from Thane to Colaba everyday and still does very good research work. She never failed to take care of her family despite of a 13 hour work-day.

My college-mate, Prof. Enakshi Bhattacharya got her PhD from TIFR and now works at IIT Madras. I can go on and on. Indian science is full of such un-heralded stories of women scientists. Making a snide remark like saree clad scientist leaves a bad taste in the mouth. These women, apart from doing science, also run their household and wield an effective rolling pin to make rotis for the family. Can you say the same about male scientists?

I am sure all these scientific “theta” calculations are running through the minds off women scientists while rolling rotis at home.

Shashank Purandare 27/08/2023