Musings from Jay (blog site permanently frozen 11/05/2024 morning)

Earth Day is on April 22.  This is something everyone can participate in for the planet. Below is from the chatbots.  ------------------------ Earth Day , which occurs annually on  April 22 , is a significant global event focused on environmental awareness and action. Here’s what makes it remarkable: Origins and Grassroots Movement : Earth Day was founded in  1970  as a day of education about environmental issues. The brainchild of  Senator Gaylord Nelson , it began as a “national teach-in on the environment.” The first Earth Day was held on April 22 to maximize outreach to students on university campuses. By raising public awareness of pollution, Nelson aimed to bring environmental causes into the national spotlight. The remarkable aspect? Earth Day organized itself due to spontaneous response at the grassroots level.  Inspiration and Impact : Senator Nelson drew inspiration from anti-Vietnam War “teach-ins” happening on college campuses. His vision w...

This is a respectful eulogy to Peter Higgs who passed away on 8th April 2024 at the age of 94  and a celebration of his work. I did not know him but know of his work.  Peter Higgs was born 29th May 1929 in Newcastle on Tyne in England. He was a British theoretical Physics professor at the University of Edinburgh and was awarded the Nobel prize in Physics in 2013 along with Francois Englert. They were the first to explain the origin of mass - a truly fundamental breakthrough. How much more fundamental than that can you get?!!  All known particles, except photons, need some mass in order to bind to each other and form the structures, like atoms, that comprise our physical world. “Without Higgs’ work we wouldn’t understand why there are atoms. Some pretty basic features of our world would not be understandable,” says John Ellis at King’s College London in the UK. Professor Higgs arrived at  the University of Edinburgh  in 1960 to take up the post of ...

  History should be important to you for at least two main reasons. It gives you information and context and insights about who you are, your heritage, where you came from, who were your predecessors, how did they live and what did they do, etc. It is tied to your identity. My heritage is Indian, more specifically South Indian, and I am interested in south Indian history (much of the deep south is Dravidian as opposed to Aryan).   This is my heritage from birth. I am not just interested in recent South Indian history but also ancient south Indian history. I pay far less attention to north Indian history. The second reason is to learn from history to shed light on today to better understand it. To me for this purpose ancient history is not useful since notions of right and wrong, customs, and economic realities are far removed from today and may not be very relevant. Also using the contemporary lens and notions of morality and thinking to judge the past is inappropriate and...

This is a completely factual essay. This essay was created from multiple public sources on the web. You have to be familiar with geography to understand the full context.  The Islamic prophet Muhammad died in 632 CE. Significant expansion of Islam occurred during the reign of the Rashidun from 632 to 661 CE, which was the reign of the first four successors of Muhammad. Many caliphates were born.   A number of Muslim empires rose and fell in the swath of territory that includes north Africa, middle east, west Asia, central Asia, India, and parts of eastern Europe during the period 750 CE to 1922 CE. The last of these empires to fall was the ottoman empire (in 1922 CE). Islam also spread to other parts of the world like southeast Asia including Indonesia. A big part of this period was the golden age of Islam. The people of the Islamic world created numerous sophisticated centers of culture and science with far-reaching mercantile networks, travelers, scientists, hunters, mathe...

Traditional History to me is about states, how they build and govern and organize  (including key people like kings and ministers)   and communicate and prosper and evolve, and their composition, and how the states interact with each other. Cultural and religious influences on the other hand diffuse and spread. The cultural and religious (and ethnic) composition of a state though is relevant to history. What is far more interesting, I think though, is explore how a religion, culture or language evolved and diffused and spread, and the migratory patterns of people, and lessons on human nature taught. Not sure if that is traditionally called history. I will stick to traditional history in this blog.  The below version of ancient Indian History seems to me to be balanced and authentic but has a focus on Vijaynagara in the latter part. My perspective of Indian History tends to be southern India focused. I have been to Hampi when I was a kid. Vijayanagara is magnific...