Zeroing In

Perhaps, if you take off a layer, or maybe two, from anything and everything functioning/existing in this universe, the underlying layer would be of Mathematics. Behind every pattern that ever existed to big machineries digging up holes in the ground to even the buzzing AI, everything can be written down in the language called Mathematics.

It is quite fascinating to even just acknowledge the vastness of this subject but where in our learning did we move from counting melons to learning about the most abstract ideas? Do we really understand how immense the fabric of Mathematics stretches to?

Trying to connect many more dots like these, we converse with an inspiring humans and a renowned number theorist, Prof. Sujatha Ramdorai, who takes us for a quick dip into the sea of mysteries, ideas, and abstractions— basically building up to the world of Mathematics.

The talks about computer science as a discipline that’s absolutely hot in trend are all pervasive. Of course, for the right reasons for most part, the field spans across the major pillars of our everyday life, and forms an inescapable basis of our present society. We deep dive with Prof. Debayan Gupta, Assistant Professor at the Ashoka University currently, on these ideas that span across a vast arena, as do his interests. Prof. Gupta completed his doctoral work at Yale University, and held an extraordinary faculty position at MIT, Boston, before moving to Ashoka, while he still acts as a visiting professor and research associate with MIT.

In this conversation where Prof. Gupta eloquently puts across the brilliance and beauty of the discipline, in context with the wider world and personal understanding thereof, the insights make for a compelling case to ask newer questions in the contemporary world to make sense of this changing playground.

We talk about the ideas of computer science that derive from mathematics, and core logic at heart, flowing in to beautiful applications as in encryption, cryptography, and digital (well, almost real) privacy.

Sit back and immerse yourself in the ideas that are almost reminiscent of the words by Bill Watterson, “To invent your own life’s meaning is not easy, but it’s still allowed and I think you’ll be happier for the trouble”, in the playfully put context of the 21st century world experienced from behind the screens.

S04 | E03: Zeroing In with Prof. Debayan Gupta | On Keeping and Working with Secrets for Scaled Societies

In the information era where knowledge is vast and the possibilities are only limited to one’s imagination, Computer Science has advanced to the extent where this very write-up can be polished and generated with the help of a computer. While advanced technology can be captivating, it also brings us to question the philosophical boundary of data privacy in modern societies.

Join us in understanding the critical importance of scaling in the machines and how we can build better checks and balances systems in the ever-changing world with Dr. Debayan Gupta.

The most basic of survival necessity is food—the plate at the end of the day. While the human population began settling down from the hunter-gatherer stage, it became quite essential for us to find ways of bringing our food to our vicinity. Settlement meant a big leap in the techniques of how food was grown, from calculating rains to fighting insects. There’s so much that our food depends on—from the clouds in the sky to water in the drain. But how do you look at the clouds above and water beneath? 

It’s quite astonishing to think how closely connected satellites are to the food we eat. Agriculture as a field took a big leap when instruments were placed up in the sky to map it ground below. 

We had the incredible opportunity to discuss ideas and questions with a renowned scientist and veteran, Prof. Vinay K. Dadhwal who has played a pivotal role in advancing agricultural methods and technologies in India. He has also headed some great organisations in India including National Remote Sensing Centre, Hyderabad and Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram. 

Tune in to the episode from our website: zeroingin.org or listen on any of your favorite podcast platform.

Happy listening!

S04 | E03: Zeroing In with Dr. V. K. Dadhwal |  On Pertinence of Remote Sensing in Agriculture  

In the upcoming episode of Zeroing In, we delve into the topic of agriculture, the foundation of human sustenance. As we settled into a more stable lifestyle, cultivating food became a necessity. However, understanding the weather patterns and pests that impact crop growth proved to be a challenge. How could we monitor the skies and soil?

It's remarkable to ponder the role of satellites in our food supply chain. Thanks to remote sensing technology, agriculture has evolved tremendously. We had the pleasure of speaking with the distinguished Professor V.K. Dadhwal, an expert in the intersection of agriculture and remote sensing. Join us as we explore his insights on mapping an entire country's agricultural landscape to meet the needs of its population.

Music by "REW<<"

What does it take to design, create, and settle a city? Humankind has resolved these questions in varying epochs and geographical contexts, very differently, when looked into the details of — and through all these brilliant ways of becoming, we have shaped our worlds today- in the charming cities and towns we inhabit. 

Human colonies have been an intriguing subject not because the idea is new, but precisely the opposite— making it quite a rare definition of ‘interesting’ in the current day of rapidly growing areas of interest and applications. Hereby, the ideas of civil engineering, city planning, urban planning, traffic control, and pedestrian safety are only some of the ideas that come in the same gamut — the ideas that we were able to discuss with Prof. Geetam Tiwari, a distinguished expert in the field, and currently a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. 

In our conversation with her, we travelled along the curious pathways leading to a fundamental understanding of the shaping of city spaces, in context with the historical pillars of human settlements, as well as the ones that we inhabit currently across different continents, and socio-economic influences among other multifarious factors that make the discipline fascinating beyond measure.

As is largely true with our everyday life this discussion sheds some nurturing rays of revelation on why our everyday cities and towns look the way they do — the details that we forget to notice, and what goes into thinking and making of such a complex organism — a city itself.

Take the plunge and discover more about this fascinating topic here!

S04 | E02: Zeroing In with Prof. Geetam Tiwari | On City Planning and Routes to Engineering a MegaCity

City life is a complex and intricate experience that we all navigate in our own ways. Our daily routines, shortcuts, and familiar routes give us a sense of familiarity and belonging in the cities we call home. In fact, that is how we sometimes substantiate our claims for having actually experienced a city. And for each new place you’d move to, you’d do this all over again, and then call it your own.

But what does it take to chart this out from zero— to build the map of a city from scratch, and plan for all of these intricate, and inherently chaotic scenarios, that touch and actually shape human lives on a very everyday basis, and in turn define a human settlement?

Here’s a sneak peek of our beautiful journey of discussing these questions and much more with an expert from the field, Prof. Geetam Tiwari a distinguished civil engineer. Her expertise and experiences will offer invaluable insights into the planning, building, and evolution of cities, and the ways in which they shape human civilization. Join us for this exciting exploration of the origins and evolution of our urban landscapes from a scientific and technological perspective.

Music by ComaStudio from Pixabay.

Have you ever wondered how human civilsations took shape? How much do we know from our shared past, and how far do we have a scientific basis for these stories?

For the Season 4 of Zeroing In : Of A City, as we embark on the journey of figuring our way through the making of the civilization that we live in, we start with the first puzzle piece of delving into all that has come before, and finding how much we know of it in the scientific context. The archaeological perspectives borrow the contexts from history, art, and literature, while also form a solid ground for scientific innovation and discovery.

In our conversation with Prof. Kalyan Chakraborty, Professor of Archaeology at the Ashoka University, we discovered some fascinating methodologies of building and putting together the stories from buried relics, deciphering mysteries while also understanding the intriguing ideologies and philosophies from around the world, centuries old and present, alike. 

Dive in to the full episode to hear on about the nurturing togetherness that we share as humankind, and the origins of it all, as we have traced, to find a sense of belongingness - with the planet, and within ourselves - in the infinite scheme to things.

Zeroing In Season 4 Theme Song credits: Ethan Phangcho and Sankalp Hongal.

S04 | E01: Zeroing In with Prof. Kalyan Chakraborty • While building up a city, it’s quite crucial to go down a bit. 

It is quite amusing to see how much a half broken eating bowl buried under ash of Pompeii can reveal stories of its citizens. But archeology isn't just about digging up dusty old relics and theorizing about the past. It's about understanding the way people lived, their beliefs and customs, and how they interacted with the world around them. 

In the first episode of the new season of Zeroing In we begin by doing some intriguing digging! In our fascinating conversation with Prof. Kalyan Chakraborty we do some major digging up of how stories are unraveled from broken pieces of history found depths underneath the surface. 

Music Credits: Confirmed Sightings by Ketsa

Our everyday lives are lined by collective behaviour of all kinds of things, particles, and beings. Have you wondered if it is possible to formulate physical ideas that can lead us to understanding these fascinating behaviours that seem to appear out of sheer randomness — imagine the flocking of birds, movements of schools of fish, aggregation of bacteria, self-arrangement of bio-polymers— the highly non-trivial out of equilibrium systems that are driven by supply of energy, essentially the living or non-living systems? The study of such systems is now popularly termed as active matter, and our guest for this episode, Prof. Sriram Ramaswamy, is known to have made seminal contributions to the field amounting to giving birth to and shaping the field of active matter, and laying the foundations of the hydrodynamical approach for studying these systems.   

Prof. Ramaswamy, Fellow of the Royal Society, is currently a Professor at the Centre for Condensed Matter Physics at IISc Bangalore. His research addresses the quintessential questions of the physical world wherein the quantum mechanical descriptions do not enter the scene and the classical pictures rule over the complexities, using the powerful principles of the symmetry and conservation laws, under the broad regimes of condensed matter physics.  

Listen in to our discussion with Prof. Ramaswamy, where we delved headlong into discovering more about the vast horizons and excitements in the field of active matter— Prof. Ramaswamy makes a call to all the bright young minds, to take a curious look at what wonderful ideas are in store to make sense of the physical world, and the apparent randomness in the absurdity of life.  

Music credits to Sankalp Hongal and Ethan Phangcho. 

Episode artwork by Akshita Arora.  

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