The Shining Eyes
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The Shining Eyes

Anand M N It was a school project on lunar observation that motivated me, an 11th standard boy, to serious star gazing. Till then, I used to see the twinkling stars, but not too keen about knowing them. That project gave me an opportunity to meet amateur astronomers and science enthusiasts outside my school. With…

Experience at IIA and a broad research philosophy 
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Experience at IIA and a broad research philosophy 

Prashanth Mohan A question one often asks in the context of observations or an experiment is “what does it mean?”. The quest to find an answer opens up multiple paths, some of which are more tedious than others. It is instructive and highly rewarding to travel these paths to learn lessons, search for connections among…

Zeeman Effect
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Zeeman Effect

Raveena Khan The Zeeman effect was first discovered by the Dutch physicist Pieter Zeeman in 1896 when he placed the flame of a Bunsen burner between the poles of an electromagnet and held a piece of asbestos covered with common salt in the flame. After the electromagnet was turned on, he observed that the two…

Glimpses of memories at Hanle during July Indian Astronomical Observatory: 25 Years (Part-I)
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Glimpses of memories at Hanle during July Indian Astronomical Observatory: 25 Years (Part-I)

Prof. B. C. Bhatt, Dorje Angchuk, and Man Singh Preamble Under the Himalayan Infrared Optical Telescope (HIROT) project, first team of IIA landed Leh in November 1994 and with initial acclimatization in high altitude and cold weather, this team arrived Hanle in December 1995. We pitched our setup in a mud-hut in the premises of…

“Errors are beautiful and Gaussian”-Really?
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“Errors are beautiful and Gaussian”-Really?

Soumya Sengupta Gaussian or Normal Distribution is the most common of all the probability distributions in the sense that the heights of the boys in a classroom, the errors in any experiments, or the probability of acceptance of your proposal (in your company or in love affairs) all follow the Gaussian distribution. De Moivre first reported…