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Yashpal: A Life in Science, documentary film by Yousuf Saeed

A documentary film about India's scientist, Prof.Yashpal (1926-2017), produced at AJK MCRC, Jamia Millia, New Delhi. Directed by Yousuf Saeed, 2004.

Ektara India

6 years ago

you you 50 years in science is a very long time  particularly during the last century when things happen so fast when I started working just  before that the PI meson was discovered which was considered to be responsible for forces between  between protons and neutrons and so on which kept the nuclear together but after that enormous  number of discoveries happened and it one felt very lucky that one came in at that time and I  went to Tata Institute we were just 15 20 people at that time not ve
ry many a wonderful leader  homi Bhabha which set up its you tremendously free atmosphere and soon we got colleagues like  professor Bernard Peters and had young people of my age like the wind now Daniel in others we  didn't have nuclear accelerators in the country at that time there were none really in the world  which could work very much with these fundamental particles but people coming up but we knew that  cosmic rays provide us with high-energy particles and we also were conscious in our c
ountry that  we are close to the geomagnetic equator where the background of low energy cosmic rays is very low  and if you want to work with high-energy cosmic rays it's an ideal location cause the grades we  discovered of course in the beginning of the last century when one found where there is something  which comes from outside with ionizes here which means there must be some charged particles  or something coming which produces ions and one-pound and ultimately that radiation comes  from ou
tside and not from the earth and found that cosmic rays contain protons and actually sample  of matter coming from outside that high-energy or various chemical elements lutely are chemical  elements and more visible amount of activity in the universe is a very high-energy activity  there are supernovae in which fantastically high energy particles must be produced there are  of course black holes and particles around there one of the techniques with which I was involved  very early on I have work
ed with many techniques for the nuclear emulsion technique you take  essentially pellicle zorp emulsion which are sensitive to nuclear particles a large number  of chemicals you stack them up when you make a block a particle comes and makes an interaction  and then this products go and then you develop techniques after developing based morganite or  glass so that you can trace this particle under very high power and you can expose this at a high  altitude so simultaneously one needed capability
in the country of flying balloons to high altitude  fortunately there was some beginning in that email only Baba had started doing this really and we  had only mythological balloons and we used to tie hundred two hundred fifty balloons together  in order to carry a small node up to 80 thousand hundred thousand feet altitude expose it for  a while and come down and we'll recover it somewhere in some forests and so on so forth so  development of the emulsion block detectors was done better here pr
obably for the first time in  this country than anywhere else but was amazing this doing cosmic rays and following balloons  all over the country actually was a discovery of India go into the villages spending time  there I saw many parts of the country which I wouldn't have been to another wife how come that  these particles are produced so seldom they are produced in nuclear interactions so they should  live only for 10 to the minus 24 seconds or so but we see them living for ten to the minus
eight  seconds which is much longer sixteen orders of magnitude longer and this was the things which  somehow we hit professor Peters who was with us at that time they will are myself Daniel and  pure this so we developed this technique first hunt for a particle like this is the game  mode in d-block emulsion block then trace that particle to the point of interaction  with each what's produce then pick all the other other particles very attracts which way  bear follow them to their end and to fi
nd out what happens The Associated production of some  of these things was first discovered in India that particles that produce together they are  strange we discovered the first negative gamers on when it stopped got captured that we produced  the particles some of them very visible I'm not remember I went to America my I bought the data  and then accelerator so I bought with a very large world's largest club chamber with other  colleagues we have the pleasure of having with us today professor
Abdul Salam one of the most  distinguished scientists of our times director and International Centre for Theoretical Physics  in Trieste which in fact he founded is of course Nobel laureate in physics Brazil and you have  yourself taken part in this big revolution which has occurred in physics and continues to occur  what do you think physics it's so exciting and where is it going physics has been transformed  particle physics we are talking about has been transformed since I should say the mid
dle of the  seventies it is now embodied in what's called the standard model here particle physics the farad  model says that all matter is made of either of quarks or the have the headline protons and  neutrons are made up of quarks or it's made up of leptons silicon the nucleons or muons and  their others and so forth so we knew that 45 particles still a large number yes looking into  three families of 15 each which we say are the fundamental building blocks the same model then  goes on to say
that the four fundamental forces of nature are mediated by a sort of 12 by 13  particles which go between these are messengers of these forces now this totality of 45 plus 13  plus many more particles of all Higgs 14 particles 59 all together mix up for all forces of nature  whatsoever it was as being gravity which keeps the nucleus together this idea forces and the world  with electric force electromagnetic force and it is between charges and what versus the average  weak the weak nuclear forc
e which is responsible for here together through interaction new ideas  developed neutrino experiments were going on myself and then my students who are now very  famous scientist like Tom not Kasich and tandem and Rangarajan and well my others we started  working in cosmic rays in terms of chronology understanding cosmic rays how it is so some of the  best work in calculation of these types were done at that time and actually turns out that a lot  of it that kind of work now has been used very
recently in trying to understand the peculiarity  of neutrinos mixing of neutrinos with each other you need a large diameter tunnel because these  high-energy particles have to be bent around to come back and lick that it feels nice asleep  but the travelers would really come if we are very fast emit radiation so much that you  will need to pump some of the energy into the video does not have so the ladder the tunnel  the better sugars has the bend at a smaller rate ridiculous so these accelerat
ors will be  ready in the 1990s and will answer questions about the correctness of our theory yes to  1/10 of 1% accuracy the hope is there will be some small deviation see that that's were  the information that's wasn't original those small and discrepancies will then point the way  towards newest particles which you have missed out in this count and newer types of far in life  so the world have opened up you don't see only in light you see many many different different  parts of the spectrum w
hich comes the universe speaks to us and we have to find out how it  speaks and what it says and what's going on you one was a product of times when India was fighting  for its independence there was tremendous hope that whatever one was doing somehow would make  it real difference differently so it was that generation won't belong to and so the question  of India and question of Education in question of development never really left one's mind  professor ozpin on 14 15 August 1947 how old were
you and where were you I was 20 mm-hmm  and I happen to be in Delhi living with my parents American abroad what are the memories  you have a fast time I come to Delhi tomorrow to spend the summer vacation with my father  at that very time when we came it wasn't sure that would be Pakistan would be accepted and  came from Lao Lord was already very disturbed then he got very violent also because the  refugees started pouring in and there were a lot of communal riots in Delhi their whole  period wa
s very heightened tensions large number of refugees our own relatives coming  and waiting for them well it was a terrible experience but there was also a feeling that  something new is happening and something you would emerge out of that when is it terrible what  terrible in terms of what people had gone through we had lost the relatives we also knew what was  happening on the other side we also knew what was happening in Punjab to the Muslims we saw  what was happening here in Delhi and one wor
d certainly moved by small minor interaction dealing  with people like Jalal Allah and the halkan zone even Gandhiji okay soon after I joined college  when I was 15 16 I started wearing white homespun what's up Adama no I don't wear white but at that  time we choose to Bacardi and whenever I read a lot about Gandhi and and he clearly had a message  which was sociological in addition to being for independence you know I want to mention that for  many people of my generation who went into science
because the did science but there was also an  underlying feeling that science is also for the country we were influenced by the Veloster Tory  condition until that was the time in an odd number of si si an evolving to know for me one after  the other but neither was around and then holy mama came and thought I'd shoot for set up every  Baba and the atomic energy laboratories came and the large number of the Bala tree started growing  in the country are using the future building up from now onwa
rds atomic power for these peaceful  purposes what we wanted to remember at the time of independence in this country we didn't even  make it a deal even our pensions were important it is very important what is my part n I mean  epicotyl shouldn't fundamental research which was the so-called cradle of the atomic energy  theorem it was beginning to grow there yeah we had to sit down people had to sit down and wire  all the circuits and valves and so on so forth right from the beginning and so star
ting from that  going to the success of the atomic energy program in reactors in metallurgy all kinds of things but  I think rather unexpected by most people similarly we ended our if our first rockets were carried  on bicycle the rocket zooms up leaving behind the frame of the set from there to go to launchers  building satellites some of the best satellites in the world this rather peculiar thing about  Indian situation is that there are things which are considered by the world to be at the cu
tting  edge and very difficult very few countries in the world I've been able to do it we have been able to  it why is it that what world considers difficult is easy for us and what they consider to be very  easy for example providing sanitation and water it's very difficult for us so it's a question of  the social organization challenges and intent now their world is rhetoric of self-reliance the  centralized has been has been operated only in those areas where we didn't get no hug from  outsid
e say supercomputers when there was such a such a terrible thing conditions which were put  on getting support and computers and they were not allowed I'm delighted to put conditions like this  because in a few years we developed our own just as goods yes as we would have got from them the  stree has to start research enhance that's how product somehow products never come out from the  voluntary service entities and industry has always been tied to this know-how transfer and both in  the industr
ial sector and also at the sated sector there was a certain degree of disbelief that  India can do it I dream for example of people getting together and trying to see how can we  make now that technology can become so flexible it can be small electronics and chips and so on  machines can be tiny they can be more intelligent just as Gandhiji wanted people to have a charka  and a sewing machine I can give a tiny robot to everybody which is under his control so can we  think in terms of Gandhi and
robotics a Gandhian electronics which was not possible 50 years ago 40  years ago so will science and technology has to be more sophisticated but more applicable to societal  group we don't have to build only highways not to south east to west and so on but about pathways  and then these before from there you begin to get all kinds of things nothing together and don't  always define your state of high development in terms of what you see outside define it in terms  of where you are and and how h
appy with people seem and how related they are and how they  do not seem lonely in the middle of a crowd in 1975 India embarked on a bold experiment  to test for the very first time in the world the developmental and educational impact  of Direct television broadcast to remote villages the experiment made use of the American  satellite ATS 6 and was a cooperative venture between NASA and the Indian Space Research  Organisation one of the key figures behind the satellite instructional television
experiment  was Professor Yashpal the tree I was doing high energy physics cosmic rays as to physics and  one of the hospital physicists at that time Phil Yasir to me was Vikram Sarabhai mm-hm and  we consider by at the stream of using satellites of bringing television to villages of India  people don't realize now how this unconnected we where telephones or television was not  there and it was under Sarabhai Department of Atomic Energy Initiative was taken to put  a hundred TV sets around villa
ges in Delhi it's our bypass to be in 71 and back to satish  dhawan took over in Jefferson and so middle of 72 the city Stalin asked me whether I would move  to Ahmedabad and organize the applications program of space including the site experiment I was  very hesitant because it was complete change in my career the challenge being to develop all the  ground it's at one point so we built at station ourselves and some of the earth stations we built  are still operating the control our satellites a
nd that was the kind of team where we develop  the front end converter below noise amplifier third station first dish antennas were developed  in India people forget not abroad they were 15 to 20 built by NASA just to test the satellite  people known to us but they ran in hundreds and thousands were built in India and tested in India  and we felt that we have a lead and we'll go on building on this lead and in the all this area  we will develop cameras will develop new kinds of TV sets new earth
stations and cover the world  also including ourselves wishful thinking in 1976 professor Yashpal was awarded the Padma Bhushan  by the Government of India for his outstanding contribution to the site experiment in 1980 he  received the Mahoney fellowship for his humane leadership in applying modern communication  technology to meet the needs of isolated rural villages in India International  Fellowship Award for 1982 professor yes receive the award CS pound connector but the  experiment was no
t only this hardware the experiment was to prove that so you can do this  in the villages of the country far-off villages where people had never seen even a moving  picture they had never even turned a knob on anything they had no equipment on with  there was a knob to install these there to operate these maintain these and then the most  important challenge programming we are in it not as engineers only we are in it as the lab  scientists we are in it because we want to see what happens so we l
ike to get into programming  we like to that setup social evaluation we like to do meat assessment surveys amazing part of  that period is not what we achieved amazing part of it is that in a technology center it  was possible at that time to have as many as 250 social scientists working country podiums  and we wanted to make Gujarati program for nearby kala district because wanted to see what  happens if you was close to the people rather than going through the title I said from the  Kara exper
ience one learnt straight away but satellite broadcasting is good because it  helps you to break the distance but it's also bad if you use only satellite broadcasting  because you're talking to people you don't know anything about you may have done some surveys  but you don't know their language but not only language immediate concerns you don't know what  is happening which road which is which street is blocked where little flood has happened the  whole dynamics of it so we become distant so yo
u tend to sermonize and you have to develop  a system in which the intimate and the distant mix together and this I believe is so important  even in the present day world that you need the intimate and the close and you leave the distance  so that you don't missing in the middle again Oh we have professor arthur c clarke visiting India  again now our to see Clark to most people is not known as Professor Delta G Clark because they  have read so many of his books I have a great the greatest diffic
ulty in categorizing him  as a writer is the a futurologists is he a technologist is he a scientist 19:44 I was  working on the very advanced microwave radar and control approach hot parent system at  the same time I was in discussions with my colleagues in the British interplanetary  society I any post-war of a pre-war space cadet saying how can we get people interested  in space travel and it was the combination of working on radar communication technology  and thinking about South Atlantic ma
rkets that melded together and gave me the concept of  using satellites for radio and TV broadcasting I have with me here today dr. Andrew Viterbi  who has contributed substantially to the revolution in modern communication satellites  have come in which I made a lot of difference optical fiber has come in Wireless been around  for a long time what are the special things that can technically technologically which are  making the big difference absolutely it began about 50 years ago with the work
is sometimes  called the solid state of a micro electronic revolution where we took what was then a very  high power very clumsy very large technology and gained many orders of magnitude we've  gone from mega bits or megahertz to gigabits and gigahertz per second there interrupted  a in a lament way of thinking when you go digital you can be more unambiguous because  it's yes in notes yes absolutely and so you don't have to say this big you say yes  and no and so all information can be put in y
es and notes and you can be medical and  you can tolerate more interference is that correct that is absolutely correct and the  theory for all this was originally developed almost at the same time that the transistor was  invented Shannon by Claude Shannon is exactly anything which is effective these days in  changing people's minds unfortunately gets appropriated by those who wants to change their  mind for for selling [ __ ] Bali puris Raksha toga selection van is a Roven Venegas  strong you'l
l need any understanding for example to see if this kind of toothpaste  you should use you just brainwash people unfortunately through garlicky we humans are very  susceptible to brainwashing partly because that's been done to young people the from early on what  we call value education is many times brainwashing of children LT kana Cosco in an intercept shop  or such people get about a horrible hog geekycon each IRA they reporter coach in the up it only  leads to all kinds of problems later bec
ause you can't get away from the fact that you are in  do a reverse Limerick or Indian or a foreigner so in some sense media is working now by large  as an entire education and Thai thinking advice to old over well I should bomb mirar cannot  everybody knows in their bones that's the bombing and killing children and women and people  no matter for what purpose is not going to serve that purpose is for something else but you can  persuade people that don't know that the great villain out there wh
o we must somehow bomb  this whole country to in order to capture him and destroy unfortunately all powerful  things media etcetera becomes subservient to that and same also to corporations which one  to advertise reports cruel Kizuna Julia Malabar a big Nanda's me what worries me is that as the  communication interaction around the world has been increasing will be internalized internet  everything I would have expected that some kind of 10 universe of intimacy would have begun  to descend on t
he planet but somehow just the reverse seems to be happening ethnic tensions  are in case people are getting improved smaller and smaller Huddle's within countries and across  within my own country even in your country this effect of communication is seen by the human  biology almost and human mind almost as if it were a non self organism coming in now just  as in the body if there is an outsider than antibodies produced to protect you and we  seen somehow without wanting to some kind of thread
coming and we create defenses which  are destructive both to us and twelve ciders whatever I think that's a very good point a very  good series of points hundred right I think a lot of it has to do education maybe there is a  bit of hope in the sense that if it is possible that everybody is connected that most people  get connected in some form and if we can have essentially a worldwide web through which in  which you can talk without English to gesture through pictures through movements all kin
ds of  things and everyone can communicate with ideas thoughts his inventions his ways of living to  everybody else without somebody dictating but and do this because that's the way I make more  money that it might be possible to move towards a world in which you can abolish these folds of  producers and the rest all being consumers you will not demand that every place be uniform that  people live the same way you can live your own way oxygen Ledo a domotic oxygen molecule ozone  may team at abo
ut the oxygen so it's become very bad or eating at the moment of horrible  Giga it is any oxygen to Adam wallop area with in Mali Africa team arrow salute America to  give it up in case a physical model a part in molecule was abandoned or ignatiev a lecithin  e AG ecology news on Anna Cooper let's call our Cajun intake a taqueria died but I came out  earlier Banerjee eating I think human animal learns best from other human animals are  other animals that is why we have schools and colleges and u
niversities otherwise  we should have had only libraries and ask people to work in libraries that is why great  music is created in a few places where there is a great traditional tea set around that is  why the guru induce table is still important I'm gotten you all science education in schools  public schools first them useful schools in Bombay and rural schools and one found that  whether science our education specificity is that important you can choose the same curriculum  in useful schools
of Bombay which you have to use removal scheme it's also true that in terms  of people we educate we have not been able to provide for proper opportunities to them  many colleges and universities are very very poorly equipped we think those who don't  go to school are completely uneducated I tend to believe that we have an enormous  subterranean education system operating in our country through which farmers learn  how to farm continuously we're not going to school how to use new seeds how to u
se for it  like and when to water meant to sell when not to sell it through such a system that Jonasson  are people who make our Julie learn the craft and their art which involves engineering  and metallurgy and everything whole lot of Kaufmann make such beautiful tea we don't call  them designers look like they are speaking of artists and painters many of the writers great  writers give Rabindranath had to have a degree before he started writing he would have never  written and so what we have
not done is in our urgency to get something out of our education  we have separated the natural learning system which exists in our country from the  formal system we have no connections the university should be a universe people should  be able to take it the courts in any anything this shouldn't really teach people to make it easy to  take their examination you should have credits and a few things and then let the employer determine  another person determine whether he has had enough 'she has
had enough or not this coupling has  to be introduced because a lot of gaps which are in between unless they are filled no real  problems can be solved as far as young children are concerned in their education is concerned  all I would say is please let us stop torturing children torturing them for nothing because  we find that the learning is only first for testing and examination which is a horrible thing  to do stop overloading them the information which they don't understand understanding is
that it's  this joy and pleasure if they understand a few things then later on as well develops they keep  on understanding more and more if they get into a habit of not understanding anything and they  don't learn very much I think let them taste the joy of understanding I've asked children  in Hindi finally King symmetrical time let me use a few words in Hindi what is understanding  somewhat Nakata finally we come to a consensus when they discuss so in a boat I had described  at Madaba let th
ere be more and more mother mother word it's fantastic vigilance get there  is a feeling of joy because whatever you have inside your brain no matter where it came from  you begin to see its relationship which begins to form its symphony there is a symmetry which  develops on there once that happens when you pick on resources which you didn't even know you  had to go do all manner of things how many great people during last century had 99.9% marks  I think Einstein bent nor did Robin octagon nor
did will get very often it's good to be a  dropout don't worry about it in a positive sense how comes that while science flourishes scientific  temper diminishes I don't think that by and large most scientists at a great scientific temper  or the most endured slice country and once it's people who are powerful have a scientific  temper okay power is acquired by some people I think for example in the United States they're  amazing people vary tremendously thinking people philosophic people kind
people who'd do anything  for others ooh well-behaved and remarkable but in terms of powers that is corporations or the  government and the way they're elected that's very different you can add millions agitates in  Europe in America everywhere for example publish more we're on but all they have to say is oh don't  worry about it once we start fighting in a few of our people die that it isn't will take over and  everybody will support okay this has been said Wow cynical okay what is happening is
the phenomenon  that science is very cemented specialization it's the age of experts an expert is super specialists  in medicine is an expert you can't diagnose you by touching you and anything else simulate super  specialists in technology upon area or in sizes of an area is a super specialist in area this  super specialist essentially are people who can be called upon and used by others for their ends  ikebana Bumba now make such a big bomb of such kind of a bomb in ditch building the not des
troyed  but people get killed it's a challenge to super specialists it's a challenge and will be involved  with that challenge he doesn't care what it okay so there is to assume that every super  specialist will also worry about the larger aspects of where the world is going I think  it's terrible so I keep on saying that having sake even if you are super specialist a game in  a game encounter look at long perspectives of science would you take you really to the very  beginning of the universe a
t beginning of life on the planet how we came to be archeology how  we developed how we learn to speak what happened how we had to be separate because we bring  small books to sit the long perspective it should really control the values and thinking  and really mix with the ecology of the brain all the time not values which are given to you  by by lecturing and by fostering and teaching you only about one religion RB other beyond all  conventional religions the most important thing are these per
spectives these are the only  ones which will give you a scientific term

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