Whose Terrible Lizard is that

Doctors fight over the terrible lizards


Richard Owen, a British doctor who became better known as a paleontologist, coined the word dinosaurian, meaning terrible lizard; though now we realize not all Dinosaurs were terrible; nor were they lizards. Owen, though toyed with the term Herpeton; which could have been more apt; for reasons best known to him, continued with the word dinosaurs – the terrible lizard. He also overlooked the fact that there were two orders amongst them, bird-hipped ornithischians and lizard hipped saurishchians.

Richard Owen trained in medicine in Lancaster and devoted his time to his medical practice and study of anatomy. Anatomy, those days, attracted people from all walks of life; including even artists like Da Vinci. Owen went to the extent of even illicitly collect organs and corpses for his study of anatomy. Once he stumbled while walking with a bag and the bag fell down with its content rolling down to rest in front of a door. It was the head of a black African, which he had decapitated form a corpse he got for dissection.

Meanwhile, almost at the same time, John Hunter (after whom Hunterian Professorships of the Royal College was named – Prof M S Valiathan, Prof Solomon Victor are the distinguished recepients) had gleaned an impressive volume of anatomical specimens in the Royal College of Surgeons; himself a great surgeon and anatomist. But he never had enough time from his practice to arrange them. That was the time Owen came to London and joined the Royal College of Surgeons. He was methodical and organized and not to forget, manipulative. Owen’s rise to fame as an anatomist was so mercurial, that any carcass was first sent to him for his assessment, before it was disposed off by the zoo! This fame of his did bother his wife when she came in one day to be greeted by the head of a rhino with its horn kept right at the entrance of his house! He went on to publish over six hundred papers, some of which included the extinction of dodo or hunting of moas by Maoris, etc.

Owen was successful professionally, but the same success eluded him in his personal life. Owen, with his long hair, bulging eyes, gaunt appearance was cold and terribly ambitious, who never hesitated in getting taller by chopping others’ heads. A very genial scientist, who never was known to lose his temper, whose epoch-making discoveries ,made us look differently at ourselves, Charles Darwin even hated him. His son committed suicide not being able to tolerate his imperious father. He did not hesitate in indulging in dishonest practice to further his career. Owen was single-mindedly pursuing his goal. He worked hard, applied himself, and stole theories and samples from fellow colleagues and even used slander to silence them. He used his official position to his advantage and reduced careers of many promising naturalists to nothing.

One such doctor, who like Owen himself was a great fossil expert, Gideon Mantell could never save himself from his wrath. Before we take up the bitter fight between mantel and Owen, we should all remember the British lady, Mary Anning, who got so much addicted to collecting fossils, that it became her profession. Though not formally trained, she had impeccable knowledge and a keen eye for fossils. It is said, the famous tongue twister, she sells sea-shells on the sea-shore was written after her!!!

Gideon Mantell was a doctor in Sussex with keen interest in anatomy. He was a child-friendly version of Owen in personality! He was self-absorbed, self-centered and a loner. But there had never been a more committed paleontologist than Mantel. In his pursuit for his hobby and profession, he neglected his family. His wife, a very devoted lady, during her morning stroll came across a brown stone as big as a walnut. Mantell recognized it was a fossilized tooth, and a scientific deduction proved that it is from a reptile, huge in size and who was herbivorous.Mantel sent it to Paris for recognition, but it returned without a name. A friend of Mantell found some uncanny resemblance of this with the iguana in South America. So the species was names Iguanodon – a term Mantell coined. Mantell wanted to publish on his new found sample; but the elderly man Reverend Buckland asked him not to be in haste. As Mantell worked on thsiiguanodon, Buckland discovered Megalosaurus; a word which was suggested by Dr James Parkinson; after whom parkinsons disease is known as. This was the first published report on dinosaur, and the author by default was Buckland, though the real credit should have gone to Mantell.

Poor Mantell was not aware that this will be the order of his life. There will be someone else stealing his achievements. Few years later, in 1833, Mantell found another giant, hylaeosaurus and spent months excavating the place with the British farmers. Unlike Owen, who neglected his medical practice, Mantell always remained a great physician, and a serious anatomist and paleontologist. His house in Brighton had space left for the bones Only!He published books on excavation and fossils in Sussex, but the science was too young to elicit any interest in an serious reader. Undaunted by this, Mantell continued his quest for fossils and found a giant hylacosaurus; and soon he was one of the biggest collector of fossils in England. His obsession for searching for fossils took a toll on his ,medical practice and he was unable to manage the large estate, the humongous collection of fossils and their maintenance. He even toyed with the ide of converting his house to a museum, but considering hiw own reputation as a doctor and a scientist he changed his mind.But he allowed people to visit his mansion and look at the fossils free. Eventually, he had to sell most of his collections to pay off his debts. Loss of a large house prompted his family tpo desert him and his wife with their four children left him.

Oh no, it is not the end of his trouble. Trouble starts here as Owen appears.

In South London, in Crystal Palace Park, the worlds first life sized models of dinosaurs were erected for the first time. With limited fossilized bones being available, and insufficient knowledge most of the recreations are quite inaccurate. But, nevertheless, they generated a great deal of interest in students to study Anatomy or paleontology. In 1851, the grand structure of iron and glass opened with its displays on the New Year Eve and one of the major attraction was Iguanodon – one of those passions of mantel, for which he lost almost every thing.

To commemorate this, and to honour the scientists, a gala dinner for twenty one leading scientists was organized – star attraction being Iguanodon. When the committee invited the discoverer to throw some light on this, the chairman stood up. There was no Mantell in the board room. It was Owen. Owen manipulated his way, destroyed every [paper mantel submitted, and provided his own papers! In 1857, he replaced the famous naturologist T H Huxley from the Churchill Medical Dictionary by using Huxley’s position and title after his own name. He stole credits from students, which included Hugh Falconer, who finally got lost in the oblivion. He never returned the samples he borrowed. He fought with the Queens dentist on a claim on dental physiology!!

After his family left him, Mantell left Sussex and came to London. His wealth, his practice – every thing was a thing of past. And his fossil collection – for which he lost every thing, and the same stuff was sold to pay his debts. In 1841, while crossing Clapham Common in a carriage, somehow, he fell from his seat and his legs got entangled with the reins of the horses pulling the cart. He was dragged quite a distance, which left him crippled, damaged spike and excruciating pain. By then, most fossils were collected by Mantell and were described by him as well.

Taking advantage of Mantell’s bed-ridden condition, owen set about in a very systematic plan. He expunged Mantell’s name and descriptions from the samples and replaced them with his. Whatever original work came for peer review to the Royal College from Mantell, Owen ensured, using his good links, that they were rejected, and were never published. Unable to bear this, mantel killed himself.

His spine was sent to the Hunterian Museum in Royal College. It was under the supervision of Richard Owen!!!

Even Mantell’s death did not end his misery. A very modest obituary was published describing Mantell as an average paleontologist, whose species could not be further established for want of samples and adequate research. It even did not mention about Iguanodon!!! Needless to say, though it did not say who wrote the obituary, every one knew who did it.

But Owen’s transgressions did not stop. He was then the Chairman of the Award Committee of Royal Society. The committee decided to award Owen its highest honor, a gold medal, for his work on an extinct molluscum, belemnite. But soon later, it was found out that, four years prior to that, in a meeting which was attended by Owen himself, a student of paleontology, Chaning Pearce had reported about it. Owen even had gone to the extent of naming it Belemnites oweni.

Owen was allowed to keep the medal, but this was expunged from the records. This tarnished his image the most. T H Huxley, then got into the scene; and indulged in exactly the same practice Owen indulged in!!! He threw Owen out of the Royal Society and took its control.

This pushed Owen to the museum. But this was a blessing in disguise. London’s Natural History Museum owes its existence to Owen. Museums were only being used for research work by senior students or academics. But Owen changed the way the museums were. The samples were organized and displayed for common people. His vision was, this would trigger a scientific mind in the young when they visit the museums. How true!!! In those days, to visit a museum, one had to appear at two to three interviews!!! They were all changed; and museums were open to all. His last stunt was to oppose a statue of Darwin!!! Though there was no way he could succeed to disallow the statue of one of the greatest scientists, he succeeded in placing the great scientist Darwin's statue in the coffee shop, whereas his own statue remains near the main staircase in the Main building of the museum, looking imperiously at every one who enters the museum!!!!

Owen in the first two pictures. Mantel and his wife in the other two.

Music of Dissent - my son's words

Every era has its own music. Every generation has its own anthem. Protest music is a form of expression. It is a reflection of culture, both the minority and the prevalent. We have historic examples of protest music during the two World Wars. We have protest songs against the war itself, with popular numbers such as Old Man Atom by Vern Partlow. There were German folk songs against Nazism like, for instance, Die Gedanken Sind Frei or (translated: The Thoughts are Free). These forms of music are icons; they are symbols of the social scenario in their respective periods. Literature has been a much more pronounced form of expression of the ages, with innumerable books bearing innumerable testimonies to innumerable events. But music has always been the most prolific. This is because of the growth of media such as the radio, which really was the common-man’s rally-point. Music was something everybody could listen to and sing as an anthem. The cry for the protests against the Vietnam War, for instance, was “If you love your Uncle Sam, bring ’em home from Vietnam.” Of course, the racial implications of the Vietnam War were different altogether: thousands of African-American men dying for the United States in war while they were being oppressed in the States simultaneously. This was the reason for the birth of the Hippie generation.

Now, in the context of the Vietnam War, we have a Vietnam Era of music. These songs are, mainly, songs of the 60s and the 70s that were related to the war itself. Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind was related to the Civil Rights’ Movement, but it was one of the most popular protest songs of the Vietnam War and was resurrected for the Iraq War. There are direct questions he asks, whose answers are ‘blowing in the wind’: “… how many deaths will it take till he knows / That too many people have died? …”, “… how many years can some people exist / Before they're allowed to be free?” and “…how many times can a man turn his head, / Pretending he just doesn't see? …” His music talks about civil rights, but there is an interesting reference given to cannon balls. All-in-all, this was a very popular anti-war song during the Vietnam Era. Another song (that was falsely held to be jingoistic) was Springsteen’s Born in the USA. Though not a protest against the war, we can’t deny that the song paints a grave picture of the American attitude during that period. Lyrically, it shows the treatment the army went through: “… Born down in a dead man's town / The first kick I took was when I hit the ground / You end up like a dog that's been beat too much / ’Til you spend half your life just covering up …” Then, there was a quaint underlining of the practice and beliefs when the soldiers were recruited and sent: “… I got in a little hometown jam / And so they put a rifle in my hands / Sent me off to Vietnam / To go and kill the yellow man …”

But, the real voice of the Vietnam Era was John Lennon. Lennon’s music was like anthems. Most notable, the ever-so-popular Imagine, which has grown into a stereotypical synonym of Lennon, as has the name of the Beatles. What people ignore is that Imagine has a deep, anti-war message. Imagine imagines a peaceful world, a Nutopia, where there is no such thing as ‘countries’ or ‘religion’, nothing to kill or die for, etc. Most of us would be familiar with the lyrics. Lennon was a leftist and Imagine was a communist manifesto. But Imagine is the repetition of the message of his other songs. Imagine came after Give Peace a Chance, a true anthem that is directly against the Vietnam War. As the name itself suggests, the song is asking the world to give peace a chance. It goes: “… Everybody’s talkin’ ’bout / Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism / This-ism, that-ism, ism ism ism. / All we are saying is give peace a chance. / All we are saying is give peace a chance. …” “… Minister, Sinister, Banisters and Canisters, / Bishops, Fishops, Rabbis, and Pop Eyes, Bye bye, Bye byes. / All we are saying is give peace a chance. / All we are saying is give peace a chance …” and another following stanza goes: “…Everybody’s talkin’ ’bout / Revolution, Evolution, Masturbation, Flagellation, Regulation, / Integrations, mediations, United Nations, congratulations. / All we are saying is give peace a chance. / All we are saying is give peace a chance. …” Quite directly, he is mentioning the various kinds of propaganda and beliefs, religion and religious leaders, race, revolution, civil rights and discriminative regulations, United Nations mediations, etc. But what one really must do to stop a war is not let the fight finish itself, but give peace a chance. The idea is that violence will end when you stop fighting, not when one side kills the other. That is he was socialistic. He believed in pure equality. He ‘imagined’ a world where everyone is stripped of their beliefs and their ideologies, a place where the only laws are the cosmic and there only is a ‘brotherhood of man’ ‘sharing all the world’. He wanted people to join him in his dream; he wanted peace to come collectively and voluntarily, not as propaganda or dogmas. I guess, it’s justified for Lennon to be communist, as long as he preaches peace.

Now, the Vietnam Era was mainly war-protest. But, protest music is also protest against any other form of prevalent social evil, such as racial discrimination and also unstable neighbourhoods with prevalent gang-culture. What I am referring to is Rapping and Hip hop. This culture grew in the Bronx in the 1970s. This culture grew with the racial discrimination of the African-Americans and the Latinos. This form of music initially grew because the costs were low. This low cost played a very important role. The blacks were mostly homeless as they had fled the Bronx when the Cross-Bronx Expressway came up. So, when the instruments were inexpensive, everybody could start rapping. This growth of rap occurred simultaneously with the growth of scratching techniques in music, graffiti and breakdancing. The whole hip hop movement came out of the Bronx.

So, with the growth of the hip hop movement, we see the proliferation of rapping. It is interesting to know that the etymological origin of ‘rap’ as in rap music is ‘rap’ as in “I’ll rap you up.” It means “to strike sharply”. So, rapping was a form of rhythmic verbal duelling. The lyrics of most rap songs are related to issues that are political or ethnic. If we listen past the expletives, and listen hard (it would be easier to read the lyrics, for those who can’t comprehend words that come in rapid-fire), we can see that there is a message behind the music. It talks about something: incarceration, failing governments, gang-wars and racial discrimination. The songs are forms of expression. The violent West Coast is where most rappers come from, and gangsta rap is about the violence, the blood-thirsty rogues and the entirely different way of life in the alleys. I don’t listen to much o rap, so I don’t have much to quote. But, it is interesting to know, that rap is the modern protest-music.

Similarly, reggae, in its generation, was talking about the cash between the Rastafarian Movement. The most common example: Bob Marley’s Get Up, Stand Up, which talks about the differing beliefs of Rastafarians and the Christians, but the Rastafarians would still get up and stand up; they will still demand their rights. The lines I am referring to are: “… We're sick and tired of your ism and schism game / Die and go to heaven in Jesus' name, Lord / We know and we understand / Almighty God is a living man / You can fool some people sometimes / But you can't fool all the people all the time / So now we see the light / We gonna stand up for our right …” The song is hackneyed with the word ‘Jah’, which is the god of the Rastafarians, which was also a monotheistic religion.

Music has become a medium of expression. So, societies, cultures and artistes use this form of expression to portray themselves. That is why music has always been a popular protest method in every era, because you can’t put a lock on creativity and you can’t put an end to thought. Die Gedanken Sind Frei, as I had mentioned earlier, the thoughts are free. So is music. You can ban performances; you can destroy tapes, CDs, records, etc. But you can’t destroy the musical culture itself. Maybe that’s why so many of the rappers talk so freely about the law, police and about imprisonment with the most extreme of expletives. Music is a form of expression of the culture itself, the culture at large. It stands for everything that has happened, every thought that has transpired – legally or otherwise. It is an expression, an icon and an anthem. Every lyric has its own meaning, every genre has its own history and every generation has its own voice.

History of Fishes

Edmund Halley had a long and prolific career. He was a sea-captain, cartographer, a professor of geometry in Oxford University, Deputy Controller of the Royal Mint, Astronomer and invented deep sea diving bell. He had publications on magnetism, tides, orbit of planets and effects of opium, possibly after first hand experience. He designed the weather map and actuarial table, proposed methods for understanding age of the sun and the earth and the distance between them. He also devised a method to keep fish fresh out of season. The only thing the genius did not do was he did not discover the comet which bears his name!!!



He merely recognized the comet he saw in 1682 that it was the same comet which appeared in 1456, 1531 and 1607. But sixteen years after he died, the comet was named after him for his finding that it appeared after every 76 years or so!



Halley wrote the History of Fish, which was published by the Royal Society, but was not received by the readers well, amd most copies were lying in the library. Very few people read it or bought it. But what it actually achieved is one of the greatest contributions to human knowledge.



So, here was a multifaceted man, a genius, who excelled in many fields, but was known for a comet he did not discover. He wrote a book, which was not received by the peers well. But the same book possibly changed the world and the way the world thought!!!



In 1683, Halley was dining with Hooke (who first discovered a cell and said it was the unit of life) and Wren, an astronomer and architect, people were really versatile then!!After few minutes, the discussion drifted to celestial objects which were always the subject of all intellectual meetings of those years as very little was really known, and most of it was only being guessed - uncertain.It was known that the orbits of the planet was elliptical.The planets were inclined to the orbit in a funny way, and went about on their tracks in a kind of oval path, a very specific and precise curve. But no one explained why!! Wren, being the gregarious guy that he was offered a couple of weeks wager to the person who could solve this mystery - 40 shillings.



Hooke, though himself a brilliant scientist, at times did not hesitate for taking credit for what he did not do; claimed he had solved it, but would keep it secret so as to allow others to solve them independently! But Halley took his mission straight. He set out to Cambridge; and called upon the Lucasian professor of Mathematics. The professor was a funny figure, one who used to get up from bed, and keep sitting on it hanging his legs down and swinging them aimlessly. He was solitary, joyless, prickly to the point, but brilliant beyong measure. One who after waking up, used to sit straight, stunned; with the explosions of ideas that might have hit his brains in the morning. He was Sir Isaac Newton.



We are not sure if the apple really hit him on his head when he was relaxing under a tree; but we have records that the adamant scientist once pierced a needle into his eye, between the socket and the bone to see how far the eye ball extended, and how was it roomed in the bony socket. To understand what damage the powerful sunrays could cause to his eyes, he stared at the bright sun for hours. And had to spend several days in the dark room to let his stunned eyes gain their vision. Without that lacing of lunacy and tinge of madness, no genius can be complete!! To prove this right as if, Newton spent a considerable time on alchemy and religious practice. They were not mere dabblings as many do. He was -albeit secretly - a follower of arianism, he spent years in Jerusalem, learning Hebrew, studying the floor plan of the palace of King Solomon. Though he studies in the Trinity College, he did not believe in the doctrine of Trinity - being a follower of Arianism. He spent days calculating from the texts in Hebrew, the second coming of Christ and end of the world!! Interestingly, when some of his papers were auctioned, John Keynes (the buyer) found loads of materials - not on his theories of Physics - but on how to convert ordinary metal to precious ones (though he did not succeed in it). An analysis of his hair revealed that he had 40 times the natural level of mercury in his hair. You have to remember, those days mercury did attract the attention of the alchemists!!

Set atop his quirky traits, eccentric character, odd beliefs and unpredictable behaviour was the mind of a super genius. As a student, being frustrated with the limitations of conventional mathematics, he invented a brand new mathematical form - Calculus. But the eccentric genius kept it to himself for over twenty seven years. Likewise, his work on optics and light rayes was kept hidden for three decades, before the light theory saw the light of the day and changed the way we thought about light.

Halley had done his homework, and he knew he was meeting the world's greatest genius of that time. Newtons confidant, Abraham DeMoivre, was of big help to Halley and maintained a record. The moment Halley posed the question, pat came the reply "the path will be elliptical," from Newton. Amazed and happy; Halley asked "how". Newton went in to search for the papers where he had already calculated the pathway based on the principles of inverse square root; but could not really found the paper out where he had made the calculations.

Providence had something larger in its design!

With a little help from Abraham DeMoivre, his butler, Halley gained Newton's confidence. Newton did tell Halley why the orbit would be elliptical, but at that point of time, forgot how he found out this formula. Pressed by Halley and persuaded by his butler, Newton agreed to redo the calculations. He did what he promised and did more than that actually. He went into his hibernation for two years, and produced what would ppossibly be the greatest treatise in Physics. The work was titled Mathematical Principles of Natural History, better known as Prnicipia!!!Newton was the first scientist to be knighted following this astounding work. Even his bitter critic, Leibniz, with whom he had a very acidic relation following the debate about who first invented calculus, was eloquent in his praise for Principia, saying, this was a contribution to mathematics which equals all other works put together in mathematics thus far!!

Newton deliberately made the Principia tough for the laymen, making it inaccessible to most. He not only discussed in it the orbits of the heavenly bodies, but also wrote about Gravity. It stated that every object in the universe attracts everything else!! He also realized that the force of this attraction was proportional to the mass of the objects. and inversely proportional to the square of of the distance.

But what about the History of Fishes???

Well, the publication of Principia was not without any Newtonian drama. Just as Newton was nearing the completion of the epic, he and Hooke fell out and Newton refused to release the third volume. Halley tried his best and with a bit of flattery and a lot of persuation got the third volume out. The Royal Society pulled out from publishing it citing financial limitations.Halley, whose financial means were nothing great, went ahead paying for the publication. Newton, as was his style, did not contribute any thing financially. Halley had meanwhile accepted the position of a clerk in the Royal Society at a salary of fifty pund sterlings a pear. After spending all that he had saved - on publishing the book, he depended on his job to make both ends meet. But, the society could no longer afford to pay him the salary for his job.

He was paid instead in copies of The History of Fishes.

Thus the History of Fishes made it possible to bring to light the greatest work in Physics - Principia!!!!

Halley and Newton in photographs. Unfortunately, Hooke did not have a photograph; and the photograph which was thought to be his, was not his!!

Anti-Chess - it is fun, try it out

I played this game while in college. It is quite interesting. Try it out.

1. It is in the first place Chess. Played between two players on the same chess-board with the same 16 pieces each.
2. The objective of ANTI-CHESS is not to check-mate the opponent's king. But to get all the pieces "killed". That means, the person who gets all his pieces killed - wins.
3. It has one simple rule, if any of the opponent's pieces can be killed by your pieces, you must kill.
4. One has to try to feed his pieces to the opponent to get them killed.
5. In case, one has several pieces to be killed, he can chose whichever he likes.
6. The rules are otherwise same. For instance, if the pawn reaches the opponent's first row, one gets a queen, or whatever the piece should be.
7. Pieces like rook or bishop or even queen can actually devastate the opponent (and you - as the one who finishes first wins)!
8. It starts like normal chess, the pawn can go two squares.
9. It does not matter if the king is killed earlier!!

Its quick, fun and remember, it also requires quite a bit of thinking.

Mr Ratan Tata - Future President?

Mr. Ratan Tata becoming the President of India?? Mr. Tata epitomizes integrity, values, ethics, hard work and Indian pride. He's some one every Indian is proud of. In a happenstance, in Frankfurt on 3rd May, 1995 (too long back), I saw him sitting in the airport lounge. When you are in your early twenties, you do not have any reservations talking to any one!! And I wished him and started a conversation. He inquired why was I there - (I was there for some presentation on the prosthetic heart valve which was developed in India). And when I told him it was a metal valve (made from space-craft materials like Hayne's alloy), he immediately asked, "but will not the recipients require drugs for the entire life - blood thinner kind of drugs; a tissue valve would not require drugs?" I was amazed how would Mr. Tata know medical facts, that too so specific about prosthetic heart valves? It was a wonderful few minutes talking to the great man; and you learn from him what is humility, inquisitiveness and simplicity.Don't you remember him getting down from the F16, after flying it over Indian sky in the aero-show? The media-shy Tata was so reluctant to even look at the camera; whereas anyone in his shoes would have hogged the limelight!! Making money is no crime; but not not sharing wealth is. Mr Tata while leading the Tata group to newer heights, has never forgotten his social responsibility.Jaguar is now Indian, so is Land Rover. The whole world is talking of Nano. This is the vision of no ordinary man.May be, he is too good a man to lead this country!!!!! He is too good for our republic!!!!

Cardano - The Greatest Genius ever?

Girolamo Cardano was possibly one of the greatest geniuses in the world. Like most geniuses, he was temperamental, eccentric and never a model of veracity: His little book De propria vita will outlive and eclipse his fame in philosophy and natural science ... Cardano is a physician who feels his own pulse, and describes his own physical, moral and intellectual nature, together with all the conditions under which it had developed, and this, to the best of his ability, honestly and sincerely.

The work which he avowedly took as his model - the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius - he was able, hampered as he was by no Stoic maxims, to surpass in this particular. He desires to spare neither himself nor others, and begins the narrative of his career with the statement that his mother tried, and failed, to procure abortion. It is worth remark that he attributes to the stars which presided over his birth only the events of his life and his intellectual gifts, but not his moral qualities; he confesses that the astrological prediction that he would not live to the age of forty or fifty years did him much harm in his youth. But there is no need to quote from so well-known and accessible a book; whoever opens it will not lay it down till the last page.

Cardano admits that he cheated at play, that he was vindictive, incapable of all compunction, purposely cruel in his speech. He confesses it without impudence and without feigned contrition, without even wishing to make himself an object of interest, but with the same simple and sincere love of fact which guided him in his scientific researches. And, what is to us the most repulsive of all, the old man, after the most shocking experiences and with his confidence in his fellow-men gone, finds himself after all tolerably happy and comfortable. He has still left him a grandson, immense learning, the fame of his works, money, rank and credit, powerful friends, the knowledge of many secrets, and, best of all, belief in God. After this he counts the teeth in his head and finds that he has fifteen.

Yet when Cardano wrote, inquisitors and Spaniards were already busy in Italy, either hindering the production of such natures, or, where they existed, by some means or other putting them out of the way.

He was born in Pavia, Lombardy, the illegitimate child of Fazio Cardano a mathematically gifted lawyer who was a friend of Leonardo da Vinci. In his autobiography, Cardano claimed that his mother had attempted to abort him. Shortly before his birth, his mother had to move from Milan to Pavia to escape the plague; her three other children died from the disease.

In 1520, he entered the University of Pavia and later in Padua studied medicine. His eccentric and confrontational style did not earn him many friends and he had a difficult time finding work after his studies had ended. In 1525, Cardano repeatedly applied to the College of Physicians in Milan, but was not allowed due to his reputation and illegitimate birth.

Eventually, he managed to develop a considerable reputation as a physician and his services were highly valued at the courts. He was the first to describe typhoid fever.

Today, he is best known for his achievements in algebra. He published the solutions to the cubic and quartic equations in his 1545 book Ars Magna. The solution to one particular case of the cubic, x3 + ax = b (in modern notation), was communicated to him by Niccolo Fontana Tartaglia (who later claimed that Cardano had sworn not to reveal it, and engaged Cardano in a decade-long fight), and the quartic was solved by Cardano's student Lodovico Ferrari. Both were acknowledged in the foreword of the book, as well as in several places within its body. In his exposition, he acknowledged the existence of what are now called imaginary numbers, although he did not understand their properties (Mathematical field theory was developed centuries later). In Opus novum de proportionibus he introduced the binomial coefficients and the binomial theorem.

Cardano was notoriously short of money and kept himself solvent by being an accomplished gambler and chess player. His book about games of chance, Liber de ludo aleae, written in the 1560s, but not published until 1663, contains the first systematic treatment of probability, as well as a section on effective cheating methods.

Cardano invented several mechanical devices including the combination lock, the gimbal consisting of three concentric rings allowing a supported compass or gyroscope to rotate freely, and the Cardan shaft with universal joints, which allows the transmission of rotary motion at various angles and is used in vehicles to this day. He studied hypocycloids, published in de proportionibus 1570. The generating circles of these hypocycloids were later named Cardano circles or cardanic circles and were used for the construction of the first high-speed printing presses. He made several contributions to hydrodynamics and held that perpetual motion is impossible, except in celestial bodies. He published two encyclopedias of natural science which contain a wide variety of inventions, facts, and occult superstitions. He also introduced the Cardan grille, a cryptographic tool, in 1550.

Significantly, in the history of deaf education, he was one of the first to state that deaf people could learn without learning how to speak first.

Cardano's eldest and favorite son was executed in 1560 after he confessed to having poisoned his cuckolding wife. His other son was a gambler, who stole money from him. He allegedly cropped the ears of one of his sons. Cardano himself was accused of heresay in 1570 because he had computed and published the horoscope of Jesus in 1554. Apparently, his own son contributed to the prosecution. He was arrested, had to spend several months in prison and was forced to abjure his professorship. He moved to Rome, received a lifetime annuity from Pope Gregory XIII (after first having been rejected by Pope Pius V) and finished his autobiography. He died there on the day he had (supposedly) astrologically predicted earlier; some suspect he may have committed suicide.

Dr Kalam - Mamaji of the Nation?

If Gandhiji was called Bapuji, Nehru - Chachaji; can't we call Dr. Kalam as Mamaji? In my opinion, Dr. Kalam's stature is nothing less than the formers; and he is dear to all children, all over the world. Moreover, a maternal uncle is always very dear to every child. Being a caring, loving and great human being that he is, don't you all think he can be called Mamaji?? Dr. Kalam is the most loved Indian; and is someone who touches everyone's heart. He represents every thing Indian - every thing we are proud of. He symbolizes the Indian dream. Every Indian respects him, and every child adores him.