Playing with electrons

When a PhD student is nearing completion of his/her PhD, the worries, concerns and dilemma pertaining to a post-doc start to loom.  This situation is strongly dependent on the broad area of PhD and also on the specific area within a particular discipline. For instance, to my knowledge and observation, PhD graduates in basic sciences such as physics or mathematics mostly or usually do one or more post-docs, while PhD graduates from say Electrical or Computer Science Engineering usually bypass the post-doc stage - not all such engineering PhDs, but mostly. For instance, if we randomly pick up 100 fresh PhD graduates in Physics or Mathematics, and 100 fresh PhD graduates in Electrical/Computer Engineering, what how would the statistics look like with regard to the percentage of graduates going for post-doc in physics/math vs. those in electrical/computer engineering? I do not have the statistics with me to claim anything, but based on my observation and interaction in the last 4.5 ye

Sometimes I wonder - if 'it' were not there, how would things be like today? 'It' is any one of the few technological or engineering breakthroughs that have shaped our present world. Or, perhaps who knows, 'it' killed some other invention or engineering wonder which could have shaped our present world in a totally different manner, may be in an even 'better' way. For, when 'it' quickly gained widespread use and kick-started a market worth millions or billions of dollars, then things like industry, government, taxation, market, etc. come into picture and nobody really wants a change that could hinder the now-smooth functioning market and day-to-day life. Nobody prefers that. Rather, the drive on research and innovation is to keep pushing the frontiers of the existing technology and engineering marvels in incremental steps, training the bright minds in such pursuits and perhaps totally killing a pure 'out of the box' thought process. Aft

I am writing this short and quick post being unable to contain the sheer amazement I had had last night. It has completely baffled me, and doesn't seem humanly possible, at least from my experience.  The cold outside is brutal, or rather, was more brutal yesterday than today. Although the actual temperature was consistently around -10 to -14 degree celcius, but the nasty wind blowing at 25-30 km/hour makes one's skin perceives an even colder temperature, often referred to as the 'feels like temperature' as can be seen in weather.com ... it was 'feels like -17 to -20 degree celcius' outside (weather.com). It was punishingly cold without any exaggeration. I had lost my nice gloves a few days ago (stupid me!), and thus I was forced to carry the carry-out bag from Raising Canes with my bare hand sans gloves at 1 am in the night. I used each of my hands alternately to hold the bag for a 30-second period for the 5-min walking distance while keeping the other hand