Three Eggs
1. AN EGG FROM ANTARCTICA
This egg originally belonged to an emperor penguin in Antarctica and was found - and flicked - by a certain Mr. Apsley Cherry-Garrard and his group back in 1910. The story is very briefly told in http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/14/penguin-eggs-worst-journey-world
The quest for the penguin's egg was an attempt to marshall evidence for an early theory on embryogenesis and evolution. Despite the heroism shown and sacrifices made by the seekers (and for some of them, the sacrifice was the supreme one), most accounts mark their efforts as ultimately quite futile - the eggs did not yield the kind of data anticipated and the theory they were trying to establish had to be discarded (An insensitive way of putting it in Malayalam would be: "the theory yielded an elephant's egg!").
2. VIRABHADRA RAO'S EGG
The story of Virabhadra Rao's Egg has many more horrible deaths than the penguin's. Still, it is an altogether more funny one!
Sometime around 1940 in Madras, a certain young scientist named Virabhadra Rao began a study of the embryology of a certain species of sea slug called 'kalinga ornata' (aside: wonder what this animal has to do with Orissa!). The project faced severe initial difficulties as the slug species is hard to obtain. After plenty effort, Rao finally found an adult specimen and kept it in a stone trough in a big lab that he shared with several other scholars, all engaged in the study of various marine species. The lab had a large collection of live specimens in glass vessels and troughs. A certain colleague of Rao's noted how pleased everyone was to see the newbslug peacefully creeping around the bottom of its new home.
The next day morning, everyone was in for a profound shock. The water in every container had turned into something like thick 'kanji' and most specimens were dead, chocked in the slimy mess. And there was a foul smell in the air. In Virabhadra Rao's trough, there was no trace of his slug!
During the sad cleanup, an attendant spotted the slug at the bottom of another trough in a far corner of the lab; it was quite alive and a thin sticky thread rapidly issued forth from its belly. "It has caught diarrhoea!"
It took a while for Rao and friends to figure out what was happening. The slug was laying eggs - millions and billions of them - in an unending stream. It first filled its 'home trough' with eggs and then crept out and crawled into the next trough and then to the one beyond it and so on, laying eggs constantly and souping up the water in each vessel. Despite its having been at it for perhaps the entire night, there was no sign of a letup. The older eggs had already begun to die and decay - raising the stink.
Soon thereafter, the phrase 'Virabhadra Rao's egg' came to mean "foul, sticky mess" in the group. As a good friend of his(*) remarked, "Rao is a neat and meticulous chap. Sad irony, his name got associated with utter filth"
3. The PERUNTHACHAN EGG
This egg has yet to be clearly seen and sized up. Indeed, it has yet to be sought with anything approaching Cherry-Garrard levels of intensity; and to be honest, even its existence is not yet confirmed. On the flip side, it has yet to record a kill!
Sometime back, I wrote here about the geometry problem of finding that convex planar figure (let me call this C) from which when two mutually congruent convex shapes of largest possible area are cut, the highest fraction is still left over. Some experiments indicated C has to be a smooth and fat figure (details are here: http://arxiv.org/abs/1012.3106) and I proposed the name 'Perunthachan Oval'for it - among other things, as a homage to Kerala's legendary master-craftsman.
To my knowledge, no further work has happened anywhere on this problem. So, the Perunthachan oval now exists only in my fond hopes. But I hereby go one level up and christen its 3d analog, the 'Perunthachan Egg' - at least its logical continuity from 'oval' is indisputable!
Moreover, this egg has the potential to be the first ever Mathematical object named solely after a Mallu - only the first half of the (admittedly, much better established)'Madhava Gregory series' belongs to Kerala!
Correction (Jan 2013): Am surprised to note that there is a very modern Mathematical concept named after a Keralan mathematician I have been privileged to have met. Here it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nambooripad_order
------------
(*) Virabhadra Rao's friend who recorded the slug-saga for posterity was K. Bhaskaran Nair (1913-1982) - zoologist, teacher and author. In his time, he was considered a preeminent master of scholarly Malayalam prose. And his 'Atta akashathekku' ('Astronaut Leeches') is a jewel of a popular science (mostly biology) work, ranking right up there in the Gould-Attenborough class. Unfortunately, Mallus have not remembered his contributions well. He has no wiki presence; google with "K.Bhaskaran Nair" and almost all pages popping out will be on a namesake of his who was a comic film actor of moderate to tolerable calibre.
And almost a lifetime after Rao's investigations, his slug continues to puzzle researchers - wiki says: "little is known of its biology"
This egg originally belonged to an emperor penguin in Antarctica and was found - and flicked - by a certain Mr. Apsley Cherry-Garrard and his group back in 1910. The story is very briefly told in http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/14/penguin-eggs-worst-journey-world
The quest for the penguin's egg was an attempt to marshall evidence for an early theory on embryogenesis and evolution. Despite the heroism shown and sacrifices made by the seekers (and for some of them, the sacrifice was the supreme one), most accounts mark their efforts as ultimately quite futile - the eggs did not yield the kind of data anticipated and the theory they were trying to establish had to be discarded (An insensitive way of putting it in Malayalam would be: "the theory yielded an elephant's egg!").
2. VIRABHADRA RAO'S EGG
The story of Virabhadra Rao's Egg has many more horrible deaths than the penguin's. Still, it is an altogether more funny one!
Sometime around 1940 in Madras, a certain young scientist named Virabhadra Rao began a study of the embryology of a certain species of sea slug called 'kalinga ornata' (aside: wonder what this animal has to do with Orissa!). The project faced severe initial difficulties as the slug species is hard to obtain. After plenty effort, Rao finally found an adult specimen and kept it in a stone trough in a big lab that he shared with several other scholars, all engaged in the study of various marine species. The lab had a large collection of live specimens in glass vessels and troughs. A certain colleague of Rao's noted how pleased everyone was to see the newbslug peacefully creeping around the bottom of its new home.
The next day morning, everyone was in for a profound shock. The water in every container had turned into something like thick 'kanji' and most specimens were dead, chocked in the slimy mess. And there was a foul smell in the air. In Virabhadra Rao's trough, there was no trace of his slug!
During the sad cleanup, an attendant spotted the slug at the bottom of another trough in a far corner of the lab; it was quite alive and a thin sticky thread rapidly issued forth from its belly. "It has caught diarrhoea!"
It took a while for Rao and friends to figure out what was happening. The slug was laying eggs - millions and billions of them - in an unending stream. It first filled its 'home trough' with eggs and then crept out and crawled into the next trough and then to the one beyond it and so on, laying eggs constantly and souping up the water in each vessel. Despite its having been at it for perhaps the entire night, there was no sign of a letup. The older eggs had already begun to die and decay - raising the stink.
Soon thereafter, the phrase 'Virabhadra Rao's egg' came to mean "foul, sticky mess" in the group. As a good friend of his(*) remarked, "Rao is a neat and meticulous chap. Sad irony, his name got associated with utter filth"
3. The PERUNTHACHAN EGG
This egg has yet to be clearly seen and sized up. Indeed, it has yet to be sought with anything approaching Cherry-Garrard levels of intensity; and to be honest, even its existence is not yet confirmed. On the flip side, it has yet to record a kill!
Sometime back, I wrote here about the geometry problem of finding that convex planar figure (let me call this C) from which when two mutually congruent convex shapes of largest possible area are cut, the highest fraction is still left over. Some experiments indicated C has to be a smooth and fat figure (details are here: http://arxiv.org/abs/1012.3106) and I proposed the name 'Perunthachan Oval'for it - among other things, as a homage to Kerala's legendary master-craftsman.
To my knowledge, no further work has happened anywhere on this problem. So, the Perunthachan oval now exists only in my fond hopes. But I hereby go one level up and christen its 3d analog, the 'Perunthachan Egg' - at least its logical continuity from 'oval' is indisputable!
Moreover, this egg has the potential to be the first ever Mathematical object named solely after a Mallu - only the first half of the (admittedly, much better established)'Madhava Gregory series' belongs to Kerala!
Correction (Jan 2013): Am surprised to note that there is a very modern Mathematical concept named after a Keralan mathematician I have been privileged to have met. Here it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nambooripad_order
------------
(*) Virabhadra Rao's friend who recorded the slug-saga for posterity was K. Bhaskaran Nair (1913-1982) - zoologist, teacher and author. In his time, he was considered a preeminent master of scholarly Malayalam prose. And his 'Atta akashathekku' ('Astronaut Leeches') is a jewel of a popular science (mostly biology) work, ranking right up there in the Gould-Attenborough class. Unfortunately, Mallus have not remembered his contributions well. He has no wiki presence; google with "K.Bhaskaran Nair" and almost all pages popping out will be on a namesake of his who was a comic film actor of moderate to tolerable calibre.
And almost a lifetime after Rao's investigations, his slug continues to puzzle researchers - wiki says: "little is known of its biology"
posted by R.Nandakumar @ 1:11 AM
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