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- O gods of heaven and earth! This thing exceeds all expectations: tell me about Shingopana https://t.co/mrfyoyGfau 1 day ago
- The Mesozoic trainwreck piles up: Shidaisaurus, Diandongosaurus, Diandongosuchus...🤯 twitter.com/blog_supplemen… https://t.co/WFiAtsfnCo 1 day ago
- The Eulerian spiral integrals https://t.co/HAp6xm3Rtv 1 day ago
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- Some ruminations on asteroids and meteoritic falls
- Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)
- The Vyomavyāpin in the Pāśupata-tantra and a discursion on nine-fold Rudra-mantra-s
- Bhāskara-II’s polygons and an algebraic approximation for sines of pi by x
- Origins of the serpent cult and Bhāguri’s snake installation from the Sāmaveda tradition
- Two simple stotra-s, sectarian competition, and the Varāha episode from the archaic Skandapurāṇa
- The zombie obeys: a note on host manipulation by parasites and its ecological consequences
- Cārucitrābhisambodhi
- RV 10.78
- The turning of the yugacakra
- A sampler of Ramanujan’s elementary results and their manifold ramifications
- A catalog of attractors, repellors, cycles, and other oscillations of some common functional iterates
- The wink of the Gorgon and the twang of the Lyre
- Some poems
- The Kaumāra cycle in the Skandapurāṇa’s Śaṃkara-saṃhitā
- Some notes on the runiform “Altaic” inscriptions and the early Turk Khaghanates: Orkhon and beyond
- Vikīrṇā viṣayāḥ: India and the Rus
- Alkaios’ hymn to the Dioskouroi: Hindu parallels
- Some notes on the Indo-European aspects of the Anatolian tradition
- The death of Miss Lizzie Willink
- Indo-European expansions and iconography: revisiting the anthropomorphic stelae
- Geopolitical summary: March 2022
- Human retroviruses, sociology of science, and biographical ruminations
- Transcripts of conversations: the addiction principle:
- Phantom impressions-1
- A note on Śrī, Viṣṇu and śṛṅgāra
- Are civilizational cycles the norm?
- On the rise of the mātṛkā-s and the goddess Cāmuṇḍā
- Huns, Uralics, and empires of the steppe
- Some observations on the Lekkerkerker-Zeckendorf decomposition of integers
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March 2023 M T W T F S S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 -
Pages
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Search this Blog
Archives
mAnasa-taraMgiNI supplement
- RT @Pradeep_M_Nair: @HappySi99321047 @Shivaji_81 @ShefVaidya @GuhanRamya @gajanansinamdar @srivaraha_67 @LaxmiSeshaiyer @mmpandit @ramiyeng… 12 hours ago
- O gods of heaven and earth! This thing exceeds all expectations: tell me about Shingopana https://t.co/mrfyoyGfau 1 day ago
- The Mesozoic trainwreck piles up: Shidaisaurus, Diandongosaurus, Diandongosuchus...🤯 twitter.com/blog_supplemen… https://t.co/WFiAtsfnCo 1 day ago
- The Eulerian spiral integrals https://t.co/HAp6xm3Rtv 1 day ago
- It seems to miss the fact that many dinosaurs are still around 👀 https://t.co/WT0UXkzj6f 1 day ago
Top Posts
-
Recent Posts
- Some ruminations on asteroids and meteoritic falls
- Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)
- The Vyomavyāpin in the Pāśupata-tantra and a discursion on nine-fold Rudra-mantra-s
- Bhāskara-II’s polygons and an algebraic approximation for sines of pi by x
- Origins of the serpent cult and Bhāguri’s snake installation from the Sāmaveda tradition
- Two simple stotra-s, sectarian competition, and the Varāha episode from the archaic Skandapurāṇa
- The zombie obeys: a note on host manipulation by parasites and its ecological consequences
- Cārucitrābhisambodhi
- RV 10.78
- The turning of the yugacakra
- A sampler of Ramanujan’s elementary results and their manifold ramifications
- A catalog of attractors, repellors, cycles, and other oscillations of some common functional iterates
- The wink of the Gorgon and the twang of the Lyre
- Some poems
- The Kaumāra cycle in the Skandapurāṇa’s Śaṃkara-saṃhitā
- Some notes on the runiform “Altaic” inscriptions and the early Turk Khaghanates: Orkhon and beyond
- Vikīrṇā viṣayāḥ: India and the Rus
- Alkaios’ hymn to the Dioskouroi: Hindu parallels
- Some notes on the Indo-European aspects of the Anatolian tradition
- The death of Miss Lizzie Willink
- Indo-European expansions and iconography: revisiting the anthropomorphic stelae
- Geopolitical summary: March 2022
- Human retroviruses, sociology of science, and biographical ruminations
- Transcripts of conversations: the addiction principle:
- Phantom impressions-1
- A note on Śrī, Viṣṇu and śṛṅgāra
- Are civilizational cycles the norm?
- On the rise of the mātṛkā-s and the goddess Cāmuṇḍā
- Huns, Uralics, and empires of the steppe
- Some observations on the Lekkerkerker-Zeckendorf decomposition of integers
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March 2023 M T W T F S S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Tag Archives: astronomy
Some ruminations on asteroids and meteoritic falls
Recently, we received the news of a Russian spacecraft meant to bring some astronauts back to earth being hit by a meteorite. In early February we saw an obscure news item of the sighting of a meteoric fireball over Krasnoyarsk. … Continue reading
Posted in History, Life, Scientific ramblings
Tagged asteroids, astronomy, impact crater, meteorite, meteoroid, meteors, planets
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Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)
The dispiriting cloud cover lifted briefly on two nights (Wed 8/2/2023 and Fri 10/2/2023) finally giving us an opportunity to catch the latest Agni-putra-ketu in the welkin, Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF). On the first night, there was still some haze, … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, Life, Scientific ramblings
Tagged astronomy, Comet, Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), Hindu knowledge, Hindu ritual
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The wink of the Gorgon and the twang of the Lyre
The discovery of the archetypal eclipsing binary Algol The likes of Geminiano Montanari are hardly seen today. This remarkable Italian polymath aristocrat from the 1600s penetrated many realms of knowledge spanning law, medicine, astronomy, physics, biology and military technology. Having … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History, Scientific ramblings
Tagged Algol, astronomy, beta Lyrae, eclipsing binary, gravity, physics, stars, variable stars, W Ursae Majoris
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Sneha, snowstorms, the sun and the moon in enigmatic ṛk-s
That the Indo-European homeland was a cold place with snow is evidenced by widespread survival of two hon-homologous words for snow. Recently, a discussion on one of these words, sparked by some linguist, landed on my timeline on Twitter. From … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged astronomy, atharva veda, atharvaveda, gods, Hindu, Hindu knowledge, Hindu ritual, Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, indology, linguistics, Rigveda, Sanskrit, Veda, vedic, Yajurveda
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Making an illustrated Nakṣatra-sūkta and finding the constellation for a point in the sky
The illustrated Nakṣatra-sūkta Towards the latter phase of the Vedic age, multiple traditions independently composed sūkta-s that invoked the pantheon in association with their home nakṣatra-s as part of the śrauta Nakṣatreṣṭi or related gṛhya homa-s. Of these oldest and … Continue reading
Posted in art, Heathen thought, History, Scientific ramblings
Tagged astronomy, atharva veda, atharvaveda, globular clusters, history of science, nakShatra-s, nebula, nebulae, Rigveda, stars, Veda, vedic, Yajurveda
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Some notes on the Henon-Heiles Hamiltonian system
Anyone familiar with dynamical systems knows of the Henon-Heiles (HH) system. What we are presenting here is well-known stuff about which reams of material have been written. However, we offer certain tricks for visualizing this system that make it easy … Continue reading
Bṛhaspati-śanaiścarayor yuddham-2020 ityādi
The below is only for information. Parts of it should not be construed as any kind of prognostication on our part. The great Hindu naturalist Varāhamihira describes various kinds of planetary conjunctions or grahayuddha-s in his Brihatsaṃhitā (chapter 17) thus: … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History, Scientific ramblings
Tagged astronomy, constellations, geometry, Greek, Greek thought, Hindu knowledge, Hindu science, planets, sky, stars
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Prakīrṇaviṣayāḥ: Life, brains, warfare and society
1 On big brains An occidentally conditioned person remarked that “we were making bad use of the great brains we have evolved. Instead of using it for human betterment, we were expending it on killing each other with sophisticated weapons.” … Continue reading
Ruminations on meteorites, organics and water
In our times the Christian Anglo-Saxons were famous for their “war on drugs”. However, in the 1800s, when they lorded over India, they were famous as global drug dealers. On the morning of August 25, 1865 CE around 9:00 AM, … Continue reading
Posted in History, Scientific ramblings
Tagged astronomy, biochemistry, biology, chemistry, Earth, geology, Life, meteorite, meteoroid, meteors, origins
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The Aśvin-s and Rudra
The twin Aśvin-s and Rudra are both Indo-Aryan reflexes of two deity-classes which can be reconstructed as likely being present in the Proto-Indo-European religion. Both are likely to have even deeper roots going back to even earlier religious traditions across … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History
Tagged archaeology, ashvins, astronomy, atharva veda, atharvaveda, Hindu, Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, religion, Rigveda, Veda, vedic, Yajurveda
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Mongolica: Knowledge preservation and generation, Bolad Aqa and the like
We had earlier written an essay on the preservation and production of synthetic knowledge by the Chingizid Mongols. Here we discuss a few additional points in that regard. It is clear that throughout the Chingizid clan there was a certain … Continue reading
Posted in History
Tagged astronomy, buddhism, China, Chinggis Khan, history of science, India, Iran, Mongol, Mongol religion, Mongolia, Mongols
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Make your own sky map
We live in the age of photo-realism, be it for maps of the world or of the sky – it is a realism that not long ago was beyond the reach of even our vision. That is why even though … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, Life, Scientific ramblings
Tagged astronomy, globular clusters, nakShatra-s, nebulae, open clusters, sky, star chart, stars, variable stars
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A note on Cepheid variables: reproducing the study of the period-luminosity laws
In the 13th year of our life, when the skies of our city were still tolerably dark, we observed two stars Persei (Algol) and Cephei from our balcony which faced north on every night they were visible. Thus, we reproduced … Continue reading
A note on the asterisms forming the nakṣatra-s
In Hindu tradition the ecliptic is divided into 27 parts of which correspond to 27 asterisms known as the nakṣatra-s. In the earliest extant layers of our tradition this number is 28 implying division into sectors of or insertion of … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, Scientific ramblings
Tagged asterisms, astronomy, constellations, Hindu, Hindu science, Indo-Aryan, Indo-Iranian, religion, stars
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Āryabhaṭa and his sine table
Everyone and his son have written about Āryabhaṭa and his sine table. Yet we too do this because sometimes the situation arises where you have to explain things clearly to a layman who might have some education but is unfamiliar … Continue reading
Some astronomical experiments
Our interest in stellar evolution began sometime in the 8th year of our life after reading an old but very readable account by the famed Russian scientist George Gamow. It captivated us beyond words but we had to wait until … Continue reading
Posted in Scientific ramblings
Tagged astronomy, Gaia, Hertzsprung-Russel diagram, Hipparcos, Hyades, luminosity, magnitude, Pleiades, stars
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nakṣatra-darśanam
Varoli had just completed the synthesis of the xanthine coupled with hydroxymethyluracil and diaminotriazine to test an interesting hypothesis of Somakhya regarding a particular class of DNA-binding proteins. She was putting in considerable effort to finish it off by the … Continue reading
Posted in Life, Scientific ramblings
Tagged astronomy, Hyades, Life, open cluster, origins, Pleiades, stars, Story, variable stars
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An astronomical interpretation of the anaḍvān sūkta
This may be seen as a continuation of this note: Anatomy and heavens in the boomorphic universe. The anaḍvān sūkta is an enigmatic sūkta from the Atharvaveda which falls in the same class as other sūkta-s which describe a “boomorphic” … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, History, Scientific ramblings
Tagged ancient Hindu thought, astronomy, Hindu, Hindu ritual, Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, indra, Pleiades, prajApati, Taurus, Veda, vedic
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svabhāṣāyāṃ śāstrīyā śikṣā
As PDF navame varṣe lūtikā tasyāḥ pañca-varṣīyāyai anujāyai varolyai dravyaśāstram aśikṣayat | lūtikā ‘vadat : “priye varoli dhyānena kārṇārpaṇaṃ kuru | atha vakṣyāmy amla-kṣāra-siddhāntaṃ ca lavaṇīkaraṇasya prayogaṃ ca | purve kāle svastyātreyeṇa+asmadīyena dravyavidā+amla-kṣāra-siddhāntaḥ proktaḥ | kāle ‘smin amla-kṣāra-siddhānto arrheniyas ca … Continue reading
Posted in art, Life, Scientific ramblings
Tagged astronomy, chemistry, education, Sanskrit, Story
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Remembering Raghunathachari
We do not intend to recount the biography of Chintamani Raghunathachari as it is publicly available to anyone interested in the matter. But our intention is simply to talk a little about his life and times. He lived at a … Continue reading
A rambling expatiation instigated by the self-interview of Robert Burnham, Jr
When we were young, the normally taciturn vaiśya-jyotiṣa once asked us to participate in a peculiar weekly assembly of amateur astronomers that was apparently inspired by none other than the great Lokamānya Ṭilak and was housed in a memorial of … Continue reading
Posted in Life, Scientific ramblings
Tagged Abrahamism, aliens, astronomy, Burnham, exoplanets, Fermi paradox, kepler mission
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Comet Lovejoy, C/2014 Q2
On pauṣa kṛṣṇapakṣa 11, kali 5115 (16th Jan 2015) around 8.10 PM, braving the cold of the height of winter (felt like -5°C) we caught sight of śvetaketu in the constellation of Taurus near the 6 mothers of our patron … Continue reading
Posted in Heathen thought, Life, Scientific ramblings
Tagged astronomy, Comet, Hindu, Lovejoy
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The extraordinary case of Comet Holmes
A dhuma-gola was sighted near the head of yayAti, when the kR^iShNa-pakSha moon was passing through kR^ittikA My friend the AghamarShaNa brought to my attention an extraordinary event this evening: The comet Holmes was visible to naked eye. He mentioned … Continue reading
Comet C/2006 M4 Swan
“On this day a fairly bright shikhI was seen coursing between the tail of the R^ikSha and the pashupAla at the evening time a muhUrta after sunset, on kR^iShNa navamI under puShya nakShatra” Yesterday, Mn as well as Marc and … Continue reading
Comet Machholz 2004
Comet Machholz 2004 We finally saw comet Machholz 2004 today with my 20X75 binoculars. It shone as fuzz ball in the southern sky, in the constellation of Eridanus (The southern river; the celestial yamunA of the Hindus which leads to … Continue reading
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