The Thar Incident - 9
Continued from Part 8.
******************
The young assistant professor of Computer Science at IIT Bombay walked towards his office in the bizarre building that houses the Computer Science Department in Powai. Having completed a PhD at MIT and he had returned like so many others to the place he graduated from. Part of the desire to return to India had been due to the poor health of his father, but also no one in the US had any real interest in his branch of Chaos theory and barring a few mathematicians most considered his sub-field too arcane.
Dodging the undergraduates rushing about the halls, he turned the corner past the wooden divider, and he saw his office door ajar. Stepping through it an odd sight greeted him. Seated in his office was his father, and his father's old friend from college. The assistant professor was taken aback. His father occasionally would come down to his office unannounced but his father's friend was an academic celebrity, the country's most respected sociologist, the head of a very influential think tank in Bangalore, his visit usually drew a parade comprising the Director of IIT and the various Deans and atleast a dozen heads of departments, and yet today no one was in sight.
Extremely odd thought... the young assistant professor. Upon sensing the son's entry, the father leaned back to face him and then motioned him to sit in the chair before them. The assistant professor greeted them and began to sit his chair when he realized that he had nothing to offer his guests, he stopped short of sitting and blurted out his mind, "I'm sorry perhaps I should get some coffee from the shack!"
But his father chimed in "no no, I'll get it... this is Professor ..."
The son replied before his father could finish the sentence,"Yes yes, I know.. I am honoured and surprised to see him.."
The father continued "You sit, I'll get the coffee".
The Assistant professor was now even more uncertain, this was incredibly odd, his father never got coffee, he always insisted that the son get it for him. It was part of an old game, they played, the father lording it over the son.
The father shuffled out of the room and his friend, the Sociologist began, " So how is your work going here."
The Assistant professor was confused, why was the sociologist paying any attention to him, their fields and paths had never crossed, but to avoid looking rude, the assistant professor began enthusiastically rattling off details of his more recent work, his graduate students and grants. Very soon he ran out of generalities and began to talk about the specifics of his work, his interest in developing algorithms that predicted specific forms of organizational chaos and the extention of the modelling work done earlier in the US by various corporate groups.
The Sociologist showed no sign of the customary boredom that crept into the demeanour of non-specialists by this point in most conversations, to the contrary the sociologist began to ask pointed questions about the nature of the work and the specifics of the research, curiouser and curiouser, thought the assistant professor. For almost twenty minutes, the assistant professor felt himself being probed by pointed questions from the sociologist. With each passing minute the assistant professor realised that this was not a casual visit, the sociologist simply knew too much about his work.
His father entered precariously carrying three cups of coffee on a small carboard tray. The assistant professor looked up at his father for an instant before he got up to help him with the tray. As he laid out the plastic cups on the table, his mind pondered was this related to something in the government? the assistant professor's father had once been in government, but he never talked about what he did there, some little known department attached to the Department of Cabinet Affairs. The thought appealed to the assistant professor but then why would the government be interested in organizational chaos theory?
The meeting eventually lasted a full hour and half, by the end of the meeting the assistant professor was exhausted. It was only a combination of respect and amazement that kept the assistant professor from asking the sociologist why he was so interested in this work. It was time for the assistant professor to go teach a class and so he requested his guests to excuse him.
The Sociologist suddenly looked at the clock and exclaimed that it had been almost two hours, the assistant professor's father seemed ambivalent but softly told his son to go back to the class and that they would let themselves out. With a few prefunctory goodbyes and a promise of another meeting, the assistant professor left the office.
The father got up to pick up the coffee cups and clear the table, slowly after that he sank into his son's chair and stared at his old friend across the table,
"Well what do you think?" he asked.
"It looks workable, what do you think?", said the sociologist.
The father now replied, "It is much more sophisticated than anything we used in pattern analysis or prediction, but to our defence we never had such computational power before. Before we had access to the Met department's Cray, we had very small statistical models for anything."
Many decades ago, the father had been a bright eyed officer of the Cabinet Secretariat, heading one of the most sensitive and secret teams that attempted to develop advanced computational tools to solve the secretariat's myriad problems. The work was still classified and the small team was now a behemoth, employing dozens of scientists. The father had technically retired almost ten years ago, but does one really retire from "service"?
The sociologist looked on,"So do you think that this is computationally tractable? in present resources"
The father replied, "perhaps, but we need to spur the development of more advanced computational tools any way, so the investment will be worthwhile."
The sociologist's doubts were eased,"in that case we'd better tell him when he gets back.."
They met again later that day at tea at the assistant professor's house, and the sociologist but into his marie biscuit and said " we have a job for you..."
"We want you to give us a way of simulating the spread of information, the flow of an idea across a population. The transit of thoughts and ideas in the minds of a billion, and their reactions. We suspect that this process will be chaotic and prone to all manner of complex phenomenologies and need a clear framework to base our understanding of it on. Would you be interested?"
The assistant professor looked carefully at his father and realised that it was not a question.
He nodded and was about to ask about possible funding commitments,
The sociologist anticipated the question and simply said "Don't worry about anything else just keep your eye on the core problem. Let me worry about the rest."
Now the assistant professor was impressed.
******************
The young assistant professor of Computer Science at IIT Bombay walked towards his office in the bizarre building that houses the Computer Science Department in Powai. Having completed a PhD at MIT and he had returned like so many others to the place he graduated from. Part of the desire to return to India had been due to the poor health of his father, but also no one in the US had any real interest in his branch of Chaos theory and barring a few mathematicians most considered his sub-field too arcane.
Dodging the undergraduates rushing about the halls, he turned the corner past the wooden divider, and he saw his office door ajar. Stepping through it an odd sight greeted him. Seated in his office was his father, and his father's old friend from college. The assistant professor was taken aback. His father occasionally would come down to his office unannounced but his father's friend was an academic celebrity, the country's most respected sociologist, the head of a very influential think tank in Bangalore, his visit usually drew a parade comprising the Director of IIT and the various Deans and atleast a dozen heads of departments, and yet today no one was in sight.
Extremely odd thought... the young assistant professor. Upon sensing the son's entry, the father leaned back to face him and then motioned him to sit in the chair before them. The assistant professor greeted them and began to sit his chair when he realized that he had nothing to offer his guests, he stopped short of sitting and blurted out his mind, "I'm sorry perhaps I should get some coffee from the shack!"
But his father chimed in "no no, I'll get it... this is Professor ..."
The son replied before his father could finish the sentence,"Yes yes, I know.. I am honoured and surprised to see him.."
The father continued "You sit, I'll get the coffee".
The Assistant professor was now even more uncertain, this was incredibly odd, his father never got coffee, he always insisted that the son get it for him. It was part of an old game, they played, the father lording it over the son.
The father shuffled out of the room and his friend, the Sociologist began, " So how is your work going here."
The Assistant professor was confused, why was the sociologist paying any attention to him, their fields and paths had never crossed, but to avoid looking rude, the assistant professor began enthusiastically rattling off details of his more recent work, his graduate students and grants. Very soon he ran out of generalities and began to talk about the specifics of his work, his interest in developing algorithms that predicted specific forms of organizational chaos and the extention of the modelling work done earlier in the US by various corporate groups.
The Sociologist showed no sign of the customary boredom that crept into the demeanour of non-specialists by this point in most conversations, to the contrary the sociologist began to ask pointed questions about the nature of the work and the specifics of the research, curiouser and curiouser, thought the assistant professor. For almost twenty minutes, the assistant professor felt himself being probed by pointed questions from the sociologist. With each passing minute the assistant professor realised that this was not a casual visit, the sociologist simply knew too much about his work.
His father entered precariously carrying three cups of coffee on a small carboard tray. The assistant professor looked up at his father for an instant before he got up to help him with the tray. As he laid out the plastic cups on the table, his mind pondered was this related to something in the government? the assistant professor's father had once been in government, but he never talked about what he did there, some little known department attached to the Department of Cabinet Affairs. The thought appealed to the assistant professor but then why would the government be interested in organizational chaos theory?
The meeting eventually lasted a full hour and half, by the end of the meeting the assistant professor was exhausted. It was only a combination of respect and amazement that kept the assistant professor from asking the sociologist why he was so interested in this work. It was time for the assistant professor to go teach a class and so he requested his guests to excuse him.
The Sociologist suddenly looked at the clock and exclaimed that it had been almost two hours, the assistant professor's father seemed ambivalent but softly told his son to go back to the class and that they would let themselves out. With a few prefunctory goodbyes and a promise of another meeting, the assistant professor left the office.
The father got up to pick up the coffee cups and clear the table, slowly after that he sank into his son's chair and stared at his old friend across the table,
"Well what do you think?" he asked.
"It looks workable, what do you think?", said the sociologist.
The father now replied, "It is much more sophisticated than anything we used in pattern analysis or prediction, but to our defence we never had such computational power before. Before we had access to the Met department's Cray, we had very small statistical models for anything."
Many decades ago, the father had been a bright eyed officer of the Cabinet Secretariat, heading one of the most sensitive and secret teams that attempted to develop advanced computational tools to solve the secretariat's myriad problems. The work was still classified and the small team was now a behemoth, employing dozens of scientists. The father had technically retired almost ten years ago, but does one really retire from "service"?
The sociologist looked on,"So do you think that this is computationally tractable? in present resources"
The father replied, "perhaps, but we need to spur the development of more advanced computational tools any way, so the investment will be worthwhile."
The sociologist's doubts were eased,"in that case we'd better tell him when he gets back.."
They met again later that day at tea at the assistant professor's house, and the sociologist but into his marie biscuit and said " we have a job for you..."
"We want you to give us a way of simulating the spread of information, the flow of an idea across a population. The transit of thoughts and ideas in the minds of a billion, and their reactions. We suspect that this process will be chaotic and prone to all manner of complex phenomenologies and need a clear framework to base our understanding of it on. Would you be interested?"
The assistant professor looked carefully at his father and realised that it was not a question.
He nodded and was about to ask about possible funding commitments,
The sociologist anticipated the question and simply said "Don't worry about anything else just keep your eye on the core problem. Let me worry about the rest."
Now the assistant professor was impressed.
posted by maverick at 11:16 AM
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