Author: drsriramnathan

His contribution to astronomy is astronomical!

In fact the only reason why he did not get a Nobel prize is that Astronomy was not part of physics and at the time there was no prize for astronomy!

In fact the telescope named after him has made so many contributions to the study of space!

Edwin’s contribution was immense!

In the early 1920s, humanity believed the Milky Way was the entire universe. Edwin dismantled this idea through two monumental breakthroughs!

The first was to prove the Existence of Other Galaxies! This he did By observing Cepheid variable stars in the Andromeda “nebula,” Edwin proved it was actually a distinct galaxy sitting hundreds of thousands of light-years outside our own. This established the field of extragalactic astronomy!

Then he discovered the Expansion of the Universe! In 1929, he formulated a law named after him! By observing that the light from distant galaxies shifts toward the red end of the spectrum (redshift), he proved that galaxies are moving away from us and that the universe is actively expanding. This provided the foundational observational proof for the Big Bang theory!

He created the “Tuning Fork” system to classify galaxies based on their shapes (elliptical, spiral, barred spiral)!

In spite of all this he did not get the Nobel because of a technicality!

Then again some legends do not need a prize to make them legendary!

Did you get the scientist’s name? You would have anwyay heard the name of his telescope or the scope named after him! Frankly that is the only telescope many would even know by name!

His full name was Edwin Powell Hubble!

Yes!

The very Hubble after whom the Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble)  is named after!

The legend who could not get a Nobel though he deserved at least two! Another legend was Soorya Krishnamoorthy who promoted art and artists!

He will be missed…

Shub ratri…

In allergy we have the two stimulus phenomenon! The first exposure may not produce that much of a reaction but the second one would! The first one was just the initial stimulus while the second is the actual reaction! You can very well say that the first stimulus is the Primer!

When this happens in human behaviour it is called Priming!

Priming in psychology is a phenomenon where exposure to one stimulus influences how you react to a subsequent stimulus, usually without your conscious awareness!

One is classically a Semantic or word Priming!

The set up here is that you read or hear the word “yellow”! And then the test is that you are are asked to quickly identify a new word flashed on a screen!

The result of Priming is that you recognize the word “banana” much faster than you would recognize an unrelated word like “television”!

This apparently happens because the word or thought or action activates related concepts in your memory network, making the second related concept easier to process!

One more example is that if you see or hear the word “doctor,” you are much faster at filling in the blanks to complete a partial word puzzle like D _ C T _ R!

Daniel Kahneman popularized priming in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow as a prime example of System 1 thinking—the brain’s fast, automatic, and emotional operating system.

Kahneman described the influence of an idea on an action as the ideomotor effect (e.g., words related to old age subtly causing people to walk more slowly down a hallway)!

Your associative network connects related ideas automatically. A cue like money can subconsciously trigger independent or selfish behavior patterns!

Then again these are only subltle changes and indications! It has been shown that in larger studies or in more common and consistent situations, priming plays only a small role!

When it is time for an important decision, your whole BRAIN takes part in the process! Then again it does make sense to PRIME yourself before any major decision!

Like how the Indian board made Mohinder Amarnath Bhardwaj the vice captain in the pivotal 1983 cup!

Now your body is naturally primed to sleep in the night! Let’s not disturb that!

Shub ratri!

Do you know who discovered oxygen? A philosophical person’s answer may be GOD!

A knowledgeable one will say Joseph Priestley (Since PRIEST is in the name so may be the philosophical person was partially true!)


Then do you know who discovered Chlorine? Again a knowledgeable person may say it is Sir Humphry Davy! In GK competitions even I have jumped and uttered all these!

Trust Bill Bryson to come and break this bubble!

We were  wrong! Not only oxygen or Chlorine, even elements like nitrogen and multiple other elements were actually DISCOVERED by one scientist who was brilliant but most unfortunate and many may not even have heard his name!

That was Carl Wilhelm Scheele!

He was a brilliant German-Swedish pharmaceutical chemist whose extraordinary knack for isolating chemical elements earned him a reputation as one of history’s most prolific—yet unluckiest—scientists!

Despite discovering oxygen, chlorine, nitrogen, and multiple other elements, he frequently lost historical credit to others because of publishing delays and his adherence to outdated scientific theories!

Scheele didn’t just discover oxygen; his experimental skills allowed him to isolate or identify an astonishing array of elements and compounds!

He discovered Oxygen which he called the called “fire air”!, then Chlorine (which he thought was a compound), Molybdenum, Tungsten, Barium, and Nitrogen!

The list does not end here!

He also discovered and created and in some cases isolated for the first time; Tartaric acid, oxalic, uric, lactic, and citric acids, alongside highly toxic hydrofluoric, hydrocyanic (cyanide), and arsenic acids!

Scheele’s Green is actually copper arsenite which is a vibrant pigment widely used in Victorian wallpapers and fabrics before its extreme arsenic toxicity was fully understood!

So he did discover or isolate these compounds but then why don’t we know about him! Or why he does not get credit for the same!?

Well It is because of two reasons!

First was the Publishing Curse! He routinely discovered elements years before anyone else, only to have his work sit on a publisher’s desk. Because of this, Joseph Priestley gets credit for oxygen, and Sir Humphry Davy gets credit for chlorine!

Then his pretty scary habit which leads to his Death by His Own Discoveries!
In the 18th century, chemists routinely smelled and tasted new compounds!

Scheele worked closely with heavy metals and lethal chemicals like arsenic and cyanide! He died at just 43 years old, in the middle of his lab sorrounded by a range of toxic chemicals any of which could have killed him!

Moral of the story!?

Document your findings; well, document everything! And DO NOT smell or taste a new compound!

Also try to have a clear mind! You can use a Kumar Sanu song to clear it!

Do read about Scheele though….he deserves some credit…

Shubh ratri…

What will you say if I tell you that years ago they found the greatest find in archaeology but then lost it!

It was not even a small thing but a big piece of bone!

This is the story of the first DINOSAUR bone ever found way back in 1677 and which was promptly lost soon after!

As far as history goes, its hysterical!

In the amazing Novel called a short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson; he narrates this dark comedy! Now I had finished reading or listening to the book couple of years back which was around 5 hours or so! Then Bill updates the book to make it double the size! Not fair!

Interesting though!

Now coming back to the bone!

In 1677; workers unearthed the large lower end of a fossilized femur (thighbone) in a limestone quarry in Cornwell, near Chipping Norton, England.

The fossil was given to Robert Plot, the first keeper of the Ashmolean Museum and professor at Oxford University!

Long before the word “dinosaur” existed, Plot published an illustration of the bone in his 1677 book The Natural History of Oxfordshire. He concluded it belonged to a massive human giant (like those mentioned in biblical history) or perhaps a large elephant brought over by the Romans!

After Plot documented and illustrated the specimen, the physical bone was misplaced or discarded. It vanished from the historical record!

Today, the only evidence that the bone ever existed is Plot’s detailed description and the copperplate engraving printed in his 1677 book!

Paleontologists later realized from Plot’s precise drawing that the bone actually belonged to a Megalosaurus, a large carnivorous dinosaur.

But since because the original specimen is lost and the creature was not yet understood, humanity had to wait until the 1820s for Megalosaurus to be officially named and recognized as an extinct giant reptile!

So that’s humanity for you! A human can even lose a giant dinosaur bone!

The next time you lose your remote, don’t worry too much! Historically some have lost a huge dinosaur bone!

Historical though were the songs sung by
Prathivadhi Bhayankara Sreenivas!

Now stop searching for that lost pair of sock and sleep!

Shub ratri…

 

Imagine a  WALK which is so long that it takes an average thru-hiker about five to seven months (roughly six months) to complete the entire trek in one go!

Imagine walking for 6-7 months when walking for 6-7 minutes is a big deal for many!

Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America is a novel by Bill Bryson

Here he tells about his experience about a FOOTPATH!

Yeah!

But do not take the footpath lightly!

This is the story of the longest FOOTPATH in the world!

Not the actual longest FOOTPATH in the world which is In Canada!

The real longest FOOTPATH in the world is the Trans Canada trail! This trail extends for over 28,000 km (17,000 mi) from coast to coast!

Proposed in 1992 by Bill Pratt and Pierre Camu the trail has three major “endpoints”, those being at Cape Spear in Newfoundland, Tuktoyaktuk in the Northwest Territories, and Vancouver in British Columbia!

But the Appalachian Trail is the longest hiking-only footpath in the world, stretching roughly 2,198 miles across 14 U.S. states!

The story of ‘Walk in the Woods’ is the story of the Appalachian Trail!

Interesting how a FOOTPATH has become a matter of discussion! In my city footpath was not for people but for two wheelers!

The story reminded me of our walk which we took en route to this amazing temple in a remote part of kerala! The path was not clearly marked and it was raining! The issue was not even the rain but the fact that it would make the blood sucking leeches drop on us from all directions!

The first couple of them were shocking but then we got used to them in a way which is surprising  even now! After some time we would stop and I would REMOVE the leech one by one from everyone using my trusty old knife! We were told to apply some salt over it which would have been a better idea but then some intelligent bloke (ME!) forgot to take the big packet of salt from the bus!

We were told to follow a dog who will show us the way and we were so happy so meet one! But our happiness was short lived when it ran way the moment it started raining!
But we were young and well naive so we simply marched on bravely like the house surgeon who is allowed to do a tonsil surgery and does not know any comlication!

We did reach the temple and a beautiful guest house with a small hut and the lady kindly gave us some of the best tasting food in the world! The journey was tough but it was fun! Plus we got a story!

That is my footpath story!
There was one person who did not like either the footpath or the walk! That was my mother! She used to tell us that she has walked and worked enough when she was young and now she does not want to do it!

Give her some hot vada and some devotional song by jagjit Singh or even the visual of Ganga Arrthi and it was heaven for her!

Missing and wishing her on her birthday with a sketch of her favourite…did not have the mind set to make a sketch of her…

Shub ratri…

So now you know the Goldilocks rule in general!

If not you can go through yesterday’s blog

https://ramadocblog.com/2026/09/19/the-goldilocks-rule-rocks/

Now the rule was used in many areas of business and well as a personal life! You may use it to select a job or even a game to play!

Then in the age of AI you have the Goldilocks rule of AI!

The Goldilocks Rule of AI means finding the balanced “just right” middle ground between two harmful extremes!

Depending on the context, this principle applies to expectations, business strategy, or machine learning design.

The first is the Expectation Balance  which is in short Optimism vs. Pessimism!

The Papa bear version is being too optimistic in which you may believe that AI will instantly create a utopian society or solve all human problems!

The Pessimistic  or Too Cold or Mama bear version is that you may fear that superintelligent or sentient AI will lead to human extinction or completely rejecting the technology!

Finally you get the baby bear Just right version in which you recognize that AI is a powerful, specialized tool with real limitations that requires responsible oversight and practical application!

You can have the same options and feeling for a Business Strategy Balance which involves Hype vs. Fear!

The Hype Trap or the Papa bear version is rushing to install complex AI tools everywhere before knowing if they actually help employees, which burns money and loses focus!

Then you have mama bear version or the Fear Trap which involves trying an AI tool once, getting a high token bill or weak results, and abandoning AI completely!

Which finally leads to the baby bear just RIGHT attitude! Which is by starting small with one repetitive, measurable business problem (like summarizing calls or classifying support tickets) and scaling only after proving success!

Finally you have the Technical Balance which is basically a balance between Underfitting vs. Overfitting and finally reaching the baby bear!

In this case the right balance is to properly tune model complexity, training duration, and data diversity so the AI can generalize accurately! Then the baby bear bed is just RIGHT to sleep off!

In short; a balanced approach is the only way you can have a good food and sleep!

A balanced approach to acting was also the hallmark of actor Akkineni Nageswara Rao!

Now for proper balance sleep at the Right baby bear time!

Shub ratri!

Do you know what is Goldilocks rule and then do you know what is Goldilocks for AI!?

All in good time my friends!

So I am assuming you know who is Goldilocks!

If not then either you had a sad childhood in which you had not heard any fairy tales or a very good one and you did not need one!

But knowing the Goldilocks story is almost general knowledge!

Then again if you have FORGOTTEN the same then fret not! You have the blog to the rescue!

So Goldilocks is a character from the story called “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” which is a classic fairy tale about a curious young girl who enters a bear family’s cottage without permission, tries their food and furniture, and is discovered sleeping in the youngest bear’s bed!

The cottage has three bears who are the Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear!

They leave their hot porridge on the table and go for a walk. A curious girl named Goldilocks finds their empty house and walks inside!

Goldilocks then tastes three bowls of porridge. She finds Papa Bear’s too hot, Mama Bear’s too cold, and Baby Bear’s “just right,” eating it all up!  HOW RUDE!

Then she tries three chairs! And as expected she finds the Papa Bear’s chair too hard and Mama Bear’s too soft, but Baby Bear’s chair is “just right”—until she breaks it by sitting in it! More rude!

Then feeling tired, she tests the beds. Papa Bear’s bed is too high at the head, Mama Bear’s is too high at the feet, and Baby Bear’s bed is “just right,” so she falls asleep!

Finally in the end the bears return and notice someone has touched their food, chairs, and bed. They find Baby Bear’s bed occupied. Goldilocks wakes up, sees the bears, and runs away through the window, never returning!

So you can see how the story can teach you many things just like any other Fairy tale! But the Goldilocks rule is the lesson in this blog!

The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities—not too hard and not too easy, but just right!

Have you ever played a video game? This is not a question for the younger generations who have played games by default! So the crux here is that if the game is too hard you will not like to play, if it is too easy then you will lose interest soon but if it just RIGHT then you will stick to it or continue playing! That is the Goldilocks rule!

The rule was popularized in James Clear’s bestselling book Atomic Habits, this concept describes the sweet spot for human engagement and dopamine release!

This means that when the task is too easy or Mama bear; they come  significantly below your skill level lead to boredom and apathy!

When they are like Papa bear or Too Hard then they are far beyond your current capacity which result in frustration, anxiety, and discouragement!

Then comes the just RIGHT BABY BEAR! These work on a challenge about 4% beyond your current baseline and keeps you focused, releases dopamine, and triggers a state of deep flow!

Inadvertently you use the Goldilocks Rule for your work and life and most of the time settle for the baby bear!

So what is the Goldilocks Rule of the AI!? You will find that in the next blog MAMA bear!

Meanwhile you can know that Upendra Rao is a versatile actor!

See if your bed is just right and sleep now!


Shub ratri!

So you know Crowd Mentality and then you must also know about crowd effect!
Like our human body is a combination of organs and the organs are a combination of onganelles and so on; they still work as a unit!

In the same way, till it is broken, the crowd WORKS as a single UNIT!

Which is why you have so many SIGHTINGS of the FLYING SAUCERS or UFOs!

The modern history of flying saucers began on June 24, 1947, when American pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine fast-moving, disc-like objects near Mount Rainier in Washington!

Now comes the Mislabeling!

Arnold described the objects as crescent or disc-shaped, but newspaper headlines mistakenly called them “flying saucers,” giving birth to a lasting cultural term!


Then comes the CROWD of Copycats! Following Arnold’s account, hundreds of similar sightings were reported across North America within weeks!

When so much investigations and enquiries are done for any NEW phenomenon then more often than not, even simple things which would have been normally ignored, becomes more pronounced!

Which leads us to the Roswell Incident!

Later that summer in July 1947, a mysterious debris field was discovered near Roswell, New Mexico, which local newspapers initially tied to a downed flying saucer before the military identified it as a weather balloon!

Then again when so many things are DISCOVERED in such a short time then you know that the conspiracy theories will have a wild run! So this simple piece of news in a corner of the world snowballed into a cultural phenomenon!

During the 1950s Cold War, the sleek, uniform shape of flying saucers symbolized underlying public fears of foreign threats, nuclear conflict, and unknown technological invasions!

The news also was  huge Sci-Fi Staple! Films, novels, and early novelty songs quickly adopted the flying saucer as the definitive visual shorthand for extraterrestrial spacecraft!


In fact this even lead to official Investigations and involvement of several goverments!
Governments took notice, with the U.S. Air Force investigating numerous reports—often attributing them to weather phenomena, high-altitude balloons, or conventional aircraft!

Of course there are many who believe that the Government is hiding stuff (which they probably are!) and once in a while look up to see if they can see some saucers flying!

Or a shooting star!

Then again a super star and amazing artist is Shri Anant Nagarkatte or Anant Nag!

A well deserved award indeed!

Now stop looking out for UFOs and sleep!

Shub ratri

So now you know what’s Crowd mentality!

If not you can go through yesterday’s blog!

https://ramadocblog.com/2026/09/16/the-crowd/

Then again it is not a bad thing if you can use crowd mentality for your gain or progress!

James Clear in his novel Atomic Habits actually makes this point!


Clear Weaponizes Crowd Mentality!

So normally herd mentality can lead people to adopt bad habits (like drinking, gossiping, or overspending simply because “everyone else is doing it”)!

You must have the latest phone or the biggest sofa only because HE or SHE has it! Add to it the almost perfect life people have in the Social media and you JUST have to FOLLOW the crowd!

Then comes James Clear who teaches readers how to reverse-engineer this psychological bias to build better lives!

The first this is to identify the good habit you want to develop and find a group!

Clear calls it Join a New Tribe!

In fact Clear’s number one rule for sticking to a behavior is to change your crowd. He states, “The key, if you want to build habits that last, is to join a group where the desired behavior is the normal behavior.”

Which means that if you want to read more, join a book club! If you want to get fit, join a running group! If you want to pray more then join a satsang group!
When the crowd’s normal behavior matches your desired behavior, your herd mentality works for you instead of against you! So when everyone around you reads, exercises or even prays then you will also be FORCED to do so but in this case, it is a DESIRABLE habit!

Another thing which happens when you do join a group with a GOOD overall habit is that you get a Shared Identity!

When you join a new crowd, your habits shift from “this is what I am trying to do” to “this is who we are”. The herd mentality provides the social validation required to make a habit permanent!

Of course this is the reason why CULTS become famous! But now since you know this you can CHOOSE to be swayed by the crowd mentality!

In short; MAKE FRIENDS with GOOD PEOPLE or CHOOSE your FRIENDS wisely!

That’s the power of crowd!
Crowd also powers democracy!

Wishing the PM of the biggest democracy in the universe Shri Narendra Damodardas Modi  a very happy birthday!

Shub ratri


Jai Hind…

There’s a book called Atomic Habits by James Clear! Of course it is a best seller and then some!

In one section he describes an experiment where a GUY is asked which line is short or long! He is not the only one though, there are two others with him! Like you know! Two is a company but three is a crowd! But that is not the point here! At least not the complete point! This is because the crowd goes on increasing!


So unknown to him the other participants in the study were actors! Now the GUY can see that the line which he thinks is short is actually short! He knows that he is right! But over a period when others consistently tell the WRONG answer, he starts to get doubts or just goes with the flow!

They other participants who are actors are all told to tell the wrong answer purposefully!
So for a while if the participants number is less then the GUY sticks to his answer! As the number of actors increases and they all tell the wrong answer, the GUY finally goes with the crowd albeit reluctantly!

Thats crowd mentality!

You would rather be wrong with the crowd or be right and alone!


In the novel James Clear frequently explores how the crowd mentality (or herd mentality) shapes individual human behavior. He frames it not as a personal flaw, but as a powerful, ancient biological mechanism!

The summary is that  “Most days, we’d rather be wrong with the crowd than be right by ourselves.”

When you are right you are usually alone!


The Reward of Belonging is the chief issue here since human evolution prioritized social acceptance over absolute truth. In early human history, being separated from the tribe meant death. Because of this, our brains evolved to view social isolation as a major threat!


The desire to fit in is often stronger than the desire to achieve a goal or find the truth. Clear writes that “the reward of belonging to the tribe and being accepted is often greater than the reward of winning an argument, looking smart, or finding truth.”


Clear explains that we do not blindly follow just anyone. We naturally experience crowd mentality by imitating the habits of three specific groups!

We tend to absorb the habits of those around us—family, friends, and coworkers. If your friends eat healthily, you are more likely to adapt to that standard!

If a behavior is normal for the majority, we adopt it to avoid standing out or looking foolish! We also follow this behaviour if it is followed by the Powerful!

We mimic the habits of successful, high-status individuals (celebrities, CEOs, experts) because we desire the status and power they possess!

So now you know what is crowd mentality! Do not worry! Clear has a CLEAR way of using this for your benefit! The only catch is that, it will be discussed in another blog!

For now be aware of the crowd mentality without going mental!

Then again sometimes crowd can be right! Like how a whole crowd knows that M S or
Madurai Shanmukhavadivu Subbulakshmi was a legend!

Now don’t join the crowd in waiting for the next blog!

Shub ratri!