Departmental Café Session

The Department of Science and Humanities had its sixth Departmental Café Session on February 8 , 2020 . The resource persons for the afternoon were Prof. Natasha D’Souza e Jaques who introduced the concept of Graph Coloring; Prof. Jyoti Lewis who gave the many ways to make the world a better place and Prof. Harison Cota who showed  how one can have fun with physics.

 Prof. Natasha gave a brief history of the existence of graphs and how graphs make it easier to model real world information which can be further interpreted. She then went on to show how a graph coloring is an assignment of labels, called colors, to the vertices of a graph such that no two adjacent vertices share the same color. She said that the aim is always to use minimum number of colors to arrive at an optimum colouring. She then explained the difference between edge coloring and vertex coloring saying that an edge coloring can be transferred to a vertex but the vice-versa is not possible. Showing the practical applications of graph coloring, Prof. Natasha gave instances where graph coloring is used as an application in scheduling, register allocation, biological networking and even Sudoku. She then gave the audience an activity to color a map with the use of minimum number of colors. She ended her session with two problems to be solved within the week for which the person would be rewarded. It was a very fun filled session, indeed.

       Prof. Jyoti’s session was one that led the audience into introspection. She said that one of the best ways to make this world a better place was to first focus on the self and to try to be the best version of ones’ self. Stating the problem, she said that many negative issues arise because one does not know how to address themselves and most often misuse their freedom of speech to hurt a person. One uses their shortcomings as excuses for their behavior rather than working on bettering themselves and changing their perceptions. She then gave a series of solutions, the first being retrospection; she asked the audience to retrospect on their days and to see where during the day did they go wrong. Second, modify; how could one have changed their response to a situation. Third, be conscious; the key towards bettering ones’ self is to be conscious of ones’ feelings and to analyze their response before one says or does something so as to avoid hurting the others and in turn, themselves. Fourth, working on ones’ strengths and weaknesses and Fifth, seeing the good in others and helping the other hone their strengths. She reminded the audience that what one sows is exactly what one will reap, hence to always be aware and be careful. She ended her session by reciting a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

      Prof. Harison began the session by asking the audience whether they like physics or not, to which he got a mixed response. He said that physics can be fun through practical application. He gave the classic example of the tortoise and the hare race saying that the hare had an advantage of 1 and a half hour over the tortoise but he slept and that’s why he lost the race and couldn’t make up the time. He then gave an interesting fact, stating that a person in space can see the sunrise and sunset every 45 minutes and hence 1 day on Earth is equal to 16 days in space. He then showed, through varied examples how when two objects travel at the same speed and in the same direction they do not collide. He then explained the centre of gravity by asking the audience to stand up without leaning forward. He said it is not possible because the centre of the ground and the centre of gravity are not the same. He spun two eggs and asked the audience to guess which among the two was the boiled one saying that a cooked egg spins longer and smoother than a raw one. On the whole, all three sessions of this café were applicative and introspective.