top of page


.jpg)
Welcome to my blog!
​
I'm a Professor of Physics at the Rochester Institute of Technology
Mishkat Bhattacharya
May 4, 2024
The End of the Weekend
This post addresses some questions I am commonly asked by my non-academic friends. Readers working in academia may also find some...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Apr 27, 2024
Excuse me, Professor
The motivation While I am nominally a professor of physics (someone who has expertise in practicing physics), I sometimes feel like a...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Apr 20, 2024
The End of Death
Intro A famous saying, attributed to Benjamin Franklin, is that in life the only things that are certain are death and taxes. Since it...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Apr 13, 2024
Post-eclipse blues
What happened - or rather did not - in Rochester, NY The sun was out and shining the day before as well as the day after the eclipse (in...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Apr 6, 2024
Darkness at Noon*: The Upcoming Total Solar Eclipse
Motivation It has been difficult to avoid the excitement over the solar eclipse predicted to occur on next Monday, April 8, because i)...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Mar 30, 2024
Intelligence and Information
Intelligence The question of how to characterize intelligence has always been of interest, perhaps never more so than now with things...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Mar 23, 2024
The Argument for Argument
This post is about the role of argument in scientific research, both ideal and practical. The topic, of course, is a big one, and here I...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Mar 16, 2024
Inappropriate Asks in Physics Research
This post is about some questions posed to me, that I have collected over time, which relate to the way physics research functions - or...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Mar 7, 2024
(High) Schooling the Professor*
This post is meant for the parents of high school students who often approach me, ostensibly to discuss, for their children, the prospect...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Mar 2, 2024
Cloning the Quantum
Cloning in Biology Cloning in the life sciences is a fascinating and controversial topic. Dolly the sheep was the first mammal to be...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Feb 24, 2024
Sharpening the Questions
Posing the Question It is well known that in physics research (and probably other areas as well, but I am not qualified to talk about...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Feb 17, 2024
Is Higher Education Worth it?
This is a big and debated question, what with rising costs of education in several countries (parents often ask me about the ROI* for...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Feb 10, 2024
The Art of Approximation
Theoretical physics consists of building mathematical models of physical systems. All such models are approximate to varying degrees,...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Feb 3, 2024
Revisiting Relativity
I am teaching Modern Physics this semester, a course I have taught three times before. The fun of re-teaching is many-sided: I get to...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Jan 27, 2024
A Year on: What This Blog Is and Is Not
I started this blog on Jan 17, 2023. The present post is a stocktaking of what this blog is and is not. What this blog is Not i) It is...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Jan 20, 2024
Physics: Theory or Practice?
This post is about a choice people in physics often have to make: whether to pick theory or experiment for a career. Some comments based...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Jan 13, 2024
Avoiding the Big Bang
This post is a review of My Tale of Four Cities, the autobiography of the astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar. Narlikar was known, among other...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Jan 5, 2024
Getting it Write
Over 13 years of professorial practice I have unfortunately received too many emails (including, but not limited to, from students and...
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Dec 29, 2023
The Owner of A Third of the World
Happy New Year to all readers! This post takes the new year opportunity to celebrate the birth anniversary of the physicist S. N. Bose....
Mishkat Bhattacharya
Dec 22, 2023
What kind of physics should I study in Grad School?
This blog is dedicated to a question a lot of undergraduates applying to graduate school in physics ask me before they have obtained any...
RECENT POSTS
bottom of page