Technology and Science

My Dear Son, 

As young people, we humans are always filled with boundless energy and curiosity. Curiously though, the energy and curiosity reserve is somehow or the other diminished as we step into adulthood. It turns out that; I have never found this 'stepping-away' (from being energetic and curios) good for my health. Not even "an apple a day" could balance the absence of energy and curiosity (yes, I know - this is yet another 'dad-joke').

So, let's set our 'ship of curiosity' on sail! Today, we will explore the prominent connecting dots that I find beginning with MILTON SIROTTA.

Born in 1911, Milton was the nephew of American mathematician named Edward Kasner. Edward knew his math well and to an extent that he published books on the subject of mathematics. One of his books - "Mathematics and the Imagination", published in 1940 had a peculiar word described in it. 

The word was - "GOOGOL".  Yes, at that time in 1940's it was a peculiar sounding word with no plausible meaning. At least, not for those who were not interested in mathematics or who had not read Edward Kasner's book. What on earth was 'googol'? Who came up with this word and what does 'googol' mean?

Son - if you're thinking it to be same as GOOGLE - the Search engine and tech. company, the one that you're so familiar with, then your guess is not off-the mark at all.

Edward Kasner intended to define a specific numeral unit - a number that will serve as an example of mind baffling and incredibly large number. So, he decided that number as - 10 to the hundredth power or 1 followed by 100 zeros. Kasner was clear about the number but naming it? This task - of naming such a special number was bagged by nephew MILTON SIROTTA.  Milton was then, a nine-year-old, walking beside his uncle Edward, when Edward asked him to come up with a name for this numeral unit. "GOOGOL" - prat came the reply from Milton.

Kasner went on to coin the term 'Googolplex', meaning: an infinitely written number. Many decades later, inspired by the terms coined by Kasner, Sergey Brin & Larry Page named their company "Google". Yes, they misspelled it :) however... the name stuck and later the duo named Google's corporate headquarters complex as - Googleplex.

Read the "google story" here: How we started and where we are today - Google - About Google 

The best way to know the difference is to watch this YouTube video -

“Damn you woman. Every time I get a good one ready, she goes off and gets married.” This was the foot note of a notable letter written by the famous Harvard Observatory’s director, Donald Menzel.

The recipient of the letter didn’t win a Nobel, and this was the predicament of scores of worthy and notable women. The small minded, unscrupulous, self-appointed and so called “vanguards” of civilized world did-away with who so ever they considered unworthy (whatever defined unworthiness in their equally unworthy lives).

But stars are bound to shine the brightest in darkest nights!

Vera Rubin, the 1993 National Medal of Science winner, nominated for the Nobel several times in her lifetime, was the younger of two daughters of Jewish immigrant who originally hailed from Lithuania – Pesach Kobchefski and his wife – Rose Applebaum who hailed from Moldova.

After Vera earned her bachelor’s in astronomy in 1948, she applied to several universities to continue her studies. That same year she also got married to Robert Joshua Rubin, an American mathematician. Renowned universities like Princeton turned down her application due to her gender. However, she got selected to study further at Cornell university (where her husband Robert was studying). She also got acceptance at Harvard University’s program and upon choosing Cornell over Harvard, Vera received a letter from Harvard Observatory’s renowned director, Donald Menzel. Menzel was one of the first theoretical astronomers and astrophysicists in the United States. He discovered the atmosphere of Mars and the nature of gaseous nebulae.

Vera Rubin’s name is once again in news.

In June 2025, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, situated high up in the mountains of Chile, released first photographs taken using the Large Synoptic Survey telescope. The telescope will take pictures of the entire visible sky from the southern hemisphere. The telescopes mount floats on a film of oil and it takes just five seconds to move and settle from one target to another. Such speed allows the Vera Rubin Telescope to snap up to 1000 images per night. Thus, roughly within 3 nights it can cover the whole sky!

The Vera Rubin Observatory will constantly scan the sky of the southern hemisphere for 10 years, gathering 20 terabytes of data each night.

Armed with this gigantic volume of data, scientists hope to solve some of the biggest mysteries of the universe and discover numerous new objects of the heaven.

Picture this – it took 225 years of astronomical observations to detect and catalogue the first 1.5 million asteroids. Now, Rubin Observatory is ready to double that number in less than a year.

The observatory estimates to catalogue more than five million new asteroids, and roughly 100,000 near Earth objects over the next 10 years.

In 1951, Rubin now nine months pregnant, stood in front of the American Astronomical Society to present her master’s thesis. In doing so, she had rejected her thesis advisor’s suggestion. The advisor had suggested that he present her thesis to the AAS in his name!

Later, in 1954, Rubin completed her dissertation and earned post doctorate from Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

In 1965 came the work which should have made her a noble prize recipient and a household name across the globe. That didn’t happen in 1965 or in later years. This according to me is a perfect example of sabotage by inferior minds who are at the helm of committees and decision panels.

Rubin, along with astronomer W. Kent Ford had studied many hundreds of galaxies. Among them, they specifically studied the rotation of the Andromeda Galaxy. Similar to our own solar system, they expected the stars of Andromeda to orbit around the center of the galaxy. The duration of a full day is fastest for planets nearest to the sun and duration of day incrementally increases with the increasing distance of plantes from the central sun. Essentially, the speed of plants closer to the center of planetary systems is fastest and as we go further away, the orbiting speed reduces. However, Rubin found that in case of andromeda galaxy, there were regions (H II) – where stars were recently formed (basis presence of ionized hydrogen gas). But these stars were not visible and interestingly, objects in H II regions were moving at the same orbital velocity, irrespective of the objects distance from the galaxy’s center. Rubin went on to show that much of the galaxy’s mass was NOT concentrated at the center, but spread throughout the galaxy also, it could not be seen. Here, a halo of DARK MATTER covered the galaxy. This was the reason for the relatively constant orbital speed of objects – no matter their positioning within Andromeda.

Until 1965, the existence of dark matter was only a conjecture and it was for the first time confirmed by Rubin and Ford.

Rubin went on to observe and confirm dark matter in other galaxies studied by her.

The Vera Rubin Observatory will play a crucial role in expanding our knowledge about the nature of dark matter and dark energy. While galaxies, stars, and planets make up 5% of the universe, dark energy makes up about 68%, and dark matter about 27%.