Kaapi with Kuriosity


Kaapi with Kuriosity is a monthly public lecture series organised by the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS-TIFR), in collaboration with the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium and other educational institutions in Bengaluru.

The aim of the talks in this series is to stimulate the curiosity of the public towards the myriad aspects of science. The setting for these talks will be informal with a lot of scope for open discussions. The scientific background assumed will not be beyond the school level. As such, they are easily accessible to school/college students, families and working professionals interested in science.

Contact: outreach @ icts . res . in

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Past Talks
What’s in a Diet? (ONLINE)
Anura Kurpad (St John’s Medical College, Bengaluru)
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Sunday, 28 March 2021
Livestream via the ICTS YouTube channel
Abstract:- Have you ever wondered how pundits come up with what a good diet is? How do they ‘know’ how much of a nutrient you should eat? Do we all require the same amount of food and nutrients? So, what questions should you be asking back? We will explore how this exercise was carried out for...more
Why is Climate Change a Wicked Problem? (ONLINE)
Raghu Murtugudde (University of Maryland and Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay)
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Sunday, 21 February 2021
Livestream via the ICTS YouTube channel
Abstract:- It is beyond debate now that humans have increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the science is robust that this has resulted in a warming of the planet, especially in the last four decades. But the monotonic increase in greenhouse gases is associated with a not-so-monotonic...more
Symmetries of Nature and Nature of Symmetries (ONLINE)
Rohini M. Godbole (Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru)
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Sunday, 24 January 2021
Livestream via the ICTS YouTube channel
Abstract:- Symmetries in geometrical shapes and objects have fascinated us since the beginning of the intellectual explorations, including poet William Blake talking about the ‘fearful symmetry’ of a tiger burning bright! Apart from this fascination, symmetries of laws of nature have played an...more
Kolam: A Western Perspective (ONLINE)
Claudia Silva (Photographer & Videographer) and Oscar Garcia-Prada (Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Madrid)
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Sunday, 13 December 2020
Livestream via the ICTS YouTube channel
In this talk, we will present some of our impressions and ideas on the beautiful South Indian tradition of kolam. In the first part of the talk, Claudia will show some of her photographs and videos taken in Tamil Nadu in the context of her photographic project "Kolam: An Ephemeral Women´s Art of...more
Can forests in India influence rainfall?(ONLINE)
Jagadish Krishnaswamy (Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, Bengaluru)
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Sunday, 22 November 2020
Livestream via the ICTS YouTube channel
There is a long history of the discourse on how forests cause rainfall. It was then replaced with the paradigm that forests are found in rainy areas and are not the cause of the rain itself. It was felt that forests were net consumers of water due to evapotranspiration. In recent decades scientific...more
Cosmic Whisper from Binary Black Holes (ONLINE)
Archana Pai (Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay)
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Sunday, 18 October 2020
Livestream via the ICTS YouTube channel
The era of gravitational wave astronomy has begun with the spectacular observation of gravitational waves by two LIGO detectors in the year 2015. By now, the interferometric gravitational wave detector network with LIGO and Virgo detectors have observed a dozen black hole binary merger events. With...more
Agents of Change: The Role of Catalysts in the Modern World (ONLINE)
Shobhana Narasimhan (Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru)
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Saturday, 26 September 2020
Livestream via the ICTS YouTube channel
What was the most important scientific discovery of the 20 th century? Of course, there are several candidates! However, many people think it was the discovery by Haber and Bosch that iron could be used as a catalyst to make ammonia out of nitrogen and hydrogen. Have you wondered why we do not...more
A Life of Resonance with Quantum Matter: P.W. Anderson (1923-2020)
Ganapathy Baskaran (Professor Emeritus, The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, Distinguished Professor, Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, and Distinguished Visiting Research Chair, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada)
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Sunday, 23 August 2020
Livestream via the ICTS YouTube channel
Quantum matter refers to a piece of rusted iron, a grain of sand or a drop of water etc. By thinking deeply about these earthly materials and combining valuable clues from experimental results, P.W. Anderson, a theoretical physicist and a quantum mechanic par excellence helped discover some secrets...more
Soft and squishy materials and how to think about them (ONLINE)
Gautam Menon (Ashoka University and IMSc)
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Sunday, 19 July 2020
Livestream via the ICTS YouTube channel
The materials we see around us can be hard (a metal spoon) or soft (a well-made idli or your earlobe). Many materials fall in-between extremes of hardness and softness. Other types of materials (honey, water) flow. Some materials flow easily while others flow very, very slowly. I'd like to describe...more
Automating Mathematics? (ONLINE)
Siddhartha Gadgil (Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore)
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Sunday, 17 May 2020
Livestream via the ICTS YouTube channel
Starting with just the rules of chess, it took four hours of playing against itself for AlphaZero, a computer program, to become the strongest chess player on the planet, playing with a "dynamic, open style" and preferring moves that are "risky and aggressive". With a couple of days of self-play,...more

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