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
Elementary arrangements
Arnab Bhattacharya (TIFR, Mumbai)
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm Sunday, 20 October 2019
Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Bengaluru
The periodic table is perhaps the most recognizable icon of chemistry, hanging in almost every science classroom, reminding us of our desire, from the earliest times, to find patterns and organize the building blocks that make up the world around us. As we celebrate the “International Year of the...more
Thinking ecologically about Indian cities
Harini Nagendra (Professor of Sustainability, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru)
4:00 pm to 5:00 pm Sunday, 22 September 2019
J. N. Planetarium, Sri T. Chowdaiah Road, High Grounds, Bangalore
India's cities are on a breakneck path to growth. Cities are engines of prosperity and promise, but also concentrations of pollution, stress, and disease. Episodes of flood, drought, heat waves, and smog tell us why we must begin to think ecologically about our urban future in Indian cities...more
The Culture of Science
Jayant Narlikar (Emeritus Professor, IUCAA, Pune)
4:00 pm to 5:00 pm Sunday, 18 August 2019
J. N. Planetarium, Sri T. Chowdaiah Road, High Grounds, Bangalore
This talk will begin with a discussion of what is implied by the culture of science. It will be shown how the evolution of science from early primitive form to its present complex structure took place and how on occasions the culture of science was compromised. In the present days, fundamental...more
A mathematical adventure in immunology
Carmen Molina-Paris (School of Mathematics, University of Leeds, UK)
4:00 pm to 5:00 pm Sunday, 07 July 2019
J. N. Planetarium, Sri T. Chowdaiah Road, High Grounds, Bangalore
Our immune system is an extraordinary collection of molecules and cells, which together protect us from pathogens and infectious diseases, such as smallpox, dengue or Ebola viruses. An essential step to decipher the governing rules of our immune system is to understand how its molecules and cells...more
Quantum Technologies
Aditi De (HRI, Allahabad)
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm Sunday, 16 June 2019
J. N. Planetarium, Sri T. Chowdaiah Road, High Grounds, Bangalore
The quantum theory of nature, formalized in the first few decades of the 20th century, contains elements that are fundamentally different from those required in the classical description of nature. Based on the laws of quantum mechanics, in recent years, several discoveries have been reported which...more
A few examples how the science of complex systems changes our view of the world
Stefan Thurner (Science of Complex Systems, Medical University of Vienna)
4:00 pm to 5:00 pm Sunday, 26 May 2019
J. N. Planetarium, Sri T. Chowdaiah Road, High Grounds, Bangalore
The science of complex systems is a relatively new field that tries to understand the nature of systems that were up to now thought to be way too complicated to be accessible to science. These systems include eco-systems, societies, financial markets, or cities. In combination with big data for the...more
Symmetry and the Laws of Nature
Umesh Waghmare (JNCASR, Bengaluru)
4:00 pm to 5:00 pm Sunday, 14 April 2019
J. N. Planetarium, Sri T. Chowdaiah Road, High Grounds, Bengaluru
Principles of symmetry are the most fundamental ingredients of our physical description of nature evolved over the last century: (a) permissible physical laws and interactions are constrained by symmetry and involve regularities irrespective of diverse systemic details, (b) spontaneous symmetry...more
How fish swim?
Jaywant H Arakeri (IISc, Bengaluru)
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Sunday, 17 March 2019
J. N. Planetarium, Sri T. Chowdaiah Road, High Grounds, Bangalore
Fish and other aquatic animals swim in myriad ways. From the fast swimming shark where mostly just the tail wags, to the eel where a wave moves down its whole body as it swims forward, to the sting ray that seems to ‘fly’ through water. Are fish more efficient swimmers than man-made underwater...more
The Tau of Ramanujan
Eknath Ghate (TIFR, Mumbai)
4:00 pm to 6:00 pm Sunday, 10 February 2019
J. N. Planetarium, Sri T. Chowdaiah Road, High Grounds, Bangalore
The sequence of numbers 1, -24, 252, -1472, 4830, ... was extensively studied by the great Indian mathematician Ramanujan almost a century ago. These numbers - the values of Ramanujan's tau-function - have been the guiding force behind several themes in Number Theory. They continue to tantalize us...more
Our amazing Universe: astronomical revelations and new mysteries
François R. Bouchet (lnstitut d'Astrophysique de Paris, France)
4:00 pm to 6:00 pm Sunday, 20 January 2019
J. N. Planetarium, Sri T. Chowdaiah Road, High Grounds, Bangalore
Dr. Bouchet will describe current astronomical observations that precisely constraint the nature of the Cosmos in which we live, leading to radical ideas for the origin of the structures within it. This touches on questions such as: How did the Universe originate? What is it made of? Why is it the...more

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