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I love hearing war stories. But what’s even more inspiring and deep are the little stories which are often untold and hidden by the stories of heroic victories and defeats. My favourite ones include the story of Alan Turing, a brilliant mathematician who invents a machine to crack Nazi codes and solves the impossible Enigma machine during the WWII, only to be classified and revealed decades after the war; the story of Leisel Meminger escaping her war-ridden life through the solace of books; and the story of Desmond Doss, who refuses to bear arms, but fights the war with compassion and saves almost a hundred men in the battlefield, and many more. Adding to this list, Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See is a beautiful story I could read over and over again. It portrays two parallel lives of Marie Laurie and Werner, set in two different countries, France and Germany respectively, during the WWII.   Marie Laurie loses her vision at the age of six and the war leads ...

Picture from Google Scientists, Mathematicians and especially Edmond Kirsch from Dan Brown’s latest book, “Origin” is addressing the possibility of a new kingdom in our taxonomical hierarchy. Technium : An Ecosystem of various technologies, a society of technological species that may operate even without human interference! I was unable to process my thoughts when I first learned about this- not just because of fear but realizing how there is a depth to this clichéd, otherwise overlooked statement: Technology will replace humanity.  This puts a danger sign on the various technologies serving various purposes in our lives today, that one day these might chip off our existence as a dominating race. Was the creation of technology a mistake? Should we curse the invention of wheels, should we forget the countless inventions that not only defined science but made human survival against all forces a possibility?  The word “Technology” was invented only in the year 182...

Another astonishing book by Dan Brown you shouldn’t miss reading is Inferno - Everything from history to future and science to religion, this book has taught me a lot of things. Here are three things I learned from this book: 1. Over Population The current world population has by far exceeded the capacity the earth is actually designed to host. So the impacts of overpopulation we are assuming that we might experience in future, are actually just on our doorstep. Overcrowding, poverty and shortage of resources are already prominent in some parts of the world and yet we are unsure of what measures to take. While there are numerous methods like family planning, use of contraceptives and education to control overpopulation, it is still impossible to bring the number to the actual earth’s capacity. May be it’s late. As much as this truth is hard to face, mathematics is indisputable and it says that we might not survive another century with this exponential growth of populat...