The winning theory

                                                                                                                Ankur Bora

Washington, D.C., December 1994: In the ballroom of a downtown hotel, a most unusual auction was in progress. For sale was nothing but air – airwaves that could be used for a new generation of cell phones, pagers and other wireless communication devices. Hailed as the greatest auction ever, the event garnered more than 7 billion, dispensing more than 2,500 licenses, thereby breaking all records for the sale of public groups in America. The brain behind this auction was an unlikely group of economic theoreticians and experts in the in the mathematical field of game theory. These economists had been using Nash equilibrium, as it became known, a conceptually simple but powerful mathematical tool to develop a detailed picture of how bidders would behave in different types of auctions and which strategies work best in such a competitive situation – and the equilibrium theory passed with flying colors, spectacularly.

Assam Tribune , Horizon 23rd June 2017

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, October, 1994: Carl-Olof Jacobson, the Secretary General was reading the announcement of Economics Nobel Prize to John Forbes Nash, “the greatest moment” – he later said of his twenty year tenure at the academy. The saga of Nash’s Nobel Prize is almost as extraordinary as the lift story of the laureate. Regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century, John Nash was awarded for his seminal work on game theory, or the mathematical study of decision-making. Although , it was his devastating mental illness that has been more familiar to a wider audience thanks to the 2001 Oscar-winning film “A Beautiful Mind” in which he was played by Russell Crowe. In the late 1940s mathematician Nash, then a young graduate student at Princeton, realized that in any finite game there is always a way for players to choose their strategies so that none will wish they had done something else. In his Ph.D. thesis, Nash came up with the notion of a “strategic equilibrium”, a collection of strategies, one for each player, such that if all the players follow these strategies, no individual player has an incentive to switch to a different strategy. Nash's famous equilibrium, perhaps, was the most important idea in economic analysis, though it took several decades to take root. With the Nobel announcement, the Academy have succeeded in its wider acceptance, Today, game theory is applied in a wide range of goods and services, including electric power, timber contracts , online auction services such as eBay and multi-billion-dollar government sales.

University of São Paulo, Brazil, July 2014: An international workshop on game theory and economic applications of the game theory was taking place attended by prominent game theorists and leading economists from around the world including John Nash. Among the participants was a young Assamese Dr. Surajit Borkotokey. Surajit is a Math enthusiast who had the distinction of winning the national award for the Best Research Paper in Mathematical Science at the Indian Science Congress as well as the Indo-US Research Fellowship at Louisiana State University, USA. He is currently a Professor of Mathematics, Dibrugarh University. In the summer of 2014, Surajit was invited to present paper at this workshop. The conferences provided Surajit an excellent opportunity to hear from world-renowned mathematicians – the most memorable was the plenary lecturer by John Nash. “He was by far the most charismatic speaker in the conference”, Surajit was sharing the incredible meeting with the Nobel laureate. “Dr. Nash was warm, easy to approach, and easy to talk to. Our brief conversation covered everything from my work in the Cooperative Game Theory to Assam tea. I am very excited about meeting John Nash in person, moments which I will cherish all my life.”  Over the years, I have been communicating with Surajit who is providing me insight into game theory and how it can be applied to resolve some of the pressing issues of Assam.

Subansiri Lower Hydroelectric Project, Gerukamukh Assam Arunachal border: Despite incurring a staggering 6,600 crore, the hydroelectric project ended up in stalemate. Game theory exponents like Surajit would call it a problem in resource sharing. The opposing party, i.e. Assamese people feels that the other party i.e. mainland India is exploiting the North-East hydel resources for its benefits while it is Assam alone who will suffer ecosystem damage and loss of land. They believe New Delhi, while setting the rules, is not assessing the serious threats to the livelihoods of the hundreds of thousands of Assamese people who depend on small-scale fishing and subsistence agriculture in the downstream areas. As per game theory, it is not a fair game; Assam with the downstream area should have been the dominant player, not the other way around. Surajit conveys his views on the subject – “there should be an alternative set of rules which will take on board the concerns of Assamese people. The people of Assam should be included as players in this game along with the other beneficiaries and given their due share of the resource.”   

Kaziranga National Park: a world heritage site, the park hosts two-thirds of the world's Great One-horned rhinoceros. However, the population of rhinos, of late, is under grave threat because of the poachers on the hunt for the prized rhino horn. Rhino poaching, though, has yet another dimension - the poor socio-economic conditions of the local communities. Many of the poor villagers are lured into working for poachers. “In the present context the poachers have no other better option than poaching.” Surajit feels that there is no solution as long as the problem is treated as law and order alone – “If we provide a better strategy for their livelihood as it is done in some cases where the hunters are assigned with the responsibility of protecting the forest, the equilibrium will shift from stalemate to co-operation and better results would certainly follow.”

Like Surajit Borkotokey , there are a great number of young man and women who are able to draw upon the wealth of basic research into game theory and its applications. John Nash, the founders of game theory would surely have approved. Figuring out the winning strategy, after all, is the name of the game.

                                                                                                ankurbora@hotmail.com

Colors of cosmos

                                                                                                                     Ankur Bora

“Hindu is the only religion in which the time scales correspond to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long.” Carl Sagan, American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist and author.

Assam Tribune Horizon 1st June 2017

Picture a breathtaking clear starry sky, twinkled with ever-changing display of the fascinating objects, from stars and constellations to bright planets, from Mercury to Neptune to our much loved moon. Then, there appears a sudden outburst of shooting stars; a comet; the glorious display of the Northern lights with their swirling curtains of red or green, or even an exploding star. Now, imagine each of these thousands of cosmic creation has a personality; each has its own story to tell!

Human mind is always captivated by the pages of cosmic evolution, framed by the splendid galaxies of space. This quest for space exploration is opening new opportunities – technological innovations, new industries and a vista of   expanding knowledge. The field of study of cosmos, how to navigate the night sky, how to identify the galaxies and exploring what lies beyond our planet is called astronomy. It is an art celebrating the beauty of Gods’ creation and  science that brings in physics, chemistry, mathematics and biology. The word “astronomer” probably conjures up the image of a white bearded man peering through a long telescope. Although today’s astronomer is as likely to be female as male, who would utilize a whole armory of sophisticated and powerful equipment set up around the world which can be operated from anywhere with the aid of a computer.  

Dr. Sanchayeeta Borthakur is an astronomer and scientist at the Johns Hopkins University, USA who has made significant contributions in finding star forming galaxies, thus in understanding how the universe evolved as the first stars were formed. Sanchayeeta  and her co –researchers have identified a galaxy that provides the first observational clues to how light from the earliest stars may have caused a crucial event in the history of the universe  and how matter and energy is spread throughout the universe.  

 Sanchayeeta is originally from  Bongaigaon , Assam  where her father was the Chief Medical Officer at the refinery. Her interest in astronomy started at a very young age. Her father brought the science of learning to life with stories about the sky, the stars and the cosmos. “I remember when I was about 3 years old, my father and I used to go on walks at dusk/night and I would ask him about the stars”. Sanchayeeta recalls how that walking adventure with her father under the panoramic sky along the dark streets of Bongaigaon stirred her interest in space. My father knew Saptarishi and some of the constellations and he would point them out to me. I was absolutely fascinated by the sky. Occasionally, my father wouldn’t know the name of a star. Then, I would say, “When I grow-up, I am going to find out about those stars and will tell you about them just as you are telling me now”. I believe that was when I had fallen in love with astronomy and I never got over it!

In an effort to both attract and involve the world’s best physicists, astronomers and engineers, a large number of universities across United State have devoted significant time and effort in creating stunning observatories. An observatory houses both optical and radio telescopes some of them are whopping eight stories tall. Sanchayeeta has been working at the Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy at John Hopkins. The NASA’s Space Telescope Science Institute, the scientific home of the Hubble Space Telescope, the most famous observatory in history of mankind, is located nearby.  Sanchayeeta’s research primarily involves discerning what the stars were made of, dividing the stars into meaningful categories for further research and finding ways to measure distances between the planetary objects. However, with recent advancement in astronomical data gathering and new tools, she has pioneered a new area of research involving star-forming galaxy.  

The universe, years after its origin through the Big Bang, was populated by neutral hydrogen atoms and was a dark place, devoid of light. The regions in galaxies, at that time, were covered with thick, dense, cold gas, stretching like a blanket. Any ionizing photon or electron produced during the evolution of these galaxies would be expected to be absorbed by this blanket. This presents a challenge for astrophysicists – if they cannot escape, there will be no radiation capable of ionizing the hydrogen and if they cannot ionize there will not be any star formation and if it is, the universe will be in perpetual darkness! Astronomers view re-ionisation as a critical event in the history of the cosmos and Sanchayeeta  and her team of researchers at Johns Hopkins revealed a likely mechanism to solve this mystery. Their experiment is aided by Hubble Space Telescope and by a scientific measurement technique called Spectroscopy, originally developed by Nobel Laureate Sir. C. V. Raman.   

Light is a lot more than just the colored visible rays that we see. In addition to the traditional Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet color spectrum, there are gamma rays, x-rays, ultraviolet (UV) radiation, infrared (IR) radiation, microwaves and radio waves! Just like a prism which can break white light up into the visible light spectrum you can measure the ray that is emitted, absorbed, or scattered by any element.  The spectrum is like a fingerprint which can be used to study, identify and quantify a molecule and the element.

Using observations made with the Cosmic Origin Spectrograph, onboard the Hubble Space Telescope, the research team found a galaxy named J0921+4509, a massive but highly compact star-forming region.  They detected a sea of intense ionising photons and electrons with a significant fraction escaping the gas cloud blanket. This galaxy, by leaking photons to intergalactic space, thus became a nursery for new stars!  “The mystery was, how did these photons of this specific energy leave their galaxies?”  Sanchayeeta, whose research findings appeared in the US journal Science, suggests that a vast proportion of our cosmos is driven by forces that we, as yet, do not understand.    

Dr. Sanchayeeta Borthakur remains dedicated to her research on galaxies and space – “Every day, I try to do my best and not worry about the results. Research and discovery in particular cannot be planned. Sometimes things work out and we discover exciting things, other times we try and learn from our failures. The goal is to enjoy the process. All I want to do is something interesting and challenging.”

                                                                        ankurbora@hotmail.com