This is interesting. Though the cosmic microwave background radiation was discovered in 1964, I distinctly remember being taught the Steady State Theory along with the Big Bang at the Nehru Planetarium in Mumbai in the 1980s. I even remember talking about it to Dr.Jayant Narlikar when we went to see him at TIFR (I am not sure though) in Mumbai in 1987 (or was it 1988?) to discuss my dream of making a career in astrophysics (I think only Osmania in Hyderabad offered a single BSc course then and going abroad was not even in my wildest of imagination). He was working on something (the QSS Theory came out in 1993) and I remember asking about the background radiation.
Wow. I am so old that I remember when the Big Bang Theory was still not the dominant possible explanation for the Universe. Like. Seriously. Wow.
Ditto with IC chips. I mean, I was doing my engineering and learning about 8085. In school, I learnt BASIC and COBOL (later, in engineering, I learnt Ladder Programming for PLCs). I remember the wonderment with which we spoke about the number of transistors that fit onto a microchip (6,500 for the 8085, as compared to 3 billion in the latest i7) and its more ‘advanced’ cousin the 80386 (i386) which was considered cutting edge for the (very) expensive personal computers of which I had one which I worked hard to buy with my own money in 1995 (it had a ‘monster’ 54MB HDD, and my friends wondered what I am going to do with all that space).
This really puts me beyond the ‘uncle’ league directly into the ‘dadaji‘ one. And sure enough, yesterday, a 12yo at Kymaia’s running group asked her if I was her grandfather. I am so unprepared to age (mainly because of the physical debility and ailments it will bring), I cannot begin to describe the dread it fills me with. But, time and tide wait for no man, I guess. And age I must. So, might as well accept it and move on.
P.S: This is hilarious. No sooner had I posted this that I received a DM from someone that said that some years ago, when she was a teenager, I was her childhood crush. I laughed, thanked her, and asked, ‘How old are you child?’ to which she answered, ’36 this year.’ It brought me face to face with my age the third time this week. Sigh!
Just curious: How old are you in terms of physics or astronomy or chemistry or biology or microchip technology?
