Nabin K. Malakar, Ph.D.

NASA JPL
I am a computational physicist working on societal applications of machine-learning techniques.

Friday, September 27, 2013

Monty Hall’s #paradox

Consider an urn , with 15 blue balls, and 10 red balls, and an urn , with 10 blue balls, and 15 red balls. We select randomly one urn (with probability 50% for each urn).
We draw a ball, which turns out to be blue, and we put it back in the urn, Now, we draw a (second) ball. What is the probability that this (second) ball is blue?


Solution after the break!

Sunday, September 22, 2013

India launching first #Mars mission #Mangalyaan

After the successful mission to Moon (Chandrayaan-I), India is heading to Mars!

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is launching  Mangalyaan using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). The planned launch date is Nov 5th, 2013.   The Mangalyaan will carry five scientific payloads which include: 
  1. Methane Sensor For Mars (MSM), 
  2. Mars Color Camera (MCC), 
  3. Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyzer (MENCA), 
  4. TIR Spectrometer (TIS), and 
  5. Lyman-Alpha Photometer (LAP). 
It will also use Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN), as well as NASA deep space network for navigation and tracking during its mission. The spacecraft is expected to take nearly 300 days to reach the Martian orbit.

It is quite impressive that ISRO has pulled it up in such a short time. The next fuel-saving Hohmann transfer orbit opens  in 2016. If successful, ISRO would become the fourth space agency to reach Mars, after Roscosmos, NASA, and ESA.
Read more...

Thursday, September 19, 2013

LEGO Ultimate (Useless) Machine

Ultimate machine or useless machine are designed to operate in such a way that it will switch itself off, whenever turned on.
Here is one version:
Free Plans, Purchase Kits, Machines & More:http://frivolousengineering.com
There are variety of modifications made. This one is amusing:

And... this is an awesome construction LEGO3.

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Thursday, September 12, 2013

@NASAVoyager leaves the solar system, officially

Space, the final frontier!

The recent news is that Voyager has left the solar system.
We have made it! (Well, it has been 1 year! )




NASA hosted a news conference on Thurs., Sept. 12, 2013, to discuss NASA's Voyager mission.
The briefing was held at NASA Headquarters in Washington and air live on NASA Television and the agency's website.
The recorded video is highly recommended