• ED Speak
• From Webmaster
• News Flash: PSSI Research Grants
• PLASMA-98, Highlights
• Your Attention Please!
• Opportunities
• Can You Tell Me...?
• You May Try This...
• Tailpiece

Here is the first Newsletter brought out under the new PSSI board by the present Editor! As you may have learnt from the last GBM of PSSI at Rajkot, the editor usually writes up every word in the newsletter, publishes it, wonders if anybody else read it and found anything useful in it . . . . and a few months later the cycle starts again, as there is no feedback from the members in the form of either comments or contributions for the next issue.

From our side, in an effort to make the newsletter useful to our members, we are trying out the following:

1. Publishing announcements that any member (or institution) have to make, i.e. A "Your Attention Please" column.
2. A question and answer forum, wherein readers can ask questions related to their professional activities - like availability of some software, equipment, experimental facility at other labs, solution to some technical problem they are facing etc. AND expect to have them answered by other readers who just might be in position to offer help i.e. A "Can you tell me"? cum "You may try this . . . ." column. . . . and the following, if the members contribute
3. A digest of any significant development or publication in an area related to Plasma science, technology or commerce, which the member comes across and feels others should be aware of and whose importance he/she elucidates for the benefit of other readers i.e. a "So, What is New" column.
4. A list of papers (in referred journals only)/patents by members during the period between two issues of the newsletter, so that we may all be aware of what our members are doing professionally i.e. a "Our Members Publish" column.
5. An "Opportunities" column wherein employers recruiting researchers for their projects can advertise. . . . and at last
6. A "Tailpiece" - a filler column of humor, anecdotes, cartoon etc. to ensure that all the available space in the newsletter is used up. Readers are welcome to contribute . . . othrwise, the Editor's choice will be foisted upon them!

All contributions will be acknowledged by including the contributors name in the item published.

All correspondance regarding this newsletter may be sent directly to: Editor, PSSI Newsletter, Institute for Plasma Research, Bhat, Gandhinagar 382 428 (e-mail : vasu@plasma.ernet.in).

A PSSI website has been opened at IPR. It may be accessed at http://www.plasma.ernet.in/~pssi. It is still being developed and so readers are welcome to send in their ideas regarding this site. To begin with visitors to this site should be able to

• Read information about PSSI and its membership
• Download a membership form
• See the list of PSSI executive members
• See a current directory of members

N.B. IPR has kindly made available its facilities to PSSI for e-mail and the website. Presently, Mr. Ashwini Kumar Rath (ashwini@plasma.ernet.in) is developing and maintaining the site.

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Every year PSSI awards a few research grants to enable Research Scholars and Post-doctoral Fellows (below 32 years) to do collaborative research at a research institute other than their own. This grant includes a stipend of Rs.1,500/- p.m. for three months, second class travel and local accommodation. The area of research could be in a topic related to plasma science and technology.

For details regarding the 1999-2000 awards contact : Secretary, PSSI.

The receipients of the 1998-99 grants are:

1. Ms. Kavita Rani Rajkhowa, Center for Plasma Physics, Guwahati
2. Mr. Ram Prakash, Institute for Advanced Studies in Science & Technology, Guwahati

Both would be working at IPR, Gandhinagar.

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• Inauguration by : Hon. Mayor of Rajkot, Shri Govindbhai Solanki
• Presided by: Prof. P.M. Joshi, VC - Saurashtra University
• Organizers: Plasma Science Society of India (PSSI) and Department of Physics, Saurashtra University
• Cosponsors: Rajkot Engineering Association
• Convenor: Prof. K.N. Iyer, Saurashtra University.
• Keynote address by Prof. P.I. John, Fcilitation Centre for Industrial Plasma Technologies, Gandhinagar emphasizing the versatility of plasma based technologies for Industrial applications
• 250 delegates from 38 Universities and National Laboratories all over India
• 18 Invited talks and 35 oral presentations by scientists organised into 10 sessions
• 180 papers presented during 3 poster sessions
• A one-day mini symposium on Plasma Irregularities in extraterrestrial plasmas, an area of active research at Saurashtra University, covered recent progress in this area made in India through observations and numerical simulations
• A public lecture on plasmas in Hindi by Prof. Y.C. Saxena, IPR delivered for a general audience
• At the annual general body meeting, new office bearers of PSSI were elected
• Prof. G.S. Lakhina, the outgoing President of PSSI chaired the concluding session and summarized the scientific highlights of the symposium
• Prizes and certificates awarded for the best oral and poster presentations
• In a post-symposium social event, the participants enjoyed an excursion to Dwarka, Somnath, Porbandar and Junagadh.

See two photographs: [ 1 ] [ 2 ]

All PSSI members applaud Prof.K.N.Iyer and his team for efficiently organizing this symposium at Rajkot and acknowledge the generous funding by IPR, Saurashtra University, IIG, ISRO, DAE, DST and support by O.V.Sheth Community Science Center, Rajkot.

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We are updating the PSSI directory. Two different forms are enclosed with this newsletter. Existing members please use the "update" form. Use the "New Membership" form (and photocopies thereof) to get your colleagues to join PSSI. Please do not waste these forms. A FREE copy of the new directory will be sent to those (existing and new members) who send in the completed forms. So HURRY!

Do'not forget to contribute to the 'what is new' and 'our members publish' column in our next issue.

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• An opening for a Ph.D. student for next year. We are particularly interested in candidates with experience or interest in computational Tokamak or Stellerator physics. Write to Mikael Persson, Inst. For Electromagnetic Field Theory, Chalmers University of Technology, S-41296 Goteborg, Sweden, FAX:+46-31-7721573, e-mail: mikael.persson@elf.chalmers.se
• A one year PD position in theoretical physics is offered at the M L Sultan Technikon in Durban, South Africa. Applicant must have completed the doctorate degree in the last 5 years, with interest in linear and nonlinear fluctuations I lab, space and dusty plasmas (e.g. linear instabilities, solitons, double layers, shock waves). Contaft: Prof. R. Bharuthram, Director Research, M L Sultan Technikon, PO Box 1334, Durban 4000, South Africa, Tel: 0027-31-3085496/3085284, FAX:0027-31-3085343, e-mail: rameshb@wpo.mlsultan.ac.za
• Institute for Plasma Research, Bhat, Gandhinagar 382428 will soon be selecting candidates for its 1999-2000 batch of Technical Trainee Programme (TTP). Engineers (with B.E. or equivalant in Mechanical, Electrical, Computer Science, Electronics and Instrumentation) and Physicists (with M.Sc. Physics) would be eligible. Watch out for our advertisement in Newspapers during Feb. 1999.

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I need tubular lens mounts that slide smoothly without wobbling or wandering off-axis (i.e. telescope into each other), perhaps on a rack-and-pinion arrangement. I would like to know if anyone has bought or had such devices fabricated in India or have experience in designing them. N. Ramasubramanian, Ahmedabad.

Can someone provide me with a list of designers-cum-fabricators of electromagnets in India? J. Govindarajan, Gandhinagar.

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Editor's note - If any readers can offer help to the above queries, please send your answer to us for publication in the next newsletter.

Readers can send in their queries too. Let us pool our knowledge and experience.

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Can you do a `Taylor Series Expansion' to save your life?

During the Russian revolution, the mathematical physicist Igor Tamm was seized by anti-communist vigilantes at a village near Odessa. They suspected him of being an anti-Ukrainian Communist agitator and dragged him off to their leader.

Asked what he did for a living, he said he was a mathematician. The skeptical gangleader began to finger the bullets slung around his neck. "All right", he said, "calculate the error when the Taylor series approximation is truncated after n terms. Do this and you will go free. Fail and you will be shot". Tamm slowly calculated the answer in the dust with his quivering finger. When he had finished, the bandit cast his eye over the answer and waved him on his way.

Tamm won the 1958 Nobel prize for physics but he never did discover the identity of the unusual bandit leader.

(From: The Penguin Book of Curious & Interesting Mathematics by David Wells citing from John Barrow's 'It's all Platonic Pi in the Sky', The Times Educational Supplement, 11 May 1993.)

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