Vikram RamakrishnanPlaces I visited
I was fortunate this week to visit two historic temple sites in Tamilnadu, the Chidambaram Nataraja Temple and Vaithayanatha Swamy Temple in VaitheeswaranKoil. It’s amazing to see the architectural marvels on these temples – thousands of carved stone pillars and replicas without a single imperfection. I’m not sure if one can achieve such a feat even with the latest scientific tools we have at our disposal now. Chidambaram Temple (more specifically the feet of Swamy Nataraja in the temple) is also believed to be the center point of Earth’s Magnetic equator. While recent estimations put the temple ~2 degrees off the magnetic equator, given the magnetic fields fluctuate, it may really have been accurate when the original temple was constructed.
Documentaries I’m watching
Ancient Aliens – Puzzling Pillars – Temple pillars that can sing and reverberate. No existing technology can easily reproduce these ancient marvels at the scale it was done. One wonders, where’s all that lost knowledge from Ancient India. While I’ve still not visited Hampi, i was personally fortunate to experience the sounds from these stone pillars that Sri Nellayappar Temple in Tirunelveli.
Videos that Kindled Curiosity
- Unanswered – Mysteries from the Mahabharata | Christopher Charles Doyle | TEDxYouth@NMS
- Did Ancient India have AI Robot Technology?
Tech Readings
Google Imagen – What is original / real / true? With tech like GPT-3, Imagen etc, answering questions like this, fact checking news articles, authenticating artwork will get increasingly difficult with expanding AI prowess.
Quote I’m thinking about
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.
Allen Saunders
