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Sci Tech
The name change game
EXACTLY FOURTEEN days ago we read in the newspapers that the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) wrote a letter to the town supervisor of Hamburg in Germany. The request that PETA had made was to change the name of the city to `Veggieburg' since the name Hamburg "conjures up images of dead cows". Hamburg is credited with the invention of the meat patty sandwich on a round bun, now famous as the hamburger. The town supervisor was not amused, stating "we are proud of our town and our heritage". It is not clear what PETA might do next; even if they had succeeded in their request, would it have significantly aided their noble mission of propagating respect towards and ethical treatment of animals?
And is Hamburg the only symbol? Will not `wannabe' animal lovers take this to further towns and to ludicrous levels? The very thought gives me the shivers. If Hamburg is marked for its hamburgers, what about the city of Frankfurt, which might, rightly or not, be linked with the frankfurter, also called the hot dog? Should it be rechristened as Veggiefurt? Not many cities, provinces, and even a country or two, are safe from this type of attack.
The town Vienna is famous for its coffee, music, art museums and the wonderful dish called Wiener Schnitzel. It is a cutlet made of pounded shavings of veal, which is a milk-fed calf raised for its meat. The nation Hungary is famous for its mathematicians, folk music, use of paprika pepper, and the national dish called Goulash. Beef, veal, lamb or pork is cut into small cubes and cooked with potatoes, sweet paprika, butter, and other seasonings for as long as an hour and a half in simmering heat. Will Hungary have to change its name? And will Turkey be the next target?
It is interesting to ponder over what might happen to the 50 states of the US, if this trend catches on. The state of Idaho is safe, being famous for its potato, as also Iowa for its corn. Nebraska, known for its beef and Texas, famous for its steer, would be in trouble, as the entire family of New England states (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut) since they collectively offer the famed clam chowder soup and also the best codfish.
And if the movement catches on to those who hate alcohol what will the northeastern region of France be called, where Burgundy and Champagne are located? And the entire region of Scotland that lends it majestic name to the best of whiskey may have to go by a surrogate name. So will the state of Kentucky, which is thrice marked — for its horse races or the Kentucky Derby, its famous Kentucky bourbon whisky and of course the now famous Kentucky Fried Chicken of Col. Saunders. India is not necessarily immune to attack either.
The name Bombay is already replaced and we now have the city of Mumbai. But will the term Bombay be banished forever because of the notable `Bombay Duck' (which is neither from Bombay nor is a duck in any event)? And what about Goa, with its Vindaloo and Pheni? Punjab has cleverly covered its base, since for the famed Tandoori Chicken, reprieve comes from Sarson ka Saag. Perhaps the only state that will be safe from such renaming efforts is Gujarat.
Renaming towns, states and countries is a frequent and favourite diversion of many. Liberated nations rename themselves in order to symbolically unshackle their colonial chains.
It is thus that Gold Coast became Ghana, Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, Northern Rhodesia became Zambia, the French West African province of Dahomey became Benin, and the British Honduras regained its old name Belize. It is with somewhat the same spirit that we have seen some renaming of towns in India. But this renaming spree can be taken to laughable limits. We recently witnessed the fortunately aborted attempt in the US to rename French Fries as Freedom Fries and French bread to Freedom bread. This was attempted by some US government spokesmen who were upset that France was not supportive of the US action in Iraq.
This led me to think what might have happened, had the attempt actually succeeded. Would scientists working for the US Government have been arm-twisted to likewise abandon French names and terms in science, technology and medicine? Look at some of the many terms of French origin in science. Milk would no longer be Pasteurised but sterilized. Cells would not longer be crushed using the French Press, but the Freedom Press.
And to what levels of pressure would they be pressed — how many Pascals? In fact, trying to change French names, units, symbols and terms would be too daunting a task. Electric current is measured in units called amperes. Viscosity of fluids is measured in poises, after the French scientist Poiseuille, radioactivity in units of curies (Marie Curie was Polish, but did all her work in France), Statistical distribution of items described after Poisson, and two famous polynomial series in mathematics named after the original formulators Lagrange and Laguerre.
The second law of thermodynamics was formulated and the concept of entropy came about after the French scientist Sadi Carnot described the famous thermodynamic cycle that bears his name. John Dalton of England had a running correspondence with the Frenchman Gay Lussac about the law of combining volumes, which helped him formulate his famous theory in the early nineteenth century.
It is in the nature of science that it knows no national borders, pays no heed to personal fortune, faith and beliefs. Dalton was a Quaker, Cavendish came in the line of William the Conquerer, Mendeleef's family was large and poor.
All that matters is what the contribution of the individual is. If it is outstanding and path- breaking, science immortalizes the individual by naming a unit, a phenomenon, a process, theory or an approach after him or her. This universality, catholicity and unconcern with personal or national issues is the strength of science.
Thus it is that an unknown colonial, Raman, was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery and the effect named after him, his nephew who made landmark contributions in astrophysics is honoured with `Chandra', and a stranger called Satyen Bose takes bold to write to Albert Einstein about an idea, and in time gets immortalized through the term Boson. It is just as well that the town supervisor of Hamburg did not do what he was asked to do. If he had, one wonders what chain reaction it might have started.
D. Balasubramanian
dbala@lvpeye.stph.net
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