About

I am Ashwin Balaji. My primary interests are:

  1. The concept of time in Physics - especially in Quantum Gravity
  2. Structure and Quantization of Gauge Theories
  3. Philosophy of Physics - Hans Reichenbach is a personal favourite of mine.

I am a Master’s student at Heidelberg University and earned my Bachelor’s (BTech) at National Institute of Technology, Calicut (NITC). I worked on 2 theses titled “Introduction to Lattice Gauge Theory with Wilson Loops” and “Coherent State Path Integral Formalism for Fermions in Quantum Mechanics” under my esteemed supervisor Dr. Sreeraj.

My primary source of inspiration for pursuing physics is Lev Davidovich Landau (Russian: Лев Дави́дович Ланда́у). His books and other Russian texts enhanced my passion for Physics.

This site is primarily filled with my rantings over some topics but hopefully can bring out some useful ideas that could help with an understanding of concepts a little easier. It also includes a lot of thought processes I go through every day and record them here. I am passionate about Theoretical Physics, however; I am also interested in some basic Electronics, CAD designs, and a lot of Computations.

I like to think of myself as a Gardener. I tend to my thoughts often and nurture them to grow into something useful. That happens to be “a” reason why this is the 4th iteration of this site. You can visit the 3rd iteration here. The 2nd iteration was based on Ghost and the 1st on Wordpress: meaning they were hosted on a private server that is taken down now. Some of those old articles survived and made it to here.

Other than all these I love to sink myself in books: SciFi, Fantasy or Non-fiction. I also do a lot of Road Cycling and Mountain Biking, with former being the major part of it. You can check me out on Goodreads and/or Strava to see what I am up to.

All of this sounds like me chasing after irrelevant things or just trying out new stuff for fun. However, I like to think of all of this just like a fantasy novel rather than a single romance novel. There are world building, complex character arcs, sub-stories, magic system, lore and a lot more excruciating details that make a lots of people think, “when will this get to a point?”. All of those will tie up and come together nicely in the end of the fantasy series. It is a lot of work, but the reward is out of bounds: for the lack of better phrasing. I would like to think the same about these “distractions” to come together one day.

You can indulge in my distractions by following the articles or other social media sites I have linked here, and if you feel like it, leave a comment, or just say hi. You can contact me on Instagram, but like most people, if I don’t reply, ping me again.

Education Timeline Institute
MS in Physics Oct 22 - Ongoing Heidelberg University
BTech in Engineering Physics July 17 - April 21 NIT Calicut