Have you seen Galileo's thermometer? I just did last week and at first thought it to be a nice modern art kind of decoration. It was yesterday when I came to know what it actually was and looked up on Wikipedia to find its details. Here is the link for reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_thermometer
If you try to understand the workings of it, you wouldn't find anything more difficult than high school physics. The fact doesn't lie in understanding the basics of physics - we all know these, but the thing that differentiates Galileo from the rest of the population (well, yes Physics knowing population) is the fact how he could implement something so practical out of the basic rules of Physics. I was thinking about it last night before going to bed and couldn't help complimenting Galileo (once again) for his smartness!
How many of us can really think outside the common things? For me, I know the society I had grown up in was totally against doing anything which was not mentioned in school text books. When I was a teenager, I had much interest in doing little experiments on my own. Simple ones that we read about that time or maybe ones I found from my Science Encyclopedia. I had immense pleasure in making those work. One big reason is, I hardly ever got the right things I needed. Even a box of tissue papers, or cling wrap things that are pretty much everyday household items in the US were absolutely unavailable in India (at least in the late 90s and early millennium). That made me innovate things and ultimately when my pin-hole camera worked or I could successfully copper plate a paper clip, I found immense satisfaction. Looking back, I can't really think of any other thing that gave me that kind of joy. But what did I gain in terms of recognition? Nothing! As those didn't count towards my exams in school, those had no value. All that students were supposed to do were learn the text books by heart and write down those definitions and short notes exactly the way they have been written in the books. No understanding, no practical use, students were just a channel from the text books to the exam papers, that's it! If something doesn't fetch you good grades, you better dump that!
My grades in school were pretty much ok I'd say ranging from average to above average with a good consistency but nothing much more. I hated studying for long hours, I could not (and still can't) sit still for a long time, I sleep too much anyway so neither early morning nor after dinner was ever a good time to study. Everyone in my family knows that if I tried harder my grades would have improved. Maybe they are right, but now, when I can look back with a better understanding of the values of things, I very much feel that if I spent one evening studying the tax system of the Mughal rulers in India, I would have got ten more marks in my final history test, but I would have no experience of etching a sun dial by looking at Big Dipper in the northern sky, calculating the position of Polaris and setting that sun dial in a perfect north-south direction ready to be marked when the Sun rose on the following morning!
I had a hard time in high school when my grades were not up to the expected standard but now that doesn't matter anymore. What matters is my analytical skills, my thought processes and my interest in new things, everything else might just vanish into oblivion....who cares?
If you try to understand the workings of it, you wouldn't find anything more difficult than high school physics. The fact doesn't lie in understanding the basics of physics - we all know these, but the thing that differentiates Galileo from the rest of the population (well, yes Physics knowing population) is the fact how he could implement something so practical out of the basic rules of Physics. I was thinking about it last night before going to bed and couldn't help complimenting Galileo (once again) for his smartness!
How many of us can really think outside the common things? For me, I know the society I had grown up in was totally against doing anything which was not mentioned in school text books. When I was a teenager, I had much interest in doing little experiments on my own. Simple ones that we read about that time or maybe ones I found from my Science Encyclopedia. I had immense pleasure in making those work. One big reason is, I hardly ever got the right things I needed. Even a box of tissue papers, or cling wrap things that are pretty much everyday household items in the US were absolutely unavailable in India (at least in the late 90s and early millennium). That made me innovate things and ultimately when my pin-hole camera worked or I could successfully copper plate a paper clip, I found immense satisfaction. Looking back, I can't really think of any other thing that gave me that kind of joy. But what did I gain in terms of recognition? Nothing! As those didn't count towards my exams in school, those had no value. All that students were supposed to do were learn the text books by heart and write down those definitions and short notes exactly the way they have been written in the books. No understanding, no practical use, students were just a channel from the text books to the exam papers, that's it! If something doesn't fetch you good grades, you better dump that!
My grades in school were pretty much ok I'd say ranging from average to above average with a good consistency but nothing much more. I hated studying for long hours, I could not (and still can't) sit still for a long time, I sleep too much anyway so neither early morning nor after dinner was ever a good time to study. Everyone in my family knows that if I tried harder my grades would have improved. Maybe they are right, but now, when I can look back with a better understanding of the values of things, I very much feel that if I spent one evening studying the tax system of the Mughal rulers in India, I would have got ten more marks in my final history test, but I would have no experience of etching a sun dial by looking at Big Dipper in the northern sky, calculating the position of Polaris and setting that sun dial in a perfect north-south direction ready to be marked when the Sun rose on the following morning!
| One of the things that make me think, think and think |
I had a hard time in high school when my grades were not up to the expected standard but now that doesn't matter anymore. What matters is my analytical skills, my thought processes and my interest in new things, everything else might just vanish into oblivion....who cares?
1 comment:
Now that you have the time and opportunity, try to innovate a thing that will make you happy. Arnab will be there to appreciate it also. Best of luck!
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