Tension

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What a word!: "Tension"

It runs the gamut of everything from headaches to heterotic strings.

My 88-year-old mother's mental abilities far exceed mine as of today. She had hardly any formal schooling, but taught herself everything needed to manage 7 fidgety offspring, their spouses and kids and their spouses and kids. My father was an English Teacher par excellence and some of it had rubbed itself on my mother.

She knows all commonly used English words and their nuances. And the one word that springs to her mind and lips in most situations is this "Tension". Naturally!

After I settled down in my 'permanent' cushy job at IIT KGP, I decided to live a carefree life free from the earlier tensions, rather phenomenally. Prof HNB who was materially responsible for all my promotions used to say: "Once you call them for Interview, it is very tough not to promote 'gps' and 'STA' ". Reason: As soon as we seat ourselves on the 'hot' seat, we become supercool and the chaps on the other side of the Table get worked up. In the process they start fighting hotly among themselves on the validity of our answers to their loaded questions.

It is what is now famously called an 'Attitude Thing'.

The one person I have seen who was under perennial tension was my Guru SDM. Except when he was driveling nonstop, he was always worked up (about the solution of a problem that always was running through his mind). 'Talking' released his tension, somewhat. 'Driveling' because he didn't care what he talked as long as there was a listener who didn't interrupt.

In the beginning I used to focus with great effort on what he was saying. But soon I realized he didn't care, and so I too learned not to care either and ignore what he was saying and happily lose myself in my thoughts.

In the long run, our meetings ran somewhat thus:

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SDM: What is the problem?

gps: How to proceed from here.

SDM: Talk... Talk... Talk... nonsense. (Suddenly) 'Which Bessel Function?'

gps: Hankel.

SDM: Talk.....Talk.... Talk.... nonsense. 'Try Faltung' (He never called it: 'Convolution').

gps: Let me see.

SDM: Talk..... Talk.... Talk.... nonsense about Tolstoy and Nehru and his bete noir Gandhi.

gps: (After 10 minutes thinking it out) It looks ok. I am going home to work it out.

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The most kindest Professor in the Physics Department was Gagan Babu. When he happened to chair a Grand Viva for 3rd Year kids, he would ask the first student to draw a heavy rope of weight 1 Kg suspended from the ceiling. And would ask what is the tension in the rope midway.

All students are aware of this Gagan Babu's pet question from their seniors, and their seniors, for generations. And when he blurts out after some pretended thought: "Half a Kg", GB is so pleased that he would turn around at the half a dozen of us seated and say with a smile: "I think we can let him go".

Everybody is happy, except the newly recruited young teachers who want to ask about 'heterotic strings'; but they would be brushed aside by the kind Chairman.

After their segregation from their seniors in their First Year, it was left to me to 'orient' the freshers kindly in the First Year Lab and bring them to the ground state from their Cloud Nine of successful JEE.

By and large the First Year Lab Viva proceeds thus:

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gps: Draw a string carrying a 1 Kg weight, suspended from the ceiling.

kid: Drawn.

gps: Define 'tension' in the string.

kid: Force.......

gps: If it is a force, it is a vector, and should have a unique direction. What is the direction of tension at a point midway on the string?

kid: Puzzled whether up or down or both.

gps: So, it is not a vector.

kid: What is it then ?

gps: More like a 'tensor' (coming from the word 'tension'). Anyway, is Young's Modulus a vector or a scalar?

kid: (Thoughtful) Definitely not a vector. Is it a scalar?

gps: It is part of a fourth rank tensor having 81 components. Read all about it and I will 'grade' you next week.

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Never again! The kid finds a more amenable Lab Teacher. Word spreads and I am avoided like plague and everyone is happy.

And then in their third year comes the more wicked 'Surface Tension'.

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