I would then ask Chandra to fetch a wire-wound and a carbon Pot each of 20 K and show them to SDM.
And ask a student nearby which of the two is used in the plate circuit and which in the grid circuit and why. He would hum and haw and would go away to consult his classmates.
Meanwhile SDM would ask me what the answer is. And I would tell him the standard answer. The why part would puzzle him till I tell him that it is a matter of Wattage, not Ohmage. His eyes would glow like twin stars since he knew everything about Wattage.
And then he would ask why not use the higher Wattage one everywhere, since it would make no difference. I had to tell him that the higher Wattage one cost ten times more than the lower. He would ask why...and it went on.
To give him the greatest pleasure, I would look for Chandra to bring a screw-driver and would be told he went to the Agriculture Gate to fetch three cups of Tea from the stall outside that Gate.
Eventually Chandra would arrive and serve us Tea. He relished his Tea but would ask if the Tea was from the Lab Funds, which question I had to duck with the expertise of Sunil Gavaskar.
When the screw-driver arrives, I would open up the two Pots and hand them over to him for inspection and he would play with them as Ishani with her new toy, turning the stem this way and that.
And then two partners would arrive with their Lab Records of the Series LCR Experiment for their Lab Viva. I would ask them to go back to their Table and see if they could find an unpredicted resonance at a high frequency around 500 KHz. They would return in 10 minutes to report that there IS one at 486 KHz. And I would ask them why. The two would look at each other and I would then give them a hint to remove the Capacitor altogether from their LCR circuit and see what happens.
All this while SDM would be watching the proceedings silently but couldn't contain his curiosity and finally ask me to explain what was going on and I would reply (I had a policy to never answer a Question gratis unless it was ASKED).
He wouldn't be convinced that the Self-Capacitance of a Coil could be that much as to be seen in a Student Lab.
Ultimately next Wednesday when the Lab was free I would build a VHF Oscillator, remove its shielding and when SDM came next Tuesday, I would take him to it and ask him to insert his hand into the chassis and see how the waveform on the Oscilloscope Screen shifts continuously.
That was a Moment of Rush for him...all in all he was like a child...
And I would tell him that the automatic doors and taps work on this stray capacitance those days (I don't know now).
Over the Semester the Number of Rushes I gave him in that Electronics Lab were as many as those he gave me over 5 years of Theoretical Work under him.
As he dispelled the Fear of Math for me forever I can boast I removed the Fear of Electronics from his mind forever...unfortunately he retired a year later...
viva la SD Mia!
**********************************************************************************
============================================================
**********************************************************************************
Last Laugh:
Talking of Vivas, Grand and Little, I am reminded of this joke Dr Chitnis told me that was popular then in the US whence he returned to India and stayed with us in our Faculty Hostel during 1967- 68 for a couple of years before getting back to Cornell.
It is important to remember that Dr Chitnis was one of the fairest gentleman I met and was as shy as RGC while narrating off-color jokes:
There was this Public Exhibition of Mute Show & Viva Questions at Cornell those days. Later on this came to be known as Dumb Charade. Two partners would do some Dumb Act on the Stage and ask the Viewers to guess the Title of the Film they were portraying.
Like a bearded giant with flowing hair would enter displaying his muscles and then a dame would come on stage with a shaving razor and start trimming his beard.
The Public would shout: Samson-Delila!
Eventually this Sardarjee would enter, strip down his pants and bend, and his wife would come on with a hand-fan and fan his bare bottom.
The Audience would give up and ask loudly what was going on.
Our Sardarjee would then zip-up his pants and say into the mike:
Talking of Vivas, Grand and Little, I am reminded of this joke Dr Chitnis told me that was popular then in the US whence he returned to India and stayed with us in our Faculty Hostel during 1967- 68 for a couple of years before getting back to Cornell.
It is important to remember that Dr Chitnis was one of the fairest gentleman I met and was as shy as RGC while narrating off-color jokes:
There was this Public Exhibition of Mute Show & Viva Questions at Cornell those days. Later on this came to be known as Dumb Charade. Two partners would do some Dumb Act on the Stage and ask the Viewers to guess the Title of the Film they were portraying.
Like a bearded giant with flowing hair would enter displaying his muscles and then a dame would come on stage with a shaving razor and start trimming his beard.
The Public would shout: Samson-Delila!
Eventually this Sardarjee would enter, strip down his pants and bend, and his wife would come on with a hand-fan and fan his bare bottom.
The Audience would give up and ask loudly what was going on.
Our Sardarjee would then zip-up his pants and say into the mike:
it is simple: "Gond pe Wind"
No comments:
Post a Comment