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http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2009/10/sdm-qualifiers.html
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In 1958 my didi and I went to Visakhapatnam to stay with my MD Uncle and pursue our studies...she joining MBBS in the Andhra Medical College in the city and I joining BSc (Hons) Physics at the Andhra University, far away from the crowded city in Waltair Uplands.
That about tells us the priorities of professionals.
I had another weird experience at IIT KGP. I was wheedled into giving a lecture or two in an interdisciplinary course for research scholars called: History of Science & Technology. I made it a condition that I be allowed to sit in the front bench and listen to what the other teachers of the course had to say on their subjects.
And there was this famous professor of Electrical Engineering giving his take on the History of Electrical Engineering. I thought he would talk about Faraday. But I was amused to listen to his inaugural sentence:
"For us Electrical Engineers, Tesla is God!"
For me Tesla was wee better than Eli Whitney...for I had heard his name...it was the SI unit for magnetic flux density. Here is wiki about Tesla:
...Keats
“Good Friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here:
Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.”
...Shakespeare
And finally this is what Dorothy Parker had on the epitaph of an actress:
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...I then peeped into SDM’s room. And I
found a burly man sitting with his feet up and staring at the clean
blackboard in front of him, unaware of my entry. After a couple of
minutes I gently coughed and he came out of his trance and looked at me.
He asked if I was the one who was sent by HNB. I said ‘yes’. He offered
me a chair. He then asked me what my ‘achievements’ were. (This seemed
to be a routine opening gambit those days). I was blushing and told him I
came first in the Andhra University in the MPCE (E for English) group
of Pre-University exam. He got curious and asked how many students took
that exam. I told him about 2500. He gave a broad (and relieved) smile
and mentioned that he himself came first in about a LAKH of students in
the Calcatta University Matriculation Exam (Dhaka was included in Cal
Univ those pre-partition days). I didn’t know what to say. But there was
no need to say it...
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In 1958 my didi and I went to Visakhapatnam to stay with my MD Uncle and pursue our studies...she joining MBBS in the Andhra Medical College in the city and I joining BSc (Hons) Physics at the Andhra University, far away from the crowded city in Waltair Uplands.
At our University I found everyone a little snobbish. They were pursuing liberal education like Sciences, Arts, Literature and Dramaturgy. And they thought themselves culture vultures. And looked down upon professional courses like Engineering and Medicine. The Engineering College was housed far away from the holy precincts of the main campus and its hostels were sheds on the sea-beach. The engineers were, in their social standing, somewhere between tinkers and tailors and blacksmiths and auto-mechanics. The MBBS-walas cut corpses and did primitive experiments on rotating smoked drums with twitching frog legs...chee chee chee...
How different the scene now is!
Anyway we learned that surgeons were exalted barbers. Indeed, surgery in Europe was done by barbers. And after they get their diplomas they stop hair-cutting. Don't believe me? Here is the wiki entry:
...This dates back to the days when surgeons did not have a university
education (let alone a doctorate); this link with the past is still
retained despite the fact that all surgeons now have to gain a basic
medical degree and doctorate (as well as undergoing several more years
training in surgery) – they no longer perform haircuts, a task the
barbers have retained...
There is another thing in crazy England. You start as a mere Mr Johnson. And do your MBBS. Then you become Dr Johnson. And then you specialize in surgery and undergo 4 or 5 years of intensive training. Then you can pass an exam and become an FRCS or MRCS. Then, and only then, you can revert to being Mr Johnson. Here is the charming wiki-entry:
...The correct way to address a member or fellow of The Royal College of Surgeons is to use the title Mr,
Miss, Mrs, or Ms (not Dr). This system (which applies only to surgeons,
not physicians) has its origins in the 16th century, when surgeons were
barber-surgeons
and did not have a medical degree (or indeed any formal qualification),
unlike physicians, who held a University medical degree. When the
College of Surgeons received its royal charter, the Royal College of
Physicians insisted that candidates must have a medical degree first.
Therefore an aspiring surgeon had to study medicine first and receive
the title Doctor. Thereafter, having obtained the diploma of Fellow of
the Royal College of Surgeons he would revert to the title "Mr" as a
snub to the Royal College of Physicians. Nowadays the title "Mr" is used by Members of the
College who have passed the diploma MRCS examination and the College
addresses Members as "Mr".
In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles, the distinction is made in the following conversation:
"Come, come, we are not so far wrong after all," said Holmes. "And now, Dr. James Mortimer--"
"Mister, sir, Mister--a humble M.R.C.S."
Despite Mortimer's correction, he is referred to as "Dr. Mortimer" throughout the story.
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That was a rather long digression from my didi.
When I was in my first year at the university and she was doing her 1-year Pre-Professional Course, one day she held my left ear between her thumb and forefinger...she was 2 years older to me...and asked me to read a textbook of hers titled 'Human Achievements' which was compulsory for pre-medicos. And gave me a list of essay questions on its various chapters. And asked me to write them up for her since she was busy mugging up the horrendous Organic Chemistry book by Prescott and Ridge.
The pleasure was entirely mine.
As I eagerly opened the said book, the first chapter was on someone called Eli Whitney. The name was new to me. I was expecting Shakespeare or Newton or Beethoven. And I read this Eli Whitney chapter to learn what precisely his great human achievement was. And discovered that he was an American (phew!) inventor. And what did he invent? Surely not the Atom Bomb. But what was called the cotton gin! And what did this lead to? To establish slavery in the South. Here is wiki about this chap:
Eli Whitney (December 8, 1765 – January 8, 1825) was an American inventor best known for inventing the cotton gin. This was one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution and shaped the economy of the Antebellum South.[1] Whitney's invention made upland short cotton into a profitable crop, which strengthened the economic foundation of slavery in the United States (regardless of whether Whitney intended that or not).
That about tells us the priorities of professionals.
I had another weird experience at IIT KGP. I was wheedled into giving a lecture or two in an interdisciplinary course for research scholars called: History of Science & Technology. I made it a condition that I be allowed to sit in the front bench and listen to what the other teachers of the course had to say on their subjects.
And there was this famous professor of Electrical Engineering giving his take on the History of Electrical Engineering. I thought he would talk about Faraday. But I was amused to listen to his inaugural sentence:
"For us Electrical Engineers, Tesla is God!"
For me Tesla was wee better than Eli Whitney...for I had heard his name...it was the SI unit for magnetic flux density. Here is wiki about Tesla:
...On 6 November 1915, a Reuters news agency report from London had the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics
awarded to Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla; however, on 15 November, a
Reuters story from Stockholm stated the prize that year was being
awarded to Sir William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg "for their
services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays."[120][121][122] There were unsubstantiated rumors at the time that Tesla and/or Edison had refused the prize.[121]
The Nobel Foundation declined to comment on the rumors other than
saying, "Any rumor that a person has not been given a Nobel Prize
because he has made known his intention to refuse the reward is
ridiculous," a recipient could only decline a Nobel Prize after he is
announced a winner.[121]
There have been subsequent claims by Tesla biographers that Edison
and Tesla were the original recipients and that neither was given the
award because of their animosity toward each other; that each sought to
minimize the other's achievements and right to win the award; that both
refused ever to accept the award if the other received it first; that
both rejected any possibility of sharing it; and even that a wealthy
Edison refused it to keep Tesla from getting the $20,000 prize money.[18][121][123]
In the years after these rumors, neither Tesla nor Edison won the
prize (although Edison did receive one of 38 possible bids in 1915 and
Tesla did receive one bid out of 38 possible bids in 1937).[124]
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So much for the professionals' attitude towards human achievements.
On the other hand, look at our great Hawking. I recall distinctly that his Brief History of Time had a sort of Appendix where only 3 names were mentioned with their short biographies:
Galileo, Newton and Einstein.
I guess Hawking's own name completes the list ;)
I mean to say that it is so difficult to choose the Greatest Ever Human Achiever...or the Greatest Goddamn Human Achiever as Thurber would have it.
It all depends...
There was a wonderful Coffee Table Book in the Central Library of IIT KGP in the 1960s that I used to browse. It was titled: Heritage of Britain.
If I recall right, the one achiever who finds expansive mention in that book was Shakespeare...you guessed it right.
If I were asked to compile a companion book titled Heritage of India, I would choose to box in Gandhijee (I mean the Mahatma). He is the summum bonum of Indian Heritage which our Raam Bhakts say is of a million years vintage. He epitomizes what all is great in the heritage of India...also what all is not so great.
I recall G H Hardy saying that his greatest achievement in his life was that he could collaborate on the one hand with Ramanujan and on the other with Littlewood on somewhat equal terms. Some modesty there...the world would never have heard of Ramanujan but for Hardy.
Keats had this on his epitaph:
...Here lies one whose name was writ in water
And here is Shakespeare on his epitaph:
To dig the dust enclosed here:
Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.”
...Shakespeare
Her name, cut clear upon this marble cross,
Shines, as it shone when she was still on earth;
While tenderly the mild, agreeable moss
Obscures the figures of her date of birth.
Shines, as it shone when she was still on earth;
While tenderly the mild, agreeable moss
Obscures the figures of her date of birth.
...Dorothy Parker
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