==========================================
It just happens that Free India and I grew up together, more or less, and are now in our sweet Sixties.
We both have been through much; both ways....agony and ecstasy.
But tragedy is in the realm of the 'personal'; at the 'Universal' level, the whole scheme, if any, is but a farce. The latest joke I read about the Universe was in DC where its Science Reporter seriously commented that CERN is about to 'trap' the 'God Particle'. Maybe God Himself!
As I was saying, we both had been through much. If we leave aside bitterness as non-productive, our story is on the verge of the ludicrous.
That is how I want this series to be; let us see.
One of the most diverting and unseemly sights I saw during my Schooling (1950-55) was that of a cock-fight. The thing was illegal even then; so we had to go to a remote corner to witness this event amidst adults who I could see were going stark mad for no apparent reason. I didn't then know that 'money' was to change hands.
In retrospect, whenever I now think of Indo-Pak Events, (cricket or war), I recall that one and only cock-fight I ever saw.
The two most important things in this early part of my life were: 'school and play'. Nothing else much happened in our seaside village. Since there was no 'current', all activities were confined to the daytime. Kerosene was costly and rationed, so the village shut shop by 7.30 P M; except during exams season, when we were woken up at 5 A M and asked to 'study' by the lone 'hurricane' lantern ringed by 4 of us, fighting for light, turning it this way that way to avoid the shadow of the 'vertical columns'.
India became a Republic just then. All this meant for us was an additional holiday for School apart from Gandhi Jayanthi and Independence Day. But the flip-side of this was that we still had to go to School, where my father, the HM, tried hard to hoist the flag, supposed to rain down rose petals; but somehow or other it never worked smoothly, and the SPL (School Pupil Leader) had to sort of climb up and untie the tricky knot physically, much to the embarrassment of the Drill Teacher and amusement for us kids, watched by the HM with a scowl appropriate for the dignity of the occasion.
My father took up the 'reigns' of this School with the mandate to upgrade it from a Middle School to a High School and make it the Best in the District, as a model for others.
But we were shifted from the other school just when the Quarterly Exams were starting. With the result that the 'portions' covered by the two didn't match. The day I was admitted to this new school happened to be the day of our math exam. The Teacher, I remember only had one feature on his face, viz. a Soda-Water-Bottle-thick lenses set in a hard plastic frame. Clearly a short-sighted old man.
The next day, he announced the marks, in descending order. And came to my script the last: a Perfect Zero. He glared through his glasses, looked at my unfamiliar face, thought it was a new wayside bumpkin and started teasing me and showing me up to the others in a most diverting way, reading answer after blessed answer aloud. All the jokes were on me. This was most embarrassing even for an otherwise sportive kid. Then he came to the name on the script and tarried: the surname is unique and matched with the HM's: 'Gurram' (meaning 'Horse'). If it were not the HM's surname, he would have had a 'go' at it too (much horseplay was in his mind). But, he suddenly fell silent and 'dismissed' the Class: 'Gave them Games'.
He then walked me silently to the Assistant HM and pleaded with him to arrange a 'supple' for me in view of my extenuating cicrs. I remember the supple was mush easier, but I don't think I did much better, math being a bugbear for me from then till now.
Talking of math, for the first 3 years of my schooling, every night after the math exam, I was beaten black and blue by my father for getting most of the answers wrong. He seemed a wizard to me because, he could do all the problems in my Question Paper 'mentally' without pencil and paper. And declared that all my answers were wrong, and only 'part-marking' could make me pass. All the questions in those three years were about what RKN called the 'interminable transactions' of 'Profit and Loss', and 'work and men', 'work and time', 'time and speed', and such goofy things which required the ill-fated Rule of Three which sometimes went awry and upside down, very like the nasty 'Markownikoffs Rule' I had to mug up in Organic Chemistry much later, which had to all purposes, more exceptions than the Rule, so what is that Rule for? They would then say it is only a 'Rule' (of thumb) and not a Law, unlike Newton's Law (which they didn't know goes phut under our very noses on our very Earth because it 'spins' awfully and calls for vexed pseudo-forces, with Newton's own Ice-Pail thing which to this day no one ever could resolve in toto).
Any way, in my fourth year, I was expecting the usual 'stick' on the night of my math exam. But when my father had a peek at it, he took a deep breath and let it go, posing as if he was in a hurry to get on with his own 'paper-correction'. I learned by and by that from that year onwards I had only 'algebra' and no more 'arithmetic'. And it turned out that my father had only 'General' math in HIS school days instead of 'Composite Math' and things like Quadratic Equation and much lesser evils were 'devils' for him.
For the next 3 years I breathed free...it turned out that I was a wizard in Algebra. And, later on I taught my father how the vexed 'arithmetic' problems could easily be solved by algebra without recourse to all sorts of 'imagination' which my father claimed I lacked but he had.
But he took one and only one 'Private Class' for me at home in English; and I never looked back.
On fine Sunday morning when he was sipping his coffee and I was about to 'scamp' he ordered me to fetch my pencil and note book, and bade me sit down by his side on the floor. And then he drew some sort of a heavy Table with columns and rows, much like what we would now call a Matrix. And took as simple a word as 'eat' and 'conjugated' it. There were 3 broad Tenses (present, past and future, with two sub-divisions in future for 'shall' and 'will'). And four categories in each; 'Indefinite, Continuous, Perfect and Perfect-Continuous'. And for every entry, there were two 'Voices' (Active and Passive). I don't know... you reckon, it should be about 30 odd inflections in all for the simple 'eat'.
I was just fascinated. Then on, I didn't have to learn any grammar in my school, at least.
When in my second year, our beautiful but not so bright Mam was teaching a lesson, an upstart student pointed out a 'printing mistake' in the text book, where it had an unnecessary extra: 'had' as in 'had had'. Mam duly ordered everyone to scratch out the extra 'had'. I softly objected and gave her my gyan about Perfect Tense of 'have'; and our Mam instantly ordered all students to 'de-scatch' it.
First victory in the English Class Room.
Six years later, an even more beautiful Mam at our University, holding a Class of 120 ogling students lifted her hands poetically Heavenwards dwelling on the Bard, saying "Books in running brooks, Tongues in tress, ahem, Tongues in trees , ahem....". And from the front bench I softly prompted, 'Sermons in stones'. She looked at me thankfully and completed the Bard's lines with a flourish.
But then on, I had her smiling but tough passages for 'Annotation' in public when MY turn came.
Thank you HM for teaching me English, and Algebra that you left scrupulously alone!
===============================================
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Points of Inflection
=======================================
I wholeheartedly agree with two statements made by RKN:
(1) Everyone should be free to study whatever they want; and should also be free not to be examined at all.
(2) There is nothing like Higher Mathematics...all mathematics is Higher Mathematics.
Long back in my youth I read Karl Marx predicting that after the Proletarian Revolution takes over, the Communist State would eventually 'wither away'.
I see no signs of the Communist States in India, at least, withering away during my lifetime. Not even W B: it is going strong after 40 years, and even 'producing' Maoist 'children'.
They may 'disintegrate' like the Capitalist State of A P; but no, not 'withering away'.
But RKN's wish about Exams withering away has more or less come true. I am told that students of CBSE may not appear for their Class X Public Exam if they wish not to.....a heresy even a couple of years back; moreover, if they do dare appear, they have no right to continue in the same School! Well, small mercies! During my time, every Class, from I to XII had 'public' exams and every student has to pass every Class to be promoted to the next. I have known a reluctant cousin of mine to fail his SSLC Exam a total of 7 times before he gave it up. And another cousin of mine who 'cleared' her Class X at 45. She was already working in that School as a 'Sewing Teacher' and got a 'special consideration'.
Regarding all math being higher math, I am a living and kicking Example. I knew a Classmate of mine who first looked at the series expansion for 'e' and at once fell in love with 'infinite series'.
I, on the other hand, couldn't make out why people should go to the trouble of 'differentiation' several times, till I chanced upon Maxima and Minima of curves; and since then fell in love with Points of Inflection.
People wondered how a non-math chap like me could pull on with the Math Wizard SDM for five long years and survived unscathed.
The reaosn is simple. The PRS Reprint that he gave me to read was titled: 'Cherenkov Radiation in Anisotropic Media'. Now EM Radiation is PHYSICS! Moreover, he straightaway told me that he was jumping frames from the Lab to the Particle and applying Special Relativity. Jumping frames is always 'fun'; and SR was my strong suit; at best it had 'Cartesian Tensors' which any non-math child could handle.
There was a brilliant student in our B Sc at KGP in the late 70s by name SS. He went to Stony Brook right after B Sc and did his Ph D in Particle Physics. He returned to KGP soon after his 'Qualifiers' and met me in our Central Library, and pleaded with me not to recommend anyone to Stony Brook just after B Sc because it was too too tough to cope; which of course he did, and got a wonderful Degree.
Fast forward 25 years: he visited his alma mater for Recruiting IITians for Motorola, Bangalore, where he was VP; and his wife still in Particle Physics (these choices are forced on you if you marry the same 'Physics Gotra' against all Khap!). He offered to take my son in his Firm anytime he chooses (I hope the offer is still on).
Anyway, when he was in his Third Year, he led a delegation of his classmates to me in the Lab, challenging me to 'explain' why a point charge moving uniformly in vacuum does not radiate, 'without math'. I asked him to jump to the Point Charge Frame where it would be at rest, and vacuum still remains the same vacuum (vacuum doesn't MOVE). And, you will agree that a point charge at rest will not radiate, because there is no H field to give the Poynting Vector. And if 10 photons are emitted in one Frame then 10 photons should be emitted in any other Frame, they being particles countable by 'counters'.
The delegation dispersed without mutiny.
SDM was doing the same trick with the Chrenkov Radiation. But now there is a medium and the uniformly moving charge in the medium could radiate. But jumping to the Rest Frame of the point charge, its fields should be static; but the Radiation MUST be going on. Which means that it is the medium that radiates and not the point charge. And it should be so in any Frame including the Lab Frame.
Same with the Smith-Purcell Radiation: it is the grating that radiates and not the charge, because it would come to rest if you jump to its own Frame.
All in all, Relativity and Electrodynamics won me over and I carried on with SDM despite his formidable reputation as a math wizard.
And did get to predict results that could be verified in High Energy Labs.
Coming back to Points of Inflection, I was first charmed by the Magnetic Field produced by the Tangent Galvanometer (now you see the 'connection') Coil carrying steady current. Our hopeless book by Starling asked us to differentiate it twice and set it equal to zero. And, lo and behold, I did that with lots of enthu and did find that it happens at x = r/2. And, my joy knew no bounds, because that was the first time I found an example in my Student Physics Life where the trouble of differentiating TWICE led to a physical result that could be verified in the Lab. This graph used to be drawn and the Point of Inflection determined. and I could get some confidence that Math could be at times useful in Physics.
And, I went on to use this result later at KGP by designing an Experiment in the Second Year Lab with TWO coils in series (Helmholtz Coils) to get a very nice 'uniform' field that could be plotted over a range. Indeed this is the best way of generating uniform weak magnetic fields useful in NQR etc.
Then again in 1980 or so there was an unusually brilliant student by name Tanmoy Bhattachraya (last seen at Los Alomos) in my First Year Optics Course (Later I had him in his 4th year; and he did his Project with DB, if I remember right).
For the first time I decided to teach Fermat's Principle to his batch in my very first Lecture. I wasn't too happy with the treatment in Jenkins & White where they do say that the Optical Path (Time Traveled) could be a minimum, maximum or stationary. But the example given of 'bending' a mirror continuously didn't satisfy me.
Rest assured that if the teacher is not satisfied with a topic he has to teach, there would at least be one student in his Class (at IIT) who is even more dissatisfied.
And after the first Lecture, Tanmoy met me and asked me to find a better example.
That was a challenge, which took me 6 hours to invent. And in the Next Class both me and Tanmoy had a great time.
I never liked to teach Fermat's Principle the way Feynman did it: the 'life-guard' and the 'drowning beauty'. Because I knew that 'least time' is not always followed by the actual ray. And in any case, it would be giving too much of a 'physical' beauty to an essentially 'formal' beauty.
And Jenkins & White's example is misleading as if the shift from minimum to maximum via the Point of Inflection is a feature of the shape of the 'mirror', which was suspect.
The example I cooked up is s 'beauty'; because I still remember it fondly after 30 years. And is not found in any ext book:
*************************************************
"Take a hemispherical concave mirror with its pole at P. Take an actual ray incident along the axis of the mirror and getting reflected back on itself. Fix the end point of the path at the center C of the mirror. Take any other point A along the axis of the mirror. Take a 'possible' ray ABC where B is the point of incidence of the light on the mirror. You will find that the actual path APC is the minimum, or stationary, or maximum compared to the alternate paths ABC depending on whether A is towards the mirror, at its center C or away from the mirror".
**************************************************
All it takes is to differentiate twice the 'possible' Optical Path.
Here you have a clear example of the SAME mirror, SAME ray and the SAME final point giving all possible varieties depending on just your CHOICE of the other point!
So much for any silly 'philosophical' implications of Fermat's Principle of LEAST time!
========================================
I wholeheartedly agree with two statements made by RKN:
(1) Everyone should be free to study whatever they want; and should also be free not to be examined at all.
(2) There is nothing like Higher Mathematics...all mathematics is Higher Mathematics.
Long back in my youth I read Karl Marx predicting that after the Proletarian Revolution takes over, the Communist State would eventually 'wither away'.
I see no signs of the Communist States in India, at least, withering away during my lifetime. Not even W B: it is going strong after 40 years, and even 'producing' Maoist 'children'.
They may 'disintegrate' like the Capitalist State of A P; but no, not 'withering away'.
But RKN's wish about Exams withering away has more or less come true. I am told that students of CBSE may not appear for their Class X Public Exam if they wish not to.....a heresy even a couple of years back; moreover, if they do dare appear, they have no right to continue in the same School! Well, small mercies! During my time, every Class, from I to XII had 'public' exams and every student has to pass every Class to be promoted to the next. I have known a reluctant cousin of mine to fail his SSLC Exam a total of 7 times before he gave it up. And another cousin of mine who 'cleared' her Class X at 45. She was already working in that School as a 'Sewing Teacher' and got a 'special consideration'.
Regarding all math being higher math, I am a living and kicking Example. I knew a Classmate of mine who first looked at the series expansion for 'e' and at once fell in love with 'infinite series'.
I, on the other hand, couldn't make out why people should go to the trouble of 'differentiation' several times, till I chanced upon Maxima and Minima of curves; and since then fell in love with Points of Inflection.
People wondered how a non-math chap like me could pull on with the Math Wizard SDM for five long years and survived unscathed.
The reaosn is simple. The PRS Reprint that he gave me to read was titled: 'Cherenkov Radiation in Anisotropic Media'. Now EM Radiation is PHYSICS! Moreover, he straightaway told me that he was jumping frames from the Lab to the Particle and applying Special Relativity. Jumping frames is always 'fun'; and SR was my strong suit; at best it had 'Cartesian Tensors' which any non-math child could handle.
There was a brilliant student in our B Sc at KGP in the late 70s by name SS. He went to Stony Brook right after B Sc and did his Ph D in Particle Physics. He returned to KGP soon after his 'Qualifiers' and met me in our Central Library, and pleaded with me not to recommend anyone to Stony Brook just after B Sc because it was too too tough to cope; which of course he did, and got a wonderful Degree.
Fast forward 25 years: he visited his alma mater for Recruiting IITians for Motorola, Bangalore, where he was VP; and his wife still in Particle Physics (these choices are forced on you if you marry the same 'Physics Gotra' against all Khap!). He offered to take my son in his Firm anytime he chooses (I hope the offer is still on).
Anyway, when he was in his Third Year, he led a delegation of his classmates to me in the Lab, challenging me to 'explain' why a point charge moving uniformly in vacuum does not radiate, 'without math'. I asked him to jump to the Point Charge Frame where it would be at rest, and vacuum still remains the same vacuum (vacuum doesn't MOVE). And, you will agree that a point charge at rest will not radiate, because there is no H field to give the Poynting Vector. And if 10 photons are emitted in one Frame then 10 photons should be emitted in any other Frame, they being particles countable by 'counters'.
The delegation dispersed without mutiny.
SDM was doing the same trick with the Chrenkov Radiation. But now there is a medium and the uniformly moving charge in the medium could radiate. But jumping to the Rest Frame of the point charge, its fields should be static; but the Radiation MUST be going on. Which means that it is the medium that radiates and not the point charge. And it should be so in any Frame including the Lab Frame.
Same with the Smith-Purcell Radiation: it is the grating that radiates and not the charge, because it would come to rest if you jump to its own Frame.
All in all, Relativity and Electrodynamics won me over and I carried on with SDM despite his formidable reputation as a math wizard.
And did get to predict results that could be verified in High Energy Labs.
Coming back to Points of Inflection, I was first charmed by the Magnetic Field produced by the Tangent Galvanometer (now you see the 'connection') Coil carrying steady current. Our hopeless book by Starling asked us to differentiate it twice and set it equal to zero. And, lo and behold, I did that with lots of enthu and did find that it happens at x = r/2. And, my joy knew no bounds, because that was the first time I found an example in my Student Physics Life where the trouble of differentiating TWICE led to a physical result that could be verified in the Lab. This graph used to be drawn and the Point of Inflection determined. and I could get some confidence that Math could be at times useful in Physics.
And, I went on to use this result later at KGP by designing an Experiment in the Second Year Lab with TWO coils in series (Helmholtz Coils) to get a very nice 'uniform' field that could be plotted over a range. Indeed this is the best way of generating uniform weak magnetic fields useful in NQR etc.
Then again in 1980 or so there was an unusually brilliant student by name Tanmoy Bhattachraya (last seen at Los Alomos) in my First Year Optics Course (Later I had him in his 4th year; and he did his Project with DB, if I remember right).
For the first time I decided to teach Fermat's Principle to his batch in my very first Lecture. I wasn't too happy with the treatment in Jenkins & White where they do say that the Optical Path (Time Traveled) could be a minimum, maximum or stationary. But the example given of 'bending' a mirror continuously didn't satisfy me.
Rest assured that if the teacher is not satisfied with a topic he has to teach, there would at least be one student in his Class (at IIT) who is even more dissatisfied.
And after the first Lecture, Tanmoy met me and asked me to find a better example.
That was a challenge, which took me 6 hours to invent. And in the Next Class both me and Tanmoy had a great time.
I never liked to teach Fermat's Principle the way Feynman did it: the 'life-guard' and the 'drowning beauty'. Because I knew that 'least time' is not always followed by the actual ray. And in any case, it would be giving too much of a 'physical' beauty to an essentially 'formal' beauty.
And Jenkins & White's example is misleading as if the shift from minimum to maximum via the Point of Inflection is a feature of the shape of the 'mirror', which was suspect.
The example I cooked up is s 'beauty'; because I still remember it fondly after 30 years. And is not found in any ext book:
*************************************************
"Take a hemispherical concave mirror with its pole at P. Take an actual ray incident along the axis of the mirror and getting reflected back on itself. Fix the end point of the path at the center C of the mirror. Take any other point A along the axis of the mirror. Take a 'possible' ray ABC where B is the point of incidence of the light on the mirror. You will find that the actual path APC is the minimum, or stationary, or maximum compared to the alternate paths ABC depending on whether A is towards the mirror, at its center C or away from the mirror".
**************************************************
All it takes is to differentiate twice the 'possible' Optical Path.
Here you have a clear example of the SAME mirror, SAME ray and the SAME final point giving all possible varieties depending on just your CHOICE of the other point!
So much for any silly 'philosophical' implications of Fermat's Principle of LEAST time!
========================================
Monday, May 24, 2010
NLR-KVR Marathon
=============================================
As I was saying yesterday, my father was enrolling for B A in the Christian College at Madras around 1930.
Those days, B A commanded the greatest respect as an entry point to the Job Market and therefore the Marriage Market. Get a B A after Inter, and gates are 'open sesame' to the Civil Services, Law, and Teaching (if everything else fails). Most village hospitals were managed by LMPs and GCIMs which were similar to LCEs, LEEs and LMEs in the field of Engineering. They are diplomas after Inter. Few were MBBSs and BEs.
B Sc ranked a poor third. Sciences didn't command anything but a lowly Demonstrator's posts eventually maybe a Lecturer in a backwaters college. They were the last resort of folks who couldn't master English. B A on the other hand could be in Eng Lit, Economics, Politics, Arts (which included Math!). Both the years in B A had lots of English, other than the Main Subject. In Eng Lit it was English through and through. They took the cake. For those who couldn't gatecrash the higher courses, there was a weak B A with a choice of a Science subject as a subsidiary.
My father preferred to do a B A with Physics as a sidekick.
All he had to show for his Christian College pedigree by my time was a huge Group Photo (pass-out parade), an individual Studio Photo with the default gown and hood and a fake rolled Degree Certificate in hand; and a fantastic gilt-edged Bible, Courtesy Missionaries.
I took no interest as a child in the photos but fondled the Holy Bible just for the wonderful feel of its butter-paper pages and the aroma of leather-binding of 3 decades vintage.
By the time I graduated from AU 30 years later, the Bible shrank to pocket-size and was in competition with a Gita doled out by the Gorakhpur Press. The Bible still was better-printed, but I read the Gita, because it was new and the Mini-Bible was a sorry brat to my father's gorgeous bride.
Anyway, my father had to do a B Ed in order to enter the hallowed portals of 'Qualified Teachers' not subject to 'ousting' during the Summer Vacations. He had a choice: English or Physics as his main B Ed subject.
He told me that Physics was his first love, but he was ditched by the Lab Technicians during his B A Final Practical Exams in the Christian College and flunked and had to repeat it.
It was this way: Apparently, he got an easy 'practical', the Tangent Galvanometer, which was his favorite. But, as he quickly settled down to take the 'readings', the Principal's Candidate wanted to 'change' his allotted experiment (foregoing a lousy 5 marks) and he was awarded the Tangent Galvanometer on my father's desk. My father was shooed and asked to shift to a new bench and start the experiment anew. The Principal's candidate had it 'served on a platter' and had to just take the 'readings' on the set-up thing.
And, in his confusion and bitterness, my father forgot to place the Coil in the wretched Magnetic Meridian and every reading went haywire and he had to take a 'Supple'.
This was His Version of the thing and I am only a Reporter.
[Aside: I had the 'Reverse Osmosis Misfortune' in my M Sc Final Year Lab Exam. As I was saying, I got the easiest of experiments: Measurement of the L, C, and R of a Coil by Q-Meter. I was an expert at it and finished the thing in half an hour against the allotted 3 hours (taking a hundred meaningless repetitions). I did tarry for another half an hour but lost patience and wanted to submit and go away. The External Examiner (from Cal) and our own HoD were enraged and felt insulted that it was an affront to the dignity of the Physics Labs in the whole of Eastern India; and took my Viva for ONE HOUR before proceeding to the next laggard but clever chap. I got 100% in the Expt but 30% in the Viva and lost my Rank, Prizes and the lucrative Demonstrator Post; and had to escape to IIT KGP instead of sticking with the Sea-Side Tourist Resort Vizagh for the next half century.]
Loss on both sides.
Coming back to my father's travails, he had to take English in his B Ed which had of course no hazardous Labs. And over the decades he became the Best English Teacher in the District (unofficially). There were never any Best-Teacher awards then or even in my time at IIT Everyone is supposed to be the Best Teacher, since no 'Teaching-Meter' was there to measure Teaching Ability other than Voting by Students; and this was never liked by Senior Teachers (who knows!). IIT KGP tried to institute a Best-Teacher Award several times but had to face a Concrete Wall from the Senators who are the Senior-most Teachers but were 'forced' to do Administration like Wardenships, Committee Chairmen , Profs-In-Charge of B C Roy Hospital etc; and had little time for competing with Ass-Lecturers who didn't have to 'administer'.
Things went on swell for my father and he became duly one of the youngest Head Masters (this was decided by the Confidential Reports (CRs)' of Senior Teachers (the British perfected their 'System' down the line).
One fine morning in 1960 when my father had just about a decade left as HM before retirement the New Minister wanted to 'overhaul' the cobweb-ridden School Education and 'improve' the standards by leaps and bounds to compete with the Best in the World. The Minister might have lost his post the next month (in a 'lively' Democracy these things happen all too often), but not so the 'permanent' IAS Babu who got the file and took up His Master's Voice too seriously.
Now, the IAS chap takes only ONE Exam in their life to join the Steel Framework of the Empire. Then on everything with them goes by THEIR CRs. All they have to do to go up and up and up is to just see that their CRS are in proper order. But when they spit on their palms and try to 'improve' the School Education System, they do a THOROUGH Job.
First, they decide that the existing HMs are a rotten lot because they were recruited under the British Regime and so are suspect under Independent India. And so they administer additional Tests and and Exams to 50-year-old HMs to see if they still are eligible to teach under the new dispensation. And, those whom they deem are not below par, will be asked to undergo 'Short-Term Refresher Courses' of 3-months duration in Summer at various Universities and such Centers of Advanced Learning.
But first they have to 'pass' a Written Test at that age. Those who FAIL the written test will have to forgo all future increments and retire at Rs. 300 pm. But those who 'clear' the Test, undergo the Training, and also 'clear' the Exam at the end of 3 months will go ahead and retire at Rs 500 pm. A frightening margin for HMs like my father who had half a dozen daughters to feed, dress, educate and also provide for their dowry.
My father gave his Eligibility Test for Training in English in 1960.
I was then already in my Second Year at that Blessed University and was keenly watching my father's progress on his Education Front.
After the Prelim-Test I asked him how it went (I had half a mind to take his Viva after his Exam as he used do to me and wield the stick; but let it go...one can't take a vengeful attitude to one's father...after all he did teach you Good English).
My father was always a half-empty chap (with six daughters he ought to be). He said so-so, and expected that he would surely fail, because it was a 'Competitive' Exam since there were only 30 'seats' (chairs) in the AU 'English' Class Room. And he was sure that his sub-sub-juniors would have done better by virtue of their youth, enthu, and 'modern' training.
I was at Kovur that summer with my father enjoying the summer vacation and daily scanning for my father's Results, which were expected to be 'published' in the English Dailies any day.
We used to take the Indian Express but not the Hindu which was 10 paise costlier and so we couldn't afford. My father's Overall Roll Number was 62.
And the dreary morning the Results came in print in the Indian Express, there was 60 followed by 65.
62 was just missing!
I was shocked and just about started crying. Becuase I had to break the awful news to my father.
However, he took it sportingly and crowed; "Didn't I tell you!"
But I was just not convinced since I felt in my bones that my father was the best English HM still.
Yet it was not like a phone call or SMS but HARD Copy!
Anyway, after a couple of hours, my father sent me to the District HQ, Nellore, which was 5 miles away on a Bank Job of the High School, since he didn't trust his AHM (he never trusted anyone with money).
I rented a push-bike from the Corenr Shop at the rate 0f 25 paise an hour and set out on the 5-mile run over the new Road Bridge on the River Pennar on a hot summer day.
After finishing my errand, I thought I would peep in my auntie's place (the Post Master's wife who always fed me vadas).
Parking my bike and rim-locking it in front of their house I entered their Hall to the warmest possible welcome ever. Auntie told me that she was just about asking me to go to the Post Office and ask Uncle to make a 'free 3-minute call' to my father congratulating him on his success in the Test.
I was offended by her jeers and kept mum. She then guessed something was wrong and asked me what was the matter with me. I said my father flunked.
She was aghast and asked father's number. I said 62. She said it was very much there in her newspaper which happened to be the Hindu.
I jumped and scanned it twenty times and lo and behold 62 WAS there sandwiched between 60 and 65.
I grabbed her Hindu and saying nothing, went out, unlocked my push-bike and pedaled furiously.
I would have just about bagged the Olypmic Gold Medal if there was one then.
And fell flat at my father's desk in his HMs's Office.
He was curious and when I broke the news with the evidence of the hard copy of the Hindu, he looked at it unconvinced and argued quite a while that Hindu must be wrong since it was published by the wily Tamilians bent on misleading the Telugus.
And I had to argue that it is possible for the printer to omit a number rather than to insert an extra one (however devilish he is).
He was just not convinced.
I had to then spend Rs 3 of my precious pocket money and give a RPPD (Reply Paid) Telegram to the OE (Officer-in-Charge of Exams) at Hyderabad.
The reply came confirming Hindu and adding that an 'errata' will be released in the Indian Express and thanking me (since I paid for the Reply Telegram charges).
By and by, my father joined me for 3 months at our University for his Refresher Course, came First in that Exam and retired with a Grand Rs 500 Pay and Benefits.
All Printers are Devilish (including my HP).
===============================================
As I was saying yesterday, my father was enrolling for B A in the Christian College at Madras around 1930.
Those days, B A commanded the greatest respect as an entry point to the Job Market and therefore the Marriage Market. Get a B A after Inter, and gates are 'open sesame' to the Civil Services, Law, and Teaching (if everything else fails). Most village hospitals were managed by LMPs and GCIMs which were similar to LCEs, LEEs and LMEs in the field of Engineering. They are diplomas after Inter. Few were MBBSs and BEs.
B Sc ranked a poor third. Sciences didn't command anything but a lowly Demonstrator's posts eventually maybe a Lecturer in a backwaters college. They were the last resort of folks who couldn't master English. B A on the other hand could be in Eng Lit, Economics, Politics, Arts (which included Math!). Both the years in B A had lots of English, other than the Main Subject. In Eng Lit it was English through and through. They took the cake. For those who couldn't gatecrash the higher courses, there was a weak B A with a choice of a Science subject as a subsidiary.
My father preferred to do a B A with Physics as a sidekick.
All he had to show for his Christian College pedigree by my time was a huge Group Photo (pass-out parade), an individual Studio Photo with the default gown and hood and a fake rolled Degree Certificate in hand; and a fantastic gilt-edged Bible, Courtesy Missionaries.
I took no interest as a child in the photos but fondled the Holy Bible just for the wonderful feel of its butter-paper pages and the aroma of leather-binding of 3 decades vintage.
By the time I graduated from AU 30 years later, the Bible shrank to pocket-size and was in competition with a Gita doled out by the Gorakhpur Press. The Bible still was better-printed, but I read the Gita, because it was new and the Mini-Bible was a sorry brat to my father's gorgeous bride.
Anyway, my father had to do a B Ed in order to enter the hallowed portals of 'Qualified Teachers' not subject to 'ousting' during the Summer Vacations. He had a choice: English or Physics as his main B Ed subject.
He told me that Physics was his first love, but he was ditched by the Lab Technicians during his B A Final Practical Exams in the Christian College and flunked and had to repeat it.
It was this way: Apparently, he got an easy 'practical', the Tangent Galvanometer, which was his favorite. But, as he quickly settled down to take the 'readings', the Principal's Candidate wanted to 'change' his allotted experiment (foregoing a lousy 5 marks) and he was awarded the Tangent Galvanometer on my father's desk. My father was shooed and asked to shift to a new bench and start the experiment anew. The Principal's candidate had it 'served on a platter' and had to just take the 'readings' on the set-up thing.
And, in his confusion and bitterness, my father forgot to place the Coil in the wretched Magnetic Meridian and every reading went haywire and he had to take a 'Supple'.
This was His Version of the thing and I am only a Reporter.
[Aside: I had the 'Reverse Osmosis Misfortune' in my M Sc Final Year Lab Exam. As I was saying, I got the easiest of experiments: Measurement of the L, C, and R of a Coil by Q-Meter. I was an expert at it and finished the thing in half an hour against the allotted 3 hours (taking a hundred meaningless repetitions). I did tarry for another half an hour but lost patience and wanted to submit and go away. The External Examiner (from Cal) and our own HoD were enraged and felt insulted that it was an affront to the dignity of the Physics Labs in the whole of Eastern India; and took my Viva for ONE HOUR before proceeding to the next laggard but clever chap. I got 100% in the Expt but 30% in the Viva and lost my Rank, Prizes and the lucrative Demonstrator Post; and had to escape to IIT KGP instead of sticking with the Sea-Side Tourist Resort Vizagh for the next half century.]
Loss on both sides.
Coming back to my father's travails, he had to take English in his B Ed which had of course no hazardous Labs. And over the decades he became the Best English Teacher in the District (unofficially). There were never any Best-Teacher awards then or even in my time at IIT Everyone is supposed to be the Best Teacher, since no 'Teaching-Meter' was there to measure Teaching Ability other than Voting by Students; and this was never liked by Senior Teachers (who knows!). IIT KGP tried to institute a Best-Teacher Award several times but had to face a Concrete Wall from the Senators who are the Senior-most Teachers but were 'forced' to do Administration like Wardenships, Committee Chairmen , Profs-In-Charge of B C Roy Hospital etc; and had little time for competing with Ass-Lecturers who didn't have to 'administer'.
Things went on swell for my father and he became duly one of the youngest Head Masters (this was decided by the Confidential Reports (CRs)' of Senior Teachers (the British perfected their 'System' down the line).
One fine morning in 1960 when my father had just about a decade left as HM before retirement the New Minister wanted to 'overhaul' the cobweb-ridden School Education and 'improve' the standards by leaps and bounds to compete with the Best in the World. The Minister might have lost his post the next month (in a 'lively' Democracy these things happen all too often), but not so the 'permanent' IAS Babu who got the file and took up His Master's Voice too seriously.
Now, the IAS chap takes only ONE Exam in their life to join the Steel Framework of the Empire. Then on everything with them goes by THEIR CRs. All they have to do to go up and up and up is to just see that their CRS are in proper order. But when they spit on their palms and try to 'improve' the School Education System, they do a THOROUGH Job.
First, they decide that the existing HMs are a rotten lot because they were recruited under the British Regime and so are suspect under Independent India. And so they administer additional Tests and and Exams to 50-year-old HMs to see if they still are eligible to teach under the new dispensation. And, those whom they deem are not below par, will be asked to undergo 'Short-Term Refresher Courses' of 3-months duration in Summer at various Universities and such Centers of Advanced Learning.
But first they have to 'pass' a Written Test at that age. Those who FAIL the written test will have to forgo all future increments and retire at Rs. 300 pm. But those who 'clear' the Test, undergo the Training, and also 'clear' the Exam at the end of 3 months will go ahead and retire at Rs 500 pm. A frightening margin for HMs like my father who had half a dozen daughters to feed, dress, educate and also provide for their dowry.
My father gave his Eligibility Test for Training in English in 1960.
I was then already in my Second Year at that Blessed University and was keenly watching my father's progress on his Education Front.
After the Prelim-Test I asked him how it went (I had half a mind to take his Viva after his Exam as he used do to me and wield the stick; but let it go...one can't take a vengeful attitude to one's father...after all he did teach you Good English).
My father was always a half-empty chap (with six daughters he ought to be). He said so-so, and expected that he would surely fail, because it was a 'Competitive' Exam since there were only 30 'seats' (chairs) in the AU 'English' Class Room. And he was sure that his sub-sub-juniors would have done better by virtue of their youth, enthu, and 'modern' training.
I was at Kovur that summer with my father enjoying the summer vacation and daily scanning for my father's Results, which were expected to be 'published' in the English Dailies any day.
We used to take the Indian Express but not the Hindu which was 10 paise costlier and so we couldn't afford. My father's Overall Roll Number was 62.
And the dreary morning the Results came in print in the Indian Express, there was 60 followed by 65.
62 was just missing!
I was shocked and just about started crying. Becuase I had to break the awful news to my father.
However, he took it sportingly and crowed; "Didn't I tell you!"
But I was just not convinced since I felt in my bones that my father was the best English HM still.
Yet it was not like a phone call or SMS but HARD Copy!
Anyway, after a couple of hours, my father sent me to the District HQ, Nellore, which was 5 miles away on a Bank Job of the High School, since he didn't trust his AHM (he never trusted anyone with money).
I rented a push-bike from the Corenr Shop at the rate 0f 25 paise an hour and set out on the 5-mile run over the new Road Bridge on the River Pennar on a hot summer day.
After finishing my errand, I thought I would peep in my auntie's place (the Post Master's wife who always fed me vadas).
Parking my bike and rim-locking it in front of their house I entered their Hall to the warmest possible welcome ever. Auntie told me that she was just about asking me to go to the Post Office and ask Uncle to make a 'free 3-minute call' to my father congratulating him on his success in the Test.
I was offended by her jeers and kept mum. She then guessed something was wrong and asked me what was the matter with me. I said my father flunked.
She was aghast and asked father's number. I said 62. She said it was very much there in her newspaper which happened to be the Hindu.
I jumped and scanned it twenty times and lo and behold 62 WAS there sandwiched between 60 and 65.
I grabbed her Hindu and saying nothing, went out, unlocked my push-bike and pedaled furiously.
I would have just about bagged the Olypmic Gold Medal if there was one then.
And fell flat at my father's desk in his HMs's Office.
He was curious and when I broke the news with the evidence of the hard copy of the Hindu, he looked at it unconvinced and argued quite a while that Hindu must be wrong since it was published by the wily Tamilians bent on misleading the Telugus.
And I had to argue that it is possible for the printer to omit a number rather than to insert an extra one (however devilish he is).
He was just not convinced.
I had to then spend Rs 3 of my precious pocket money and give a RPPD (Reply Paid) Telegram to the OE (Officer-in-Charge of Exams) at Hyderabad.
The reply came confirming Hindu and adding that an 'errata' will be released in the Indian Express and thanking me (since I paid for the Reply Telegram charges).
By and by, my father joined me for 3 months at our University for his Refresher Course, came First in that Exam and retired with a Grand Rs 500 Pay and Benefits.
All Printers are Devilish (including my HP).
===============================================
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Ulat Puran
==========================================
During my Donkey's Years at KGP, I must have toured Victoria Memorial a dozen times; surely more than any Calcutta student of mine did.
July 1, B C Roy's Birthday is the best time to visit V M. Monsoon has just set in, it is drizzling fitfully, but not yet dark and damp, Sun and Cloud playing hide and seek, Greens are as green as they come, the Fat Girl in Stone drenched and dripping deliciously, winding water bodies full to the brim, Bakul trees lining them shedding silver drops on couples huddled beneath; Oh, well, When all the World is not yet too Old, it is the one place as none else.
I am as fascinated as any Saratchandra girl when I happen to pass by a Bakul Tree. There are half a dozen of them lined up in a row across the Director's Bungalow at IIT KGP. The tree's canopy is a perfect hemisphere. It is like a Nature-Made Umbrella, better than any of Pal Brothers. The leaves are just the right size and shape; let's not talk about the tiny tot flowers drenching the road. Their cute shape, color, scent; everything is perfect. Hundreds of poems and songs must have been written and sung in Bengali romancing these trees and flowers
But, as they say, I must not tarry, for, I have promises to keep. It has long ben a passion with me to straight go the interior section of the dark and deep cells of V M to peek at the facsimiles of the letters written by the Bengali Renaissance Greats to the Governors-General and Viceroys of the Empire urging them to let Indian students learn Western Science rather than just preparing them to be their perfect Writers, fed to their teeth in English language and Literature, great though it is.
The White Man discovered his best Place under the Sun in India to root his Empire in.
While he had to 'Kill and Till' to make his Home in the New World, and Pray and Feast on Thanksgiving; in India he had the Granaries all ready for him to 'Loot and Scoot'. A fertile land under cultivation and a civilization a few thousand years older than his.
Just bump off and steal and ship it Home.
Make no mistake, there maybe individual exceptions, but as a policy matter, the Brits had no other business in India than to enrich themselves come what may, by plain and simple looting. Telegraph, Telephone, Railways, Colleges, Universities, Hospitals, Cities, Ports, Mines and Industries were all started to get a permanent grip on the Empire and get it going with as little British Manpower as they could afford.
Unlike the other looters who looted and fled, or looted but settled here, the Brits just looted, shipped, looted, shipped and intended to loot and ship ad infinitum till the land bled as white as their freckled skins.
The Great Men of the Bengali Renaissance realized this. And tried by sweet or sour methods to beat the 'System' the White Man built like a Fortress.
Well, rampant looting goes well only till other thieves get jealous and enter the arena. Then we have Gang Warfare and World Wars till each one emaciates the others till they all fall down like Alice's Pack of Cards.
We then celebrate that we fought for and achieved Independence.
Around the time my father was enrolling himself for B A in the Christian College at Madras (1929) so that he can help run the Wheels of the Empire smoothly, Parashuram wrote one of the Greatest Political Satires ever written.
I didn't know of it till Shyamal gifted me the book of that title translated by Sukanta Choudhuri and Palash Pal, a couple of years ago. I read the other stories once, but 'Ulat Puran' (The Scripture Read Backwards) many many times.
It is a Wonder! In 1929, there was no hint of the mighty British Empire collapsing like dominoes 20 years hence.
And the Empire Striking back a century later.
He satirized the Birth of the European Union half a Century before any Europeans could have dreamed it up. Europe was then disintegrating and getting Balkanized. Everyone fighting everyone else to their heart's content.
As Parashuram predicted, it is the fear of subjugation, economical and political by the Rest of the World that led and is leading to the Loveless Euro Union.
And, as Parashu whimsically wrote, my nephew working for the National Health Service in a modest town in Northern England says that all the Doctors there are expected to follow and speak Gujerati and Punjabi. Not out of Love for the 'East India Company Running Backwards'...but just so they can get their next meal after their Glorious Empire with India as Her Crown Jewel vanished into thin air as their Bard 'predicted' long back:
******************************************
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148–158
*********************************************
And how poignant that this Indian-born Doctor who studied in the Medical College and Hospital set up by the Brits so their Army Personnel can be in fighting shape, should get the 'Officer of the [Defunct] British Empire' from Her Majesty the Queen of Hearts a hundred years later!
How prescient that just as the First British Traders were pleading for trading rights with the Mughal Emperor, Britain's Greatest Poet and Dramatist should foresee the End of their Empire two or three centuries later!
And the way Parashuram ridiculed the tin-pot Indian Slave Kings paying obeisance to the Emperor in His Durbar with strictly limited competing gun-salutes; and Her own shameless mouth-piece The Statesman descended from her so-called Friend of India are just MARVELOUS!
I am sure I will read this Parashuram Piece as and when I get a chance.
The Man is truly 'divine' in the word's verbal meaning: "to discover by intuition or insight"!
Thank you Shyamal!
================================================
During my Donkey's Years at KGP, I must have toured Victoria Memorial a dozen times; surely more than any Calcutta student of mine did.
July 1, B C Roy's Birthday is the best time to visit V M. Monsoon has just set in, it is drizzling fitfully, but not yet dark and damp, Sun and Cloud playing hide and seek, Greens are as green as they come, the Fat Girl in Stone drenched and dripping deliciously, winding water bodies full to the brim, Bakul trees lining them shedding silver drops on couples huddled beneath; Oh, well, When all the World is not yet too Old, it is the one place as none else.
I am as fascinated as any Saratchandra girl when I happen to pass by a Bakul Tree. There are half a dozen of them lined up in a row across the Director's Bungalow at IIT KGP. The tree's canopy is a perfect hemisphere. It is like a Nature-Made Umbrella, better than any of Pal Brothers. The leaves are just the right size and shape; let's not talk about the tiny tot flowers drenching the road. Their cute shape, color, scent; everything is perfect. Hundreds of poems and songs must have been written and sung in Bengali romancing these trees and flowers
But, as they say, I must not tarry, for, I have promises to keep. It has long ben a passion with me to straight go the interior section of the dark and deep cells of V M to peek at the facsimiles of the letters written by the Bengali Renaissance Greats to the Governors-General and Viceroys of the Empire urging them to let Indian students learn Western Science rather than just preparing them to be their perfect Writers, fed to their teeth in English language and Literature, great though it is.
The White Man discovered his best Place under the Sun in India to root his Empire in.
While he had to 'Kill and Till' to make his Home in the New World, and Pray and Feast on Thanksgiving; in India he had the Granaries all ready for him to 'Loot and Scoot'. A fertile land under cultivation and a civilization a few thousand years older than his.
Just bump off and steal and ship it Home.
Make no mistake, there maybe individual exceptions, but as a policy matter, the Brits had no other business in India than to enrich themselves come what may, by plain and simple looting. Telegraph, Telephone, Railways, Colleges, Universities, Hospitals, Cities, Ports, Mines and Industries were all started to get a permanent grip on the Empire and get it going with as little British Manpower as they could afford.
Unlike the other looters who looted and fled, or looted but settled here, the Brits just looted, shipped, looted, shipped and intended to loot and ship ad infinitum till the land bled as white as their freckled skins.
The Great Men of the Bengali Renaissance realized this. And tried by sweet or sour methods to beat the 'System' the White Man built like a Fortress.
Well, rampant looting goes well only till other thieves get jealous and enter the arena. Then we have Gang Warfare and World Wars till each one emaciates the others till they all fall down like Alice's Pack of Cards.
We then celebrate that we fought for and achieved Independence.
Around the time my father was enrolling himself for B A in the Christian College at Madras (1929) so that he can help run the Wheels of the Empire smoothly, Parashuram wrote one of the Greatest Political Satires ever written.
I didn't know of it till Shyamal gifted me the book of that title translated by Sukanta Choudhuri and Palash Pal, a couple of years ago. I read the other stories once, but 'Ulat Puran' (The Scripture Read Backwards) many many times.
It is a Wonder! In 1929, there was no hint of the mighty British Empire collapsing like dominoes 20 years hence.
And the Empire Striking back a century later.
He satirized the Birth of the European Union half a Century before any Europeans could have dreamed it up. Europe was then disintegrating and getting Balkanized. Everyone fighting everyone else to their heart's content.
As Parashuram predicted, it is the fear of subjugation, economical and political by the Rest of the World that led and is leading to the Loveless Euro Union.
And, as Parashu whimsically wrote, my nephew working for the National Health Service in a modest town in Northern England says that all the Doctors there are expected to follow and speak Gujerati and Punjabi. Not out of Love for the 'East India Company Running Backwards'...but just so they can get their next meal after their Glorious Empire with India as Her Crown Jewel vanished into thin air as their Bard 'predicted' long back:
******************************************
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148–158
*********************************************
And how poignant that this Indian-born Doctor who studied in the Medical College and Hospital set up by the Brits so their Army Personnel can be in fighting shape, should get the 'Officer of the [Defunct] British Empire' from Her Majesty the Queen of Hearts a hundred years later!
How prescient that just as the First British Traders were pleading for trading rights with the Mughal Emperor, Britain's Greatest Poet and Dramatist should foresee the End of their Empire two or three centuries later!
And the way Parashuram ridiculed the tin-pot Indian Slave Kings paying obeisance to the Emperor in His Durbar with strictly limited competing gun-salutes; and Her own shameless mouth-piece The Statesman descended from her so-called Friend of India are just MARVELOUS!
I am sure I will read this Parashuram Piece as and when I get a chance.
The Man is truly 'divine' in the word's verbal meaning: "to discover by intuition or insight"!
Thank you Shyamal!
================================================
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Random Talk Phenomenon (RTP-1)
========================================
With Best Compliments:
A week before I quit KGP, many came to know of the event (GRBR: 'Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish') and were particularly nice to me.
HoD Professor Ghatak did me the rare honor of inviting my wife also to the Official Farewell Party in the HNB (May His Soul Rest in Peace!) Seminar Room. Limericks were composed, laurels handed over, figurines awarded, speeches made, photos and videos taken etc etc.
On top of that, a dozen or so of my younger friends in the Phy Faculty conspired and planned a surprise attack on my Qrs B-140 one evening with a beautiful memento. It is another matter that I had my spies and KK leaked out the date and time to me. So, I bought a dozen 'Thums Up' Bottles and put them in the fridge. And a 1 Kg packet of Pillsbury's Variety Mix bought from Saha Dukan, which my wife turned into about 100 Pakoras hot and ready. It went like a song for 3 full hours. Pratik reminds me when he was here last June that I had also bought 500 gms of Salted Cashew from Harry's, which I forgot. All the snacks and bottles were empty by the time the Party dispersed.
But the Best Compliment I got was from a totally unexpected kid. He was a 'semi' like me and was a Senior Faculty in ME. Let us call him 'R'. He was in his First Year B Tech in 1974 when I was taking one of the Tutorial Groups of his Section. The topper Sidharth Chatterjee (74 EC 001, and the eventual winner of PGM + BCRGM) happened to be in my group. This guy who was a friend of SC started sneaking into my Class although he was in another group. I promptly expelled him.
Fast forward a decade; He joined as a junior Faculty in ME. The first day our paths crossed, he wished me and asked me if I remembered him. Of course I did: as a 'deserter'. Both of us laughed. And then we met occasionally while in and out of the Co-Op Canteen, smiled and split.
The morning of my retirement, I was sitting alone under the famous Mango Tree (equivalent of Maha Bodhi tree in Gaya) on the cement bench and sipping Tea. He happened to be going in with a crowd. He separated from them, came and sat beside me, and after a few words of by-bye, he said: "Professor Sastry, you have kept your dignity for 40 years here".
I smiled a wan ThankQ smile and we split.
Both of us being 'semis', I knew what he meant and cherished his One-Line Farewell Speech. To this day.
***************************************
Physics & Engineering:
Myself (Ph), NPR and JSR (both ME) were more or less batch-mates at our University. NPR was my close friend and we were neighbors in the Faculty Hostel. All three of us belong to the Brahmin community of the caste-ridden AP.
Early 1970: One day, NPR relayed to me a question put to him by JSR: "I am the youngest Ph D in the Institute and the First in ME. I am already on the verge of promotion to the highest Professor Post. I will surely be HoD and Dean in the next few years. I am married and well-to-do. I teach Final Years and I am the Best Teacher at that level.
Your friend gps is still an Associate Lecturer 5 years after joining here. He has not even registered for his Ph D. He has lots of family and financial responsibilities. He only teaches First Years. He smokes all the time.
Yet, why does he look so HAPPY all the time?"
I smiled and declined to reply to such a loaded question.
I can reply now:
JSR spent his 7 years at IIT by then learning only one thing, viz. the newfangled 'Finite Element Method' and applying it to Mechanical Vibrations of all silly kinds of which he became an expert.
I spent all those years reading all books on Physics and learning it my own way from A to Z. And I was teaching virgin minds in the First Year, like Arjun Malhotra who was in my very first Tutorial Group. Rest of the time I was reading my entire collection of P G Wodehouse.
Physics and Wodehouse make an unbeatable combo as far as HAPPINESS goes!.
*****************************************
Buffaloes & Bicycles:
Students of Patel Hall in a body were teasing their go-wala in front of their cycle-shed: "We see 50 buffaloes crossing the road in a herd near your khatal blocking the road at Puri Gate. All of them are dark, fat and have the same bass voice. How do you recognize which one is yours?"
"Saab, I see 350 cycles in your shed, all have two wheels with worn tires, one rusty chain and the same broken seat. How do you recognize which one is yours?"
Don't mind the comparison, but umpteen times, an ex-student of a few decades stops me or mails me with the words: "Sir, I hope you recognize me...I was in the 1983 batch...etc."
Then I assure him or her; and to satisfy them I give their names or at least their fixed position in my Class Room (front or last row) or their batchmates or their quirky habits till they are satisfied. Nowadays, it goes as: "In a random search over the Net I came across your blogspot and got your mail id from there..."
Of course I remember my buffaloes. They belong to ME. I milked them and became rich.
Actually, the thing is simple: It is not that I remember the 1000 odd students I taught. But, the guys or girls who ask me this question do it because they are more or less sure I remember them for one reason or the other.
It is as simple as that.
Only once I failed completely, because I was surprised and taken aback.
While I was taking a blind turn cautiously on my TVS Moped coming out of the Rear Gate of the Main Building one noon around 2000 AD, a fat and bald guy held the handle of my moped firmly, brought me to a halt, and commanded gruffly: "Naamoon, Naamoon!". I was wondering what traffic rule I broke or what offense I gave to this pedestrian. And, as he brought me down, he bent and touched my feet and rebuked me: "How could you forget me sir!". And then I recalled: "Hey, what happened to you? You got so fat and so bald at such a young age". "But, you still remain the same sir, but for a few strands of grey hair and broken teeth".
And we exchanged banter after I told him his co-ordinates as a student of Belur College Lateral Entry Batch 1990, classmates Ms So & So (always remember the batch by its minority community!).
None who wasn't so sure that I would remember them would do that kind of an Assault Pronam to me!
==========================================
With Best Compliments:
A week before I quit KGP, many came to know of the event (GRBR: 'Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish') and were particularly nice to me.
HoD Professor Ghatak did me the rare honor of inviting my wife also to the Official Farewell Party in the HNB (May His Soul Rest in Peace!) Seminar Room. Limericks were composed, laurels handed over, figurines awarded, speeches made, photos and videos taken etc etc.
On top of that, a dozen or so of my younger friends in the Phy Faculty conspired and planned a surprise attack on my Qrs B-140 one evening with a beautiful memento. It is another matter that I had my spies and KK leaked out the date and time to me. So, I bought a dozen 'Thums Up' Bottles and put them in the fridge. And a 1 Kg packet of Pillsbury's Variety Mix bought from Saha Dukan, which my wife turned into about 100 Pakoras hot and ready. It went like a song for 3 full hours. Pratik reminds me when he was here last June that I had also bought 500 gms of Salted Cashew from Harry's, which I forgot. All the snacks and bottles were empty by the time the Party dispersed.
But the Best Compliment I got was from a totally unexpected kid. He was a 'semi' like me and was a Senior Faculty in ME. Let us call him 'R'. He was in his First Year B Tech in 1974 when I was taking one of the Tutorial Groups of his Section. The topper Sidharth Chatterjee (74 EC 001, and the eventual winner of PGM + BCRGM) happened to be in my group. This guy who was a friend of SC started sneaking into my Class although he was in another group. I promptly expelled him.
Fast forward a decade; He joined as a junior Faculty in ME. The first day our paths crossed, he wished me and asked me if I remembered him. Of course I did: as a 'deserter'. Both of us laughed. And then we met occasionally while in and out of the Co-Op Canteen, smiled and split.
The morning of my retirement, I was sitting alone under the famous Mango Tree (equivalent of Maha Bodhi tree in Gaya) on the cement bench and sipping Tea. He happened to be going in with a crowd. He separated from them, came and sat beside me, and after a few words of by-bye, he said: "Professor Sastry, you have kept your dignity for 40 years here".
I smiled a wan ThankQ smile and we split.
Both of us being 'semis', I knew what he meant and cherished his One-Line Farewell Speech. To this day.
***************************************
Physics & Engineering:
Myself (Ph), NPR and JSR (both ME) were more or less batch-mates at our University. NPR was my close friend and we were neighbors in the Faculty Hostel. All three of us belong to the Brahmin community of the caste-ridden AP.
Early 1970: One day, NPR relayed to me a question put to him by JSR: "I am the youngest Ph D in the Institute and the First in ME. I am already on the verge of promotion to the highest Professor Post. I will surely be HoD and Dean in the next few years. I am married and well-to-do. I teach Final Years and I am the Best Teacher at that level.
Your friend gps is still an Associate Lecturer 5 years after joining here. He has not even registered for his Ph D. He has lots of family and financial responsibilities. He only teaches First Years. He smokes all the time.
Yet, why does he look so HAPPY all the time?"
I smiled and declined to reply to such a loaded question.
I can reply now:
JSR spent his 7 years at IIT by then learning only one thing, viz. the newfangled 'Finite Element Method' and applying it to Mechanical Vibrations of all silly kinds of which he became an expert.
I spent all those years reading all books on Physics and learning it my own way from A to Z. And I was teaching virgin minds in the First Year, like Arjun Malhotra who was in my very first Tutorial Group. Rest of the time I was reading my entire collection of P G Wodehouse.
Physics and Wodehouse make an unbeatable combo as far as HAPPINESS goes!.
*****************************************
Buffaloes & Bicycles:
Students of Patel Hall in a body were teasing their go-wala in front of their cycle-shed: "We see 50 buffaloes crossing the road in a herd near your khatal blocking the road at Puri Gate. All of them are dark, fat and have the same bass voice. How do you recognize which one is yours?"
"Saab, I see 350 cycles in your shed, all have two wheels with worn tires, one rusty chain and the same broken seat. How do you recognize which one is yours?"
Don't mind the comparison, but umpteen times, an ex-student of a few decades stops me or mails me with the words: "Sir, I hope you recognize me...I was in the 1983 batch...etc."
Then I assure him or her; and to satisfy them I give their names or at least their fixed position in my Class Room (front or last row) or their batchmates or their quirky habits till they are satisfied. Nowadays, it goes as: "In a random search over the Net I came across your blogspot and got your mail id from there..."
Of course I remember my buffaloes. They belong to ME. I milked them and became rich.
Actually, the thing is simple: It is not that I remember the 1000 odd students I taught. But, the guys or girls who ask me this question do it because they are more or less sure I remember them for one reason or the other.
It is as simple as that.
Only once I failed completely, because I was surprised and taken aback.
While I was taking a blind turn cautiously on my TVS Moped coming out of the Rear Gate of the Main Building one noon around 2000 AD, a fat and bald guy held the handle of my moped firmly, brought me to a halt, and commanded gruffly: "Naamoon, Naamoon!". I was wondering what traffic rule I broke or what offense I gave to this pedestrian. And, as he brought me down, he bent and touched my feet and rebuked me: "How could you forget me sir!". And then I recalled: "Hey, what happened to you? You got so fat and so bald at such a young age". "But, you still remain the same sir, but for a few strands of grey hair and broken teeth".
And we exchanged banter after I told him his co-ordinates as a student of Belur College Lateral Entry Batch 1990, classmates Ms So & So (always remember the batch by its minority community!).
None who wasn't so sure that I would remember them would do that kind of an Assault Pronam to me!
==========================================
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Elephant & the Monkey
=========================================
JKMSMKJ said...on 'Reverse Osmosis':
-------------------------------------------
The 'crazy' and 'semi-' joke reminds me of this article (blogpost) which argues 'Most Crackpots are Engineers!'! And also a remark by Prof. Likharev in one of our Stat Mech course: "When Engineers try to do Fundamental Physics, the Results are usually Pathetic."
I wonder if you have also come across such people, quacks I mean... :) ;May 20, 2010 6:44 AM
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++======
Frankly, no!
My interactions with Engineers at IIT KGP were minimal.
The fault was entirely mine. Shy and unsocial, all the time sitting alone under the Mango tree at the Co-Op Canteen or under the Neem tree at Harry's, with a cup of tea, woolgathering.
But, Prof. Amalendu Mukherjee (ME) tunneled through my repulsive barrier early on and we had nice discussions whenever we met. He was too good at Physics to dabble in it frivolously. And he was too busy developing 'Bond Graphs' for which he won international fame. He knows Physics like the back of his hand. But that's about it. Somehow he found in me a patient listener (as long as I am not asked to talk!). At Harry's I introduced him to our new recruit, I think, AT: "Meet Amalendu; 'a lion in sheep's clothing'. He can rip anyone apart if they talk wrong Physics fundamentals".
A very learned Professor, interested in the best things of life, like music, arts, philosophy etc. We met briefly this January at KGP and he recalled how I published a Paper with his son, Abhro, when he was in Class XII, a different story!
Professor Swapan Mazumdar of CE was also very knowledgeable of Physics but our interactions were brief but enjoyable.
Professor R. N. Banerjee of IEM was a student of B. Sc (Hons) Physics at IIT KGP, but shifted to ME and then IEM. But he is a turn-coat Engineer, always a Physicist at heart; so he doesn't count!
I had a fruitful interaction with Professors of IEM that led somewhat undeservedly to a paper for me in IJPR, with the present Director, Professor D. Acharya, 20 years ago, when we were all relatively KIDS! Talk of Inter-Disciplinary Research!
************************************************
Composite stage effects in unbalancing of series production systems
Authors: A. Mishra a; D. Acharya a; N. P. Rao a;G. P. Sastry ab
a Department of Industrial Engineering and Management,, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India,
b Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India
International Journal of Production Research, Volume 23, Issue 1 January 1985 , pages 1 - 20
*************************************************
But my problems were with Chemistry.
Now, I respect Chemistry wholeheartedly. Everything started with atoms and molecules. Chemists are down-to-earth. They HAVE to dabble in things that matter. They are practical. They can't take recourse to idealizations like we Physics chaps do. We are happy to get the unphysical 13.6 eV for the ideal Hydrogen atom. They have to get the energy levels of the real Hydrogen Molecule. We give up! No exact solution. They have to take recourse to all sorts of approximations and GET it close to the experimental value. Not easy!
My troubles with Chemistry started with my foray into my son's Class XI Chemistry Book. As expected,they start with the Periodic Table. And at once QM starts in its most difficult form. s,p,d,f, etc and Molecular Orbitals and the like.
But the Indian text books are sloppy.
They get the energy E of the photon emitted by the electron jumping from the first excited state to the ground state of the H atom ok. Then they equate E = mc*2, and get the mass of that photon! When I say photon is massless, they are offended.
I gave up.
But B Tech First Year students read Chemistry before they read Physics. And ask their Chemistry teachers all sorts of funny questions.
Only Prof SR of Chemistry penetrated my Repulsive Barrier and asked two such 'weird QM questions' and I am happy that I could satisfy him at the Harry's.
Q1: "When an electron jumps from a higher Bohr orbit to a lower one, what distance does it cover? In what time? With what speed? Does it exceed the speed of light? Does it not violate Relativity?"
[A perfectly legitimate question flowing from the Bohr Orbit Diagrams, and 'Electron Jumps']
My Answer: "Don't think of the electron as a 'bird' jumping from an upper branch to a lower branch. Think of it as a monkey swinging between the two branches before letting the upper one 'go' and settling on the lower one. It swings with the Bohr Frequency. The monkey is charged with static electricity (like the electron). Its tail acts as an antenna. So, it radiates EM Waves like any antenna. The frequency of the wavelet emitted corresponds to the frequency of the monkey's oscillations. It swings for a time equal to the 'lifetime' of the excited state. The photon emitted has the frequency of the monkey's oscillations. The lifetime of the 'emitted wave packet' (photon) is the same as the lifetime of the swing. The emitted photon wave packet travels with the group velocity of light.
Q2: "What is the example of a 'Particle in a Box' in Chemistry? What happens if the walls of the Box move to and fro?"
My Answer: "Two protons forming a Hydrogen Molecule Ion is the best Chemical example. Protons are the walls. The electron shuttling between the two and bonding them is a 'Particle in the Box'.
In your simple model, the protons are at rest. But in practice they 'vibrate'. This is the model of a 'Particle in a Box with oscillating walls'. You have to solve it using the Born-Oppenheimer Approximation in Molecular Spectroscopy and get the vibration-rotation-electronic level diagrams'
----------------------------------------------------
Apparently Prof SR is pleased. But I WAS more pleased than him. Bravo, Harry's Chai!
----------------------------------------------------
As I told you earlier, we fought with the then Director, Prof. KLC in 1990 or so and won the rights to teach QM to all B Tech Students in their Second Year.
But how?
There were six Sections. And we were six newly promoted Professors, asking for it. So, we had to teach the six Sections.
But our backgrounds and interests were different: Professors: STA (Nuclear Physics),SB (X-Ray Crystallography, AVK: (Spectroscopy), NKM (X-Ray Diffraction), DB (Particle Physics & Group Theory), GPS (General Physician & Surgeon).
We met and decided that we will have only the Mid-Term and End-Term Question Papers and the Tutorial Sheets common.
Otherwise, everyone will teach as they like.
Result: No two sections had the same Lecture Notes. DB wanted to take the most 'talented and interested' section: ECE & CSE; so he can teach all his math tricks. I wanted to take the most rowdy but intelligent section: CH E. Challenging to keep them awake. No math at all as far as possible. Hand-waving pure gul!
Others chose other sections.
It was like the Elephant (QM) and the six blind Professors. One would touch the trunk, the other the ears, the next the tusks, another the tail, last but one the feet, and the junior-most me the teat!
[Readers Digest Joke# 1: Mam trying to teach the KG Class the difference between bipeds and quadrupeds by example: "What is it that the cow has four and I have two?"
Smart kid: "Teat?"
Now that we are on the subject of animals:
Readers Digest Joke# 2: The Selection Committee of the Navy intent on taking the cadet in because of his wonderful Physicals. But the chap is dumb. So, ask the simplest possible question;
Q: "Name two grass-eating animals".
No answer.
Baffled, repeat question; "Can't you name two animals that eat grass?"
"Sorry, but I heard: 'two admirals'"]
--------------------------------------------------
Another example of Dr Dracula:
One noon, Prof VS entered my Room and said he wanted help. Apparently, a 3rd Year stubborn student (AVM) challenged his low-marking for the QM question on Hydrogen atom. I asked VS to show me the script. The question was if an electron in a non-central potential can have its Schrodinger Equation separable. The book answer is: 'No'. AVM said, 'Maybe'. But couldn't give a counter-example.
I asked VS to send AVM to me.
AVM met me that afternoon and agreed with the marking because he couldn't give the needed example.
He left satisfied apparently.
But that set me thinking. Him too.
By next morning, he came and showed that it IS separable in the non-central Electric Dipole Potential. I showed him my own overnight calculation. Both matched.
We agreed to go ahead and solve the Schrodinger Equation for the electron in a dipole potential.
I first tried the classical motion and showed him that a cone exists on which 'closed orbits' are possible. In our next meeting, both of us agreed that all closed orbits have the same Energy: 'Exactly Zero'.
We tackled, with VS, the QM equation. Stuck up with solving the Radial Equation. No solutions by the 'series' method or any other method. DB concured.
Left it at that and AVM went to Princeton.
Two years later while sipping Chai at Harry's, I realized that no solutions SHOULD be there. Reason: 'Bertrand's Theorem'. The 'orbits' have to be unstable. Indeed they are 'knife-edge' orbits.
In a couple of days, the classical Cone emerged from the QM Radial Equations with the help of the Sommerfeld(again!)- Wislon Rules.
Energy exactly zero for all solutions (orbits), but possible dipole moments quantized!
Problem solved in toto, and published:
****************************************************
Bound' states of an electron in the far-field of a polar molecule
Author: G P Sastry , V Srinivas and A V Madhav
Department of Physics and Meteorology, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721 302, India
European Journal of Physics
Volume 17, Number 5, Page: 275, 1996
****************************************************
Just now I saw our paper cited, as a Problem given out to Princeton Students:
----------------------------------------
[PDF]
Motion of a Point Charge near an Electric Dipole 1 Problem 2 Solution
by KT McDonald - Related articles:
[4] G.P. Sastry, V. Srinivas and A.V. Madhav, 'Bound' states of an electron in the far-field of a polar molecule, Eur. J. Phys. 17, 275-278 (1996), ...
www.physics.princeton.edu/~mcdonald/examples/dipole.pdf - Similar
-----------------------------------------
Long Live Woolgathering at Harry's!
--------------------------------------
Now that this blogpost has both Elephants and Monkeys, let me sum it up with another joke told by Abdul Mazeed (of the Three Cheers' Fame):
[Joke # 3: Mr and Mrs Monkey were watching a herd of elephants passing by under their tree.
A beautiful young 'maiden-elephant' stood for a while under the tree.
Mr Monkey at once fell for her beauty and jumped upon her.
And started making Love.
Mrs Monkey got jealous and picked up a huge coconut and flung it on the 'maiden-elephant's head.
It winced.
Mr. Monkey: "Oh, sorry! Did I hurt you?"]
=============================================
JKMSMKJ said...on 'Reverse Osmosis':
-------------------------------------------
The 'crazy' and 'semi-' joke reminds me of this article (blogpost) which argues 'Most Crackpots are Engineers!'! And also a remark by Prof. Likharev in one of our Stat Mech course: "When Engineers try to do Fundamental Physics, the Results are usually Pathetic."
I wonder if you have also come across such people, quacks I mean... :) ;May 20, 2010 6:44 AM
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++======
Frankly, no!
My interactions with Engineers at IIT KGP were minimal.
The fault was entirely mine. Shy and unsocial, all the time sitting alone under the Mango tree at the Co-Op Canteen or under the Neem tree at Harry's, with a cup of tea, woolgathering.
But, Prof. Amalendu Mukherjee (ME) tunneled through my repulsive barrier early on and we had nice discussions whenever we met. He was too good at Physics to dabble in it frivolously. And he was too busy developing 'Bond Graphs' for which he won international fame. He knows Physics like the back of his hand. But that's about it. Somehow he found in me a patient listener (as long as I am not asked to talk!). At Harry's I introduced him to our new recruit, I think, AT: "Meet Amalendu; 'a lion in sheep's clothing'. He can rip anyone apart if they talk wrong Physics fundamentals".
A very learned Professor, interested in the best things of life, like music, arts, philosophy etc. We met briefly this January at KGP and he recalled how I published a Paper with his son, Abhro, when he was in Class XII, a different story!
Professor Swapan Mazumdar of CE was also very knowledgeable of Physics but our interactions were brief but enjoyable.
Professor R. N. Banerjee of IEM was a student of B. Sc (Hons) Physics at IIT KGP, but shifted to ME and then IEM. But he is a turn-coat Engineer, always a Physicist at heart; so he doesn't count!
I had a fruitful interaction with Professors of IEM that led somewhat undeservedly to a paper for me in IJPR, with the present Director, Professor D. Acharya, 20 years ago, when we were all relatively KIDS! Talk of Inter-Disciplinary Research!
************************************************
Composite stage effects in unbalancing of series production systems
Authors: A. Mishra a; D. Acharya a; N. P. Rao a;G. P. Sastry ab
a Department of Industrial Engineering and Management,, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India,
b Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India
International Journal of Production Research, Volume 23, Issue 1 January 1985 , pages 1 - 20
*************************************************
But my problems were with Chemistry.
Now, I respect Chemistry wholeheartedly. Everything started with atoms and molecules. Chemists are down-to-earth. They HAVE to dabble in things that matter. They are practical. They can't take recourse to idealizations like we Physics chaps do. We are happy to get the unphysical 13.6 eV for the ideal Hydrogen atom. They have to get the energy levels of the real Hydrogen Molecule. We give up! No exact solution. They have to take recourse to all sorts of approximations and GET it close to the experimental value. Not easy!
My troubles with Chemistry started with my foray into my son's Class XI Chemistry Book. As expected,they start with the Periodic Table. And at once QM starts in its most difficult form. s,p,d,f, etc and Molecular Orbitals and the like.
But the Indian text books are sloppy.
They get the energy E of the photon emitted by the electron jumping from the first excited state to the ground state of the H atom ok. Then they equate E = mc*2, and get the mass of that photon! When I say photon is massless, they are offended.
I gave up.
But B Tech First Year students read Chemistry before they read Physics. And ask their Chemistry teachers all sorts of funny questions.
Only Prof SR of Chemistry penetrated my Repulsive Barrier and asked two such 'weird QM questions' and I am happy that I could satisfy him at the Harry's.
Q1: "When an electron jumps from a higher Bohr orbit to a lower one, what distance does it cover? In what time? With what speed? Does it exceed the speed of light? Does it not violate Relativity?"
[A perfectly legitimate question flowing from the Bohr Orbit Diagrams, and 'Electron Jumps']
My Answer: "Don't think of the electron as a 'bird' jumping from an upper branch to a lower branch. Think of it as a monkey swinging between the two branches before letting the upper one 'go' and settling on the lower one. It swings with the Bohr Frequency. The monkey is charged with static electricity (like the electron). Its tail acts as an antenna. So, it radiates EM Waves like any antenna. The frequency of the wavelet emitted corresponds to the frequency of the monkey's oscillations. It swings for a time equal to the 'lifetime' of the excited state. The photon emitted has the frequency of the monkey's oscillations. The lifetime of the 'emitted wave packet' (photon) is the same as the lifetime of the swing. The emitted photon wave packet travels with the group velocity of light.
Q2: "What is the example of a 'Particle in a Box' in Chemistry? What happens if the walls of the Box move to and fro?"
My Answer: "Two protons forming a Hydrogen Molecule Ion is the best Chemical example. Protons are the walls. The electron shuttling between the two and bonding them is a 'Particle in the Box'.
In your simple model, the protons are at rest. But in practice they 'vibrate'. This is the model of a 'Particle in a Box with oscillating walls'. You have to solve it using the Born-Oppenheimer Approximation in Molecular Spectroscopy and get the vibration-rotation-electronic level diagrams'
----------------------------------------------------
Apparently Prof SR is pleased. But I WAS more pleased than him. Bravo, Harry's Chai!
----------------------------------------------------
As I told you earlier, we fought with the then Director, Prof. KLC in 1990 or so and won the rights to teach QM to all B Tech Students in their Second Year.
But how?
There were six Sections. And we were six newly promoted Professors, asking for it. So, we had to teach the six Sections.
But our backgrounds and interests were different: Professors: STA (Nuclear Physics),SB (X-Ray Crystallography, AVK: (Spectroscopy), NKM (X-Ray Diffraction), DB (Particle Physics & Group Theory), GPS (General Physician & Surgeon).
We met and decided that we will have only the Mid-Term and End-Term Question Papers and the Tutorial Sheets common.
Otherwise, everyone will teach as they like.
Result: No two sections had the same Lecture Notes. DB wanted to take the most 'talented and interested' section: ECE & CSE; so he can teach all his math tricks. I wanted to take the most rowdy but intelligent section: CH E. Challenging to keep them awake. No math at all as far as possible. Hand-waving pure gul!
Others chose other sections.
It was like the Elephant (QM) and the six blind Professors. One would touch the trunk, the other the ears, the next the tusks, another the tail, last but one the feet, and the junior-most me the teat!
[Readers Digest Joke# 1: Mam trying to teach the KG Class the difference between bipeds and quadrupeds by example: "What is it that the cow has four and I have two?"
Smart kid: "Teat?"
Now that we are on the subject of animals:
Readers Digest Joke# 2: The Selection Committee of the Navy intent on taking the cadet in because of his wonderful Physicals. But the chap is dumb. So, ask the simplest possible question;
Q: "Name two grass-eating animals".
No answer.
Baffled, repeat question; "Can't you name two animals that eat grass?"
"Sorry, but I heard: 'two admirals'"]
--------------------------------------------------
Another example of Dr Dracula:
One noon, Prof VS entered my Room and said he wanted help. Apparently, a 3rd Year stubborn student (AVM) challenged his low-marking for the QM question on Hydrogen atom. I asked VS to show me the script. The question was if an electron in a non-central potential can have its Schrodinger Equation separable. The book answer is: 'No'. AVM said, 'Maybe'. But couldn't give a counter-example.
I asked VS to send AVM to me.
AVM met me that afternoon and agreed with the marking because he couldn't give the needed example.
He left satisfied apparently.
But that set me thinking. Him too.
By next morning, he came and showed that it IS separable in the non-central Electric Dipole Potential. I showed him my own overnight calculation. Both matched.
We agreed to go ahead and solve the Schrodinger Equation for the electron in a dipole potential.
I first tried the classical motion and showed him that a cone exists on which 'closed orbits' are possible. In our next meeting, both of us agreed that all closed orbits have the same Energy: 'Exactly Zero'.
We tackled, with VS, the QM equation. Stuck up with solving the Radial Equation. No solutions by the 'series' method or any other method. DB concured.
Left it at that and AVM went to Princeton.
Two years later while sipping Chai at Harry's, I realized that no solutions SHOULD be there. Reason: 'Bertrand's Theorem'. The 'orbits' have to be unstable. Indeed they are 'knife-edge' orbits.
In a couple of days, the classical Cone emerged from the QM Radial Equations with the help of the Sommerfeld(again!)- Wislon Rules.
Energy exactly zero for all solutions (orbits), but possible dipole moments quantized!
Problem solved in toto, and published:
****************************************************
Bound' states of an electron in the far-field of a polar molecule
Author: G P Sastry , V Srinivas and A V Madhav
Department of Physics and Meteorology, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721 302, India
European Journal of Physics
Volume 17, Number 5, Page: 275, 1996
****************************************************
Just now I saw our paper cited, as a Problem given out to Princeton Students:
----------------------------------------
[PDF]
Motion of a Point Charge near an Electric Dipole 1 Problem 2 Solution
by KT McDonald - Related articles:
[4] G.P. Sastry, V. Srinivas and A.V. Madhav, 'Bound' states of an electron in the far-field of a polar molecule, Eur. J. Phys. 17, 275-278 (1996), ...
www.physics.princeton.edu/~mcdonald/examples/dipole.pdf - Similar
-----------------------------------------
Long Live Woolgathering at Harry's!
--------------------------------------
Now that this blogpost has both Elephants and Monkeys, let me sum it up with another joke told by Abdul Mazeed (of the Three Cheers' Fame):
[Joke # 3: Mr and Mrs Monkey were watching a herd of elephants passing by under their tree.
A beautiful young 'maiden-elephant' stood for a while under the tree.
Mr Monkey at once fell for her beauty and jumped upon her.
And started making Love.
Mrs Monkey got jealous and picked up a huge coconut and flung it on the 'maiden-elephant's head.
It winced.
Mr. Monkey: "Oh, sorry! Did I hurt you?"]
=============================================
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Reverse Osmosis
=============================================
When teachers were getting negligible pay (unlike today's IIT Profs who, I am told, are wallowing in a Take-Home of Rs 80K p.m. after the Sixth Pay Commission, which I missed by a hair-breadth, retiring in 2005 instead of 2006); Doctors, Engineers, Lawyers and even File-Pushers like IAS Officers used to twit:
"Those who Can't, Teach"
I have an Addendum:
"Those who no longer Teach, Blog"
Because, I find flippant Blogging an Analytic Continuation into the Complex Domain of flippant Teaching, with its plethora of zeros and singularities.
Amalendu, returning from an year at Germany, told me of a Pure Math Prof from Warsaw, who introduced himself, with a twinkle in his eyes: "I am Jarlowski, a Simple Pole".
I would have retorted: "I am gps, an Essential Singularity from KGP".
Prof BKR once told me in an M Sc Grand Viva that there are also what are called: 'Removable Singularities'. I asked him why they had not yet been removed from Phy Dept.
Jokes apart, here is something serious. A few hours after I posted my blog with the piquant title: "Beauty Spot", I received this computer-generated e-mail:
**************************************************
Monday, May 17, 2010 12:34 AM
From: "Sheetal Sharma"
To: gps1943@yahoo.com
Hai,
Welcome to the glamorous world of beauty and fashion. The styles of fashion are changing everyday and to move with it is a necessity in today’s world. Whether you are a student, housewives, ladies, office goers or model we all want to look our best. And believe it or not it is not at all difficult sitting at home with no cost and no parlor fees. With some simple ideas and handy tips this world of fashion and beauty will look your own personal paradise. You can also visit my website at http://beautyfashiononline.com.
Since the styles of fashion are changing everyday i also welcome your overwhelming suggestions over this website.
Lets come together beautify and be a part of glamorous world.
Sheetal
******************************************
I guess I should scan the relevant Page from Sommerfeld's 'Optics' having the Vibration Spiral & Poisson Spot and send it to Sheetal in response to her request for "overwhelming suggestions". Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of Sommerfeld; maybe Aniket can help.
The title of today's blog: 'Reverse Osmosis' may elicit many e-mails from Water Purifying Companies. That would indeed be fun.
Osmosis was surely my favorite topic in Physical Chemistry. I had always wondered how the shriveled, wrinkled, dried brown grapes I fetched from the shop took on a glossy, full, and reddish meaty shape when they floated in my Payas.
And, all that talk about 'semi-permeable membranes' was truly 'potty' ('slightly crazy' in the British slang of our OBE).
[Joke: Talking of 'crazy' and 'semi-':
"My brother has shifted from Chemical Engineering to String Theory. Guess how old is he?"
"Must be 40"
"Arrey, how did you know?"
"Mine shifted from Chemical Engineering to Particle Physics Experiments; and he is only 20, and is the well-known semi-crack of the family"]
'Osmosis' is the well-known migration from Physics to Software, Banking, Biology, Genetics, Finance, Eng Lit, IAS etc...
'Reverse Osmosis' is the Minority Carrier Phenomenon of migration from Engineering to Physics, in our times.
When I joined Physics Department at IIT KGP, there were unfortunately only 2 Branches in which Professors did 'Serious' Research: 'Solid State Physics' and 'X-Rays'. HNB, who inherited the Headship was progressive and recruited SDM in Theoretical Physics and VVR in Experimental Nuclear Physics, along with gps, in whom he found an enthusiastic B Tech Teacher (CLR in a Faculty Meeting: "B Tech Teaching is like cleaning a shit-tank", to which myself and DB added: "Which is necessary for the hygiene of the Physics Dept")
After Dharam Vir & Co made me teach Relativity in Electrodynamics in 1969, there was this exodus from Calcutta to KGP of the best and brightest of its students; Reason: Cal Univ & Presidency College practically shut shop due to Naxalite violence in which many of its students were willy-nilly involved. So, most parents preferred the lesser evil of IIT KGP. And the toppers were wriggled into the top Branch, E & ECE (there was no CSE then) against their wishes, because Physics imbued the unwanted spirit of 'Progressive Revolutionaries' of the Feynman Age.
But their hearts were in Physics. I guessed this and made a suggestion to HNB that our Ist Year B Tech Syllabus be modernized to include at least Relativity if not QM (DB didn't join KGP then). He asked me to give a 'Talk' on Syllabus Revision in F-127 to the Faculty about my ideas. There was furor. A compromise was reached that the top branches like ECE and ME should have Relativity while the less-interested could continue with the old Pulleys and Wheatstone Bridges.
And, the Mouse who was asked to bell the Cat was myself.
In that batch, I remember the front-bencher PSM and the second-bencher (eventual PGM) SD were unusually delighted with as simple things as Length Contraction and Twin Paradox.
And went to the US and promptly shifted to Physics: PSM to Black-Hole Physics and SD to Semiconductor Physics [he used to write lead-articles in Physics Today (APS, USA Publication)].
35 years later, just before I retired, Sayan and a gentleman were waiting for me in front of my Ofice. Sayan said: "Here is someone you taught a long while ago and he was asking to meet you". "I said; Hi! PSM, how are you? I know you are in MatScience. Our student there, ST was talking about you."
PSM was very delighted that I not only remembered him, but also was tracking his world-line. We talked about SD, the KGP of 1970s, the usual nostalgia and all. He shifted to Cal a couple of years back. Big shot now; but for me the starry-eyed front-bench freshman, always.
Fast forward to 1990:
CSE has taken over. Anyone who is someone wanted to do Algorithms and Networking and what not. Physics has fallen by the wayside. Only determined young men pursued it and few could stick to it. 3 post-docs and yet no 'tenure-track'.
But, Black Holes, Quasars, Quantum Gravity, ToE were in the Air. Second Coming.
And, I and a handful of Physics Teachers had to fight tooth and nail to teach QM to every student of B Tech against the wishes of KLC, the Diro, who wanted to teach every B Tech First Year a Course on: 'Characterization of Materials'.
Thanx to some Progressive Engineering Teachers fond of Physics like Professor Joshi and Amalendu, we won hands down. And we started teaching a COMPULSORY QM Course of one semester in the 2nd Year for All B techs (a decade later, Sayan & Co saw to it that QM came down to First Year Jumbo, which I had to teach for the last 5 years of my stay at KGP).
In 1990, I was teaching my First Batch of Chemical Engineers this QM Course. Most students were just about forgiving, because apart from Cultural Value they could not find any use for QM in their Inks, Dyes, and Pulp Factories.
But this guy in the last bench, PC, was aglow. Always asking probing questions.
The last but one Class over; and I find in my Locker a fat envelope with 5 hand-written PT Sheets full of agony asking me how he could survive without Physics for the rest of his life. Apparently, he was madly in love with Physics ever since he knew himself but was forced into Chemical Engineering by his parents because Physics has 'no prospects'.
I asked him to meet me in my Office next evening. PC came and started literally sobbing. It was a difficult time for me and DB. He said he was determined to shift to Physics Dept. But unfortunately it was too late for a Branch Change: he was already in Second Year. He realized it and his agony was even more unbearable.
I asked him to meet me next day and we would see what could be done.
24 hours didn't cool his fervor.
I told him to continue in his Ch E. And prepare for AGRE in Physics the next day onwards. And show me his scores after 2 more years. And then I promised to move Heaven and Earth to see that he gets into some Grad-School or the other in Physics in the US. Meanwhile, he should meet me whenever he wants to, for 'coaching' in Physics one-on-one.
PC then on used to meet me quite often in the beginning but at times later on when he got the hang of AGRE Physics.
I clearly recall one late evening, when he brought his Griffiths and wanted to apply the Maxwell-Stress Tensor for the Electric Field of a single point charge...something no one does. We two sat down for 15 minutes and did the surface integral; And, lo and behold I understood for the first time the meaning of just not the Lines of Force but the Faraday Tubes of Induction, which we were forced to read from an unreadable book called Starling. My heart was full. The 'linear extension and lateral compression' that Faraday talked about much before Maxwell and his Stress-Tensor' were born canceled exactly to give zero force!
I sent him to the Summer School at Bangalore sponsored by IUCAA. He did very well there and one reco was guaranteed from Bangalore.
And I advised him to take up the Elective in the Cryogenics taught by the wonderful Physics Professor VRK. Another reco in place.
And, he topped the AGRE at KGP beating our own Physics students.
And for the first time I COMPOSED a Full Page Reco exclusively for him (for others I had the 'template' with the name and date changed year after year).
He applied to 14 places, most of them without the hefty Registration Fees.
He was modest, and was beyond himself when he got Admission and Fellowship with Fee Waiver from Leheigh.
And within a month he got everywhere he applied.
He went to Rochester. Changed to Minnesota the next semester.
Aniket met him at the Wilson High Energy Labs at Cornell a decade later.
I found that his Home Page contained my name, while I was looking for 'gps' entries.
A few months back I got a mail from him.
You might have guessed: PC stands for 'Pussy Cat'.
End of 'Reverse Osmosis'.
=================================================
When teachers were getting negligible pay (unlike today's IIT Profs who, I am told, are wallowing in a Take-Home of Rs 80K p.m. after the Sixth Pay Commission, which I missed by a hair-breadth, retiring in 2005 instead of 2006); Doctors, Engineers, Lawyers and even File-Pushers like IAS Officers used to twit:
"Those who Can't, Teach"
I have an Addendum:
"Those who no longer Teach, Blog"
Because, I find flippant Blogging an Analytic Continuation into the Complex Domain of flippant Teaching, with its plethora of zeros and singularities.
Amalendu, returning from an year at Germany, told me of a Pure Math Prof from Warsaw, who introduced himself, with a twinkle in his eyes: "I am Jarlowski, a Simple Pole".
I would have retorted: "I am gps, an Essential Singularity from KGP".
Prof BKR once told me in an M Sc Grand Viva that there are also what are called: 'Removable Singularities'. I asked him why they had not yet been removed from Phy Dept.
Jokes apart, here is something serious. A few hours after I posted my blog with the piquant title: "Beauty Spot", I received this computer-generated e-mail:
**************************************************
Monday, May 17, 2010 12:34 AM
From: "Sheetal Sharma"
To: gps1943@yahoo.com
Hai,
Welcome to the glamorous world of beauty and fashion. The styles of fashion are changing everyday and to move with it is a necessity in today’s world. Whether you are a student, housewives, ladies, office goers or model we all want to look our best. And believe it or not it is not at all difficult sitting at home with no cost and no parlor fees. With some simple ideas and handy tips this world of fashion and beauty will look your own personal paradise. You can also visit my website at http://beautyfashiononline.com.
Since the styles of fashion are changing everyday i also welcome your overwhelming suggestions over this website.
Lets come together beautify and be a part of glamorous world.
Sheetal
******************************************
I guess I should scan the relevant Page from Sommerfeld's 'Optics' having the Vibration Spiral & Poisson Spot and send it to Sheetal in response to her request for "overwhelming suggestions". Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of Sommerfeld; maybe Aniket can help.
The title of today's blog: 'Reverse Osmosis' may elicit many e-mails from Water Purifying Companies. That would indeed be fun.
Osmosis was surely my favorite topic in Physical Chemistry. I had always wondered how the shriveled, wrinkled, dried brown grapes I fetched from the shop took on a glossy, full, and reddish meaty shape when they floated in my Payas.
And, all that talk about 'semi-permeable membranes' was truly 'potty' ('slightly crazy' in the British slang of our OBE).
[Joke: Talking of 'crazy' and 'semi-':
"My brother has shifted from Chemical Engineering to String Theory. Guess how old is he?"
"Must be 40"
"Arrey, how did you know?"
"Mine shifted from Chemical Engineering to Particle Physics Experiments; and he is only 20, and is the well-known semi-crack of the family"]
'Osmosis' is the well-known migration from Physics to Software, Banking, Biology, Genetics, Finance, Eng Lit, IAS etc...
'Reverse Osmosis' is the Minority Carrier Phenomenon of migration from Engineering to Physics, in our times.
When I joined Physics Department at IIT KGP, there were unfortunately only 2 Branches in which Professors did 'Serious' Research: 'Solid State Physics' and 'X-Rays'. HNB, who inherited the Headship was progressive and recruited SDM in Theoretical Physics and VVR in Experimental Nuclear Physics, along with gps, in whom he found an enthusiastic B Tech Teacher (CLR in a Faculty Meeting: "B Tech Teaching is like cleaning a shit-tank", to which myself and DB added: "Which is necessary for the hygiene of the Physics Dept")
After Dharam Vir & Co made me teach Relativity in Electrodynamics in 1969, there was this exodus from Calcutta to KGP of the best and brightest of its students; Reason: Cal Univ & Presidency College practically shut shop due to Naxalite violence in which many of its students were willy-nilly involved. So, most parents preferred the lesser evil of IIT KGP. And the toppers were wriggled into the top Branch, E & ECE (there was no CSE then) against their wishes, because Physics imbued the unwanted spirit of 'Progressive Revolutionaries' of the Feynman Age.
But their hearts were in Physics. I guessed this and made a suggestion to HNB that our Ist Year B Tech Syllabus be modernized to include at least Relativity if not QM (DB didn't join KGP then). He asked me to give a 'Talk' on Syllabus Revision in F-127 to the Faculty about my ideas. There was furor. A compromise was reached that the top branches like ECE and ME should have Relativity while the less-interested could continue with the old Pulleys and Wheatstone Bridges.
And, the Mouse who was asked to bell the Cat was myself.
In that batch, I remember the front-bencher PSM and the second-bencher (eventual PGM) SD were unusually delighted with as simple things as Length Contraction and Twin Paradox.
And went to the US and promptly shifted to Physics: PSM to Black-Hole Physics and SD to Semiconductor Physics [he used to write lead-articles in Physics Today (APS, USA Publication)].
35 years later, just before I retired, Sayan and a gentleman were waiting for me in front of my Ofice. Sayan said: "Here is someone you taught a long while ago and he was asking to meet you". "I said; Hi! PSM, how are you? I know you are in MatScience. Our student there, ST was talking about you."
PSM was very delighted that I not only remembered him, but also was tracking his world-line. We talked about SD, the KGP of 1970s, the usual nostalgia and all. He shifted to Cal a couple of years back. Big shot now; but for me the starry-eyed front-bench freshman, always.
Fast forward to 1990:
CSE has taken over. Anyone who is someone wanted to do Algorithms and Networking and what not. Physics has fallen by the wayside. Only determined young men pursued it and few could stick to it. 3 post-docs and yet no 'tenure-track'.
But, Black Holes, Quasars, Quantum Gravity, ToE were in the Air. Second Coming.
And, I and a handful of Physics Teachers had to fight tooth and nail to teach QM to every student of B Tech against the wishes of KLC, the Diro, who wanted to teach every B Tech First Year a Course on: 'Characterization of Materials'.
Thanx to some Progressive Engineering Teachers fond of Physics like Professor Joshi and Amalendu, we won hands down. And we started teaching a COMPULSORY QM Course of one semester in the 2nd Year for All B techs (a decade later, Sayan & Co saw to it that QM came down to First Year Jumbo, which I had to teach for the last 5 years of my stay at KGP).
In 1990, I was teaching my First Batch of Chemical Engineers this QM Course. Most students were just about forgiving, because apart from Cultural Value they could not find any use for QM in their Inks, Dyes, and Pulp Factories.
But this guy in the last bench, PC, was aglow. Always asking probing questions.
The last but one Class over; and I find in my Locker a fat envelope with 5 hand-written PT Sheets full of agony asking me how he could survive without Physics for the rest of his life. Apparently, he was madly in love with Physics ever since he knew himself but was forced into Chemical Engineering by his parents because Physics has 'no prospects'.
I asked him to meet me in my Office next evening. PC came and started literally sobbing. It was a difficult time for me and DB. He said he was determined to shift to Physics Dept. But unfortunately it was too late for a Branch Change: he was already in Second Year. He realized it and his agony was even more unbearable.
I asked him to meet me next day and we would see what could be done.
24 hours didn't cool his fervor.
I told him to continue in his Ch E. And prepare for AGRE in Physics the next day onwards. And show me his scores after 2 more years. And then I promised to move Heaven and Earth to see that he gets into some Grad-School or the other in Physics in the US. Meanwhile, he should meet me whenever he wants to, for 'coaching' in Physics one-on-one.
PC then on used to meet me quite often in the beginning but at times later on when he got the hang of AGRE Physics.
I clearly recall one late evening, when he brought his Griffiths and wanted to apply the Maxwell-Stress Tensor for the Electric Field of a single point charge...something no one does. We two sat down for 15 minutes and did the surface integral; And, lo and behold I understood for the first time the meaning of just not the Lines of Force but the Faraday Tubes of Induction, which we were forced to read from an unreadable book called Starling. My heart was full. The 'linear extension and lateral compression' that Faraday talked about much before Maxwell and his Stress-Tensor' were born canceled exactly to give zero force!
I sent him to the Summer School at Bangalore sponsored by IUCAA. He did very well there and one reco was guaranteed from Bangalore.
And I advised him to take up the Elective in the Cryogenics taught by the wonderful Physics Professor VRK. Another reco in place.
And, he topped the AGRE at KGP beating our own Physics students.
And for the first time I COMPOSED a Full Page Reco exclusively for him (for others I had the 'template' with the name and date changed year after year).
He applied to 14 places, most of them without the hefty Registration Fees.
He was modest, and was beyond himself when he got Admission and Fellowship with Fee Waiver from Leheigh.
And within a month he got everywhere he applied.
He went to Rochester. Changed to Minnesota the next semester.
Aniket met him at the Wilson High Energy Labs at Cornell a decade later.
I found that his Home Page contained my name, while I was looking for 'gps' entries.
A few months back I got a mail from him.
You might have guessed: PC stands for 'Pussy Cat'.
End of 'Reverse Osmosis'.
=================================================
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