Campus Happenings: Potpourri of Activity

It’s been a while since my last post, and after all the Finnish stuff, it is time to get back to ground reality in India. Even though it may not possible to compress a semester’s worth into a single post, a few keywords have essentially looped throughout the last few months in bhaat sessions – Apping, placements, BTP, grades, HHSS Ravi Shankar, SOS (Sociology of Science!) blah blah blah …

The most exciting event however, has been the arrival of a new carrom board to our wing (with much ado and fanfare)! Yayy! Fervent battles have been fought, delicate shots have been played, “Jacuzzi shots” have been invented and State District level players have been toppled – all in the last few weeks.

JAcuZZi shot., /jəˈko͞ozē SHät/ 2011, CTE (name of wing) proprietary phrase, originating from “a random carrom shot hit by Jazz that cuts across the board and pockets at least two coins in at least 50% of the attempts”. Now a general term for any shot that works on the probability principle (higher the coins on board and higher the power into the shot, higher the probability of pocketing) and gives an aura of a “Rube Goldberg shot”.

This brings me to another interesting point that I wanted to make – I don’t approach placements in the same way I approach carrom. Although most people here approach it in the “JAcuZZi way” consciously or unconsciously (a discussion on this isn’t something I intend here), I’ve been making a deliberate effort to be somewhat narrow and focussed this time around.

This is possibly because of two interesting events that have really stood out – visit of HHSS Ravi Shankar to our campus lately, and a fantastic book that I read - “Code Name God”. It is about the saga of a man of Physics (from IIT Kharagpur, and that does strike a chord somewhere) who became blasé with all the worldly pleasures and found respite in the ancient art of meditation and Yoga. In the process, he also attempts to unify science and spiritually. Quite a read!!

Pandit Ravi Shankar was a revelation. Far from the preaching Sadhu that I expected, he was very modern and talked in fairly simple terms avoiding complex Sanskrit shlokas and references. Some have been really useful, and I’ve been implementing them (with somewhat limited success). For instance, I’ve started being more alert (awake 70% of the lecture) in classes by “being mindful” of my thoughts and breath.

Of course, all of this doesn’t mean I’ve become all spiritual. It is just a new perspective that I’ve found and an interesting topic to read up upon! That’s all for now! More after placement season. Cheers!!

A Question of Relative Motion

A very interesting discussion came up the other day while we were having a cup of tea in the canteen. The question in contention was:

If a traveller from India boarded a flight to US and then came back, would it take longer one way than the other?

Assumptions

Several simplifying assumptions were taken: no atmosphere which means no drag, no viscous force etc. etc. And of course, we are to do the correction for the time difference to arrive at the final figure.

Several arguments in favour and against it were put forth. To start off with, A argued that it is a simple case of relative motion. You go one way, your relative velocity is higher. You go the other, your relative velocity is lower. So, obviously, it would take different times. Simple enough.

Bump, an apple hit me! (That makes me Newton v2.0?)

“Do you mean to say that if I were to simply take a plane up in the air and hold it stationary there, I would reach USA after 12 hours?” B put forth. “Or if I throw an apple up in the air in a moving bus, it will come back and hit me”, said B consolidating his argument with an analogy.

Playing with Apples on a Bus Top (Nike?)

C pitched in A’s defence stating that the time period in consideration here was very less. What if I stood on top of the bus and threw an apple up in the air? The bus isn’t accelerating. Would the apple come back on me or would it fall behind?

“Of course, it would come back and drop on me”, said A. “Newton’s first law. A body continues to remain in its state of motion unless acted upon by an external force. The external force while throwing up is only in the vertical direction. So, it continues to move with the velocity of the bus while in air.”

My First love: To be a Space Scientist (Ending up in IIT was chance)

A continues , “How do you think a geo-stationary satellite works? It continues moving and remains above a specific country all the time even though the earth is rotating.” A had now switched sides.

Intimidated and discombobulated, C argued, “OK, but think of this. The plane works on the principle of jet propulsion. There is a horizontal force in action”. Silent upto now, D jumps on board the discussion. “That is not an external force. It works on the principle of conservation of momentum.”

Ricocheting Arguments!!

C put forth a last ditch effort to save his argument. “Fine, but how do you explain this? You board a plane at day time in India and after travelling 15 hours, it is still daytime when you land. That clearly means that your relative position with respect to the sun hasn’t changed much even after 15 hours of flight. Which was what B was saying. I take the plane up. Let it remain stationary with respect to the sun and lo behold! I reach USA. The plane expends all the energy only to remain stationary in space.”

Clearly, everybody was quiet frustrated and disoriented by now. All tea cups were empty. I for a fact decided that this wasn’t my cup of tea. Back in the room, I sat back, relaxed and started my first assignment from CAOS class: Fahrenheit 451.

Post Scripts

PS1: The flow of arguments may not be exactly the same as discussed. Some changes have been made to present all view points. In fact, there were more than four people.

PS2: I checked the flight timings. There seems to be a difference of 3 hours either way in most flights. Don’t ask me why that is.

PS3: If you didn’t read what was written above and directly skipped to the happy ending, to make a long story short: it is a question of relative motion.