Science Education

Teaching science should be made more fun, because when learning is fun kids and youngsters learn better.  Today one sad aspect of school based teaching is that students study for marks rather than knowledge. In India it is very common to see kids repeating paragraphs like a parrot, whether they understand what's written in them or not is another matter. 

As a youngster I found "The Special Theory of Relativity" of Albert Einstein fascinating. It so happened that I chanced upon my cousin's book on fundamental physics that was published by Mir Publishers. Three years earlier when I was in the 9th standard(for global readers 9th grade) there was a chapter on Albert Einstein in English. It was titled "Albert Einstein : A study in simplicity ". 

That particular chapter gave insights into the life and personality of the great physicist and then it also mentioned the "The Theory of Relativity" to be the most important document of our times. Naturally that awoke a curiosity about the "The Theory of Relativity" and when I chanced upon this book and saw in the index Special Theory of Relativity, I engrossed myself into studying that. 

For any newbie the Special Theory of Relativity would be awe inspiring since for the first time he would realize that time passes differently in different places. That a body flying near the speeds of light would contract. Also an object will become more massive as it travels at the speed of light through space. The study of the subject left me dumbstruck. In fact I had dreams of spaceships passing through space near the speeds of lights observing the same beam light which appeared to them having the same speed but had different frequencies.

Now when the same topic was taught in my year of Engineering. It was taught in such a boring fashion that one would feel like throwing up. The essence of the subject was lost. The teacher just left it to deducing a few equations and telling us , note them down this are likely to come in the exams.

India has seriously lagged behind in science research after it became independent. The straightforward reason for that happening is the system of education that we have and in spite of this rotten system we have produced world class scientists and engineers, who are doing well in other parts of the globe. 

TV channels like Discovery, Discovery Science, National Geographic etc and played an excellent role in increasing the popularity of science among the masses and Internet has given excellent access to scientific information to people across the globe. The Internet indeed can become a major source of education and knowledge.

What I have mentioned earlier was during the days when computers were expensive and Internet access was slow and expensive as well. With time the prices of computers have gone down also smartphones which cost much less have come into existence along with access to fast , affordable Internet.  Now students are able to see video demonstration of various scientific, mathematical and biological concepts via videos on Youtube. 

Video Demonstration and animation make learning much faster than mere book reading. Also students have access to Wikipedia a free encyclopedia that is available in various languages. The articles in Wikipedia are written, maintained and proofread by users and it has been a very successful experiment. Wikipedia is definitely one of the best things to have happened to the Internet. 

This is how technological innovations aid learning and make them more interesting. Manu Prakash of Stanford University and his team have come out with a 50 cent (INR Rs 30) microscope. Now this microscope is a projection microscope that the team aims to send everywhere where a pencil is used. 

They have named the product foldscope and it is really awesome. 

Traditional microscope are bulky, difficult to use and difficult to transport. They are expensive preventing normal users from using them. However foldscope because of its price and ease of use can actually be in the hands of every kid in the world within a few years. Direct observation of micro-organisms, plants, blood , food particles etc is bound increase the scientific curiosity in the kids. 

We need more innovations like them to come. Science Education should be most happiest thing in the world. This would produce more and more scientists and engineers who would change the world. 

The following video shows how foldscope works. 

Music and technology

Music has always been a great source of entertainment for people. Music relaxes and reinvigorates the mind. Music has also been used by psychologists to cure patients. Now 140 years ago people can only hear music only when some talented singers and musicians played it. It was all live performance for there was no way in which we can store the music at that time. 

Now music is nothing but rhythmic sound. Sound is a set of waves in air or in other words sound is disturbances in air that are propagated as waves. In 1877 Thomas Alva Edison made the first mechanical device that store and reproduce sound , this device was called the "Phonograph" which later came to be known as the "Gramophone".

Edison with his Phonograph

It was the first device of its kind in the history of humanity. Edison's phonograph could record sound on a tinfoil sheet phonograph cylinder and it could later play the sound as well. The phonograph comprised of a stylus the circuit around the stylus was arranged with magnets . So when the sound was recorded the corresponding sound waves was converted into physical movements of the stylus that would etch out the corresponding disturbances on the tinfoil sheet.

When the tinfoil sheet was used to play the sound the movement of the stylus would generate electrical pulses which would be amplified and corresponding sound were generated. Later on many scientists worked on this phonograph and kept improving it. The cylinder was ultimately replaced with flat vinyl disk. Very soon they became the major source of storing music and playing music for many decades till audio cassettes and tape recorders took over in the late 1970s.

The advent of audio cassettes reduced the use of vinyl Cd's and gramophone significantly. In case of audio tapes, there was a tape with magnetic material in the cassettes that contained the audio information in terms of analogue magnetic information. It can be written and rewritten multiple times.

The read head of the tape recorder worked on the principle of electromagnetic induction. When a particular portion of the tape passed under the read-write head it would generate electrical signals that would be amplified and the vibration of the speaker would generate corresponding sound waves in air and thus we heard music and sound. 

When recording sound using a tape recorder, the portion of the magnetic tape that passed through the read-write head would have its tiny magnets rearranged depending on the electrical signals. Tape recorders were a rage in the late 70s ,80s and early 90s. 

Audio Cassete

Tape Recorder and Player

Japanese electronics company named Sony brought the Walkman which made it possible for people to listen to recorded music on the go. The Walkman was a small tape recorder with earphones that the user placed in his ears to listen music. 

Sony Walkman

Now tape recorders used analogue recording technology and developments in computer science and technology were making digital electronics popular. So in the 90s there came speakers that can be connected to a computer to play music. The music was stored in the computer as digital information in the form of 0s and 1s , the sound card that was placed on the mother board would generate electrical signals corresponding to the digital information and the speaker would convert this electrical signals into vibrations that would produce sound in air.

Computer Speakers

                                     
          
The quality of sound(music) with digital technology turned out to be far superior than the analogue sound. However there was one drawback back then the encoding formats of digital music did not have algorithms that compressed it significantly so the music files were huge for those times. 

But in time new formats came in , the mp3 format was a revolution because this technology actually eliminated those sounds that were not heard by humans form the music files, thus making the music files smaller and at the same time the storage technology was improving by leaps and bounds, it was actually doubling every two years.

So storing music became cheaper and easier and with the advent of Internet one was simply able to download music from the Internet anytime, anywhere he or she wanted to. 

Then came those little Mp3 players that stored and played music. Apple Computers saw opportunity in this field and came out with their iconic product i-Pod that made it possible to download , store and play music anywhere and anytime. The quality of music in i-Pod was very rich and the marketing done by Steve Jobs in popularising this product made it a rage in the entire world. 

iPod

                                  

At the same time mobile phones were getting better and better and then you had mobile phones that can actually play music. Today there is not a single mobile phone sold in the world that does not have this feature of playing mp3 music. Mobile phones have become major source of not only communication but also entertainment and information. 

Mobile phone with earphone

                                       


Most of the songs downloaded form the Internet is downloaded in some mobile device. Today we have come to a point where anyone can connect his mobile phone to the Internet and the download music and play it anywhere he/she wants to and it doesn't cost any money at all. Most of the music downloads that are done world wide are done free of cost. 

So science and technology has played a big role in the way in which we used to hear music and sound. Today for  99.9% of music heard by a person would be recorded music. Live music is only heard in a music concert or if you have any singer in your family or in your neighbourhood.

Thanks to technology people have more access to quality music than they ever had in the history of mankind. It is knowledge of sound, materials , electronics etc and corresponding developments in technology that has made this possible. 

Sound, Music and Dance

Waves are disturbances in a given medium. Sound is also a set of waves and this waves are disturbances in air. Humans have five senses touch, sight, taste, smell and ability to hear. Now when we say that we are hearing something we are essentially deciphering the disturbances in air at a particular frequency range. The sound waves below this frequency range and above this frequency range is not heard by humans.

The human ears has ear drums that vibrate at when sound waves in air strike them this vibrations generate nerve signals that pass on to the brain. This signals actually go to the part of the brain that processes this information and then we realize that we hear some thing. Humans have evolved over time and have made good use of this ability. Humans developed the art of conversation and communication. Humans developed language to communicate, ultimately in time huge numbers of languages and dialects were created in different communities in different geographical locations around the world.

Human mind ultimately found that it is fond of sound that is rhythmic and regular, this lead to the creation of music. Not only the ability to hear but humans ability to speak evolved with time and they were able to generate sound waves from their vocal chords that carried information in a language that other people were able to understand. The same vocal chords were now able to generate sounds that was pleasing to the human mind and thus the art of singing came into existence . It evolved with time some humans had better and sweeter voices than others.

This was not enough humans started using various inanimate object to create sound waves and ultimately created gadgets that generated rhythmic sounds they combined this with their art of singing and thus music came into existence. Humans did not stop there and kept making this objects better and better and researched deeper and deeper into the science of music.

Humans came out with various musical instrument like the drum, dhol, flute , sehnai, jaltarang, sitar, veena, piano, guitar, banjo, harmonium, harmonica, mouthorgan, violin, saxophone etc. and in the 20th century it was followed by electronic musical instruments like electric guitar, keyboard and ultimately developed computers and sound generators that can mimic other musical instruments.

Before this centuries ago the researching into music humans created the fundamental building blocks of music the sargam in India and octave in Europe. Teaching music to kids became a regular thing and this fundamental notes enabled them to learn and create music.

Along with music humans also developed this art of dance in which the body is moved rhythmically depending on the music. In every human culture whether it be primitives of Andaman and Nicobar, Brazil , Africa, Australia or modern day society music and dance are ever prevalent and they form a major source of entertainment in all cultures. One would hardly find any person on earth who hates music or dance.

Music and Dance has been a major source of entertainment and recreation for thousands of years and surely they will stay that way for eternity. Only that Music and dance will evolve with times and simply get better and better.

Computer that works on water droplets

I have written about Foldscope earlier in this blog. The inventor of Foldscope Manu Prakash and his team has now come up with a  computer that works with very small water droplets . This is a pathbreaking new invention more details are there in the below video.

Aliens exist for sure

In our own galaxy and in galaxies around the universe there are at least billions of planets with earth like conditions. Thereby it is strongly possible that life may exist on those planets, in fact it is possible that intelligent life - beings and creatures far more intelligent than us and more advanced than us maybe there.

Why maybe, they are surely there. To say that life exists only on earth and nowhere else in the universe is probably the stupidest statement a man can ever make.

If you say that life doesn't exist on other planets because in our 60 years of investigations we have not found any concrete example is like taking a small cup of water from the ocean and then saying that there are no fishes in it.

Intelligent life is surely there in the universe other than the earth, we just have to find them. It is very much possible that they know about our existence, they may have advanced technologies that helps them monitor us.

In mythologies across the world there is a mention of beings with insurmountable powers. Who were these beings and where did they come from? There is mention of Gods like Shiva and Hercules in Indian and Greek mythologies.

In the ancient Indian epic Ramayana there is mention of wingless , soundless plane Pushpak which probably worked on the principle of anti gravity.It is very much possible that the Gods that we talk about in ancient mythologies were nothing but other worldly beings that visited and interacted with us.

In both Ramayana and Mahabharata there is mention of warfare that involved use of weapons that looked like simple bows and arrows, they would throw out lightning and thunder and other powers of nature. There is mention on some kinds of arrows that would generate snakes.

A mythical arrow/weapon called the Brahmhastra is mentioned in this texts that was capable of destroying anything that came in its path. Now these may have been some advanced alien technologies that were misinterpreted by the ancient man as bows and arrows with some power.

The ancient texts says that some mantras(words with spiritual powers) gave the weapons this powers but there is not a single example of this happening anywhere in the world.

In Ramayana there is mention of a unique species who were highly intelligent and powerful monkey like creatures. One of them Hanuman who was capable of increasing and decreasing the size of his body and fly in air.

On one occasion Hanuman has to fly from Sri Lanka to the Himalayas to get an herb(Sanjeevani buti) to cure badly injured Laxman. Now what made this flight possible. Was Ramayana a mere figment of imagination or  was it based on certain facts that the ancient humans saw? Also what were this highly powerful monkey like creatures? Were they a cross between some advanced alien species and monkeys found on earth?

Many people dismiss the concept of extraterrestial life as pseudo-science, a mere figment of imagination. But if we can exist on earth, why can't there be life on other planets in the universe. 

Maybe intelligent life could have come into existence on those planets thousands or millions of years before it came into existence on earth. Consider the technological advances of humans in the last 300 years, on the basis of that one can easily say that humans can achieve such great things  in a million years that cannot even be imagined at this point of time.

 Maybe some advanced alien races are there who are at such high state of technological advancement. 

Knowledge is Power - Pressure Cooker

It is said that knowledge is power, let me show you a very small example of that. We all know the ideal gas equation.

PV=nRT

where P= Pressure, V is Volume, n= number of moles of the gas, R is the gas constant, T is the absolute temperature. 

Now from this equation it is clear that if the number of moles of the gas is kept constant and the volume is kept constant then increase in pressure leads to increase in temperature. Also with higher pressure the boiling point of water goes up. Thus the food in the pressure cooker is cooked faster almost three times faster. Thus leading to great savings in the amount of fuel that is used. Almost all homes across the world use pressure cookers and this leads to great amounts of fuel savings also that means lesser carbon dioxide is thrown into the atmosphere since lower fuel consumption means lower combustion of fossil fuels. 

Now how pressure cooker was designed only after humans understood the concepts of force, pressure, molecular nature of gas this three factors helped scientists deduce the above equation. With the help of the above equation we understood that if the volume is kept constant then increasing pressure will increase the temperature.

This simple principle was applied in the design and construction of pressure cooker which is today used extensively for industrial and domestic purpose. 

Its man's constant search for truth that makes him discover facts about nature (Science) and then these truth are applied intelligently in design of systems that benefits him (Technology).

वैज्ञानिक मानसिकता

       वैज्ञानिक मानसिकता होना बहुत आवस्यक हैं।  भारत में लोग आज भी कई अन्धविश्वास में जीते हैं।  कोई भी बदमाश गेरुआ कपडा पेहन कर इन्हे लूट सकता हैं। ८० %  लोग बिना सोचे समझे ढोंगी और पाखंडी बाबाओ की बातों में आ जाते हैं।  भारत में ८०% से ज़्यादा साधु बेईमान हैं।  इनमे से कई अपराधों में लिप्त हैं हाल ही में आसाराम बापू नमक एक पाखंडी को पकड़ा गया हैं , यह और इसका बीटा  नारायण साईं कई तरह के अपराधों में लिप्त था जिसमे बलात्कार और योन शोषण प्रमुख हैं।  इसके साथ साथ इन बेईमानो ने लोगो को मुर्ख बनाके उनसे हज़ारो करोड़ रूपए ठगे हैं।


      ऐसे बेईमानो की संख्या देश में लाखो की संख्या में हैं।  हमारे देश के लोग इतने बेवकूफ हैं की कोई मंच लगाकर अगर रामकथा या और कोई भी भगवान के बारे में बोलने लगे तो वे उनके पास लाइन लगाकर बैठ जाते हैं और दान देकर इन्हे धनि कर देते हैं।  ऐसे कई कथाकार हैं जैसे गुजरात के मोरारी बापू जिसने बस राम की और गाई की बकवास कहानिया सुनाकर लोगो से कई सो करोड़ कमाए हैं।

      जो साधु पैसा ले वह साधु कहलाने के लायक ही नहीं हैं।  पुराने समय में पैसे लेने  वाले साधु पर लोग थूकते थे आज कई बाबा लोग ऐसे हैं जो सेंट्रली एयर कंडिशन्ड महल में रहते हैं हाँ यह बात अलग हैं की यह बेईमान इन्हे आश्रम कहते हैं।  यह बेईमान बाबा लोग हिन्दुओ के मन में दूसरे धर्मो के लोगो के लिए नफरत पैदा करते हैं , और दोनों धर्मो के लोगो के बीच दंगा लगाने  की कोशिश करते रहते हैं।

ऐसे बेईमान और कपटी धर्मगुरुओ से बचना बहुत ज़रूरी हैं।  लोगो की भक्ति का ये नाज़ायज़ फायदा उठाना चाहते हैं। इसलिए हरेक कही हुई बात का वैज्ञानिक तरीके से आकलन करना आवस्यक हैं।

( इस ब्लॉग को हिंदी में लिखने के मेरा यह मकसद था की में ज़्यादा से ज़्यादा भारतीयों तक अपनी बात पंहुचा सकु )