http://www.indusladies.com/forums Senile Ramblings by Cheeniya - Read and provide your feedback! en Sat, 21 Nov 2009 05:46:48 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.IndusLadies.com/forums/images/006/misc/rss.jpg http://www.indusladies.com/forums http://www.indusladies.com/forums/cheeniyas-senile-ramblings/75762-of-bathing-beauties-falling-apples.html Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:13:29 GMT Most of us, particularly of the middle-class, have mastered the art of going through the motions of life without making any fuss. Take me for example. I enter a cold shower on a freezing wintry morning but do I make a big fuss like a pygmy relocated to an Igloo at the North Pole? No way! I just... Most of us, particularly of the middle-class, have mastered the art of going through the motions of life without making any fuss. Take me for example. I enter a cold shower on a freezing wintry morning but do I make a big fuss like a pygmy relocated to an Igloo at the North Pole? No way! I just grin and bear it. In fact, in all my 67 years of life, my bathing experience has been totally void of any dramatics. Whenever I hear of the story of how the mighty King Karthaveeryarjuna stopped the flow of River Narmada with his thousand hands so that he could have all the fun bathing in the subdued river with his numerous wives, I develop a huge complex. Poor me! I cannot even stop the drip from the leaky tap which keeps disturbing my sleep! I am digressing. What I was trying to tell you was that my bathing history of six decades has been as dull as the Hundred Year War between the Valois and the Plantagenets!

The greatest bathing scene in history that continues to bother the students of Physics to this day involved Archimedes. He was actually heading to his bath tub with his mind weighed down by a Royal decree running on his head. I do not want to go into the details of that historic bath as most of you may be aware of the episode. The amount of water displaced from the tub by the sheer weight of his massive frame evidently gave him some clue about some Law of Physics that continues to elude my grasp till date but that discovery gave him enough justification to run through the streets without a stitch on his body shouting Eureka!

I am mentioning this episode to show how some guys stumble upon momentous truths of life from ordinary incidents like bathing. Take this guy Isaac Newton for example. This guy is reported to have been hit on the head by a falling apple while he was having a siesta in his garden. Does he wipe the apple on his trouser seat and take a mighty bite like you and I would have done? No Sir! He starts thinking why the apple fell on his head instead of flying away and comes out with some mind-boggling theory about the Law of Gravity! Just shows how some minds remain active even during a siesta!

While the likes of Archimedes and Newton come out with some astounding theories by observing some mundane daily incidents, there are other guys like Einstein who explain away their complicated Theories in such a simple way that even a child can understand. One of Einstein's great insights was to realize that matter and energy are really different forms of the same thing. Matter can be turned into energy, and energy into matter as he explained through his famous formula E=mc˛. When some dumbo like me asked him to explain the Theory of Relativity in very simple terms, he was reported to have said “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity."

Of all the scientists mentioned above, my pick is Einstein. It is not because he solved our vexatious question of who was bigger, Shakthi (Energy) or Shiva (Matter) through an ostensibly simple equation of E=mc˛. What makes me rate him high was his ability to explain a highly complex thought process through some ludicrously simple examples. I am sure that all of you would have been students of many a learned teacher but the ones that we fondly remember are those who could make their subjects sound so simple through some down to earth examples and explanations. I remember how we hated some showy professors who always treated us with contempt and effectively saw to it that we ended up as imbeciles. Their intention was to create a terror in our minds through their bombastic teaching techniques and make us believe that an understanding of the subject of their specialization was not within the reach of mortals like us!

The first teacher that a child encounters in his life is his mother. It is she that nurtures his thirst for knowledge through some imaginative, innovative and yet simple answers to all his pestering questions. If she fails there, he may never have any questions to ask! ]]> Cheeniya http://www.indusladies.com/forums/cheeniyas-senile-ramblings/75762-of-bathing-beauties-falling-apples.html