Ok so I am back to revive my old blog. Hopefully this once-too-many-times-again karmic reincarnation of sorts of my blog will be successful.
So the other day I captured a conversation on Facebook.
P1: I hate exams
P2: Welcome to the club
P1: What club??
Just to show how exams can ruin brains :)
Cheers!!!
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Friday, January 26, 2007
Ummm, what was that again???
Even the professors of one of the best technical institutes of the world go overboard when trying to explain a topic. In this post, I shall try to collect such gems for collection (mind you, these are not "created"). It shall be periodically updated, so keep checking.
1. "If I throw you out of the window, and then I jump out to commit suicide because I will feel guilty of murdering you, then also the instantaneous centers of rotation of you, I and the earth will lie on a straight line" - Kinematics professor clarifying Kennedy's theorem.
2. "Numbers can't help you much. You get the same number when you square a negative or a positive number. And it won't help you. You must help yourself." - Vibrations professor insisting on physics and not mathematics of a problem.
3. "Complex numbers seem complex just because they are named complex. There is nothing complex about complex numbers. Its just a representation, thats it" - Vibrations professor when clarifying the equation he wrote in which left hand side was completely imaginary, and right hand side was real plus imaginary.
4. "Such books are meant only for burning. Or for using in the toilets" - Kinematics professor venting his anger on Indian authors for using wrong terms.
5. "Since birth you are taught to understand only numbers, and not figures. Except of girls, of course" - Kinematics professor being angry at students being bad with diagrams.
6. "Vibrating at first node is the most natural way of doing it. It's not as if we satisfy any mathematical constraint. Just that its the most convenient way for the system to vibrate" - Vibration professor explaining why initial modes are important.
7. "You see, minus cannot be minus ..." - Another gem from our vibration professor.
8. "When you go closer and closer to the solution, what you get is, closer and closer to the solution" - No wonder we can't understand optimization properly!
Cheers!!!
1. "If I throw you out of the window, and then I jump out to commit suicide because I will feel guilty of murdering you, then also the instantaneous centers of rotation of you, I and the earth will lie on a straight line" - Kinematics professor clarifying Kennedy's theorem.
2. "Numbers can't help you much. You get the same number when you square a negative or a positive number. And it won't help you. You must help yourself." - Vibrations professor insisting on physics and not mathematics of a problem.
3. "Complex numbers seem complex just because they are named complex. There is nothing complex about complex numbers. Its just a representation, thats it" - Vibrations professor when clarifying the equation he wrote in which left hand side was completely imaginary, and right hand side was real plus imaginary.
4. "Such books are meant only for burning. Or for using in the toilets" - Kinematics professor venting his anger on Indian authors for using wrong terms.
5. "Since birth you are taught to understand only numbers, and not figures. Except of girls, of course" - Kinematics professor being angry at students being bad with diagrams.
6. "Vibrating at first node is the most natural way of doing it. It's not as if we satisfy any mathematical constraint. Just that its the most convenient way for the system to vibrate" - Vibration professor explaining why initial modes are important.
7. "You see, minus cannot be minus ..." - Another gem from our vibration professor.
8. "When you go closer and closer to the solution, what you get is, closer and closer to the solution" - No wonder we can't understand optimization properly!
Cheers!!!
Monday, November 27, 2006
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Movie - the messiah!
The trend started long time back. So its nothing new when you hear friends discussing reviews of any movie and mentioning the words "message from the movie". Sarfarosh was about the "message" that we should be patriotic despite religious differences, or individual accomplishments. Rang De Basanti was about the "message" that we need to do something pro-actively to change the age-old system, rather than wait till eternity for it to change. Munnabhai was about the power of humanity and Lage Raho was about the power of Gandhigiri. Countless examples of movies sending across "messages" of purity, humanity, patriotism, love, and all other goody-goody stuff can be mentioned, and a lot more will come up. And each will inspire a spike of emotion in the viewer, which unfortunately, and unfailingly, will die down by the time he/she returns home and watches a trailer of another movie with another "message".
My point is, are we really such zombies who need a messiah like a movie to enlighten us and show us the otherwise cliched and common-sense path of life? And will there be any time when the spikes of emotions last long enough to show some effect on us?
Cheers!!!
My point is, are we really such zombies who need a messiah like a movie to enlighten us and show us the otherwise cliched and common-sense path of life? And will there be any time when the spikes of emotions last long enough to show some effect on us?
Cheers!!!
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Food for thought
Isnt it surprising, that we tend to hold on to things like money, body, job, etc, yet not think twice about giving someone our heart, even when we know that the latter can hurt a lot more than the former???
Cheers!!!
Cheers!!!
Saturday, October 07, 2006
I was 13 years late...
It was one of my worst days today.
The events which led to this day began in my sixth semester when serendipity struck me during a tea break. It was while preparing for GATE when I came up with a brilliant idea. A rotary engine based on gears. I searched on google but didnt find any mechanism similar to it. The idea seemed so revolutionary and crude that I gave up other stuff and concentrated just on the idea. Attempting permutations and combinations, going through various types of gears (involute, cycloid, etc) I spent the major part of my last three semesters figuring out how to make the idea feasible. And the result was a great concept, applaused by all my mates and some professors whom I showed my design.
Needless to say, I wanted to see it turn into a patent. But first I wanted to select it as my M.Tech. project and analyse it completely.
As luck would have it, I surfed through some patents websites today. And yes, you guess it correctly. I found a similar mechanism patent filed in 1993 by some professor in USA. The novelty of the idea is as good as gone.
I was 13 years late. And going by mechanical technology pace, its a small time. So I console myself. But what struck me first was the possible reason for this. India is a country wherein you will find technology in mechanical engineering which is many years old. Whatever new you can think of from there is something which is still a few years old. However, if students were exposed to newer technologies, like in the Europian union or the US of A, probably the chances of finding something "innovative" would have been higher. It seems we can only "discover" here in India, but rarely "invent". Atleast in Mechanical Engineering.
So what do I do now? Being a bad case of sporadic optimism (if that is defined), I intend to work on it still. Maybe improve upon my design and compare it with the existing patent. Many positives came out of the exercise. Like I got a feel of Pro Mechanism (a software). And how to be patient when your computer keeps hanging for the thousandth time. But what motivates me the most is the fact that I could think like what that experienced professor sitting in USA could think, even if by serendipity. And also the fact that I was only 13 years late.
Cheers!!!
The events which led to this day began in my sixth semester when serendipity struck me during a tea break. It was while preparing for GATE when I came up with a brilliant idea. A rotary engine based on gears. I searched on google but didnt find any mechanism similar to it. The idea seemed so revolutionary and crude that I gave up other stuff and concentrated just on the idea. Attempting permutations and combinations, going through various types of gears (involute, cycloid, etc) I spent the major part of my last three semesters figuring out how to make the idea feasible. And the result was a great concept, applaused by all my mates and some professors whom I showed my design.
Needless to say, I wanted to see it turn into a patent. But first I wanted to select it as my M.Tech. project and analyse it completely.
As luck would have it, I surfed through some patents websites today. And yes, you guess it correctly. I found a similar mechanism patent filed in 1993 by some professor in USA. The novelty of the idea is as good as gone.
I was 13 years late. And going by mechanical technology pace, its a small time. So I console myself. But what struck me first was the possible reason for this. India is a country wherein you will find technology in mechanical engineering which is many years old. Whatever new you can think of from there is something which is still a few years old. However, if students were exposed to newer technologies, like in the Europian union or the US of A, probably the chances of finding something "innovative" would have been higher. It seems we can only "discover" here in India, but rarely "invent". Atleast in Mechanical Engineering.
So what do I do now? Being a bad case of sporadic optimism (if that is defined), I intend to work on it still. Maybe improve upon my design and compare it with the existing patent. Many positives came out of the exercise. Like I got a feel of Pro Mechanism (a software). And how to be patient when your computer keeps hanging for the thousandth time. But what motivates me the most is the fact that I could think like what that experienced professor sitting in USA could think, even if by serendipity. And also the fact that I was only 13 years late.
Cheers!!!
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