[Music]
[Applause]
okay and I will tell you my own
experience and I did not cut classes
although the class was boring I did not
I was a conformist all along I was
thinking if I do this it maybe I’ll get
it I’ll get a good job if I do this I’ll
get a good pay okay
but somewhere down the line the same
thing happened to me that that which
happened to almost everyone you find
your passion maybe you find a passion a
bit late maybe you find a passion but
you’re too scared maybe you love it so
much but you don’t know the way how do
how do you get in how do you get there
so my journey was a little bit very
academic in nature but right now where I
stand I think I’m a little shot of being
a rebel and I know what’s wrong I have
seen what’s what doesn’t work and what
works in academia and so I’m gonna share
my story with you and what I really
found is doing simple things hands-on is
a lot more educated than accumulating
degrees or just going through it for the
sake of it I I don’t mind telling you
but it took me a long long long time to
get back to what I was really passionate
about I wanted to make a motor when I
heard it in my earlier classes somewhere
on my 6th grader so so my story starts
as a kid I ran to make a motor no sooner
it was stored in the class so when I
heard that to make a motor all you need
is a coil all you need is a magnet all
you need is a battery I said okay fine
I’ll just go home and I’ll try to do
this but when I tried doing it my motor
never turned I had a problem and I
didn’t know at that stage how to even
debug the problem I was just frustrated
and the dry schematic in the textbook
never helped me a lot of things were
unsaid a lot of things were hidden so
there was no formula for me to debug my
problem
so textbook was all full of formulas
full of facts full of stuff that you
need to digest just before the exam and
get stressed up and and never even dream
of doing anything the textbook never
came alive to me but I moved on so my
motor never moved but I moved on so I
finished up but that was lurking in the
back of her mind and it was lucky for a
long time and I’ll tell you and I can
challenge anyone else who thinks it’s a
very simple thing I can challenge anyone
else who thinks he can do it without
ever even tried to do it okay when you
get down to two to the grassroots you
are any tested no matter how simple the
problem it is so I’ll show you I moved
on as I said and I fell in love with
other things like stars galaxies physics
and I want to know almost everything I
want to know how this world came about I
wanted to know about astrophysics and I
fell in love with all those concepts
which were really abstract because you
convey a star you don’t know how hot the
star is you don’t know what’s happening
inside a star when you build on it and
how do you build on it you build on it
through the language of science and you
build on it with confidence at every
step and that’s what makes you so sure
and so sure that if you have heard about
the latest Nobel Prizes on the discovery
of the Higgs boson or the LIGO detector
that actually detected the gravitational
waves it’s unbelievable it’s
unbelievable how we can really construct
the structure of the science and step by
step validated at every step and and
really gain confidence even without
actually being there who’s born so many
billion years ago there was no life how
do we are how are we so sure
that some billions of years ago there
were two black holes that collided and
there was a gravitational wave how can
you be sure that the signal you got on
your so-called sophisticated LIGO
detector is real it’s all because of the
structure of science the way we have
organized our knowledge and you need to
gain confidence in everything you need
to validate everything
and speaking of validation here’s a
wonderful curve here’s a wonderful curve
and I’m gonna take just two minutes to
explain this curve this curve is what
you get when something explodes okay and
then something explodes it generates a
lot of heat when a generator of heat
it’s not just heated it also generates
light and if you do examine how much
light came came about in every
wavelength let’s say red yellow green
orange whatever you name it every
wavelength plotted along its axis you
get a beautiful curve on the intensity
the y-axis is intensity okay
so just take it from me that we did a
fair job the physicists who are
interested in doing this kind of
experiment did a fair job of
measurements and you know what is here
all the dots are the observations those
are what you get when you get into the
lab and measure and the curve that’s so
that so closely hugs the dots is theory
and it’s called blackbody radiation all
of us radiate you me the chair then
anything that’s hot anything that’s at
some particular temperature radiates
okay now what is this radiation actually
this radiation is called cosmic
microwave background radiation something
that you would have seen when some
object let’s say our own universe
expanded explore it expanded cool and
later on it radiated it kept on ray
and why is this a great curve because it
fits the theoretical model of a
blackbody I can do the same experiment
in the lab I’ll get the same curve and
looking at a curve I can tell you what
is the temperature of that of the body
okay so this is one of the most
fascinating model to hardware hardware
is what you have solid stuff for the lab
model is what you thought about okay so
this actually gives me a lot of
confidence saying that you know if you
have a model if you have a theory and if
you understand every bit of it
the the constructs and if you go ahead
and do and do an experiment and if the
experiment matches okay there is nothing
like it you don’t need a third party to
come and tell you but hey you’re wrong
or you’re right the proof is in the
pudding if your model matches it’s great
if your order doesn’t match you go to
your rack your brains and find something
else maybe it’s an opportunity to find
something new and that’s how science
progress okay
so let me switch gears a little bit and
tell you that this is what I taught kids
last so laughter me and I told them that
no matter what you’re doing in science
there is this one wing of science which
is a theory and the other wing of
science which is experiment okay both
theory and experiments have to be done
together they have to talk to each other
how do you talk theory let me just go
back theory actually says something an
experiment would go you would go and try
to validate it if it validates bingo you
get a place if it’s not there’s
something wrong and you need to debug
you to debug either the theory or either
the experiment and the whole of physics
is playing this game the whole of
science is playing this game and what we
did with our kids last May was I took
very simple cases in fact I was trying
to bring the textbook to life something
that never happened to me so while I was
trying to bring the textbook to life
I was I was amused that that there are
so many things that we learn even from
kids of the way they think
out of box thinking of kids and how
condition we get when we are doing it
when we are doing an experiment okay so
let me move on and tell you about one
simple example how the pendulum the
simple pendulum hit back with a lot of
power I was watching my daughter learned
pendulum the simple pendulum it was a
simple formula I guess all of you must
have seen it at some point of time and
if not it isn’t it doesn’t matter but
all that matters is this is one of the
toy models in physics one of the toy
models in science now you learn a lot
from okay um the way the way it was
happening was my daughter was having a
test or something and she was reading
the formula and I suddenly came to her
and said you know there’s a nicer way of
looking at it we can take a simple
pendulum we can just oscillate it we can
measure the time we can match it with
the formula it just depends on the
length and depends upon that’s it and
the gravity it depends on gravity how
fast it pulls it back how fast it
oscillates so I tried doing the
experiment with the baby with a small
pendulum
I got a wrong answer and when I go wrong
I saw just like my motor that never
turned
I got a wrong answer and then my wife
was looking at me and said so much for
being a scientist okay
I feel challenged I said if I can’t do
this forget about astrophysics forget
about the universe and creation okay so
I sat I took almost half a day to do the
experiment in the refine manner I really
got my hands to think that was the first
time but I said okay I think there’s a
lot that we need to do when we teach our
kids how to do science how to learn
science the methodology of science we
need to reform one wing is missing we
are not doing the hands-on stuff the
other wing is just lame we are just
bugging through our exams and that’s the
reason why the earlier speakers was not
at all interested in it in during the
classes I’d never caught the attention
it never caught the imagination and and
to a large extent to me also but but
then I was always trying to see if there
is a better way to do it if there’s a
more interesting way to see it and so I
did that and bingo I got the right value
and then that
was my daughter learned about a simple
pendulum but I learned a lot about how
physics how science should be taught
okay so back to the motor my motor
actually started turning only a couple
of years ago one or two years ago
because I got back to the problem with
intensity I said man I have to do it
well you can go ahead and buy the motors
from the shop I mean there are all kinds
of toys where there are these simple
motors you can just open them up and see
what’s wrong but but you know that small
that element of thinking was missing
even if there’s an electrical engineer
in this hall I can actually challenge
him to explain how does it motor turn
I’ll tell you they were fumble okay
AIIMS why am I so confident about this
because when I could not get my motor to
turn to like debugged it here okay I
just kept applying all the Lars
Fleming’s rules left hand right hand and
and eventually I found one day that you
know I was it was working against a
fundamental force and then then I said
oh I don’t what to do okay I wouldn’t
get into the details but I said the
thinking had to be done so with some
thinking but some thinking and copper
coils and magnets and supports which are
actually called technical name to it
it’s called split rings but I actually
arrived at split rings by just thinking
and then a battery bingo your motor
turns I urge each one of you where if we
have time to go back and try this and I
made all the kids make the motor turn
later on it was like fun we were this
became our simple toy model for teaching
this became like something like a
pendulum and I was accumulating all
these Toyota models so no matter what
the team okay I could teach electricity
I could teach magnetism and I could
teach mechanics
I could teach fluids and that’s what I’m
going to show you what we did with the
kids and the amazing things that the
kids did when they were they were asked
to think free no exams holiday time good
food a lot of fun in the evening and so
that first a good summer program where I
realized that once the kids do hands-on
stuff they actually much better than you
and I’m going to show you that okay so
when I started
everyone about my motors the joy on the
kids face elders are no exception
then you see something done wow what an
excitement what a sense of achievement
that was palpable
my motto in places then the motor that
never moved started moving ok the motor
went to boardroom discussions in by a
previous company I used to work for IBM
and this became a topic for design
thinking ok a simple motor and the way
you debug the problems became the
subject matter for design thinking so
starting from exciting a kid to a very
you know high level discussions on
design thinking and debugging the motor
was everywhere suddenly people realize
the value of doing things simple things
perfectly and if you ignore a certain
feature you’ll be caught so debugging
the issues with simple basic thinking
all the way never give up on your
fundamentals if you’re not able to solve
a problem there’s something wrong
somewhere in the fundamentals ok moving
on I want to show you how the textbook
was brought to life and what these kids
did last time I gave them a pendulum to
work on I gave them magnet to play with
I gave them iron filings I was expecting
them to do things a they did not only a
but they did a and B and C and that’s
where I was really amazed and that’s
what I’m going to share with you so I’m
going to play the video and let’s see
how this goes oh go back I want us to
play ok watch
what’s the kids doing diligently kids
doing the experiments with a lot of
patience all because I told them that
eventually it’s going to validate their
thinking the model so this was the
normal length of the pendulum that that
I have recommitted in comes the this guy
who’s sitting right there on top he
wanted to do a 6 meter pendulum and I’m
scared I said man the 6 meter I don’t
know how it’s gonna work out it might
not even oscillate it it might it might
give me wrong
results okay and I let this guy do this
and lo and behold the data that this guy
got for the time period of the pendulum
was one of the best one of the best so
in in his honor to be named that point
of the graph as you know they watch
point his name is David and so that’s
what kids did
they’ve been beyond the norm and you
will see the next part where I gave them
back magnets to play with so you see I
wanted them to visualize the magnetic
fields around a simple bar magnet and
there is something amazing too they not
only restricted them they did not
restrict themselves to two dimensions
they suddenly dip the whole magnitude of
the iron filings and what they got was
three-dimensional magnetic fields
three-dimensional magnetic fields which
are traced by these iron filings just by
playing okay and you would see some
dried diagrams of magnetic fields in any
of the textbooks of science and you
would see that people never will have
the fun of the field unless the really
dirty their feet with this dirty their
hands with this and here’s what this
guy’s doing now he has dipped another
magnet and he’s going to bring the poles
closer okay magnet has not Pole and
South Pole so he’s going to bring the
poles closer then he’s going to flip it
and bring the poles closer and see the
interplay of those iron filings you are
virtually visualizing a
three-dimensional field magnetic field
now this was not Pole and South Pole
this is not Pole and South Pole and he’s
gonna flip it he’s gonna flip it in a
minute there he flips and see how they
repel see how the magnetic lines of
force repel magnetic lines of force all
these were like abstract concepts when
we were reading it for the first time
but you allow them to play with these
iron filings play them play with magnets
lo and behold they exceed your
expectations they move on and to go to
the next level where I just want to show
you a simple case
I want to show you a simple thing that
we ought to do in almost any class not
just the school or not just the college
level even at the degree level okay if
someone says that you want to learn
thermodynamics we generally don’t do
this if we don’t really see a discussion
of this so what I’m going to show you is
our hot water here and this is something
that turns this is nice this is a nice
looking Veen and there’s something that
blocks the two the two metal plates so
one plate and the other plate and in
between there’s form so the wheel turns
and the form keeps jumping up and down
between the plate so I’m going to show
you that in more closer detail but what
I want to show you is and this guy is
hot hopefully he’s hotter and I’m just
going to put it on this hot surface all
I’m creating is some heat at the bottom
plate and actually no heat on the top
plate the top plate is left to the
environment there’s AC and so it’s
cooler so there is a small difference in
temperature and hope I’m a hot world
stock so I’m just heating the bottom
plate okay so I’m just heating the
bottom plate and what do you expect
there’s air inside okay there’s air
inside and the air gets hot so the air
as long as it is in touch with the
bottom plate gets hot so the air expands
all of us know that the air expands so
when the air expands it will push the
stuff that is hanging on it the foam of
the this this small stuff that is
hanging on it and this this guy goes up
he turns to be okay the moment he goes
up the foam falls down so no more
heating and so air cools so this guy
will contract so I’m just going to give
it a lunch I need to give it initial
lunch because it has some inertia I look
at the beauty of this experiment you
don’t have to do much but what is the
challenge the challenge is simply this I
need to be very precise in the way I
make these things the lots of stuff that
can come in my way like they came to me
when I was a kid
not being able to run the motor the
motor was stuck because of lots of
friction some air I didn’t know how to
remove the friction the motor was stuck
because I couldn’t think of nice
supports for the coil look at this
beautiful apparent us here which I can
use to teach kids even grad students and
show them that hey heat is getting
converted to work and the complicated
stuff that you read as thermodynamics is
nothing but just heat getting converted
to work okay thank you so one moment I
know I know I have exceeded my time but
what are the issues that we face in
enabling such hands-on thinking okay
schools colleges and maybe universities
not this university because I’ve been
sampling everyone and I’ve been asking
everyone how are your labs everyone’s
happy with the labs so kudos to PDP whom
all these institutions are cutting down
on investments that may actually promote
a healthy lab culture what are the
issues capital costs I can’t make a
space for the lab I can’t dedicate extra
space for labs I can’t buy the materials
and these are costly materials okay and
I maintain some of them break one of the
kids have brought on the morning Brooke
so you need to take care of that I need
to maintain stuff
the lack of teaching experts the
teachers themselves have to be hands-on
even before they expect the class to be
hands-on so this vicious cycle has to be
broken somehow okay short sighted return
on investment calculations won’t help we
need to invest big time in in getting
this to work the hands-on thinking in
USA they have recognized a similar
problem people are cutting corners and
not being able to invest in lab space
and materials it’s day two they face a
similar problem in schooling and so
there are things called food trucks the
food trucks are not food trucks the food
trucks are trucks giant trucks loaded
with experiments hands-on experiments
and the trucks travel like the ones we
have we have a smaller version of that
from August Lea Science Foundation that
caters to schools and so
food trucks and they have began
addressing the problems only then will
the likes of Silicon Valley’s spring
forth and sustain I rest my case
thank you [Applause]
[Applause]
okay and I will tell you my own
experience and I did not cut classes
although the class was boring I did not
I was a conformist all along I was
thinking if I do this it maybe I’ll get
it I’ll get a good job if I do this I’ll
get a good pay okay
but somewhere down the line the same
thing happened to me that that which
happened to almost everyone you find
your passion maybe you find a passion a
bit late maybe you find a passion but
you’re too scared maybe you love it so
much but you don’t know the way how do
how do you get in how do you get there
so my journey was a little bit very
academic in nature but right now where I
stand I think I’m a little shot of being
a rebel and I know what’s wrong I have
seen what’s what doesn’t work and what
works in academia and so I’m gonna share
my story with you and what I really
found is doing simple things hands-on is
a lot more educated than accumulating
degrees or just going through it for the
sake of it I I don’t mind telling you
but it took me a long long long time to
get back to what I was really passionate
about I wanted to make a motor when I
heard it in my earlier classes somewhere
on my 6th grader so so my story starts
as a kid I ran to make a motor no sooner
it was stored in the class so when I
heard that to make a motor all you need
is a coil all you need is a magnet all
you need is a battery I said okay fine
I’ll just go home and I’ll try to do
this but when I tried doing it my motor
never turned I had a problem and I
didn’t know at that stage how to even
debug the problem I was just frustrated
and the dry schematic in the textbook
never helped me a lot of things were
unsaid a lot of things were hidden so
there was no formula for me to debug my
problem
so textbook was all full of formulas
full of facts full of stuff that you
need to digest just before the exam and
get stressed up and and never even dream
of doing anything the textbook never
came alive to me but I moved on so my
motor never moved but I moved on so I
finished up but that was lurking in the
back of her mind and it was lucky for a
long time and I’ll tell you and I can
challenge anyone else who thinks it’s a
very simple thing I can challenge anyone
else who thinks he can do it without
ever even tried to do it okay when you
get down to two to the grassroots you
are any tested no matter how simple the
problem it is so I’ll show you I moved
on as I said and I fell in love with
other things like stars galaxies physics
and I want to know almost everything I
want to know how this world came about I
wanted to know about astrophysics and I
fell in love with all those concepts
which were really abstract because you
convey a star you don’t know how hot the
star is you don’t know what’s happening
inside a star when you build on it and
how do you build on it you build on it
through the language of science and you
build on it with confidence at every
step and that’s what makes you so sure
and so sure that if you have heard about
the latest Nobel Prizes on the discovery
of the Higgs boson or the LIGO detector
that actually detected the gravitational
waves it’s unbelievable it’s
unbelievable how we can really construct
the structure of the science and step by
step validated at every step and and
really gain confidence even without
actually being there who’s born so many
billion years ago there was no life how
do we are how are we so sure
that some billions of years ago there
were two black holes that collided and
there was a gravitational wave how can
you be sure that the signal you got on
your so-called sophisticated LIGO
detector is real it’s all because of the
structure of science the way we have
organized our knowledge and you need to
gain confidence in everything you need
to validate everything
and speaking of validation here’s a
wonderful curve here’s a wonderful curve
and I’m gonna take just two minutes to
explain this curve this curve is what
you get when something explodes okay and
then something explodes it generates a
lot of heat when a generator of heat
it’s not just heated it also generates
light and if you do examine how much
light came came about in every
wavelength let’s say red yellow green
orange whatever you name it every
wavelength plotted along its axis you
get a beautiful curve on the intensity
the y-axis is intensity okay
so just take it from me that we did a
fair job the physicists who are
interested in doing this kind of
experiment did a fair job of
measurements and you know what is here
all the dots are the observations those
are what you get when you get into the
lab and measure and the curve that’s so
that so closely hugs the dots is theory
and it’s called blackbody radiation all
of us radiate you me the chair then
anything that’s hot anything that’s at
some particular temperature radiates
okay now what is this radiation actually
this radiation is called cosmic
microwave background radiation something
that you would have seen when some
object let’s say our own universe
expanded explore it expanded cool and
later on it radiated it kept on ray
and why is this a great curve because it
fits the theoretical model of a
blackbody I can do the same experiment
in the lab I’ll get the same curve and
looking at a curve I can tell you what
is the temperature of that of the body
okay so this is one of the most
fascinating model to hardware hardware
is what you have solid stuff for the lab
model is what you thought about okay so
this actually gives me a lot of
confidence saying that you know if you
have a model if you have a theory and if
you understand every bit of it
the the constructs and if you go ahead
and do and do an experiment and if the
experiment matches okay there is nothing
like it you don’t need a third party to
come and tell you but hey you’re wrong
or you’re right the proof is in the
pudding if your model matches it’s great
if your order doesn’t match you go to
your rack your brains and find something
else maybe it’s an opportunity to find
something new and that’s how science
progress okay
so let me switch gears a little bit and
tell you that this is what I taught kids
last so laughter me and I told them that
no matter what you’re doing in science
there is this one wing of science which
is a theory and the other wing of
science which is experiment okay both
theory and experiments have to be done
together they have to talk to each other
how do you talk theory let me just go
back theory actually says something an
experiment would go you would go and try
to validate it if it validates bingo you
get a place if it’s not there’s
something wrong and you need to debug
you to debug either the theory or either
the experiment and the whole of physics
is playing this game the whole of
science is playing this game and what we
did with our kids last May was I took
very simple cases in fact I was trying
to bring the textbook to life something
that never happened to me so while I was
trying to bring the textbook to life
I was I was amused that that there are
so many things that we learn even from
kids of the way they think
out of box thinking of kids and how
condition we get when we are doing it
when we are doing an experiment okay so
let me move on and tell you about one
simple example how the pendulum the
simple pendulum hit back with a lot of
power I was watching my daughter learned
pendulum the simple pendulum it was a
simple formula I guess all of you must
have seen it at some point of time and
if not it isn’t it doesn’t matter but
all that matters is this is one of the
toy models in physics one of the toy
models in science now you learn a lot
from okay um the way the way it was
happening was my daughter was having a
test or something and she was reading
the formula and I suddenly came to her
and said you know there’s a nicer way of
looking at it we can take a simple
pendulum we can just oscillate it we can
measure the time we can match it with
the formula it just depends on the
length and depends upon that’s it and
the gravity it depends on gravity how
fast it pulls it back how fast it
oscillates so I tried doing the
experiment with the baby with a small
pendulum
I got a wrong answer and when I go wrong
I saw just like my motor that never
turned
I got a wrong answer and then my wife
was looking at me and said so much for
being a scientist okay
I feel challenged I said if I can’t do
this forget about astrophysics forget
about the universe and creation okay so
I sat I took almost half a day to do the
experiment in the refine manner I really
got my hands to think that was the first
time but I said okay I think there’s a
lot that we need to do when we teach our
kids how to do science how to learn
science the methodology of science we
need to reform one wing is missing we
are not doing the hands-on stuff the
other wing is just lame we are just
bugging through our exams and that’s the
reason why the earlier speakers was not
at all interested in it in during the
classes I’d never caught the attention
it never caught the imagination and and
to a large extent to me also but but
then I was always trying to see if there
is a better way to do it if there’s a
more interesting way to see it and so I
did that and bingo I got the right value
and then that
was my daughter learned about a simple
pendulum but I learned a lot about how
physics how science should be taught
okay so back to the motor my motor
actually started turning only a couple
of years ago one or two years ago
because I got back to the problem with
intensity I said man I have to do it
well you can go ahead and buy the motors
from the shop I mean there are all kinds
of toys where there are these simple
motors you can just open them up and see
what’s wrong but but you know that small
that element of thinking was missing
even if there’s an electrical engineer
in this hall I can actually challenge
him to explain how does it motor turn
I’ll tell you they were fumble okay
AIIMS why am I so confident about this
because when I could not get my motor to
turn to like debugged it here okay I
just kept applying all the Lars
Fleming’s rules left hand right hand and
and eventually I found one day that you
know I was it was working against a
fundamental force and then then I said
oh I don’t what to do okay I wouldn’t
get into the details but I said the
thinking had to be done so with some
thinking but some thinking and copper
coils and magnets and supports which are
actually called technical name to it
it’s called split rings but I actually
arrived at split rings by just thinking
and then a battery bingo your motor
turns I urge each one of you where if we
have time to go back and try this and I
made all the kids make the motor turn
later on it was like fun we were this
became our simple toy model for teaching
this became like something like a
pendulum and I was accumulating all
these Toyota models so no matter what
the team okay I could teach electricity
I could teach magnetism and I could
teach mechanics
I could teach fluids and that’s what I’m
going to show you what we did with the
kids and the amazing things that the
kids did when they were they were asked
to think free no exams holiday time good
food a lot of fun in the evening and so
that first a good summer program where I
realized that once the kids do hands-on
stuff they actually much better than you
and I’m going to show you that okay so
when I started
everyone about my motors the joy on the
kids face elders are no exception
then you see something done wow what an
excitement what a sense of achievement
that was palpable
my motto in places then the motor that
never moved started moving ok the motor
went to boardroom discussions in by a
previous company I used to work for IBM
and this became a topic for design
thinking ok a simple motor and the way
you debug the problems became the
subject matter for design thinking so
starting from exciting a kid to a very
you know high level discussions on
design thinking and debugging the motor
was everywhere suddenly people realize
the value of doing things simple things
perfectly and if you ignore a certain
feature you’ll be caught so debugging
the issues with simple basic thinking
all the way never give up on your
fundamentals if you’re not able to solve
a problem there’s something wrong
somewhere in the fundamentals ok moving
on I want to show you how the textbook
was brought to life and what these kids
did last time I gave them a pendulum to
work on I gave them magnet to play with
I gave them iron filings I was expecting
them to do things a they did not only a
but they did a and B and C and that’s
where I was really amazed and that’s
what I’m going to share with you so I’m
going to play the video and let’s see
how this goes oh go back I want us to
play ok watch
what’s the kids doing diligently kids
doing the experiments with a lot of
patience all because I told them that
eventually it’s going to validate their
thinking the model so this was the
normal length of the pendulum that that
I have recommitted in comes the this guy
who’s sitting right there on top he
wanted to do a 6 meter pendulum and I’m
scared I said man the 6 meter I don’t
know how it’s gonna work out it might
not even oscillate it it might it might
give me wrong
results okay and I let this guy do this
and lo and behold the data that this guy
got for the time period of the pendulum
was one of the best one of the best so
in in his honor to be named that point
of the graph as you know they watch
point his name is David and so that’s
what kids did
they’ve been beyond the norm and you
will see the next part where I gave them
back magnets to play with so you see I
wanted them to visualize the magnetic
fields around a simple bar magnet and
there is something amazing too they not
only restricted them they did not
restrict themselves to two dimensions
they suddenly dip the whole magnitude of
the iron filings and what they got was
three-dimensional magnetic fields
three-dimensional magnetic fields which
are traced by these iron filings just by
playing okay and you would see some
dried diagrams of magnetic fields in any
of the textbooks of science and you
would see that people never will have
the fun of the field unless the really
dirty their feet with this dirty their
hands with this and here’s what this
guy’s doing now he has dipped another
magnet and he’s going to bring the poles
closer okay magnet has not Pole and
South Pole so he’s going to bring the
poles closer then he’s going to flip it
and bring the poles closer and see the
interplay of those iron filings you are
virtually visualizing a
three-dimensional field magnetic field
now this was not Pole and South Pole
this is not Pole and South Pole and he’s
gonna flip it he’s gonna flip it in a
minute there he flips and see how they
repel see how the magnetic lines of
force repel magnetic lines of force all
these were like abstract concepts when
we were reading it for the first time
but you allow them to play with these
iron filings play them play with magnets
lo and behold they exceed your
expectations they move on and to go to
the next level where I just want to show
you a simple case
I want to show you a simple thing that
we ought to do in almost any class not
just the school or not just the college
level even at the degree level okay if
someone says that you want to learn
thermodynamics we generally don’t do
this if we don’t really see a discussion
of this so what I’m going to show you is
our hot water here and this is something
that turns this is nice this is a nice
looking Veen and there’s something that
blocks the two the two metal plates so
one plate and the other plate and in
between there’s form so the wheel turns
and the form keeps jumping up and down
between the plate so I’m going to show
you that in more closer detail but what
I want to show you is and this guy is
hot hopefully he’s hotter and I’m just
going to put it on this hot surface all
I’m creating is some heat at the bottom
plate and actually no heat on the top
plate the top plate is left to the
environment there’s AC and so it’s
cooler so there is a small difference in
temperature and hope I’m a hot world
stock so I’m just heating the bottom
plate okay so I’m just heating the
bottom plate and what do you expect
there’s air inside okay there’s air
inside and the air gets hot so the air
as long as it is in touch with the
bottom plate gets hot so the air expands
all of us know that the air expands so
when the air expands it will push the
stuff that is hanging on it the foam of
the this this small stuff that is
hanging on it and this this guy goes up
he turns to be okay the moment he goes
up the foam falls down so no more
heating and so air cools so this guy
will contract so I’m just going to give
it a lunch I need to give it initial
lunch because it has some inertia I look
at the beauty of this experiment you
don’t have to do much but what is the
challenge the challenge is simply this I
need to be very precise in the way I
make these things the lots of stuff that
can come in my way like they came to me
when I was a kid
not being able to run the motor the
motor was stuck because of lots of
friction some air I didn’t know how to
remove the friction the motor was stuck
because I couldn’t think of nice
supports for the coil look at this
beautiful apparent us here which I can
use to teach kids even grad students and
show them that hey heat is getting
converted to work and the complicated
stuff that you read as thermodynamics is
nothing but just heat getting converted
to work okay thank you so one moment I
know I know I have exceeded my time but
what are the issues that we face in
enabling such hands-on thinking okay
schools colleges and maybe universities
not this university because I’ve been
sampling everyone and I’ve been asking
everyone how are your labs everyone’s
happy with the labs so kudos to PDP whom
all these institutions are cutting down
on investments that may actually promote
a healthy lab culture what are the
issues capital costs I can’t make a
space for the lab I can’t dedicate extra
space for labs I can’t buy the materials
and these are costly materials okay and
I maintain some of them break one of the
kids have brought on the morning Brooke
so you need to take care of that I need
to maintain stuff
the lack of teaching experts the
teachers themselves have to be hands-on
even before they expect the class to be
hands-on so this vicious cycle has to be
broken somehow okay short sighted return
on investment calculations won’t help we
need to invest big time in in getting
this to work the hands-on thinking in
USA they have recognized a similar
problem people are cutting corners and
not being able to invest in lab space
and materials it’s day two they face a
similar problem in schooling and so
there are things called food trucks the
food trucks are not food trucks the food
trucks are trucks giant trucks loaded
with experiments hands-on experiments
and the trucks travel like the ones we
have we have a smaller version of that
from August Lea Science Foundation that
caters to schools and so
food trucks and they have began
addressing the problems only then will
the likes of Silicon Valley’s spring
forth and sustain I rest my case
thank you [Applause]
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