Sunday, November 02, 2008

Above the ‘Law’… Not me either.

*Over a crackling radio*

Five, Four, three, two, one………

*And the rockets fire. *

India's first cosmonaut takes off on a mission to moon…

"Aaj Tak TV camera zooms to cosmonaut Yuri Chekku who was sitting inside the lunar module of Chandrayaan 111. Pyaare deshvaasiyoon dekh lo hamara garv aur abhimaan oopar jathe hue…manzil ki aur…Bharat ka pehla cosmonaut Sriharikota ke janata ko haat dikaathei huei nazar aa raha hein."

Over the mission radio in lunar module:-

MN: "Yuri...Yuri Chekku...Cobra 1 2 3….craft deviating from path…Mission to be aborted"
Yuri Chekku (desperately):"Pleaaaaaaaaaaaase….Madhavan uncle pleaaaase….Don't exterminate me…"

Madhavan uncle clinically presses the red button.

*A massive explosion up in the sky…and the GSLV rocket falls crashing down into pieces*

"Ente Ammmooooooooo"

*A massive thud and Yuri Chekku falls from his bed after the frightening dream.*

Damn again….another childhood dream comes crashing down…Why I have to take all the risky jobs!!

Space flight is a dream of every child. But in my case I knew it was not a possibility coz I think a roller coaster ride itself is one of the most dangerous feat done by man which requires years of mental preparation and physical training. Moreover I was not exemplary at school in science subjects like Physics and Maths. Though not that bad, considering I was quite good at multiplication esp. with zero which my Math teacher did not appreciate due to strange reasons. And my physics teacher taught students, Force= mass * acceleration by displaying live the force generated while the mass (read ME) was accelerated (read THROWN OUT OF CLASS).

Probably the mistake lies in the way we teach our kids subjects like Physics and Maths... How can you expect kids to believe in the strangely named Greekish and Romanish laws…? Personally I never took Pythagoras seriously coz I was under the impression it was some sort of a dinosaur. And again it was hard to believe Newton's law coz a normal kid would just eat the apple if it fell on his head. Moreover I never stopped watching Tom n Jerry per se and the cartoon was consistently proving that there were no laws as such, which made it harder for me to believe folks like Archimedes.

I tried my best to appreciate these subjects as I reached high school. But for me Pascal was always a rascal. I never understood that law…During engineering studies I was forced to study Heisenberg's uncertainty principle...uh...a law which even Heisenberg is uncertain about and yet Kerala University expects me to memorize it!!…Besides, there were no movies where they showed mathematicians or physicist as heroes, while all woman drooled over Indiana Jones who was merely a nomad with no particular aim in life…And when finally Hollywood made a movie about a Mathematician it was called "A Beautiful Mind"…as if there is so much romanticism involved in formulas and equations .What an irony!….No wonder by end the of college I knew more of Max Payne than Max Planck..

But no one can blame me for not being scientifically inquisitive…I have had my fair share of science experiments trying to squeeze the dough (which mom had prepared for the chapatti)into empty toothpaste tubes…My idea of a sandalwood flavored toothpaste did not go down well with folks though…Further scientific exploits like attempts to "cool" television set using ice cubes only ended up in blown remains…That was a humble attempt to prove parents that I was not wasting time watching television while they were away…Neither were attempts to study electromagnetic inductions by giving minor electric shocks to bro consider research worthy. Not successful experiments...but you learn from failures too...right?

Well learning science has become a lot easier now. When I was a kid the only motivation for me was to win a Nobel Prize the chances of which dwindled each passing year…and that I had sworn at my physics teacher that I ll see him again only after I win the Noble prize was a bad bet after all. Poor old man might be still waiting. (Or is he..:-P).

However physics laws have evolved over the years.The other day I saw a kid trying to memorize Thackeray's third law of Reaction.

"For every Bihari there is an equal and opposite Manoos reaction."

Inquisitive me asked him what was the first law.

"A politician continues to maintain its state of rest or of uniform lethargy unless acted upon by an external election force."

Sigh…Kids now know a lot better!!

******************************************************************************************************************
Today is the third anniversary of this blog…A big thanks to all readers who have motivated me to write this long…Dedicating one of my all time favorite song to all of you…

This song is also an advanced badminton learner video mastered by only a select few players in the world.

37 comments:

Alameen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Alameen said...

Congrats for successfully completing 3 years in blogosphere...

Arun said...

Cool. Was this post an automated spam ? i liked your idea...

scorpiogenius said...

III Anniversary!! Congrats man... But why no goodies on offer??;)

loved the 2 laws of motion! oh, and Physics!!?? drrrrrrrrah!

Alameen said...

Man,
How do you come up with such amazing stuff.. Evolving of physics.. LOL.. And you pretty much covered all the laws which we learned..

In 9th grade, English teacher asked a syllabus question about Jesse Owen's advise. A friend helped me to make me say, 'Don't worry be happy'..

Well.. No one ever said English is logical..

mathew said...

@Alameen
Thanks a lot!:-)

@Arun
I am perfectly confused with your comment..

@scorpiogenius
hehehe..thanks...goodies..mmm..;-P

Divs said...

wht a superb song! :)
n happy b'day blog! :)

freespirit said...

Was that a joke on thackeray? thats it. ur story ends right here! :D Let me call my sainiks.
And good lord! U r leaking out the sources of my badminton prowess. How the hell will i keep up my no.1 position!
Congrats on the 3 years :). Keep it going!

Praveen said...

CONGRATS on an eventful 3rd year during which 'I' became your reader..

"I was quite good at multiplication esp. with zero"..my fav line from that post..hehhee...I flew directly to my maths classes in school after I read that..

loved those jabs at stupid raj thackerey too:D

U ROCK!

Macadamia The Nut said...

Alas.. I'm mathematically and scientifically challenged
:(

P.S. Habby Hanniversary!! :D

silverine said...

Science? Its all Math to me :|

Yuri Chekku! LOL!!

Congratulations!!! Wishing you many more anniversaries!! And I like that song too and have seen the movie too, thanks to my dads collection.
Keep writing! :)

How do we know said...

oh man! Congratulations on the 3 years.. and ur science experiements make for great reading. :-)

mathew said...

@Divs
Thanks a lot! :-)

@freespirit
LOL!! *cowering in fear*;-D
thanks..and yeah badminton is afterall a complicated game..

@Praveen
thanks a lot..very much appreciate reading the blog..:-)

@Macadamia The Nut
hehehe...thank you..:-)

@Anju
LOL! bah you girl..;-P

Thanks for being one of the biggest motivator to write this blog...I have told before that you were one of the first people to encourage here..

@How do we know
danke schon..nice to know you enjoyed it..:-D

Unknown said...

woah, yuri chekku :D happy 3 birthday to blog! the bday treat post was LOL!

Superficial Gibbering prater said...

It's a delight to frequent your blog space...

The new newtonian laws were sooper cool..

Tell you what Bengalooru is also on its way to being mumbai-ed.
We have a 'yellow-red" flag party emerging as a major nuisance in the style of MNS and Shiv Sena.

Preeti Shenoy said...

LOL..LOL..this post had me chuckling all the way through..esp acceleration demo and ente amoooo and sandalwood flavoured tooth paste.

And what about ohm's law? i'm still haunted by nightmares--think i'll blog about it :-)
Cheers and ROCK ON..Congrats on your 3rd blog anniv.I am so gald i discovered your blog.
Cheers
preeti

confucius said...

" I was forced to study Heisenberg's uncertainty principle...uh...a law which even Heisenberg is uncertain about and yet Kerala University expects me to memorize it!!… "
Too good...I thought in more or less the same way...so I skipped it ... we should wait till he comes with a certainity principle...or else....u can try making one...!! :)

Mishmash ! said...

Pythagoras, Pascal...hmm ...evideyo kettittulla pole...!!!:D

cooling off the tv technique was brilliant !!!

Congrats on a meaningful 3 years...though I missed the first half , yours is one page I dont want to miss ....so pls continue to write even though I must admit, it's a challenge for me not to spill my morning coffee over the laptop (mostly he will chuck me out one day for that), especially with ur posts like Manadankunju and videos of badminton mastery!! ;-):-)

Mishmash ! said...

Should we come to Ambrosia for the anniv feast? :P

confucius said...

Congrats on completing 3 years .. I hope the party will have your famous tomato Crescendo and Sparkling water in venetian glass..
I took some inspiration from this for my new post...hope you wont mind ...:)

Dhanya said...

Hey a BIG Congrats on the Anniversary.. And an amazing post as usual.. was laughing away to glory :)

Anonymous said...

You whaaat??? ......cooled the TV with ice cubes!! ROTFLOL though I know its no laughing matter!! :-))
BTW I always thought Pythagoras was some kind of huge snake. :P
Aha, I know the song that you have dedicted even without stepping over to see it.
I find that you are a fellow Rafi fan and also a Cancerian to boot. Congrats on the 3rd anniversary!! :-)

Abhi said...

Hey hats off to you to remember all these laws n equations. I frankly don't rem any of those. Ghass anniversary man, really feels great to be part of this blog for the last two years :). Hope you celebrate many many more anniversaries like these. Loved the madhavan uncle dialogue :p

ps: i've finally ended my travels around India. Now you know why i was always telling i'm in a train in the previous few comments :)

anN-series said...

i want to daddicate a song...

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=L4dCwRVWjKc

please sing along and dance along too....

anN-series said...

but wait..wen is the party..where is the party..i dont have anything nice to wear!!!

mathew said...

@vidya
Thank you very much..:-)

@SGP
Oh..I wish sense prevailed among the general public..:-(

@Preeti
hehe..thanks..;-D
Dont remind me of Ohm's law either...it took me years to get over the trauma..;-P Do write a post on it..!

@confucius
Heisenberginee onnu kayyil kittate..rand enam paranjitte ollu!!;-D

@Mishmash
LOL!! evideyoo njannum kettittu ondu..;-P
Thanks a lot for encouraging me so much..Your comments are always awesome!! Along with Sliverine I should say you really motivated me to write...

Ambrosia feast oo...really wanna take such a risk!;-D

@Conficius
Thanks..:-)

@Dhanya
thank you very much..:-)

@Shail
Thanks for dropping here..
yeah..dad used to check the TV top to check if we were watching it all the time..So this was the obvious scientific approach myself and bro took..;-P

Yeah..with songs..am quite an oldies fan..:-)

@Abhi
hahaha..finally you are somewhere else besides a train..;-P
Thanks a lot for reading the blog over these years...appreaciate it very much..

Priya said...

Congrats to your blog and keep blasting as usual.

Anonymous said...

Happy birthday :-)

Arun Jose Francis said...

Wow, what a post to celebrate the anniversary! That was awesome!

Congrats and Keep writing!!!

Rahul Nair said...

congrats on completing 3 years of blogging very successfully..
I have enjoyed reading your posts...

This was hilarious too like always..

Unknown said...

multiplication esp. with zero which my Math teacher did not appreciate due to strange reasons

he he LOL and the manoos quote was too good!

Unknown said...

I bless that "May you write on for another 3 * 33 years"...:D no zeroes there!

Pooja Na(i)rayan said...

Happy anniversary. I was hoping the song u said was not this one. It has been my favorite and the word badminton kinda gave big clue. I feel some cuteness in whole pictureisation and I really didnt wnat u to make fun of it.
Happy 3 anniversary and i hope now that your sandalwood paste idea has come out in open there would be imitators. Beware

Melting into Oblivion said...

:-)....happy birthday to a blog that is ALIVE!!

thank you matthew for touching lives....for making me smile .

may your thoughts someday (soon!!) be the reigning 'bestseller'!!....easier to carry around..and peruse as desired!!

silverine said...

You have been tagged! :)

mathew said...

@Ann
thank you very much..absolutely brilliant song and dance!:-D

ahh..am afraid of visiting Mumbai..there is already a party going on there..;-P

@Priya
thanks a lot..

@Cris
Thank you..:-)

@Arun
thanks dude..

@Rahul
Thank you..

@Abraham
thanks dude..and yeah let me check with the calculator!;-p

@Pooja
Thank you..I actually love the song too..was mentioning about badminton just in mild humour..apologies..:-
)

@sweets
Thank you very much..that was a very generous compliment...:-)

Usha said...

3 years!! :)
Mathew, dude, know what? Thanks for blogging! :)