Thinking Aloud!

I had a secret dream of “making” a cycle which is driven by
an electric motor powered by battery/solar cell. Though I
knew it will be more difficult than what I could do alone
but it seems I no longer need to do it!! Just a quick look
at

this wikipedia article is enough to tell that already
people have done great work in this direction. And that it
will take a while before I can make any useful contribution.

While looking at related links, I came around few very
interesting technologies. For e.g. kinetic energy is one of
the most basic physics concept but how many of us would have
thought about storing
kinetic energy? Yes storing kinetic energy for using it
later maybe to drive a generator or even a whole passenger
bus!!! At least to me it sounds incredible that you can use
a flywheel to actually move a bus(very aptly called

Gyrobus). And this system was even tried commercially.

Then there is

Nuna, a fully solar powered car which can reach speeds
up to 130kmps while consuming nothing but sunlight! And
guess what, it was made by university students. Actually
Nuna is a series of solar cars made by students(there is
even one Indian in the team!) of a Dutch university to
participate in the World Solar Challenge, a competition in
which solar cars race across Australia covering 3021
kilometers between Darwin and Adelaide.

And then there’s

this car by Chrysler in which headlights automatically
switch to low beams when the car detects approaching
vehicles.

Hmmm it seems 18th and 19th centuries were the best for
inventors, when anybody could become an “inventor” by
working in his/her garage. Ok, I know it needs a lot of
talent and intelligence. But in today’s scenario, people
have already done so much work that they have to invent such

absurd competitions. How I wish I was born in Faraday’s
era!! And by the way do you know that Faraday is one of the
very few scientists/engineers who wasn’t very fond of
mathematics. I read somewhere that his laboratory notes
never contained any mathematical relations!!

Here is what Wikipedia says about him:

““Faraday
was known for designing ingenious experiments, but lacked a
good mathematics education. (However, his affiliation with
James Clerk Maxwell helped in this regard, as Maxwell was
able to translate Faraday’s experiments into mathematical
language.) He was regarded as handsome and modest, declining
a knighthood and presidency of the Royal Society (Davy’s old
position)”.

And on the other end were people like Gauss and Maxwell who
had nothing else to do except giving complex mathematical
relations.

Finally I have found my role model!! A true

Experimentalist rather than a

Scientist or

Engineer…

 
posted by Sumit Tada @ 7:14 PM

2 Comments:

 
MoonWalker said…

geek!!!!

 
11:00 AM, April 13, 2006


   

 
Sumit Tada said…

MW

Arey kahan, at the most wanna-be-geek. But hen I also wanna-be-millionaire

 
6:11 PM, April 13, 2006