My grandmother says that as a kid I didn't speak a single word for three years. But then in a span of one week, she said, I had started speaking words, sentences and quotable quotes.
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| I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day.. I will understand conservation of energy. |
Anyway, that is exactly what happened after my session with the janitor. We were identifying newer and newer ways to move the paper ball - we were identifying more and more forms of energy.
When my mother dropped the cycle key that I had forgotten from the balcony, I saw that it dropped faster and faster as it fell. Hey! that speed of the key could move a paper ball. So an object has some energy just because it is at height, I realized. I wondered what that energy is called. Then it hit me - I meant the keys."Ouch!" I said, rubbing my head. (The energy associated with height is called as potential energy, I remembered later)
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| Roller Coaster At 1: high above the ground. (High Potential Energy), very less speed (Low Kinetic Energy) At 2: just above the ground. (Low Potential Energy), very high speed (High Kinetic Energy) But total energy remains constant in 1 and 2 |
When the janitor made Dal in his pressure cooker, he saw the weight lift up and steam escaping with a whistling noise. And he immediately realized that heat has energy! By heating water, he had built steam in the cooker. And when enough steam had been built, it lifted heavy steel weight, forget a paper ball. He said he was so happy that he danced for fifteen minutes singing, "I have discovered heat energy." Then, for dinner, he ate burnt Dal.
I saw my kid brother playing with bow and arrow in the park and realized that the stretched string has energy, because when my kid brother released the string, it pushed the arrow so hard that the arrow flew to the sky. A stretched string is like an elastic band, I realized. I pull the bow string spending my energy. This stretches the string giving it elastic energy. When I release the string, the string does work on the arrow. The string goes to normal length losing its energy, but the arrow gains kinetic energy because it is moving fast. Total Energy is conserved!
"Mom! a stretched rubber band has energy!" I said when I reached home. "I think it is called elastic energy."
"Okay! where is your younger brother? Did you leave him in the park alone?" She asked.
When electricity went off and I lit a candle, I saw the paraffin wax melting and heat and light energy getting created. But I did not know what energy was getting transformed.
"Dad! What energy is getting converted into light in a candle?"
"Don't you know chemical energy? It is just the way car runs on petrol or we metabolize our food to get energy," my dad said.
"But what exactly is chemical energy. How do we metabolize to do work?" I asked.
"Just bring the candle, will you?"He said. He didn't know what chemical energy or metabolism was.
He was just using the words like a parrot telling "Come in! Welcome" without ever knowing what it means.
But I was not like my father. I really understood energy! I heard, saw and felt energy forms and its transformations. I was like the hero, Neo, in that old movie (Matrix, I think it is called) that my father had shown me. The hero and everyone else lived in a virtual reality created by machines, and once he got that enlightenment that he was living in virtual world, he did not see people and buildings anymore, but just bits and bytes. It was exactly like that for me.
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| I see it now! The reality - the bits and bytes. But I want to see it in Arial, size 24. Can I change the settings of reality? |
At dinner table, my father opened his mouth to say something.I saw the food that he had eaten before, a form of chemical energy, being converted into elastic energy to stretch his jaw muscles and open his mouth. As he talked, more chemical energy was converted into kinetic energy to move the tongue, vocal cords and to cause a disturbance in the air . This disturbance in air moved like a wave in the swimming pool when a pebble is dropped. Okay, that wave of air disturbance is what is called sound energy, I said to myself. The sound wave reached me in slow motion.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" I heard in my father's voice.
'Man! It must be horrible to be like the hero of that movie Matrix,' I thought.
I saw chemical energy in my body getting converted into electrical energy in brain and creating the thought pattern in my mind.
That is how I designed a game called Energy Matrix which we played in school during class hours. It is a very simple game. One person will tell a scenario, say a batsman hitting a cricket ball, and the other person should identify all the energy transformations that take place. You too can introduce this game in your class. But make sure you are cool enough else you will get a HALL OF FAME entry to the nerd club of school. No questions asked.
"You lose again! Those are not the energy transformations that happen when you drop a ball to the floor," I told Bookworm Bhumika.
"As the ball drops from height and gains speed, potential energy of the ball gets converted into kinetic energy. When it strikes the floor, slows down and gets compressed, kinetic energy gets transferred into sound energy and elastic energy. As it decompresses and rises from the floor again, elastic energy converts back to kinetic energy. And of course, as the ball goes up, the kinetic energy becomes potential energy again"
The crowd surrounding us cheered wildly. Some even started dancing.
Every class has its share of nerds who want to be like Einstein or Bill Gates or Vishwanathan Anand. But Bookworm Bhumika was no ordinary nerd. She wanted to be Einstein and Bill Gates and Vishwanathan Anand. Her idea of taking a break from studying science was doing algebra.
"This game is stupid," She shouted angrily.
"Like the game you invented is gold," I said and everybody laughed. Bookworm Bhumika had invented, 'Tell what happened' game. Somebody would call out a year, say 1526. and the other person , usually Bhumika, would say what happened in that year. (First battle of Panipat)
Bookworm Bhumika was the undefeated champion of 'Tell what happened' game because, well, she memorized all school books from cover to cover and no one else wanted to play.
In fact, once to test her, I asked her the significance of the year 2013.
Pat came her reply, "Print date of first edition of the science book."
"Well, at least my game helps you remember all the years and score marks in the exam," Bhumika said. "How does your game help? Tell me how does it help."
"Well, my game helps you to learn new concepts," I said.
"Oh! New concepts, I see. I thought this game helps you to get new friends, new friends like..." she paused and looked around. I thought she was referring to those standing around us and cheering me.
".... like your elderly friend at the library," she said loud.
The whole class went silent and the time slowed down.
My body went in overdrive burning chemical energy which was converted into kinetic energy as my heart beat increased rapidly, which caused blood to be pumped into my blood vessels increasing pressure energy in my capillaries - which stretched my muscles increasing the elastic energy, making it ready to swing into action. It was time for fight or flight.
"You ..." I hissed as I got up and lifted my hand.
"Stop it," boomed my class teacher from the entrance.
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