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Barriers in
Popularising Science
G. Venkatesh
Deputy Editor, Minerals and Metals Review, Mumbai - 400 039
E-mail :
venkatesh_cg@yahoo.com
Introduction
Anything constructive undertaken within a
country for its citizens, should necessarily consider the
impediment that are ingrained in the socio-economic and
political scenario that prevails there in. To learn science, the
mind has to be uncluttered – like Newton's was, when he was
seated under the apple tree 1.
In situations and systems where true merit is not rewarded,
recognised or appreciated and one needs to concentrate more on
how he wraps up the package that he presents, it is more often
then not that an aesthetically designed package with
functionality tending to nil, get passed up the ladder.
Idealism
does not pay
When for an indivisual,
motivation to contribute more for the development of the nation,
is very hard to find in an overpopulated country like India,
which has, for 56 years, been putrefying in an environment
infected with the viruses of corruption and the bacteria of
bureaucracy, great minds are conditioned at infancy or
adolescence to tread the beaten paths and work like machines,
which at times, do not even get the regular fill of grease and /
or lubricating oils. In such a country as ours, which has given
the world its Ramanujams and Khuranas (both of whom were lucky
to beat it and move out to foreign soil), dirt and muck seem to
be having their say more than the fragrance of positive deeds.
Well, there may be many more Ramanujams in the country, whose
efforts sometimes just become equivalent to 'attar before the
mule' in India, when they represent themselves before the
decision makers in the country. There was a Hardy then, but you
connot have one each for every scholar here who has it in him.
And that too, in a country of 1 billion people; some are bound
to get left out, by the laws of statistical sampling.
When you popularise
science, you make science not the prerogative of a chosen few,
who have been gifted with great brains and razor-sharp
intellects, but the wealth that everyone enjoys and benefits
from – Benefits, not necessarily in the narrower context of
making money, but in the more subtler context of feeling that
one is very much a part of the global village, which is making
giant strides in the world of science and technology. It is a
tough task, easier visualised than done. It is easy to make a
beginning, but what matters more here, is the efficacy of
follow-ups, to gauge the extent of understanding and
application.
Originality sullied
If you spend two
lectures in an engineering class explaining to the students how
Nikolai Tesla struggled to get his AC motor going and how Edison
cheated him2, they may make a complaint to the Department that
you are not training them for the examinations ahead. And
besides, Edison died a billionaire with so many patents to his
name. The genius of Tesla drove him to commit suicide. 'So',
they would query, 'of what avail was Tesla's genius, when he
lacked business savvy?' You would not have any answer to that.
Your intentions may have been noble, but then, still you do not
get there, as things have changed dramatically.
Bean counters vs
technologists
There are cases
when science suggests that something is good, while business
acumen says it isn't. In thebattle that ensues between the two,
it is the businessmen (or bean counters as Lee Iacocca would
label them3) who come out on top. If steel bridges are in vogue
in Japan and South Korea, simply for the wonderful properties
that steel possesses, it is because the planners there know that
iron ore, when smelted, and converted with the right alloying
elements into steel, has properties which confer longevity to
the structures built out of it. But in countries which are
dominated by the business tycoons who have interests in the
cement
business and who also
have clouts in the government whose permission is required
before any builder/contractor commences work on steel
structures,
well, science is martyred in a big way. Not that the strength of
steel in structures is not known or appreciated here.
Science has it that
copper is the second best conductor after silver. Hence, it is
the cheapest and best. Yet, strategists in India, in order to
create a market for aluminium, introduced what is now famous in
history as the Copper Control Order, to introduce aluminium in
place of copper. Well, the basic intention was not to find
substitutes, but to get value for the bauxite that was being
mined in the country, by Nalco et al. What followed as a result
of this, is known to all. A case of if you have it, use it, even
if it is not the right thing. However in the above case, it was
not ignorance. Everyone knew that copper was a better conductor.
This violation led to more problems. Energy losses multiplied.
Then once again science was called to the fore. It is quite
another issue that this led to development in motors and
transformers, which over the years, have become more efficient.
But ultimately it is science and its application that will save
the day. Science here is called in to save money, to check
useless expenditure. In days bygone, it used to create wealth,
even now it does, but more as an agent which cuts back on the
follies that are often committed by adventurous (and often
political) decisions which are ill judged, not backed by the
tenets of science.
-
Rajvanshi Anil,
Creative mystery of a prepared mind, In the column Speaking
Tree, Times of India, February 20, 2003.
-
Loms Robert, The man
who invented twentieth century (Nikolai Tesla, Forgotten
Gemius of Electronic), Headline Book Publishing, London.
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Iacocca Lec and Novak
Willian, Iacocca - An Autobiography, Baentam Books, New Delhi.
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