My previous two posts were describing my nightmarish experiences in the Physics and the Chemistry labs.
This one is about my first Physics theory class at the Bishop Moore College. The lecturer took to the platform and started speaking something in English. Even before I got time to start shivering in fear and despair he drew a right-angled triangle on the board and started raining statements like "sine thetta = opposite side/hypotenuse". Thetta? My Good Heavens !! And sine thetta?? After some more jugglery with some more words I had never heard, he wrote on the board "logarithm" and started saying "log of a number is defined as ..." !! I sat like a log.
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After this Physics class I came to the conclusion that I will never pass the pre-degree course. And what next.......?? I never knew. As confusion grew into chaos a wonderful thing happened. I was sitting on the cement bench on the Mavelikkara railway platform when my senior Suresh V. Anand appeared before me like an angel. He asked me the reason for my gloom and I hesitantly told him all about the sine thetta, log and the logjam that ensued. He took a piece of paper and explained to me the whole things in less than 15 minutes. With protruding eye balls and pouting lips I asked,
"That's all"
Suresh: "Yes, that's all".
I was amazed by the clarity with which he talked. After all these years, I still wonder as to why the lecturer made the whole thing so complicated. He should have told us that "thetta" is just a Greek letter and that as "x" in algebra, in trigonometry we usually use Greek letters. (I think Suresh latter became an officer in the Federal bank. Those days smart guys preferred the bank job to any other)
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Things changed drastically and I started loving Physics once Kurien Sar (Prof K. Kurien) started teaching us Mechanics. If I was all at sea with "sine thetta" I was very much at home with "tan thetta" when Kurien Sar wrote on the board "tan thetta = v^2 / rg . He was teaching us the "banking of curves" and it was after that class that I decided to learn only Physics and Mathematics after the pre-degree course.
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Incidentally, Kurien Sar's younger son Vimal Kurien is on the faculty of the Commerce dept of CMS college. The boy feels shy, and happy too, when I tell him in the presence of others that I have carried him on my shoulders.
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This one is about my first Physics theory class at the Bishop Moore College. The lecturer took to the platform and started speaking something in English. Even before I got time to start shivering in fear and despair he drew a right-angled triangle on the board and started raining statements like "sine thetta = opposite side/hypotenuse". Thetta? My Good Heavens !! And sine thetta?? After some more jugglery with some more words I had never heard, he wrote on the board "logarithm" and started saying "log of a number is defined as ..." !! I sat like a log.
**********************************
After this Physics class I came to the conclusion that I will never pass the pre-degree course. And what next.......?? I never knew. As confusion grew into chaos a wonderful thing happened. I was sitting on the cement bench on the Mavelikkara railway platform when my senior Suresh V. Anand appeared before me like an angel. He asked me the reason for my gloom and I hesitantly told him all about the sine thetta, log and the logjam that ensued. He took a piece of paper and explained to me the whole things in less than 15 minutes. With protruding eye balls and pouting lips I asked,
"That's all"
Suresh: "Yes, that's all".
I was amazed by the clarity with which he talked. After all these years, I still wonder as to why the lecturer made the whole thing so complicated. He should have told us that "thetta" is just a Greek letter and that as "x" in algebra, in trigonometry we usually use Greek letters. (I think Suresh latter became an officer in the Federal bank. Those days smart guys preferred the bank job to any other)
**********************************
Things changed drastically and I started loving Physics once Kurien Sar (Prof K. Kurien) started teaching us Mechanics. If I was all at sea with "sine thetta" I was very much at home with "tan thetta" when Kurien Sar wrote on the board "tan thetta = v^2 / rg . He was teaching us the "banking of curves" and it was after that class that I decided to learn only Physics and Mathematics after the pre-degree course.
***********************************
Incidentally, Kurien Sar's younger son Vimal Kurien is on the faculty of the Commerce dept of CMS college. The boy feels shy, and happy too, when I tell him in the presence of others that I have carried him on my shoulders.
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Exaggeration is an art.
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