Students should always be inquisitive and cultivate the ability for lateral thinking which will enable them to see many opportunities in seemingly normal things or situations, says Sharad P. Kale, Head (Technology Transfer), Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai.
Had Newton taken the apple falling to the ground for granted instead of pondering over why it should fall down, the world wouldn’t have known about gravitation, he said, while addressing the students of Narayana Olympiad School here on Wednesday. Dr. Kale said that any person from anywhere in the world, be it a remote village or a city, could reach the pinnacle in their chosen careers by thinking differently. One has to be observant and focussed to achieve it.
The genesis of atomic energy research began in a restaurant in Germany during the mid-1930s. Albert Einstein had written the famous equation e = mc2 (square) on the table top in a restaurant. Hitler wanted it to be used for manufacture of the atom bomb to conquer the world during World War II. But by 1943, Hitler began losing the war and a noted scientist had declared that there was no need to develop the atom bomb. Other scientists, however, disagreed and the result was its development and use for destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Atomic energy created a wrong impression among the people that it was meant only for destruction. He likened atomic energy to a knife, which could be used either for destruction or to perform various tasks. Science is the ability to think differently. Rana Pratap had harvested rainwater to collect 3.5 lakh gallons of water when there was just 2.5 inches of rain. Lead was used as a base in construction in the olden days to increase the life of buildings, which many scientists and engineers are unaware to this day.
