A friend of mine from the good old IIT days invited me to talk to school kids in Jammu and Kashmir. After IIT, he started to work in the Prime Minister's Rural Development Fellows Scheme. This fund allows young educated people to contribute towards development in conflict-ridden or generally impoverished areas of India. Vaibhav got posted in Kashmir and since then he has spoken to me a few times in a way that suggested that he has grown fairly attached to the people of the place.
Recently he asked me if I would like to give a 15 minute presentation to some school children in Kashmir about a career in science and research. Well, of course I got really excited by this so I said that I would like more time. He said, "15, 20, 30, how much ever you would like to speak". I asked him if I could speak for 45 minutes instead, and he was glad to oblige. Little did I know I would be speaking to a group of about 500 children simultaneously skyping in to my presentation from 20 different schools all over Jammu and Kashmir! I also requested Vaibhav that I get to speak to 9th and 10th graders because I felt that my talk could influence these kids the most.
Preparing for this presentation was a lot more unnerving than giving a usual talk to physicists. This was truly unchartered territory and I wasn't sure at what level I was expected to describe things in order to get through to the children. How many pictures? How many questions leading them to answers? How much story and narrative? Should I focus on a single topic and explain it well or should I talk to them generally about many different aspects of research in physics? How many slides that talk about career prospects, and other practical matters? I was also worried about my ability to connect with these kids---how much of my experience at some of the most privileged institutions in India and the US would be relevant to their life? At the end of the day, I desparately wanted the talk to be useful for the children, so that they could go home having learnt something and having been inspired to learn more.
It was 12.30 AM or so here (11 AM in India) when the talk started. Nervousness was keeping me up. Vaibhav's friend did a good job of introducing me to the different schools one by one. None of the them were co-ed, but instead, there were about 12 all girls schools, and 8 all boys schools. I was a little disconcerted at first to see faces of so many girls covered up in hijabs, but I was gladdened by the fact that this did not seem to prohibit them in expressing themselves or in asking questions. The boys were definitely quieter or shyer.
I chose to speak entirely in Hindi because I was not sure how proficient the kids would be in English. There was also the odd chance that they would not be able to understand my Americanized Indian accent, so when I did use English, I tried to enunciate everything as clearly as possible so that this would not be a problem.
I started with a quote from Feynman," You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something." Cliched maybe, but extremely relevant in my opinion to the way education is imparted in Indian schools. Underfunding and poor salaries lead to overworked and less than motivated teachers whose sole aim is (often) to cover a myriad set of textbooks from start to end---the actual act of learning takes a back seat. I talked about how necessary it is to ask questions, and find ways of answering them. I feel like this got through to them because I got so many interesting questions at the end of the talk! More on this later.
After describing to them some of the major themes in modern physics, I turned to discussing black holes, gravitational waves, and LIGO. I was particularly impressed by one school of girls who answered every single question of mine! When I showed them a picture of the milky way and asked them what it was, they instantly recognized it. I was shocked. I told them that maybe since they are in Kashmir, recognizing the Milky Way was natural for them but it wasn't so for me, having been brought up in big cities. Then, and this is an example+joke I was extremely proud of, I asked them how "Raju's phone" was able to communicate with "Kaju's phone". And they instantly shouted, "Electromagnetic Waves!". I was shocked again! So then I told them, "when the electrons in Raju's phone wiggle, they radiate electromagnetic waves. But now, let's forget about shaking the electrons in Raju's phone. Let's shake Raju himself!". Now of course they did not know about gravitational waves. So I told them how gravitational waves emitted by Raju could change the distance between Raju and Kaju. This time they were rightly confused. So I told them Raju is a little whiny guy, but when you collide two massive black holes, they can radiate noticeably large gravitational waves---and this was detected in LIGO---and how India is building a LIGO of its own with the help of American scientists.
I was reminded in this moment of my high school physics teacher, Mr. Singh, I sadly forget his first name. He was incredible at making us all laugh while he solved various physics problems for us. Every class was like a comedy show. He would teach us physics using a slew of strange characters to describe something as simple as computing the forces on a body in a free-body diagram, all the while contorting his body in strange angles to describe the effects of various forces. I'm not sure I was as funny as him but I tried to be, a little bit.
After that, I described to them some condensed matter physics---how it is a study of various phases of matter---the principles underlying superconductivity, and its applications in MRI machines and bullet trains. I showed them a few videos of the Meissner effect, etc.
Before I ended my discussion on physics, I wanted to highlight the contribution of some prominent Indian physicists. I talked about how great Indian physicists have come from each and every corner of the country: Abdus Salam from Punjab, SN Bose and JC Bose from Bengal, CV Raman, S Chandrashekhar from Tamil Nadu, etc. I told them how there are so many prominent Indian physicists in top American institutions, and how there are now many excellent physics research institutes in India as well. I think this is important for Indian kids. I'm not sure if this is relevant to most kids in Western societies, but as an Indian kid growing up, and certainly one who is not very well informed, as I was, you're always growing up questioning whether you can ever be good enough to make contributions to a fundamental field like physics. I guess a lot of disadvantaged communities/underrepresented races/or women may face similar self-doubt. Which reminds me, I completely forgot to give more examples of successful women in academia; I totally failed in this respect.
Then I turned my attention to biotechnological research, and some other aspects of data-driven research in industry.
At the end, each school was allowed to ask me one or two questions. I saw all kinds of faces asking questions. A boy asked," How do you observe black holes if even light cannot escape." Another boy asked me about research in robotics (I had shown them some videos of artificial intelligence and robots from Boston Dynamics). A girl asked me about research in biotechnology and the scope for such research in India. Another girl asked me why doctors tell us to avoid going to CT-Scans. I knew that it must be that X-rays denature certain proteins in our cells, but I wasn't sure exactly why it's all so dangerous so I told her that unfortunately I can't answer the question. "Sorry." So the girl smiled and said, "Koi nahin Sir, hota hai" ("No worries, Sir, it happens"). :P Thank god I was able to answer rest of the questions.
Some people also asked me more philosophical questions. One boy asked me what I thought inspired me to take this route in life, and how much of this is due to guidance. I could sense that he was hurting. Kashmir is a sad place at times. No jobs for young people. Constant threat of terrorism, army and police brutality, all threatening any normalcy in life. I told him that life is a lot about the initial conditions you get; that I was lucky to have good guidance in my life, but that, from one's own perspective, the best we can do is it to forget what we cannot change, and focus on the good inspiration we get in life, and act on it in a positive way. I told him that I understood that many people in life do not lead a life commensurate to their efforts and their talent, but this is unfortunately the way life is at times. I told them that they're still young so if they work hard towards set goals, anything is possible. The students all clapped at the end of that :P At this moment, I felt like talking about the Bhagavad Gita, but I refrained since I did not want to bring anything that could be perceived as religion into the conversation.
In another school, a teacher dedicated an Urdu couplet to me, lol. I wished to reply in another Urdu couplet, but I realized that the only ones I could remember at the time were those on the pleasures of alcohol. Not exactly the best thing to discuss in front of girls in hijabs, so I decided to keep quiet.
Overall, I could not be more satisfied with the experience!
Recently he asked me if I would like to give a 15 minute presentation to some school children in Kashmir about a career in science and research. Well, of course I got really excited by this so I said that I would like more time. He said, "15, 20, 30, how much ever you would like to speak". I asked him if I could speak for 45 minutes instead, and he was glad to oblige. Little did I know I would be speaking to a group of about 500 children simultaneously skyping in to my presentation from 20 different schools all over Jammu and Kashmir! I also requested Vaibhav that I get to speak to 9th and 10th graders because I felt that my talk could influence these kids the most.
Preparing for this presentation was a lot more unnerving than giving a usual talk to physicists. This was truly unchartered territory and I wasn't sure at what level I was expected to describe things in order to get through to the children. How many pictures? How many questions leading them to answers? How much story and narrative? Should I focus on a single topic and explain it well or should I talk to them generally about many different aspects of research in physics? How many slides that talk about career prospects, and other practical matters? I was also worried about my ability to connect with these kids---how much of my experience at some of the most privileged institutions in India and the US would be relevant to their life? At the end of the day, I desparately wanted the talk to be useful for the children, so that they could go home having learnt something and having been inspired to learn more.
It was 12.30 AM or so here (11 AM in India) when the talk started. Nervousness was keeping me up. Vaibhav's friend did a good job of introducing me to the different schools one by one. None of the them were co-ed, but instead, there were about 12 all girls schools, and 8 all boys schools. I was a little disconcerted at first to see faces of so many girls covered up in hijabs, but I was gladdened by the fact that this did not seem to prohibit them in expressing themselves or in asking questions. The boys were definitely quieter or shyer.
I chose to speak entirely in Hindi because I was not sure how proficient the kids would be in English. There was also the odd chance that they would not be able to understand my Americanized Indian accent, so when I did use English, I tried to enunciate everything as clearly as possible so that this would not be a problem.
I started with a quote from Feynman," You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something." Cliched maybe, but extremely relevant in my opinion to the way education is imparted in Indian schools. Underfunding and poor salaries lead to overworked and less than motivated teachers whose sole aim is (often) to cover a myriad set of textbooks from start to end---the actual act of learning takes a back seat. I talked about how necessary it is to ask questions, and find ways of answering them. I feel like this got through to them because I got so many interesting questions at the end of the talk! More on this later.
After describing to them some of the major themes in modern physics, I turned to discussing black holes, gravitational waves, and LIGO. I was particularly impressed by one school of girls who answered every single question of mine! When I showed them a picture of the milky way and asked them what it was, they instantly recognized it. I was shocked. I told them that maybe since they are in Kashmir, recognizing the Milky Way was natural for them but it wasn't so for me, having been brought up in big cities. Then, and this is an example+joke I was extremely proud of, I asked them how "Raju's phone" was able to communicate with "Kaju's phone". And they instantly shouted, "Electromagnetic Waves!". I was shocked again! So then I told them, "when the electrons in Raju's phone wiggle, they radiate electromagnetic waves. But now, let's forget about shaking the electrons in Raju's phone. Let's shake Raju himself!". Now of course they did not know about gravitational waves. So I told them how gravitational waves emitted by Raju could change the distance between Raju and Kaju. This time they were rightly confused. So I told them Raju is a little whiny guy, but when you collide two massive black holes, they can radiate noticeably large gravitational waves---and this was detected in LIGO---and how India is building a LIGO of its own with the help of American scientists.
I was reminded in this moment of my high school physics teacher, Mr. Singh, I sadly forget his first name. He was incredible at making us all laugh while he solved various physics problems for us. Every class was like a comedy show. He would teach us physics using a slew of strange characters to describe something as simple as computing the forces on a body in a free-body diagram, all the while contorting his body in strange angles to describe the effects of various forces. I'm not sure I was as funny as him but I tried to be, a little bit.
After that, I described to them some condensed matter physics---how it is a study of various phases of matter---the principles underlying superconductivity, and its applications in MRI machines and bullet trains. I showed them a few videos of the Meissner effect, etc.
Before I ended my discussion on physics, I wanted to highlight the contribution of some prominent Indian physicists. I talked about how great Indian physicists have come from each and every corner of the country: Abdus Salam from Punjab, SN Bose and JC Bose from Bengal, CV Raman, S Chandrashekhar from Tamil Nadu, etc. I told them how there are so many prominent Indian physicists in top American institutions, and how there are now many excellent physics research institutes in India as well. I think this is important for Indian kids. I'm not sure if this is relevant to most kids in Western societies, but as an Indian kid growing up, and certainly one who is not very well informed, as I was, you're always growing up questioning whether you can ever be good enough to make contributions to a fundamental field like physics. I guess a lot of disadvantaged communities/underrepresented races/or women may face similar self-doubt. Which reminds me, I completely forgot to give more examples of successful women in academia; I totally failed in this respect.
Then I turned my attention to biotechnological research, and some other aspects of data-driven research in industry.
At the end, each school was allowed to ask me one or two questions. I saw all kinds of faces asking questions. A boy asked," How do you observe black holes if even light cannot escape." Another boy asked me about research in robotics (I had shown them some videos of artificial intelligence and robots from Boston Dynamics). A girl asked me about research in biotechnology and the scope for such research in India. Another girl asked me why doctors tell us to avoid going to CT-Scans. I knew that it must be that X-rays denature certain proteins in our cells, but I wasn't sure exactly why it's all so dangerous so I told her that unfortunately I can't answer the question. "Sorry." So the girl smiled and said, "Koi nahin Sir, hota hai" ("No worries, Sir, it happens"). :P Thank god I was able to answer rest of the questions.
Some people also asked me more philosophical questions. One boy asked me what I thought inspired me to take this route in life, and how much of this is due to guidance. I could sense that he was hurting. Kashmir is a sad place at times. No jobs for young people. Constant threat of terrorism, army and police brutality, all threatening any normalcy in life. I told him that life is a lot about the initial conditions you get; that I was lucky to have good guidance in my life, but that, from one's own perspective, the best we can do is it to forget what we cannot change, and focus on the good inspiration we get in life, and act on it in a positive way. I told him that I understood that many people in life do not lead a life commensurate to their efforts and their talent, but this is unfortunately the way life is at times. I told them that they're still young so if they work hard towards set goals, anything is possible. The students all clapped at the end of that :P At this moment, I felt like talking about the Bhagavad Gita, but I refrained since I did not want to bring anything that could be perceived as religion into the conversation.
In another school, a teacher dedicated an Urdu couplet to me, lol. I wished to reply in another Urdu couplet, but I realized that the only ones I could remember at the time were those on the pleasures of alcohol. Not exactly the best thing to discuss in front of girls in hijabs, so I decided to keep quiet.
Overall, I could not be more satisfied with the experience!
