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Read into the life of Einstein, you'll find
reason enough to cheer for yourself even if you were bad in studies!
Reportedly, Einstein's teacher at school
had told his father that there was not much to expect from him as he did
very poorly in his lessons. If his teacher had lived long enough to see
him come up with E= mc², I'm sure the teacher had to turn ostrich for the
rest of her life!
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Of all the science lab sessions I
had in my school days, the physics lab sessions were the most dreaded ones. In
the chemistry lab you could tweak the chemical experiments and their results in
some manner, and a hit and trial identification wasn’t that tough when you
could guess the main reacting components. But this was painfully difficult, at
least for me in case of the physics lab experiments. Some days back I came
across a facebook meme where it mentioned that if the tree had fallen on
Newton’s head instead of the apple, our lives would have been a lot easier.
With due respect to Sir Issac Newton, I wouldn’t have disagreed to this fact
when I was in school. Remembering myself during the physics practicals, I would
have wished that a whole lot of these adventurous physicists actually lost
their way before they stumbled upon their discoveries. But again, these men
changed everything and physics is one of the highly significant branches of
science. Anyway, I didn’t feel so magnanimous while figuring out the
experiments. The thing that I disliked the most about the physics practical
classes was the mathematical calculation we had to sort out with the formulas. Almost
all the time invariably, my results would show up highly deviated from the
expected range of values.
The physics lab was on the floor just
above the chemistry lab and unlike the latter it was well lit and ventilated.
As far as I recollect, the first experiments began with some measuring
instruments which were taught to us. I clearly remember, there were Vernier
callipers and screw gauge. At first sight they appeared to me like tools from
Frankenstein’s lab. The Vernier Calliper was a set of sliding scales and it had
a metallic strip that could be used for measuring depth. When you extended the
scales to their limits, it appeared like a junior AK-47. When teachers didn’t
look, kids would love to use the Vernier Callipers to simulate an intense war
field targeting the enemy with the supposed lethal weapon. Though initially
confounding, using the Vernier callipers turned out to be easier compared to
other experiments we later had. And the screw gauge! The screw gauge was used
for precision measurements as you could figure out the value till the third
decimal place. I felt screwed while counting places of 100 markings. Later more
was in store as we came across the application of theoretical physics in the
lab practical.
There was torque effect, pendulum
and its relation with acceleration due to gravity, electric circuits, real and
virtual image using lens, tracing magnetic field (I liked this one) and some
more I don’t remember. I was once floundering in my internal assessment when I
had to determine the weight of a rock (picked up from the school ground) in a
torque effect experiment. There was another weight suspended at the end of a
metre scale to balance the weight of the rock. My results were betraying the
torque principles and I kind of goofed up the calculations to make things fall
in place. I was however happy that I didn’t get the pendulum experiment. Every
time I did this experiment during class, the pendulum bob would share a
love-hate relationship with me while dancing away under the gravitational
acceleration. There was some relationship between the height of suspension and
the time taken by the bob to sway on its path. The bob didn’t comply with the
laws in my case and I would rather end up copying accurate values from a
friend’s copy.
The lens imaging was nice. We
used the wall as a screen and the trees outside were used as the objects. A cute
little faint image of the trees was captured on the wall. Tracing lines of a magnetic
field was also nice. The iron pins would arrange themselves along the lines of
the magnetic field and we would then trace it on a paper. I also remember that
while setting up a very simple circuit I got a small electric pang that felt
like an ant bite. The only thing that was a problem in the experiments was when
the calculations of an experiment deviated madly beyond the expected ranges.
During tests you could only pray that you guessed really well while trying to
match the right values when there was a sign of faltering. In chemical
experiments you could take the help of a neighbouring friend as the same test
or not more than two test variants were given for assessment to the entire
class. This privilege didn’t exist in case of physics experiments as each had
unique results and the teacher would later verify with your set of instruments.
The physics practical room was
like a huge hall. There were stretches of cupboards or drawers, whose flat tops
were used as tables for the experiments. If our teacher was absent for a
practical class, the substitute teacher would usually ask us to practice on our
own. This was a golden chance to chatter away 80 minutes of a double period
practical class while putting up pretence of being deeply engrossed in an
experiment with an Einstein like expression. There was enough light coming in
and sometimes if you worked near to the window, you might want to stare at the
trees outside in our school campus. I liked watching the trees, especially if
they bore flowers and their leaves swayed in the breeze.
And all this ended after I passed
out my tenth standard board exams. I would only catch a peek into the physics
lab later to see how my science stream friends were faring in deadlier
experiments. Some obviously aced them and were totally brushed up with all the
concepts. And for some who chose science to feel secure among the herd of
science opters didn’t appreciate the unexpected complication of the subject! No
it wasn’t bad. I realize it now that our teachers were really good in teaching
us stuffs that made Salt Lake School produce a brilliant lot of academic
achievers. Most of my contemporary friends are doing really well and I feel
proud to share the same batch. It’s not been that long I have left school. But
I do feel nostalgic when I recollect sweet memories of my schooldays!
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