1Q

At some stage of life, I might be with a company and might come to the insti for recruitment. I was thinking of questions I would ask students. Yes, my tactic would be this: First find out the branch of the interviewee, and then base a single question on that branch. Would be good enough I suppose.

Computer Science - Answer all my questions in 0s and 1s. First question, what's your name?

Electrical - Show me an electron. Also, demonstrate to me how you will explain the concept of junction potential to a snake in front of you.

Mechanical: Draw the free body diagram under dynamic conditions, of the air molecule at a distance of 10cm from your retina. Clearly indicate the reaction forces. You may not assume continuum. Also, explain the action of a dust particle as a microturbine to the air molecule you just analysed.

Chemical - Explain the role of CFD in waste water management.

Engineering Physics - I'm going to select you only if you are in the top 10 percent of your class. Are you?

Aerospace - You must have done an Airplane Design course. Replace air by water and tell me the design procedure. Answer in brief and be accurate.

BioTech - Do you like drugs? If yes, explain why. If no, convince me that your answer will not change even upon the action of Sodium Thiopental

Civil - Look at the ceiling. Assuming we sit here forever, tell me, how long will it take for the ceiling to fall on us. Think mathematically.

Metallurgy - If you have 1kg of metal on one hand and 1kg of non metal on the other hand, which will itch more? Explain using any theorem you've studied.

Naval Architecture - You must have done a Ship Design course. Replace water by air and tell me the design procedure. Answer in brief and be accurate.

Woosh

So here I am in Bangalore again. It's been a couple of days, with interesting incidents.

1. It started with my train journey: Kaveri Express. My seat number was 56; Side upper berth. (55 was the Side lower berth). As I got into the train, I walked, rather hunched towards the other side as my height seemed to deny me any sight below 4 feet. I finally found my seat number. I also found a guy sitting in my seat. There were two of them, one sitting in 55, the other in 56. As my desire to keep warm air inside me for a while seemed impossible, I had to start a conversation.
These guys, after my first scrutiny, I thought were traveling in a train for the first time. Considering that all my first scrutinies lead me to wrong answers in the end sems, I decided to do away with the scrutiny. I told them politely that my number was 56 and showed them my ticket. They had a look at it. A look which was as obscure as the language they seemed to speak. Now, I was expecting one of them to get up and leave. Instead, one of them took their tickets out and showed me that the TTE had written 55, 55 in that. And this followed by a hand gesture and a broken statement 'Me 55. He 55. Both 55'.

Now, how the hell can two guys be given the same numbers by the TTE. Following the golden rule of science, that if you cannot solve a problem, solve a simpler one, I told them this:

"Yes. I understand both of you have been given 55. But my number is 56. So I get to sit here". (After all, to hell with them. If they both had to sit on each other's head or balls, I didn't care. As long as I had my seat).

The response was pretty spontaneous. These guys could think, if not speak.
One of the guys said "But both these seats are 55. So we both get to sit here".
To which I had to give an irritating answer "No sir. That is 55. This is 56".
To which I got a question "Then what is this on top?"
A perfectly valid doubt indeed.
I had to reluctantly answer "56". To which they wholeheartedly agreed.
I then explained "Look sir. For sitting, that is 55 and this is 56. For sleeping, 55 is down and 56 is on top". (Though my innocent mind gave a smirk when my ear heard me say on top)
Aw, it was time again for that obscure look. Felt like saying 'Have both seats if you want, but don't goddamn give me that look which makes me want to reshape your face'.
After a lot of arguing and convincing, I made them agree that 56 indeed was one of the seats. Hooh.

2. Next day, when I landed home from IISc, there was no power. Involuntarily, I had to attend mother (nature)'s call. Oh yes, I had my Nokia 6600. I used the light to guide myself, and went in to the bog. Then, suddenly, as I was balancing my phone, and my act, there were three beeps, and the phone went off. Oh, I remembered. No charge. Why the hell did it have to go off now. I couldn't see where I was. I couldn't see where anything was. Taking an initial guess and iterating, I reached everything I wanted to find (Though for a few, I didn't need to iterate). I got out somehow.

3. On my way to IISc the next day, between 10th and 11th cross, Malleshwaram, I noticed that all shops had their addresses written as 'No ---, Between 10th and 11th cross, Malleshwaram, Bangalore'. I say, teach these guys some engineering and how to approximate.

4. For the first time, I noticed a sign board (when you enter IISc from the subway), which caught my innocent mind's attention.
'Go slow. Hump Ahead'.

Physics and movies

These directors should be taught some physics.

In school and college, we are taught, diligently enough, that the acceleration due to gravity g acts downward (towards the center of the earth, that is). These movies seem to fill in for the other two cases, g acting upward, and a zero value for g. The former being in fight sequences where people just seem to rise out of nowhere. The latter when people just float for 10 odd metres. Whatever happened to the projectile motion we learnt. Also, I always thought work done by static friction was zero. But that doesn't seem to explain how a certain somebody, on getting a horizontal impulse jumps up and lands on the same place. Next, consider this problem: Bodies A and B are on top of a cliff. A is dropped. B is dropped 10 seconds later. Can B catch up with A? Assume B and A similar in all respects, same air resistance etc. The answer is Yes. If B is the good guy and A is the bad guy. Now, consider conservation of momentum. When A shoots B, the recoil A experiences is a few centimetres, due to the change in velocity of the bullet from zero to the maximum value, but on hitting B, due to the same momentum decrease (Maximum value to zero), B is thrown a few metres backwards. This either means one of the guys weighs in milligrams, or in tonnes. Oh, and I don't understand this: When you cut a guy's head (Kill bill kind), the head is cut due to shear force right? Then why the hell does the head fly off?
Bah, there are too many problems out here.