Most discoveries in the history of humanity have their roots in two key areas.
- Accidentally stumbling upon a new ideation. Let me say, as humans of 1800s, we started observing that heated metal radiates visible light. Then we understood that a high resistance high current filament produces enough light for a room. We would use this technique and improvise it further to make a light bulb.
- Desperation to solve a problem and creating a method to it. Or let me say, as humans in a parallel universe, we created automobiles before bulbs, and hence needed light devices that'd not blow off, don't need oxygen to burn and produce a lot of light. We'd work our brains for 60-70 years and end up with bulbs yet again.
We are busy taking a thin metal strap and heating it to thousands of Kelvin and when we observe that it starts turning red, we simply put it off afraid of melting, hammer it into a knife and use it to slice bananas. No, I am not speaking about metal and light. There are alternatives, we can come up with LEDs later. I am making a point against how we are teaching our kids. Yes, we can come up with alternatives like AI later on that can solve every problem by themselves, but does that mean we should discard our own human race and let machines take control? Isn't the entire point of civilisation to have humans last further in balance with the nature?
We have been trying to come up with an education system that makes a student master the math and science as Pandit Nehru must have dreamed. And when they do, we are trying to turn them into engineers, masters of systematic design, problem solving and logical thinking. For one essay, I'll ignore all the gems we have forced into engineering and end up with random campus placements. I'm speaking about the minority, the real gems who continue to shine, often more brighter after their engineering entrance examinations, by being the gem students they were taught all their life to be. I'm speaking about the 99.9 percentile diamond of a gems we would find in our raw material who are sharp enough to find feasible solutions to the limitless problems of our savaa sau karod desh vaasi.
When the metal finally reaches the perfect temperature, the perfect college farewell moment, we switch the circuit off, we hammer the metal, stressing it to our shape in the name of reservations and family constraints, cooling it in the waters of brain drain until we've lost a sharp mind into a sharp knife. Yes, we are still making good knives, but out of filaments that could've been lighting a home, helping an entire generation come up who'd have designed a knife, sword, pistol, ammo and a whole lot of nuclear silos for us.
P.S.:.No, I'm not a direct victim because I've found a problem to solve and I'm working against odds to make it happen. However, being from an elite college where these gems rot for years, interacting with many Indian-bred engineers working to create marvels abroad as a part of my work, and working in the batteries that input the educational heat into these filaments, I write the above based on my observations collected over 3 years and a moving article I read this morning.
Reference : I do not agree completely with the author's views but I quote for inspiration. Of course, a real beautiful article to read and think about..
http://www.zeading.com/story/what-more-could-i-do-cat-99-36-and-still-no-iims