Are you interested in Physics? Especially experimental physics? Then I invite you to for a ride to our office in our office “cab”. Let me impress upon you, the exciting and memorable things this ride has to offer.
“Cab” is not the right word. It is now a brand new(?) Eicher , ‘x’ seater bus where 18
You may ask – I can learn all the physics I want by reading and doing experiments in the safety of a lab. But, I ask you, would you remember those experiments? You may know the concepts, but do you “realize” it? Our cab does these physics experiments in the most natural way, and most of the times you are the subject of experimentation. Now, when you are a part of the experiment, you “realize” what you know. This, I think is the super real attraction.
The first thing you will notice the moment you hop on the cab is that, Newton is right there teaching you the basic laws of motion.
You will learn the principle of inertia in the most natural settings. The cab has stopped for you to hop in. You hop in, and then take a step towards the aisle looking for free seats. Which most of the time, is at the back of the cab. Now, within a few milliseconds, you will experience a random swaying of your body. While a part of you brain desperately tries to recalculate your body’s position in space time continuum, the other part desperately tries and fails to send appropriate commands to your limbs to catch hold of any solid and stable object within your grasp. While all this is happening, the other part of the brain – a little digression here – I know we only talked about 2 parts of the brain. But, there is another one apparently different from the other two, and you will realize it. And if you are realizing the 3rd part of the brain, it means that there is another part of the brain to realize it. So, apparently there are 4 or more parts of the brain that you will realize. This is a bonus anatomical lesson the cab ride offers. Now, coming back. The other (3rd part) of the brain – wait, I forgot what it did.
Anyway, you will eventually realize that all the above experimental results will proclaim one thing very clearly. The principle of inertia. Newton is happy. If you are lucky enough, you may fall or your laptop bag may fall or your lunch box may fall. If that happens, you will also realize that the falling apple is not the only thing that teaches the principle of gravitational force. If you are unlucky, well – one day you will get lucky. So, not to worry.
You will eventually manage to find an empty seat and rest your butt – thanks to millions of years of evolution of the human brain, it can slowly but certainly calculate the body’s spatial orientation through sensory inputs and help you walk. You appreciate the lesson you learnt and give a cursory glance at the window. Now, you will notice that the rest of the world is painfully lagging behind. Even those crazy BMTC bus drivers on your side of traffic seem to be driving in reverse gear. But the other crazy BMTC bus drivers on the opposite side of traffic seem to be just rushing past you, may be at a 100 kmph. This is when you “realize” the concept your teacher so horribly failed drive home. The principle of relative motion. Quickly, you calculate that the apparent rushing past of the BMTC buses (driven by crazy drivers) in the opposite direction at 100 kmph, is actually the speed of your cab (at 80 kmph) and relative speed of the bus (at 20 kmph) adding up to be a wholesome number of 100 kmph. Considering that this is a fully packed street with hundreds of other vehicles, animals and walking humans, suddenly you will realize that BMTC bus drivers are actually sane to be going at 20 kmph. You will find a previously non existent respect towards them. You may even realize that we are all equal. Couple of lessons in humanity and spirituality, as added bonus.
This is when the reality strikes - Earth is NOT FLAT! It is NOT a huge sphere which will appear flat because we humans are so tiny. But it is filled with bumps, pot holes, small mountains and valleys, the real traffic bumps and small meteor sized rocks carelessly thrown here and there. But the cab treats them all with prodigious equanimity and dexterity. This is when you realize speed could as well be considered a vector instead of a scalar. Because, you see that the cab neither changes direction, nor reduces acceleration but continues at the previous 80 kmph on any unforgiving terrain. Yes, the teachers taught us wrong. Probably they should hop in the cab once.
And, you will realize the power of vibrations. Not the ones that the rishis and yogis talk about – universal vibrations, thought vibrations and all that. The real, painful, jolting, son-of-a-*****, #$@#@#*&#$ kind of vibrations. I am sorry, but there are no physics lesson in this one. But you may realize that God designed our body the way it is, but he never meant us to travel by cabs. And you may appreciate the fatty tissues that was carefully accumulated by your body all around you in no time after you started working. Those skinny nut heads may laugh at you at other times. But you turn around and look at their skinny faces, displaying pure horror in their eyes, and their skinny legs and hands swaying wildly in the never ending vibrational ether – and you are filled with self satisfaction. You will know that all that time you spent on hogging on chips, fries, greasy/oily/cheesy/spicy stuff is worthwhile. Who is laughing now, huh!?
Now that you realize what vibrations really are, they somehow manage to be less annoying.
On to a different kind of vibration – for your ears. You will hear sounds from 20 Hz to 20 KHz, but what you will not know is that you are hearing those frequencies at various wavelengths. Some magically emanated by your own cab, and others – courtesy of other general vehicles. You will notice that most of those sounds will be overlapping and continuous, but you will appreciate the fact that your brain can distinguish most of them from the others based on auditory inputs. You will notice the honk of the approaching vehicle going from a frail, faraway sound to harsh, loud wails and back to frail sound again – in no time! The driver of that vehicle has no idea of the musical pleasure he is creating for your ears. A work of art, left unsung! If you carefully analyze, you will realize that all this auditory pleasure is because of two reasons. One – the impatient, brave, wont-give-a-damn-about-my life, wont-give-a-damn-about-your-life-either artists called cab drivers. Two – the doppler effect. Even if you don’t understand what that is, you have experienced it. You were a part of the experiment.
You are now filled with unspeakable satisfaction and gratitude for the privilege that god bestowed upon you this morning. You will even think this whole Bangalore traffic is a big symphony of honks, police whistles, ultra sweet voices of quarrelling people – all magically weaved together by the very kind symphony conductor – your cab driver. Before you start being more thankful and emotional, alas! the journey comes to an end. You will be at our office.
Grabbing your belongings you will start walking down the aisle to get off the cab. That is when you will glance at the driver’s seat. Guess what, that is no chewing gum chewing cab driver, that is the veritable face of Christian Doppler himself!
You get all too emotional, and start blabbering words, and even attempt to write hymns about this privilege of yours. And that is when you will hear it. A small voice in your head saying – “Save your emotions. You will have the return journey in the evening!”. -- There is one thing you should never do – to tell a cab driver that he is reckless. Because if you do, he will still be reckless, but you have another person looking to run you over the next time you cross the street.