Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Fucking slow cybercafe

Pretty stupid title for this post, but most of my posts are like that. Not to the point anyhow. Who will go around blogging about slow cybercafes? Anyway, this one has to do with my Grandmother's science exhibition. I helped set it up... has all sorts of things for little kiddies in the usual sections - geography, mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology. Most of it is however pretty damn innovative. This particular grandmother of mine burns the leaves that fall out of a mango tree to heat the water for bathng, uses the ash to wash utensils, and uses the residual water to water the plants. Therefore, it is no surprise that there are sonometers made out of Bamboo. The Mathematics section is amazing, where leaves are used to teach all concepts from fractions to trignometry. Funny to see leaves with geometrical figures drawn all over them following the lines that have naturally grown. Will blog photos later, when I get back home to a cardreader. Shapes and angles existing in nature are used to teach the cocepts. Most of the apparatus for physics experiments are made out of thermacol. The biology section shows the detailed cell structure with 3D pictures not found in Indian Textbooks, as well as displays of working apparatus that use pheromones for pest control. The Earth Sciences section actually shows how projections are used to plot maps, along with the minerals that we all had to struggle to learn by rote in our school - the kids could actually see feldspar and uranium ore and barium ore. Uranium ore man... donno how it ended up there. There are displays of exotic shells in the bio section as well, of crab spiders, nautiluses and the like. Sleeping in that house was like sleeping in a museum.


Everything you really wanted to know about how the world was run was in that house, and although most of those concepts would be untrue according to quantum physics, it really does not matter because light behaves like people see light behaves irrespective of whether it is made out of photons or waves. Even if the kids go on to become rocket scientists, all they really need to know is to create enough action for a greater reaction which will make a faster rocket.


Will blog pictures soon. Visiting a science park tomorrow. Bangalore is pretty damn weird. Really stupid priorities. In my area, there are two temples, three cybercafes, six bars and one school.

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