Pic Credits: Unsplash – Dan-Cristian Pădureț
When Prof. Harish Chandra Verma popularly known as H.C. Verma for his two-part books on Concepts of Physics was awarded the Padma Shri Award this year, it was a momentous occasion for the spirit of learning science in our country and across the world. It all began in a street called the Ashoka Raj Path in Patna where students from across the state of Bihar throng in numbers ranging millions to prepare for the Joint Entrance Examination for the coveted Indian Institute of Technologies (IITs). What underlies is the spirit of this preparation, learning, and yearning to know! There can be zillions of questions raised about the burgeoning coaching market for profiteering sake, the suicidal tendencies in students, and the list goes on. Although these are all pertinent problems and need attention, they must not lead to complete rejection of a very interesting and promising way to engage students in the spirit of learning, inquiry, and in turn creation. Ashoka Raj path is just an example of thousands of such streets across the country which has promulgated the scientific temper in children at such an early age and given and nurtured the logical soul of Bharat.
When students and teachers i.e., all learners without any sense of day or night holding Irodovs, Krotovs, Hallidays, Boyds, Lees, Atkins, etc. engage in the problem-solving spirit, scientific pursuit comes to life. It is in this pursuance and with this perseverance novel truths, theories, tools, techniques, etc. are born. Not only that, the sense of developing something for the current and future generation develops. This happens so because when one reads and knows so much, one can appreciate that how much the previous generations have left it for us to thrive on and one also experiences the responsibility of the future knowing the limitations of contemporary scientific advances.
It would have been a delight for a wonderful teacher as Richard Feynman was to be reborn in India of contemporary times probably in the city of Kota. What the world sees as only a Kota Factory, probably he would have been able to envisage it as the breeding ground for a new breed of scientists who could have taken the world towards The Road to Reality as Roger Penrose talks about in his book with the same name. The road seems foggy, and the paths are hazy. Our Nobel Laureates are still far away from sight. But the seeds have been sown and are being sown with each passing year. I say it so confidently because our red book has always been Feynman’s Lectures on Physics and not something else. And one would reap only what one would sow!
Dr. Rajiv Ranjan
Faculty, Alliance School of Liberal Arts (ASOLA)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Feynman, R. P., Leighton, R. B., & Sands, M. (1965). The Feynman lectures on physics Vol I-III. Basic books.
Penrose, R. (2005). The road to reality: A complete guide to the laws of the universe. Random house.
Verma, H. C. (1993). Concepts of physics. Bharati Bhawan.