Remember the mind grows strong through use. Struggle makes power.

Napoleon Hill liked to tell a story about his grandfather, a wagon builder in North Carolina. When the old man cleared the land for cultivation, he always left a few oak trees in the middle of the field at the mercy of the elements, unsheltered by other trees in the forest. It was from those trees that his grandfather made the wagon’s wheels. Because they were forced to struggle against the fury of nature, they grew strong enough to bear the heaviest load. Welcome difficult challenges, for the greatest opportunities will come from challenges that force you to expand your mind as you search for creative solutions. During life’s bleakest hours, take solace in the face that you are strengthening yourself through struggle so that in the future you will be prepared to take on even greater challenges. Like the old oak tree, you grow strong only when you are forced to struggle.

Courtesy: Napoleon Hill Foundation.

The mind grows only through use, and it atrophies through idleness

Just as the physical body becomes strong through regular exercise, so does the mind require regular use to remain strong. Make sure that your personal development plan includes plenty of mental stimulation. One of the best ways to develop your imagination and visualisation skills is through reading. As you read, your mind translates the words into images that help you better understand the concepts about which you are reading. Become a voracious reader. Reading will contribute to your store of knowledge and to your ability to visualise and more effectively use your imagination.

Courtesy: Napoleon Hill Foundation

Quotable Quote

You know that I write slowly. This is chiefly because I am never satisfied until I have said as much as possible in a few words, and writing briefly takes far more time than writing at length.

- Carl Friedrich Gauss

Examination Reforms

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Thinking in this direction in the past has given birth to AIEEE, which in due course has become just one more burden to the students. Ideally, there must be just one exam. The students who top that exam may opt for IIT, followed by NIT and thereafter state colleges/other colleges. This looks very difficult to implement but needs to be done keeping in view the long-term efficiency of the system. Here is how to go about it:

• The boards like CBSE, ICSE, State etc. play the role of trainers and not examiners.
• A central body is appointed as examiner.
• This body takes the tests and prepares merit list and a minimum cut-off in each subject and the aggregate.
• This test should be in line with JEE (may be a little easier) having a practical component as well as languages and other papers.
• Students opt for engineering institutes and branches based on their marks in Physics and Mathematics. An institute can ask for more information from the candidate in addition to the marks obtained by him/her in this exam. However, the institute does not take any other written exam. Students opt for medical institues based on their marks in Biology, Chemistry and Physics.
• Students are allotted institutes and branches depending upon their merit and availability.
• The students who do not attain minimum marks in less than or equal to 2 subjects are allowed to take supplementary. If they fail in more than 2 subjects, they are declared fail and they will have to repeat the class.

Re: Tensor

The query and its answer may be of general interest.

Physical quantities can be scalars, vectors or tensors. Scalars are just numbers. Vectors have magnitude, direction and they follow certain law of addition. The third category is called tensor. If a quantity has magnitude but does not have direction of its own but its value depends on the direction, then it belongs to the category of tensors. For example, moment of inertia of a solid sphere is 2/5 MR^2 about an axis passing through its centre. However, it is 7/5 MR^2 about an axis along its tangent. In fact it can take many values depending upon the choice of axis. So, moment of inertia depends upon the direction, but it does not direction of its own. Hence it is a tensor. Note that the tensor algebra is beyond IIT-JEE and you will not hear about it often.

________________________________________
Sir,

Sub: tensors.

In the physics lesson SCALARS AND VECTORS, there is a term given as TENSORS.
It is described as the physical quantity which has no direction but value changes w.r.t direction.

Please explain me in detail about this statement.
Thanking you.
Swapnil khandekar

Concept of Negative Mass

IIT to offer more seats & new courses

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Some points are remarkable:

1. Increase in undergraduate seats for the year 2005. Kharagpur may increase seats by 20% and Guwahati may increase seats by 12.68%. This may be a great news for the students appearing in JEE this year.
2. Integrated engineering + MBA course.
3. Integrated Ph.D. course may come in due course.

IIT likely to admit more students in pure science courses from 2006

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Amazon.com on hiring spree in India

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yourname@yahoo.com ID holders

The students having ID, yourname@yahoo.com must double check if it is correct. There are good chances that it is actually yourname@yahoo.co.in

To check it, just login to your Yahoo email account (say, A). Send an email from that place (A) to your another email address (say, B). Now login to your other email address (B) and see the email you just sent from your Yahoo ID (A). See the address from where it was sent.

Re: Message sent from website

The message and its reply may be of general interest.

Your priority must be the branch that you want to study and not just the
institute. It is necessary to know the All India Rank (AIR) before
recommending anything. It is suggested that you should write to me after
getting your AIR.
______________________________________________________

Name: Krishna
Query: Hi,

I am preparing for JEE from chennai. I am hopeful of getting into IIT. I
want to know among the IITs which IIT is best to study?. This reply would be
helpful for me.

Re: The Final Theory

The question and its reply may be of general interest.  The reply is given in italics.

-----Original Message-----
From: sandeep

 

I found a book named "THE FINAL THEORY" BY MARK MCCUTHEON on your Blog uncovering the flaws in our present scientific principles and claiming the existence of "THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING".  Are the flaws pointed out correct and does there exist a single unifying principle which will cover all theories as stated in the book?

It is true that many things that you study are not fully correct and every phenomenon is not known or understood till date.  For example, Newton's law of gravitation is not completely correct.  This is quite normal in science.  As the knowledge increases and more sophisticated instruments are available for measurements, many past theories need refinement.  However, science has reached that stage when there are more refinements.  It seldom happens that something is proved completely wrong.

If you see Dr. H.C. Verma's book, "Concepts of Physics" part I in chapter, "Forces", you will find that he has mentioned four fundamental forces found in nature.  However, research work on weak force unifies it with electromagnetic force and combines both of them to what is called as electroweak force.  So, one can say that there are not 4, but only 3 distinct forces found in nature.

It was Einstein's dream in later part of his life to unify various laws of nature and give a unified theory.  Though he could not succeed in this direction, pursuit of this theory has become the objective of many researchers - including mine - in the field of Physics in the modern era.  Various names have been coined like GUT (Grand Unified Theory), TOE (Theory of everything), The Final Theory etc.  However, till date there is no universally accepted theory that can unify everything and presently it looks as if it will take time to formulate one.  I personally believe that there must be something that unifies everything.

FW: AIEEE Exam

The email and its reply may be of general interest:

---------------------------------------------------

You are quite right. If the paper is very simple then one should do exhaustive coverage of the syllabus without leaving any topic and one can afford to swim in shallow waters. However, when the paper is tough, it is the intensive coverage - though not necessarily of the whole syllabus - that matters and one needs to go into the deep waters.

AIEEE, as it appears from the past trends needs depth and not just the width. If one can do JEE portion thoroughly, he/she should not face much of a problem.

It is recommended that you have a serious look at the past papers at the earliest.

-----Original Message-----

From: S.K.Chakradeo

Sent: Monday, February 28, 2005 2:24 PM

Subject: AIEEE Exam

Dear Sir,

I wish to know about the nature of the AIEEE exam. What I wish to know is "Is it a high scoring exam like MAH-EN-CET with topper getting 149/150 or is it a low scoring exam like IIT-JEE". The strategy for the exam shall have to be different accordingly. For example, if AIEEE is a low scoring exam then it would be preferable to know more about less than trying to cover topics not studied for Board exam.

I shall be greatful if you can throw some light on this.

Thanks in Advance.

S. K. Chakradeo.