Glimpses of World Engineering
Apologies for the Nehruvian sounding title of this post, but what I am going to describe here are the small glimpses of Engineering that we had in the first year. This was through two subjects that we had in that year, Engineering Mechanics (first semester) and Electrical Engineering (second semester).
Engineering Mechanics was handled by Professor PMJ (Dr. P. Mannar Jawahar). (He is the one who donned the role of placement officer in the Tamil film FiveStar in the initial scenes.) He was one of the most benevolent professors we ever had at MIT. Even when he was scolding us for something, he would ooze out love and warmth in no small measure. He was the chairperson of a number of sub-committees in the university, and every now and them he would be required to attend them. He would come to our class, and whenever he begins, "I have to go to the main campus to chair a meeting..", a collective whoop of excitement would reach the roof of our class. Most of his classes were Double E-Mech, which means we would have him continuously for two hours. Thus we loved all of those meetings that gave us two hours free most of the weeks. I must mention here that his classes were usually hassle-free to attend. He never used to trouble us too much. His meetings were only all the more reason to like him. Besides, he really didn't teach Engineering Mechanics. He taught us a less advanced version of it, also called by the name, 'Engineering Mechanics for Dummies.' His funda in the class was to teach the same concepts using simple problems. Even in his examinations, all the questions would have the formula required to solve the problem, and all the variables of the formula explained. Now, one variable would be required to be found. We will just have to identify the variables and their respective values from the question, substitute in the formula, and there you go with the solution. Many of his examples used to involve the pulley mechanism, and many of us went on to become experts in drawing pulley mechanisms of different kinds. Some problems would have multiple pulleys attached in the same line of action, and he would decompose them into simpler mechanisms using innovative logic and solve the problems wonderfully. He was great.
The other "engineering" course that we had in the first year was Electrical Engineering, taught by M.S. Raja (MSR as he was called affectionately.) Well past into retirement and continuing as a guest faculty, he was an outstanding teacher by any standards. We were the last batch to have him as the lecturer for Electrical Engineering, and we are really fortunate on that count. He literally used to pick problems from the air, and these problems would have a suspense element attached with them. After teaching a concept such as the Electrical Circuit Theorems, he would give the first two problems to be simple and straightforward. The third problem would involve a small twist that would require us to think a little. One by one, the complexity would increase and reach the crescendo at some point. He would stop the class and leave, without answering the last problem. We would be outraged, but at the same time very impressed. I have always found his classes and atleast half-an-hour after that to be very intellectually stimulating. The next day, he would seek answers for the previous day's problem and truly appreciate anybody who had managed to solve it. Then he would move to the next topic, and it would be business as usual once again. He was phenomenal. After attending his classes, I was tempted to think that we at engineering did indeed grow horns on our heads, to say it colloquially as in a Tamil phrase.
(Posted on 26-May-2004)
Engineering Mechanics was handled by Professor PMJ (Dr. P. Mannar Jawahar). (He is the one who donned the role of placement officer in the Tamil film FiveStar in the initial scenes.) He was one of the most benevolent professors we ever had at MIT. Even when he was scolding us for something, he would ooze out love and warmth in no small measure. He was the chairperson of a number of sub-committees in the university, and every now and them he would be required to attend them. He would come to our class, and whenever he begins, "I have to go to the main campus to chair a meeting..", a collective whoop of excitement would reach the roof of our class. Most of his classes were Double E-Mech, which means we would have him continuously for two hours. Thus we loved all of those meetings that gave us two hours free most of the weeks. I must mention here that his classes were usually hassle-free to attend. He never used to trouble us too much. His meetings were only all the more reason to like him. Besides, he really didn't teach Engineering Mechanics. He taught us a less advanced version of it, also called by the name, 'Engineering Mechanics for Dummies.' His funda in the class was to teach the same concepts using simple problems. Even in his examinations, all the questions would have the formula required to solve the problem, and all the variables of the formula explained. Now, one variable would be required to be found. We will just have to identify the variables and their respective values from the question, substitute in the formula, and there you go with the solution. Many of his examples used to involve the pulley mechanism, and many of us went on to become experts in drawing pulley mechanisms of different kinds. Some problems would have multiple pulleys attached in the same line of action, and he would decompose them into simpler mechanisms using innovative logic and solve the problems wonderfully. He was great.
The other "engineering" course that we had in the first year was Electrical Engineering, taught by M.S. Raja (MSR as he was called affectionately.) Well past into retirement and continuing as a guest faculty, he was an outstanding teacher by any standards. We were the last batch to have him as the lecturer for Electrical Engineering, and we are really fortunate on that count. He literally used to pick problems from the air, and these problems would have a suspense element attached with them. After teaching a concept such as the Electrical Circuit Theorems, he would give the first two problems to be simple and straightforward. The third problem would involve a small twist that would require us to think a little. One by one, the complexity would increase and reach the crescendo at some point. He would stop the class and leave, without answering the last problem. We would be outraged, but at the same time very impressed. I have always found his classes and atleast half-an-hour after that to be very intellectually stimulating. The next day, he would seek answers for the previous day's problem and truly appreciate anybody who had managed to solve it. Then he would move to the next topic, and it would be business as usual once again. He was phenomenal. After attending his classes, I was tempted to think that we at engineering did indeed grow horns on our heads, to say it colloquially as in a Tamil phrase.
(Posted on 26-May-2004)
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