This morning, I had the incredible experience of having a physicist show me a particle accelerator - a machine thatβs big enough to fill several rooms, and looks like a laser cannon from a spaceship. We started at one end and walked along its length.
Over the roar of several pumps, the physicist pointed out each of the machineβs parts and explained what it did. Most of what he said went over my head, but I heard several β-onsβ and β-iumsβ that sounded vaguely familiar from far-off memories of science in school.
Near the end of the machine, I asked about a part where the giant pipe looked like it was sandwiched between two car tyres. The physicist said it was a coil. He explained that a current ran through it, producing a magnetic field that could be used to deflect the beam inside.
He twisted his hand, so that his thumb, index and middle finger all stuck out at right angles. I immediately knew what he was talking about.
I remembered a moment from ten years earlier, of sitting in a hall and taking a physics exam. I had no idea what the apparatus in the diagram was, but I had spent enough hours memorizing the right-hand rule to know where I had to draw an arrow to get the question right.
I didnβt understand the experiment in the question - nor did I care. I knew Iβd never see it in my life, so I didnβt see what the point was of trying to understand it. Now, as I stood by a roaring accelerator, everything fell into place.
I understood how the beam was produced, how electrons were stripped from it, how it was sped up between charged plates, and swerved by a magnetic field. I finally understood that physics question, ten years after getting it right on a piece of paper.
Science is about big ideas, but sometimes I feel as if its rhetoric glamorizes curiosity excessively. It makes science look more democratic than it is.
Itβs certainly a romantic idea, that anyone can be a scientist: that after all, Ramanujan and Salam were children who lived in a village, but wanted to understand the universe, and had the brilliance to do it.
Standing by the accelerator, I remembered being a child who dreamt of being a physicist, but gave up somewhere along the way. I realized that for that one child who grew up to be Abdus Salam, there were millions who didn't - and it wasnβt because they werenβt curious enough.
Children are the future of this nation. Why isn't Pakistan at least allocating a significant sum of it's budget to the education system to educate teenagers to at least high school level (aged 16)?
I mean I'm sick of parents trying to educate their own children themselves. All these parents do is open up the Quran and bang, that's their education finished. This has absolutely no use to anyone. Well done 10 points to you for memorising the Quran. How is that useful to our economy?
As a Pakistani it really annoys me how much time is wasted on teaching children religion (even after school) when these children could be better spending their time building, innovating, modding, hacking, constructing and solving.
I'm not saying religion is bad (I'm Muslim myself), but I spent at least 2 hours after school learning about the Quran and 6 hours on the weekend and for what? It was never of any use to me. I used to skip them and read up stuff on how build computers instead and then learn about stuff on space.
I mean religion has a time and a place, but come on I'm sick of this constant "look at me I'm Muslim I can read Quran at 120 words per minute" types.
Hey guys,what do you have to read about indian history in schools?are maratha,gupta,maurya and other emperor included? Mughals are included i think.but what about the other common history we shared in past?
It is survey for students of colleges and university about how they see the quality of education of Universities of Pakistan. The survey is short and the questionnaire are M.C.Q.S based questions, if you have time kindly fill it below is the link
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1223BIpd4-qFETYWeIkVKXo2Z-Ia6YPuhln17Jg0OmYU/edit
