“Some time ago I received a call from a colleague. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed a perfect score. The instructor and the student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected. I read the examination question:

Question: show how is it possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer.

The student had answered, “Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to the street, and then bring the rope up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building.“

The student really had a strong case for full credit since he had really answered the question completely and correctly! On the other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to a high grade in his physics course and to certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this.

I suggested that the student have another try. I gave the student six minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics. At the end of five minutes, he had not written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said he had many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting him and asked him to please go on.

In the next minute, he dashed off his answer which read: “Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then, using the formula x=0.5*a*t^^2, calculate the height of the building.“

At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded, and gave the student almost full credit. While leaving my colleague’s office, I recalled that the student had said that he had other answers to the problem, so I asked him what they were.

“Well,” said the student, “there are many ways of getting the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer. For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building, and by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of the building.“

“Fine,” I said, “and others?”

“Yes,” said the student, “there is a very basic measurement method you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and this will give you the height of the building in barometer units.“

“A very direct method.”

“Of course. If you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of g at the street level and at the top of the building. From the difference between the two values of g, the height of the building, in principle, can be calculated.“

“On this same tact, you could take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to just above the street, and then swing it as a pendulum. You could then calculate the height of the building by the period of the precession“.

“Finally,” he concluded, “there are many other ways of solving the problem.

Probably the best,” he said, “is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent’s door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows: ‘Mr. Superintendent, here is a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of the building, I will give you this barometer.”

At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think.

The student was Neils Bohr and the arbiter was Ernest Rutherford.”

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After Canon announced the 40D and the 1Ds Mark - III a few days ago, there was a lot of excitement in the industry about the ground-breaking technology achieved in these cameras. Few people said that Nikon would never be able to match Canon’s standards and that these cameras were certain winners.

However, today Nikon has announced the D3 and D300, two cameras which put the 40D and 1Ds Mark - III to shame.

The D3 is a definite winner over the 1Ds Mark - III since not only is it $3,000 cheaper but also incorporates more or less the same features, if not better. Few noteworthy features include a maximum ISO of 25600, 51-point AF, 3.0″ 922,000 pixel LCD with Live View and even a Virtual Horizon Function!!  The D3 will retail at a price of $5,000 which is a great bargain considering the fact that the 1Ds Mark - III costs $8,000 and the D3 will be in stores in November this year.

The D300 would have been a better buy than the 40D if not for its hefty price of $1,800 as opposed to the $1,300 for the 40D. The D300 also sports a 3.0″ 922,000 pixel LCD with Live View like the D3 and its other features are basically a cut down version of the D3. However, for $500 it does not offer a great big advantage over the 40D which means that I will indeed be getting the 40D unless I win a lottery. The plus points over the 40D are mainly the additional 2 Megapixels, the resolution of the LCD, the 51-point AF System and complete weather sealing. Personally, I feel that I can certainly live without those features and it doesn’t seem to be worth the additional $500, so I should be getting a Canon 40D.

The above previews are only from my point of view and arent very detailed. You can read a detailed preview for all the cameras below -

Canon 40D Detailed Preview 

Canon 1Ds Mark - III Detailed Preview

Nikon D300 Detailed Preview

Nikon D3 Detailed Preview

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First of all, yesterday was World Photography Day and I am ashamed to say that I didnt do anything very ‘photographic’ yesterday. And my internet connection also wasnt working yesterday which really pissed me off.

Lots of random things have been happening in life so yea, I’m kinda confused.

But the best thing that has ever happened is the introduction of the CANON 40D!!!!!!!!  God, I am so excited, it has so many additional features over the 30D that I’m quite obviously going to try and buy it.

You can read a detailed preview of it here and you can visit the official Canon page here.

I’m really really excited about the 40D, my hands are literally shaking with excitement as I’m typing right now. I’m cant type more right now, later…

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Today is the 15th of August, 2007. For the rest of the world, its just another Wednesday. But for one nation, the support system of one billion people, today marks the 60th anniversary of a better life, a better nation, of Freedom.

Wishing every single Indian, rich and poor, old and young, know and unknown, a very Happy Independence day, from the bottom of my 17 year old heart.

Thanks to the society for having supported a safe and happy life for one billion citizens for the past 60 years and I hope that India will continue to be one of the happiest nations in World for many years to come.

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Krutika turned 17 yesterday and Isha turns 18 today. A very happy birthday to both these girls!

And News,

Find Out Number of Faces in the Image

Online Etch-a-Sketch

The 25 Most Notable Celebrity Quotes of the Past 25 Years

PlayStation 3 Stress Tested, Found Virtually Unbreakable

Beginners Guide To Lock Picking [w /pics]

World’s oldest person dies at 114

13 Things to Avoid on a First Date

The shapes of the world

Windows XP: The OS that won’t die?

Top 10 Most Expensive Paintings of All Time w/ pics

What’s special about this number?

Amazing Godfather Portrait Made from Entire Movie Script (Pic)

The World’s Most Expensive Desserts w/ pics

Worst Action Movie Cliches

The top 100 reasons it’s great to be a guy

9 Words and Sentences Women Use To Dominate Men

12 Hot Women & the Hideous Men They Love

26 moves are enough to solve any Rubik’s Cube, no matter how scrambled

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As always, this trip was quite impromptu but it didn’t feel like it. We just wanted to go out, and we decided to go to the Tungabhadra River and the Mantralayam Temple happened to be quite close to it, so we thought that we might as well go there too. We started off at around 5 in the morning, the trip wasn’t very interesting but we had a few nice spots here and there. We went through the state of Karnataka to get to our destination. There were many distinct difference between Karnataka and Andhra. We reached the temple by around 10:30, we walked around for awhile, our prayers were quite quick and we spent more time looking around. After that, we started on the return journey, stopping on the way to have lunch in Raipur, Karnataka. We reached home by 5:30 in the evening, making it a 12 hour trip with over 500 kilometres covered. I took about 1500 photographs, I’ll post the best of them later.

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I met up with my friends from the Photography Club today, to take photographs of the National Laser Sailing Competition which is being held till the 12th at Hussain Sagar. It wasn’t easy to take good photographs because a) The boats were really far away most of the time and b) The sailors were just doing normal maneuvers most of the time and rarely performed something that would look interesting when the came nearby. We were, however, able to get a few good photographs each. Two of our group took a tugboat right upto the other side of the lake. All of us were supposed to ride the tugboat but unfortunately, there weren’t enough life-jackets. Theoretically, they should have been to get many great pictures but the constant rocking of the tugboat and the water splashing onto them and the cameras prevented that, but they were still able to get good pictures. We stayed for the whole of one race which took around an hour. We had a great time though and a delicious lunch.

You can view all the photographs I took over here.

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Yes, its a ripoff of Koffee with Karan minus the gay jokes. I plan to start shooting the first episode on the 12th of August, this Sunday and if all goes well, I should have an episode ready soon. I still haven’t finalized the guest list so I really don’t know who will be on the show. There are still a lot of things to decide but hopefully, everything will fall into place.

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Both movies, ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ and ‘Apocalypse Now Redux’ are quite different and yet similar to each other. I enjoyed watching both movies, although the first could’ve been longer while the latter could’ve been shorter.

‘The Pursuit of Happyness‘ is about the life of a common man in San Francisco. The story is basically a rags-to-riches plot but is portrayed in a very detailed manner. Its based on a true story which adds to the  impact of the movie. Chris Gardener is a man who is struggling with life and wants to strike it big in the stock market. It shows you how hardwork can pay off, and that your college degree isn’t everything. He is quite lucky too, but its also sheer perseverance thats makes him successful. Will Smith’s acting in the movie is quite good and his expressions at the ending of the movie is remarkable. The movie could’ve been slightly longer, especially towards the ending where his success, perhaps should have been shown visually rather than just a text. The entire movie is slow and is recommended only for people who have a level of patience. Action/Comedy fans might want to keep away from this movie unless they are willing to try out a new genre, and if they do, they might enjoy it.

‘Apocalypse Now Redux‘ is an extended version of the movie ‘Apocalypse Now’, it adds 49mins of new footage. The first part of the movie I noticed was the excellently composed surround sound. It was simply mind-blowing and you should definitely watch it on a 5.1 Surround System if you get the chance. The movie is action packed but also has its emotional moments. The story is about the Vietnam War, a captain, Capt. Benjamin L. Willard (Martin Sheen) is ordered to assassinate an earlier Vietnam war veteran, Col. Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) who runs his own mini-constitution deep within the Vietnam. The movie is mainly concentrated on Willard’s journey to meet Kurtz. His journey is filled with various adventures, the loss of friends, and many interesting occurrences. Towards the ending of the movie, he finally meets Krutz and after giving some thought, murders him brutally. The movie gives you an insight into the mind of Willard and allows for a different point-of-view for the war. The movie was quite long, running at more than 3 hours, being the longest English movie that I’ve watched. If you think that it’s too long, you can watch the original version of the movie, which is almost an hour shorter. The movie is very emotive and depicts the emotions of each actor very distinctively. Almost everyone should watch this movie, atleast once. But if you only like light and comedy movies, then this isn’t for you.

The similarity between both movies is that both of them lead the entire story right upto the final moment and once that occurs, it ends, leaving the viewer to think about the aftermath. This has been executed very carefully to ensure that the viewer is not confused but rather enthralled with the climax. Both of them are excellent movies but of completely different genres. A person with varied interests will enjoy both of them but few people might only like one of them.

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