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Ajith
Many Indian Universities are switching over to the Four Year UG program making it compatible to that of the Western nations. What are the fundamental differences between the two systems? Is it just a matter of increasing the course duration by one year or making some superficial changes. I am not an expert in the field of education. So I can only write about how the two systems affected me and how they changed my life. So this is just a story, not an expert comment.
I completed my M.Sc in physics from University of Calicut in 1984. The syllabus was very tough, compared to what we learned during the B.Sc course. The standard of our M.Sc may be gauged from the fact that out of 15, two of us qualified the UGC fellowship exam and 5 or 6 the CSIR (later both were combined as NET) exam the same year, without any special coaching. Our knowledge was mainly theoretical. We learned the concepts and the mathematical foundations. Experiments were not given much priority and numerical calculations were absent. Computers have not appeared on the scene, research scholars used to depend on the facility at IIT, Madras. My level of knowledge about computers in 1985 can be guessed from the fact that during the UGC exam I could not answer a question about the difference between hardware and software.
After one year, I joined the Nuclear Science Centre, New Delhi. It was a new project to establish a particle accelerator facility lab under UGC. Four candidates who got selected were sent to University of Manitoba, Canada, to do an M.Sc in physics with specialization in Particle Accelerators. It was a four semester course, where the last two semesters dedicated for a project.
At U of M, I found the assignment given during the first semester very easy because of the training I got from Calicut University. The questions were theory oriented, like proving that pair production is not possible in a physical vacuum using the energy and momentum conservation laws. My first impression was that the course is of a lower standard compared to what I did at Calicut. Then we were introduced to computers. I found the concepts like files, directories etc. meaningless and boring in the beginning. Learning Fortran made some sense. Anyway, all I am trying to point out is the importance they gave to applying theory for solving practical problems.
After two semesters, I was sent to TRIUMF, a major accelerator facility of Canada. My task was to design a frequency tuner for an upcoming synchrotron accelerator at TRIUMF. Without going in to the technical details, the problem was to find the resonant frequency of a resonator cavity (Photograph) analytically and compare it with the measured values. The mathematical model uses both the axial and radial transmission line equations. The computation involved the evaluation Bessels functions several hundred times in a loop to find out the resonant frequency of the cavity. From Calicut University I have learned the theory of Bessel functions but not evaluating it numerically. Here I had to evaluate the numerical expressionfor it using some computer code. I should say,it was easier than learning the theory part of it, but that small addition made a big difference. I could apply it to solve a practical problem.
That experience gave me some idea about the difference between the two systems. The first one taught me some physics and made me capable of teaching the same. The second one equiped me to apply the scientific knowledge to solve practical problems. Learning computer programming was much easier than learning physics, even though I had no prior knowledge of computers.
In 1984, Even if Calicut University wanted, it was not possible to do the numerical work in 1985. There were no computers. The facilities have changed a lot during the past 40 years but it looks like our approach remains the same. Computer programming is taught for the sake of it, not to enrich the teaching of the core subjects. Experiments and developing the necessary instrumentation for that also of a low priority.
Globally, computers have become a tool like paper or pencil for the academic community. The following links, related to different subjects, may give a brief idea of the current state of affairs.
Another important point is that most of these developments are happening in the Free & Open Source domain. It is prevalent in the area of Arificial Intelligence also. A Free operating, like GNU/Linux, is essential for the easy usage of the required software tools. Our schools have progressed a lot in this direction with the IT@SCHOOL project (now KITE). It is the world’s largest deployment of Free Software in education. Unfortunately majority of our collegesare is still stuck with a proprietary OS, due to the marketing tricks of a multinational company (You pay for the oprerating system but don’t get the installer in a medium, like CD or pendrive. The recovery CD method prevents you from experimenting with a better system). This prevents them from utilizing the full potential of computers to support teaching the core subjects. I think it’s time for the academic community to put some effort in this direction. Free Software is better not due to the cost factor but due to it’s quality and reliability. The IUAC particle accelerator control system (runs 24 hours a day and 365 daysin a year) employs on a network of GNU/Linux machines and it has been up since 1996.
Exposure to a system giving some importance to the practical application of science helped me a lot in developing instrumentation for particle accelerators. The successful implementation of Free Software based control and data acquisition systems also resulted in some products to make teaching experimental science more advanced.
Ajith email: bpajith at gmail dot com —
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