A leaf out of great lives.

14th March 2014

In times of crisis, I am reminded of certain episodes related to Newton, Curie, Faraday and Edison. Such episodes would pacify my mind quickly. The first one is an episode related to Newton. He had a dog called Diamond. Once he had gone out leaving his research papers on the table by a table lamp. On return, Newton found that all the papers had turned to ash by catching fire from the lamp. The dog had by mistake tumbled down the table lamp. Newton could have killed the dog out of rage but he just carried the dog in his arms and patted it. What did the dog know about the loss of a life time achievement of his master? Later on, Newton had to re-write all those papers from his memory! Curie, as most of us knows ever hated name and fame. She cared too little about her wealth as well. Even after winning two Nobel Prizes, she did not own a house and only towards the fag of her life, she nearly could build one of her own. She had seen struggling days in her life but even then, she did not wish to sell out the 1 gram of Radium that she had painstakingly extracted over the years out of tons of Pitch Blend. She did all the experiments related to the extraction work under a tin roof for 4 long years along with Pierre Curie towards the end of 1890s. Pierre had carried himself sacs of Pitch blend ore upon his shoulders for the purpose. What did Curie do with that 1 gram of Radium? She kept it as a valuable treasure throughout her life and was ever fascinated to see the glow of it in the darkness. She had in fact donated that precious Radium to her own Radium Institute later on. Such was her character. Faraday, like his American counterpart, Joseph Henry, had no desire whatsoever to profit personally from any of his discoveries. Thus, as soon a discovery seemed to be developing into a commercial possibility, Faraday invariably went on to something else. His services as a scientific expert in court were in great demand, and he received $5000 one year from that source when the Royal Society could afford to pay him only $500. Yet, as a dedicated scientist, he chose to give up this lucrative form of income in order to be free to pursue his beloved scientific investigations. I am talking of the 1800s. As for Edison, he had met fire face to face thrice or four times in his life time. In 1914 or so, when his Phonograph factory got into fire, he saw the tumbling down building but was never carried away by it. He just called his wife and told her: "See. Perhaps, you won't see such a thing for a send time!" Later on he told his workers and friends: "Let us begin from the scratch". Is life bigger for us than these great scientists and personalities? Name, wealth and material crisis - one must meet these concepts with dignity.

See, I am always inspired by such personalities. Our children must read biographies to know the value of life from various angles. Unfortunately, our curriculum does not care much to promote this basic idea. Struggle for life does not depend on name and fame and wealth alone. It has the other side as well. In this present world which runs after ranks and dispositions, after the pettiness of awards, one must try to imbibe the spirit of great personalities for values and peaceful life. For example, the authorities receive 700 to 800 appeals every year for the annual State School Youth Festival and what for? Just for name and fame and grace marks and for what else? Did Sir J C Bose run after acquiring the patent for his invention? He maintained the view that knowledge was not anybody's private property and copyright. Again, just reflect on the attitude of Earnest Rutherford in claiming authority for him when more than 16 of his students won Nobel Prizes from the doors of Cavendish Laboratory. He never claimed any authority but gave all the credits due to his students. To illustrate this further, Rutherford had already sensed about the existence of Neutron by 1922 and discussed about it with his student Chadwick and when Chadwick discovered the particle in 1932 and later won the Nobel Prize for the same, Rutherford never came forward with any personal claims. He stood only as a witness to the laurels of his illustrious student. Who can do it? There is a story about Rutherford. I wish to share it with you all. He received a scholarship to continue his research studies at Cavendish. When he received the postal cover, he was in his farm doing some sundry work. He was overjoyed and spent no time in catching the ship sailing for England from New Zealand. I am talking of the 1890s and planes were not even invented. One had to depend on ships. Transcontinental schedules were far and in between those days and if he missed the latest

schedule, then, he had to wait for another 4 months to sail for the British Isles. So, he lost no time. In a hurry he packed off his things and ran more than 17 miles to reach the port and catch the ship! He did not lose. The rest is history. One must live like that. One must try to live in a selfless way, with thirst for knowledge and with a view to serving mankind. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx