Research and Scientists

In the UK it appears that to anyone can be a scientist, but to actually have a job as a scientist you would need to be young and a recent graduate... Similar to an engineer.

Obviously I disagree with this and think the older experienced people make the best engineers / scientists...

Now the problem is how to convince businesses that young does not mean better...

What it does mean is that young = cheaper! and with the accountants running businesses these days cheaper is obviously better!

I think the solution would be to eliminate the accountants and replace them with the old fashioned owner / managers who have the sense to know what they are making and who would be the best person for the job...

John.

Dear John

Sounds a good logic. It sure may need less money to fill the positions but will that help. Perhaps, the reason looks like two ways.

Giving employment to people at low salary may be solution to unemployment to the governments.

Giving employment to people at low salary may also be a solution for those who need to show people at work but none have to work. The number game perhaps.

Giving place to young people to hold them for long is not a right logic now. Non productive now and escaping the job when capable, does not give any great advantage to the employer.

I think, in private industry you hire for reason rather than age. It does not look that way when it comes to Government.

It looks all right to give opportunity to young people, but also let the highly experienced find place in the society as long as they can do a very good job.

Some job may require young and healthy person to handle task but that does not sound to be a reason here. Young brain is not a substitute for a crain or load lifter truck.

In India retirement age is 60 and at some places 58. However, I found that people may be good up to 80 or even more. You start at 30 or even 35 and retire at 60, which is just 25 working years. Then this person remain with highly active brain for another 30 years and can not use it as one is not fit for physical work and can not use brain also and you make a person insane.

All brain based jobs should run for 90 years of age with perhaps evaluation every 5 years. If I find some one with good brain even at that age then what is wrong in lettting one to keep working?

In India many young brains commit suicide. They can not keep to pressure. They know they have very less number of years to go. If this is made for say 90-100 years, then they will feel no hurry and will work at lower pressure and perhaps can take easy job initially and then mature for difficult jobs.

I wonder why in Japan they are forcing 1 year child to take tough education. I have learnt that they even crushed a girl in automatic gate to the institute, as she was fraction of second late and they could not stop the motorized gate or they did not do so deliberately else their country will collapse to the world. Crazy people, I think they must be.

USA used to advocate for age free opportunities but now they also must have changed in time. UK is small country so we expect the government to be like a chameleon. There was debate on BBC that they have asked people to take some test for being a citizen and also now they are sending back people they once invited. They may go back any time and we can see oscillations in the decision making over small span of 20 years itself.

I am wondering why British went back from India but Muslims did not go back who came earlier to them and were also suppressed by British government here. Gandhi was not against British being here and in fact was asking for more years for independence. Others were power hungry and in a hurry. Lots of work done in India by British like Rails and Bridges is still intact and in use. They left good infrastructure here and perhaps were hard working people. Perhaps, something of them was not appreciated by Indians and then opposed them. Now that we have our Government, we have racial problems, bad decisions, poor management or no management. Some how, new generation is able to pull things together and we may become a point of worry for other nations as we grow into economic power. Perhaps, this may be time when old brain may be more useful and can work together with new brains. We are also pushing the new brain harder to take over from us if they can.

India is in a transition from a socialistic class society to a general society, but not progress will be made until they get rid of the stifling beaurocracy and the relics of the class society.

In college, can you readily distinguish the classes by name and dress? That should change. All should dress in a class less manner and have class free names.

India is changing, but the old guard has to die and the new young take over and bring a degree of freedom. each generation will be better. Possibly 100 more years?

Dear John

India is gaining access to world economy but there are many things are hard to change in multiple political system. Other take immediate advantage of situation. Government can go on the price of onion in the market. Eighty percent population is affected by simple veg price. Somehow India now has over 5000 engineering institutes and producing few thousands in each every year now and this is increasing at rapid pace. It does not matter, what they will do, they find some job to do in India and abroad. Education in India and abroad is also funded by banks so now that makes much easier for a poorman to educate children.

People like me also keep telling Government to pump billions of dollars in young population in education. They also know the value. In just 5 years, a new institute starts producing few thousand engineers here. Any one can start an engineering institute here. Many those were in drinks trade run engineering institutes. Make money and start engineering institute. It is like a industry here.

Well, a lot of engineers will raise the level of the country quickly, but what about mathematicians, phycisists etc?

India was always good in mathematics

Dear Arizon

You said it right. The great of India did not bring bread to people so they finally switched to C++, JAVA engineering and have become typists. Software engineers do something that was done many times.

Some industries may find that, there is need for other ideas as well then Physicists and Mathematicians will also find their place. Chemists are as good as engineers. Bio tech, bio chem, bio physics, nano tech are government supported and funded and hence, some people go there. We have some institutes doing fundamental research but no one hears their big bang theories.

Million scientists waiting to build reactors, were never allowed to do so, they retired happy doing nothing. What Physics we expect from them? Many Indians do not have calculators so use their head to do it. Perhaps that makes them with different ability.

Electroman:

I agree. Age discrimination is very much alive and well here in hiring within the engineering profession as it is in many others.

Unfortunately, we (collectively) are partly to blame, again as in so many other professions. Too many older engineers have simply allowed themselves to become obsolete, and that reflects on all of us. I have always worked hard to "keep up", and self educated myself in many areas such as CAD for instance .... I saw its value back in the '286 days and learned then. Progressing on to 3D wire-frames and now for the past 7 or so years, 3D Solids, in several vendor's CAD programs. Never had a single training session or class, in fact I taught classes on my own time to engineers who were motivated enough to learn on their own time. Forgive me if I sound like I am bragging and maybe I am because it took a lot of work, and a lot of my own time, but I picked this profession and I'm trying to make a point. So many times in dealing with other older engineers (and some younger ones too), I have run into the words "they only had me working on such and such", "if they want me to learn and send me for training, I'll go" (said proudly), "we never covered that in school" (from someone dealing with related issues for many years), or a hundred other lines along the same vein of making excuses for not staying current. It is the responsibility of any professional to keep up to date in his field whether their employer assists that effort or not. Engineering is a broad field, with many specialties and more all the time, but I am talking within one's chosen area of specialization.

I think that most of the CR4 members do strive as I do to stay current or they wouldn't take the time to be here. As for a solution, I have none to offer: unfortunately it is what it is, part prejudice, part justified.

I am such an owner manager. My main business is analogue IC design. I supplement my interviews with a simple test that checks whether people can read a circuit and do the simple sums that result. I see very few people who can make a remotely sensible shot at this. The result is that the average age of my employees is over 50. If I could find younger people who could remotely make a shot at this, I would employ them, if only to balance the workforce. They could be in their thirties, so they wouldn't be any cheaper. So I suppose I would be discriminatory. Comment appreciated

I am in the USA. Jobs as scientists require publishing technical reports, lab results, while teaching, pushing students for their work in your lab, on the very projects that you'll be publishing about as, your work. On top of this, there is attending multiple meetings, belonging to all the right clubs, attending the more prestigious churches, being a socialite, attending plays, operas and performances. Being able to tell a good joke helps. Being married to a beautiful and well mannered wife with three lovely children all doing exceptionally well in their schools and carriers. Having a son or daughter who is a doctor, lawyer or Senator or Representative in Washington DC would help. And then there is fund raising...for every worthy cause. Such busy folk usually stay employed and are funded year after year through the tens of thousands of charitable and governmental grants available. Here, this is the way of all things technical and scientific, from charting the numbers of deformed frogs in Georgia farm ponds year after year as an indicator of pollution problem, to searching the jungles of my back yard to see what strange and different bacteria grew on my dogs buried dog-bone over the winter...and reporting the findings in the Journal of Environmental Bacteriology or as a paper when we all meet once a year. Remaining employed in science here requires an air of respect for ignorant auditors and blundering colleagues. Working in this field is not easy unless you win a Nobel prize or some other prestigious title early on or you'll likely be shifted from one position to another until forced to retire on a fraction of a pension.

Some seem to work in various industries. My experience with working for an industry is that once you provide the industry with what they have agreed to pay you so well for, they can't wait to get you off the payroll. Now I don't work in industry, I charge flat fees for my services on an open contractual arrangement that is heavily in my favor and my fees are high because I'm worth it. I do research, take my time and do what I agree to do.

Every country in the world( I don't know about India) has huge budgets for research, often globally based. Research funding requires work and an affiliation with a responsible agency or group to overseer funding. To apply for a grant, GOOGLE GRANTS and go from there.

Dear Prof. Sabo

Yes that makes a lot of sense. It is still bad in India. Not that we do not have few good people doing research here and there, they are rarely funded and if they are funded then they are not scientists any more. Most of the recognition come because you get along people and not that there is special work. Many such people keep their name in the research work of their juniors as if they have done it. Other agree out of fear to lose whatever they may have and don't want to become bagger.

I agree that asking small money from industry is negative. You also do not extend help that is not paid. If you are paid well, then you can take risk and run extra time, use extra money to help the industry. Once, you are out of funds, you can not help any one as you are not a charity. Often there is problem with small industries that they will ask too much help with nothing to offer and you get sick very soon. In fact small industry should some how get hold of some good technology to survive and become competitive to big industries. However, it is hard to tell them.

I left the government job as it puts too much control on person. you can't do this and that and makes the person sick. I was about to be sick so one day said, good bye to them. Now that I am free, I talk to them 10 times money and they pay for the same work or even less work. I now can talk to hundreds at the same time. This type of life is good when person knows one's worth and has mental strength not only to ask good money but also to give good return of services for what one is paid for. It is a professional life thereafter.

Thanks you very much for injecting many good ideas. I am sure, they are valuable.

Then again, there's the old saying that the greatest new discoveries are made in the funeral gatherings of the old chiefs.

I believe a lot of people go to their graves just protecting what they see as their reputations. A lot of brilliant young people suffer in their tightened fists.

I wish it were otherwise.

L.

Well, here in the US it is a bit different. While the government does control a fair bit of the direction in which research conducted, it is usually contracted companies that do the work. This is capitalism, if you do not produce results, then you are replaced. There is no holding one race higher than another; those companies would fail terribly form lack of public support, not to mention being bled dry by all of the lawsuits from its employees.

All of the Indians that I have worked with, and it has been quite a few in my line of work, would love to find an American company to work for.

It is true that from India more people with lots of brain migrate, while from China more workers migrate. Workers from India are seen in Singapore and Sri Lanks due to their local language connections. Perhaps, Indian workers are not accepting other languages that easily. People in India do not think when they vote to take decisions. These people can make a decoit a minister with full knowdge of 100 daylight murders by the person and yet they make them ministers. Something is seriously wrong here. They make fun of such utter things only to prove that democracy is the Philosophy by fools. In democracy, you can say sugar is bitter and salt is sweet and pass the resolution in parliament and judges have to use that as rule as they are supposed work under democratic guide lines. Isn't that funny? Our people could have made even Saddam our PM or President, had he opted for that and chosen to marry some Indian lady to become citizen of India. Dalailama was fit to be whatever he wanted to be in India but he decided not to get married. He will be taken as Indian monk and not from Tibet or China etc. In India, we say that all monks of the worlds are Indians by right. Monk is a Monk is a Monk here. Science research is also same. People think scientist is some kind of gone case and not to be taken seriously. Do you know the meaning of the words - "gone case"? It is like beyond repair.

When I go for walk, the men and the women in the street will say in slow wispering voice about me that he is a "scientist". While they chat with others, they prefer to give way for me. They will never call me by my name "Shyam". If I visit any institute, then I need to put garlend to their goddess and put flowers, light lamps, and then girls will sink song of devotion and prayers. I will be garlended and perhaps will be asked to talk a bit of science that none will understand. You talk big bang, black matter or black energy, expanding universe, black hole intry into another universe, will make no difference. They will be only be sure of one thing. "Gone case".

Over here there is a lot less reverence to us scientists, they are liable to think "nut case"

shyam , here in the usa the axiom is publish or die. its tough especially when most of the scientific funding from the government disappeared after 911 . in my wifes lab, they recieved 1.2 million for their research when they were expecting 3.2 million .. papers equal long and lengthy grant applications. and then there is no guarantee of getting funded the whole amount you need to complete a project. i did an experiment with students giving them an impossible problem to solve, with only one solution which a female figured out after a few moments contemplation

the class was to figure out how to place a 25 cent piece inside an overturned box. there were three hundred students in the class. after the experiment was concluded , i shook the box.. "Oh look" i said "Leftover grant money ! it got quite a laugh and i proved a serious point to them in problem solving. the solution isnt always what you expect it to be , and most times its nothing like you would

wish i to be , but you have to be looking at every direction , and outside the box for answers to even the simplest and most complex questions if you want answers

age has little to do with being able to find the answers. i did the experiment with older nasa engineers and they were unable to grasp the answer until i showed it to them. as far as caste is concerned, we have no caste system here, there are scientists, there are engineers, but the lab managers still know where all the bodies are buried so they are usually the ones in charge, despite what everyone thinks.

Why not try the same question here (define it clearly enough and there are plenty of us who would have fun trying)?

The problem of grant money going down and up and down is that these changes have a lot to do with who is in office at the time and what their priorities are. Lack of funding can be due to insufficient interest in the field to inspire public confidence in the potential for an eventual success. If you study successful researchers, in the past the "Gee-Whiz" factor was played to invoke confidence and inspire public interest and financial support. Most grant writers are more interested in playing to the facts, the work and the result with the enthusiasm of an auditor observing the passage of numbers at a funeral.

When you are outside the box, the game gets a lot more personal and public. You get the facts straight, you get photo proofs of whats happening , you get a compelling story that you can take to a bank showing positive potential for results. That's called the "hard sell" by some. It's how I prefer to get results. And I do not solicit funds from one person or organization, I make the rounds and solicit funds from everyone especially those with money and a vested interest in the result. That's what pays. My time is important too.

Whenever funds are drying up, like a new political cycle of Republicans in charge, the emphases of support shifts accordingly to their fields of interests. Where is the money? Arms, military and anti-terrorism. You can either follow the money or take a sabbatical in any job you can get. Bush's support of all our sciences was shockingly absent to anyone who couldn't read about who was putting him in office and what their platform is.

The political arena is shifting to the Democrats and the way to earn grant money is to support their interests and solicit funds that support their interests. Read the tea leaves and tune up the grant machinery to see what's happening in the new congress and get your proposals in to the politicians you helped get into office.

Something to consider is the fact that most nobel laureates complete their research, for which they receive the award, before they are 35. The younger people have not been corrupted by the practical yet and are much more creative. Engineers on the other hand do tend to improve with age as there is a large component of knowing where too find things and how to make the science work practically. Science needs to be impractical, this is how it make forward progress. Einstein is a good example of a scientist who when he was young had a large capacity for open-ended creative thought, as he got older this closed off (He could not believe in quantum mechanics, and spent the end of his life trying to prove his grand unified theory, and failing). The problem i see with the vast majority of older engineers, is that they have actually been in marketing or management for most of their life, and have not kept current in their practice, then want to jump up and design something to retain the billable hours and maintain their standing in a new company. New engineers will have creative solutions incorporating newer technologies, older engineers will be more practical and have more contacts.

Does that mean, that young people are more open to new theories than the old one? Brain does not think of age. However your point looks OK to me as old people will spend time on what they know better and less on something that may also may be part of them. I am not much concerned about Nobel prize but sure will care for Novelty.

While young people need support, the old should find their way on their own or must exit. I agree that old are in different game, which may be more harder for them. Young people need opportunity rather than be deprived. I agree on that point.

This point also has given me a thought to let us care for those who can not make to the best but be part of the system in different way at lower intelliectual level. However, lower quality brain being given job of tough scientist looks very odd and in India, that is wat it is now done by the Government even though all intellictuals oppose this. Doctors who agitated were beaten by high school educated police personals. There is much worst of it and all open book of democracy.

Well to start off I'm one of the younger guys and am I currently am working on an electrical engineering degree. As far as "young people" open to new theories than older people, I think in some cases this can be true and in others not. From what I've seen, alot of people my age aren't going to go very far because the standards for success seem to be lowering and kids are slacking off in school wasting money,unlike how older people seem to have more of a drive and not as lazy. I think that older engineer's brains are deffinately stronger than younger one's due to experience, the more you know the better your memory and so you can recall solutions quicker (I think it works something like that). As far as keeping up with new technology, I think it really depends on who puts the time in and who has/makes the time to put it in, which varies in both cases. As far as whos brain is better I would say that younger peoples brains are better because of evolution, or atleast that theoretically we have slightly more potential, but I'm is not saying this is a big increase but it does make sense, our cerebrum is getting larger generation by generation. But on the comparison between young and old on developing new theories today, the older mind has more barriers of what he knows won't work, when maybe under certain contiditions not tested, may. Yet on the other hand maybe the younger could have learned that that the same thing wouldn't work because he learned from a text book written by an older person. Hopefully this makes a little sense, since it is getting late.

Matt

I'd like to think that you are right about increasing intelligence. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any medium-term evolutionary pressure that would increase intelligence from one generation to the next. Indeed, if (a big if) social success is strongly dependent on intelligence, and also if intelligence is largely hereditary, then recent social pressures would almost certainly have led to a decline in the average intelligence of the population. There is also the aspect of nutrition, which appeared to go through an optimum in the 1950's and 1960's.

Regarding invention, the evolutionary pressure has been for young men to establish themselves in society and to make an impression on potential mates. It seems that one of the side effects has been the development of radical ideas. It would seem that the young also feel more freedom to pursue new lines of thought, although (SFIK) females seem to exhibit a more uniform pattern of intellectual activity through life. It is probable that the process of building your own intellectual structures during learning is also effective, because older people entering new fields seem to recover some of that inventiveness.

The main difference in today's science and engineering is that research means Ph.D., which is not true. People in early time did research because they thought to look at things for their own satisfaction and some inventions were commercial gains also. None of them needed a degree. Now that people look for employment and have idea of set pattern which related education and work, the research is also counted in fine printed papers, good pictures rather than its contents. Good research is simply an equation written in sand or wall or 100 times pencil pocked paper with frustrations of work. Now you take few digital picture and write this and that and count as research paper. You put a paper and let a cow put some cow dung on it and it becomes a million dollar art. It is not easy to tell where things are wrong but one thing is sure that scientists are not created by degrees but are born thinkers, who also have inherent logic working towards sixth sense. Look at the sky and keep looking all your life and you can not figure our date and time of solar eclipse or lunar eclipse even with error of months. How did others find out all that so accurately right from Arya Bhatta was some where in their brains and not institutions. There is also less need for such thing today.

People do not take to art of singing or music or dance or painting if they are not fit to that. You also do not enter the WWF arenas if you think you need to live. However, all people want to become scientists and engineers so that makes it impossible to find real one from many impostors around. Some run tea pantry and are called scientists. Hopeless situation and it is like "Andher Nagari Anbujh Raja, Take Ser Bhaji Take Ser Khaja", which means genius and stupid can share the Nobel Prize if the judges are representative of democratic Governments where bitter can be voted as supper class sweet.

I think that scientists (and intellectuals and artists for that matter) can be both born and made. You need the seed, which can be nurtured; or it can be stunted, corrupted, or otherwise distorted.

Pursuing a PhD is intended to provide an opportunity to explore an area of activity in your own way, and also ensures the work is subject to intellectual rigour. Unfortunately, many institutions now miss out on one or the other. PhD 'factories' provide a reliable route to the desired piece of paper, but the student does not have the space to find his own way. Some other establishments either do not insist on rigour, or they don't provide support to develop it.

However, there are still some good places to pursue PhDs, and some good people doing them. The final piece of work is sometimes relatively trivial from the viewpoint of those who are serious workers in the field - but this may not matter if the student has the ability and has acquired/demonstrated the desired rigour and self-motivation.

The remainder of your note is too deep for me, though I thought that the art was more a matter of placing elephant dung in supposedly interesting/relevant pattern than the more literal b...s... you suggest

Fyz

That some men can be trained, educated to adopt knowledge quickly and can be placed on the rails early is well said. However, making carbon a diamond is an up hill task and why it should be done in any way unless there are not enough diamonds. Even if you make few diamonds and ignore all other things then also the result is negative. The best thing possible is to let people be there and the best should find way to such things and others should find something they are best fit.

India is now experimenting with making each and every men and women a software engineers. Some million numbers each year coming out of the institutions and out of these 20% find reasonably good engineering job and 80% make to call centers and some other dirty jobs. Whatever, their degree says, they look worst than technicians to me. There was time when we don't have enough engineers and each one was picked/smuggled from their house and given up hill task to implement. They were made to sweat. Now that too many people are around, no one knows which one will do what so they employ many at low pay. Then they again keep migrating from one unit to another. Many go to USA universities to find some future after spending little time in different environment. There is no stop on the number of Universities can be started. Each and every fellow on the road side who was bear bar owner is now an engineering institute owner. Even though institutes are run by societies and trusts, but these are family secured businesses and Government must be well aware. These are run for money. Each institute provides million dollars in fee irrespective of type of education one gets. Institute owners count currency notes or perhaps may be weighing them as counting may be difficult for them. No one really cares if any one knows even a bit of engineering or not. Some how these boys and girls learn to speak funny English, much worst than mine and then they also get better printed numbers on their degrees, which means they are better than others even when they are junk. Now that each fellow gets loan for computer and education fee, one is dependent on parent for the degree. One can get everything one wants for free after 18 years of age and in another 4 year, one has a degree to go anywhere. Now does that make any sense? It some how still making sense here. these people from different degrees learn coding C++ codes or other similar things and find job. None work in the area they have degree as they really have no knowledge in those areas.

Indian Institute of Technology and Indian Institute of Science and few Regional Engineering Institutes are good. Few more private Institutes are also good. However there are over 10000+ other that are not so good or are at near zero level.

Perhaps now some USA Universities may also come to India for business, it may be more money factories than education. I do not expect then to bring in USA research into India and many professors again will be Indian people rather than American Professors now in USA. Not that Indian professors can not be good but many will not tolerate politics in education and will like to migrate. Here Professor can be beaten to death by students as beating is called politics in current time. If you can beat many, you have a very good chance to become an Indian Politician by invitation.

"Qualification inflation" is a problem world wide - and it starts earlier than universities - with high-school qualifications. The problem may even be traceable back to elementary school level, where the basic skills are often not properly taught. Whatever the cause, many universities, whether in the USA or in Western Europe, now add an extra year to first-degree science and engineering courses relative to before about 1970. Most of this is so the students can catch up with what previous generations knew when they arrived.

I remember a time when Indian degrees were so rare and hard for all but the best to achieve that (for example) B.SC Calcutta (failed) was almost a qualification. The positive aspect of wider education is that even non-academic universities can give their students space to mature - although paying university-fees for this is a waste of money. The down-side is that some capable students are not given the opportunities they expect. So it may be a waste of money, but I'm confident that most employers know which first-degree qualifications in their fields are significant and which are not. Even so, about 90% of the new graduates that my company interviews have neither the mathematical skills nor the basic scientific knowledge to contribute.

The first "junk universities for profit" that I came across were all in the USA - although they also have many good universities - from "community universities" upwards. However, it is sad to hear that this trend is appearing elsewhere.

I hate to agree with you about this, as it sounds both pessimistic and cynical - but that is the situation as I see it.

Fyz

Dear Physicist

Institutions are now becoming a hotel service like places, where you pay to get served a degree. You can pay for each menu and find the services in your plate served hot for you by experts and there is no need for you to take pains.

In the city where I am now is having place for education for 20000 engineers each year. I provide some of them facility to learn industrial training on real research project I am working on, and if any one wishes to do so using my facility. I find only 100 or even less among 20000 are keen in doing so. This ratio looks very bad to me. Some how I feel happy that those 100 numbers of them come to me and can take tough training, learn and try to work, and produce some good results eventually after working by hands.

For those who run the institutions, they go by simple math of US$500,000 investment to get million dollar fee return each year. These people keep enlarging the space using the fee from students. As Bihar has only very few institutes, all students come to my place with bag full of money to buy degree. Once a student is in engineering institute, getting married becomes much easier, so many send their kith and kin for engineering institute for that period and not for any education. Such students enrol and never appear in the class. Institute collects fee so they may show false attendance as well. Some time they may go farther than this and get then degree for doing nothing and not even entering the institute for few days.

Yes, some places in India are still very good for education and degree or no degree, one finds valuable experience just by being around.

I learnt more in Bhabha Atomic Research Center and Reactor Research Center than in all my universities. I was restless all the time as I came from village and wanted to know what the world has done so far which differed from what I have seen on the agriculture farm my father owned. I found many things. I learnt the way Roentgen, Bohr, Rutherford, Madame Curie, Einstein, Fermi, Faraday, Maxwell, Bose and many more scientists did their work from dirty places they may have to live with little money on hand. I felt them friendly and and they became the part of my mental family forever. I am highly indebted to them and became thankful to those who have given me place to find these people in literature and labs after they all were gone. This feeling is far beyond than becoming richest man on the earth. It is valueless as it made me a man I wanted to be. I learnt to know myself very early and I could set my goals easily as I learnt about great people out of curiosity when I was just 9.

Guilty as charged - that is precisely how I treated my degree course all those years ago. Somehow, I also managed to learn something; perhaps I was lucky with my contemporaries

<quote<The problem i see with the vast majority of older engineers, is that they have actually been in marketing or management for most of their life, and have not kept current in their practice, then want to jump up and design something to retain the billable hours and maintain their standing in a new company. New engineers will have creative solutions incorporating newer technologies, older engineers will be more practical and have more contacts.>

Are you saying that a person who has spent most of their life in marketing or management is an engineer??!!

I am an engineer and I run my own business but when people ask my job title I don't say a manager I say I'm the chief engineer!!

I spend most of my time designing, not necessarily because I have to but because I want to!

When I look back to when I left university I shudder to think how ignorant we all were as graduates... Its only after 25 years of engineering that I can put my hand on my heart and now say I am an engineer, and I'm still learning something new everyday.

I may not be as up to date in some areas as a new graduate, but at least I know this and I am willing to listen to others and discuss ideas and experiences. At the same time I like to think that with a long background of engineering behind me, I can think of many solutions to a problem, sometimes even using ideas thrown out or discarded decades ago...

That's why I love engineering, you never know when a snippet of knowledge learnt decades ago might suddenly be useful in solving a problem today!

John.

Dear John

You do engineering for sure and that makes you what you are now.

The young generations reads what you say and what others say and they also extend their helping hand and finally become more capable to take over. They learm from all of us. They start from where we experience people are.

This is very interesting and that is the way we all started one day. Did you not learn from some one you worked with?

I had a small team in Bhabha Atomic Research Center Mumbai in 1976 and we moved to Chennai on July 6, 1976 and there were six of us. We met another semi experienced team at Kalpakkam nuclear power plant. We had other men who came fresh Ph.D. from California and Liverpool and some more universities and some local Ph.D. were also there. The first task I decided to take to electronics and others took to Physics and engineering. We had to test the nuclear reactor pipe line to see if it can take the blast of RDX explosives. None of us ever have seen those explosives and call some defense people to bring those in Kgs for us and to handle that green clay. Now that we had charge amplifiers and piezo pressure transducers, problem came to record the pressure pulse at such a high speed of microsecond order. Here I did my first hardware and built a microprossor based data recorder at 200ns samples and this data was transported in to Intel 2708 EPROMs. I also build another reader for this device and transferred data to IBM main frame with magnetic core memory. That was a success for me. I think the reference books were printed catalogs only and no computers to help. Only Teletype mechanical ASCII 4-20mA 110 baud machine and with white paper punch tape. I now will not sare to make one like that. I was 25 at that time and had seen only villages and my father's small farm house, bulls and cows. I never returned back to look at that again and electronics became everything for me there after. I did Ph.D. in Physics working on scintillators and also build every fine quality electronics needed for it. I also built one nuclear MCA that was used for 25 years online and perhaps must have retired now. It was working till 2002.

Now i have one daughter and one son as engineers. They started with IBM-PC and are scared of working with parts. My sone has built few robots for national and international competitions and have won few top prizes. I am still not finding the level of interest we had to dig from nothing. Perhaps their world is different now and they will find something the way we found something meaningful for us. I keep doing what we like and I let them do what they like. We are from different worlds with different dreams.

I now educate those think they should learn from me. Few hundreds of them come each year to learn something they want good for them. I never say, what is best for them. The world is diverse and we need all kinds in it to fill the gaps. Life is a crystal structure and it will find way to settle with the best possibility of its won for each of us.

After this discussion now i feel a bit better. I now understand that young people should get chance before they become useless and we should be more competitive than others and should find tougher world, which should not interfere with that of the young people.

Thanks you all for participating in this discussion. I will be more focussed on what I know the best and will teach any one what they want to learn. It is great happiness this way.

Wen I wuz a stoont I cud not evn spel 'injuneer', now I are one

Thank you Aurizon, that's brought us all back down to earth with a bump!!!

John

I know that most of us are store house of experience, and we need to write books or educate people such that it is not lost. I wrote 100s of design ideas in EDN, Electronics Design, Electronics World and wireless world (it was that name long ago). I think now is the time to write few books and I can put all that makes difference.

I will welcome chapters from other as well to put in if you wish and will like to contribute.

Write to me using my emal sst (at) sensorstechnology.com

John

I'm in a different field, but I own and run the business, like to keep analysing/designing, and use mostly titles like 'technical director and bottle-washer'. The scenery seems otherwise indistinguishable.

Fyz

Amazingly artistic life with scientific blended attitude and engineering technocratic outfit. How did you manage to master all that? In India it is called "WAHI MIYAN DARWAR KO WAHI CHULHI FUNKE", and can be translated as "The King is also a Cook".

You seem to cover a pretty vast area yourself. But if you are talking about me there, the truth is that I never mastered anything, it's just a continuing struggle. Even so, coming from a mixed academic/artistic background makes it much easier to pretend*... [John would recognise the origins of my job description in the English equivalent phrase - "chief cook and bottle-washer"]

*Plus I don't have to contend with the problems of only learning western use of English late in life - I doubt I'd have managed that at all.

Fyz

For scientific attitude, I can not associate it with any kind of education. This is something inherent in the mind that makes one to dig things. Engineers supposed to start with drawing input and material input to give shape and if they venture in from zero level, then they are also scientific thinkers. Environment and initiation sometime let one's brain understand that there exist an opportunity where one was not able to reach otherwise. I will say that people learn from the environment or sometime the environment pushes one to learn and trigger comes from the environment. Hence, all people are free to think, even though some will show up exra ordinary brilliance at times. Generally such people give greater value to such thinking and live such life without much of the other types of life people can live. I am here for 8 years and people know that I am different from all others. Even those are called scientists by their job position are no longer considered so by their life partners as they do not devote their life to thinking as seriously as I do. It is my life or the way I do things look scientific. I think and do. It is hard for me to do things without thinking about something that I need to do. Now I do something for money to survive. This is more like engineering than scientific. I am being scientific will mean to me that I am looking for ideas in brain and planning experiment to look for visible proof. All this is for my pleasure and only after that sometime it is also manufactured for small gain. I can also get my bread by other means, so I do not want to relate the scientific life with bread earning power. Scientific attitude is a love to know the truth in many forms and sometime away from reality. It is also like beauty. Think of the way we see colors and what they are with respect to energies. The confusion of colors in perception and brain process is scientific idea away from one truth but closer to many other truths. Hence, truth is not one identity and sometimes false is also a truth.

Hi Shyum. You said:

In India it is called democracy, which means @#$%^& etc.

Does this mean you don't like democracy? In the US it's called prejudice. I don't know about the goverment, but industry will not hire an engineer without a degree no matter how qualified he is. They will not even look at his qualifications. Older workers are also victims of prejudice, but may be of the most value.

It is not a question of liking or disliking the democracy. The meaning of it changes in each country. Don't you remember that all men are equal and some are more equal etc.

Our constitution is rigid, but has been ammended more number of times then the pages it had when it was called rigid. Our parliamentarials play with it as it gives them freedom to do so. People only have one day fun to vote but these people make fun of people for 5 years.

Some one said that Primeminister of India has not won even a municipality election and yet he is a prime minister of India. This was live on TV show. Now this means that means people have no role to play in making PM of India.

Feeling of race and religion is more used by these people who run the government. Divide the society is base of their thinking. If they can fracture the society and can make large number on their side then small number can be out casted.

Iraq is also now divided between tw factions of Muslim society, perhaps it was that way earlier also. Hence, democracy will not work there. Same thing is in India as people here are divided on racial ground by the government. Children of Brehmins will not be accepted in educational institutes. This more deep rooted now. Christian college Madras refused my daughter with 95% marks in her high school to be admitted for under graduation while others with 50% marks were admitted. My children have to pay more fee, can not be given job and they will face discimination all through life on the bases of race. I am not against upliftment of poor and deprived but think of making them scientist or PM without having justified for the position and proved worthy. Democracy is number game so people use it that way. More bad people make worst of it forever. Many decoits became ministers as they have forceful control over people and as they pay no tax, do not work but shuck the society, they find place in the government. We have some froups of people who think that it is their right to do wrong in day light. Killing of people is shown in day light on TV channels and ministers ship tea looking at those pictures for fun. These are live telecast of real horrors. If you do not believe then try to write any article on Brahmins of India society in any news paper. That paper will be closed if it is publishing the article. In New Delhi toilets Sulabh facility is by a Brahmin. You can not write about it in the news paper.

I think the society is transforming and new generation will be different. It has agitated against racial discrimination and I support them mentally. I hope in another 20 years, this old generation will be out for good. However, I am worried about external funding agencies working on religion bases may still be harming the society using their money. I am against any kind of racial feelings as I like all types of people and their way of life if they think at par with others. There is no equality other than equality of believing that others to be respected. I just do that. Democracy has come to me with lot more price so I do value it but it has mixed meaning for me as I lived it in that way.

I thought that education and employment should go to who so ever is capable and let them solve the problem of the society. Now that it is on the bases of racial ground, it will have its own racial effects all the time and these will get more deeper in the minds of those who cared little about it. It is some kind of perpetual propogation. There is no way to take all to equality. Whatever you do, it will be some or other kind of discrimination to get to the best and that is what we decide all the time.

The youth of today is resistant to the voices of past experience. In my youth there was some of that, but nothing like the intransigence I see in today's youth.

I think many are going to find they have no marketable skills when they hit 25.

Do you want fries with your burger comes to mind...

Dear Aurizon

I agree. The youth of today is more to comfort of life generated by the hard work of the past generations. This is what the old generation wanted for the society and it is now happening in that way. If your children can get easy money from you then they will not work for their lunch or holiday trip. You will fund it all. That the man will work hard to become a worthy man first by hard training is no longer passed on by people. Some countries pass their art to their people in a religious way and some will no longer find a taker.

In India, educated people are more keen in pushing their children at the best spot of education in hope that their kith and kin will live a much better life. This is breaking family values and system of link among people and perhaps may be helping the country to grow on economy, but a family system is bound to collapse.

According to your Apollo system of government, only 10% people should contribute and 90% people can enjoy the fruit generated by the 10%.

Yes, The word is already out about the wide variations among Indian degrees. A few have respect, most are not recognised by the professional authorities here when they immigrate here and look for jobs. Then they moan and groan about discrimination. When they are allowed to take equivalllency tests a very high number fail.

The most vauled asset is often the ability to speak English and this gets them a job in a call center.

I amm amazed the goverment allows this. There must be some corruption and pyoffs. A fake degree granting institution would not be allowed here. When people attempt to operate such scams here, they are exposed and arrested, but in the USA there are hundreds of them..

Dear Aurizon

The so called institutions are actually are closed loop operations by few people. Salaried people have little say. Actually the unemployable engineers become lecturers, so that is again perpetual.

Some students are bright and they some how find better professors in private to teach them and they do not care, where they get degree. I had such few engineers who were actually highly productive. Some of them worked at my industry while they were in education and built electronics and systems for nuclear energy. They presented their work in international conferences and were highly appreciated. This contrast exists at the same place where others have to sell peanuts to survive and find engineering degree only that much good.

I can understand that my son is better because he has everything he needs to learn from my way of working and from my facilities. Others do not find same kind of facilities or waste time thinking that this can be done later on. My son produced a lot of high technology engineering goods for nuclear industry as well for manufacturing industry each year of his education, right from his high school. His high school work was an industrial product for LG Hotline Glass factory which manufactures picture tube here. Other products were balloon based wireless data telemetry, Ion Beam High Voltage nano-second pulser timers, Signal Acquisition and Signal Processing Software. He also took serious training each summer holiday wherever it was possible for him to make it. He could build many robots for national and international competitions and won first prize in IIT Kanpur robotic competition. For a undergraduate student of 17 this looked very good. He is now 21, BE in Electronics, has good GRE and TOEFL and about 81% in engineering so has already found admission in few USA Universities for MS with fee waiver. This only means that others do not have proper facilities for them and this includes the quality of teaching staff. I started teaching in one of the start up institute to understand the problem and everything became clear to me. The teaching staff is worst than the students.

As such Government does not come into picture, as All India Committee for Technical Education - is a department to look after all this. They must have norms like size of building, number of people and their qualifications etc. There is no check on the ability to teach and no check on ability to learn. This makes lot of mud gets in along with fresh water into the same system and it looks like gutter finally. Now the world can filter the pure water and drink it. Now, Government should be well aware of the problem as common-men know it so well. I will not prefer to put any blame on the Government as this may be their weak point and they may get hurt and perhaps they not be looking for solution now and will find something a bit later to rectify the system. It is more like a tribal rehabilitation program or labor orientation program than the engineering for engineering excellence. Some how you may still get some good NASA program worthy out of these people. Some are just born like diamonds in lots of coal around. I can only say that quantum mechanics tunneling effect is visible here.

If any one dares to question it then political parties will send people in white shirts along with camera and will pose if some foreign force is working behind to destabilize India and then plans will be made to win elections on the bases of some big promises made on betterment etc. Something funny goes on and I can hardly understand it even though Darwin said it all in plain words.

Maybe we are seeing a slightly different cross-section of the young community than we were part of, maybe it just looks different from the other side, or maybe it really is worse? Whatever, we can now revise the elders' saying from my youth* to read "The world is going to the dogs"

*I'm getting worried - I sometimes imagine that I actually remember the '60s

Fyz