Dr. A. P. J Abdul Kalam Speeches / Lectures with the Students of Jamia Markaz Institutions

Address and Interaction with the Students of Jamia Markaz Institutions

Abdul Kalam in Sunni markaz with Kanthapuram See More Photos 

I am delighted to address and interact with the teachers and science students of various colleges of Jamia Markaz. I am happy that Markaz has built a reputation for its contribution of providing modern education combined with Islamic teachings. My greetings to all of you. I am very happy to be in the midst of science students. Science has grown and blossomed and will blossom, what is the nutrient for the growth of science? It is only question and question till you get an answer, experimentally or theoretically or both. I would like to talk on the topic "Questioning mind is the nutrient for blossoming of science".

My experience in the environment of question and questions I recall in the year 1970s, one side I had to work with Dr. P.D. Bhavsar, with his sodium payload (my team was building sodium payload) with his counterpart in France Prof. Blamont. The same rocket launch would have Langmuir probe of Dr. Sathya Prakash with his NASA counterpart. I still remember, many successes came in getting the data from 60 to 200 km on the atmospheric structure using sodium payload, also the Langmuir probe. Another important experiment the magnetometer of Dr. Sastry with his research students. Dr. Sastry put, so many restrictions on the flight because of the magnetometer - payload. It was a challenging task to work with Prof. Sastry. Then comes my work with Prof. Pokunkov, Meteorological Centre of Moscow. What a delicate instrument he used? It was a beautiful thing to see Prof. Pokunkov?s payload (radio frequency mass spectrometer). It was not only the science of measuring the atmospheric constituents, but the payload looked beautiful also. Somehow I started liking Pokunkov. We used to work for him many days and nights. He used to bring sandwiches and a flask full of tea. He was feeding us throughout the night. In those formative days it was helpful. Then comes my hero, Prof. UR Rao, with his counterpart Prof. Oda who gave me the toughest problem which I came across in building the payload. I don?t know, why his proportional counter in x-ray payload should be so delicate such that no shock should be experienced except earth's "g" when the nosecone jettisoned at 60 kms. All the sounding rockets would spin. When the rocket spins, naturally the part of the jettisoned nosecone will hit the experiencing a shock of in 6 "g" for few milliseconds. Now I had to devise a unique fiber glass rim as a shock guard. We allowed the split nosecone to hit on the ring thereby absorbing the shock. When the x-ray data was received from specified stars, he treated our team beautifully with a good dinner. All these scientists belonging to different disciplines, we could solved only through the questioning minds of our scientists and engineers and the patience of the responding scientists. Above all, this experience with Prof. Vikram Sarabhai and his expert?s scientists really gave me to work with the greatest university with men of scientific eminence nationally and internationally with a scientific way of working. It was working, intellectual working, scientific and technological working, and above all when the failure occurred, defeating the failure and succeeding were the greatest lessons learnt from Prof. Sarabhai?s leadership. Read More  in Abudl kalam's website

read more...