It's nearly 25 years to the day since my first "brush" with the great power above that doesn't lend itself to a logical deconstruction.
Scene: Interview for admission to the B.Sc. Chemistry course at the St Stephen's College, Delhi in June 1990.
After I had walked in and the initial pleasantries had been done with, Prof S.V. Eswaran (the then Head of the Department of Chemistry at the college) looked me in the eye and said:
"According to atomic orbital theory, Oxygen should be diamagmetic. However, experiments prove that Oxygen is paramagnetic. Please explain."
Forget not knowing the answer to this off hand, I was not even aware of such a dichotomy, and consequently could not even imagine that such a question could arise! After a few moments (that felt like an eternity at that time) which I spent in sending up a few prayers but which the esteemed panel assumed I was using to collect my thoughts, an answer "flowed" through me - I had no clue where it came from, or indeed if it was even approaching the question in a sane manner!
The next question from Prof Eswaran - "What is the bond length of hydrogen?". I hazarded a guess - "Sir, it's approximately 1 Angstrom". He said "It's 0.7 Angstrom. Please memorize it - this is a number I would like all my students to remember." I had made it IN!!!!
To me, the most "logical" explanation of what happened is "GOD Exists".
The only other possibility is I had absorbed more from my high school teacher than I had realized, and at a very subliminal level too.
Vinita Kaul... Ma'am, you imparted more to us than possibly even you imagined; thank you for everything!
No comments:
Post a Comment