Pillar Pillai.....

Pillar Pillai - His name is Arumugam Pillai S, he calls himself SAP and the the profs here call him Mr.Pillai.



He is a Technical Officer at the Chem. Dept , IISc (http://chemeng.iisc.ernet.in/) and also the library incharge , ............now that is where I come in ! I was stationed in the library (aka The Bunker) during my stay there this winter !



This person, he says he doesn't talk much, but somehow, right from day one, he started jabbering with me ! A very kind hearted, staunch believer of GOD is GOD , thinks everything happening around him is because of GOD and a very affectionate father and a powerful researcher !
He joined the Dept. during 1979 and during my 1month stay he rattled off his 28 yr experiences at the Dept. Gave me lots of tips, various stories of students whom he has seen, how and what the students do after the IISc life, some inside sneak-peek stories about the profs in the Dept., and a lot about Sai Baba and GOD.
He would go out of the way to help me ! and I really mean that. He allowed me to carry home library books when Project Assistants are strictly prohibited to do so, used to go to the main JRD TATA lib in IISc and borrow books for me in his account (we don't get to borrow books from there, it's a huge repository of the rarest books).
He was my spiritual and philosophical guru and kept bombarding me with pep talk and encouragements. He works a lot on utilizing fibers as adsorbents to remove Cadmium from water and has quite a few publications to his credit !

People who may go to the Chemical Engg. Dept at IISc, do make it a point to be-friend him, he may himself come swaggering towards you, but do not neglect him, he is a very nice person and lovable one too ! Kudos to Mr.Pillai , my Pillar !

A steady suitcase...

Today, I boarded a bus towards Majestic (a place in B'lore) and 't was going from Malleswaram. The roads from Malleswaram to Majestic aint so good, they are quite bumpy and coarse.

There was this man who boarded the bus with his suitcase, a small one that office goers usually carry, and sat infront of me and kept his suitcase beside him. It was erect and was standing steadily. The bus began to move and suddenly went over a speed breaker. This suitcase, toppled, or rather it seemed to topple, and went all the way over to one side and surprisingly came back to it's erect position ! I had actually bent and stretched to catch the toppling case and then F**k, so much for the effort !

Then, another bump, this time, it toppled towards the other side, again, seemed to topple, and this time, it's owner bent down to catch it. And, 't casually oscillated back to its erect posture and the man just touched the case to make sure Ye, 't s fine !

Now, the road was becoming really rickety. The suitcase started wobbling so much so that a person sitting in the opposite seat stretched all the way to catch the poor case. It was wobbling rather dangerously and was twittering around a lot. I was simply watching it ! This poor guy from the opposite seat was straining himself, really. Then the road became quite even, the case gleefully swayed some small oscillations and regained 'ts calm composed erect position.

By this time, Majestic had come up and the bus was slowing down and as it neared the stop, the driver applied a gradual brake, slowly the speed reduced and the bus screeched to a halt, 'Scccreeeecchhhh ....' and the deceleration was so gradual that no one even shifted. Suddenly a loud THUD ,this small suitcase had fallen, toppled over ! hahahahahaha..!..we had a nice hearty laugh ! , the owner said 'the case must've got tired' , the opposite guy claimed 'nasty case, when we tried to help 't fooled us, it deserves this' , lol !....

A nice incident that left me in elated spirits !! , So people, do try to notice your surroundings and absorb them !!

The Coffee Cup Phenomena

The what Phenomena ? , Ahem !, I've just coined that as Coffee Cup Phenomena. So, what is it ?

I had taken up an industrial plant training at Manali PertoChemicasl Ltd., Chennai, India, during my 3rd Semester and I was guided by one Field Engineer who happened to be a graduate from Anna University, Chennai, India. This guy, one day, asked us (two of my friends were with me for the training)

"What are the mechanisms involved when you blow a cup of hot steaming coffee to cool it?"

Seems pretty simply and straightforward aint it ?

. I put this question to my kid(1oth std) cousin bro, he gave a neat reply -

"The coffee is at a higher temperature than the surrounding air, so heat flows from higher temperature to lower temperature and when we blow, it loses heat faster" , these were not his exact words, but 't was somewhat like this.

. I then, had a discussion with Srinivasa Ramanujam (a Unit Operations expert, whom I met in Orkut) , and here is the convo.


SR : the process which you described in your question is nothing but forced convection heat transfer which you will learn when you take heat transfer course.

In absense of blowing, the beverage which is at higher temperature will lose heat to relatively low temp air in atmosphere. The heat lost by the beverage will be picked up by the air and its temperature will increase (upto a limit called boundary layer). when this hot air is removed by blowing, more and more cool air will come into contact with the hot beverage surface which can remove more heat. while the absense of blowing is called natural convection heat transfer, blowing by external means is called forced convection heat transfer.

SR : what you are talking about is two-phase heat transfer coupled with mass transfer which depends on specific and latent heat of fluid(s) as well as concentration difference between them. your explanation is partly correct that some amount of hot beverage will be carried out while blowing (mass transfer), however the dominant mode is heat transfer due to high temperature difference.
for eg, during summer the water in reservoir will evaporate due to heat transfer, but during winter it is by mass transfer. you will learn more during your heat transfer course.


SR : juz now i had coffee with my collegue which stimulated my thoughts furthur. first of all, the mechanism involved in heat transfer from coffee to atmospheric air is more complex than described earlier, because coffee is not an ideal fluid. it is a mixture of milk, sugar and decoction of coffee bean so you will have fine solid coffee particles, water vapour and milk (which itself is a mixture of fatty acids and water). the water vapour which is trapped by coffee will help to retain the heat, by blowing we are releasing the latent heat stored in water vapour which will eventually bring down the coffee temperature. also the high temperature fluid will lose heat by convection to the atmosphere. moreover, the concentration difference between coffee and atmospheric air will carry away some mass (and heat stored in that mass). try to stir with a spoon instead of blowing and see what happens :).


SR : first of all, i appreciate your learning interest.
hot coffee is a mixture of sugar, fatty acids, fine coffee particles and water (and probably few more which i don't know!) each of which will boil at different temperature. the vapour composition is not an ideal gas and it depends strongly on temperature, density of the fluid and other properties. fine coffee particles will also be carried away by this vapour tha heating effect and hence its temperature will reduce.

I do not have my scraps as Mr.SR had deleted them and I think he is not in Orkut anymore.

Well, one explanation I can think of is this -

In any liquid system, homogenous or heterogeneous, there exists a Vapour Liquid Equilibrium (VLE). What this means is, in any container containing some liquid, there exists a default layer of the vapour phase (of the liquid) just above the liquid surface. This vapour and liquid phases of the substance are in equilibrium with each other. Why such kind of equilibrium exists and further explanation can be found in Mass Transfer Operations by Robert E.Treybal and numerous texts are available to cover this, its a fundamental topic.
So, in our cup of steaming coffee, there exists this vapour phase, or coffee vapours, just above the liquid surface, it is this vapour that we see as the steam. The coffee molecules, take up the inherent heat (the coffee is hot) and get converted to their vapour form. So, the steaming coffee has - a vapour phase that takes up the inherent heat in the coffee to sustain, the hot liquid layer from which molecules vapourise.
Now, we happily blow !, what happens ? We are actually blowing away the vapour molecules just above the liquid coffee layer. We blow, the vapour molecules go away. Now, VLE comes into action, since there has to be a vapour layer existing, more molecules from within the liquid take up the inbuilt heat (due to the coffee's high temp) and vapourise to the top, we blow again ! , these newly formed vapour goes off. Again, more molecules consume the inherent heat and become vapours that are blown away, thanks to us !. So what is happening, the coffee loses more and more of its inherent heat to maintain the VLE, in this process what happens ?the coffee loses heat and ..COOLS DOWN !!. Summarising -

-Vapour molecules - Liquid coffee exist at equilibrium
-We blow, vapour molecules go away
-More vapour molecules come up by consuming inherent heat to maintain VLE
-coffee loses its heat to sustain the VLE by providing heat for vapourisation of liq. molecules
-coffee loses heat and cools down.

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So, there, that is the Coffee Cup Phenomena !! It was nice to write about it, think about it!, such a simple, day to day activity, but it involves a beautiful mechanism , nature rocks !!

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Have a nice coffee..!!

Apple I-Phone Ripped Apart

I chanced upon this interesting piece of news, a couple of blokes have sat down and ripped the Apple I-Phone apart, its interesting to have an inside look !! Check it out !!

http://thinksecret.com/archives/iphonetakeapart/

Apple rocks !!, and their latest OS, the Mac OSX Leopard, it can run Windows as well !! I just bought a piggy bank , saving money for an i-Mac :P

Assassinating a Political Leader - Benazir Bhutto's Death

Disclaimer - I am NOT a reporter, news press person, political leader,politician, employee of the Government of India, spy, police, CBI, detective, associated with politics, underground Don, news reader, owner of a company,critic, rebel, mastermind. ( I think that covers it all)
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To start off, people who expect this post to rattle about Benazir's political prowess, her ideals or about her as a person, am sorry, this has nothing got to do with that. I barely follow Indian politics, least Pakistan's, but, I have heard from some quite reliable sources that She (Bhutto) aint a good leader , she is corrupt (all leaders are so) and has been involved in numerous police cases etc etc, but, she was , now she aint .

I just wanted to muse about the amount of planning those assassins must have done to embark on this mission. It's really a beauty and we have to admire the guts and the nerve of these people to actually get the ideas rolling. Imagine going in and killing a person who is guarded on all sides by some of the country's best trained and ferocious guards. In Bhutto's case, she was actually killed by using a rifle and recent news show a vague picture of a unknown person having a gun with which Bhutto was presumed to be shot. Indira Gandhi, a very powerful woman, she was assassinated by her own gaurd, Rajiv Gandhi was killed by a suicide bomber, Mahatma Gandhi was killed by a rebel (Nathuram Godse) and many such major political assassinations have occurred throughout the world. It is not so easy to just carry a gun and simply shoot the person. The intense, minute by minute, inch by inch planning is to be done. Still, no one has any idea how (yes, PPP says she was assassinated, Pakistan Govt. says she got accidentally injured in the bomb blast which lead to her death, lately PPP has strong evidences and witnesses to disprove the Govt.) or who killed Bhutto. In most of the cases, the job is done neatly and subtley that no has a clue how or what happened. Sometimes, the killing is done at the unexpected moment and by the unexpected person.
Just take some time off and ponder, think that you want to assassinate say Mr.X who is the President of Namek (some fictional person and place). Think how you can do it, the necessary things, arms, time, people etc etc. You just think, and you will realize what it is to be a real rebel and have the blood to go and assassinate a political leader. Also, its very difficult to do it single handedly, you have to have a team , a very very very TRUSTWORTHY team who can be completely entrusted with the job, who can remain secret, who does not have any police records etc etc. And, how to carry out the killing, a suicide bomber ? a land mine ? a bomb in the car or convoy ? get out there and shoot the head off ? use a sniper ? drop a bomb from a plane ? poison the food ? ...oh my god, its not easy at all, its tougher than anything in the world. The amount of money involved, must be astronomical! Procuring the necessary equipments, unnoticed, customs cleared, in neat technically sealed packages, arranging for them, oh man..so many things to be considered. Convincing your team that it is possible, maintaining the zeal, that urge to pursue the project, envisioning etc. I can go on and on, its tooo complicated and not in the least simple.

I suggest you to read The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth, its a brilliant rapid novel about how a team of rebels hire an internationally acclaimed assassin who's supposedly known by no one ,no one knows his real name and who has no police record anywhere, to kill President Charles deGaulle. It seems, after reading this novel, a real attempt was made to assassinate deGaulle using the method outlined in the book. You can get a true feel of what it takes to embark on a mission to Assassinate a Political Leader.

PS: My friend said, " Hey, i pity the state of Pakistan man, imagine the present atmosphere there, how can the people be at peace now, its a troubled country" , I truly agree with this, and I recently read that Pakistan looks to be deserted now, the streets are empty, the shops are closed, no buses, no vehicles plying and people are terrified to even venture out to get basic groceries and there are some families who have no food to eat and are toooo afraid to even open their doors. And, lets hope that Bhutto's 19 year old son who has picked up the reins of the PPP can bring peace and restore the happYness in Pakistan.

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Disclaimer - I am NOT a reporter, news press person, political leader,politician, employee of the Government of India, spy, police, CBI, detective, associated with politics, underground Don, news reader, owner of a company,critic, rebel, mastermind. ( I think that covers it all)

Sarve Janaa Sukhino Bhavanthu