In the era of learning everything in English, here is a forum called arime at Munnota that teaches basics of science in Kannada !!! Yes, you heard it right, teaching science in Kannada. !!!
Mr. Amar Holegadde conducted a session on Theory of Relativity. For a person coming from Humanities/Arts background, understanding science is a Herculean task. However, attending this session made me realise that learning science in one’s own language is not arduous.
Albert Einstein propounded the theory of relativity. This theory is used as a foundation to find out more about space, light and mass in modern times. However, for a laymen, like me, it is difficult to comprehend the underpinnings and relation that lies between these three. The theories to explain the relationship is a point of Achilles’ heel for us.
To make us comprehend and understand the relationship in an uncomplicated manner, Amar Holegadde used an array of examples. The ease with which Mr. Amar was explaining made me enthusiastic to revisit physics for the second time. The theory was explained phase by phase in a lucid manner.
The concepts like, the speed of light is the same within a vacuum, irrespective of the speed in which the observer of light was explained in a comprehensible way. Other concepts like the time that one person takes to throw a ball and catch it will differ, was explained with an example of a person who is inside and a person who is outside the train.
Due to the speed of light being the same for all non-accelerating observers, Amar explained that, Einstein came up with a concept called Space-Time. As Einstein experimented with speed of light, he found that the space and time can be dovetailed into a concept called Space-Time. This meant that an event that occurs for a person at a particular time might occur for another person at different occasions. To contemplate this and get around with this concept was one difficult task for me. Then he thought about how mass can cause distortion between space and time. This is nothing but the gravitational force which we all experience.
Further, Mr. Amar also described this theory with certain equations and how all these equation will ultimately lead to the exalted formula E=mc2., where he explained, how the increased mass of a body along with speed of light squared is equal to the kinetic energy of that body.
The different concepts like time dilation and space contraction were explained in Kannada. This was the unique part of learning. I was dubious about how science concepts can be explained in Kannada. But attending this session cleared all my doubts.
Every single concept was explained in Kannada. This made me get introduced to new words in Kannada. This broadened my horizon on the language I thought I knew very well. The theory of relativity which is esoteric concept, was well, understood by everyone who attended this session. I look forward to more of such sessions at Munnota, so that I can attend and brush up my long lost science concepts !!!
– N.M. Varchaswini
