Aloysius Hettiarachchi

I must confess that I am only a professionally qualified Civil & Structural Engineer with some computer programming experience plus some knowledge about Structured Computer Organization, I have no training on teaching methods. However, throughout my carrier I have been associated with teaching at primary and secondary education in several parts of the world. This is because I am married to a teacher from a teacher family that has also done a significant amount of community work in that field. By trying to help her in photocopying the question papers on mathematics for distribution to her students and at times trying to help solve questions at higher level like GCSE- A-Levels, I have come to appreciate the type of hard work our teachers put in. In this connection I thought of giving a new insight on teaching methods by a scientist, the creator of veritasium, whose valuable videos I previously presented in this forum:

It is quite clear that most of the time the students only use the top-level portion of the brain and use the same in answering the questions. If the teacher had managed to put similar questions to the deeper section, then the students become successful in answering the question on which his or her mind has been ‘trained’ (as in AI). So, the success of the tutor depends on how the student selects the questions that will come at the exam and train them on method to be used. To be able to do that the teacher should have the ability to ‘connect’ with each student. Perhaps this is why some teachers become successful and become very popular while others fail. I have seen that tutors try various strategies by coming out with stories related to current affairs and get their confidence and attention first. I my view, giving the confidence to the students take time unless of course he is well known already as an achiever. I remember when my wife was teaching in a secondary school overseas, the tendency was to take students in one particular school as very weak as good grades for maths had been very rare. But her first batch of students when they reached the O-level had developed confidence and became serious. So, every weekend the whole class of 26 or so students would be at our house getting drilled on the questions that would come. When the results came the whole class had scored credit passes or above (the A* at GCSE). From there onward our residence became a favourite tuition centre for A* results in both O-Levels and A-Levels. In her assessment Sri Lankan students are a lot better than all others she had taught. Perhaps this is due to special place our country is situated as given in the following report. This report has been published by an Indian research organisation very recently:

Massive Gravity Hole Discovered in the Indian Ocean—And What’s Beneath Could Redefine Earth’s Evolution

We all knew that according to a NASA observation our country is situated at a low point on the earth’s geoid. It was said to be about 80m below the average level. But now it turns out that it is about 120m below and that the closest point in our land to the actual gravity hole is in the deep south of the country. I now give a picture of that area in Bundala National Bird Park taken six years ago when a group of us went there (after spending a night in a hotel close to the place):

This was our get together 55 years after graduation from University of Peradeniya. All except one guy (wearing the hat) were working in different parts of the world and are citizens of those countries (except one dear friend who has passed away about a year ago) . Apparently one brilliant guy in this picture had earned their president’s (United States of America) award for his invention of an alloy used in aircraft industry. I am sure the emeritus professor will be recognised by his colleagues and PhD students of his Uni.  Yours truly is in the extreme right (sporting a British product by the name Tensar).

This is a historic area. Somewhere close to this place excavations had been carried out by a prominent archaeologist of the country recently. He had done excavations on an area of 10X10km and found an ancient settlement belonging to 1100 BCE with a population of about 35000. It had been an ancient port. Also, nearby he had found a burial ground of a settlement of ‘Hulavali’ or gypsy people carbon dated to be 12000 years old. It seems the artifacts found suggests that they practiced ‘linga vandana’ (or veneration of genitals). In another nearby site he had found a rock inscription dating back to first century BC, based on Buddha era, with the date written in decimal format at the top of the inscription. This seem to suggest that decimal maths had been in existence in Sri Lanka. The notion that decimal math system and written form in Proto Indo European (or PIE) originated in India may not be correct. Perhaps same language was used in some parts of India as well as in Sri Lanka (or Taprobana according to Ptolemy).

Knowledge Passing down from one generation to the next:

In my view, each generation sits on the shoulders of the previous one, gets a better view and figure out the situation before moving forward. History is like a weaved cloth, each bringing a new colour or an abrupt end of a nice picture. We have seen how Elon Musk’s favourite child,  X, trying to sit on the shoulders of his father to see the proceedings clearly for himself and even the US president Trump didn’t want to stop it. This is the same way my father who was an engine driver of a mill would show me how he would tackle a problem of his huge Ruston & Hornsby engine when the bearings would cease. And also, how to make ‘biththtara wee’ (or selecting rice seed paddy). Perhaps even the present day Rajarata farmers would not know the real meaning of ‘biththara wee’ as the agricultural officers would like to promote seeds from multinationals. The seeds he selected by using and egg and a salt solution would withstand the onset of saline water from a nearby tidal river to give a reasonable yield. This was my father’s hobby while working at the mill, and I could not understand why he got me involved. At times he would ask me to skip school, I didn’t mind though. I was about ten years old, but this distraction did not affect me as I was first in the class throughout.

We know Einstein is the greatest scientist so far. What does Einstein name means: it is stone worker or quarry worker which perhaps was a traditional work in a feudal society. He was considered a dull person and was sent to school only at the age of 14 or so, according to the book I read on him. During his childhood he used to go to the field, sit under a tree and watch reeds swaying in the wind with the backdrop of moving trains. His education in the school had been just enough to earn him a job as a clerk in a patent office. Those patents of other people had been a treasure trove for him. He had found how others would carry out inventions and register them under their name. May be the time he spent as a boy watching nature must have given ‘energy’ to the deeper section his brain and it remained active. The inspiration he got may have helped him to move forward with confidence. During the world- war two, they had to run away and escape the persecution. I remember my grandmother saying that a lot of Jewish people came to our village and lived under tents. The people of the area gave them food and treated them well. When the war ended, they all went back. It seems Einstein also visited Negombo area after he became famous and retired. People of that area are known for generosity.

Elon Musk named his electric cars as Tesla as he may have considered him as a genius. At his time the use of electrical power was just getting started. The understanding at the time was that electrons travel from one end of line or the source to the device its being used and then return like a stream. Even the famous IT persons (like the Anastasi lady whose videos on new chip design I have presented in this forum) thinks electrons flow along wires). However, there is a video from Derek Muller, whose video on Teaching Methods,  I have presented above explains clearly that it isn’t the case. He thinks it is an electro-magnetic wave that travels along the wires. But new inventions on quantum field seem to suggest that it isn’t case either. So, Tesla’s incredible solution for the transmission of electricity using cables over long distances worked even though there was no clear understanding on the principles. It appears to be a much more simple thing, and had been figured out by our easterners. Perhaps main part may be the quanta of energy from electrons moving from one level in the atom to next one above and then releasing it plus the other part of energies due to spin being transmitted. The latter may be the part that travels as photons connecting living objects and register in their brains as memory. This may even be a thing that can be represented by a polynomial that can be broken to an infinite series similar to Fourier series. The people of our country believes that there are things called ‘as waha’ and ‘kata waha’ (or powers of certain people have to cast spell using light from their eyes and sound from mouth). It is well known that rats can generate light from their brain with which they see in the dark. Similarly, there can be so-called dark photons that people cannot see, but connect people.

We know that the ancient people who built huge structures with bricks and mortar to securely place relicts of religious leaders like Buddha had a good knowledge how lightening strike on them and to safely let it pass to the ground. When some one explained how it was achieved in a stupa in the ancient city of Anuradhapura a guy in Iran came to the place, got additional info and used them to register a patent. Also, when Sri Lankans explained the use of a local yam type called ‘Kothala Himbutu’ for treatment of diabetics, a guy in Japan where this plant is never seen patented it and now we cannot even talk about it. So, let us be careful in revealing our ideas that are gaining grounds in the ‘High Tech’ sector.

As usual, let me wind up with some lovely songs that our readers would like to enjoy.

The first is from the duo in the group ‘Fantasy’ (Martin and Freddy) singing with a backdrop of an area similar to the scene in the picture given above (paradise):

I give a song by Olaf der Flipper on ‘Stern von Jamaika’ (the Star of Jamaika)

The scenario is very much like the beach font of Negombo, the most economically active part of the country:

Next one from a French lady singing in their beautiful language (like Sinhalese without rough edges) a popular song about her gold fish which has a smooth skin etc. (a sort of ‘jarre marre’ or stress of the gold fish, as we call it).

And finally, one from the attractive guy Hemanta Kumar singing in sync to the voice of Dev Anand ‘Hai Apna dil To aawara’:

Doesn’t this give an idea how people connect via photons and sound?. I tend to believe that at one time in history, people in the region spoke the same language like the English of today.