(06-10-08)
TAM PhD Rudra Pratap is now a professor at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore India. TAM Professor Andy Ruina lives in Ithaca. Together they are writing (still) an introductory textbook on Statics and Dynamics. Almost exactly half way between Bangalore and Ithaca on the great circle route is Helsinki Finland. So most summers the two of them spend a month or so working together in Finland. This summer a local paper thought that fact was interesting enough to write a story about.
"Indien och USA möts på Åland", Story in Swedish with Picture, June 10, 2008.
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Below is a rather poor Google translation into English:
Skrivarlyan is in Åland.
Each year, Andy Ruina and Rudra Pratrap live for a few weeks in Nåtö biological station, where Andy's wife works every summer to do research on butterflies.
Together, they are writing a book on mechanics, to be used as a basic text for engineering students.
- "I am a professor at Cornell University in New York and Rudra did his thesis work with us", says Andy Ruina. "It was his idea that we write a book. That was 1992 and we are still writing it."
Both of them laugh.
Rudra Pratrap is a professor at the Institute of Science in Banglador in southern India. He calls for India's Harvard University and says that about 10 percent of all engineers in India graduate there.
To get machines to go
It smells of summer cottage and there is comfortable silence in the kitchen at the biological station and outside the window, blending various shades of green with each other.
Idyllic.
- "The book is about how machines are designed", says Andy. "My specialty is to understand how human beings go. Then, I try to get machines to move in a similar way."
- "I have researched what chaos is about, and now my research is focused on something called meme, micro electronic mechanical systems", said Rudra.
Passion for pupils
It is heard that the two professors know each other well. They speak with one voice. One often finishes the other's reasoning.
Andy: "It was a good teacher at the university who got me interested in my topic. He was so passionate."
Rudra: "Yes, as teachers, we must try to get our students to love the subject. A passion has to come out and be seen. If they see that you love your subject, it is the beginning for them to do so also."
- "I can use ME for everything possible in my teaching", explains Rudra. "There are various mechanical and physical movements to find anywhere. It can push to a chair and noted that the tips in one direction and then you can reflect on why it was not slipping up instead. In that way, the students become interested. They find that mechanics are everywhere."
American Summer School
Rudra brings up the teacup. The aroma of ginger and Indian tea begins spreading in the kitchen.
Last year, Andy held a conference in Finland; for the first time coming in contact with universities in Finland.
- "I got to know some of the teachers and we talked about that I could hold a few lessons at school."
A few weeks ago, it became a reality. For his help, he understood Rudra.
- "It was great fun to do", says Andy. "The school felt a little more like a vocational school than a kind of university. I am impressed that the school spends so much on their students at that level."
While we're talking, he and Rudra start planning a summer course in the mechanics of Åland.
- "Our students back home would study here in the summer. Then in the winter, they could Åland students come and do a course in India or the United States".
- "God, this is a great idea", says Andy to Rudra. "Perhaps we should try it next summer?"
Both are serious. They seem to have an attitude that implies that everything is possible.
Full boat
- "In the area, the research is fairly large", says Andy. "In Finland, hundred students taking safe one engineer's mechanics. In the U.S. it is about 100,000. In India, there is surely an equal number."
- "Even more", says Rudra.
- "And that is under way many different conferences all over the world all the time", says Andy. "I visit many of them and hits rarely the same people."
How is your relationship to Åland?
- "It is an incredible place in the summer. It is heaven. Quiet, peaceful and so beautiful with all the water around", says Rudra
Andy: "And you say this even though you are afraid of the water?"
Rudra: "Yes, I like water, but I can not swim, so that is why I am afraid."
"In Banglador lives seven million people. There is a big difference from here. It is as if we squeezed in the whole of Finland in a city. Next to my campus is a shopping centre, which holds Åland four times over."
- "I have always liked the country", says Andy. "I think it is romantic with water and boats. We have here a rowing boat and a sailboat, which is the ugly, smallest and slowest boat in Åland."
What have you learned here?
Andy: "I teach me about 20 English words per year."
Rudra: "Much of the culture up here in the Nordic region, which I did not know before. The only knowledge I had of Finland was what I had seen on the American television program '60 minutes'. It said Monday that Finns are the shy people throughout the world and as they showed clips from a Finnish disco, where people danced, but to smile or talk to each other. I remember that I wondered whether it was so for real."
- "The fact is", says Andy and pull a joke: Do you know what is the difference between an introvert Finn and an extrovert?
- "Yes, the introvert looks at their own and shoes and the extrovert the others", is responsible Rudra.
