Salman and the six-pack cerebrum

With technology, you can now order anything online – even a Master’s degree.

Urban legend has it that the closer a student is to the blackboard, the more studious he gets. Nothing can be farther from the truth because the advent of technology has ensured that distance has no impact on learning.

The origin of the distance learning programme supposedly dates back to the 18^th century, somewhere in the land where the sun never sets and the prince never becomes king. However, as with anything Western, the estimate is off by a few thousand years in time and a few thousand miles in location.

Records from our part of the world suggest that the first instance of distance learning can be found in the Mahabharata, when Eklavya was refused admission into Guru Dronacharya’s archery class. Undeterred, Eklavya kept a safe distance and learnt the nuances of archery, thus becoming the world's first distance learning programme student.

Ever since, India has had a huge role to play in infusing technology into distance learning, taking it from the era of cyclostyled notes to using audio, video and online resources.

In the 1999 World Cup, Hansie Cronje, the then captain of South Africa, wore an earpiece during a match, with coach Bob Woolmer imparting instructions from the dressing room. This was one of the most famous instances of distance learning through audio. The innovation does have an India connect – we were the opponents.

India has also popularized distance learning through video – it takes grainy footage aired in a news channel for us to learn of a corruption scandal. These sting operations also educate us on several other topics – for instance, a legal delivery in cricket can only fetch six runs while a no-ball can bring home a million bucks. India’s criminals have also acknowledged movies as their inspiration in hatching novel plots – proof that distance learning via video pays.

Internet-based learning has also revolutionized the distance learning approach, for this is a great way to learn about things you never knew - like someone's bank account details, Facebook password, etc. All it takes is a sneaky mail to lots of random ids – and you can sit wherever you are and be educated on how to use technology and get rich.

These incidents made tech-savvy minds wonder - when technology offered so many attractions, why use it to pursue a college degree, of all things? That was when it came to light that Salman Khan was teaching online. The very fact that the initiative was called the Khan Academy and not Being Studious should have told the fans a few things, but they were too star-struck to realize it.

The very mention of Salman made a lot of teenagers take their shirts off and sit expectantly in front their computers. However, on being given an option of watching Marigold, Veer, London Dreams or an educational video on Newtonian Physics, they wisely chose the last-mentioned, thus opting for a six-pack cerebrum instead. But this could be achieved only through rigourous exercises that required an elephantine memory. This pachydermal hitch was easily brushed off by a part of the brain where everything one learns gets hardwired - the hippocampus.

Soon getting a coveted degree from a prestigious university - without ever having to set foot on campus - became a rage and students were willing to give an arm and a leg for it. Their only crib was that Eklavya got away lightly - all he had to do was give a thumb.

When Carnot and Atlas shrugged…

Who would have thought that the speed at which technology progressed would cause weather problems?

From the time the nerdy Mesopotamian realised that he needed a wheel to move on, technology has been racing ahead. With the wheel came the idea of a vehicle. But it was bad weather that inspired a cycle.

The year was 1815. Volcanic eruptions and a snowy summer could well have been the first signs of global warming, but people had no idea - the phrase hadn't been coined yet. (That would happen almost 160 years later, when Wallace Broecker would use it for the first time.) Those were the worst of times and the fact that such tragedy could inspire an invention called a Laufmaschine could be attributed more to the German language than to irony.

Laufmaschine - meaning running machine in German – was a cycle with no pedals and had to be propelled with one's feet. (Picture the image of postmen on these cycles, pushing along with both feet and delivering letters, and you would realise where the phrase 'push mail' came from, in modern technology.) However, what was historic about the incident was that it was the first time that extreme weather conditions were being linked to a ‘cycle’.

Technology’s evolution was fuelled by the arrival of cars and bikes that belched smoke, causing pollution and contributing to global warming – bad enough to sink an island nation like Kiribati. Not surprisingly, the blazing speed with which the future arrived caused a lot of heat – something had to be done to cool off. A German engineer named Sadi Carnot had already propounded the concept of the heat engine based on his principle, the Carnot cycle. In a dramatic reversal of technology, the reverse Carnot cycle came into play – simply put, the Carnot cycle had to be back-pedalled to produce cool air. But then, with air-conditioners, opinion leaders and corporate honchos working overtime, a lot of hot air had to be let out for the world to be cooled. And that made the global warming debacle a whole lot worse. Yet again, a cycle had influenced the weather adversely.

In Hollywood terminology, global warming could freeze the world like The Day After Tomorrow, melt it like 2012 or flood it like Waterworld. James Bond's next chase could be across frozen oceans, only it would have to be on foot because there would be no fuel to power his Aston Martin.

From nano membranes to fusion power and algae biofuel, various technologies were debated over, but the argument just got hotter. And while scientists continued to search for a solution, Google came up with a driverless car. But there was a roadblock - in the case of an accident, even Google wouldn’t be able to facilitate a search for a driver to pin the blame on. Thus, what started with a primitive cycle led scientists to the reverse Carnot cycle, the carbon cycle, the solar cycle, the energy cycle and ultimately a denial cycle that led everyone to blame everyone else.

The wise men went into a huddle and figured that they had to stop this vicious cycle. Since all their new ideas were biting the dust in the ozone layer, they decided that the only way out was to recycle an old idea. “It all began with Carnot. Now, let’s end it with an Atlas,” one of them famously declared and wheeled out an old cycle. “Let’s ride into the sunset - while it’s still there,” he said with a shrug and pedalled away.