APPLYING THE BRAIN

Sir C. V. Raman (1888-1970), the well-known Indian scientist, was born in Tiruchirapally and died in Bangalore. Besides being Director of the Raman Research Institute, he held many prestigious academic posts. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1930.

Raman believed that science came from the brain and not from equipment. When one of his pupils in Spectroscopy complained that he had only a 1 KW lamp, whereas his competitor abroad had a 10 KW lamp, Raman told him: ‘Don’t worry. Put a 10 KW brain to the problem.’ (Sunday Review, March 17, 1991).

This is wholly true. Everything in this world depends on the brain. A lack of equipment can be compensated for by the brain, but no amount of equipment can ever compensate for a lack of brain power.

None of the scientists born two to three hundred years before in the west had access to the superior equipment which is available to the university research student of today. Almost all of them worked with far less equipment. For instance, Newton worked with Kerosene lamps, as electricity had yet to be discovered. Yet it was scientists such as these who established the bases of modern western Science.

This principle thus applies to everyone. Whenever a person feels ill-equipped in terms of money or resources, they should strive to compensate by applying extra brain power, an ample substitute for all other shortcomings. Brain power, nature’s greatest gift to humankind, is so astonishing in its reach that there is no deficiency for which it cannot provide a remedy.

Here is another instance of the power of the brain. Mr. Kamal Alig, who studied at Aligarh University from 1976 to 1981, gives us an example from his student days of how the brain can compensate for all shortcomings. It seems that in those days he was a chain smoker (he has now given up smoking) and was in the habit of going on smoking late into the night, when he was studying for examinations. One night, at midnight, he had a great urge to smoke, but he had run out of matches, and even the heater was not working. His urge to smoke went on increasing, and his mind remained preoccupied with this problem for half an hour. Finally, he managed to think of a way to save it. His room was lit by a 100 watt bulb, and he thought that if he wrapped some light material around it, it would become very hot and start to burn. So he took an old, worn-out piece of cloth and did just that. Within five minutes the cloth had ignited. Mr. Kamal immediately lit his cigarette and began smoking.

This is called ‘mental labour,’ as opposed to physical labour with which people are better acquainted. Of the two kinds of labour, the superior kind is mental labour. All the great achievements in this world have been brought about through mental labour. Physical labour involves only the wielding of the mattock and the hammer. But it is mental labour which runs offices, factories and modern scientific establishments. If the former can bring us one rupee, the latter can bring us a million.