Monday, December 15, 2008

CIRCULARITY

(just wrote this piece for the sake of writing something)

Circularity

The world was in dark ages before "circularity" was discovered. Wheel was created and it made a revolution (pun intended). I tried to imagine how the world would look like minus circularity. Every morning we will welcome a square sun. People will go to work on their pogo sticks. Kids won’t play any ball games. There would be no cars, no watches, no elevators (it runs on circular pulleys if you don’t know), and no circles in geometry.

I would really love if we could get away from circles in geometry. All the shapes have such simple formulae for areas and perimeter; but circle brings pain. One has to consider a vague constant called “pi”. It always made my calculations troublesome. While I was in school I was made to understand that the value of “pi” is 22/7 or 3.14 as a good approximation. As I got older I realized this was a lie and no one knows the exact value of “pi”. In my engineering days I used a ten decimal value of “pi” which came as a standard function in my scientific calculator. Our life would have been so simple if the value of “pi” was a whole number. Not only circle but formulae of spheres, cones, cylinders, ellipses etc. would have been so simple. I won’t be surprised to know that many people hated geometry only because of “pi”.

I don’t know how our national flag would look like with a square Ashoka Chakra. How different would the flags of Japan and Bangladesh look minus the circularity?

Charity begins at home. So let me test this “un-circularity” in my room. How neat would my room look without the circles? All the square bottles could be arranged close to each other without wastage of space (remember Japan recently made square watermelons to save space). Then again my imagination stops when I think about square bottle caps! How will they operate, definitely not by rotating? I will never strain my back because things will never roll and hide themselves in the deepest corners of my bed. I see a round pizza in a square box lying on my table. I see wastage of space in the corners. If there were square pizzas these spaces would have been filled. I just calculated that a six inch square pizza will have more to eat than a six inch round pizza!

One more question I wonder at times is whether wheel was “invented” or “discovered”. Some say it was invented because it was not present and some highly motivated stone man made a wheel out of stone. I tend to disagree. Wheel was always present. Sun and moon were always round. Eye-balls were always eyeballs and never eye-cubes. Later some middle age scientists also told much against the wishes of the church that earth was round. All planets orbit in circular. If they had no problem in accepting a round sun and moon why did they object to a round earth!

It is hard to live without circularity. I can’t imagine going to office on a pogo stick. The wheels of my bike are good enough even though they puncture every month on Mumbai roads. Looking in square eyes of a girl would be unimaginable. Life without cricket, football, golf etc. would not be worth living! We should be thankful that we live in a circular universe instead of a square one!

Looks like God gave his angels a circular to make this world on a round table conference (another intended pun)! Why didn’t he give us two wheels instead of legs then?

3 comments:

Ajp said...

Fazayal,

If Ashok Chakra were a square, it won't be Chakra!!

Anyway, nice blog dude.

shy said...

Interesting concept!!

No circles means no Zeros. Wow! life would have been so easier with only 9 numbers.

I wouldnt mind square eyes or walking as an only means of transportation, if that meant no maths. :P

modern times said...

Well the reality is it lacks substance.Take a peek at Fibonacci.Technology has its limitation,for there is no end to Knowledge.Man is ever learning,and will never attain the fullness of it.So dont be fooled!Know n understand who is the Master.