world around us-color

                                                        

                                                                   Colour perception

Working in camera domain as engineer is the everlasting experience and change in my life. It has been only few weeks studying about camera I realized that we human being perceive world around us almost in same manner as Camera.

 I have been student of science, so this article is going to be little science oriented.

How do we see color? If we think little logical and scientific we find that a camera cannot capture photo without light at all, so the eyes. How does a lifeless object can recognize colours. Let us find it out. As shown in below picture, light rays come from an object to camera from its each and every point and camera stores image information in memory card in form of pixel (the smallest part of an image).

How do our eyes know/recognize that the chest part of dog is white and leg is yellow?  It just knows or eyes do not know at all and just passes all information to brain through synaptic network and our brain decides it.

As we know that light travels in form of photons i.e. energy packets and photons do not have colours. The main part of camera is sensor on which light falls. All colours have their own frequency. When a bunch of different frequencies fall on the camera sensor they cause current flow on the sensor (CCD). Amount of current flows on each part of CCD sensor of camera depends on frequency. Camera stores these in form of voltage and charge and uses the same information to develop the picture.

But still camera does not know the colours. It recognizes all the outside data only in form of current, voltage and charge. Similar way our eyes do not recognize any colours. Light amount that is falling on our eyes are converted into biological signals of different strength and passed to brain.

As Shown in above figure, retina is responsible to convert light into biological signals and then it goes onto brain through synaptic network. Brain interprets the signal and decides the colours. So when frequency changes colour also changes.

Therefore, in nature there is no colour at all except number of waves with varying frequencies. Colours are constructing of our mind and it is not the true nature of any Object. If evolution of mind is different in other species they might be seeing these all frequencies as different colour than human being. So, is there any way to find out reality?

Corruption-unintentional piracy

In child hood, in my house there was a Philips magnetic tape recorder, a TV and a radio, only these three electronic instruments were there for entertainment. Magnetic cassettes were used to play the song by tape recorder. I clearly remember, that time mainly three music companies (HMV, Tips and T-Series) were producing these cassettes. I used to save money to buy new movie songs cassettes from my pocket money, that time HMV cassettes price was nearly 30-35 INR and t-series 25-30 INR. To watch movies we used to hire VCR/VCP (recorder and player) or used to go to the cinema hall once in 2/3 months, otherwise evergreen TV was there to fulfil these needs. Typical ways of entertainment for a lower middle class family.

Today in era of computer and internet these things can be accessed easily. Movies, songs can be downloaded through internet and are being downloaded worldwide. I was too involved in this before few years ago and stopped totally when I learnt that this is illegal and piracy. Today we earn many more times than what we were getting in schools\college for expenditure, then why we cannot simply spend some money to buy DVDs, CDs as we were doing in childhood? We have mobile, laptops worth rates of 20K, 35K, and 50K etc but all song, movies are pirated.

I am not talking about those who are buying online or from stores and then playing in their electronic devices; this is about those who are intentionally/unintentionally involved in this crime. As we know it is very less likely to be caught and very tough to stop it through any means because of its complicacies. Those who are interested in statistics can find out easily from internet that most of the money involved in piracy is going for terrorism and other unethical activities around the world. And because of piracy, entertainment industry is going in deficit of billions of rupee per year. Not only this, piracy is also generating black money.

We used to talk about corruption, dishonest leaders, and corrupt system and so on. Have we any time realized that everyone is involved in wrong deeds at their own level. They might be leaders, bureaucrats, doctors, engineers or any other ordinary man. If we cannot bring change at our own level how we can expect change at national level. Any change starts from within and goes long way to change the world.

Tradition-Rakshabandhan

Raksha bandhan

Last week there was a famous Indian festival called “Raksha bandhan”. This festival is celebrated nearly all part of India with little difference in name and the way rituals are performed. This is another auspicious day and falls on the full moon tithi(day). Nearly all the Hindu festivals are originated from religious background, if not, then somewhere in the path of time they have been attached to religious path and can be found its origin in religious books. There is a story in Puran (ancient religious book) where God Vishnu was doorkeeper of king Bali and Goddess lakshmi wanted him back. She went to King Bali and tie a Raksha sootra(thread of protection) and made king Bali her brother and asked for God Vishnu.

My aim is not to find out its origin but to find out its relevancy in current time and society. Now it is well known that it is symbol of love between sister and brother, and has been celebrated from hundreds of years. It is considered that sister ties Raksha sootra in her brother’s wrist and brother promises to protect/help her lifelong.

Culture is created by human and once culture is created humans are created by culture. Culture creates human bit by bit and the end product represents the entirety of that culture. As time passes custom/tradition/culture gets customized and gives new meaning to the same old tradition.

If today I ask any girl does she really want protection/help from her brother and this is the reason she is tying this knot? What will she answer? And why she is looking for protection from her brother, and if she is asking for it, does really she get it? We must not forget that such cultural conditioning starts from childhood and goes lifelong which creates a cultural distortion in her mind and unintentionally she accepts that she really needs help/protection in various phases of her life. This is social upbringing partiality against her. effect of such traditions can not be seen directly however such tiny traditions are responsible for male dominated society.

In this 21^st century, when she is moving parallel to her brother and equally capable of achieving millstones of life on her own then why this tradition is not changing and stops backing her down. She must be free from such unintentional conditioning. Everyone in one’s life needs support and must get it, however it should not be from one side. For a good and healthy society it must be form both side. If sister is tying Raksha sootra then brother also must do the same, and instead of brother, both should promise to help each other lifelong.