Abstract Archives - CUTTING EDGE VISIONARIES

Fire

September 11, 2020September 11, 2020 by Ravi Singh, Aashish Chachanin AbstractLeave a Comment

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Fire is believed to be discovered by early humans when they accidentally rubbed two stones against each other. Fire wholly changed the living and eating habits of HOMO SAPIENS. We can’t even imagine eating our food raw; cooking has made it easier for us to consume, and it’s safer as well. Cooking helped in reducing time and energy indigestion. Digestive fire in the digestive system makes digestion easier for us. According to British primatologist Richard Wrangham, cooking may have played a role in the expansion of our brains. Fire helped us keeping warm and surviving harsh winters, not to forget early humans successfully passed the brutal Ice Age which had made many animals go extinct. Flambeau helped us discovering unknowns in the dark and also helped to keep animals away in the night. Early humans were hunter-gatherers and mainly used weapons made up of stones, and hence they were called stone-age humans.

With the beginning of the Iron Age, humans started extensively using iron for weapons and other tools. Fire played a vital role in helping humans for moulding iron and other metals. It brought revolution and led to the development of many civilizations across the world. With humans discovering new metals, the importance of metallurgy increased drastically, and so the volume of fire in our everyday life. Various civilizations worshipped fire with different names, it was known as Hephaestus in Greek Mythology, Vulcan in Roman Mythology, Jacawitz in Mayan Mythology, Agnidev in Indian Mythology and Zhurong in Chinese Mythology. The fire is also associated with the dragon, a legendary serpentine creature appearing in the folklore of many cultures. Fire is an emotion for extremes. It is the emotion of extreme anger, extreme confidence, intense fear and last but not the least extreme jealousy. Fire is deeply rooted in human emotions.

The fire also resembles Sun: the ultimate power source. It’s only because of the Sun that all the environmental cycles on earth are possible and hence the life. The creation of this universe started with fire, and now our daily life revolves around it. Fire can be as tiny as a photon and as massive as the Big Bang or can resemble human emotions and desires. It’s smart and careful handling decides whether it will lead to construction or destruction.

Thank You

Team CEV

Ball

September 8, 2020September 15, 2020 by Deepanshu, Shubham, and Sarthakin AbstractLeave a Comment

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Taking forward the tradition of the CEV, of having the GDs on all sorts of topics, it was an “abstract discussion” we agreed to ponder on …

“BALL”

No one could have guessed it to be the topic of discussion. Everyone was clueless, rolling the eyeballs, thinking about the absurdity of the case.

Ohh, wait a minute. Eye-BALL. There it is.

But we were yet to get there. The first thing to pop up in our mind was the game of Cricket. Because this is India, and it’s given that the majority would relate to Cricket when they hear the word ‘Ball.’

But, our perspective about it was soon going to be altered. At this point, we were unsure about the learning only to reconceive how we observe the world around us.

Have you ever wondered, that in our universe(explicitly mentioning – the known universe) most of the matter, be it a tiny atom(which we imagine to be) or the planets, the moons, or the stars, all are almost spherical! Or we can say, all are in the shape of a Ball. Isn’t it interesting?

In the case of Planets and other Celestial bodies, they are round because of Gravity. A planet’s gravity pulls from the center to the edges like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. That makes the overall shape of a planet a sphere. But, in general, we can also say that the Sphere is the most stable, most efficient, and widely found state/shape. A sphere has the lowest possible surface area required to bound any given volume. Therefore, it’s the most energy-efficient configuration. The average strength of a sphere is the strongest of any three-dimensional shape, i.e., it doesn’t matter where you apply pressure on its body; the stress will be the same.

Now let’s come back to our very own home, the ‘Pale-blue Dot’ somewhere in the middle of the Cosmos. And also, let’s go back in time.

Human history. It is a perfect example of how the least exciting things can significantly impact our daily lives. Balls have such an effect. The first known use of the word ‘ball’ in English in the sense of a spherical body that we play with, was in 1205 in Laȝamon’s Brut, or Chronicle of Britain in the phrase, “Summe heo driuen balles wide ȝeond Þa feldes.”

None of us can imagine our childhood without balls. They used to be among our favorite toys, whether cricket balls, smiley balls, footballs, or any other ball. They have been an integral part of our life, fulfilling our needs for enjoyment and entertainment in every possible way.

Growing up, we became familiar with sports like football, cricket, and basketball, among many. They helped us grow physically and mentally while making our bodies and minds healthier. Being a 90s kid, we can’t ever forget the computer mice with small rolling balls inside, and the endless efforts it took to take them out, to just look at it.

Other than these, where do you think you can find them? They’re all around you and also inside, they’re a part of you.

You don’t believe it?

Consider the Ball and Socket joint in our bodies, a joint in which the rounded surface of a bone moves within a depression on another bone, allowing greater freedom of movement than any other joint. Also, the body part you see from is in the shape of a ball, i.e., an Eyeball.

Balls make our lives easier, as they are also vital components of many machines that we use. The Ball-bearings, Locks, Ball-Screw mechanism, Robotic joints, Pens, etc., all have balls inside them. You Might also have observed; the food you eat. Yes. Can we not say that there are so many eatables/dishes that take the shape of balls, or even constitute the word ‘ball’ in their name? Here’s the list: Laddoo, Gulaab-Jamun, Rasogulla, Cheese Balls, Gol-Gappe, Meat Balls, Hush Puppies, Pakode, Manchurian, and many more.

Let’s have a look at how the balls have inspired and entertained us through Stories, Movies, and Art.

Balls are also related to dance. Here is how: A ballroom or ballhall is a large room inside a building, the primary purpose of which is holding large formal parties called balls. Traditionally, most balls were held in private residences; many mansions contain one or more ballrooms. Ballroom dance’s social origin lies in the European court dances of the 17th and 18th centuries. They are popular mainly in the West and performed by people of all age groups. The ‘Collegiate Ballrooms’ are designed for students organizing various competitions like MIT Open Ballroom Dance Competition, Big Apple Dancesport Challenge, Cardinal Classic, Berkeley Classic, Harvard Invitational, etc. This helps to spread interests among the students and to familiarize them with the dance steps. If you are a ‘Potterhead’, you might remember the ‘Yule Ball’, a Ballroom Dancing event organized with the ‘Triwizard Tournament’.

And how can we forget about the game the protagonist and his father played; in the same series. “Quidditch”. The quidditch match between Gryffindor and Slytherin was among the most memorable moments from the book. There are three different balls: the Quaffle, the two Bludgers, and the Golden Snitch. The Quidditch game ends only when anyone from the two teams catches the “Golden Snitch,” which somehow relates to our very life. Our lives are all about ‘catch’ and ‘drop’ moments; when you can catch the right opportunity, overcome all the obstacles in your path, you win, or you go for another try. That is why every one of us can relate to these lines:

“ This …is the Golden Snitch, and it’s the most important ball of the lot. It’s tough to catch because it’s so fast and difficult to see. It’s the Seeker’s job to catch it. You’ve got to weave in and out of the Chasers, Beaters, Bludgers, and Quaffle to get it before the other team’s Seeker, because whichever Seeker catches the Snitch wins his team an extra hundred and fifty points, so they nearly always win.”

Ball teaches us life lessons, isn’t it amazing? Here is one similar line: “The long game was ended, the Snitch had been caught, it was time to leave the air.”

So, what did we gain here? We got to know how the small things(in this case, a ball) creates a significant impact on our lives. They are present around us everywhere and every time. They sometimes teach us valuable lessons. We just need to change our perspective on how we observe the world around us. The key is to stay curious and live in the moment.

We’re leaving with a final quote from the movie – ‘MS Dhoni: The Untold Story’. In a scene, Dhoni is sitting alone and depressed at the Kharagpur Station, and then his superior AK Ganguly said these famous lines: “Life ek Cricket match ki tarah hai aur tum woh match khel rahe Batsman. Life tumhe baari baari ball phenkegi, aur sab ball ek samaan thode na milega. Merit pe khelna hai aur tike rehna hai, scoreboard will keep moving!”

Life is like a cricket match and you’re the batsman. It will keep throwing balls at you, and every ball will not be easy to play. What you need to do here is just hold your position and the scoreboard will keep moving. What this means is that there will be numerous difficulties along the way but you have to withstand. The better you endure the situations, the farther you will move ahead.

Thank you!!

Team CEV

Minutes of Leaf

February 16, 2020February 16, 2020 by Rushirajin AbstractLeave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Leaf and Circle of life
Live your life to the fullest at the early age just like leaf
If you are a grown up, make your contribution to the society just like leaf
Small but complex
Why we worship leaves? They are generous.
Provides food and energy to the world
How leaves and humans are similar
Both are unique in their own way
Things to be learned from leaves
We should respect everyone’s uniqueness.
Like trees bind leaves together, we should live in symphony.
How Tress and Human families are similar
Unity is the principle of life, like trees only survives when there are leaves to feed it humans also should live with unity in order to make a better place to live.
Adjust yourselves with the surroundings like leaves
How can we relate evolution of human generations with evolution of leaves
Leaves fall apart, decompose and help the next generation to grow. Similarly, in all the other species parents sacrifice themselves to make a better future of their children. Nature is somehow behave uniformly everywhere.

CLOUD

September 11, 2019September 11, 2019 by Sai vamsiin AbstractLeave a Comment

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Minutes of Meeting
10/09/19
Topic – Cloud

Yes! Yet another out of the blue abstract topic in the house…. We were amused by the selection of such an abstract topic . Obviously we had done no preparations and had no clue about it.

So as the discussion started, the first thing which struck us was about the shape and the size of the cloud. We remembered during our childhood days, visualizing objects from our daily routine while watching clouds. While on a sunny day, observing the white clouds and evoking the imagination within us. Clouds are an important part in a scenery with lush green fields.

They depict the two sides of human nature, the light and fluffy showing the joyous and blissful nature and on the other side are the dark and ugly clouds showing the negative human nature .Clouds bring hope for farmers while on the other hand they bring grief for people not having concrete houses.

Clouds too analogs with the human life cycle. They have their birth from the water evaporated from oceans until it rains to accomplish its existence. They serve the mother earth with rain just like humans serve to the society to show their existence!

Clouds are seen as the visible limit to the sky. They act as a blanket to the planet earth. On a sunny day ,during the summers playing cricket on the fields, whenever a cloud provides us with a shade we silently bless them to stay and protect us from the harsh sun. If the sky is a window then clouds acts as a curtain, this inspires us to raise the curtains of our life and widen our vision.

Clouds are commonly used in literature showing the aspect of freedom. They motivate us to cross our personal boundaries and limits as clouds float high in the sky.

One of the most peculiar thing about clouds we observe is that it is often perceived as a storage unit. Practically it can be said as a storage for water droplets. But we often notice on comics or animation that thoughts of a character are showed in a bubble or cloud!! Also the famous Google cloud or I cloud storing our data!! So indeed it’s one of a kind..

Clouds are even worshipped in countries like Sweden and Norway! They glorify scenes in cinematic performance as in the Oscar winning movie La- La Land.

Clouds can be a beauty as well as a beast .

Clouds can be romance for poets or a canvas or artists.

In a nutshell, we can see clouds as two visions- one as the scientific eye i.e the concept of water cycle and how clouds help in growth of various crops,etc. Other vision is the imagination part where clouds can be seen as a plain canvas which can be filled with an unlimited imagination of ours. For some it can be considered as a figure of freedom and for some it can be as a figure of boundation, all depends on each and every person’s perspective!!

Keep Reading! Keep Learning!
Team CEV

ZERO

September 3, 2019 by Naman Mathurin AbstractLeave a Comment

Reading Time: 4 minutesMinutes of the Group Discussion- CEV Date- 29/08/19

Yes, you read it right… The topic for the group discussion was Zero!! We had a similar kind of expression when the some CEVians put the topic on the table. We were stunned by this abstract topic and Zero was exactly the number of thoughts maximum of the participants had about the GD. What made this GD special was how spontaneous and creative it was. No one had a clue about the topic which meant no time for preparations and study.

As the discussion started, the first thing that popped on most of our minds was about the inventor of Zero, Aryabhatta.

Aryabhatta has published a lot of work in the field of algebra, an approximation of π, etc. But he is primarily known for his work in providing us with the wonder number Zero! It was evident that Aryabhatta opened up a lot in the field of mathematics, but also left many mysteries for us to unlock. For instance, we know that zero is that number if we multiply, the product is zero again. But still can’t determine what is the answer if we divide any number by zero.. Clearly he gave us something, whose applications are not that easy to interpret. There were talks about the physical interpretation of the number Zero. The word zero is translated to śūnya (Sanskrit: शूय) in Sanskrit which interprets as a sense of nothingness. And maybe that’s how we understand zero as in a physical way. We often see people referring others as HERO and ZERO. That zero is implementing that the person is nothing in comparison to the other. Also, we have seen a movie named “Zero displaying about a person with fewer abilities in comparison to others.

So in all, we can say that the term zero has a very negative physical interpretation in our life. Things got a little philosophical when we all tried to step into Aryabhatta’s shoes and determine the reason behind the shape of the mathematical notation 0. Was it because he predicted the motion of planets around the sun? Or was it something to do with what he saw in real day to day life? Well, this reason died with him many years ago.

The discussion was swayed to applications of zero! Zero is probably one of the most important discoveries of all time. Before it’s discovery people rarely used numbers for anything beyond counting and so zero was not really required. You either had a sheep or you had none. But now we have evolved into a much better world with zero. We live in a world of computers which would not have been seen if not for zero because of its contribution in binary language, which is the language for computers. Zero has a wide application in the field of algebra and quantum physics too. Zero is considered as a base level for many concepts which build on to give many significant things in the world. As we know, zero is the point between positive numbers and negative numbers i.e zero is between positivity and negativity. Applying this analogy to life, zero can be considered the origin of new ideas and thoughts which can push the person in any of the two directions which eventually decides the fate of a person’s future. Clearly we can see that zero has various applications in many fields, but there are very limited applications of the real meaning behind the term zero. Zero was coined to the sense of nothingness. There is almost no use of this sense in most of the applications of zero. Most applications work under the feel of assumptions. For instance, in the binary language, it was assumed that 0 and 1 will be the two things that the computer understands. If something else would have been assumed earlier, the world might have worked out the same. So while there are many applications of zero, the application of the essence of zero is still limited. In a nutshell, when we thought there was nothing more to say about just a number, a few many things popped up. If mathematics is a spear, zero may be the sharp tip of it. To end I would like to say, zero is nothing but everything.

Minutes by Naman Mathur

Keep reading, keep learning!!

Team CEV