Scratch Pad - Genius, Then and Now

We have read many theories that are universally accepted, many theorists who proposed such theories are admired in their respective fields. Sometimes they are referred to have being contributed in other fields as well. While I was going through the many theories of motivation suggested by many ‘Researchers’, every theory different from the previous one in some aspect still there is a consistent need for new theory because group behaviour is such a complex process that you can not really put it in the framework of theories.

No, do not get afraid, I am not proposing a new theory for motivation. What I am thinking is that whenever I come across any big researcher, inventors, scientists etc. all those theories existed for a long time. Take an example, Newton Laws of motion, Ohm Law, Fick's law of diffusion, Bernoulli's principle etc. Pardon me for my engineering background, is that the reason! There are no new theory coming up, I am not saying that the research is not happening these days, the research is definitely happening and even at a faster rates but there are not breakthrough theories coming up, that are widely accepted and universally recognized. Well, you may disagree with me here because my knowledge may be very limited.

Still I am puzzled, is it that all the research that could have been done is already been done in all the fields at macro level and whatever research is currently being done is all at micro level for e.g. particle dynamics, nanotechnologies etc. So there are no theories of say solid mechanics or fluid mechanics or thermodynamics, conduction, convection, mass transfer etc. (Again pardon me for sounding a bit technical).

There is a huge scope of research if we go deeper and I believe that we are yet to find any universal principle at this micro/nano level that can be accepted as universal law. Every hypothesis gets refined every five year or so to improve on its applicability and accuracy. Is it what it should be or our research is actually not able to converge to one direction? Is it that while researching on these micro/nano aspects we ourselves are doing Brownian research (getting some inspiration from Brownian motion), and therefore it being happening in every direction and actually difficult to converge.

Or is it that the earlier scientist/theorists were well capable to take their research in one discrete direction and finally result in a universally acceptable law. Or is it that there were lack of scientist community to actually counter a theory proposed by someone. Or is it that there are no more theory left at the macro level that hasn’t been proposed yet and therefore we have successfully explained all macro level phenomenon.

I am sure that there are a lot more number of researchers/scientist today, with a lot more knowledge at their disposal, working on a lot more complex and efficient equipment and driven by a lot more funds and motivation. I am also sure there are a lot more technical papers published in international journals and this trend is going to be the same in the years to come.

Still, isn’t there is one macro level phenomenon that is not yet been discovered or observed and hence there is a scope of at least one new law that will be quickly accepted universally. I am definitely not the person who can comment on this question.

Next Scarce Resource

I was contemplating to write on this for long. Recently when the UPA govt. increased the petrol/diesel prices, our PM addressed the whole nation trying to educate people that the government had no option left but to increase the prices. Trying to educate the people that there is little that govt. can do as these are global factors affecting all the countries and India in one of them. He also shared with the citizens what were the possible alternatives that the govt. could have tried and their limitation and finally they increased the prices. Some people may disagree with this saying that government has levied so many duties and taxes on petrol/diesel at the first place and they should first give concessions on that front. Well I am not writing this to detail out the proportion of taxes, their objective, their requirement and etc. So pardon me for this.

What I want to discuss is the vision that Mr. PM has, one should listen to that message he delivered to the citizens on that day. He is truly an economist because economics is all about efficient and effective use of scarce resources. He is also a true leader because he made a point to make people aware about another daily resource which is not scarce at this point of time, but the early indication are visible on the horizon. Please forgive me if you feel/perceive that I am praising Mr. PM too much. Believe me, I do not have any vested interest in politics and I am not planning to join the concerned political party (because in that case I should be praising someone else!).

What I want to highlight is that he is planning for the future, crude is the present, he is taking necessary steps, but at the same time he is warning people to be aware that such situation might arise again in future and we should start planning for that right from today. I am not that skilled yet to sense if this ‘future problem’ provide any opportunity for business idea, but I am sure key people in the industry must be having some plans to address the situation in the future for the benefit of the people, of course if they take in the philanthropist context. You can relate few M&A in this space by one of the big Indian houses, though the scale of operation as of now is very small. It may take may be 10-15 years before people do realize and accept this as a major challenge but it is always good to start planning now, especially in India where the execution take so long, may be this is the reason Mr. PM mentioned this right away without waiting.

I do not think I mentioned earlier in this post that he said ‘Water’. Thanks Mr. PM for hoping against all odds.