Interaction With Students Organized By Lead India 2020 Foundation, Hyderabad

I am indeed delighted to interact with you. My greetings to the organizers of this meet, teachers, parents and students participating in this function. I want to talk to you about Nuclear reaction. What is fission and what is fusion? In our country we have done both Fission and Fusion. Fission is used in power generation and also making of nuclear weapons.

What is Fission?

Definition: 
A nuclear reaction in which a massive nucleus splits into smaller nuclei with the simultaneous release of energy

The splitting of a heavy nucleus into two roughly equal parts (which are nuclei of lower-mass elements) accompanied by the release of a relatively large amount of energy in the form of kinetic energy of the two parts and in the form of emission of neutrons and gamma rays.

What is Fusion?

The Principle is a nuclear reaction in which nuclei combine to form more massive nuclei with the simultaneous release of energy. Lots of research is going on to use fusion for power generation.

The basis of all of these is the Einstein?s discovery: E= mc2.

Number of elements

Do you know how many elements are there in the world? In periodic table, the first one is Hydrogen. It has only one electron and one proton. It cannot stay in a stable state by itself. It can combine with another Hydrogen atom to form H2 or Two Hydrogen atoms can combine with one Oxygen atom to form H2O, which is water.

Thorium has the Atomic Number 90. Uranium for example has the atomic number of 92 and Atomic weight of 238. Plutonium; atomic Number is 94 and Atomic weight 244.

These heavy metals are used in making and mastering atomic energy. Do you know what you are made up of?

Cells ? Molecules- What are these made up of? Atoms.

How many atoms are there in the world? As per Periodic tables there are 109 named elements and 3 unnamed, so totally 112.

Constitution of human being

How many atoms you are made up of? Trillions. You have mostly carbon, Hydrogen nitrogen and Oxygen, You also have a bit of Calcium, Sulphur etc.

I also have the same substance. Our ancestors also had the same type of atoms. Animals also have similar type of atoms. The non-living tables, chairs are also composed of atoms. The atoms that are arranged and sequenced to make you, is unique combination that will never be replicated and never had existed before either.

The some of the trillion atoms that are in you may have come from Mahatma Gandhi, from people whom we may not even know, may have come from some plants, even some animals or non living things like a rock etc. Is it not amazing that different arrangements of atoms make different things? From living to non-living, from one species to another species, with very different and unique characteristics, even within the same species.

Life of a species

Most species live generally for 4 million years. But atoms live for several trillions of years. Take the Acorn seed. It has dreams of becoming a Big oak Tree. These dreams of how it will look like when it becomes an oak tree is already written in the acorn itself. This is the genetic code. This is what distinguishes from living arrangements of atoms and non living arrangements of atoms. Though it is written in every acorn how and when it will become an Oak tree, it is not necessary that every acorn will become a tree. The chances are one in 10,000. Others will fail to make it due to environments; they may even be consumed as acorn themselves.

Now I would like to answer some of the questions asked by the students

1. How did you get the idea of 2nd vision?

- G. Meera, Atomic Energy School

Ans. TIFAC organized a detailed study and analyzed the various sectors of economy and made recommendations for transforming India into a developed nation. This gave me an idea that to achieve the goal of transforming India into a developed nation we need to have a second vision.

2. Who was your inspiration to become a Scientist and such great man?

- Sai Sita

Ans. My primary school teacher Shri Sivasubrmania Iyer.

3. Sir, what was your time table in your childhood days?

- R.K. Ved Prakash

Ans. Morning prayer, tuition, paper delivery, attending school, collection of revenue, evening prayer and studies.

4. The credit of the scientific discoveries achieved by Indians is being taken away by other countries as these people stay there. What can be done to avoid this?

- G.S. Arun, Atomic Energy School.

Ans. Our scientists must publish their findings fast before parallel discovery takes place.

5. Why are the Human Values not incorporated in our education when values are very essential to succeed in life?

- Satish Kuman, Vivekananda School.

Ans. In some schools value based education has already been introduced. This has to spread in all our school.

6. What was the first thing you thought of after becoming the President of India?

- E. Spoorthi.

Ans. I thought of finding a method by which I can market the idea of transforming India into a developed nation to the country.

7. When did you realize that you are a leader?

- K. Spandana Reddy.

Ans. The leadership has to be recognized by others and not by me.

8. I am being troubled by my bench mate who doesn?t study well and encourage copying.. When I ask her to stop, she makes fun of me. How should I handle this situation?

- G. Naga Sarvani, Chinnamaya Vidyalaya.

Ans. You ignore her. You continue study systematically and aim to excel in your subjects. Over a period of time your bench mate will change.

R I G H T E O U S N E S S

I would like to share a hymn that I heard in the divine campus. The name of the hymn is 'Peace in the World':

Where there is righteousness in the heart

There is a beauty in the character.

When there is beauty in the character,

there is harmony in the home.

When there is harmony in the home.

There is a order in the nation.

When there is order in the nation,

There is peace in the world

Friends, we can see a beautiful connectivity between heart, character, nation and the world. How to inject righteousness in the human heart? This is indeed the purpose of human creation - that is divinity. We are going through a complex situation as many of us are completely at war with ourselves, with society and with nation. At every instant there is a war in our mind, whether we should go in one direction or another. Whenever there is a dilemma, we must seek the wisdom from the Almighty to lead us to the path of righteousness through education with value system.

I wish you all students and the teaching community success in giving the nation empowered, learned young with integrity.

May God Bless You.