Computers, Heat, Bikers and Physics

Computer processors spread a sort of sickly heat in the room when kept on for hours together. I am getting more aware of this recently as I wake up with my head on the keyboard so often these days, what with my business school application deadline coming up and their officers being intent on making the application process to this school worth every single second of your free life.

So, talking about this heat from computers, I had a very computer savvy friend when in school. When I say computer savvy, I mean computer savvy. He could even give you, if really pushed, the serial number of each and every chip in your PC. When he typed on the keyboard, there was no any distinct noise, just one continuous whirring sound as whole sentences materialised out of thin plasma onto the monitor screen, while the rest of us more mundane ones plonked one letter a minute, scared to use anything other than the index finger of our right hand.

His dad was in computers networking he said, and I didn't disbelieve him for in his one room he had atleast 10 PCs, with each of their parts lying at different vantage points. Don't know how many PCs were lying around in the other rooms cause he also had an equal number of Alsations that were kept locked in these other rooms when we visited. And this one room was one hot furnace at all times of the year, not that Chennai's weather varies that often between the seasons. The only way we come to know winter from summer is when the maximum temperature drops from 45 degress to 40 degrees.

This is another reason (I'm actually still talking about the heat from computers) why software companies insist on maintaing sub-zero temperatures at work. This is hardly surprising with the number of computers lying around in these offices, but then, with the temperatures these companies actually maintain, one can't be blamed for thinking that a lot of computer research is done on cadavers. The consequence of this is really funny you see. Every morning, as each software engineer on his bike dents his way through other vehicles on the road (I sometimes wonder if the motorbike is part of the software engineer's dress code), you can see each one is wearing a jacket that would feel more at home in Siberia than Chennai. No wonder they are in such a hurry to reach their destinations, perhaps to take off their jackets before it melts them inside.

Which brings me to a serious issue. Why is it that a normally very intelligent person becomes very dumb the moment he or she gets on a bike? I have a bike too that somehow didn't come with this 'immortality accessory' attached. Neither do these people wear a helmet when riding a bike, nor do they remember their physics. Having secured 96 % in my physics in high school (there, the purpose of this blog has also been achieved), let me help them out here. You see, applying the law that the momentum of any system always remains constant (don't ask how), you can derive a practical conclusion as follows - 'When two bodies of masses such that the smaller mass is negligible compared to the larger mass, moving at different velocities collide with each other, the smaller mass travels in the opposite direction at a velocity twice that of the larger mass.

You see, your bike has a top speed of 120 kmph and weighs 150 kg on average while my car has a top speed of 220 kmph and weighs one a half tonnes. Learn your physics and ride safe! And increase that frigging temperature at your offices mate, before you become the cadaver.