Shoulders of giants
Aditya Rishi

ISAAC Newton once said he could see far because he was standing on the shoulders of giants. His famous theory of gravitation was built on the foundation of Galileo’s laws of terrestrial motion and Kepler’s laws of celestial motion. Galileo and Kepler were his giants. He is universally acknowledged as one of the two or three most influential scientists in history and his 1687 book, Principia Mathematica, is still read.

Albert Einstein once said about Newton: "Nature to him was an open book, whose letters he could read without effort." Two weeks ago, his effort was to boil an egg for exactly 15 minutes, but he had no watch or clock. He had only a 7-minute hourglass and an 11-minute hourglass.

He starts both timers at the same time. After 7 minutes, the 7-minute timer will be empty, but the 11-minute timer will still be running. He leaves it running and flips over the 7-minute timer. When the 11-minute timer is empty, he flips over the 7-minute timer. There will be 4 minutes worth of sand at the bottom, which will now be flipped to the top. When it runs out, 15 minutes will have passed and Newton will get a perfectly boiled egg.

Tarsem Mohan says that the problem has two solutions and which is more appropriate depends upon the promptness of the Almighty. If the Almighty is efficient in answering prayers, the first solution is more appropriate. but if He, too, is as slow as our government, even this second solution will suffice:

Newton starts both hourglasses simultaneously, but starts boiling the egg only when the 7-minute hourglass is empty and he inverts the 11-minute hourglass when it

is empty. The egg is perfectly boiled after the 11-minute hour-glass is empty second time. When he starts boiling the egg when the 7-minute hourglass empties out, there are 4 minutes more in the 11-minute hourglass, but, in this solution, 7 precious minutes of Sir Isaac Newton are wasted and who knows that, but for those 7 minutes, his theory of gravitation might not have seen the light of day.

As Tarsem Mohan said, Newton did not waste his time.

Abhishek Goel, Shveta Wadhwa, Mrinal Goyal, Guriqbal Singh, Dr Vikas Handa, Lokesh Kaushal, Rashmi and Rakesh Anand, Charanpal Singh, Raman Sobti, A.K. Wadhawa, Suhail Singh Shergill, Sameer Madan, Priyanka Pardasani, Gaurav and Saurav, Mayur Bhatt and Manpreet Singh of Patiala also timed it well.

To Manpreet Singh of Jalandhar, Ankush Aggarwal and Simerdeep Kaur, I’d say what Voltaire wrote to La Condamine after his measurement of the equator: "Vous avez trouve par de long ennuis Ce que Newton trouva sans sortir de chez lui (You have found by way of long troubles what Newton found without a chase)." (Write at The Tribune or adityarishi99@yahoo.com)