IIT Madras celebrates Shaastra. It is our technical festival. We celebrate the spirit of engineering. So it was essential for us to figure out what exactly did the ‘spirit of engineering’ stood for. We did figure that out but instead of me stating that for you, let me take you through the process by asking you certain questions.
What does engineering mean to you? I asked this to many and almost everyone gave a similar reply: engineering is about applying science. It is about taking ahead the theories of science and implementing them. This is what engineers do.
Now, what is science all about? It’s about logical creative thinking of explaining nature and various other kinds of phenomena. Years of experiments, hits and trials, and out of the box thinking, led to various theories of science. Which now lay as a resource for all the engineers to use. In engineering, you still have to think out of the box, but unlike science you cannot afford to go for hits and trials. In engineering, you don’t take chances.
Albert Einstein once said: ‘God doesn’t play dice‘. We, the engineers, try to live up to it. We think out of the die. We celebrate the spirit of engineering. Ladies, and gentlemen. Let me present to you all, the Shaastra logo:
[Image unavailable in the recovered archive]
![[Image unavailable in the recovered archive]](https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.vatsap.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/dice-600-px.gif){kind=link}
Do notice how the two dice are mirror images of each other, and yet flawed one on that. Why is there a flaw in spite of so much of symmetry? We try to remove all uncertainty, induce perfect symmetry and strive for perfection. And yet we can only strive for it. Perfection. Like God, we don’t play dice. Unlike Him, we are never perfect.
May the Gods be with us. 99.99% Three cheers to the spirit of engineering! Three cheers to Shaastra!
PS: Copywriters: Misre, Sania, Vatsap | Art: Vatsap | Graphic rendering and enhancements: Mamme