http://in.rediff.com/money/2003/oct/21ariban.htm
 
 As an undergraduate at IIT-Kharagpur, I once stood up in one of those large common classes, where a professor -- who was mumbling something inconsequential about IC engines -- and asked: 'Why can't you have engine cylinders which cross--sections that are anything other than circular?'

The venerable professor answered: 'Look at this idiot; he thinks he knows more about IC engines than me.'

The 100-odd people in the class started guffawing, while I tried to find a place to hide. Now here's the problem with that answer: in that class, I learned not to ask stupid, out-of-the-accepted-norm questions. But, almost a decade later, I found out that BMW does use elliptical cylinders in high-end engines.

By then it was almost too late for me, I'd already learnt the wrong lessons -- not to question basic axioms, which did not get unlearnt till many years later under the tutelage of an MIT professor, who spends every living day thinking up new innovations that he can sell.

Thanks to him, I managed to unlearn what was taught to me at IIT well enough to make technology innovation the basis of my career

(which businesman in India has insight enough to buy innovations and licenceses for their production anyway?)


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