Tag: Technology

Ideological Legacy of The Rock Star Scientist

The dream that Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam had for developed India is the reality in which we are living today. It wouldn’t be possible if he hadn’t devised a result-oriented action plan for the Nation. It is sad that we never celebrate such great bright minds the way we celebrate film/ TV stars or sportsmen, especially in this golden era of social media. The incorporation of e-governance, e-judiciary, Information Communication Technology (ICT), Providing Urban-amenities to Rural Areas (PURA) were some of his key agendas for developed India and same is the reality we are living in. Today’s youth must appreciate that we are just enjoying the fruits of his well-formed result-oriented action plans created on his ‘Vision 2020’. This is to remember the ideologies of Dr. Kalam from his book ‘Turning Points’.

Turning Points – Remembering Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam’s legacy on his birthday

Unity in diversity lies at the heart of India as the biggest democracy in the world. This diversity also brings in various challenges from geographical, cultural, economic, governance and many more local perspectives. Bear in mind that despite having multitudes of such challenges the constitution has ensured that the machines are well oiled and keep running properly. To handle a nation with such diversity is a challenge in itself. Try convincing small group of people on an idea you have and you will realize how difficult it is to make others appreciate your vision. You will realize that people rarely resonate with completely new, unconventional ideas. The person must carry an aura to convince others for the path he is laying down. The person must carry a clear and pious vision for the masses.

Vision elevates the nation

-Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Turning Points

A vision must be pious because the moment people discover malice, a vision no more remains ‘the’ vision; it becomes a propaganda. Polarization is created and chaos ensues. That is one of the challenges with democratic society.

Only a self-inspired person, a person who is pure at heart, a person who can empathize with the masses, a person with emotional and intellectual intelligence and most importantly a person with humility can truly inspire people towards a common goal of the upliftment of the whole nation. Such people are blessing to the society and they appear once or maybe twice in a century. They are rare and leave an everlasting mark on society.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, The Missile Man, The People’s President, and a teacher at heart was one such personality India had. Dr. Kalam was India’s 11th president. Even though he is not physically among us his ideas and his vision are with us and will keep on inspiring every Indian rather every human. He is my source of inspiration since my childhood; I will take this opportunity to unfold certain aspects of his personality hereon. This is me remembering Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam on his birthday 15th October.

Dr. Kalam wrote a book called ‘Turning Points – A Journey through challenges’ where he highlights the key events which shaped his tenure during the presidency and what really drove him to have a sense of accountability towards the people of India. If you look at the life achievements of Dr. Kalam, you will realize that overcoming challenges in spite of having multiple failures and worst conditions was his forte. His systematic logical thinking combined with result-oriented actions was the key reason for such achievements. You must also appreciate that he was not just a scientist with logical foolproof plan for results; he was a pure empath who understood what people of the nation actually wanted. He knew the pain of the masses and also made successful efforts to resolve many fundamental issues. Please understand that the position of The President in Indian Constitution although is the highest position, there are very few examples where the elected President created a significant impact on whole nation physically and ideologically. Most of the times, Prime Ministers are known to be the key drivers of the nation’s future in Indian Democracy.

You will appreciate what exactly caused Dr. Kalam to have a focused mindset towards making India a developed nation by 2020. Although we are still in developing phase, the rate is slow but we wouldn’t be here if Dr. Kalam had not envisioned the ‘Vision 2020’. The book Turning Points thus gives a glimpse into what made him to devise an action plan in making India a developed nation.

You will be surprised to know that we are literally living in the accomplished visions of Dr. Kalam and there are many those will be achieved in near future.

The Modern India

Dr. Kalam was the key originator and proponent of many facilities and policies we Indians are enjoying today. It is only because of his vision and action plans we are enjoying certain life changing benefits in our routine lives.

Dr. Kalam was responsible for successful inception of Indian space program led by Prof. Vikram Sarabhai. The SLV program (Satellite Launch Vehicle), the IGMDP (Integrated Guided Missile Development Program), Indigenous hovercraft development called ‘Nandi’, Project Smiling Buddha in Pokhran for nuclear weapon development are some of the professional achievements of Dr. Kalam.    

The concepts of e-governance, e-judiciary, court hearings through video conferences, pushing for the evolution of National Litigation Pendency Clearance Mission, meetings through video conferences, incorporation of Information Communication Technology, creating more policies to become energy independent, to become stronger in defense technologies, boosting the innovation funnel throughout the country, empowering the states while leveraging their specialties in cultures and traditions, making India a Nuclear superpower, developing and promoting an indigenous nuclear power program, pushing for increased plantations and facilities in biodiesel production, pushing for solar energy production and required policies, creating an annual target driven action plans for each ministry and states to have a focused development approach, creating an action plan to work on industry relevant skill development and more exposure to higher education in science and technology, creating more opportunities for the research in the fields of nanotechnology are some of the visions Dr. Kalam had for the people of the nation. This is just a short glance into what he planned and achieved in his tenure. We are just enjoying the fruits of his well-formed result-oriented action plans.

The book Turning Point will give readers a peek into the thought process and key motivations behind Dr. Kalam’s vision for making India a developed nation.

  1.   Dream Big
Appointment in ICSR – Indian Committee for Space Research (ICSR later became ISRO – Indian Space Research Organization)

The key moment which changed Dr. Kalam’s thought process was during his interview with Prof. Vikram Sarabhai. Dr. Kalam worked in the development of the hovercraft after which he had this interview. You will notice that Dr. Kalam was very impressed by the first-hand confidence that Prof. Sarabhai had in him because he explored the capabilities Dr. Kalam had without questioning his competencies. Dr. Kalam always told youth to dream bigger. That idea came from this exact moment. Dr. Kalam realized that what Prof. Sarabhai had dreamt was way bigger than the dreams of Dr. Kalam.

This moment inspired Dr. Kalam to dream even bigger which he always kept reiterating in his interactions with youth.

  1. Urge for cross implementation of technologies
Appointment in DRDO missile program

India’s first satellite Rohini RS-1 was launched by SLV. Dr. Kalam was Project Director for this program. He presented how this satellite launch vehicle put Rohini in the orbit to Dr. Ramanna who was a nuclear physicist and director of DRDO (Defense Research and Development Organization). Dr. Ramanna offered Dr. Kalam the position of DRDO. Dr. Kalam accepted this position because he wanted to implement the space technology developed from SLV program into missile development program.

You must appreciate that the missile technologies developed in-house for missiles like Agni, Akash, Prithvi, Trishul and Nag were possible because of Dr. Kalam’s approach to interdisciplinary knowledge implementation for indigenous technology development on faster speeds.

His same approach to create intersections in various unconnected fields through technology got reflected during his presidential tenure. The implementation of electronic technology for e-governance, e-judiciary are result of that. He always believed that such intersections of technologies boost the speed of growth. 

  1. Indigenous technology is the way to self-reliance and defense

Dr. Kalam wanted to return to his passion for teaching and interacting with youth while he was Scientific Adviser to the Defense secretary. P V Narsimha Rao, then Prime Minister also Defense Minister asked him to continue as the defense minister and Kalam agreed because he was handling multiple important programs. P V Narsimha Rao’s long-term vision for indigenous defense program inspired Dr. Kalam.

I think Kalam called this moment as the turning point because if he would have been associated with teaching at that time his future would have been totally different from becoming the President. This moment is also important because it created a concrete foundation in Dr. Kalam’s mind to create a long-term vision for nation which will rely on indigenous technologies.

During his Presidential International visits Dr. Kalam always pushed for the use of indigenous ICT, BPO frameworks, pharmaceutical manufacturing technologies. This moment might be the key inspiration behind Dr. Kalam’s thought process.      

  1. Nation first, politics later

Dr. Kalam was offered a Cabinet position under Vajpayee Government in 1998 when he was handling the Missile Program (Development of Agni Missile) and Project Smiling Buddha (Pokhran Nuclear Test). Any other normal person would have accepted the better and beneficial offer of Cabinet Minister but keeping Nation first Dr. Kalam decided to decline this offer and focused on the Indigenous Missile Program and Nuclear Weapon Program which further upon their success made India’s global presence stronger.

  1. Drive to Envision, Urgency to take Actions, and Having Courage to do the Impossible

Dr. Kalam stands out as one of the rarest statesmen who focused on practicality of vision and action plan for their execution; there is a reason for that attitude.

When Dr. Kalam was Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) for Government of India when he paved the foundation of action plans and their implementation for Vision 2020. During this tenure as PSA, Dr. Kalam had a helicopter accident where for the sheer luck of the nation he was unharmed.

Even after going through such accident, he was immediately ready to connect with the locals and the youth where he asked them to recite his hymn. This shows the artistic side of Dr. Kalam. Dr. Kalam was known for inspiring poetry showing the importance of the power of youth. 

Courage to think different,

Courage to invent,

Courage to travel on an unexplored path,

Courage to discover the impossible,

Courage to combat the problems and succeed,

Are the unique qualities of youth.

As a youth of my nation,

I will work and work with courage to achieve success in all the missions

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Turning Points

This near-death experience gave him a totally new perspective towards the life in front of him. It created a sense of urgency for him which pushed him to write the famous book ‘Ignited Minds’. This sense of urgency inspired him to push more for PURA (Providing Urban-amenities to Rural Areas) project. Many independent village ecosystems, governance technologies, tech policies, benefit transfers which are now available in rural areas are the fruits of this PURA program.

I have always believed that cowards never make history, history is created by people with courage and wisdom. Courage is individual, wisdom comes with experience.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Turning Points

  1. Empowerment and Independence of the Nation

Dr. Kalam believed in the power of self-reliance and improvement in the agility between different functions of government and also between individual states. You will be surprised to know that he was the statesman who brought the idea of e-governance in the Office of the President and implemented it effectively. It later spread horizontally to the e-governance and digitization of documents that we see today. It took time because of multiple reasons but you must appreciate his vision and future outlook behind it. His dream then is now our reality.

In similar sense, Dr. Kalam created action plans for individual states based on three parameters:

  1. The contribution to the vision for developed India
  2. The heritage of particular state
  3. The core competency of that state

This shows how agile and practical Dr. Kalam’s thinking was. He knew how to play with the strengths of each state and also cared for their legacy thereby preserving the cultural importance of diversity in our country.

Dr. Kalam is also one of the statesmen behind the upliftment of the judicial system. He pushed for the National Litigation Pendency Clearance Mission. This mission is the origin for the e-judiciary, court hearings through video conferencing, use of ICT in litigation, age analysis of pending cases, fast track courts which we are seeing today. 

  1. Duty Towards Nation

Dr. Kalam always created a sense of duty towards nation in the hearts of the youth and his action always reflected the same attitude. Many of his lectures were named as ‘What Can I Give To The Nation?’

Dr. Kalam’s way to guide the youth to answer this question is based on the importance of values in human life. He gave huge importance to each and every public address he would give. He revised his public addresses multiple times to ensure that the message is crisp and inspiring.

You must appreciate that human values were the core of his speeches. The ideology of ‘being a better human is the best you can offer to the nation’ is what inspired youth to follow their own dream thereby also benefiting the nation in greater sense. Dr. Kalam’s speeches always had this element of ‘call for action’ that is exactly why the question – ‘What can I give to the Nation?’ is simple yet meaningful. It made the youth to look inside them for the betterment of the nation altogether. These are the skills of a seasoned inspirational personality, they make you look inside to create a better future outside for everyone, it creates a sense of duty, accountability and also satisfaction for life well spent.

And this same sense of duty and accountability Dr. Kalam wanted to inject into the Indian Parliament and Indian Politics. He had action plans to do that too.

When politics degrades itself to political adventurism the nation would be on the calamitous road to inevitable disaster and ruination. Let us not risk it.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Turning Points

Dr. Kalam was well aware of the gaps between the lives of the common people and the events in the parliament, They were completely inconsistent and were not helping (even today they rarely help)

People are yearning for lifestyle change by preserving the cultural heritage, values, and ethos of the Indian civilization.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Turning Points

Dr. Kalam asked the parliament members to focus on key aspects of development of their own state instead of engaging into the propaganda-based politics. Dr. Kalam was one of the few proponents of the Development Politics. You might think that this word is somewhat recent concept but Dr. Kalam was the originator of the action plan and policies for development-based politics.

He gave five points to the members of parliaments to work upon:

  1. Agriculture and food processing
  2. Education and health care
  3. Infrastructure
  4. Information and communication technologies
  5. Self-reliance in critical technologies

 You must appreciate that the world we are living in is the result of action-based plans and their results based on these ideas.

Dr. Kalam pushed for the indicator of National Prosperity Index (NPI) instead of GDP (Gross domestic Product). The idea was that GDP growth indicates net domestic product but it doesn’t reflect how this growth is affecting the quality of life in rural and urban area. Thus, associating GDP with other indicators can actually help to gauge the realistic growth of the nation.

NPI (National Prosperity Index) = 
annual growth rate of GDP + 
improvement of quality of life of the people particularly those below poverty line + 
the adoption of a value system derived from our civilizational heritage in every walk of life which is unique to India

This shows that Dr. Kalam had the sense of importance of the cultural heritage in the growth of nation. The urge to push for the upliftment of quality of life is intentional to reduce the gap between the riches and the poor.  

  1. Strong Inner Compass – Value-based character development

Dr. Kalam even though was an intelligent scientist and had many professional achievements, he was down to earth. Intellectual humility was his second name. His thoughts also showed how he valued the sense of service, honesty and compassion right from the childhood.

Dr. Kalam shares an event from his childhood where he received beating from his father for the very first time in spite of being the youngest and the most loved child. The reason was to accept the gift from others for being elected as the President of the Panchayat of Rameshwaram.

Dr. Kalam quotes his father’s words from Hadith-

“When the Almighty appoints a person to a position, He takes care of his provision. If a person takes anything beyond that, it is an illegal gain.”

That thing remained with Kalam forever. The last things that Dr. Kalam possessed were 2,500 books, a wrist watch, six shirts, four trousers, three suits and a pair of shoes. He donated his pension to the development programs for rural areas. He didn’t have any TV, fridge, AC.

Dr. Kalam was a spiritual person. You will see from his whole life journey he never submitted to a single side of the religion – he was always on the side of divinity. This shows his openness to find the real truth of what it means to be a human being. Humanity was at the core whenever he was discussing any religious topic.

“Kalam sees no conflict between science and religion. When I asked him if he believed in the Day of Judgement and rewards or penalties, we might have to pay in life hereafter, he replied evasively, ‘Heaven and hell are in mind’…”

“No rationalist can dispute Kalam’s vision of divinity. Some define God as truth; others as love, Kalam’s concept of godliness is compassion…”

Khushwant Singh, Author and columnist for Hindustan Times

  1. Sacrifices make any great pursuit ‘great’

Dr. Kalam was devastated after the crash of an Air Surveillance Platform which led to death of all its 8 occupants. He realized in this very incident that many people without any personal gain give away their lives to the service of the nation and their sacrifices goes unnoticed in the chaos of all the politics. This should never happen. You can sympathize with the pain of the relatives of these heroes but you would never be able to return the service they provided to the nation. Everyone must be aware of that.

This shows the sensitive side of Dr. Kalam. He was a strong proponent of dreaming big, having courage to do the impossible but this event shows that he was also aware of what sacrifices people make to achieve the impossible, these sacrifices, this service are bigger than anything and should not go unrecognized. He wanted the people of the nation to appreciate the same.

  1. Religion is a personal thing and so are the culture, faith, language and heritage

Dr. Kalam visited the places affected by the Gujarat Riots. His intent was to understand the ground reality and he knew that his mere presence will speed up the relief efforts. Bear in mind that visiting such sensitive areas for a President is a highly risky task.

Dr. Kalam was disheartened by the events, he expressed the reason behind that-

“…in our land, with its heritage of a highly evolved civilization and where great men were born and stood tall as role models for the entire world, communal riots with their attendant tragedy are an aberration that should never happen.”   

“Each individual has the fundamental right to practice his religious, cultural and language faith. We cannot do anything to disturb that.”

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Turning Points

  1. Building bridges to share each other’s competencies for mutual growth

Dr. Kalam is also known globally for his speech in the European Parliament. He focused on mutual growth plan for European Union and India. His poem ‘Message From Mother Earth’ won hearts of all the members of the European Parliament. Dr. Kalam’s visiting day in 2005 – 26 May to Switzerland is celebrated as Science day there. Dr. Kalam proposed to implement the electronic network to connect African nations using the IT power of India under Pan African e-network Project.

Whenever Dr. Kalam visited any country, he made sure that both countries help each other to generate mutual benefits and deepen the relationship. Dr. Kalam was always open to understand what greatness lies in others.    

In meeting people, we are transformed too, though we stay the same.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Turning Points

  1. Real development starts from the bottom – PURA

Dr. Kalam highlighted one key observation about the developed nations. Even though their rural regions, villages in developed nations look just like our meaning not exactly, not physically meaning that the ways people carry their lives. The villages in developed countries don’t have high rising towers, big houses, big restaurants and hotels. What they exactly have are the basic amenities like power, education, transport and easy access to government to live comfortably. This inspired Dr. Kalam to work on the mission for the upliftment of rural areas of India under project PURA.

The word itself is self-explanatory.

It stands for Providing Urban-amenities to Rural Areas.

The key idea behind PURA was to solve the problems of emerging due to fast Urbanization of towns and fast migration from the villages. Towns get overwhelmed due to overpopulation and villages are empty because there is no quality of life.

If you see the other side, villages are pollution free which urban people want. Urban areas have better opportunities for earning and sustenance which rural people want.

PURA focused on addressing these exact issues on rural level.

Following were the key headers of the PURA project:

  1. Physical connectivity – roads and transport
  2. Electronic connectivity – for local knowledge preservation and transfer
  3.  Knowledge connectivity – for skills sharing and efficiency boosting of multiple rural areas thereby creating spare time to do better things and improve quality of life
  4. Earning capacity – once these three connections are improved, people can work on increasing the earning capacity.
  1. In the end we, are all humans

Dr. Kalam also made efforts to made the Mughal Gardens in the Presidential office to become a center of discussions. He tried to improve the flora and fauna there. He coordinated between DRDO scientists who had developed high-altitude agriculture before to develop several (12) gardens in Rashtrapati Bhavan. Later biodiversity park was also developed there. This showed his connect with nature.

Dr. Kalam was reluctant on approving the capital punishment believing that it is not a human’s job to decide the fate of the life of other person, but as a duty he had to do that. Dr. Kalam made sure about the total background of the convicted person and tried to understand what will be the life of the people dependent on such convicts. Wherever he found the offenses to be too inhumane he approved the capital punishments. You must appreciate that being the President he could have approved every capital punishment but his core value system, that human side was always active. He knew that in the end the convict is also a human.      

We are the creations of God. I am not sure a human system or a human being is competent to take away a life based on artificial and created evidence.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Turning Points

  1. Parliament functions are the heart of democracy

Dr. Kalam was the main proponent of the need for improvement in parliamentary Functions. 

Constant vigilance is the price of liberty. It is important that democratic processes and functioning, however satisfactory they may appear on the surface, cannot be, and should not be frozen in time.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Turning Points

He made every practical effort and created a result-oriented action plan for giving the boost in the efficiency of the parliament. Some of them are implemented, we hope others are still under consideration.

Dr. Kalam had created a development matrix between the Cabinet Ministries and the Members of Parliament which created and intersection of resources, action plans, targets and results for each state. He made sure that his presidential powers are put in effect for the betterment of Parliament and thereby the people for which it stands.    

These are few takeaways from Dr. Kalam’s 21st book – Turning Points. There are many details which show a deeper insight into the personality of Dr. Kalam. Everyone should read it. This book shows all aspects of a perfect human being. The vision that Dr. Kalam had for the developed India is the vision in which we are living today. It wouldn’t have been possible if he hadn’t devised a result-oriented action plan. Although there are many things which are yet to be achieved and speed sometimes is not that fast. Dr. Kalam was also concerned about the speed of these developments. But at least we know where to go – the right direction. It would be impossible without his vision.

In the times of the golden era of social media celebrities, film stars, TV stars, sportsmen always are at the focal point of attention. We rarely celebrate scientists on such platforms.

It is sad that we never celebrate the bright minds especially the scientists the way we celebrate film stars or sportsmen. Dr. Kalam is a rock-star if you compare with others. Not only from Science and technology point of view, Dr. Kalam was People’s President, an ideal teacher every student dream of, a kind human, a divine spiritual leader, man of values and virtues and the best of all the humans the nation, the world would ever see again.

We are just living in his dream which became the reality today. It was only because he dreamt of the Vision 2020 with a realistic action plan to execute it and make it ‘our reality’. We owe it all to Dr. Kalam. There would rarely be any leader, any human like him in future. The world will remember him forever for his contributions.

Philosophical fate of AI and Humans

Alan Turing was the very first person in the world to formally ask- “Can machines think?” The ideas he presented in his famous paper has laid the pathways leading to the creation of modern computer science and today and tomorrow of artificial intelligence. There is no doubt that there will be a time when machines would be able to think just like humans do, but that should not be a negative aspect. There will be practical limitations to a human-like thinking machine too. So, the game would never be single sided. This should push humanity on a completely new path of evolution. That is also how we have become the humans we are today from the primitive apes.

Alan Turing’s world famous paper on future of human-like thinking ability in machines

The holy doubt – “Can machines think?”

We all know how modern machines/ computers have great abilities to make systematic thinking and take decisions accordingly; this is obviously attributed to the very programming embedded into them by us human beings. Many breakthroughs in storage capacities of computers, size of computers, efficiency of these machines, computation capabilities, evolution of programing languages, intersection of neuroscience and computer science, accessibility of these highly powerful machines to masses have shown world that such machines can do amazing marvels.

You know where I am going with this. Not mentioning Artificial Intelligence in these breakthroughs would be a straight crime. AI has unlocked a totally different capability in computing for which some are optimistic and some are fearful. In a crude sense, how AI stands out from other concepts of computing is its ability to change it programming to achieve given goal. This concept is very normal even for today’s child.

But, would you be open to such self-programming machine 75 years ago? A time when there were only mechanical calculators, electronic computers were in their infancy and were created only for certain restricted problem solving and number crunching. Even the experts of those times found this idea foolish because of the practical limitations of those times. How could a machine think like a human being when for doing some mechanical number crunching it takes such many resources, doesn’t have its own consciousness, its own soul, has no emotions to react to given stimuli? In simple words “thinking” is somehow associated as a special ability humans got because of the soul they have, the conscience they have (granted by nature, the Creator, the Almighty, the God or whatever but some higher power)

It is our tendency as human beings to have this notion of being superior species amongst all which brings in the confidence that machines cannot think. That is why this idea seemed foolish, but now we are comfortable (to some extent but not completely) with the idea of thinking machines.     

Alan Turing – a British mathematician, the code breaker of Enigma, the man who made Britain remain strategically resilient in World War 2, the Father of theoretical computer science wrote a paper which laid down the blueprint of what the future with AI would look like. For the times when this paper was published all the ideas were seemingly imaginary, impractical, and totally impossible to bring into the reality. But as the times changed, Alan’s ideas have become more and more important for the times in which we are living in and the coming future of Artificial Intelligence.

Weirdly enough, this paper which laid the foundations of artificial intelligence – thinking machines was published in journal of psychology and philosophy called “Mind”.

The world-famous concept of ‘Turing Test’ is explained by Alan in this very paper. He called this test as a game – an “Imitation Game”.

The paper reflects the genius of Alan Turing and how he had the foresight of the future – the future with thinking machine. After reading this paper you will appreciate why and how Alan was able to exactly point out every problem that would rise in future and their solutions. He was only limited by the advancements not happened in his time.

The Imitation Game   

Alan posed a simple question in this paper –

Can machines think?

The answer today (even after 75 years) is of course a straight “NO”. (Deep down we are realizing that even though machines can’t think they are way closer to copying the actions involved in thinking or “imitating” a thinking living thing)

The genius of Alan Turing was to pose practicality to find the answers to this question. He created very logical arguments in this paper where he used the technique of proof by contradiction to prove the feasibility of creating such ‘thinking machine’. The AI which has evolved today is the very result of following Alan’s blueprint for making thinking machines.

The famous Turing Test – the Imitation game is a game where an interrogator has to tell the difference between a machine and a human being by the responses they give to his/her questions.

The machine is not expected to think like humans but at least imitate them. The responses may feel completely human but it is not a condition or compulsion that machine should exactly think like a person. This practicality introduced by Alan and his arguments built upon this idea shows what are our limitations when we are actually thinking or making any decisions. This paper will change and also challenge the way we think or do anything. This paper might humble you if you think that we are superior beings because we can think and have/ express emotions. (Trust me you would also question ‘What is love?’ if love was your next answer to justify our superiority after reading this paper but that is not what Alan was focusing when he wrote this paper.)

The idea is not about creating an artificial replica of human, it is to create a machine which would respond just like humans do, the goal is to make their responses indistinguishable from ‘real’ human beings.

There are hundreds of simplified explanations on Turing test (ask Chat GPT if you want) which Alan has discussed in this paper but that is not my interest of discussion hereon.

I will be focusing only on the arguments made by Alan to prove why it is completely practical to create human-like thinking machines. My intent in doing so is that to show how we as humans can also be challenged by our practical limitations. These arguments also show a way to humans where they will get overpowered/ surpassed by AI. This does not mean that AI will eradicate humanity, rather it shows new pathways in which humanity would evolve. So, for me the arguments end on an optimistic note. Surely AI will take over the things which make us who we are but it will also push us into some completely unconventional pathways of rediscovery as the smart species.

The way in which Alan intended the Imitation game was the mode of question-answers – an interview. You would question why didn’t he think of a challenge where exact human like machine need to be created – that would be more challenging for the machines. I think, the idea behind rejecting the necessity for a machine to be in human form is like this-

The creation of human body is very similar to cloning a human body or augmenting the human parts to a mechanical skeleton. What is more difficult is to impart the consciousness and the awareness which is (supposedly) responsible to impart thinking in humans. So, even if a fully developed machine exactly looking like human being is in front of you and you are unable to tell that it is a machine, the moment that human-like machine would start expressing its thoughts everything would be easily given away.

In simple words, Alan was confident that the biological marvels, genetic engineering, cell engineering would easily take us to the physical replication of human form. What would be difficult is to create a set of logics (or self-thinking mechanism) which would demonstrate human like (thinking) capabilities. And such abilities can easily be checked by mere one on one conversation. Such was the genius of Alan Turing to bring such complexities using this simple experiment of Imitation Game.

We as human beings have certain insights, intuitions (I don’t want to use this word but don’t have any alternative word) which gives away if it is a machine or a human.

What Alan did masterfully and why he deserves full credit is that he pointed out the factors which can make machines respond and ‘think’ more like humans. While creating the confusions about the nature of human mind, consciousness, awareness, thoughts and their limitations and ambiguity, Alan also gave the possible arguments to solve these confusions.

Alan proves that human-like thinking machines can be created and he proves this by contradiction of the objections raised against this idea. I am diving deep into these objections hereon:

  1. The theological objection

The rigor that Alan used to prove his point deserves appreciation. Despite being a logical thinker and mathematician, he cared to answer the religious point of view, he wanted no stone left unturned while making an argument.

Alan aggressively (verbally) hammered the idea of God’s exclusivity to grant the immortal soul to only humans, the soul responsible to make humans think. Alan says that if soul is the reason, then animals have souls too. The true comparison then should be between living and nonliving things to support the point that machines cannot think. It is because they are nonliving things they have no soul so they cannot think.

But if the great almighty can give soul to an animal, then why this omnipotent God decided to not give same souls to the machines? Alan knew that any blind theologian would find a contrived argument to prove this idea but he clarifies his point by presenting the historical mistakes religious institutes committed because the truth was hard to swallow. Alan gives the examples of Galileo who presented that earth was not the center of the universe, against the ideas of Church. Later church was proved wrong.

So, even if the religious arguments may seem easy to understand, easy to ‘swallow’ but if they are not fitting in the logic, it makes no sense to take them forward. The theological inconsistency ‘As machines have no soul granted by the God, they cannot think like humans’ which Alan pointed out  was totally false. He justifies this point using the logic of God remaining the ultimate creator.

Alan explained that if we are stealing the powers of God to create a human-like thinking ‘thing’ its not a crime or a blasphemy. Does procreating and making children “to whom also God grants the soul for thinking” mean crime? In similar spirit ‘machines’ – thinking machines are our children whom to God should bless with his powers.    

“In attempting to construct such machines we should not be irreverently usurping His power of creating souls, any more than we are in the procreation of children: rather we are, in either case, instruments of His will providing mansions for the souls that He creates.”

No doubt he would also have been a great priest if he had thought of changing his career to theology.

  1. The ‘Heads in the Sand’ objection

Alan gives worst case scenarios on the superiority of human species out of all species. What if we are “the superior” species? If that is true then there is no reason to worry about thinking machines, they won’t surpass us.

But what if what we know is wrong? We have been proven wrong many times in history. What if we are not the superior species? Then there is no sense in blindly believing that we are superior. Rather this illusion of superiority steels us from the chances to fight the battle of superiority.

So, in either case, we cannot run out of the fate of thinking machines Vs humans. We may fake it, run from it, hide it from rest of the population but it is not in our favor if we do so.

“We like to believe that Man is in some subtle way superior to the rest of creation. It is best if he can be shown to be necessarily superior, for then there is no danger of him losing his commanding position.”
  1. The Mathematical Objection

Very beautifully Alan brought the Gödel’s incompleteness theorem to prove his mathematical argument. According to Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, if we start to prove every mathematical argument there exists in the universe, we end up into some arguments for which there exists no proof. In order to ensure that the whole mathematical system remains stable, consistent on logic one has to accept those arguments true. So, once such logically unprovable but true in existent reality statements are found in nature they create a new system of mathematical understanding.

In simple words, every mathematically logical system is inconsistent in the end, in order to remove that inconsistency a new rule must be accepted which create a new system of mathematics. (Which again would be inconsistent)

Further oversimplification goes like this,

A farmer wouldn’t know how to make a shoe. So, he would need knowledge of a cobbler. A cobbler wouldn’t know how to make metal tools, so he would need help of blacksmiths. Even if they have each other’s knowledge, skills they must accept certain thumb rules passed down from their ancestors (which are always true but unprovable) to master each other’s skills.  

So, even if you are creating a thinking machine based on purely mathematical system the mere limitation of mathematics will stop it from overpowering, surpassing humans.

This also does not mean that thinking machines are defeat-able. A machine with one mathematical system in totally different domain could support this logically inconsistent system just like the villagers with different professions.

Alan Turing’s doctoral thesis contains the ideas of Gödel’s Incompleteness theorem so it is a joy to read these arguments in this paper. They are well formed and super-intelligent.

(If you are really interested what this argument means, you can research the efforts that went into proving Fermat’s last theorem. A new field of mathematics had to be created to prove this simple to explain but difficult to prove mathematical theorem.)

There will always be something cleverer than the existing one – for humans and for thinking machines too.

“There would be no question of triumphing simultaneously over all machines. In, short, then, there might be men cleverer than any given machine, but then again there might be other machines cleverer again, and so on.”
  1. The argument from Consciousness

Even if the machine is feeling and thinking exactly like a human being, how could the “real humans” know that it does so? – Alan’s new argument.

“The only way to know that a man thinks, is to be that particular man. It is in fact the solipsistic point of view. It may be the most logical view to hold but it makes communication of ideas difficult.”

Communication between machines and the humans and its quality would be key proof to understand whether the machine thinks like human beings or not. Even if the machine is really thinking exactly like humans, it is futile if it cannot communicate so to humans.

(That is exactly why The Turing test with mere typed communication is more than enough to check the thinking ability of machines.)

It is the great philosophical mind of Alan to use the limitations of Solipsism to justify his point. According to solipsism all the world exists in the mind of the person because if the person dies then it doesn’t matter if world is there or not.

The key limitation of solipsism is that your survival is not directly connected to your mere thinking. If I think ‘I am dead’ that does not immediately kill me. If I think that I have eaten a lot without actually eating anything, that doesn’t end my hunger in ‘reality’. So, reality is not only your mind.

Also, solipsism fails to answer the common experiences we have in a group. If my mind is my world, I can create any rules for my world and things would always go as I desire. But that doesn’t happen in reality. There are certain ways, truths which are common to all of us that is why our world is not just our mind, rather it may be a shared world. You alone are not the representation of whole reality.

So, even if we accept that the machine ‘inwardly’ thinks like human being, it has to share some common truths to the interrogator to prove its humanly ways of thinking.

“I do not wish to give the impression that I think there is no mystery about consciousness. There is for instance, something of a paradox connected with any attempt to localize it. But I do not think these mysteries necessarily need to be solved before we can answer the question…. (the question – can machines think? Can they at least imitate humans? – the Imitation Game)”
  1. Argument from various disabilities

Alan is challenging the idea that even if machines are successful in thinking exactly like humans, they won’t be able to do certain things which humans can do better.

It’s like a human saying to a thinking machine –

“You machines can think like us but can you enjoy literature and poetry like we humans do, can you have sex just like humans do, enjoy it and procreate just like we (human) do? This is exactly why your thinking is not a human thinking.”

The key point Alan is trying to prove is that people always need a justification of given machine’s ability (through its ways of working, maybe its architecture, its technology, its components, its sensors) to prove that certain capability of the machine. When we are showing these justifications, we are also telling people indirectly what it cannot do thereby its disabilities. One ability would point to other disability.

People do not accept black box models in order to justify ability of the machine.

“Possibly a machine might be made to enjoy this delicious dish, but any attempt to make one do so would be idiotic. What is important about this disability is that it contributes to some of the other disabilities.”

In same fashion one argument is that even if machine could think like humans, it is difficult to have its own opinion. Alan strikes that too.

“The claim that a machine cannot be the subject if its own thought can of course only be answered if it can be shown that the machine has some thought with some subject matter.”

The key disability which was preventing Alan from creating a working thinking machine was the enormous storage space. You will appreciate this point today because you know how drastically storage capabilities have improved over the time. These improvements in storage created the AI we see today, although processing power is also on factor and there are other factors too but it boils down to the ability to simultaneously handle lot and lots of data.

Alan had this mathematical insight that once the storage ability is expanded enough the thinking machines is a practical reality. (Now researchers are not only working on to further improve storage capability but special efforts are also taken to effectively compress data. Ask Chat GPT about the Hutter Prize)

So, Alan makes a point that having variety of opinions in order to ‘think for itself’ machines don’t need logic, they need enough storage space just to process them simultaneously to create a new thought. In terms of humans, the more information and logic you can handle the crisper your understanding are. Same would be the case for thinking machines.

“The criticism that a machine cannot have much diversity of behavior is just a way of saying that it cannot have much storage capacity. “
  1. Lady Lovelace’s Objection

Charles Babbage was the first person to technically create calculator with memory – a programmable computer which they called Analytical Engine. Even though he knew how the Analytical Engine works Ada Lovelace created programs and published them to the masses to prove the effectiveness of the Analytical Engine. She was the first programmer of computer.   

Lady Lovelace’s key argument is based on the idea that the computer thereby a thinking machine cannot think for itself because it can only use what we have provided it. As we have provided whatever we know and have it cannot think outside of that information and generate new understandings, The machines cannot think “originally”.

Alan strikes down this argument easily using the idea of enough storage space. If the machine can store large enough data and instructions then it can create new inferences, original inference.

“Who can be certain that ‘original work’ that he has done was not simply growth of the seed planted in him by teaching, or the effect of following well-known general principles.”

Alan questioned the very nature of originality. Only a genius can do this in my opinion. Alan showed the world that the things which we call original are inspired, copied from something already existent. It is just matter of how unknown we are to this new thing.

He builds further upon that saying that if machines can think originally then they should surprise us. That is reality. Machines do surprise us by using unconventional approaches to our daily tasks. 

Alan links new argument for further justification, if machines can think originally then they can surprise us. In order for us to not get surprised we must get immediate understanding of what machine presents which never happens when such events happen. So, machines can think originally and can surprise us.

“The view that machines cannot give rise to surprises is due, I believe, to a fallacy to which philosophers and mathematicians are particularly subject, This is the assumption that as soon as a fact is presented to a mind all consequences of that fact spring into the mind simultaneously with it.”

What a brilliant argument!

  1. Argument from Continuity

“The nervous system is certainly not a discrete-state machine. A small error in the information about the size of a nervous impulse impinging on a neuron, may make a large difference to the size of the outgoing impulse. It may be argued that, this being so, one cannot expect to be able to mimic the behavior of the nervous system with a discrete-state system.”

Alan talks about an attempt to create thinking machines by mimicking nervous system which is a continuous system. A system which works in wave, signals (analog) and not in ones and zeros (discrete).

Alan says that even if we use such analog system in Turing test, the outputs it would give would be probabilistic instead of definite. This will actually make the interrogator difficult to distinguish human response from the machine one. Humans would be more frequently unsure and will give such probabilistic answers more frequently.  

  1. The argument from Informality of Behavior
“If each man had a definite set of rules of conduct by which be regulated his life, he would be no better than a machine. But there are not such rules, so men cannot be machines.”

The idea that machines work on certain defined rule even if they can alter their own program by themselves in order to think like humans, it feels obvious that they will be more formal and stuck to their rules while responding. This formality would give away their non-human nature.

Alan questions the very nature of what is means to have laws in a logical setup. Taking support from the Gödel’s Incompleteness theorem, not even single system – single logical system can confidently remain purely on its laws. It would assume some arbitrary point to make some sense out of given data even if it is using some mathematical frameworks. (Remember the simulations where you put garbage in and the simulations runs perfectly giving garbage out. But you know its garbage because you have certain test to judge the output with reality which are objective.)

There is no such objectivity to judge informality of a system – the word and logic itself says it all. Our search for formal laws would never end and this will always keep on creating new laws and new inconsistencies and informalities. There is no end.    

“We cannot so easily convince ourselves of the absence of complete laws of behavior as of complete rules of conduct. The only way we know of for finding such laws is scientific observation, and we certainly know of no circumstances under which we could say, ‘We have searched enough. There are no such laws.’”
  1. The Argument from Extra-sensory Perception
“The idea that our bodies move simply according to the known laws of physics, together with some others not yet discovered but somewhat similar, would be one of the first to go. This argument is to my mind quite a strong one. One can say in reply that many scientific theories seem to remain in practice, in spite of clashing with ESP; that in fact once can get along very nicely if one forgets about it.”

Again, Alan left no stone unturned. He made sure that even the pseudo-science fails to support the idea that machines cannot think like humans.

He explains that even if the human competing against the machine mimicking humans has telepathic abilities to know states of the machine or even the interrogator, it would actually confuse the interrogator. The only thing such telepathic person can do differently is to under-perform intentionally which again would confuse the interrogator.

The idea is that even when we are not sure of how such supernatural things works our current understanding of things and their workings are just fine. The supernatural things are not interfering in our formal understanding of nature and reality.

The implications of Alan Turing’s Paper on Computing Machinery and Intelligence

All the ideas explained by Alan in this paper are responsible for the modern technologies like efficient data storage, data compression, artificial neural networks, self-programming machines, black box models, machine learning algorithms, iterative learning, data storage, manipulation thereby data science, analog computing, self-learning, supervised learning algorithms, Generative Pre-Trained Transformers (GPTs) and what not.

This paper is holy grail for not only modern computer science but also for the literature and popular culture. Once you appreciate the ideas in this paper you will be able to see the traces of these ideas across all the modern science fiction we are consuming all the time.

Alan created practical ideas which were possible to implement in future based on the coming technological revolutions he foresaw. He logically knew that it is possible but the genius of him was to lay the practical foundation of what and how it needs to be done which is guiding our and will guide future generations.

Conclusion

What is there for humans if machines start thinking like humans?

For this, I will address each argument posed by Alan

  1.  The theological objection

God will actually bless us because we extended his (or her I don’t know) powers to create something like his own creation through thinking machines.

  1. The ‘Heads in the Sand’ objection

Even if thinking machines surpass us, we have to live with it and create our new ecosystem to ensure our survival. Even though for given times we are superior species, other species are existing with us in the same time with their special abilities. There is no running away from any possible outcome of this scenario.

  1. The Mathematical Objection

The mathematics itself restricts a single machine from knowing everything. So even if multiple machines come together to create superior understandings same would happen for humans. There will always be this race of superiority, sometimes machines will lead sometimes humans will lead. There is no conclusion to this race as far as the inherent flaw of mathematics goes.

  1. The argument from Consciousness

A machine has to be the communicator of its human thinking, it cannot remain in the dark abyss of self-cognizance and remain away from humans. If a machine starts thinking like humans, we all would definitely know about it. A machine has to communicate its ability of awareness to, it will a surprise but a very short lived one.

  1. Argument from various disabilities

If we don’t know how machines think like human that would not prevent them from thinking like humans. We have to accept the black boxes through which machines would think like humans. That is the only sane way out. We humans too are filled with disabilities but they are not directly linked to the ways we are able to think.

  1.  Lady Lovelace’s Objection

Machines will surprise us, they can also create original ideas, because what we call original is something that lies out of the limits of our current thinking. Rather it is an optimistic idea that if machines could think like humans do then they may give us totally new ideas for new discoveries, breakthroughs.

  1. Argument from Continuity

Continuous thinking machine or discrete thinking machine both can confuse humans if they achieve their thinking potentials. So, there is no point in creating an analogue thinker to beat digital thinker. We ourselves are an analogue thinker.

  1. The argument from Informality of Behavior

No system will have all laws already established, the system has to keep on creating new laws to justify new events, outliers. The process is never-ending. So even if machines surpass in human thinking we too have the advantage of informality to make the next move.

  1. The Argument from Extra-sensory Perception

Even if the supernatural abilities are proven be existent, they will have less to no contribution in the thinking abilities of machines. So, if you are a telepathic reader a human like thinking machine can fool you without exposing its real machine identity.

Going through all this you will appreciate how limited our human thinking is. There is no doubt that there will be a time when machines would be able to think just like humans do but that should not be a negative aspect. There will be practical limitations to a human-like thinking machine too. So, the game would never be single sided. This should push humanity on a completely new path of evolution. That is also how we have become the humans we are today.

Further references for reading:

  1. A. M. TURING, I.—COMPUTING MACHINERY AND INTELLIGENCE, Mind, Volume LIX, Issue 236, October 1950, Pages 433–460, https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/LIX.236.433
  2. Understanding the true nature of Mathematics- Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem
  3. Questioning Our Consciousness – Solipsism

Riding on the ‘Hype Wave’ of Technological Breakthroughs

Countless breakthroughs are happening around the globe everyday but very few hold the potential to change the world and the future. Due to our cognitive limitations and biases, we wrongly estimate the impact of the emerging innovations in near future and long-term future. Amara’s Law and ideas of Hype Cycle can provide insights into how a technology evolves over time from its emergence and how to spot the technology which truly holds the potential to change the future course of the humanity. Understanding the phases in the development of an innovation and its coherence to reality can help entrepreneurs, researchers, investors, policymakers and even a common man to have practical expectations from any technological breakthrough.

How to gauge the trend and acceptance of any emerging technology?

The Wheel and The Fire

One of the key differentiating factors that created a totally separate path for the evolution of humans from the apes and other species is the invention of tools. Right from the invention of the wheel and the fire to the invention of steam engines to the invention of the computers, smartphones to the invention of artificial intelligence – our tools to interact with the world around us keep on getting more and more sophisticated thereby uplifting our lifestyle. This is way different than how other species live, interact with the world around them and exist on the earth – our home, their home.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is equivalent to magic

Arthur C Clarke

Imagine if you traveled back in time and showed ancient Egyptians a smartphone? You may explain it to them as a tablet sitting in hands made up of the components built from sand which could show you the extremely detailed real-time pictures from the location far from their locations or you can send your voice and receive the voice from the other side. Given that Egyptians created some of the astounding engineering marvels that world has ever seen, even after that a smartphone will be equivalent of a pure magic for them.

Now coming back to the future- present times, if you are told that a company has built a device which can teleport you instantly to other planet, what would be your reaction? Though seemingly magical, it is just a fiction for us due to practical reasons. We haven’t even teleported an insect from point A to point B till date.

The Think Tanks For The Future

So, there is an limit to realize the practicality of every technology. Many technological breakthroughs are happening all around the world every day but very few of them actually change the course of the humanity. That is why it is very important to identify which technology really holds the true potential. The earlier one realizes potential of the technology, the faster and bigger will they have the grasp over the world, politics, economy and society thereby maybe the whole humanity.

Many think tanks around the worlds are always invested in the prediction of the future scenarios in global politics, war fares, technological breakthroughs, epidemics. These people are called as ‘the futurists’ who are striving to predict the long-term future obviously for the sake of readiness, survival and sometimes dominance. These futurists have certain tools in their kit which can help us to understand and point out which next technological revolution will change the course of the humanity in near future. Although we are not experts of all technologies and breakthroughs happening in the world daily, these tools can help us to understand which technology can actually benefit and uplift our daily lives. These tools can help an innovation manager to point out the technology which can create differentiation to his product in the market, these tools can help an entrepreneur to select the technology to boost his/her business or startup. This can also help a common man to gauge whether a technology claimed by a company can actually bring a difference in his life.

There are these questions we keep on asking ourselves when we are dealing with new technologies coming to our doorsteps, into our hands –  

Why Apple brings the technologies in their phones really late when every other device manufacturer has already made it mainstream and sometimes obsolete?

Why AI won’t actually take over the world in near future? Why EV’s may face a cold death? Why flying cars are still not practical and common product as predicted in back to the future? Why teleportation is not a reality and only a magical part of the today’s Science fiction?

What is the future of the innovations and breakthroughs we are making every day? Is there any way to predict the future value of certain emerging technology and built a product around it to create a fruitful venture/ business? How to be confident while investing in any technology based on its current condition or stage?

Amara’s Law from the futurist Roy Amara gives a deep insight into the phases every technology goes through and it also helps us to make any decision for given technology.

Influence Of Technological Breakthroughs On Humanity And Its Future

Roy Charles Amara was the president of Institute for the future (ITFT) an American non-profit think tank which works for the better prediction of long-term future. The prospects of ITFT include the exploration for the possible futures for the USA and the world, to figure out the preferences/desirability of these futures and to increase the chances to bring that future possibility into reality by finding out ways that support it.

Roy Amara gave a very important insight into how we as the human beings perceive future of any technological breakthrough and most of the times the masses are wrong about these technological breakthroughs.

Amara’s Law

“We overestimate the power and effects of the technology for a short period of time, while we underestimate the power of technology for a long period of time.”

Roy Charles Amara
Roy Charles Amara

In simple words, our expectations (positive or negative) from recent technological breakthroughs are always high and we are very skeptical about already existing technologies to be revolutionary and mainstream in the future.

Graphical representation of Amara’s law

Take for example the LHC experiments which were started in CERN to better understand the subatomic particles. Some scientists predicted that there may be chances that some small black holes may form in this experiment which would engulf the whole earth into it. Same fear was lingering around the Trinity test, where many scientists thought that the Atomic Bomb test would initiate a chain reaction which could ionize the whole atmosphere of the earth thereby leading to the end of the humanity.

But, look what happened? Nothing dangerous happened during the LHC runs, the runs confirmed the presence of Higgs Boson. Although atom bomb proved to be really fatal and formidable invention of humanity, the Trinity test at Los Alamos didn’t ionize the earth’s atmosphere.

In our times, people are speculating that the AI will take over humanity and will rule over the world by enslaving everyone. Now look what ChatGPT responds when you ask some fundamental philosophical questions? (Although it is excellent in certain tasks but there is still long way to go in order take over the humanity!) There are some examples where the AI image generator could not create proper images of human hands as the orientation of fingers relative to each other is “confusing” for the AI image engine. It is also known that certain biases can be created in the AI engine based on the sample training data provided, so there is still a long way for the AI to catch up with the humanity and there is no doubt that AI will totally revolutionize our lives but, in the ways, we are yet to imagine or grasp. (although AI has already revolutionized some parts of our lives already)

Amara’s Law points out a cognitive limitation in us where it is really difficult for us to predict the non-linear behavior of technology in the coming future. We human beings are very great in predicting the linear incremental behavior, somewhat ideal and constant incremental behavior of things around us. The moment we infuse multiple variables and some non-ideality in these predictions, we make wrong decisions based on our survival instincts. We “overhype” the technology’s potentials. For given technology people may think that it will revolutionize the ways of doing things and uplift the society, some think that certain technology will take people’s jobs and push society into dystopia. Look what is happening with cryptocurrency and NFT – the technologies which were supposed to revolutionize the complete world economy. Although, blockchain is there to remain forever as an excellent invention it will change the world in totally different way than people actually predicted.   

The AI which is supposed to take over the humanity

Amara’s Law is famously explained by the S-shaped curve to represent the difference between anticipated impact and actual impact of the technological breakthroughs.

Gartner Hype Cycle

Gartner Hype Cycle also throws light on some interesting concepts on the actual non-linear impact of technologies over the time. This idea was developed by an American consultancy firm Gartner Inc. named after Gideon Gartner who is called as ‘the father of the modern analyst industry’.  Gartner Hype Cycle establishes certain phases in the implementation, growth and acceptance of any technology.  

These phases are given as follows:

  1. Innovation/ Technology trigger – A new technology is presented to the world which creates intrigue, sometimes fear in the minds of the masses. The competitors panic sometimes for the probable upcoming uncertainties in business
  2. Peak of inflated expectations – As the technology is something new, there are very few experts to truly understand it. The hype build around it due to the insufficient knowledge of the media and communicators. This builds unrealistic expectations among the masses.
  3. Trough of disillusionment – There comes a time when this hyped technology starts getting implemented into real life where practical limitations keep piling up. Not only practical but also some economical, social problems start peeking this pile of problems. The expectations were already high and when such failures start becoming apparent to the mass users, the technology enters the rock bottom, the cold death
  4. Slope of enlightenment – After remaining in the abyss of failures there comes a time when the exact technology finds a better purpose for implementations; it’s newer generation become more people relevant more practical which people accept properly, where the society is evolved enough to accept it as their way of life. From here on this technology enters ‘the plateau of productivity’. The true value and proper points to implement the technology are identified and widely accepted in this plateau.   
The Gartner Hype Cycle

Many experts in the industry critic Gartner hype cycle as it does not provide any instructions or actions to control these behaviors for any emerging or disruptive technological revolution. One can safely say that Gartner Hype Cycle gives a generalized view on acceptance of new technology.

There is also an Extended Gartner Hype Cycle where after the plateau of productivity, the technology loses its value to the reduced returns to the business over time which further ends into the obsolescence – “the cliff of obsolescence”.

Key Takeaways From The Hype Cycle

When a policy maker, an entrepreneur, a manager understands the Gartner Hype Cycle, it will definitely help them to make informed decisions which can reduce risks and maybe save many lives.

Being patient and not getting tempted to ride on the hype wave is the first important response.

Updating the knowledge and current trends regularly will help in creating fruitful strategies against the hype.

Change is the only thing that remains forever and embrace this. Adaptations to stay ahead in the practical technology is the optimum move for any leader/ policymaker.

Understanding the long-term viewpoint from a sustainable perspective with the closeness to reality/ practicality immediately breaks the illusion of hype.  

It is really important for a policymaker, a leader and even a common man to understand that creating a breakthrough does not guarantee the success in the practicality of the innovation/ technology. The innovation even though called as breakthrough has to be practical, relevant and realistic.  

The Gartner Hype Cycle can explain why some tech companies wait for the technology to evolve and establish in order to deliver complete consumer experience. The hype cycle also explains why many startups who have found breakthroughs initially, fail to deliver at the end as the hype wave builds unnecessary expectations among the investors. ‘Edison’ by ‘Theranos Inc.’ founded by Elizabeth Holmes is one such example. The company was expected to create revolution in the medical diagnostic industry and was touted to be ‘the iPhone’ of the medical and healthcare industry. Look what has happened after that!

Internet and GPS (Global Positioning System) are the examples which were supposed to remain military secrets for years eventually have become the walk and talk of everyday lives and influence every part of our life now. (There was a time called dot com bubble which reiterates the hype of internet companies!)

Once you understand the Amara’s Law and Gartner Hype Cycle you can clearly see how any new technology launched in the market will behave in near future. It is not just about creating disruptive innovation to the market; it is also about solving realistic problems and understanding the key pain points of the masses.

Roy Amara’s Futurist Legacy for Predicting Breakthroughs

Any innovation which will truly impact the future should be studied for three main parameters/ premises.

  1. The possible – as the breakthroughs are practically ‘the trend breakers’, the study for their possibility should involve unconventional approaches that defy formalization/ structured-ness. There should also be some human element of intuition which gives a personal touch to such innovations. For example, the Science Fiction authored by a well-versed scientist/ artist who understands its practical limitations for today but anticipates that it will get solved in near future. (The motion capture technology evolved during the creation of James Cameron’s Avatar is one such good example)  
  2. The probable – defining probability requires to understand ‘what is connected to what?’ What action will increase the chances of certain event? Thus, the process of quantifying the probability of the success of the breakthrough innovation immediately establishes the chain of reasoning to its future projection.
  3. The preferable – Even though the innovation is possible and most probable but if it is not required by the time and the society then it may surely face the cold death. So, prefer-ability anticipates the societal, economical, and humanistic aspects to accept the innovation. If the innovation has no net positive utility, then it won’t come out as the most probable future. (For example, even though we know that the Grade 5 Titanium is one of the lightest and the strongest materials in the mechanical world, we also know that people can’t afford the cars made out of it for daily use as the costs of manufacturing will be exceptionally high which ultimately will get transferred to end users who won’t pay for it – even when it comes to saving their lives for the amount they invest.)

This makes it very clear that an innovation needs to be realistically possible, the most probable and most preferable in order to be called as a breakthrough which holds the potential to change the course of humanity.

These are the exact reasons why people over-anticipated the trip to the Mars when Elon Musk expressed his SpaceX proposition. Now that we are seeing how difficult it is to create a rocket, how many resources, how many allied innovations need to happen, how many relevant financial, behavioral mindsets need to evolve in order to send few humans (alive!) to Mars then we are getting hold of the practicality behind sending humans to settle on Mars.

This also explains why the flying cars shown in Back to the Future are not a common reality or way of life today, it still will take time or maybe it won’t happen in future due to some other breakthroughs (like teleportation!). Back to the future successfully predicted 3D projections, Video calling, digital currency, smartwatch which were possible due to practicality and relevance.  

Once you understand the Amara’s Law you can grasp that creating many innovations is not important to change the course of future, a single innovation which is practical, relevant and realistic is sufficient enough to change the course of the humanity. One can also do so by making the innovations implementable in real life,not every breakthrough guarantees immediate revolution.

“Our nations rely on innovation to improve productivity and fuel economic growth.  But to be competitive, nations and organizations do not necessarily have to excel at originating innovation—they have to be able to apply innovation successfully.”

Mastering the Hype Cycle by Jakie Fenn and Mark Raskino

References and further reading:

  1. Mastering the Hype Cycle – How to choose the right innnovation the right time by Jakie Fenn and Mark Raskino, Harvard Business Press
  2. Here’s Why AI Is so Awful at Generating Pictures of Humans Hands
  3. Why Are AI-Generated Hands So Messed Up?
  4. Views on futures research methodology – An essay by Roy Amara, FUTURES July/August 1991

Halo in F1 – One simple hoop design to save them all

A simple hoop design of HALO saved many precious lives in adrenaline filled, thrilling motorsport like F1. The story of evolution of halo in F1 tells us about the minimalist and functional design for safety. Not even single part of halo is in excess, unnecessary or unwanted. The designers and engineers deserve special recognition for saving important lives and maintaining the spirit of the sport.

Formula 1 is the pinnacle of the motorsports on the planet. It is the most intense, most tech-intensive, strategy packed and the richest sport in the world. Important thing to understand here is that Formula 1 is not just about driving fast cars and securing the first position on grid out of all the competitors. There is a reason why it is called “Formula” One. All the cars and teams competing in this sport must abide to certain set of rules on car design, sporting conditions and (now) stringent budget restrictions. The cars are supposed to be “formulated” thus designed within certain rules defined by FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile as in International Automobile Federation) to ensure that no team gets an unfair advantage. Now with the technological advancements the complexity in this motorsport has touched new heights.

Here is an excerpt from Walter Koster – famous F1 Journalist in his world famous “short” interview question to explain the complexity and F1 drivers dealing with it –

The question posed here is very important. Many of the innovations and technologies we see and use in our routine motor vehicles have emerged from the competitive motorsports like Formula 1. The technologies well known and common today like ABS (Anti-Lock or Anti-Skid Breaking System), Traction Control, Active Suspension, Advanced aerodynamics to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of power from power units, Hybrid power units, Incorporation of various sensors and using the data from such sensors to optimize the vehicles behavior are some of the notable examples. As newer and newer technologies are developing, F1 is getting more and more complex. Real F1 fans want exactly that in some sense. In this way the game is not only about racing on the circuit rather now it encompasses the initial car design, machine building, people management, policy management, finance and strategy on and off the racing circuit.

In this whole organized chaos what one must understand is the risks F1 driver faces while driving at such high speeds. One must understand that F1 cars are totally different from the cars that we use in our day-to-day life. The RPMs of F1 cars operate generally above 10000 RPM (for normal cars even the RPM of 2000- 4000 is really high), the highest speeds an F1 car can achieve is around 350 km/h to 390 km/h. The power rating of these F1 cars is around 1000 HP. The current engines used in an F1 car is 1.6L V6 engine. You must understand that a normal car with 1.6L engine has power rating of roughly 150 HP which is used in medium sized SUVs and family hatchbacks. The engineering marvel with which this high performance is extracted is one interesting topic in itself. With such machine and top speeds, for an F1 driver any moment missed during the blink of an eye can lead to a fatal injury, permanent disability and even instant death. F1 is also known for some serious injuries and fatalities. Hence, maintaining and improving the overall safety of everyone involved in the sports is important for FIA.

We will see one such simple yet effective design decision that FIA implemented in F1 which has saved many important and invaluable lives of the drivers in the recent times. That is the incorporation of Additional Frontal Protection (AFP) also known as Halo. It may sound exaggerated, but one can say that after the usage seat-belts, Halo is the second-best innovation which can be credited to immediately save many lives in F1 and its equivalent motorsports like F2, F3, IndyCar racing. It is also important to note that the incorporation of Halo was not an instant decision, rather FIA has always evolved and taken many decisions in improving the safety of the drivers in F1. Detachable headrest and padding and HANS are two notable decisions of them.

Formula 1 and Safety

If one looks back at the incident histories in F1, they will immediately realize that instant dangers are deeply rooted in the sports format itself. Ayrton Senna – 3 times world champion known as the greatest F1 driver in the history died from an accident in 1994 which triggered many safety decisions in F1. Senna’s Williams F1 car crashed into the concrete barrier at the speed of 304 km/h at Tamburello Corner of the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola, Italy. The lateral crash resulted in severe injuries and complete disfigurement of the car in crash. Stricter standards for helmets, changes in circuits to eliminate dangerous corners/ turns, changes in the circuit barriers, stringent impact tests with stringent tolerances, speed limits in the pit lanes and practice sessions were incorporated after this incident.

The story does not end here. In order to improve the safety further, in 1995 lateral crash tests were incorporated, by 1999 high cockpit heights to save the head injuries and wheel tethers to avoid the lose wheels flying off in crash were incorporated. By 2003, Head And Neck Support (HANS) device was made mandatory. Senna’s accident completely changed the safety regulations in F1 and this can also be seen in the reduced number of serious and major accidents in those times.     

HANS device mandated for F1 drivers

Need for Halo

In 2014, one incident shook the whole motorsport world. Jules Bianchi – an emerging F1 driver lost the control of his Marussia F1 car on Suzuka Circuit during 2014 Japanese Grand Prix. Due to unfavorable weather conditions – heavy rainfall his car lost grip and he crashed into a recovery vehicle which was trying to recover another crashed F1 car. Jules went into coma after suffering a diffused axonal injury and could not win the fight with death. After Senna’s loss in 1994 the world shook to the core with the loss of a young driver in 2014. The incident investigation demanded various changes in whole system and FIA realized the need for a closed cockpit-like solution to save the lives of drivers from frontal collisions.

FIA evaluated a closed canopy design like fighter jets and some tests were already ongoing in 2011-12. But the closed canopy had some practical limitations which prevented their immediate implementation in the F1 cars.

Limitations of the Closed Canopy-

  1. One can accept that the closed canopy will prevent the direct contact of projectiles from front on the drivers. The closed canopy will also relatively interfere less with the aerodynamics of the car. But when there will be need of instant extraction of driver during crash or internal fire, the canopy will increase the extraction time and would make the job of fire/ emergency marshals more difficult. According to the standards, driver should be extracted from the car within 7 seconds.
  2. An F1 car is just a machine, a wild animal with humongous power. Human controller brings that discipline, that life into such beastly machine. Driving in such extreme machine tests the human limits of the driver. The closed cockpit would limit all the airflow through the driver thereby making him more uncomfortable which would further increase the probability of incidents.

Closed canopy was tested in IndyCar designs with the help of Red Bull designers and engineers. The issue with the extraction was solved by keeping the canopy open from the top. But that does not address the issue fully. Even after keeping the canopy open from the top the airflow would anyways will be restricted to the driver. This issue was solved by nostril design of the canopy. Air intake gaps on the canopy’s leading edge would allow air inlet for the driver. Even some dedicated air channels were designed through the driver’s helmet to allow the airflow to ventilate driver sufficiently. IndyCar adopted these designs at first and there was still a long way for F1 to adopt these changes in their format.

IndyCar aeroscreen design with nostril

Problems and Challenges

The closed cockpit design faced big resistance in F1 due to some really obvious reasons. You cannot completely have a fully closed cockpit for immediate extraction of driver from cockpit. If one goes for top open i.e., aeroscreen cockpit, driver ventilation is one issue.

When dedicated ventilation is incorporated it will add extra weight and devices/instrumentation on car. Please note that F1 car designers are accounting for single gram of the extra weight of the vehicle. It is very common to go for the fastest lap attempt in the last lap of F1 racing only for the reason that the car bears lowest fuel weight and thereby lowest overall weight in the last laps providing more horsepower per gram to the car (now the cars are fueled only once in the whole race).

One more and the most important problem with the aeroscreen is the interference it would create in the aerodynamics of the car. The air intake of the F1 car engine just lies to the back and over the head of the driver. The aeroscreen canopy would not only affect and reduce the air input to the engine but it would also create the “dirty air” which results in the net performance reduction in the car.

To understand this, one should know that F1 car is not just about putting a high power unit in the low weight carbon composite car. When a car is running on the track with high speeds the air resistance is significantly higher, the car is literally punching a hole through the air. The car cutting through such high speeds bears the ability to literally get lifted and fly in the air with the same principle the an airplane takes off. According to Bernoulli’s principle if one creates net difference in the velocities of a fluid over a body it results in net pressure difference over the body. When this pressure difference becomes significant enough with the weight of the body it can provide lift to the body, it will cause the body to fly. As airplanes are designed to fly up, the F1 cars are designed to not fly up and remain glued to the track. This is done by creating down-force in the car. Simply put, its like rotating the wing of an airplane upside down to keep it glued down to the track instead of lifting up. More the down-force, more the car will remain glued to the track, more traction it will have which will make high speed turns on the cars possible. But down-force generation also comes with one design challenge called drag. When a continuous, uniform airflow is traveling over the car imparting net down-force the moment this steady-like airflow gets detached from the surface of the car it gets disturbed, turbulent air containing relatively high velocity loops of air or “eddies” are generated. This air turbulence is known as “the dirty air” in F1. Due to this, the air velocities at the back of the car become higher than the air velocities to the front of the car which creates net pressure difference thereby net low pressure zones are created behind the car. The car experiences a resisting force called “drag” which reduces the speed of the car. So, design of a good performing F1 car is always about finding that sweet spot of balance between down-force, drag and lift.

Now back to the cockpit design. The fully closed cockpit design ensures streamlined airflow over the car but it also compromises the extraction of the driver in emergency. If one puts aeroscreen cockpit in the car, the streamline passing over the would be disturbed before it even exits the overall car’s body. It will create a “wake” of air which will not be dense, streamlined thereby adding the drag to the car. It will reduce the speed of the car substantially. Please note that the differences of speeds and lap times in F1 are really close to the 10th of a second.

The biggest problem with incorporation of cockpits was related to the chaos in the aerodynamics of an F1 car which is one of the only things F1 teams can have larger overall control on. 

If such design standards are related to safety, then they are supposed to be mandatory to every team which would reduce the net speeds of all F1 cars thereby removing the thrill of the game, the soul of the sports. Hence everyone opposed this idea of open canopy cockpit – aeroscreen design.

The Emergence of Halo

After the tragic death of Jules Bianchi in 2014 FIA realized that the front-end protection is also important aspect to improve the overall safety in the motorsport. As FIA were already in the process of frontal protection from 2011-12 testing fighter jet level closed canopies, it became apparent that some immediate and more practical solution is required for the F1 cars. This resulted in the design of Halo.

A halo also known as additional frontal protection (AFP) is a hoop made from aerospace grade Titanium alloy – Grade 5 Titanium (an alloy of titanium with aluminum and vanadium) with has 3 joints to enable connection to the car. It was designed by Mercedes.

The parts of Halo (FIA Standard 8869-2018)

The halo weighs just 7 kg but can handle the loads of 12000-15000 kg (yes, those are 12-15 tons). Precisely speaking, according to FIA standard 8869-2018, a halo is made up of Ti6Al4V Grade 5 alloy weighing 7.0kg, +0.05kg, -0.15kg and should withstand quasi-static (simply put – slow and steady enough to seem unnoticeable movement) load of at least 125 kN with deflection less that 17.5 mm in Test 1 and deflection less that 45 mm in Test 2. (125 kN = 12.7464 metric ton, average weight of a Double-Decker bus). You have to understand that its not just about the integrity of the structure of halo. When halo is attached to the F1 car, the car chassis should also be able the withstand such loads transferred from the halo. Otherwise only halo would withstand the impact but the whole chassis may fail, resulting in many complicated failures, damage, injuries even fatality.

Test 1 with front load (Source – FIA Standard for AFP 8869-2018)
Test 2 with lateral load (Source – FIA Standard for AFP 8869-2018)

Halo is a standard supply part meaning that everyone must have the same part in their car obtained from the FIA certified and approved manufacturer. No modification is allowed on halo.

Mercedes AMG W08 F1 car in 2017 without halo
Mercedes AMG W09 F1 car in 2018 with halo

Challenges with Halo

The biggest outburst from F1 fans, F1 teams, F1 designers/ engineers and even F1 drivers for halo was due the reason that it is the ugliest part of the F1 car. Many said that it destroys the whole look, beauty of the car.

Second and more practical reason to resist halo was the disturbance in the aerodynamics of the car. Though the disturbances in airflow are lesser than the canopy it still meddles with the performance of the car in total. The top hoop of the halo disturbs the airflow creating a wake of dirty air over the rear wing thereby increasing the drag on car and reduced speeds.

Drag Reduction System (DRS) became less effective due to incorporation of halo. DRS consists of a moving flap on the rear wing of the car which alters the airflow over the rear end of car thus when this flap is lifts up while the car is on straights the down-force thereby drag on car is reduced hence gaining the speed.

When the DRS flap lifts up the drag on the car is reduced.
(Source- See reference 8)
DRS in action

Now due to the incorporation of halo, the streamlined airflow which was expected to get extended over the rear wing of the car during the DRS was already getting disturbed thereby making the DRS less effective. (F1 fans know the madness and thrill of chase upon DRS activation on straights of the circuits)

Halo messes with the streamline flow over the DRS on tail and engine intake. You can see in this image the streamlined – parallel airflow lines are disturbed due to halo’s leading edge causing eddies (Source- See reference 7)

Third reason for resisting halo was the obstruction in the vision of an F1 driver. The central pylon of the halo connects just in front of the eyesight of the driver. Such immediate frontal obstruction in vision is big red alarm for everyone. The implementation of halo was tested in 2017 free practice session and every driver hated it as it was the immediate blockage in vision. Still the updated 2018 FIA standards mandated installation of halo.

One design to save them all

Despite the negative reception, halo has proved its effectiveness right from its year of implementation.

In 2018 Belgian Grand Prix on the circuit of Spa. Fernando Alonso’s McLaren car rolled over Charles Leclerc’s Sauber F1 car. The possible direct impact of rear tire and read wing would have caused permanent neck damage or possible death to Charles but it didn’t happen due to the protection from halo. According the simulations from the data of the accelerometers and other sensors from the cars, the impact force was of 56 kN (5.7 ton of weight)

Damaged air fairing in inset, halo remained undamaged during the crash. Simulated tire contact from Alonso’s car on Leclerc’s helmet eye-shield that halo saved in second inset image

In the same year in an F2 race in Catalunya, Spain Tadasuke Makino’s life was saved during the accidental crash landing of rival car.

Halo prevented the contact of sweeping rear end with Makino’s head

In 2019, F3 race in Monza, Italy Alex Peroni’s car went airborne, flipped in the air, rotated thrice and car landed upside down on his head. If it was not for halo, Alex would have been dead, the impact was directly on his head if halo wouldn’t have provided the barrier.

We do have flying cars. Peroni’s car landed on the halo part during crash and saved him from severe injuries

In 2020, Romain Grosjean driving Haas F1 car directly crashed into the barrier in Bahrain Grand Prix. The crash was so dangerous that it split the car in two pieces which was nearly impossible for a modern Formula 1 car. The collision was head on from the front end of the car. Romain experience 53 G force when he crashed through the barrier at the speed of 250 km/h. The halo protected his head from such intense front collision. People called it a miracle of god but it was one safety decision evolved from simple yet effective engineering solution which saved a man’s invaluable life from an unimaginable incident.

The impact so powerful that it split the modern F1 car in two. The halo saved Grosjean’s life from from powerful front crash into barrier. The man on fire emerging from the yellow fire can be seen here.

In 2021, Max Verstappen’s Red Bull F1 car crash landed over Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes F1 car. The Red Bull car’s rear tire (or tyre) literally traveled over Lewis’s head. The halo prevented this direct contact otherwise it was definitely for 7 times world champion’s neck and life.

The halo that saved 7 times world champion

In 2021, in W Series qualifying session at Spa, Belgium a really weird accident caused 6 cars to pile up within few seconds. In this multiple collision pile up the halo of Sarah Moore’s car deflected a flying wheel saving her life from instant impact. In the same incident Beitske Visser’s car landed on the halo upside down which saved her life. Belen Garcia was also saved from frontal impact in this crash.

Moore’s head saved from loose tire contact
Garcia saved from the contact with loose tire from front
Visser saved from multiple flips and dangerous landing on head

In 2022, British F2 race in Silverstone the car of Denis Haugher’s car went airborne, just like a vehicle jumping off a ramp on a corner and it went cross through the car of Roy Nissany’s head. The halo experienced side impact and only because of the implementation of halo Roy Nissany was saved from literal decapitation. It was a great save only due to halo.

Nissany’s stars were bright on this ramp flight contact

In 2022, British Grand Prix at Silverstone, in the start and the first corner of the first lap Pierre Gasly’s Alfa Tauri F1 Car touched George Russel’s Mercedes F1 car on rear which resulted in his crash with Zhou Guanyu’s Alfa Romeo F1 car. The crash caused the Zhou’s car to flip upside down and in the same orientation the car went off track skidding only on the support of the halo over the gravel till the barriers. Zhou did not suffer any injury and was safe in all this accident, as if nothing happened.   

Guanyu’s crash tested halo from all possible angles. Halo was the angel which brought him back from the doors of death.

Are design decisions all about aesthetics?

Here are some highlights of halo-

Halo solved most of the problems related to the closed canopy and aeroscreen.

There is no moving part in halo thereby eliminating the unpredictable failures in extreme cases.

The problem of visual obstruction was more related to the development of habit in drivers. We can see our own nose with our own eyes (which is relatively easy to check for people with big and pointy nose) when we make a conscious attempt to see it. Our brain is normally ignoring our nose in routine vision. When you hold a pencil in front of your face and close, if you try to focus on distant objects the eyes can see what there is behind the pencil too. As if the pencil doesn’t exist. In the same sense drivers became comfortable with halo’s obstruction after some learning curve.

Regarding the aerodynamics, FIA is always in development to establish new design standards to maintain competitiveness in the sports. FIA in 2022 established some design changes to enable close chases between cars. Air fairing is allowed over halo, so teams have found out the ways to minimize the dirty air created due to halo.

FIA allows air-fairing to reduce the dirty air from halo

The implementation of halo was one of the most resisted decisions of the famous and important motorsport like F1. The reasons behind halo’s rejection seemed fair until it proved its effectiveness. Halo saved at least 10 lives in three years immediately. FIA simulation analysis predicted that there would be 1 incident in 1 – 2 years where halo will play key role. After such incidents in series, it became clear that halo is the life saver.

The major backlash for halo was for the reason that it would mess with the aesthetics of the F1 cars. F1 cars are known for their slick aesthetics. But there is more to it. The slickness, sophistication in an F1 car is not just about its design looks or its visual beauty it is also about the functional design. For a design to become perfect, there should always be some intent for certain part to remain there. The implementation of halo and the developments that resulted it show us some really interesting ideas about what a design should be. Development of halo also shows that the process to design a simple yet effective engineering piece is really complex, rigorous, thoughtful, precise and continuously evolving process.  

The story of evolution of halo in F1 tells us about the minimalist and functional design for safety. Not even single part of halo is in excess, unnecessary or unwanted. The designers and engineers deserve special recognition for saving important lives and maintain the spirit of the sport. Maybe halo is truly the best design and safety decision after the design of seat belt. And there will always be scope for evolution and improvements. Given that the simplest, most effective design of halo is to stay forever in motorsports like F1, whatever comes after halo will be and has to be groundbreaking.     

The precious lives that halo saved:

The story of evolution of halo in F1 tells us about the minimalist and functional design for safety. Not even single part of halo is in excess, unnecessary or unwanted. The designers and engineers deserve special recognition for saving important lives and maintain the spirit of the sport.

Starting from left – Charles Leclerc, Tadasuke Makino, Alex Peroni, Romain Grosjean, Lewis Hamilton, Sarah Moore, Beitske Visser, Belen Garcia, Roy Nissany, Zhou Guanyu.

References and further reading:

  1. Ferdinand Porsche
  2. FIA Standard 8869-2018 SINGLE-SEATER ADDITIONAL FRONTAL PROTECTION – HALO
  3. 2018 FORMULA ONE TECHNICAL REGULATIONS
  4. 2023 FORMULA ONE TECHNICAL REGULATIONS
  5. Technical F 1 Dictionary
  6. A Critical Review of the ‘Halo’ Device in Formula One by Charmian Monroe – Oxford Brookes University
  7. Effect of Halo Protection Device on the Aerodynamic Performance of Formula Racecar by Mark Lin, Periklis Papadopoulos, International Journal of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering  Vol:14, No:1, 2020
  8. Aerodynamic Study of a Drag Reduction System and Its Actuation System for a Formula Student Competition Car, Loução, R.; Duarte, G.O.; Mendes, M.J.G.C., Fluids, 2022, 7, 309. https://doi.org/10.3390/fluids7090309
  9. Crash images from telecasts of F1, F2, F3 and W series

Dune’s Ornithopters and Biomimicry

I recently watched Denis Villeneuve’s Dune in theater. The movie is a visual masterpiece. I would say it is a dark chocolate for eyes rather than eye candy. The character development is more visual and not just a general exposition. The most fascinating things in the dune universe are the equipment, machinery, tools which do not involve a computer intelligence to control or maneuver. Impressive thing is that the technology shown in the universe of dune, looks futuristic but people, their culture, beliefs, politics, religion remains frozen in the time. It seems the harshness and difficulty of living has made the advanced technology shed its attractive- rather ‘showpiece’ aspects and only the utilitarian aspects of technology are maintained forever. Here, the technology is truly representing as a tool of people.

One of the things from ‘the Duniverse’ that intrigued me is ‘the Ornithopters’. When I saw them taking flight, the only thing that came into my mind was ‘Hummingbird’. Ornithopters are the helicopters equivalents on Arrakis- the desert planet. The ornithopters on Arrakis are six or eight winged flying pods which look like dragonflies, in fact Denis Villeneuve intended their design in that way. They fly by flapping their wings like hummingbird and have far better maneuvering abilities that a normal helicopter. They can glide way better due to their aerodynamic dragonfly-like shape. Here, the technology draws inspiration from the nature. Hummingbirds are the birds which can fly backwards, side-ways and downwards; they can do somersaults and are better in long term hovering compared to other birds.

Ornithopters in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune

There are many examples in real life especially in technology, where inspiration is drawn from the nature. Inspirations from nature are taken to solve the design problems and is known as Biomimicry or Biomimetics. The word is self-explanatory- ‘Bio’ means nature and ‘mimicry’ means imitation, enactment, copying.

Popular example of biomimicry is the design of bullet train. The engineers were facing problem of sonic booms when the train entered through a tunnel with high speed. The engineers solved the problem by designing the front end of the train similar to the Kingfisher’s beak. The inspiration was drawn from a picture of kingfisher diving into the pond for fishing. When a kingfisher dives for fish, there is no splashing on the water surface. The picture is captured just at the moment when beak of the bird enters the surface of water. In order to execute a successful fish hunt, the entry through the water must remain swift; For proper target there should not be splashing of water because undisturbed water surface will have more clarity. Same phenomena, functionality was implemented in the design of the bullet train.

‘The Shinkansen’- Bullet train

Lotus effect is also one good example of bio-mimicry. We all know the water repellent properties of lotus leaves, lily leaves. Two German botanists namely Wilhelm Barthlott and Christoph Neinhuis were studying highly magnified plant leaves. At high magnification of 1-20 nano-meters magnification, even a speck of dust can ruin the image. The botanists realized that there was no special need of sample cleaning for the lotus leaves samples. Upon detailed studies they found out that, there were two features contributing to the cleanliness of the leaves. One was the layer of wax, which is obvious for everyone. The second and the most unexpected feature was the presence of micro bumps on the surface. These small bumps trap air which creates higher contact angle between water and leaf surface. The water drop literally becomes spherical on these bumps as the air trapped between the bumps is pushing the water film inwards and surface tension is helping more and more to the formation of curvature.       

Lotus Effect

This effect was replicated using negative- positive molding processes for the preparation of Self-cleaning surfaces. It is like molding a wax statue but the here the technique is precise to microscopic scale. Self cleaning paints are getting introduced in the market recently.

Main thing to understand is that, not everything we derive from the nature could be called as biomimicry. Biomimicry is more about functionality of the design. Giving wings to a machine to fly won’t be called as a biomimicry, it will be called as a ‘Bio-inspired design’. A Bio-inspired design is more inclusive term which covers Biomimicry (functions like nature), Bio-morphism (as in more similar in looks with nature) and Bio-utilization (uses nature as an agency). In the case of the ornithopters, it is the higher pivot providing design of the wings. The hummingbirds have these wings with highest pivot angle between wings and shoulders which enables them to maneuver exceptionally.

Hummingbird have wings with high pivot angle

There is one organization focusing on the Biomimicry. The ‘Biomimicry Institute’ is a non-profit organization striving for bringing people together to solve the problems using biomimicry. Nature itself is running the largest laboratory for billions of years and we can look for solutions to our problem by just asking one simple question- ‘How would nature solve this?’ Janine Benyus– Cofounder of Biomimicry Institute popularized biomimicry. Her TED talk is available on the institute’s website- biomimicry.org. You should visit the website to explore more.

Biomimicry has made us realize that nature is the largest library that humans can ever have. Its conservation is not just important for the sustenance, but it can highly contribute to the technological advancements of humanity. Whenever we are losing a species, we are losing an immense source of knowledge which was result of millions-billions years of nature’s research. The thought itself can bring us closer to nature- natural resources and its conservation. Biomimicry will create more pro-nature solutions to the problems. Sometimes modern problems require bio-mimicked solutions! (Yes, I did that ;D)

For further explorations just google these:

  • biomimicry.org
  • How a steppe eagle’s wingtip solved Airbus A380 Wake Turbulence problem – Richard Hammond’s Engineering Connections- Airbus A380 documentary by National Geographic
  • Gecko’s feet and surface adhesion
  • Lotus effect and self-cleaning paints
  • Invention of Velcro

Further reading:

  1. Dune : Philosophy in Science Fiction
  2. Dune : Psychology in Science Fiction