#138 Linearity of life

Linearity of life

Nothing can be a better teacher than the experience of life. I can regard the experiences of life as live teachers who are capable of teaching the most important aspects. I have always wondered about the applications of some of the bookish knowledge that I’ve gained as portions of academic syllabus. Whenever I try to correlate these concepts with simple outlooks of life, I’m always fascinated by the existing congruence between them. So, in this post I am going correlate some of the scientific terms like sensitivity, linearity, output etc from the prospective of Engineering course (Since I’m an Engineer J )to the experiences of life. I should not forget to thank one of the professors of my college whom I met recently for this wonderful explanation.

Starting with the concept functioning of an electronic instrument, one of the important factors is sensitivity. Sensitivity can be defined as the change of output due to change in input. In other words, how quickly an instrument responds to change in the input parameters. Now, it’s the turn for linearity. A linear instrument is something in which the relationship between input and output parameter is a straight line. In other words, the slope is one. That means the amount of change in input parameters is equally reflected in the change in output parameters. More sensitivity leads to non linearity which results in instability. In simple words, a sensitive system can never be stable or linear.

We can apply the same concepts to our life. If we compare ourselves with those electronic instruments then situations act as outputs and our responses to them define our sensitivity. So to get the output i.e favourable result in proportional to the input i.e efforts, our sensitivity towards these situations must be as low as possible. The tougher the situations, the better will be the result provided we control our sensitivity. My father says that the fixed duration test in the examination hall checks our knowledge whereas the life knowledge is tested continuously through several ordeals. That’s the real test we are appearing in every moment, a timed one.     

So, the concept of linearity is not just important for the proper functioning of an instrument but equally needed for overcoming obstacles of life at ease.

Swati Sarangi

31.07.2016