 I think there is a room for telling you something that you need to do over the next 1 year in a period of 4 years to achieve. Very good in the end of the 4 years when they are frustrated and want to solve a problem and not getting answer. So I have divided my lectures into two superb topics. Today is the problem definition day and next time after 1 month I will come back with one of our lectures on how to solve it. The brain has a very similar structure. The brain has creativity and the right brain has what you call the facts. So while you are creative you cannot be factual because facts have nothing to do with the creativity. Same way when you are defining the problem you cannot be worrying about solving it. Otherwise you will end up defining a problem which you can't solve. The definition of a problem is for which you don't know the answer. We should not even attempt to try to solve it. I think we keep this to actually separated by 1 month. So by the time your seminar is almost near half way I don't know. So you have formulated the problem which you write and now is the time to solve it quickly. So I had this problem with the effective English because I came from a vernacular curriculum in our early days. I used to be attending my school up to 8th standard in my vernacular language, my wife for example. And then suddenly we had to make this meta-marketism and change from the Hindi language to English language. And then first you don't even understand anything that goes on in the policy. Suffice to say that you must have picked up good English because 95% of you might have come to English podium. How many have done English podium from the previous lecture? On the other hand, how many did primary, vernacular, non-English? Even though there are a few points from me. So how to use effective English for defining the problem? The problem should be very clearly defined. And by definition of a problem is that you don't know any solution to it. That's the definition. So I am going to talk about at the end of 40 minutes because that's all the time I have given myself. So our task is to define a problem. So we begin by taking two very nice quotations. One is from Stephen Covey. Seven habits of effective people. So the second habit is begin with the end in mind. So what is the significance of that? That means as an individual, you must have a career goal. You must know what you will become at the end of five years from now. For a M. Tech student and ten years from now for a PhD student. Anytime I ask a PhD student, okay, what will you become after five years is that I will get a PhD. Once you join a program for PhD, of course you will get a PhD. Not necessarily. But I am assuming. But you must have a target goal way beyond that. That means the whole process is where to know what is the end goal. Is the end goal in only getting a good job? Is the end goal in publishing good thesis? Is the end goal in getting a postdoc in MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Cambridge? Or the end goal is in becoming a professor at MIT? I mean you must have a target to achieve or become CEO of Google or start another company which is better than Google. So you must specify for your own sake what is the target. And then only we can begin. The second one is another book by Nadler and Hibino which simply says breakthrough thinking. And there are several points which are good in that breakthrough thinking. So there is a thing called uniqueness. Then there is a solve the next problem. What does it mean is that when you do a thesis, there must be something unique about that. You have done it. Nobody else has even attempted to do that. That is called the uniqueness. Otherwise I see title some aspects of ferroelectrics or some aspects of, you know, mining, data mining. What is the meaning of some aspects? That means you are a nobody. The title itself shows so. Well, other way you can say something more impressive, the solar cooling. That means there is a conflict in the title itself. The solar we know is gives heat and then now we are talking about solar cooling. So such impressive titles give you that uniqueness. And I am going to come and deal more with that. So let us say that we should not solve the current problem. If you do literature survey and you find people are working on this and so on, then you say let me find this gap and fill it up. So I call this the brick problem. So I am a mason. I am laying the bricks. Sorry to do it the reverse way. There is a lesson in that. I think differently. So there is a brick. Somebody made a structure of something and I say, oh, there is a question mark. This gap is not filled. So let me fill it up with something. So this gap is not filled. So let me try that. That is okay. You can write a couple of papers that you can write an internal report. But the real thing is make a new wall. Why are you only depending on the existing walls? Does the literature survey actually bind you to that? Does it mean that only that you have to do? Which others have done? No. It tells you how people have done several new things. For example, the greatest discovery or new addition to computer science I am told is the designing patterns or design patterns. And then there is a famous Gang of Four. I think you will be exposed to it soon or later. Where from these words Gang of Four come? Because there used to be a fiction writer, mystery writer Edgar Wallace and he had a very famous mystery novel called Gang of Four. So there are four people who solve fantastic problems, mystery problems. So these people have solved the mystery of programming by saying design patterns. So why can't you do anything like that? So that means we do not always make only small additions to the gap where we find it, but we also build new walls. So the next I am going to… So suppose I am doing my PhD project or a MTech or PhD project or now a seminar. Yeah, I am going to do that. So begin with the end in mind. Somebody at the end of that a person like me will come as external and say ask you. So what is the new thing you have done? Tell me. When there is a PhD bound volume of 200 pages, somebody is going to ask me okay, tell me in brief what is the novel thing or new thing you have added. Now is it true that after doing all the six months, one year, four years work, you find what is the novel thing you have done? No, you actually decide right in beginning what is the new thing you are going to do. Isn't it? It is not the end of it. It is not of the analysis that you find that this is the new thing I have done. The second problem is yesterday we saw all this sequence of you know define the problem. Then you do observation, experimentation, then you do analysis, etc., etc. This is a big assumption that the problem is being defined by your guide. But particularly PhD students have this perception that the guide is going to give a problem on the platter and then you finish it off in two and half years. Unfortunately the guide gives only a topic. So somebody in physics will be given a topic of ferroelectricity in perverse guides or something like that, generic. He will give a topic on robotic programming. Somebody else will give a topic on how to write compilers. So they are not going to give a ready made problem. So once you have got a topic, where do you begin? All that we heard yesterday, those point by point things is a waste. There is no experiment I can do because I do not know the problem. There is no measurement I can do because I do not do any experiments or how do you proceed? So it looks like as if you are at a standstill. Therefore, every step after the problem definition is a following after the definition of problem. So this lecture I am only going to define the problem. From the topic your professor has given, I am going to only define the problem. And the difficult or more difficult it is, the more new things I may get from it. So what is the difficulty level? So end goal. So solve a difficult problem or world's problem. So the literature survey is to only find the problem the world is not able to solve. Literature survey is not for finding what people are solving. You have to climb that ladder next and say ok, now people have solved this. They are not solved this. That is the purpose. Then publish a paper in nature or science if you are from science. So publish a paper in nature. So what is the so great about paper in nature? So actually the nomenclature of that particular publishing house is. So sometimes you wonder how nature has done this. How a duck has got web fingers and then it can swim. How a sparrow has got wings which are 20 grams in weight but they can carry 200 grams of weight while flying. So sometimes you wonder how the nature has done. So like that you wonder something about a problem. I wonder how this is so and then it becomes a nature problem if you find the solution. The next one is publish several papers. So you want to become a prolific publication, publish in top journals. Then do a good thesis, good within quotation. Why a good thesis? Because you want to get a good postdoc position in MIT, Berkeley, etcetera, etcetera, Cambridge. Then you want to finish in time. Finally you want to get a good job and that means bye bye to research. So this I call a natural occurring sliding. There is a gravity which is pulling you down. You want to solve a world's problem? Oh I cannot do it. So at least something which is going in nature I cannot do it. Publish some papers in journals then I will get a good thesis. Or just do a wonderful single paper on the basis of which I get postdoc. Oh I cannot do that. I want to finish in time. Finally I only want to get a job. So if you do not do anything about this, this will drop down by gravity with time. So first 6 months then next 3 months like that next year, next year in the fourth year you become desperate and finally you say oh god I should get a job. And then comes this placement and then you are in despair. What happens if I do not get a job? But I always wonder once you are a student in IIT why you should worry about a job? I thought that IIT assures a good job. Didn't you think when joined? What has changed between that time and the passing of time that you are desperately looking for any job? So I think we should not allow this degradation to take place and we must take steps so that it doesn't happen. So now we will do this define a difficult or world's problem. We are going to define a difficult or world's problem. So use right English or good or effective English to define the right problem. Is there anybody who will define a wrong problem? I will give an instance of what I call a wrong problem. You may not realize that they have chosen a wrong problem to solve. I will give an example. But use good English to define the right problem or ask yourself the question are you solving a wrong problem? That may be a easier question. So I give a case study of a tractor in which I am consulting. So this is a very good tractor and then there is a problem that there is a hood or bonnet which has got such a shape and then they do electro deposition of the paint primer because the electro deposition guarantees that it goes to every molecule and no pinholes and there is a perfect thing. But the problem they have defined that the tractor has a problem with corrosion. So that is the symptom of the problem. What happens over time? Some parts of the tractor show corrosion. Naturally you analyze that why is the corrosion occurring? Because the primer was not properly put though it was electro deposited. Then the paint will not stick there and then a corrosion will occur. Then you go and say why was the primer not sticking or getting deposited there? Then they said there is a air pocket because of that particular odd shape. There was an air pocket and then the air was preventing from the electrolyte to over there and then therefore the air was preventing this and then we had to take it out and do it by hand but then it is not electro deposition. Some pinholes will be there and then that used to be there. Then they said there is a air pocket there. So they put some tubes and sucked out the air before electroplating and they thought that problem was solved. But then the tube started getting plated with this electro deposition. The object will be replaced every time but the tube will remain same and then the tube used to get choked with this primer. So then they wanted to design a brush to clean the tube periodically and then the thing was that you have got a springy material made out of wires spring wires and they would have the brush made of stainless steel wires and then the brush should be able to go and get right angle bend and all that. So finally the definition of the problem at the bottom line was to design and make such a brush. So now you see how far are you from that original problem. The original problem is to prevent corrosion and now you are ending up with designing the brush and these people were thinking that that was the right problem to solve. I said the tube should not be there, the bubble should not be there. Those are one higher level problem. So I think the highest level problem is that the air pocket should be eliminated. So we suggested you make a 1 millimeter hole where the pocket is and then later on close that 1 millimeter hole with the pen. That is easy. No, no, no. This cannot be done because it hurts them that in spite of so many years of experience somebody from outside gives a very simple solution. So they get stuck on the wrong problem. So do not allow yourself to get stuck with the local difficulties or local sense of a solution having a difficulty and sense like a solution having a drawback then you go on fixing the solutions. So it is like band aid. You know you have got a problem then you put a band aid. You have got another problem you find oh this band aid cannot do so find another sticker or another tape which will do it. So instead of getting rid of the problem you are finding all the time the fix to that problem or the solution. So in our research we should not do this fix. We should solve the problem. We should not fix the solution which is having difficulties. So what is my advice? My advice is always solve the original problem. So something related to comm science because you are all graduating in that and I am not very much familiar with it but during my career I have found some difficulties. So there was a software in which we are entering some mass numbers for our layout of the integrated circuits. And one day since I was a user and my colleagues were developing that program. So by mistake instead of 1, 2, 3 I had a shift button already placed and instead of 1 some exclamation mark went there and then the programs crashed and then I have lost all my 1 and half hours or 2 hours of work then I went to brahmanyam, psu, brahmanyam and this happening. How come you can make such a silly mistake? But why should the program crash? So later on they had to make a change that instead of actually seeing what is the number and say if number is 1 to 31 they have got 31 go to statements. If there is anything like Z and exclamation it does not go anywhere. It just sits there. So it was going into a zone where there was nothing coming out. So I said you should get a character if it is a number only then you should proceed forward otherwise you should say type a number do not type a character. So this is the problem with the error messages. We do not mind having error messages but we do not want this to go into a sleep or what we call a crash. This is at the input stage. Suppose something is getting divided by 0 then it will actually have a problem in the runtime. Because you do not know when something becomes 0 then it is going to crash. Again the same problem. You say oh you are inverting this matrix by pivoting and all that. You are not doing a good job. Before dividing with anything you must check whether if it is 0 do not divide give an error. Before dividing find out whether it is 0 if it is not 0 then divide. I said that 0 is okay but it could be you know 10 raise to minus 342 as good as a 0. Then you know there should be a small variable called small defined that it should not be less than. I say you are asking me to do too many things. Your compiler should do something better. So the compiler is now requested instead of crashing it should give a history of which parameter is becoming 0 etcetera so that we can do background hunting. Otherwise the programming you are so strict with yourself that you do not allow a user to make any mistake. Then since you are not the user you say oh I have done a extremely wonderful program but it is it is the duty of the user to be perfect every time. So always solve the original problem. If somebody brings a problem or you find a you must solve that. You cannot get around it by saying okay you are not allowed to input anything other than the you know integer numbers because somebody can you know type something else. Secondly it also means that not not solve the drawbacks of a solution. So there is tempting. So if you have got a particular solution then you want to only fix the drawback which is having that solution is having and then you sequentially like I told you about that a pen problem you know you are solving the wrong problem in the end. So you must always get a focus on that original problem. So today's lecture the remaining 10 minutes or so and then we will have a interactive session is to write the problem in good English the original problem and never ever depart from it. So now I am going to tell you several ways of good English to depict a difficult problem. So we are already back same place good English for the right problem. So one is pose it as a conflict conflict between A and B. So A and B are your main requirements two requirements out of your project and then you say A should be there and B should be there both should be there but they are conflicting. The simplest one is that your operating system like windows should be easy to use even a four year old can use it with a finger clicking good but must allow also complex features. So it is easy as well as complex and how do you do it and I think they have done a good job except that it is affected by virus. So no no no this is not there then we must have Unix or Linux. Now the Linux is very good it is not affected by virus but it is difficult to use even a 60 year old like me cannot use it because I do not know how to pick it it has got a very strict grammar. So ultimately what will evolve the marriage between a windows and a Linux system but a four year old can use it as well as a 60 year old a professional can use it. Now it takes a long time before the C programming and the Fortran programming and like that you know the ultimately appear the same the same good programming method programming language. So ultimately there are only one God you may call it God, Bhagawan or Allah or anything ultimately all good characteristics are ultimately the same. So examples are mobile battery should be big and small chemical reaction should be fast and slow it should be fast for productivity in industry but it should be slow that the reaction is complete. Monomer should be there and it should not be there in a polymerized reaction. The monomer should be there to initially at the end of it there should be no monomer left 100 percent should be polymer. Now it is tough to achieve but that is what you should pose as a problem that 100 percent conversion occurs. You will not accept 99 percent because then you will have additional process to remove that 1 percent. Your operating system must give all error messages and should not ask you to read some manual where a message the error message number 202 is there and you go and look for a manual and read what is the message. So people avoid doing hard work by just creating such error messages which are numbered and then a user is never going to open the manual is a useless programming. I do not want to use it because the error message should be right there and there. So we have to say that there is a conflict between A and B so that is the one time then there is a variable which I want to adjust called C. Now this variable can be adjusted from one extreme to other extreme and it has got this wonderful property that at one extreme say one high extreme we call it but it could be any other adjective high and low. When it is high this good thing A appears it satisfies A and when it is low it satisfies B unfortunately C can be adjusted only to one value. So now what is the problem? So if I got a C adjustable parameter I can either have this or I can have this if it is only digital parameter I will look for optimization in between if it is a continuous variable. So say I am cleaning some apparatus before painting metal. So I use a high concentration of acid to clean it quickly and clean it well but then the high concentration gives some fumes and then it is a pollution problem. Then you say oh concentration should be low below one percent then the good thing is that there is no pollution. So now I have got a good cleaning. So cleaning good sorry I should not I use the red one cleaning good and here be pollution no pollution. So now what you have to achieve is you can either use this or use that but then we say I will use the high concentration of acid but I will do something to take care of pollution. So what is that something? You have exhaust you take the pollutants out then there is a scrubber and then you have a waste disposal you know treatment plants and all that is all required till last year India would not require it because we are not developed nation but now if Mahindra wants to become a leader in car and tractor manufacturing world leader then we will have to have factories which do all these things. So there is no escape all the best practices of the world and all this criticality of pollution should not be there and all that we will have to do. So you have to find some way you have to hold this and then find some way to achieve that because an adjustable parameter has this problem that only one value can be used but then we achieve both. Then the third way of defining so you already seen two ways of defining what were the two ways of defining there is a conflict between A and B. So A improves then B goes down then there is a adjustable parameter C and A B and then B goes down or this A goes down so this one is called the mother of conflict. So not only we know how these two parameters A and B both can be improved we also know what is at the root cause of it and therefore we must attack the root cause. So we know not only the problem we also know the direction to solution that why it is called the mother of conflict. The third one is what we call harm elimination and that is where good English is required and I think I have only a few minutes. So let us do it harm elimination. Harm is something which you cannot look aside or have a blind eye to that because it is staring at you got to do something to eliminate it but we find that there are three ways of eliminating one is called find the root cause and eliminate it then find the action which causes it and eliminate that action and then we find the effect the harm as a effect which causes you difficulty to find the effect and eliminate the effect the effect not the harm not the harm. So like I told you in programming if there is a something error happening at the run time there is a division by zero or at the time of entry there is a problem with the entry so you say give a error and then say go back give me another input go back and tell where things are becoming zero. So you have found the you are not found the original reason why something is becoming zero it could be because data was such that something was becoming zero or some programming has not done the devoting of the matrix method properly so that we can find but you must first eliminate the that effect of the harm. So let us say electric motor is getting heated because of copper loss and iron loss we call it I squared r of the wires and the eddy current and the hysteresis loss in the magnet the motor will always get heated no motor is getting heated I have got a problem so eliminate the heating of the motor then you have to make it with electrostatic or something you know electromagnetic we have to live with the heating then say okay tell me what is the harm is getting heated but what is the wrong you know the insulation is getting heated to 90 degrees and it is breaking down and therefore the coil is burning so okay the temperature which is the effect of the heating is the cause of your main difficulty so let's cool it now the cooling happens to be in mechanical engineering you have to consult heat transfer people to get that problem solved so same thing happening to microprocessor you go on increasing the speed and the size of 4 core heat core 16 core and then even in the original Pentium 100 megahertz we had a fan cooling it now we have got 16 cores now you will require a cryo cooler there liquid nitrogen or something so the heat transfer people are going to solve that problem so one of my favorite students in mechanical engineering went to Stanford University integrated circuit lab and he was trying to cool the chips that was his PhD problem so mechanical engineering heat transfer person is actually solving the electrical engineering problem because the VLSI designers do not care what the power is they will say yesterday it was 200 watts now it is 1 kilowatt the super computer for example consumes 12 megawatts so there are two problems first of all you have to feed 12 megawatts that means you have to get a separate line from the power supply agencies you know one feeder you want or you need a power plant of 12 megawatt capacity then in a small room like this 12 megawatt is being spent then you have to effectively remove it so you have got a double problem then you say who told you to spend so much power and then remove it so find something which will consume much less power so people are working on that so the problem is that you cannot do this way that spend 12 megawatts and then remove 12 megawatts the double work so now find some way of doing it very cheap cheap in the sense the megawatt should not be required it should require only 1 megawatt not 12 megawatt order of magnitude better so the diagram wise it is like this so I give the energy to a tool and this is the object and then tool acts on object so that is the useful function so I give 12 megawatts to the computer and the computer runs all those small 20,000 basic computers or whatever it is they run it problem is the too much heat is generated how do you solve that problem you know this is a problem so now we actually draw another diagram simply like this so energy is given here this is the tool this is the object useful functions it should continue instead of eliminating the harm I stop it halfway and then cool it cool it using liquid nitrogen maybe then you and I unnecessarily think that liquid nitrogen liquid nitrogen is expensive it is actually cheaper than milk liter to liter we can have a whole tank full of liquid nitrogen to cool the super computer for a day won't cost any money if you give the same contact to voltage or any other blue star for cooling it they will actually have a huge system and require too much area your floor space also and do a fantastic job after spending millions of rupees so here we have what a commodity called liquid nitrogen you can just bring it and cool it but modernity requires that your problem is well defined and you must do everything to solve that and not get worried about who will give liquid nitrogen it is expensive so stop worrying original problem is 12 megawatt is required for working I must remove it effectively and it should be a cheap solution which doesn't require you know installation of this cooling plants one should not require installation of a power generating station things like that right so we must not get into problems we must do what we are supposed to do so we don't need the power generating station we don't require the cooling plant we just require the coolant that's it so my last slide is here actually I am more slide but we will keep it to our time so this is the levels of solution so I told you that I am now going to do the solution part today but it is really what that how difficult should be your problem and what you should do with it so levels of solution is one is apparent quickly so 30 percent patents are based on such things two is minor modification 55 percent patents are based on this third is major modification then some 11 percent patents are based on it fourth is paradigm shift some 3 percent patents are based on it and fifth one is called discovery as in winning an over prize or something less than 1 percent so why I am talking about the patent the patent actually indicates that you have solved a world's problem in effective way that's my yardstick a patent means you have solved a world's problem in a effective way the so many people have judged and granted you the patent so if you have chosen your difficult problem you have defined a difficult problem either as a conflict between a and b or as an adjustment parameter which leads to conflict with solving conflict between a and b or you identified the harm and you want to eliminate the effect of the harm then all these three methods are going to fall in one such level so every the apparent solution you can give a conference paper with the minor modification requiring four to six months of work and data collection and convincing that I have solved the problem then we can publish in a journal if it is a major modification that you added some substance to the solution nobody else has done that then we have got a major paper but if you want a paper in nature then it must be paradigm shift you have to do it in a way nobody has done before you must wonder about you know how nature has got that problem how has it solved it how am I going to solve it and then you come with a wonderful new way of thinking and then it becomes a paradigm shift or a nature paper this is about that discovery is something while doing it there is a chance in a million that you will discover something wonderful but you cannot depend on it there is more life after phd also you do not have to discover it during your phd only right you can discover it anytime afterwards you are still there so I think I stop the lecture by saying in the end think and do first please think think and define that difficult problem all literature survey is for doing that it is not for finding a solution sorry to say you are not going to find the gaps between that literature where you will fit your small small solution you think big and then do but good English says my advice to all youngsters do think please thank you you understand the good English do think do not do I am just saying think I think we have only a few minutes it will never happen because I am not serious