Long Division

Long Division Pritha Bhattacharyya (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution problem 1: Two weights are connected by a pulley system at the corner of a tabletop. The lighter one sits on the table while the heavier one is suspended from the edge. The classic question: what is the acceleration of the heavier weight? Each year, once my Physics 1 students learn about Newton and his apple, about free body diagrams, about the rate of a rate, about weight versus mass, I give them this question. They are given the whole period to figure it out. My bad students work diligently. They draw out pictures, label the gravitational forces, mark acceleration directions, and figure out the change in axes. Then they get stuck. My good students work diligently. They realize the acceleration of the weight moving across the table must equal the [End Page 99] acceleration of the weight falling down. They replace the tension of the strings that connect the weights with their respective forces and solve. At the end of the day, I gather up my things, shut off the lights, and close the classroom door behind me. I drive out to the senior home on the corner of Walsham and Court, deep in the outskirts of Queens. The facility sports a community garden by the entrance and weeping willow trees that line the property to create a natural boundary. Linda is the regular guard on Fridays. "Nothing out of the ordinary today," she says. "I'm glad to hear it," I reply. I walk past the orderlies toward Room 302. I have no reason to be nervous. Yet my palms are wet, and the hallways look too bright. "Good work, Baba," I say when I walk in. His suitcase is packed. He is dressed in a black T-shirt and sweatpants. His bifocals hang from a string around his neck. "Are you ready?" I look at his face. He's not scared. He's very calm. Determined. He nods. We walk back to the front desk, where I sign him out permanently. When we step outside, I start to cry. "It's okay," he says. "I'm telling you, aren't I? It's okay." I help him into the passenger's side, and we drive. Let me rephrase: you are connected by a rope to your mother or your father and you stand on a cliff while they dangle off the edge. Forget the grit of the dirt that you dig your heels into. Forget the force that the Earth exerts upon you just as you exert upon it. Forget air resistance and center of mass. The principle rests only on Newton's second law: F = ma. The two of you aren't individual entities, but one system. Your mass is your bodies, collectively. Your acceleration is equal. The primary external force that makes you move is the gravitational pull of that person connected to you. The only students who understand this concept are the ones who've loved their parents so much that they've fallen off the edge before cutting the rope. They are few, but they are the ones I feel sorry for. ________ when baba chastises me, he always chooses an English word. Tui ki stupid, na ki? Tui hochish akta idiot. Shob shomoy silly mistake, shob shomoy! This exchange happens every night after dinner. We sit in the living room: me on the floor, my elbows taut against the coffee table and a pencil in my hand; him on the couch, in his undershirt, with my fourth-grade math workbook in his lap and a cigarette. The only light Baba will allow is the table lamp, and it shines obtrusively onto the scrap paper from his office, which I use to write out my answers. Baba works at a software company. I [End Page 100] don't know what that means except that the boss is a "fucker," and that he speaks a number of languages, like Java and Python and C++. Every movement has a consequential response. If I yawn, I'm told I only get sleepy when it's time to study. If my gaze strays when Baba...