There has been much talk over the apparent new scientific invention
of a car that can be solely run on water. If this was true it would
surely be one of the greatest inventions in world history. I had my
doubts and after watching the ‘paani wali ghari’ be revealed on a talk
show I quickly realised this ‘invention’ by Agha Waqar wasn’t real. This
was not new ground breaking technology that would revolutionise the
world as it was being projected, it was simply electrolysis with a car
battery.
Anyone with a little scientific knowledge knows what electrolysis is,
I was taught back in G.C.S.E. chemistry. Electrolysis is an old
discovery which is an inefficient process that splits water molecules
into hydrogen and oxygen. The idea for this water car was to use
hydrogen as the fuel to power it. The main fault with this is that the
electrical energy put into obtaining the hydrogen is greater than the
energy obtained by combusting the hydrogen itself to power the car. So
the input energy is greater than the output, the greatest ever
efficiency reached in electrolysis is 80% which is still low. This so
called invention will just deplete the car battery very quickly, nothing
new or ground breaking.
The reactions of various people on social media have been somewhat
surprising. After criticising this apparent invention on social media I
was faced with a backlash, people were telling me that we should give
the guy a chance and to stop being a pessimist. I realised that people
in Pakistan are emotional who have been deprived of hearing much good
news and have a feeling of hopelessness. This gives space to conspiracy
theories and false hopes so that anything positive people will latch
onto it without thinking about it. Which patriotic Pakistani wouldn’t
want their country to take credit for a revolutionary invention? This
was only going to be another disappointment for those that had high
hopes. Some people had already begun projecting Agha Waqar as a national
hero and respected scientist and were rejecting criticism out of
patriotism. Other people defending this apparent invention simply did
not have enough knowledge on the subject and did not understand the
magnitude of what it would mean if true. To all those criticising me, I
am an idealist/optimist but on this topic I was just being honest with
myself and my country rather than live on false hope and blind
patriotism.
However ever since this ‘AghaGate’ story broke, the spasmodic reflex
reaction of our twitter pseudo-intellectuals has been disgusting. Full
time cynics including journalists, bloggers and football fans with a
large twitter following began slandering Pakistani scientists and how
rubbish the country is. Ironically these scientists (despite being wrong
this time) have achieved a lot more in life than these twitter
intellectuals have or ever will. These cynical ‘experts’ are the
insecure ‘told you so’ types that always give themselves a sense of
being correct. Cynics can never achieve anything great in life as their
ambitions are severely limited and can never offer anything productive
to Pakistan.
Inventing ground breaking technology is a long process which requires
struggle, years of research and resources. Even once such revolutionary
technology is invented there is a long difficult process of mass
producing it efficiently. Ground breaking inventions will not be made
overnight by scientists that are not that special as they claim to be,
so I request my emotional people to not fall for fabricated optimisms.
Neither will any inventions be made by our low aspiring cynical
pseudo-intellectuals. Let us not overestimate our current abilities but
lets not narrow our ambitions either.
“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by sceptics
or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need
men who can dream of things that never were. - JFK”
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