In the distance, my sister and I are clinging for dear life to rubber donut-shaped floatation devices being dragged along at a high velocity by a motor boat on lake in southern Sri Lanka. The boat pulling us has established our net force in that direction and so, our subsequent acceleration is also in that direction. Newton's Second Law and equation acceleration = net force/ mass provides evidence for great net force. The net force is large enough to produce a large acceleration despite large masses. Perhaps if I knew the physics of the activity then, I would have been less scared. But as I did not, I cannot recommend the experience. The ordeal was heart attack-inducing.

The oil lamp on my dresser is at equilibrium. But though it is at equilibrium, there are forces acting upon it. The earth is pulling the lamp down and, in accordance with Newton's Third Law, the lamp is pulling the earth up. The lamp is pushing the box down and the box is pushing the lamp up. The air is pushing the lamp left and the lamp is pushing the air right, and so on and so forth. How can a lamp be at equilibrium with all these invisible forces at play, you ask? Well, because the forces acting on lamp are equal and opposite. Furthermore, even as the lamp pulls the earth up, to use a popular example, the earth's mass is so enormous than when plugged into the equation acceleration= net force/ mass, the division of the net force by so huge a number results in an acceleration so small it is negligent. What a pity. That is for lamp.

Where my little sister would be without a fan to cool her oven-like bedroom? Only God knows. Further proof that magnets are indeed the key to modern living. Magnets enable the conversion of electric energy into mechanical energy. As Christian Oersted and Andre-Marie Ampere discovered, there is a fundamental connection between magnetism and electricity. They discovered, that a current-carrying wire physically moves in the presence of a permanent magnet when there is a varying magnetic field (in this case the moving electrons of the current). This basic configuration of a magnet and current carrying wire is a rudimentary motor and that is the essentials of the essential fan.