APPLICATIONS OF LAWS AND PRINCIPLE OF

PHYSICS IN INDIGENOUS TECHNOLOGIES

A report for the partial fulfillment of the requirements of practical

examination of Physics for secondary level education of NEB

Submitted to
Department of Physics
Trinity International College
Dillibazaar, Kathmandu

Submitted by
Kushal Bhujel
Roll no. 29853
Section. DL1

Date: 2080/11/01
 DECLARATION

I Kushal Bhujel hereby declare that the project work entitled

“Applications of Laws and Principle of Physics in Indigenous
Technologies” under the supervision of Department of Physics,
Trinity International College is done originally by me and not
been submitted anywhere for the award of any degree. All
sources of information have been successfully acknowledged
by reference to the authors or institutions.

Student Name: Kushal Bhujel

Grade: XI
Section: DL1
Registration No: 29853
Date: 2080/11/01
 NATIONAL EDUCATION BOARD
TRINITY INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS
NEPAL
LETTER OF APPROVAL

This report submitted by Kushal Bhujel entitled “Applications

of Laws and Principle of Physics in Indigenous Technologies” is
approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
practical examination in Physics.

…………………………………… ……………………………………
Department Head of Physics Principal

Trinity International College Trinity International College

Date: 2080/11/01
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am immensely grateful to my Department of Physics for their

invaluable guidance and unwavering support throughout the
duration of this project. Their expertise and mentorship have
been instrumental in shaping the project’s direction and
ensuring its successful completion. I would also like to extend
my mates who collaborated with me on this project. Their
contributions and collective effort have greatly enriched the
outcome.

Additionally, I would like to express my gratitude to

the school administration and faculty members for providing us
with the necessary resources and opportunities to undertake
this project. Their encouragement and belief in our abilities
have been a constant source of motivation. Finally, I am
indebted to my parents for their continuous support and
encouragement. Their unwavering faith in me and their
willingness to lend a helping hand whenever needed have been
crucial throughout this journey.
 CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION…………………………………1-2
1.1: General Background………………………1
1.2: Objectives of the Study………………….2
CHAPTER 2: MATERIALS AND METHODS…………..3
CHAPTER 3: OBSERVATION……………………………………..4
CHAPTER 4: LIMITATIONS OF STUDY……………….….5
CHAPTER 5: RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS…6-9
CHAPTER 6: REFERENCES……………………………….……10
CHAPTER 7: APPENDIX……………………………………………11
 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1. 1 General Background

The need for economic and physical survival has been

identified as great identifying forces for technological
advancement. The term indigenous refers to bring grown
or produced in a locality. Indigenous technology refers to
production of materials or goods by the people within a
community. It is the custom or homemade tools available
in a society at a particular time whose usage causes
satisfaction to the inhabitants.
The indigenous technology in the state has brought
forth the production of wine locally, making paper, wood
craving, water mill and mat making, etc. No effective
indigenous technology program can exist without a good
knowledge of sciences in general and physics in particular.
The application of physics and its principles in the
development of our indigenous technologies will help in
the productions of more valuable goods that conform to
modern standards.

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1.2 Objectives of the Study

 To determine the effects of physics in the

development of indigenous technologies.
 To study the effect of physics in the
production of water mill (ghatta).
 To understand that physics is the foundation
on which technology is built.

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 CHAPTER 2: MATERIALS AND METHODS

A qualitative approach was used in the study. The subjects

of research were adults of village in Dolakha who still
remain the cultural values of their ancestors. They live
with the simplicity, uniqueness, honesty, and other
positive behaviors. In this study, we report on individual
interviews conducted to identify their indigenous
knowledge that related to the thermal physics concepts as
incorporated into school curriculum. As the beginning of
the interview, respondents were asked to explain about
their experience from their childhood up to the present.
Respondents were asked about the indigenous knowledge
and link to the physics concepts to obtain further insight
into how they understood and applied it. Listening to their
opinions and information that could be associated with
the physics concept, particularly thermal physics. The
interview transcripts were analyzed to identify those ideas
that could be related to the thermal physics concept.

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 CHAPTER 3: OBSERVATION

These turning machines are known as Pani Ghatta also

known as water mills. The water mills are popular across
the Himalayas, as it is the only reliable machine to grind
grain for people living in the hilly and Himalayan
regions. The water mills are not limited to Nepal only
but you can see across the stretch of hills of
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tibet and Bhutan. Traditionally
limited to grinding, now many are modified to generate
electricity for local use.
According to its construction, the water is diverted from
the mainstream via open or closed duct towards the
turbine placed on the lower section of mill house. The
turbine used to be made of wood, but the majority of
wooden turbines are replaced with metallic as
improved water mills these days. The vertical shaft
connected to the turbine on the floor of mill house runs
and turns the upper section of stone. The lower section
is stationary and grains stored in wooden settings above
the stone drops grains through a hole in upper stone to
lower stone via feeder mechanism and then grains are
ground in between the stones.

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 CHAPTER 4: LIMITATIONS OF STUDY

A lot of cultural values and local wisdom begin to be

abandoned and are at risk of being lost as a result of the
demands and development of globalization. Indigenous
knowledge has been either neglected or even denied as
it may be seen to be at the edges of scientific
knowledge. Indigenous physics knowledge is
manifested in various forms of oral and practical
knowledge.
Unfortunately, the indigenous community is continually
struggling to maintain their rights, their tradition, and
their knowledge. We can only find these indigenous
technology in very rural parts of Nepal due to
modernization.

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CHAPTER 5: RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

RESULTS:
Newton’s Laws for Rotation
1. If an object does not experience a net torque on it, it
will not have an angular acceleration and therefore no
angular velocity. If there is a net torque on an object it will
have an angular acceleration and angular velocity.
2. The torque on an object is equal to the moment of
inertia multiplied by the angular acceleration.

The Moment of Inertia

The moment of inertia of an object is also referred to as
the rotational inertia and is basically the rotational mass
of an object. In order to determine this we need to look at
an objects rotational Kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is one
half the objects mass times its linear velocity squared, but
when an object like a water wheel is traveling in circular
motion the rotational Kinetic energy has to be considered.
Now considering the rotational Kinetic energy it is defined
by one half the first derivative of time with respect to

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angular displacement (angular speed) squared multiplied
by the radius squared times the mass of the object. In the
case of a water wheel we have a thick hollow cylinder
(wheel) and a rod (axle). The inertia is defined as the sum
of the points of mass multiplied by the corresponding
radius squared. In order to find the Moment of Inertia for
an individual object we need to look at it as a collection of
equally sized masses, which means that they have equal
densities and volumes, so if we integrate the
perpendicular distance (radius) squared from the center
of mass multiplied by the mass density and integrate it
with respect to the volume of a particular object we can
calculate the moment of inertia of an object.

Torque
Torque or the moment arm is quantified by taking the
cross product of the force perpendicular to the axis of
rotation and the position vector, taking the dot product of
these gives us the SI units of Nm. To get the magnitude of
torque it is also important to take into consideration the
angle theta between the force vector and the You sent
position vector. Use the right hand rule to determine the
direction of torque for the given position vector and force.
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Rotational Work The Work done by torque is defined as
the torque multiplied by the angular displacement In
order to determine how much work can be done by
moving water in a river or stream requires that the total
volume of water available to do work is determined. Once
a volume is determined, it is possible to calculate the
amount of work that the water is capable of doing on the
water wheel and in turn the ideal size and type of wheel
can be determined.

Rotational Work
The Work done by torque is defined as the torque
multiplied by the angular displacement In order to
determine how much work can be done by moving water
in a river or stream requires that the total volume of water
available to do work is determined. Once a volume is
determined, it is possible to calculate the amount of work
that the water is capable of doing on the water wheel and
in turn the ideal size and type of wheel can be determined.

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 CONCLUSION

Indigenous knowledge is practice of doing some specific

works uniquely in any community, which acquired over
generations by communities as perform different acts in
their own ways. In indigenous technology community use
their local resources and knowledge. It mainly refers to a
system of initiative technical works. Pani Ghatta is one of
the important indigenous technologies in Nepalese
community.it is clean and applicable technology for
grinding at local level where there is no electricity access.
Now days these Ghatta are decreasing day by day due to
the use of modern grinding machine. Countries like our
where there is shortage of electricity Ghatta can be useful,
if we have upgrade them with improved technology and
dual purpose like fishing, irrigation.

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 REFERENCES

https://tribhuwan.academia.edu
https://alumni.media.mit.edu
Wikipedia.org
https://myrepublica.nagariknetwork.com
Pioneer Physics, Grade 11

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APPENDIX

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