sciencecapsules

     The national geographic magazine is well known for its breath taking photographs.  To select one good photograph,  it rejects hundreds.      While sculpting a statue, the sculptor chisel out lot of unwanted portions from the stone and a beautiful figure emerges.     In making gold jewelery, there will be a wastage.  Every brand claims, there wastage charge is minimum.  In all electrical appliances, electricity produces unwanted heat energy.  Hence we lose electrical energy in the form of heat.      Hence the wastage is unavoidable.  The prime aim of science and technology is to reduce wastage to a minimum in energy, time, space and resources etc Energy:  Take the tungsten bulb invented by Edison.  We say today, it is highly inefficient, even though it illuminated the world nearly for 100 years.  It emits lot of heat besides light.  Hence we have ...

Beautiful numbers: 1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,...   In the above sequence each number is a sum of previous two numbers{of course starting with 1}.  This sequence is called Fibonacci sequence.        This sequence is found everywhere in nature.  You can easily observe in a garden that the leaves arrangement on a branch or a petals arrangements in a flower follows 2,3,5,8,... pattern.  Fibonacci arrangement naturally save space and also gives good exposure of sunlight.  The bracts of a pine cone; the scales of a pine apple; the reproduction of rabbits follows Fibonacci order.  The Fibonacci numbers are therefore applicable to the growth of every living thing.  A divine proportion: If you divide the consecutive numbers in the sequence, that is : 2/1,3/2, 5/3, 8/5,...  The ratio will gradually zero in on 1.618...  This number is called golden ratio phi ⏀ .  It has got a  divine tou...

    Sometimes CD and DVD get scratched .  The signal sent from satellite and space ships may be corrupted.  Information sent over the INTERNET is prone to error.  The mistakes that creep in 'the credit card numbers and the amount of money entered in mobiles' would be costly and dangerous.  There is a technique to detect and correct errors.  We will go through it with a simple example.   I want to transmit a 16 digit credit card number error free. The number is 5196 2017 2486 8720 Transmission: Step 1 . Split the number into 4 blocks of 4 digit each and arrange them as 4x4 matrix. 5196 2017 2486 8720 Step 2: The sum of the digits in the first row  5+1+9+6 = 21.  Throw the first digit in the sum and retain the second digit,   2 1 = 1.  This "1" is called check-sum which plays an important role in error correcting.  Find the check-sums for each row as well as each column. 5196 1 2017 0 2486...

    We have studied the picture of electric field and magnetic field in the school.  What is the picture of gravitational field?  How it permeates the space?        The interstellar space is like a thin flexible rubber sheet.  When a celestial object is present on the sheet, it dips and sags at that point and creates a saucer like shape around the object.  The object may be the sun, a star, a planet or a satellite.        All the bodies are attracted and fall  on the planets and the earth because the space around them is curved.  We say, they are attracted by gravitational force.       The cycle race take place in a saucer shaped stadium.  As a speed increases, the cyclist automatically moves to the inner or bottom level of the stadium.  similarly the planets revolve around in the sun's stadium.  The planets cannot escape from the well formed by the sun.  ...

         Earth is conducive for life and intelligent life is evolved on the earth.  Any intelligent life will think, why we are here? Where we are heading? What is the purpose of our existence?  Let us search for the answers.     We, human beings invented and contributed in arts, literature, science and engineering.  The language I am writing is the pure invention of mankind.  We made our life as comfortable as possible { or as complicated as possible}.  In future, we may conquer all diseases; may live longer; may create designer babies; may create vegetation of our like; may teleport our selves; may colonize mars; may go beyond solar system; in short, we may play god.       That is all okay.  But what is our destination?  Is there any super force moving the humanity towards a predetermined destiny?  Are we going to wiped out with all our knowledge, when the sun dies and the solar system...

    We know, the sun emits spectrum of seven colours.  But the  dominate colors are red and blue.  The blue light is scattered more by air molecules than any other colours.  Hence the sky looks blue.  The ocean and water bodies reflect the sky's blue colour.   Blue sky may fuel the imagination of the poets but according to science, it is an illusion.        During the sun set and sun rise, the sun's rays travel long distance through atmosphere to reach our eyes.  Hence all the blue light is scattered away and only the red light reaches us.  Hence the sun appears as red disc.  Since the red can travel long distance without disturbance, it is used in danger signs and signals.        All the plant and tree leaves have green pigment called chlorophyll.  It absorbs red, blue and all other colours of sunlight and use the light energy for photosynthesis.  But the green is given ou...

    The search method that we are going to explore belongs to computers.  But it can be used in many real-life situations like crime investigation , eliciting an answer in an enquiry  etc,.        Consider a set of alphabetically arranged strings as given below. 1. ABC 2. BCD 3. CDE 4. DEF  5. EFG 6. FGH 7. GHI  8. HIJ 9. IJK 10. JKL 11. KLM 12. LMN 13. MNO  I want to find the location of KLM .   Select the middle string in the list.  That is 7. GHI.  Since KLM is less than GHI, KLM must be present below it not above it.  So leave out the strings above 7.  Now we are left with,  7. GHI 8.HIJ 9. IJK 10.JKL 11.KLM 12.LMN 13. MNO   Now again go for the middle element which is 10.JKL.    Again KLM is less than JKL.  Hence leave out the top- half of the list.  Now we are left with, 10. JKL 11. KLM 12. LMN 13. MNO  Now, if you select the middl...