THE WHEEL- MECHANICAL BATTERY

Wheel is an important invention and it is one of the 6 simple machines. It is heavily used in transportation since it greatly reduces friction. We have ship's wheel, steering wheel, potter's wheel, gyroscope and fly wheel.

When you ride a motorbike and switch off the engine abruptly, it continue to run for a long distance on a smooth road because of the special design of the wheel. Here, the wheel is large and number of spokes are connected to the heavy rim from the axle. The rim carries heavy mass since air filled Tyre is mounted on it. This is called fly wheel design. In this design, the moment of inertia is high or rotational mass is heavy. So it carries a lot of energy and stopping it will be difficult. So the fly wheel seems to have a storage of mechanical energy.

The man made forces cannot disturb the earth's rotations even slightly because it is so heavy and carries enormous energy.

The fly wheel is also used between the engine and the wheels of a vehicle for smooth transfer of rotational energy.

Advanced note:
Moment of inertia or rotational mass = mass *( distance of the mass from the axis)^2.
Hence,to increase rotational mass of a wheel, the mass is distributed away from the axle on the rim. When rotational mass is increased, the wheel is able to carry lot of energy.

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THE EARTH, A SUPER ORGANISM

JOIN MY COURSE: "Become a programmer in a day with python" A man called 'love lock' (what a name) proposed a theory called Gaia theory, named after Greek Goddess. It says, "Earth is a self-regulating organism like a human being. The organic life in it interacts with in-organic matter and maintains atmosphere, temperature and environment". Hence the earth is still suitable for the life to thrive. Imagine, in a particular place, there are lot of flowers. Some flowers are white and some are darkly coloured. We know, white reflects light and heat while dark absorbs the same. White flowers can thrive in hot climate. But dark flowers requires cold climate. The absorption and reflection balances and the environment reaches average, warm temperature at which both the flowers can co-exist. This is the essence of "Gaia" theory. On our earth, the oxygen constitute 20% of the atmosphere. The oxygen level is always mai

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A jet of water shooting from a hose pipe will follow a parabolic path. What is the so special about parabola. Y= x^2 Draw a graph for the above equation. It will result in a parabola. This parabola is also called unit parabola. Any equation involving square will yield a parabola. Example: Y = 2x^2 +3x+3 (also called quadratic equation) X= 2 and -2, both satisfies the equation 4 = X^2. Parabolic equations always have two solutions. Any motion taking place freely under gravity follows parabolic path. Examples: An object dropped from a moving train, A bomb dropped from flying plane, A ball kicked upwards. If a beam of light rays fall on the parabolic shaped mirror, they will be reflected and brought to focus on a point. This fact is made use of in Dish Antenna, Telescope mirrors, etc. Inverted parabola shape is used in the construction of buildings and bridges. Because the shape is able to bear more weight. A plane

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Imagine a balloon full of air. The air molecules are moving randomly inside the balloon. Let us pierce the balloon with a pin. The air rushes out. Why should not the air molecules stay inside the balloon safely and ignore the little hole? That is not the way the world works. The molecules always "want to occupy as many states as possible". Hence the air goes out in the open to occupy more volume. The things always goes into disorder (entropy) and the disorder increases with time. The above statement is what we call "second law of thermodynamics". Consider a cup of coffee on the table. Suppose the heat from entire room flows to your cup of coffee, the coffee will boil and the rest of the room will freeze. Freezing means bringing things to order and arrangement. It violates the second law. Hence it will never happen. Hence heat must flow from high temperature to low temperature and not the other way. The air molecules in y

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