CAN A PENCIL AND A TAPE FETCH YOU A NOBEL PRIZE?

Yes, it did for Andre Gelm and Konstantin Novoselev in 2004. We know pencil contains graphite lead -a form of carbon. They took a pencil and draw a line on a cello tape. The line is made up of layers and layers of bonded carbon atoms. They took another tape; put it on the drawn line; then peeled it off. Now, the half of carbon-layers stick to the second tape and came off with it. They took yet another piece of tape and repeated the process. The number of layers in the very first tape reduced further. They repeated the procedure again and again. Finally, they are left with just one single layer of carbon-atoms. It is just one atom thick. The atoms are arranged in a hexagonal lattice as shown in the figure. It is graphone which has the potential to become wonder material of the future.

Graphene is stronger than steel. It is the thinnest material known to man. It is an excellent conductor of heat and electricity.
We will see some applications of graphene.
When we filter sea-water through graphene, we instantly get drinkable salt-less water.
A battery stores a lot of energy but takes a long time for charging. A capacitor charges quickly but stores only less electrical energy. The graphene-based super-capacitor solves this problem. Tomorrow we may be able to charge our smartphones and laptops in minutes.
When graphene is used in smartphone screen, the price will further fall down.
Solar cells made using graphene will also be cheaper.

Graphene seems to cure many technical ills we face today. But commercial mass production of graphene is not still successful. We hope that we will be blessed with more graphene in the future.

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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, ...

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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 ...

CASINO'S GAME

Let us find out how the casino survives with mathematics. Say, your friend invite you for a game of dice. You must bet (wager) 2 dollars. If you roll 'six' you will get back 8 dollars. The game will go on for 30 rounds. All sounds good. The probability of rolling 'six' is 1/6. Since the game will be played for 30 times, the 'expected win' is 30*1/6 = 5. That is, you are expected to win 5 rounds out of 30. Hence your gain will be 5 * 8 =40 dollars. ok. This also implies that you will loose 25 rounds. Hence your loss will be 25*2 =50 dollars. Your net gain will be gain-less = 40-50 = -10 dollars. For 30 rounds, the loss is -10 dollars, Hence, for one round =-10/30 = -1/3 dollars. There will be a loss of -1/3 or 0.33 dollars per round. It is not a fair game. Let us make a simple formula to calculate 'Pa...

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