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, ...

THE PARABOLA

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. ...

DISORDER IS THE "ORDER OF THE DAY"

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 ...

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