sciencecapsules

 DAILY LIFE:  One fine morning, you left the house a little late and you missed the bus.  On the way, your friend showed you a advt. for a new job.  Then your life changed for ever.  This is the butterfly effect.      " A flap of butterfly wing on one side of the planet may trigger tornado on the other side of the planet".  This is the famous quote. ORIGIN:     In 1960, American Mathematician and meteorologist wrote computer code to predict weather.  He rounded off some numbers manually and fed into the computer.  For example, 0.123456 was  rounded off as 0.123.  This tiny rounding off error produced unpredictable, drastic change in the weather report.  This is the origin of 'butterfly effect'. MATH:      Consider the equation  P next = P previous   * r * (1-Previous)  Let  P previous = 0.25  Let r = 1.5      Let us calculate 'P ne...

           Long back, people burned wood to get energy.  Then they found coal.  Next we switched to oil.  Our transport system is mainly using oil as fuel even today.  One fifth of the world's oil reserve is there in the middle east countries.   Oil price rise disturbed world Economy thrice.      How long we will use oil?   Is there alternative?  Let us try to answer.      Many countries are moving towards nuclear energy.  'Radiation' risk is present in nuclear reactors.      Wind energy, solar energy, geothermal energy are safe, clean and renewable.  We are focusing on them now.  Today, many trains have electric engines.  We rarely see steam engines.   Hybrid cars (petrol + electric) are beginning to appear.  We require many charging stations on the road to fuel electric cars.  First, we have to overcome this problem....

1. The pendulum always takes the same time for each oscillation, whatever may be the size of the swing?  why? 2. Can earth's gravity be controlled or manipulated? 3. What is iso-chronous curve? 4. What is "virtual gravity" ?     We will attempt to answer these questions in this article.      When the metal ball is at the top of the curve , it is going to fall vertically.  Hence entire acceleration due to gravity g acts on it.  When the ball is at the bottom, it moves horizontally.  Hence no "g" acts on it.  From top to bottom, the ball moves in inclined planes.  (the angle of inclination of the planes with gravity changes from 0 to 90 degree).  Hence between top and bottom, only partial gravity acts.  It is given by the formula g cos x (x =0 to 90) and it is called virtual gravity. Now, g cos 0 =  g.1  =   g=9.8  at top           g cos 45 =  g.0.707 =...

        Long long ago, a botanist by name Robert brown took a little water; put some pollen particles in it; observed them through microscope.  To his surprise, the pollen particle jerked around, as if they were alive.      Later investigations gave more information.      1. Water molecules are always in random motion due to thermal energy.      2. Even though, a pollen particles is hundreds of time bigger than a water molecule, a group of water molecules hit it here and there, now and then.  Hence pollen particles move randomly as if stroked by a bat.  This motion is called Brownian motion.       Brownian motion proved that the matter is made up of molecules and atoms.      When the tea bag is put in a hot water, the tea-particles pushed in the same way by the hot water molecules.  Hence the tea diffuse through the water or milk.  It is clearly visible wi...

          There are two kinds of particles in the universe.  One is Fermions and the other is Bosons.  "Fermions having the same properties (like spin, energy, angular momentum) cannot occupy the same place. Remember, like poles repel.  This is the Pauli's exclusion principle.  Electrons, protons and neutrons are fermions.      Two electrons having same  properties cannot co-exist.  For example, in the first orbit of the atom, two electrons can occupy.  But they should have opposite spin.  Other electrons should go to higher orbits.  It is like filling -up seats from the stage to the balcony in a theater.  That is why there is lot of empty space in an atom.  In spite of empty space, we cannot squeeze a solid materials.  Because electrons offers resistance due to Pauli's exclusion principle.  Hence we are not able to force our hands through the table and we are not falling th...

         The candle, a stick of wax (oil) burns with oxygen and produce CO 2 and water.  Also gives out light and heat energy.      We take in carbs (carbohydrates), oil, fat.  They are converted into glucose in our body.  We also inhale oxygen.  The glucose burns (reacts) with oxygen and yield CO 2 which we exhale out; water which the body eliminates.  In this process also, the energy in the forms of heat, invisible light is released.  The body uses this energy for its functioning.  Here the invisible light is infra-red radiation.  Our body continuously emit IR waves.  That is why, we and animals can be detected using infra red cameras and binoculars even in the dark night.  Also our body is warm and above the room temperature always.      Medical science says the vital parameters of our body are 1. Temperature 2. oxygen level 3. Heart pulse rate 4. Blood pressure....

       Prices rise now and then.  Government announces dearness allowance for its employees (because goods are getting dearer).  Hence the income rises.  People's buying capacity increases.  Again the prices shoot up.  The cycle goes on and on, called vicious cycle.  The value of money goes down.  One has to pay higher price for the same product.  In economics, it is called "inflation" of money.      Is inflation good?  Yes, to certain extent. 1. Income rise gives positive feeling to employees.  Hence productivity increases. 2. We get loans and pay EMI-equated monthly installments.  As the time progresses, due to inflation the value of EMI goes down.  We seems to pay less money as EMI.  It is a win-win situation for both the lender and the borrower.  We have seen people who paid 200 rupees as EMI and in due course their property value ballooned to two crore. 3. Prices can...

        All the illegal activities takes place under the cover of darkness.  Police and military requires devices to see in the darkness.  There are mainly two principles.  Using which night goggles, binoculars, cameras work. 1. AMPLIFICATION      We receive signals of tiny voltage in our smart phones.  That signal is strengthen (amplified) by electronic circuits and converted into clear voice, picture and video.      Even in darkness, a small amount of light is present due to stars, moon, distant lights etc.  This little light reflected from the objects can be amplified by night vision instruments and present a picture or video to us.  Even tiny amount of light is enough because the instrument can amplify it thousands of time.  But, if you see a normal light using this night vision equipment, you will be blinded by the amplified heavy intensity of light. 2. INFRA-RED      B...

           Do you think we have abundant storage for information?.  Let us find out.      We know 0 and 1 are called binary digit or bit.  With one bit we can represent two numbers 0,1. With two bit we can represent 4 numbers.        Binary              Decimal          0 0                       0          0 1                       1          1 0                       2          1 1                       3      With 32 bit, the maximum, positive value we can represent is 2147483647.      Those days we...

         Every student wants to study, understand, assimilate, remember and recollect.  Here I will present a few points which will help you to study properly and score high marks.      English has two words 'Read' and 'study'.  You can read a newspaper.  But you have to study 'Atomic physics'.  'Study' implies active work by brain.  When you study, you have to read, reread, think, rethink and digest.       1. When you study anything, go through the whole topic once,  whether you understand or not.      Than read sentence by sentence, para by para; concept by concept, Re-read, Re-read.  The brain will process and make you understand the whole idea.  This is the key-point in studying. .   2.Ask questions and try to get answers.  Like 'what is valence electron'; what is reverse osmosis'     3. To remember seven colours in the rainbw, we use '...

        We mainly talk about electric, magnetic, gravitational and nuclear forces.  But the frictional force also plays important role in our daily life.      How the frictional force arises?  When one body moves over another body, a opposing force called friction arises.  When liquid flows, it flows in layers and here the frictional force is called viscous force.  Irregularities in the contacting surfaces, adhesive force between the surfaces and gravity also contribute to the frictional force.  Friction is responsible for everyday activities like eating, drinking, writing, walking etc.  Without friction "there will be many slips between the cup and the lip"      MEASURE OF FRICTION      'Co-efficient of friction" is used to measure the friction.  It is the ratio between the force which is just enough to move the body' and the weight of the body (in simple terms).  It norm...

           Great epics had been written in English using just 26 alphabets.  All the information in the computer is represented by strings 0 s and 1 s .      All the mathematical operations can be brought down to four operations (+,-,*, /).  Even these four operations can be reduced to just one, the addition[ Another article].      All the matter in the universe is made up of atoms.  The atoms in turn made of three particles only; namely electron, proton, and neutron.  But the protons and neutrons are made up of particles called 'quarks'.  Hence everything in the world and the universe is mainly made up of quarks.      There are four fundamental natural forces, gravitational, electromagnetic, long range nuclear and short range nuclear forces.  These forces are responsible for the working of motors, mobile phones, Atom bomb, rotation of planets and every happenings. ...

   Man created money.  People run after it entire life.  What is actually money?      We know, we used bartering or exchange of  goods - long ago.  That can be called commodity money.  It has intrinsic value.  Examples : Gold, silver, copper , etc,.      Sometimes, even drugs, cigarettes, food, are used as commodity money.  This kind of money is used in prison even today.  When Soviet Union collapsed in 1980, hyper-inflation came into being.  They were forced to use bartering system.  And the cigarettes were one of the commodity money.      The modern world uses "Fiat money.  It has no intrinsic value.  It is just notes and coins.  They are decreed by the government to have certain value (signed by Governor of RBI).  The bank notes are backed by country's legal system and the economic credibility. Meaning of money:    1. Money is like a c...

         Is there any connection between your house water pump and the cotton candy you eat at the carnival? yes, there is.      The centripetal force is always responsible for the rotations of a body.  This force acts from the body to the center always.  To every force, there is a reaction force.  Here,it is known as centrifugal force which acts from the center towards the circling body radially. Cotton candy machine:      A sugar reserve with added flavor and color is placed at the center of the rotating bowl.  The sugar reserve is surrounded by an extruder- a metal cylinder with holes along its sides.      The sugar is heated and melted by an electric filament.  The sugar liquid is thrown out radially through the holes in the extruder because of Centrifugal force. The thrown liquid solidifies as fibers in the rotating bowl.  Then the sugar strands are ...