BEND ME, SHAPE ME, ANYWAY YOU WANT ME. .

Plastic is a wonder material It is versatile, highly useful and is everywhere. We cannot think of modern life without plastic.

It is easy to dismiss plastic as cheap and nasty material that wreck the planet. But if you look around, the reality is different. If you want cars, toys, replacement body parts, medical adhesives, paints, computers, water pipes, fiber-optic cables, and a million other things, You will need plastics as well. You cannot wish away the plastic. We have to smartly live with it.

What is plastic? Consider one ethane molecule. It is just made up of 2 carbon atoms and 4 hydrogen atoms. We can call it as a 'Monomer'. Suppose, we join number of ethane molecules as a chain, we get a big molecule of 'polythene'. It is a polymer and the process is polymerization. If a number of chained molecules are combined together, we get 'plastic'. Polymer is like a train of many wagons of carbon. Polymer is based on hydro-carbons which are derived from things like petroleum, natural gas, coal etc,.

Plastic means flexibility. When plastic is heated, it melts. That is , molecular chains are easily broken. Once it becomes liquid, it is injected into mold, cools down, molecular chains are reformed; solidifies and remains strong.

There are huge variety of plastics. Some are soft. Some are hard like rock.
To name a few: cellulose, nylon, polyesters, polythene, polystyrene, pvc, poly carbonate , pet, fiberglass Teflon .....

Living with plastic
1. Educate about plastic. All of us must think twice before littering the environment.
2. Recycling: It takes about 25 plastic bottles to produce one new jacket. Recycling just one plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a 60 w light bulb for six hours.
3. Develop bio-plastics or bio-degradable plastics that can break down more quickly into the environment.

Today, even money is plastic. Plastic bank notes; plastic credit cards. Plastic is deform-able, malleable; mold-able, colorful. It comes in all shapes and sizes, from overhead water tank to safety pin. Let us learn to live with the plastic.
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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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