SCIENCE CAPSULES

                                   The man loves art.  He fills space and time with art.  He can create art in any dimension.     Lines and curves are one-dimensional art.  Also frieze and calligraphy.      Painting, photographs are two-dimensional art.      Sculpture, architecture are 3-dimensional art forms.      If we add 'time' (fourth dimension) to these spatial dimensions, what it will yield?      If we add 'time' to one dimension, we get 'music'.      If we add time to photo (2-dimensional), we get a movie.      Adding time to frozen actors yields drama and theatre.      If you move the time to and fro in a movie or drama, you get historical or science fiction.  If time takes many paths, you get a variety of stories with many ending...

            Let us learn, how to protect ourselves from cold properly.  Our body is slightly at a higher temperature than the environment.  The body's heat warms up the air surrounding it.  Hence there is always a thin layer of warm air surrounding the human body.  In summer, we want to push away the air layers continuously.  Hence we use high- speed fans.  Nature also cools the body by sweating.      In winter, we want to retain the warm air layers as much as possible.  Hence, we use woolen clothes with hairy fibers.  These hairy structures in the cloth trap the air molecules and do not allow them to escape easily.  That is why some animals have hairs naturally on them.  Tight thermal-wears also trap the air layers.      We shiver in cold.  That is the body's response to chillness.  The shivering-contraction and relaxation of muscles create...

           Photos lack depth perception.  The above photo clearly illustrates that. Because the photos are shot with a single eye or lens .      We have two eyes separated by a distance of 2.5 inches.   The two eyes see the same scene or object in two different angles.  Hence two slightly different images fall on the retina of the eyes.  Brain process these images and gives the depth perception or third dimension.      Thousands of years back, we required two eyes for hunting and to escape from wild animals.  Today, we require depth perception for crossing a busy road!!  Only using two eyes, we can estimate the distance of approaching vehicles and take a decision to cross the road.       Consider the birds like chickens and pigeons.  They have two eyes, one on the left side and the other on right side of the head.  Hence they get a 360-degree view of ...

 Life :  An organism composed of cells have a life cycle; undergo metabolism; can grow, adapt to their environment, respond to stimuli, reproduce and evolve. Virus;   It is a biological agent that reproduces inside the cells of living hosts.  When infected by a virus, a host cell is forced to produce thousands of identical copies of the original virus at an extraordinary rate.     Let us try to find out whether a computer virus is a life according to the definitions.       Suppose, a press is printing a recipe for making tea.      If a proof-reader deliberately replaces the word 'sugar' by 'salt' and sends it for printing, thousands of copies will be printed with the error.  Here an error has crept in and multiplied.  It is a kind of virus.  But it can be rectified easily using common sense.      Consider the following computer code:      for adding 1 to 1...

            Kick a ball on the ground.  It goes in a straight line.  OK.  Here you are applying a force straight on the ball.  Suppose, you turn a car driving wheel, what exactly you are doing?  You hold the wheel at the edge and apply a force perpendicular to the axis of rotation.      We will take another example to understand more clearly.  The opening and closing of a door is also a rotation.  Here, you push the door horizontally at the edge.  That is, you are applying the force perpendicular to the axis of rotation and at a distance from the hinges(axis of rotation).      This kind of rotating or turning force is called torque.  It is the product of the force applied and the distance from the axis (Torque = F * r). From the formula, we can understand, if you either increase force or distance, the torque will also increase.     Suppose, a mechanic wants to...

       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 ma...

     Aerofoil is an interesting and ingenious shape which helps us to fly in the air-plane.            The shape is more curved on the top and less curved at the bottom.  It is fixed at an inclined angle to the air plane wings.  The working of the foil can be explained in two ways. 1. Bernoulli's principle      Consider wide width pipe connected to a narrow width nozzle.  When the water flow from the pipe to the nozzle, the speed of flow increases;consequently we get forceful jet of water from the nozzle.  (eg: water fountains).  It happens because of the conservation principle. "Same quantity of water must enter and leave the pipe in the same time".  Here the water flow is constrained by narrow nozzle; Hence speed has to increase to maintain conservation principle.      In the case of aerofoil; when the plane runs or flies, the air-flow is constrained...