THIS BLOG IS ABOUT SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING...NOW WE CAN UNRAVEL MOTHER NATURE'S BEST-KEPT SECRETS WITH THE ASTOUNDING, EYE-OPENING ANSWERS TO MODERN LIFE'S MOST BAFFLING QUESTIONS.!!!
Sunday, 23 September 2012
Friday, 20 July 2012
The Bermuda Triangle
The Bermuda Triangle
The "Bermuda Triangle" or "Devil's
Triangle" is an imaginary area located off the southeastern Atlantic coast
of the United States of America, which is noted for a supposedly high incidence
of unexplained disappearances of ships and aircraft. The apexes of the triangle
are generally believed to be Bermuda; Miami, Florida; and San Juan, Puerto
Rico. The US Board of Geographic Names does not recognize the Bermuda Triangle
as an official name. The US Navy does not believe the Bermuda Triangle exists.
It is reported that Lloyd's of London, the world's leading market for
specialist insurance, does not charge higher premiums for vessels transiting
this heavily traveled area.
The most famous US Navy losses which have occurred in the
area popularly known as the Bermuda Triangle are USS CYCLOPS in
March 1918 and the aircraft of Flight 19 in December 1945. The
ship probably sank in an unexpected storm, and the aircraft ran out of fuel and
crashed into the ocean -- no physical traces of them have ever been found.
Another well known disappearance is the civilian tanker SS Marine
Sulphur Queen carrying bulk molten sulfur which sank in
February 1963. Although the wreck of Marine Sulphur
Queen has not been located, a life preserver and
other floating artifacts were recovered. These disappearances have been used to
provide credence to the popular belief in the mystery and purported
supernatural qualities of the "Bermuda Triangle."
Since the days of early civilization many thousands of ships
have sunk and/or disappeared in waters around the world due to navigational and
other human errors, storms, piracy, fires, and structural/mechanical failures.
Aircraft are subject to the same problems, and many of them have crashed at sea
around the globe. Often, there were no living witnesses to the sinking or
crash, and hence the exact cause of the loss and the location of the lost ship
or aircraft are unknown. A large number of pleasure boats travel the waters
between Florida and the Bahamas. All too often, crossings are attempted with
too small a boat, insufficient knowledge of the area's hazards, and a lack of
good seamanship.
To see how common accidents are at sea, you can examine some
of the recent accident reports of the National Transportation Safety Board for ships and aircraft.
One of the aircraft accident reports concerns an in-flight engine failure and
subsequent ditching of a Cessna aircraft near Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas
on 13 July 2003. This is the type of accident that would likely have been
attributed to mysterious causes in the Bermuda Triangle if there had been no
survivors or other eyewitnesses of the crash.
A significant factor with regard to missing vessels in the
Bermuda Triangle is a strong ocean current called the Gulf Stream. It is
extremely swift and turbulent and can quickly erase evidence of a disaster. The
weather also plays its role. Prior to the development of telegraph, radio and
radar, sailors did not know a storm or hurricane was nearby until it
appeared on the horizon. For example, the Continental Navy sloop Saratoga was
lost off the Bahamas in such a storm with all her crew on 18 March 1781. Many other US Navy ships have been lost at sea in storms around the
world. Sudden local thunder storms and water spouts can sometimes
spell disaster for mariners and air crews. Finally, the topography of the ocean
floor varies from extensive shoals around the islands to some of the deepest
marine trenches in the world. With the interaction of the strong currents over
the many reefs the topography of the ocean bottom is in a state of flux and the
development of new navigational hazards can sometimes be swift.
It has been inaccurately claimed that the Bermuda Triangle is
one of the two places on earth at which a magnetic compass points towards true
north. Normally a compass will point toward magnetic north. The difference
between the two is known as compass variation. The amount of variation changes
by as much as 60 degrees at various locations around the World. If this compass
variation or error is not compensated for, navigators can find themselves far
off course and in deep trouble. Although in the past this compass variation did
affect the "Bermuda Triangle" region, due to fluctuations in the
Earth's magnetic field this has apparently not been the case since the
nineteenth century.
We know of no US Government-issued maps that delineate the
boundaries of the Bermuda Triangle. However, general maps as well as nautical
and aviation charts of the general area are widely available in libraries and
from commercial map dealers.
Thursday, 19 July 2012
BLACK HOLE
BLACK HOLE |
What Is a Black Hole?
A black hole is a place in space where
gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out. The gravity is so strong
because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. This can happen when a star
is dying.
Because no light can get out, people can't see black holes. They are invisible. Space telescopes with special tools can help find black holes. The special tools can see how stars that are very close to black holes act differently than other stars.
Because no light can get out, people can't see black holes. They are invisible. Space telescopes with special tools can help find black holes. The special tools can see how stars that are very close to black holes act differently than other stars.
Could a Black Hole Destroy Earth?
Black holes do not go around in space
eating stars, moons and planets. Earth will not fall into a black hole because
no black hole is close enough to the solar system for Earth to do that.
Even if a black hole the same mass as
the sun were to take the place of the sun, Earth still would not fall in. The
black hole would have the same gravity as the sun. Earth and the other planets
would orbit the black hole as they orbit the sun now. The sun will never turn into a black
hole. The sun is not a big enough star to make a black hole.
Black holes are the cold remnants of former
stars, so dense that no matter—not even light—is able to escape their powerful
gravitational pull.
While most stars end up as white dwarfs or neutron stars, black holes are the last evolutionary stage in the lifetimes
of enormous stars that had been at least 10 or 15 times as massive as our own
sun.
When giant stars reach the final stages of their lives they often
detonate in cataclysms known as supernovae. Such an explosion scatters most of a star into the void
of space but leaves behind a large "cold" remnant on which fusion no
longer takes place.
In younger stars, nuclear fusion creates energy and a constant outward
pressure that exists in balance with the inward pull of gravity caused by the
star's own mass. But in the dead remnants of a massive supernova, no force
opposes gravity—so the star begins to collapse in upon itself.
With no force to check gravity, a budding black hole shrinks to zero
volume—at which point it is infinitely dense. Even the light from such a star
is unable to escape its immense gravitational pull. The star's own light
becomes trapped in orbit, and the dark star becomes known as a black hole.
Black holes pull matter and even energy into themselves—but no more so
than other stars or cosmic objects of similar mass. That means that a black
hole with the mass of our own sun would not "suck" objects into it
any more than our own sun does with its own gravitational pull.
Planets, light, and other matter must pass close to a black hole in
order to be pulled into its grasp. When they reach a point of no return they
are said to have entered the event horizon—the point from which any escape is impossible because it
requires moving faster than the speed of light.
Small But Powerful
Black holes are small in size. A million-solar-mass hole, like that
believed to be at the center of some galaxies, would have a radius of just
about two million miles (three million kilometers)—only about four times the
size of the sun. A black hole with a mass equal to that of the sun would have a
two-mile (three-kilometer) radius.
Because they are so small, distant,
and dark, black holes cannot be directly observed. Yet scientists have
confirmed their long-held suspicions that they exist. This is typically done by
measuring mass in a region of the sky and looking for areas of large, dark
mass.
Many black holes exist in binary star systems. These holes may continually pull mass from
their neighboring star, growing the black hole and shrinking the other star,
until the black hole is large and the companion star has completely vanished.
Extremely large black
holes may exist at the center of some galaxies—including our own Milky Way.
These massive features may have the mass of 10 to 100 billion suns. They are
similar to smaller black holes but grow to enormous size because there is so
much matter in the center of the galaxy for them to add. Black holes can accrue
limitless amounts of matter; they simply become even denser as their mass
increases.
Black holes capture the
public's imagination and feature prominently in extremely theoretical concepts
like wormholes. These "tunnels" could allow
rapid travel through space and time—but there is no evidence that they exist.
Sunday, 15 July 2012
Higgs Boson (God Particle)
Satyendra Nath Bose (INDIAN SCIENTIST)
This experiment was performed in Large hadron collider.in CERN (French/swiss border) and the
other scientists. To have more information visit toHiggs Boson and gravitmotion.info,http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/14/higgs-boson-god-particle-religion-science_n_1672741.html?utm_hp_ref=religion.The 'God particle': Higgs boson explained in 5 points.
The Higgs boson explains why particles have mass -- and in turn why we exist. Without the boson, the universe would have no physical matter, only energy.The Higgs boson is the final piece of the Standard Model of particle physics, the most successful and accurate theory of particles and forces. Like the periodic table of elements, the Standard Model attempts to classify all the constituents of matter in the universe. It includes leptons (for example the electron) and quarks (which form protons and neutrons). It also includes particles which mediate forces between the quarks and leptons (like electromagnetism). The Higgs boson is thought to give mass to some of these particles while leaving others, like the photon, massless.
The
Higgs boson has been predicted by theorists because it solves the problem of
“electroweak symmetry breaking.” Broken symmetry is actually something you have
encountered before, just not by this name. For example, you have a ball at the
top of a mountain. From the ball's point of view, the mountain is symmetric and
all directions are the same. However, when you drop the ball it will roll in a
particular direction. Once it has chosen a direction, the symmetry has been
broken. The mountain is still symmetric by itself, but not from the ball's
point of view. This is an example of a broken symmetry.
So what does a ball rolling down a
mountain have to do with the Higgs? To answer that question, let's look at a
very basic property of matter in our universe: mass.
Why do particles in our universe
have mass? The Higgs is like the ball in our example. When it rolls to one side
of the “mountain”, it breaks a different kind of symmetry between two forces of
nature, the weak force responsible for radioactive decay and the
electromagnetic force. The particles which mediate the weak force become
massive, and the photon which mediates the electromagnetic force does not.
The Higgs is one of the main
reasons that the LHC was built, and finding it is something thousands of physicists
have been working towards for decades. We do not yet know if the new particle
we have observed is actually the Higgs or something more exotic with similar
properties. Many other theories which may explain the shortcomings of the
Standard Model (including phenomena such as dark matter) predict a similar
particle. Much more work still needs to be done, but we have taken a large step
towards understanding the fundamental structure of our world. It is a major
accomplishment and reason for celebration.
Friday, 13 July 2012
What exactly is the string theory? Do these 'strings' really exist? And how can we know they exist if they have not been proven?
String theory is essentially trying to explain why we have all the
fundamental particles we have. So, protons and neutrons are made up of
even smaller particles called quarks, and you get electrons and higher energy,
more exotic particles – things like muons, and all sorts of different
particles. They can combine in different ways and they all have different
masses.
People who are much
better at maths have spent a long time trying to find mathematical
constructs, so ways of putting maths together to produce objects which look
like the particles that we see and have similar properties which we can call
mass.
One of the ways they've
done this is with some maths which look a bit like strings. You can have
oscillations on a string. If you wobble the string slowly, you get one
wobble in it as it wobbles left and right. If you wobble it faster, you
can get it to start making a snaking wobble. As you make it faster and
faster, these different vibrations could be associated with different
particles.
The actual strings
themselves are probably just maths. We have no evidence to say there are
actual little bits of cotton wobbling very, very rapidly. So all we know
is that there is some maths which gives rise to things which look a bit like
the particles we have. We are not even sure that there's any actual evidence
to say that string theory is better than any other particular theory.
They haven’t actually got that far, but that's what the guys in CERN are trying
to do.
Can we re-use the ash from burning waste?
Yes. There are two types of ash that come from thermal treatment
– one is known as incinerated bottom ash and that's the majority of it which is
the clinker that drops out of the bottom of the furnace if you like. That
can be safely recycled and used as good quality aggregate and that happens already.
They take the metals out, any metals that are left in it, and again those
various metals are recycled. The bottom ash itself is used as aggregate
for road building, for block making, et cetera.
The interesting bit and where the science bit comes in, I guess, is the other type of ash - known as air pollution control residue - which is where you've injected lime and carbon, and things, to remove any pollutants.
The interesting bit and where the science bit comes in, I guess, is the other type of ash - known as air pollution control residue - which is where you've injected lime and carbon, and things, to remove any pollutants.
Increasingly, we’re
looking to re-use that particular type of ash in the manufacture of gypsum or
the replacement of gypsum for gypsum board and such like. So, science is
being applied to look at new ways of recycling that because everything about
both thermal treatment and energy recovery as well as the rest of the waste and
recycling industry these days is all about getting the most resource efficiency
that we can out of all the materials we use as a society.
Why do leaves change colour in Autumn?
The answer to this is that leaves look green because they contain the
pigment chlorophyll which is what they need to do photosynthesis, the process
of grabbing energy that's in sunlight and driving a chemical reaction with it
in order to turn carbon dioxide and water into glucose – C6H12O6 – that's
what photosynthesis is. But leaves also contain other chemicals including
antioxidant chemicals and one of the chemicals they contain is a family of chemicals
called carotinoids which, as the name suggests, are orangey or yellow. So
once the chlorophyll goes away in the leaf then you see that orangey yellow
colour.
As we get towards autumn, because the leaves know that they're
senescing – they're getting old, they're going to be lost soon - they reduce
their rate of chlorophyll production and that means that there's less of the
green pigment in the leaf and therefore, the yellow colour that the green was
previously hiding is disclosed and that's why the leaves appears changed colour
because the leaves are running out of chlorophyll. Some leaves also turn
a red colour though, don't they, which is nice. Not all leaves but some
species and that's because actually, they make another class of chemicals called
anthocyanins. These are the same things you find in beetroot.
They're a dark deep red colour and they're also a family of antioxidants.
And what the plants do is put those into the leaves to sustain, and support and
prevent stress in the leaves as they go towards winter, and that means the
plant has longer to scavenge back from the leaf the things that it wants to
rescue back into the plant before it dumps the leaf because once you lose the
leaf, you're losing tissue, you're losing salts, and chemicals, and
potentially, other good for you things.
So
by protecting the leaf with these other anthocyanin molecules for a little bit
longer, you hang on to your leaves for slightly longer than you otherwise wouldWORLD SMALLEST HELICOPTER
This is the GEN H-4.It is the world’s
smallest co-axial helicopter.it is powered By four
GEN125 engines,producing 40hp @ 6800-7500rpm and boasts a shock absorbent
aluminium frame.It has a max.speed of 55mph.
With all the millions of tons of material that is mined from the earth and redistributed around the globe is there a chance it could effect or alter the planet's orbit?
In order to change the Earth’s orbit, you've got to somehow apply a force to the Earth. Mining is essentially just moving material around on the Earth; they might dig something out of the ground, move it to the top of a skyscraper or even burn it and move it into the atmosphere. Now, this could conceivably have a very, very tiny effect on how the Earth is rotating because if you change the shape of the object, it will change how it rotates.
But you're not applying any forces to anything else in the Universe, so you can't affect how the Earth is moving. The only conceivable way it might slightly affect things is you might get very, very minute effects where a slightly differently shaped Earth might feels tides from the moon and other planets. These would be microscopically different, but could slightly change the Earth’s orbit. But these are going to be tiny effects on tiny effects, on tiny effects. So, far, far, far, too tiny to be measurable
Thursday, 12 July 2012
Why does thunder sometimes sound like a sharp crack, and sometimes like a low rumble?
It depends
on how far you are from the lightning. The closer you are, the higher the pitch
of the sound you hear; the farther away you are, the lower the rumble.
First, we
have to remind ourselves of what thunder is.
A stroke of
lightning is extremely fast; it occurs with what might be called lightning
speed. Its sudden heat makes the surrounding air white hot—heated to tens of
thousands of degrees. The air expands at tremendous speed, after which it
rapidly cools and contracts back to its normal temperature and pressure. Air
moving so suddenly makes huge vibrations, and that's what sound waves are:
shudders, or pressure waves, moving through the air. Hence, the noise of
thunder.
It will not
surprise you to learn that thunder travels at the speed of sound. But light
travels almost a million times as fast as sound. Obviously,then, you're going
to see the lightning flash almost instantaneously, but you won't hear the
thunder until it travels from the lightning strike to your ears.
Wednesday, 11 July 2012
Why does the champagne gush out all over the place when I open the bottle?
If I said that shaking a bottle of champagne,
beer or pop raises the gas pressure inside, ninety-nine out of a hundred
people, even chemists and physicists, would agree. But it's not true. When
you shake an unopened bottle or can of carbonated beverage the pressure inside
does not change.Then why does the liquid squirt out with so much force
when you open a shaken bottle? It's only because shaking makes it easier for
gas to escape from the liquid, and in its eagerness to escape when the
bottle is opened it carries some liquid along with it.If an unopened bottle has
been standing quietly at room temperature for a day or so and is then
shaken, the pressure of carbon dioxide gas in the head space (the space above
the liquid) does not change.
The reason is that the gas pressure is
determined by only two things: (a) the temperature and (b) how much carbon
dioxide can dissolve in the liquid at that temperature.There is only so
much carbon dioxide gas in the bottle; some of it is dissolved in the
liquid and some of it is loose in the head space. When an unopened bottle of
soda has remained at the same temperature for some time, the amount of gas
dissolved in the liquid and more important, the amount of gas that is not
dissolved in the liquid settles down to whatever the appropriate
proportions are for that particular temperature.( The system comes to
equilibrium).
The point is that shaking alone can't change
the pressure because it doesn't change the temperature or in any other way
change the amount of force or energy that is available inside the bottle.
So never fear that manhandling your beer, soda or champagne on the way home
from the store will make the bottles explode. On the other hand, make sure
not to let the bottles heat up in the trunk of your car, because the
higher temperature will indeed raise the pressure of the gas.
Now we can take a more educated look at what
causes the explosive emission when we open a recently shaken bottle. It is
caused by an increase in the amount of gas that is set loose—not by
heating, but by the mechanical “outing” of some dissolved carbon dioxide from
the liquid when the bottle is opened.
Shaking a bottle or can of beer or soda pop
does not increase the pressure inside.
Oh, the champagne? Same thing. The best way to
handle it is to leave it undisturbed in the refrigerator long enough for it to
“come to equilibrium”—at least twenty-four hours. Then be careful not to
either warm or agitate it before or during opening. After removing the wire
twist,ease the cork upward with your thumbs. All of the champagne will stay in
the bottle and the cork won't become a lethal missile.
Have u ever had these kind of random thoughts????
1.How does a flame know which way is up?
2.If the humidity gets to 100%, will I drown?
3.Can a farmer really smell rain coming?
4.Why do mirrors reverse left and right but not up and down?
5.When my tires wear out, where has all the rubber gone?
6.Why isn't it cold in space?
7.why do objects have mass?
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