Super Blue Blood Moon - one minute summary

 PC: https://thenortheasttoday.com/are-you-ready-to-witness-the-super-blue-blood-moon-2018/

 It was an interesting astronomical phenomena of Super Blue Blood Moon, that we witnessed yesterday here in India. But as obvious it is, many people might not have been able to monitor the whole sequence of the phenomena, considering the time schedule of 4 hours needed to witness it. So, some enthusiasts came up with the idea of shrinking the time slot of 4 hours into 1 minute. These 4 hours have been nicely captures and squeezed into a one minute video that has already started making rounds among people through Facebook, Whatsapp and Youtube. I also saw it first on Whatsapp and wondered who must have made this video. That's why I started searching it on Youtube. But realized many people have uploaded it there. So, the name of original maker is unknown. That is a pity. Credit should go to the owner. Now, I am embedding here one of those videos probably uploaded by a person name Avinash R.P. I am not sure, it belongs to him or not. But the credit goes to the owner. ( I hope it is Avinash).

Have an experience of this unusual phenomena where the Moon turns Blood red for some time. It is wonderful. Hats off to the video maker. Great work.

 

Blood Moon, Super moon and Blue moon

Today seem to be a great day for astronomy enthusiast. A once in a life time opportunity ( considering ones life time is less than 150 years) has arrived today. Four events are going to take place today. Every where they are saying three, but I am calling it four. As in the video they say three phenomena are occurring today. But I guess, one is just an artifact of calculations, one is merely an observation and one is a real phenomena. And which is the fourth event, not explicitly discussed?

Lets go one by one

1) Total Lunar eclipse: An event where Earth comes in between the Sun and the Moon. The shadow of earth falls on moon, cutting out all the light completely coming from Sun. This is the event not explicitly discussed around. Focus is only on how the Moon will look like today.

2) Blue Moon: Now this is not a phenomena. It is just a case that when two full moons occur in english calender month. So, no phenomena here but just a game of calculations. Since having two full moons in one month is a rare care, thats why the use of words " Once in a blue moon".

3) Supermoon: An event where the Moon appears relatively bigger in size. All because, during its revolution around earth, it has come at a relatively closer distance than the rest of the time. So, an observation that a bigger size moon will be observed.

4) Blood Moon: Now this could be called as a phenomena, I guess. So, when the Lunar eclipse takes,  while all the direct light  from the Sun reaching out to the Moon has been obstructed by the Earth, some amount of light purges through the atmosphere and falls on the Moon. As a result of the distilling of light by the atmosphere, the light that reaches the Moon, results in yielding it a red color, thereby making it look like a shade of blood red color.  I am not sure how really it would be looking. But surely would be great chance to experience it. Do watch this embedded short video to know more about it.

Artificial Intelligence: has uprising started too early?

Artificial Intelligence: two words which may sound, to a few as a solution to all kind of problems, and to few others, a reason for human extinction.

Yes, we apparently are arriving at the juncture, where this debate is going to take the whole world  in a whirlwind. What churns out of this, will probably decide the fate of the human kind.

For those, who are unware, watch this video uploaded on youtube by Coldfusion, explaining, what exactly is artificial intelligence?

There have been many movies by now making use of this concept of artificial intelligence, which begins with having it as a boon to human life, but almost all of them ending up proving it to be a curse. After watching  a movie "Rise of the planet of the apes", I wrote a post where I compared those intelligent monkeys to be another threat other than artificial intelligence, for the human race. 

Back then, movies were the only reason we felt AI's to be threat. But it seems, with time, the imaginations are turning into reality.  While many big-wigs including Elon Musk, Stefan Hawking, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak have already hinted about the threat of AI taking over humans, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, hasn't been thinking in the same  lines as those.There have incidences of heavy arguments between Mark and Elon over the issue. And just when Elon made a comment that, Mark has no understanding of AI, very soon, news have now emerged that the two bots running on AI had to be shut down, because they stopped using the English language fed to them, and instead developed their own code language to interact with each other. As a part of training, apart from training in conversation through english language, these bots were also developed with negotiation skills. After initial conversations going properly in English language, over the time, they started developing their own language. In this, apparently attempt was made (by the bots) to put emphasis on something, making it appear very important, and then as a part of negotiation, loose this "apparently" important thing, to gain things of their interest.

 A part of their conversation is given in the news reported here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/facebook-artificial-intelligence-ai-chatbot-new-language-research-openai-google-a7869706.html

The language to us may look English, but it has been modified by the bots as per their requirement.

The severity of this experiment was to this extent, that Facebook apparently shut down the two bots to stop the conversation between them:

http://www.firstpost.com/india/facebook-researchers-shut-down-ai-bots-that-started-speaking-in-a-language-unintelligible-to-humans-3876197.html

I would call this a wake up call for all of us to understand where the world is going, and do we really need such things to emerge in near future. We can not run away from this. Few years, Facebook was used by only computer friendly people. But now, it is present in everyone's hand and making sure, you kill your time on it. Did you ask for it? No. But it still reached your doorsteps. Similarly, AI if emerged, will unknowingly enter your home. The concept of cloning, when emerged was proposed to have many prospects, but human cloning was back then barred, realizing possible threats, which come with it. AI too, would show, many prospective benefits, but there probably are more threats hidden behind those benefits. It may initially make us feel like master to begin, but unknowingly may end up make us its slave entirely and for eternity.

The Hourglass and some science

I posted some still shots of  the hourglass in motion, which usually is lying on my office table. Mostly unnoticed, except for that moment of urge to flip it. One fine day, I felt, it looks interesting and worth sharing. So, I tool some snaps and posted them here. It caught attention of a lot many people and some interesting queries also came up.

So, then I decided to post its complete video. Here it is:

Now, a normal or an original hourglass has sand as the real constituent for the measurement of time. To begin with, there are two connected glass bulbs carrying sand, and small hole through which the sand can swiftly pass from one glass bulb to another. The amount of time required for complete transfer of sand from one bulb to another, will be a measure of time. Usually, it comprise of sand, which counts upto an hour for its complete transfer. There is a big history related to the hourglass and can be found here.

Now, the hourglass, lying on my table is not that ancient one. Infact, recently bought from a streetshop located on an island hill of Elephanta caves. (More on that later.) It is a constructed showpiece, the size of which vary with the amount you are ready to shell out. In my case, more than the size, I got fascinated with the color, and so this hourglass is not actually a hourglass, but, just one minute and  ~ 30 seconds glass.

There is no sand inside the glass. Instead, a mixture of two immiscible liquids. Immiscible means, the two liquids which will not at all, mix with each other. Example, Oil and water. Depending on the density, one of the liquid will always tend to be at the bottom. And this tendency of the heavy liquid will initiate the process into the motion. So, as the hourglass is flipped, the heavy liquid goes at the top. Because of its heavy nature, it will tend to move downwards. Since liquids have high degree of freedom, they can replace other liquid component from its place. So, the heavy liquid, moves through the small towards the bottom. And at the same time, replaces the light liquid from its position, compelling it move into the upper glass. The small hole assures that a very small volume is transferred at a time. And as the liquids are immiscible, these small volumes end up getting separated in form small liquid drops. This makes the view even more fascinating.

There are some nice observations to make here. The downward flow of drops is accompanied by an upward flow of drops too. This shows an equal exchange of liquids occupying each others space.

Second and more interesting thing is, check video around 1.10 minutes. You can see a bubble form appearing in the upper glass. From where is this bubble appearing? After all, it is composed of only two liquids and no air!

The thing is, as the transfer of liquid is getting over, there is very small amount of dense liquid remaining in upper glass. As more and more of light liquid rising up, at some point, the dense liquid assumes a layer form, pushed up by the upcoming light liquid. The dense liquid remain in layer form, failing to escape the upper glass. Slowly, this layer surrounds the upcoming light liquid, giving a feel of a bubble. This layer can resist the upthrust of light liquid to an extent and then it brakes  away into tiny liquid drops which can now escape the upper glass. This point, where the liquid brakes away from its thin layer form into tiny liquid  drops can give a measure of interfacial tension which exist between the two liquids.

Just related to this, do you know why the liquid always take form of spherical drops? Why don't we ever see squarish or pyramidal kind of water drops. The reason is again the interfacial tension. Lesser is the surface area, lesser is the tension. And we know, sphere has the minimum surface area.

One more query, out of the two liquids seen in this hourglass, which one do you think is water?

Doomsday clock and Donald Trump

  

 The advent of Donald Trump as the 45th President of USA has really shaken the earth. As soon as he arrived, he has started taking decisions on the lines of what he had mentioned during the elections. Whether it is regarding the banning of immigrants from seven Muslim countries or bringing in restrictions and new norms on the issue of H1B visa, he is taking the whole world on a ride. To add to that, his way of thinking towards the scientific community has started creating a panic among all the scientists. Probably, this panic somehow appeared in the recently defined new time of the Doomsday clock.

I am pretty sure, most of the people had never of this clock, which kind of predicts our proximity to a possible catastrophic destruction.It considers all the possible conditions which may effect the human kind and depending on the threats from all such conditions, it is set to a time closing the mid night time of 12 o'clock. Here, the mid night time of 12 is considered as the time of that catastrophic destruction, and depending on the current situation, it is set to a time approaching this midnight time. This clock originally started in 1947 by the members of the bulletin of the atomic structures, wanted to use this clock to suggest a probable nuclear war. For example, the clock was set closest i.e. just 2 minutes to the mid night time in 1953, where a probable nuclear war threat appeared high because of the successful test of the thermonuclear device by the Soviet Union. It showed a lowered threat of any such nuclear war in 1991 by setting the clock to 17 minutes to mid night, when a treaty called START I to reduce the arms stock was signed between USA and soviet union.

Beginning with the intention to portray the threat of nuclear war, slowly, this doomsday clock started considering other parameters like climatic changes or some new adventurous  discoveries in the field of biological or chemical field, which may inflict irreparable damage to the human kind.

This year, this doomsday clock is set second next closest to the midnight time, i.e. at 2.30 minutes to the mid night. The triggering point here is the emerging Donald Trump as the president of the strongest nation on the earth. The scientists were already scared with all his unconventional way of threatening declarations made during the election period. The clock had already moved closer to mid night time, compared to earlier years. With his selection, the clock had to move a little more closer. 

Although, there doesn't seem to be any real threat hovering over our head, but as these scientists claim, it will be the way decisions being taken by the Trump government, not just regarding the nuclear weapons or strategies, but also his about maintaining the relations with different countries and guiding the path towards development, which will set the tone of the environment desirable by the human kind. 

Only the time has all the answers. What may seem as some abrupt decision by the Trump government, may probably end up as a right way to move ahead to answer the issues related to terrorism, financial imbalance and other issues. Lets wait and watch the changes in coming year. The next update of the Doomsday clock, will eventually indicate the direction of journey of human kind.

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Yes!! Mangal Yaan

Today morning, after a long time, I believe, pretty much all Indians were concentrating on only one news. Normally it happens when Indian team is playing a crucial cricket match, either a world cup final or a match against Pakistan. But this time the event was altogether different.

For  the first time, any country's satellite has reached and successfully has started revolving around any other planet than Earth. Our Mangal Yaan,which was launched almost 300 days back finally reached in the zone of Mars. A set of commands were sent almost 10 days ago, which functioned today and the engines were started. This was done to adjust the path to be followed by the satellite, so that it will start orbiting around Mars in the decided trajectory.

There is a time delay of nearly 24 minutes to know what exactly is happening some millions of kms away.

Our Scientists at ISRO have done it. That is the tag line for today. It is a big boost for all of us. At the same time, we have been economic in doing this. We have spent less money than in the making of movie Gravity and in turn have actually sent a satellite to Mars. This is a big achievement.

After a long time I am feeling proud and feel like sharing and discussing it with any body I meet today. 

I wanted to talk about it and that is why this post. I believe all of you are also sharing the same feeling.

Congratulations to all the involved scientists and also congratulations to all of us.

The picture are taken from: http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/india-to-launch-its-mars-mission-today--isro-calls-it-a-turning-point-for-country/1191063/

The story of Sailing Stones of California

Imagine  a day, you come out of home and see a big rock (immovable by normal humans) lying on your way. And no body knows how it came there. And apparently, it sailed its own way at your doorsteps.

Sounds creepy. But there are some rocks known to move on their own. These rocks are as heavy as 300 kgs and they may cover a distance of upto 250 meters.

These rocks are found in the Mojave desert of  California where the temperature goes upto 57 C on a hot day. In this desert, there is a plain surrounded from all sides by mountains. In this plain, the temperature in the night may go down to sub zero. And this is the key behind the movement of the stones.

Scientists have been trying to understand the mechanism behind the movement of these stones since 1948 when it was first observed. And it took so many years, when just last month, the work of Dr. Lorenz of Hopkins University revealed the mechanism behind this movement.

Apparently after the rain what ever water is remaining on the surface of the soil, it freezes to ice under sub-zero conditions. If this ice is surrounding a stone, then it will be responsible for the movement of the stone. When wind breeze moves over the ice, this ice partially melts and a motion in the direction of the wind is initiated. The friction offered by the surface of the soil is relatively less as compared to the push by the ice layer covering the stone. As a result, the stone is compelled to move in the direction of wind.

Thus, a suitable combination of water on the surface around the stone, a sub zero temperature condition, a slight wind breeze makes it possible for a heavy stone of ~ 300 kgs to move with out any human intervention.

This is an interesting observation solving a mystery revolving around scientists mind for over 70 years.

You may read a lot more in details about sailing stones here and about the answer to the mystery here.

India's Mars mission - Mangalyaan

India's first ever attempt to reach another planet became reality today when Mangalyaan - Mars orbiter mission started its journey today afternoon at 2.38 pm. ISRO successfully lauched Mangalyaan today after noon from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. This mission is special in itself.

Mars orbiter mission will probably reach near Mars around 24th September. If this happens, India's efforts  will only be the fourth such attempt ever after Russia, USA and European association.

The mission required an expenditure of  nearly $ 73 million dollars.

The main aim behind this mission to study the presence of methane in the atmosphere of Mars. There is a lot more to look forward towards this mission. It sets India as one of the leading countries in the field of space science.

If you want to learn more about this mission you may follow the link:

http://www.space.com/23464-india-launches-mars-orbiter-mission.html

Nobel Prize Winners: 2013

This years Nobel Prize winners for Physics, Chemistry and Medicine have been declared so far.

In Physics, as expected Nobel Prize had to go in the direction of most recent discovery of Higgs Boson or God Particle. Higgs and few other Scientists worked on the idea of existence of Higgs Boson which give mass to all other particles way back in 1960s. Francois Englert of Belgium and Peter Higgs of the United Kingdom shared this years Nobel Prize for Physics for introducing us to the concept of existence of Higgs Boson.

In the field of Chemistry, this year the award went to Computational Chemists. Many people are still not aware but Computational Chemistry is a branch in Chemistry that really helps to make understanding a concept easier by allowing you to look at it at molecular level. It allows you visualize molecules (something an experimental chemistry is unable to do) and understand mechanisms behind each and every reaction that occurs. This year Nobel Prize was awarded to three scientists Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel  who worked separately to develop different models that allows  one to study different molecular systems like proteins, DNA, enzymes etc. These models allowed combining the quantum mechanical models and newtonian law based classical models and generate a new one which allows big systems like proteins to be handled (classical mechanics) but at the same time giving better accuracy as giving by quantum mechanical models).

Nobel prize for Medicine this year went to Randy W. Schekman,  James E. Rothman of Yale University and Thomas C. Südhof of Stanford University.Their basic research solved the mystery of how cells, which are factories producing molecules, organize a system to transport the molecules within cells and export them outside. Read more about their work here

Mars One mission - Will it be Real?

Did you read the news about Mars One project? If not here is a link for more information about it:

http://www.space.com/22758-mars-colony-volunteers-mars-one.html

I am still wondering if such a thing has actually started coming into reality. By the time 2023 appears on calender, a  bunch of people will be flying to Mars, never to return. The project Mars One is intending to begin the human colony on a planet other than Earth. Now, that is a big step. Its pretty much like those initial human journeys through Sea and Oceans when he had no clue what is on the other side of the water body. There must be some speculations to begin with and based on few hunch, brave steps were taken that finally made humans aware of the overall topology of our planet. I believe Mars One is pretty much the same. We have some idea about Mars. We have a probe name "Curiosity" already exploring that planet and now we are directly trying to land our steps on that land.

I was more surprised to know the number of enthusiasts for this mission. As good as 2,00,000 people are attempting their luck for the missions. Among these 25% are just from America and second biggest number of enthusiasts come from India (10%). This is surprising. I do not know what these people must be thinking while filling up those forms of participation. First of all, the project is set to launch in 2023 means almost 10 years since today. Second, its a one way journey. How many of applicants have really given a sincere thought about it. Won't this thought change in coming 10 years?

I am little skeptical about the mission. Apparently this is no government organization mission. So, its credibility is surely under question. Also, the organizer do not have enough funding. They are planning to raise the money through some reality shows. That puts the whole idea in danger, at least for me. I am looking at it as just another idea for making money. Now, that all ideas for reality shows are getting prototype and repetitive with nothing novel in it, somebody has come up with this new theme. I have a feeling that, after making some money, the whole idea might be dropped showing some reasons of no feasibility to send humans on Mars.

I do not know about others (except those 2,00,00 enthusiasts) what are their views about this whole theme. I will wait for 2023 and see if the them actually come into reality. If it at all happens, life is surely getting new dimensions and will get new definition.

Neb-Senu, rotating Egyptian statue's mystery: Will it be solved?

Remember the time when people in India went crazy knowing that Lord Ganesh is drinking milk offered in spoon by people. Back then, I saw lot of people gathered near the statue of Lord Ganesh in a small temple. I was little puzzled to see the crowd since it was not an auspicious day to visit Lord Ganesh's temple. But I was not curious enough to know the reason behind it. Next day, it was all over the paper and news, that Lord Ganesh is drinking milk. My first reaction was, What? really? Lot of discussion started happening. I remember even the Chief Minister of Maharashtra had tried his luck to offer milk and I guess he succeeded. AndhaShradhha Nirmulan Samiti made all the efforts to justify the science behind all that was happening. If I remember right, they came up with the answer of capillary action where you can see say a piece of paper absorbing water from the floor when came in contact. This pretty much justified the whole action. Some people were convinced, some tried mocking it depending upon their inclination towards Science.

I of course believed it. But I had a question lingering in mind, Why now? Temples, God's Statues are here for so many years. But then why suddenly one day people realized this? May be somebody tried make a news out of simple observation. 

Recently some thing similar thing started happening in a museum in Manchester that has left every body puzzled. According to reports a statue of Neb-Senu that is locked in a glass case in the museum has started rotating over the time on its own.

A little history about the statue. Neb-Senu statue was found in the tomb of a Mummy. Apparently, its purpose was to act as a vessel in case the mummy is destroyed and the soul requires an alternate arrangement. There is some curse associated with the statue and few people are fearing that the same curse has hit upon the museum and that's why this moving statue.It sounds little weird to believe but the authority has created a time-lapse video over a period of one week and they indeed found it rotating. Now many people are trying to justify it. According to some it is the movement of people's feet who visit museum that possibly resonates with the statue making it move. But the care taker responsible for statue asks question, why now?

The museum has this statue locked in the glass case for over 80 years, but its only now that it has started moving. He also questions why it is moving in exact circle? Why it just doesn't move in any direction. 

No body has yet provided any convincing answer yet and there also is no further news about any new development on the subject except that the Museum authority has requested people to come visit the statue and try to come up with some justification. Now I feel that could be one reason why the statue suddenly started moving. May be with coming summer, museum authority wishes to attract people's attention and pull some crowd. What say you?

Read more about it here:

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/06/24/mummy-statue-locked-in-display-case-starts-spinning/

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/06/24/ancient-egyptian-statue-neb-senu-filmed-spinning-glass-case-manchester-museum-video_n_3488840.html

Photo courtesy: http://www.neatorama.com/2013/06/24/The-Spinning-Egyptian-Statue-Mystery/

End of the World in 2013

If you people are relieved that 2012 is over and World still exist, then you might be celebrating a little too early. If the recent reports and this time by Scientists, are to be believed, end of the World is due in the year of 2013. Now don't start packing your bags immediately searching for a way to stay alive. Though the year for the end of the World has been declared to be 2013, it is 2 billion years away.

As per the new theory that is coming up, with Sun getting older and growing hot, the temperature on earth will initiate a lot of chemical reactions resulting in depletion of Carbon-di-oxide.

This depletion of CO2 will affect the photosynthesis process in plants reducing their chances of existence. Whole of the food chain will thus be effected, where herbivorous animal rely on plants and carnivorous animals depend on herbivorous animals. This way whole of the living organisms will end up dead leaving on micro organisms behind who also will end over the time.

The theory is based on computer simulated predictions of Sun's effect on Earth over coming years. Now the theory on one hand sounds very logical and one can believe it. I just have few doubts before I can wholeheartedly believe it.

First of all, 2 billion years is a very big time. I wonder if life would really survive that long considering the way we are exploiting natural sources.

Second, if temperature on earth increases, it will first of affect water sources on earth, be it glaciers or river/sea/ocean system. Before any other kind of chemical reaction can take place, existence of water on earth will be the prime issue.

Third, if at all humans survive over such a long period, won't they already have made some arrangements to cope with the increasing temperature and  retaining life on Earth.

This upcoming new theory is again a prediction, just like the Mayan calender. Whether to believe it or not is one's choice. People believed in the theory of end of the world in 2012 but it proved wrong. If this theory is to be believed, we surely have a long time in hand to prepare for it. In the mean time, I believe some new theory will arise and we won't need to prepare for this theory.

You can read about it in more details on this link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10154162/2000002013AD-the-year-the-world-will-end.html
or
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-07-02/science/40328844_1_earth-2-billion-years-life

Photo taken from: http://the-lock.net/end-of-the-world/

Bazooka: threat to internet

For last couple of days, all bloggers like me probably must be feeling little depressed. One thing that is common among all the bloggers is their eye towards traffic visiting their blog. For past couple of days probably every blogger must be little worried and might even have started introspecting whether they are on right track in blogging or is it over for them with no new traffic attracting posts in mind. There was a sharp decrease in traffic observed by bloggers and at a point it even became pretty much stagnant.

The sole reason for the worry was a cyber attack named "Bazooka" which apparently is the biggest cyber attack of its kind. The story goes like this. A Geneva based group called "Spamhaus" is involved in creating a list of  site that falls under spam. All different networks use this list to keep their networks free from spam by blocking all the addresses provided in the list. This group is the reason why our email and other internet services remain clean. Recently, this group put one of the dutch website group on the list. Now the website owners feel that this move was wrong and they should not be blacklisted. Apparently this cyber attack started only after blacklisting of this website. The attack was targeted towards "Spamhaus" that creates the black list for spams

The tactics used behind this cyber attack was little different as one understands. Instead of targeting the customers, it attacked the network providers. It is little difficult to understand how it managed to slow down whole internet system, but apparently the effect was significantly observed in European domain. 

I believe the worst is over. I can once again see growing traffic on my blog. Hopefully, this does not get worse and we enjoy worry less browsing.

Wikimapia.org

Wikimapia.org

Have you used this site? Well, its not a new utility to discuss, but, I have been using it for some time and it could prove pretty useful for some. I recently restarted running in the morning. Now, I don't have anything to measure the distance I run. If it is a regular road, it is possible to drive the same distance in the vehicle and measure the distance. But some times you run on a track where vehicles don't go. I initially started measuring time. Then knowing  a normal jogging speed which is normally around 8-9 kms/hr, I tried to calculate the distance I run using distance=speed * time. But this is not a very satisfying way for one who wishes to make note of exact distance. So, I started using Wikimapia.org.

It is a very useful utility. It allows you to measure distance anywhere on the earth provided the picture is available. Depending on the quality of the picture, you can access difficult and non measurable paths on the earth. You can click on the path and respective distance is measured. You can go on clicking on the path to add up the distance. Here, is a distance measurement of the walking/running track around the Shivaji Park in Mumbai. Though the quality of the picture available is not great, but still you can measure distance. 

If you wish, you can measure the distance passing through the Park also where vehicles won't be allowed.

So, now no matter where you run, measure the distance.

Meteor fall in Russia

Did you hear about the Meteor fall in Russia?
Apparently a meteor of the size of  a Bus entered the atmosphere of the earth at a speed of nearly 33000-40000 miles/hr (~ 54000kms/hr). It exploded about 30-50 kms above the surface of the earth which was fortunate for the residents of the city of Chelyabinsk with a population of ~ 1 million people.
The force of this explosion was as large as 20 times that of Hiroshima bomb.
In spite of the fact that it exploded nearly 30-50 kms above the surface of the earth, 1100 people were injured because of the after shock wave generated out of the explosion. In the same explosion would  have taken place a little later more nearer to the surface, the devastation would have been severe  as that Hiroshima or Nagasaki bomb explosion.
The force of this explosion was as large as 20 times that of Hiroshima explosion.
Apparently there was an asteroid which was supposed to pass Earth around at the same time, but these two planetary motions have no connections.
Seems people had relaxed a bit considering that 2012 is over without any natural calamity other than Japan's earth quake. But this incidence had once again brought in attention the destructive nature of the nature's forces.
Read more about the incidence at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/meteorite-falls-in-russias-chelyabinsk-region-damage-and-casualties-unclear/2013/02/15/7041c0c8-7732-11e2-b102-948929030e64_story.html

Check a Hollywood level video of Meteor falling:

Lise Meitner: An Unsung Scientist

I happen to read a Marathi translation by author Vina Gavankar  of a book name "Lise Meitner, a life in Physics" by Ruth Lewis Sime.


Its about an Austrian Woman Scientist Lise Meitner.
Have you heard  this name before. I am pretty sure not, unless, you are closely related to the field of Atomic Structure and Radioactivity.
Some body suggested me to read the book mentioning about a scientist who was really responsible for the world to know "Nuclear Fission" and a Scientist who was nominated for Nobel prize 15 times but never received it.
  Though am closely connected to the field of research, even I had never heard of this lady and so I decided  to give it a read.

Although I am not sure how much justice the translated version has done to the original book, the translation was easy to read through. Sometimes, it feels like confusing for the reader and some times appeared contradicting words mentioned earlier. But that is a personal opinion probably coming out of failure to understand the context and loosing continuity. But, it was a great opportunity to read the book and known an important yet pretty much unknown Scientist.

Life of Lise (originally Elise) was full of struggles and mostly a fight to get a recognition. In spite of her great talent, she wasn't allowed to enter college because she was a girl. She started taking higher education at the age of 23, after a gap of almost 9 years. But her interest in Physics and Music helped her to continue working.
 After finishing Ph.D, she was struggling to get a position, because it was not common then for a woman to have a position. Until the age of 35, she was pretty much working on her own with financial assistance received from her parents.
She made some major contribution in the study of alfa and beta radiations and if we decide to believe the book, She was the first one to reveal the concept of nuclear fission.
She was praised by Albert Einstein  as the "German Marie Curie".
All her life she had to struggle either for being a Jew, or for being a Woman, or for being a guest in a Foreign land. She dedicated nearly 30 years working in Germany but had to run away to Sweden at the beginning of World War II. Her one time best friend and colleague Otto Hahn, a Physical Chemist, unable to understand the concept of Nuclear Fission, and explained to him by Lise, was in the end given all the credit  for Nuclear Fission. Even the instruments designed and developed by Lise were kept in Museum under the name of Otto Hahn. It took year 1990 to arise  when due credit for the instruments were given to her.
Lise did made some mistakes which possibly are partly responsible for her struggling life. She had an opportunity to move to Copenhagen, Denmark, when many German Scientist  like Einstein were moving out of Germany against upcoming Natzi government. But she denied moving out of Germany giving preference to her ongoing research work.
Later on, while in Sweden, when she was struggling with position and facilities, she had an offer to move to England, but she wasn't keen to again shift to a new place.

In later part of her life she did received lot of felicitations and  awards, but in spite of big recommendations, she  never received Nobel. Though, every body knew her contribution to Nuclear Fission, it was always denied to her, while Hahn got one in 1944.
But some where down the lane, she was rewarded better by giving her name to a new element with atomic number 109, Meitnerium.
So, anybody ever come these books, do give it a read and understand the difficulties she faced and inspite rose to such a height.

Mars Rover Curiosity: new milestone achieved

                                         Artist view of Mar rover Curiosity on Mars. Picture taken from :
                                    (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/building_curiosity.html)

Every body is aware of Mars rover Curiosity by now.
Its a Car sized robotic rover which was launched from the surface of earth in November 2011 and landed on the surface of Mars after travelling  563,000,000 kms in a period of approx. 9 months. The location on Mars where the rover landed is known as Aeolis Palus in the Gale Crater.
It in itself is an achievement that the Scientists succeeded in landing an unmanned vehicle on a surface so far away from Earth.
It is expected that Mars rover Curiosity will successfully deliver its goals that revolve around gaining information related to the geological and climatic features of Mars, possibility for life sustaining environment and existence of water, to name a few.
You can read more about its design and constructions and other details related to  Curiosity at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_(rover)

Few days back Curiosity made a history by drilling a hole on a surface other than Earth. Though its first drill is not deep enough ( 2.5 inches deep and 0.63 inches wide), considering it being a first and test drill, it is a big step in human history.
Curiosity carried out some steps in previous weeks and then decided upon the place to make its first drill. The selected rock is called "John Klein". This rock is interesting to the Scientists as they believe this rock might hold the evidence of the extinct wet environment on the surface of Mars.
Curiosity uses a very sophisticated technology to suck in the the dust out of the drilled hole through the flute within the drill and stored in the chambers. This dust then undergoes different processes to remove any contamination, big size particles and then a very fine dust which is screened out and the particles in which are smaller than six thousandth of an inch is used further for analysis with its X-ray machine.
This is just a beginning. Curiosity is supposed to accomplish a lot more in coming days and enrich our knowledge about unearthly elements.
You can read more about this achievement here:
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-02/mars-rover-curiosity-first-robot-drill-another-planet

Zero Shadow Day

Two days back some of my friends put some photos and comments about "Zero Shadow day" on Facebook.
It was interesting to know about it.
Zero shadow means the moment when the Sun is exactly overhead. The shadow falls directly under you and there is not even slightest of angle to the shadow.
In pune this happened two days back on May 13. Depending on your cities latitude and longitude positions it occurs in different cities on different days.
Moreover this event is not rare, but actually take place twice in a year.
Once between December to June and the other one in the later part of the year.
First occurance is normally visible to most of the Indians but second occurance normally go unnoticed since its mostly rainy season during the time of this occurance.
A little attempt to know more about it put me to different query.
I started wondering if it happens only in India.
If you try to google "Zero Shadow Day" or "No shadow day" on google, all the links that would appear in the list comes from India only.I have been through 4-5 pages of google links and absolutely each one of these links are connected to India.
So, many questions come up.
1. Is my search biased?I understand that google produces results based on our previous search criteria keeping in its memory what kind of things we like to appear as the top most search. So, unknowingly if my Google search is biased then may be someone else need to crosscheck. But it is highly improbable. Even not a single hit for any other country based link is difficult to understand.
2. Is "Zero Shadow Day" not the real scieitific name for this event. Is it called by some other name? This needs to be verified. But if that would have been the case, some mention of the real scientific name would surely have appeared.
3. Does this happen only in India? I guess not. It can not be a regional phenomena.
4. Is it not an interesting event for the world that nobody cares to pen down some information about it accessible to everyone or Are only Indian too much enthusiastic about such planetary events.
5. Even Wikipedia has not page dedicated to "Zero Shadow Day" or "No Shadow Day".

For those who want to know more about "Zero Shadow day", I would like to direct you to this link:

http://skytonight.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/zero-shadow-day/

which very nicely present information related to ZSD with photographs and a video or shadow vanishing.

Day light saving

Back in India, people most of the time are not aware of the concept of Day light saving. In general, the span of the day having sunlight does not vary significantly over the year. So, this concept was never a requirement.

When an Indian move to other parts of the world like say European countries or America, they come across this concept.
The idea is to make maximum use of daylight. During the summer, the day could be as long as 16 hrs to 22 hrs depending on how close you are to the North pole while the winters have very short days.
So, in winter days, if your office timing is say 9 AM to 5PM, by the time you start from home to office and while you are leaving office back to home, its mostly dark outside. You only get to see daylight while you are in office and there is no time for doing external extra curricular activities.
In contrast during summer, if the timings of winters are followed, the day light is available say since 5.00 AM till 10.00 PM. If your office timing is still 9-5, you have 4hrs of daylight in the morning which is pretty much of no use leaving around 5 hrs in the evening for extracurricular activities.
So, instead if the clock is forwarded in summer by 1 hr, you start receiving daylight by around 6.00 AM while in the evening it lasts till 11.00PM.
By implementing daylight saving we shift one hour of daylight from morning to evening and so we have around 6 hrs of daylight in the evening instead of 5.

Another advantage of daylight saving as pointed out is, since people spend most of the time of evening either outside home or without the use of electricity for lights, there is less consumption of electricity.

In Europe, the daylight saving is implemented on the last sunday of March which this year happened on 25th of March. It will last for next 6 months till the last Sunday of October when it returns to the regular time.

Although Day light saving has its advantages, people don't like initial few days after it is implemented. The problem is the last sunday of March is reduced to 23 hrs. To quickly get used to the changed timing, one tries to sleep early. But the body is normally not used to sleep early so one ends up wasting time waiting for sleep. Next day, you are already late by 1 hour. Fortunately or say considering the inconvenience, next day is Sunday, you are pretty much relaxed with no rush to reach the office. But the day ends quickly and although you don't feel sleepy its already your bed time. Your body takes some to get used to this change.

Monday onwards another peculiar change you start observing is the lengthy evening. First few initial days it feels odd when you reach home,relaxed, already had a cup of tea and evening breakfast and still find proper daylight outside your window. Over the days,although, it changes to the point where you need to pull down the curtains to go to bed, your body gets used to it.

  In contrast in the other half of year when daylight saving is stopped on the last sunday of October, things are pretty relaxed. This time you have an extra hour to adjust to the changes. The last sunday of October is 25 hrs long. So whatever time you go to sleep, you always wake up one hour earlier than expected. You feel like day is going is passing very slow. You have more time in hand to take care of that day's business and still you have time to relax and enjoy.
In following days whereas days seems short when you go out of home for office and come back only in dark.

Some body put this picture on net that nicely  depicts the differences while waking up on two mornings.

Recreating the Big Bang: For an Evidence of God Particle

                Its some time since words like "Higgs Boson", "God Particle", "Large Hadron Collider" are falling on our ears. It automatically generates curiosity in anybody's mind. Now, the recent news is that the search for this "God Particle" is almost over and the scientists working on it for last so many years will come out of those deep tunnels to reveal its existence or absence.

The story associated with these experiments goes as follows:

               Long back some time around 1964, a bunch of scientists including Peter Higgs were banging their heads to understand from where the hell all the sub-atomic particles like protons, electrons, neutrons get their masses.

               It was suggested that, after the Big Bang, the space was contained by an invisible field called "Higgs field". Every particle in our universe "swims" through this Higgs field. Any individual particle will experience a drag because of this field which can be referred to as a mass of the particle. The strength of this drag vary from particle to particle. As a result, some particles are heavier in nature than others. There are exceptions where the particles like "photon" do not interact with the Higgs field. Such particles experience a state of no mass. Hence, they are travel at such high speed. In absence of Higgs field, all particles will experience state of no mass and should travel with the speed of light.

              It is not possible to verify the presence of the Higgs field. So, for a better understanding of how the field interacts with the particles and impart them with their masses, it has been considered that there must be a particle present in this field which acts as a "mediator" responsible for transferring the force from the field on to all the particles. These force transferring particles which act as a "mediator" were termed “Higgs Boson” or more recently known by term "God particle". These particles gain their mass from the Higgs field and on interation with other particles imparts them their respective masses. The Higgs Bosons are like the dense spots in the field with heavy masses which are very unstable and readily decay into particles with relatively lower mass like protons.

             Apparently the "Higgs Boson" has heavy mass around 100 to 200 times the mass of proton and so unstable in nature and immediately gets converted into other sub atomic particles like protons, electrons or neutrons. Till date we have experimental evidence for all other known sub-atomic particles but the " Higgs Boson" still exist in theory.

            Scientists have been working to come up with an experimental evidence of "Higgs Boson". Its discovery could help to reveal many secrets associated with the origin of the universe in the context that associates with the mass and so matter.

           The experiment to prove existence of "God Particle" involves a set up called "Large Hadron Collider". It consists of a circular tunnel buried inside the earth with a circumference of 17 miles extended under the Swiss-French border. Two beams of protons are triggered in opposite directions through the tubes of this tunnel. At a calculated meeting point in the tunnel, these beams will smash into each other at a speed as close as possible to the speed of the light. 

 

           Scientists are predicting that this collision between proton beams will ultimately produce "Higgs Boson". These "Higgs Boson" will be very unstable and will immediately decay into stable, lower mass particles. Scientists study these decay process and the products to infer the existence of the "Higgs Boson". A spike in the graph may also be recorded to prove its existence which requires the detectors capable of detecting particles with a lifetime of a millionth of a billionth of a second.

          The two groups working separately on different such detectors ATLAS and CMS apparently have recorded such bumps in their recordings. But there is a lot still to be done to declare it as a discovery and avoid a situation where the recorded peaks may be a matter of chance and not a real effect. In spite, the search of "God particle" has reached a point where people will start openly discussing its artifact and not just its existence.

  The LHC representation and the information shared were taken from following links: 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/large-hadron-collider/8947263/Science-world-awaits-Cern-announcement-on-Higgs-boson.html 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/large-hadron-collider/8952584/Q-and-A-Higgs-boson.html