Techs 'n' Talks

Developing for Mobile OS Sailfish features with Hands on Video on Nokia N950. Whats all the fuss about new upcoming mobile OS 'Sailfish' from Jolla?

2013-01-25T19:12:00.000+05:30

Are you guys ready to know about features and design of developing for Mobile OS Sailfish,which is expected to be released in the first quarter of the 2013. As we have heard, 'Sailfish' was on a tested Nokia N950. Sailfish, Jolla insists, will become a legitimate alternative to the Coke and Pepsi of smartphone platforms: Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. Well that's a big comment, looks like Jolla has found some 'secret ingredient'. But right now Jolla is very secretive about the Sailfish so the best features of the OS is kept a secret before release.

As we have said in our previous post that Jolla's Sailfish based on two old Mobile OS MeeGo and Mer. The Mer project is the core OS that serves as the base of Sailfish OS. It provides a functional core Linux stack but without any user interface, e.g. another Mobile OS Nemo provides functional user interface that is Supported by Sailfish. Lets have a look at both OS front screen view down there.

Left: Nokia N9 (aka The unicorn) Running MeeGo Harmattan
Right: Nokia N950 running Jolla Sailfish
Source : Engadget.com

Icons

Honestly, it doesn't look like latest generation Phone, icons are a bit repent and out dated. So Jolla might need to think about it. Today, phones like iPhone have rounded corner squares and pretty distinctive. N9 has semi square rounded shapes, so it's pretty easy to locate an app you are searching for.

: Launcher page, Same rows as Harmattan, but less attarcting

Source: Engadget.com

Pulley Menu

Basically, this is what we call the generation difference. The most amazing feature of Jolla Sailfish is 'Pulley Menu', which will replace all unnecessary buttons like 'settings', 'options','more', 'Back button'. So you need to pull left from the middle of the screen to come back to the previous screen, and a full pull from right to left will get you back to the home screen. While pull down Mechanism might be present in Android or Apple iOS, Sailfish offers a completely new method of operation. Instead of using the pull down to refresh content or show notifications, Jolla’s OS allows users to display menu items that helps to share photos or videos to social networks and other specified actions using Pulley menu's pull up and pull down functionality.

: Pulley menu from down

Source: Engadget.com

: Pulley menu from up

Source: Engadget.com

: Pulley menu from up

Source: Engadget.com

Multitasking

Well, according to the Demonstration, the multitasking menu looks similar like a Windows mobile. It shows the cards of each running app, instead of tapping it if you tap and hold the a app, it will give you more functionality to the particular app. As you can seen below, holding down the music app adds more functionalities like if you want to play, pause or skip from multitasking menu. Isn't it amazing ?

: Cards and their little icons for interaction

Source : Engadget.com

Now lets have a look at Nokia N95 Running on Sailfish hands on from Engadget

Why should it be a competition for others?

Phone Doesn't need a so called 'Home button'.
Looks really user friendly.
One of my fav feature is that the new application window is almost transparent so the background wallpaper will be visible with different effects like blurry, watery etc.
The font color and Pulley Menu highlight color adjusts themselves automatically according to the background image color.

The supreme forces of the universe - Dark matter & Dark energy. Why 95.4% of the universe is 'invisible' ?

2013-01-24T17:02:00.001+05:30

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) by reading the cosmic microwave background( CMB ) determined that only 4.6% of the total mass-energy constituent of the universe is made of ordinary atoms or baryons( made of neutrons, protons and electrons).

From the very moment of the big bang till today, some of the visible stuffs that our universe has manifested like dust, gas, planets, stars, galaxies, you and me only accounts for 4.6% of universe. The 95% of the energy density in the universe is in a form that has never been directly detected in the laboratory or was unknown.

What about the rest of the universe ?

23% of the universe contains 'Dark Matter'.

Dark matter is likely to be composed of one or more species of sub-atomic particles that interacts weakly with ordinary matter. Dark matter interacts with ordinary matter through gravity and weak force which are the weakest among the four fundamental forces.

Dark matter neither absorbs or emits light or any other electromagnetic radiation at a significant level so it's invisible. Hence the name 'dark matter'. Dark matter are three types but, when we are talking about dark matter that truly counts then it means 'cold dark matter'.

So how was it discovered?

Fritz Zwicky, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology, stumbled across the unexplained gravitational effects of in the early 1930s while studying how galaxies move within the Coma Cluster. The gravitational effect can only be explained if there is sufficient mass present within the cluster as gravity is a function of mass( more the mass more the gravity ). But it's not visible. So he named it 'dark matter'.

Proofs that dark matter exists

1.From cosmological observations

( measuring orbital speed of stars in galaxies )

Vera Rubin Cooper

Kent Ford

In 1970s, astronomers Kent Ford and Vera Cooper Rubin at the Carnegie Institution of Washington began a detailed study about the motion of stars( about 90 stars ) in the nearby galaxy of Andromeda for 2 years.

In a spiral galaxy like Andromeda which contains a central supermassive black hole, other stars and solar systems move around it. So as you move from the center to the edge of the galaxy, the gravitational force gradually decreases. As the gravitational force decreases the orbital speeds of the stars should also decrease. By measuring 'redshift' Ford and Rubin could measure the actual orbital speed of the stars, the same method used by Zwicky himself.

when she analysed the data she found that through out the galaxy the orbital velocities of stars are almost constant. Which is not possible because if the stars towards the edges would move with such massive speeds then they would have been thrown out into the space because the observed gravity is not enough to hold them of in the orbit. So there must be extra mass present in form of huge amounts of unseen matter. For conformation she studied some sixty spiral galaxies over few years and found the same thing.

Her calculations showed that galaxies must contain about ten times as much “dark matter”, that can be accounted for the high orbital speeds of visible stars. In short, at least ninety percent of the mass in galaxies is invisible. This was the 1st prof that Fritz Zwicky was right. In fact dark matter could be a key piece of puzzle to our existence.

( Through the effects of gravitational lensing )

It was not until 1979 that this effect of gravitational lensing was confirmed by observation of the so-called "Twin QSO" SBS 0957+561( the twin quasar ). Later it was found that through weak gravitational lensing, the presence of dark matter can be observed.

Dr. Richard Massey study about the gravitational lensing produced by galaxies or clusters of galaxies. But the gravitational lensing produced by the galaxies in his study was too much bending of light accordance to the amount of matter present. His calculated that there is 5 times more dark matter present in the galaxies than the normal matter which is the same observation as Ford and Rubin found out.

In 2007 Hubble telescope makes the 1st 3D map of the dark matter for a part of the universe and Richard is one of the leads to this group.

For more info, please visit - news.bbc.co.uk

But in the year 2004 two galaxy clusters collided about 3 billion light years away. As the two clusters bumped into with each other at 3 thousand miles per second, the luminous matter in each violently collided with the other and slowed down producing x-rays. But the dark matter did not interact at all, passing right through without disruption. This caused the dark matter to sail ahead, separating each cluster into two components: dark matter in the lead and luminous matter lagging behind.

The shape of the hot gas produced by the collision of the clusters shows significance resemblance with bullet shape, hence the name 'bullet' cluster. One of the famous images in the history.

The bullet cluster

For more info, please visit - physicsworld.com

2. Through computer simulations

Jeremiah Ostriker

James Peebles

In 1973, Princeton University astronomers Jeremiah Ostriker and James Peebles used numerical simulation to study how galaxies evolve. Applying a technique called N-body simulation, they programmed 300 mass points into their computer to represent groups of stars in a galaxy rotating about a central point ( like in milky-way galaxy ). Their simulated galaxy had more mass points, or stars, toward the center and fewer toward the edge. The simulation started by computing the gravitational force between each pair of mass points from Newton's law and working out how the mass points would move in a small interval of time. By repeating this calculation many times, Ostriker and Peebles were able to track the motion of all the mass points in the galaxy over a long period of time.

Ostriker and Peebles found that gradually, most of the mass points would collapse to a bar-shaped, dense concentration close to the center of the galaxy with only a few mass points at larger radii. This looked nothing like the elegant spiral or elliptical shapes we are used to seeing. However, if they added a static, uniform distribution of mass 3 to 10 times the size of the total mass of the mass points, they found a more recognizable structure would emerge. Ostriker and Peebles had solid numerical evidence that dark matter was necessary to form the types of galaxies we observe in our universe.

Carlos Frenk

But later on computers became more and more powerful. So it was possible to simulate complex shapes like galaxies and galaxy clusters.
Prof Carlos Frenk uses a supercomputer which consists of 1300 computers all working together, a super cosmology machine. He 1st tried to simulate a galaxy from gravity and the matter we see. As it was believed that gravity gradually drew the gases together and where the gas was densely packed, the galaxies were formed in those areas we see today.

Dr. Carlos programmed the necessary stuffs and ran the simulation and waited for the machine to create a galaxy but, what really happened was few stars( both mid sized stars and supermassive stars ) were formed and the supermassive stars exploded( as big star shorter life spans )and the massive energy from the explosions spreads out the gas all over the space, greatly reducing the gas density required for star formation. So it's clear that there was not enough gravity to hold the structure together.

Then Dr. Carlos started adding extra gravity in form of dark matter. Firsly a little amount and gradually five times more than the visible normal matter. Then the simulation slowly started forming the shape of the universe we observe today.

This not only confirms the presence of dark matter but, it explains that dark matter plays an important role in galaxy formation. Even the galaxy clusters and galaxy super clusters are formed because of the dark matter.So dark matter is the glue that sticks everything together in our universe.

What is dark matter made of ?

The most plausible candidate for dark matter is weakly Interacting Massive Particles( WIMPs ), emerge from theory of "Supersymmetry'. Supersymmetry is a theoretical notion by which known elementary particles have supersymmetric partner particles. This theory predicts candidates for dark matter comes under the name, Lightest Supersymmetric Particle (LSP). The LSP could be the Nutralinos, the gravitino or the lightest sneutrino.

WIMPs are made of non-baryonic matter that is they do not have sub atomic particles like protons or neutrons in them. As they are different from the normal matter, they do not interact with they normal matter. Billions of WIMPs are passing right through us every second and the chances of a WIMP interacting with a atom in our body is rare cause sometimes when they come close enough to a nucleus they interact via weak force. But even though the probability is less than 1% or may be much more less, Physicists are counting on it.

WIMPs can be detected in few ways.

1.Accelerator searches

Large Hydron Collider, CERN

Through experiments in particle accelerators like Large Hydron Collider( LHC ) at CERN, Geneva. As WIMPs are so much non-interactive so if a WIMP is produced, it will simply fly out the accelerator space and hence it's signature will be the missing energy. But still today there is no full-proof evidence of a WIMP detection. Though the window for the existence of the lightest supersymmetry particle 'Nutralinos' is becoming less narrow day by day but, Physicists still have a hope to find it one day.

2.Direct detection WIMPs

A satisfying solution to the dark matter problem would be the detection of WIMPs as they move past and through the Earth. This would also allow measurement of the local density of dark matter and establish beyond doubt that the dark matter is non-baryonic. There are several ways to do this, and currently two methods are being aggressively pursued.

WIMPs rarely interacts with matter but, when it does, it scatter off a nucleus and the nucleus recoils, causing dislocation in the crystal structure, vibrations of the crystal lattice (i.e. produces photons or heat) and also ionization. These signals can be detected. For example, some experiments use kilogram size germanium and silicon crystals( are very stable and still crystal structure at very low tempretures ) and attempt to detect the ionization and photon signals.

Graphical representation of what happens when a
WIMP interacts with a super cooled Germanium crystal.

Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) detector at the Soudan Mine, Minesotta uses this technique in a lab about half a mile underground in a abandoned iron mine. In February 2010, researchers at the Soudan Mine CDMS II experiment announced that they had observed two events that may have been caused by WIMP-nucleus collisions but, not for sure.

Dan Bauer, CDMS project manager and Fermilab scientist,
removes one tower of detectors used in the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment. Credit: Fermilab.

Detectors made of germanium and silicon

Scientists from the XENON collaboration announced a new result from their search for dark matter. The analysis of data taken with the XENON100 detector during 13 months of operation at the Gran Sasso Laboratory (Italy) provided no evidence for the existence of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). ( content released in 18th July, 2012 )

XENON100 detector

For more info, please visit - www.interactions.org

Other groups use sodium iodide crystals and look for the scintillation light caused by the ionized electrons or search for crystal dislocations in samples of billion year old mica. Another possibility is to record the recoil of an ionized atom in a gas using drift chamber techniques.

Now particle physicists are proposing a new way to detect dark matter using the molecule of life - www.sciencenews.org

3.Indirect detection of WIMPs

The idea is that if the halo is made of WIMPs, then these WIMPs will have been passing through the Earth and Sun for several billion years. Since WIMPs will occasionally elastically scatter off nuclei in the Sun or Earth, they will occasionally lose enough energy, or change their direction of motion enough, to become gravitationally captured by the Sun or Earth. The orbits of such captured WIMPs will repeatedly intersect the Sun (or Earth) resulting in the eventual settling of the WIMPs into the core. As the number density increases over time, the self annihilation rate will increase. Since ordinary neutrinos can result from WIMP self-annihilation, one predicts a stream of neutrinos coming from the core of the Sun or Earth. Neutrinos easily escape the Solar core. The detectors on Earth capable of detecting neutrinos coming from Sun or Earth have operated for some time. The energy of such neutrinos is roughly 1/2 to 1/3 of the WIMP mass, so these neutrinos are much higher energy than the MeV scale solar neutrinos from nuclear reactions that have already been detected. The higher energy of these WIMP annihilation neutrinos makes them easier to detect than ordinary solar neutrinos and somewhat compensates for their much fewer numbers. Thus the presence of a source of high-energy neutrinos emanating from the centers of the Sun and Earth would be taken as evidence for WIMP dark matter.

For more info, please visit - http://www.snowmass2013.org.

Another candidate is axions. There are other possible dark matter candidates which do not fit into the WIMP framework. The axions arise from attempts to explain why the strong interaction seems to obey a certain symmetry called "CP symmetry". Among other things, CP symmetry would prevent the neutron from having a large electric dipole moment - without it, it's very hard to understand why such a dipole moment has not yet been detected. The best explanation for this, is called "Peccei-Quinn symmetry", and predicts a new light neutral particle called the axion.

For more info, please visit - physicsworld.com

Some astrophysicists are exploring the possibility of dark matter could lie inside the extra dimensions of the 'string theory'. The string theory adds six new dimensions to the four usual ones (three dimensions of space and one dimension for time) and would place the dark matter in these new dimensions which are inaccessible for us; explaining why it would not be detectable. The electromagnetic and nuclear forces (both strong and weak) would be confined in our four dimensions and could not leave them. If that's the case, there could be accompanying particles called Kaluza–Klein particles that account for dark matter. However, these would be even harder to detect.

For more info, please visit - alextorex.wordpress.com

Finally Massive astrophysical Compact Halo Objects( MACHOs )are non-luminous objects that make up the halos around galaxies. MACHOs are thought to be brown dwarf stars, neutron stars, white dwarfs, black holes. Unlike others, MACHOs are made of baryonic matter but, they don,t emit any light of their own so they are hard to detect. MACHOs can be found with gravitational lensing or gravitational microlensing. But there’s not enough ordinary matter (protons, neutrons, electrons) to account for the measured amount of dark matter so MACHOs are somewhat ruled out as a candidate. As we already know they are focusing more on WIMPs.

72% of the universe contains 'Dark energy'

Dark energy is trying to rip our universe apart.

Edwin Hubble

In the early 1920s, astronomer Edwin Hubble, working at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California, discovered that many of the diffuse objects in the sky called nebulae were actually in fact galaxies spreading through out the universe. Later in the decade, Hubble and his assistant Milton L. Humason estimated the distances to galaxies using a technique invented by Henrietta
Swan. This they combined with measurements of the 'red-shifts' of the spectral lines from stars in the galaxies.

In 1929, Hubble and Humason found that the galaxies were generally red-shifted and so were on average receding from us. They found that the amount of red-shift from a galaxy was roughly proportional to its distance from us, that is the galaxies more farther away were moving away with more speed and the galaxies near to us were moving relatively less slowly. So our universe is expanding (This discovery also gave rise to the 'big bang').

The mathematical equation for Hubble's law is as follows:

v = H₀D

The velocity of recession of galaxies observed from earth (V), expressed in km/s, is directly proportional to distance (D), measured in megaparsecs or Mpc, where H₀ is the value of the Hubble constant at the time of observation in the history of the universe. (A megaparsec is 3.26 million light-years). Currently the value for Hubble's constant is 69.32 ± 0.80 (km/s)/Mpc.

So after Hubble found out that universe was expanding, it was a very popular notion that some day our universe will stop expanding and as matter attracts matter through gravity, the gravity will the crush the universe onto itself. It's called 'the big crunch'.

Source - HowStuffWorks

Adam Riess

Until in 1998 Adam Riess, of the Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, led one of the first studies to reveal the presence of dark energy but, discovered something perhaps more profound than the expanding universe. By observing the cosmological red-shift of 42 different type Ia supernova it was discovered that the universe was actually accelerating or is accelerating. It was not only expanding, but that the rate of expansion was getting larger. Something was making the universe to expand faster, some kind of invisible force.

Michail S. Turner

So the force was given the name of 'dark energy' Dr. Michail S. Turner. It's dark because we can't see it. Dark matter is one of the greatest mysteries out there today. Let's discuss some of the theories for it exsistance.

Candidates for dark energy

The 1st candidate should be the 'cosmological constant'( otherwise known as 'vacuum energy' ) from General relativity its self. When Einstein solved his equation of general relativity for the 1st time, he found out that the universe was not static, in fact it was either expanding or contracting. He didn't liked the idea of a expanding universe so Einstein himself added a cosmological constant to his equations of general relativity to counteract the effect of gravity, that is, a constant which counteracts this effect. Friedmann, a Russian mathematician, realized that this was an unstable fix, like balancing a pencil on its point, and proposed an expanding universe model, now called the 'Big Bang theory'. Hubble's study of nearby galaxies showed that actually the universe was in fact expanding.

Einstein regretted, viewed the cosmological constant term as his "greatest mistake".

In 1980 it was put forward as a candidate for the repulsive force that produced the enormous exponential expansion, called 'inflation' of the universe.

Today it is proposed as a candidate for dark energy itself, which is responsible for driving the acceleration of the universe. The cosmological constant is the property of empty space itself.

If you remove all the particles and radiations of a small part of space, then you could call it an 'empty space' but, that does not mean that empty space is 'nothing'. It's not true. In physics because of the 'quantum mechanics' and 'special relativity' in very very small scales, empty space is a bubbling, boiling soup of 'virtual particles' that pops in and out of existence in a time scale so short that you can't see them. These "virtual pairs" consist of one particle with a negative charge and one with a positive charge. They exist for only a tiny fraction of a second before they collide and annihilate each other in a tiny burst of energy. These energy bursts creates ripples of energy in space-time fabric which may be driving the galaxies apart. So empty space has it's energy after all. So 'nothing' is actually something.

In the early universe, everything was closely packed so there was less 'space' fabric existed. The gravity was dominant. The cosmological constant is a property of empty space itself as universe grew over time, the gravitational pull weakened between structures and the cosmological constant dominated the growth of the universe.

But the problem is.

In Einstein’s equation, the cosmological constant is equivalent to an energy density in a vacuum, that is, a space devoid of matter. By equating this density to the density of the zero point energy that is left in a volume after you remove all its particles, you obtain a number that is 120 orders of magnitude higher than what is observed. Such a high value would result in a universe that would so rapidly inflate that there would never be enough time for galaxies to form. So simply the predicted value and the observed value doesn't match. The biggest problem with 'cosmological constant'.

For more info, please visit - www.csicop.org

Another candidate for dark energy is is a scalar field called 'quintessence'. It is also proposed as a fundamental 'fifth force', a cosmic chameleon. It is time dependent that is it grows with time ans it is dynamic. So it's some what popular over the cosmological constant( doesn't change with time ).

Quintessence is a quantum field with both kinetic and potential energy. Depending on the ratio of the two energies and the pressure they exert, quintessence can either attract or repel. There are several hypotheses of quintessence fields, and in each one, each with a different outcome for the future of the universe.

Image credit: NASA / Chandra X-ray observatory.

For more info, please visit - arxiv.org

Another candidate is gravity itself. Einstein's general relativity predicts gravity as warp in the fabric of space-time and we take it for granted. But relativity only holds good for the universe on large scales, on the smallest scales, quantum gravity takes over. Relativity also breaks down in the presence of the strongest gravitational fields, like those at the center of a black hole, called the singularity.

And now we know that something called the 'dark matter', which constitutes 23% of the universe has much strong gravitational effect than the normal matter. The existence of dark matter is one of the key points in the evolution of our universe. Without it everything would have fallen apart.
And now we are becoming aware of something called the 'dark energy',which constitutes 72% of the universe and is accelerating the expansion of the universe. It is producing some 'anti-gravitational' effects.

So maybe there is more to the concept of 'gravity'.

For more info, please visit - news.nationalgeographic.co.in

If you didn't find the above link useful then please try - arxiv.org

So was dark energy always around from the beginning? Did the expansion of our universe ever slowed down? what is going to happen if the rate of expansion of the universe keeps increasing?

The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) - part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III), relying on data from distant quasars have enabled physicists to produce a detailed 3D "map" of the early universe a whopping 11.5 billion years ago.

Boss measures the Baryonic Acoustic Oscillation (BAO). BAO is the result of the pressure waves or ripples propagating through the universe from it's most earliest phases( from 30,000 years after the big bang ) when everything was a very hot and dense soup of baryons and photons.

BOSS measurements indicate that dark energy was not always the superior force. It indicates that before a critical point 11 billion years ago, the gravitational force was dominant and the universe was slowing down.

If the acceleration continues then the fabric of space-time will be stretched to such an extent that it will be torn apart and the matters will be disintegrated. It is called the 'Big Rip'.

The dark energy camera

So dark energy remains as the biggest mystery out there today. To hunt for dark energy, a 23-institution consortium called The Dark Energy Survey has built a 570 mega pixel camera called 'the dark energy camera', which will be used it to study four phenomena. Events like
- type 1a supernova
- Baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO)
- Gravitational lensing
- Growth of galaxy clusters over time

For more info, please visit - www.theverge.com

To solve the mystery of the dark matter and dark energy, mathematicians are also stepping forward. Two mathematicians offer a unified theory of dark matter and dark energy by altering Einstein's field equations. They suggested that the laws of conservation of energy and momentum in space-time is valid only when normal matter, dark matter and dark energy are all considered. For normal matter only, the laws will not hold good.

For more info, please visit - newsinfo.iu.edu

The day when the greatest minds will be able to understand what dark matter and dark energy exactly are. That will be the greatest victory for man-kind.

Why gravity only attracts but, doesn't repel? How it came into existence? How it has influence over such large distances? How gravity truly works?

2013-01-24T16:41:00.004+05:30

The facts we do know from school.

Sir Isaac Newton laid most of the ground work for 'classical mechanics' . He pictured 'space' as a frame which is holding everything in the universe. He pictured it as real as you and me. Time passes uniformly through the space. So whatever happens within the universe is relative to space itself. So Space and time are absolute.

After he observed an apple fall from a tree, he tried to understand the reason behind it and formulated the famous 'Newton's law of universal gravitation'. We all know about it.

According to his law Every point mass attracts every single other point mass by a force pointing along the line intersecting both points. The force is proportional to the product of the two masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

'F1' or 'F2' - force with which one object is attracting other.

'G' - the gravitational constant( value is 6.674×10-11 N m2 kg-2 )

'r' - distance between the center of their masses

'm1' or 'm2' - masses of both objects

It was the real genius of Newton to figure this out. According to him, every planetary body has this attraction which is called 'gravity'. This is how everything sticks around in the universe. This is how the planets in our solar system orbit around the sun and this is how we can walk and jump on earth.

If we are talking about the gravity of earth or 'g' then the strength of the gravitational field is numerically equal to the acceleration of objects under its influence.
So if we are considering a body freely falling towards the surface of the earth, then it's acceleration will be equal to the strength of gravitational field of earth. It's value is 9.81 m/s2 or 32.2 ft/s2. This is the number, even every school kid knows. It's being used by us for solving various problems till today.

Even after Newton The law of universal gravitation was used to predict the locations of planets and natural satellites( secondary bodies that orbit the primary like our moon ) that had not yet been discovered. The eventual discoveries of these celestial bodies confirmed that the law was correct.

So what is the point of all these when we have already know all these stuffs from school?

So the point is - how gravitational force is conveyed between objects? How gravity manages to influence objects over such huge distances? What is the physical significance of gravity? Why objects attract each other?

Newtonian gravity couldn't explain the nature of attraction between objects or what drives gravity.

The facts that we might have left out about 'gravity'.

In 20th century Prof Albert Einstein proposed that space and time are warped with each other behaving as a single entity of space-time fabric. The space-time was not rigid anymore, it was flexible. The fabric of space-time can bend, twist and ripple.

Space-time fabric

This new theory opened up a new possibilities towards understanding how gravity really works and to answer the above questions. After working for years Einstein was finally able to crack the secret behind gravity.

The secret was in the nature of the fabric of space-time itself. It was just about the reaction of a bendable fabric like space-time to it's surroundings as it curves in the presence of matter due to it's mass. Just like when we sit on a soft couch, the couch stretches and deforms by our weight temporarily. When we get up, it again comes back to it's original position.

So now we know why gravity was the 1st force to come out of the 'big bang' cause gravity is nothing more than the nature of the space-time itself.

Curve in space-time due to mass of an object

Gravity is nothing more than a deformation in the shape of space-time itself. It's the warping in the fabric of space-time due to the mass of an object. The moon revolves around the earth not because of some invisible force but, because it rolls along a curve in the fabric of space-time that the earth creates. This is followed by all the matter in the universe. The objects with more mass creates larger curvatures within which the lighter objects rolls around it.

So space is real. It's not just theory. Space has properties and mass as the matter does.

Ripples in space-time

But it's sometimes confusing to imagine a three dimensional representation with a two dimensional explanation.

What i mean is if you have already figured out how this new gravity works. Then try to think how this new gravity helps us to stay on the surface of earth.

If you get it then it's good. But if you haven't then this might be somewhat helpful to you.

As the mass of a celestial bodies is concentrated at it's center so the center point is more responsible for warping space-time.

Now we really have to buy into the concept as mentioned earlier that space-time is real and it is the ultimate frame of the universe which surrounds us. It's kind of invisible to us. The center of mass of an celestial object deforms space-time and creates a bend towards it's center, so small objects like ourselves are constantly being pulled towards the center or it's more like falling towards to the center of the earth as an fruit from a tree, always falls towards the surface of the earth. That is why it's called the 'gravity well'.

The 3D representation of how space-time bends due to an object

We could clearly see how the center of the mass deforms or warps space-time towards itself in the image above.

I hope the explanation was somewhat useful.

What is cosmic microwave background? What is the face of god looks like? What is the 1st light in the universe?

2013-01-24T16:41:00.002+05:30

When you are looking at the sky, you can see a lots of starts shining. But as you see them, you are actually looking at the past, not the present. Sounds confusing. isn't it?

How is it possible?

Light have a very definite speed that is 186,282 miles per second( 299,792,458 meters per second ).

Our sun is 93,020,000 miles (149,600,000 km) away from earth and it takes 8 minutes and 18 seconds for light to reach us from the sun. The average distance of Pluto from Sun is 3,600,000,000,000 miles( 5,906,376,272 km ). It takes an average of about 5 hours and 30 minutes, for the light from sun to reach Pluto. It takes about 3 minutes for light from sun to reach mercury.

So as the numbers became huge, it was no loner possible to calculate distances of cosmic objects in miles or kilometers. So 'light year' was introduced.

1 light year is the distance covered by light in vacuum in one Julian year. The distance traveled would be about 6 trillion miles ( just under 10 trillion kilometers ). Still cosmic objects are so far away that we use millions and billions of lights year to represent their distance.

So my point is, as light from sun travels for just over 8 minutes to reach earth, so when we see the sun, we always see it 8 minutes older from it's current state.

Just try to imagine, let's just build a super-strong watch and put is so close to the sun, that the light from the sun would take no time to reach it and it also act as a photo detector or a light detector. Let's have the copy of that watch on earth.

One day you are looking at the sky and suddenly the sun vanished.(just imagine). So you call your lazy friend, who is always sleeping and told him that hey dude, you know what happened. you wouldn't believe it. At 10.30 today, the aliens stole our sun and i saw them with my naked eyes.( ha ha ha ).

Actually the the sun vanished at 10.22 approximately. after 8 minutes we knew that the sun is gone. So if we check the super-strong watches for last photon captured or light captured, then the one close to the sun will read last photon captured at 10.22 and the one on earth would read 10.30 because the photons takes 8 minutes to go from sun to earth so the last photon from sun will take 8 mins to reach earth. After that suddenly the light or photons will stop coming, resulting darkness everywhere. So we would know the sun is gone only after 8 minutes.

So when you are looking out into space, it's just like looking into the past or looking back into time.

Andromeda is nearest spiral galaxy to our milky way, it is approximately 2.5 million light years from earth. So it would take 2.5 million years for the light from Andromeda to reach earth. There are billions and billions of galaxies with trillions and trillions of stars out there and these spread across 13.7 billion years back in time. So light from the 1st stars should be traveling for billions of years.

What is cosmic microwave background(CMB)?

In fact the 1st light or photons started their journey after about 380,000 after the 'big bang'. We can still see this radiation today, uniformly all over the sky. It is called the 'cosmic microwave background'.

It is called 'cosmic microwave background' because the 1st photons have been traveling for billions of years to reach us. So no matter at what energy they have started their journey, eventually over time they loose their energy to fall into the 'microwave' spectrum of electromagnetic radiation.

The existence of cosmic microwave background radiation was 1st predicted by Ralph Alpher, Robert Herman and George Gamow in 1948, as part of their work on Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. It was first observed inadvertently in 1965 by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. The radiation was acting as a source of excess noise in a radio receiver they were building. No matter what they do, the radiation never got away. Coincidentally, researchers at nearby Princeton University, led by Robert Dicke and including Dave Wilkinson of the WMAP science team, were devising an experiment to find the CMB. When they heard about the Bell Labs result they immediately realized that the CMB had been found.

How CMB works?

In the early stages of the universe after the 'big bang', it was just a hot and dense primordial soup of sub-atomic particles or photon-baryon battleground which we could say shaped everything in our universe. So early universe was filled with radiation and plasma in short. In fact it was so hot and energetic that the electrons couldn't stick to the atoms. High speed interactions of those particles, photons constantly interacting with electrons and moving with very very high speeds both of them, unstable and unimaginable environment. So of course the so called CMB photons were trapped inside that plasma due to the tight coupling of photons and charged baryons. Until after 380,000 years the as the universe was expanding, tempreture of the plasma were cooled enough, below 3000k for neutral hydrogen atoms to be formed. And that is when the photons were free to move out, that was the time when the radiation 'decoupled' from matter.

The CMB has the spectrum of a blackbody. A blackbody spectrum is produced by an isothermal, opaque and non-reflecting object. The CMB photons as they travel through the expanding universe, their wavelength expands so today CMB is a faint glow in the microwave spectrum of radiation which shines at 2.725K today.

The CMB radiation consists of tiny fluctuations in tempretures as mapped by COBE and WMAP satellites. These fluctuations are the density fluctuations which is then magnified by gravity to form the universe as we see today. Where the density was more, those were the regions the galaxy and galaxy clusters were formed.

Nine Year Microwave Sky The detailed, all-sky picture of the infant universe created from seven years of WMAP data. The image reveals 13.77 billion year old temperature fluctuations (shown as color differences) that correspond to the seeds that grew to become the galaxies. The signal from the our Galaxy was subtracted using the multi-frequency data. This image shows a temperature range of ± 200 microKelvin.

This is the proof that 'big bang' exists. It is the answer to questions like how our universe is shaped and why it is like this. It's the 'Holy-Grail of cosmology' itself. As George Smoot would say it as "it's like looking at the face of god'. It should be as it shows the very beginning of the universe. We could know how everything was put together only after few thousand years after the big bang.

They say that the art of an artist is the reflection of his/her inner-self. So if you believe in god and believe that the almighty created the universe himself then you could see 'him' through his handy work of building the universe from the very beginning.

To get more info, please visit - arxiv.org

What is gravitational lens or gravitational lensing?

2013-01-24T16:40:00.002+05:30

Gravity is nothing but, a curve in the space-time.

So try to imagine that what happens when light travels trough space around a massive object lets say a galaxy.

What would happen to light and why?

Ok, if you get the point then it's good but, if you don't then let's try an example.

Let's consider two white balls, one bigger and heavier and the other is smaller and lighter are placed on two different surfaces with different conditions.

In the first picture below the big white ball is placed in the middle of a hard-top table and the small ball is rolled by the side of the big ball. Both the balls remains unaffected by each other.

In the second picture the big ball is placed on the middle of a flexible material, so the area around the ball bends due to the ball's weight. When the small ball is rolled into the surface of the material then the ball starts to follow the curve rather than maintaining a straight line.

In the third picture the small ball is rolled out with high speed then it would escape the curved surface created by the big ball. Now let the small ball be a photon of light so it will also show the same effect if there is enough mass present.

So by bending of light by distribution of matter( like a galaxy or clusters of galaxies and dark matter ), we can see objects that we couldn't see normally if the bending effect was not present. This is called 'gravitational lensing'. The matter which causes light to bend is called 'gravitational lens'.

Let's say there is massive galaxy present between us earth and a quasar. The galaxy is so huge and it contains billions of stars and clouds of gas and dust that it's impossible to look through it. It's like trying to look through a stone wall. But as we can see in the picture below, due to gravitational lensing, we can actually have multiple views of the same object.

Source - gsfc.nasa.gov

Unlike optical lenses, gravitational lenses have no focal points but, focal lines. If the source of light, the lensing object and the observer lie in a straight line then the light source will appear as a ring around the lensing object. It is called as an 'Einstein ring' as in the image below. If there is any misalignment then it will appear as an arc.

Test it for yourself.

Well if you look through the bottom of a wine glass or any other glass with a thick bottom you can see the, lensing effect or the ring we just talked about for yourself. Just take a plain white paper and make a mid sized black dot on the middle of the paper. Then take any type of glass mentioned above and look from the top of the glass through the bottom at some distance from the paper. As you will move the glass over the dot you will see the lensing effect and the ring gradually.

Source - gsfc.nasa.gov

Source - astro.berkeley.edu

This is the image below taken by Hubble Space Telescope We can clearly see the lensing effect and the arcs present in the view.

For more info, please visit - arxiv.org

What is Redshift? Why is it useful to Astronomers?

2013-01-24T16:40:00.001+05:30

'Redshift' is the phenomenon of of the light changing it's color or light shifting it's position in visible spectrum of light.

So what does this mean and why it happens?

The picture below represents the 'electromagnetic spectrum' of light. The electromagnetic spectrum covers a wide range of wavelengths and photon energies. As we can see when we go from left to right in the spectrum the energy and the frequency increases while the wavelength decreases. So every radiation, seen or unseen must fit to a particular value on this scale.

Source - Wikipedia

But we are interested in the 'visible spectrum' as we are talking about the visible light. Lets look at the pictures below. The visible spectrum consists of 3 primary colors that is red, green and blue. That is why we always use the term 'RGB' while dealing with colors in computers which stands for red:green:blue composition.

As we can see the visible spectrum lies within the wavelength range of 400nm-700nm so when we choose different wavelengths between this value then the color of the light changes.

Christian Doppler proposed that there is a change in frequency of a wave (or other periodic event) for an observer moving relative to its source. Which is known as the 'Doppler effect'.

Let's say that a car is moving towards you. So you could hear the pitch of the sound is increasing as the car approaches you and the pitch getting reduced as the car recedes from you as we can see in the animation below. You can see the waves at the front of the car or he source 'pressed' against each other increasing the frequency, lowering the wavelength and at the back the opposite effect.

Source - Wikipedia

The same thing happens with a source of light. As a source of light moves towards or away from us then light wave changes it's frequency and wavelength so changing it's color slightly.

Well if you are thinking that we see many moving light sources everyday in our life so why can't we see a change in the color of light. That is because the source of light has to move with very high speeds like in kilometers per second for it's light to change it's color slightly.

What is 'redshift'?

If a source of light comes towards us at very high speed then the wavelength decreases, shifting the light towards the blue end of the spectrum, which is called 'blueshift'. So the light will appear a very little blue. And if a source of light recedes us at such tremendous speed then it's light will shift towards the red end of the spectrum, making it a little redder which is called 'redshift'.

As we know our universe is expanding at a very high rate which is given by the Hubble's constant. It's current value is 69.32 ± 0.80 (km/s)/Mpc measured by WMAP team,NASA. So light from any star or galaxy or supernova will be 'redshifted'.

By detecting the exact amount of shift in their radiation Scientists can know a lot of useful information like their compositions, distance from earth, speeds at which they are receeding etc.

This image shows the Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2012, an improved version of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image featuring additional observation time. The new data have revealed for the first time a population of distant galaxies at redshifts between 9 and 12, including the most distant object observed to date. These galaxies are shown at the top of the picture, and their locations are pinpointed in the main image. These galaxies will require confirmation using spectroscopy by the forthcoming NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope before they are considered to be fully confirmed.

What is Supersymmetry and how it's related to WIMPs? How do the particles get their masses ?

2013-01-24T16:39:00.001+05:30

Standard model and bosons

The present Standard model in Particle Physics is unable to explain why some of the interaction particles (bosons: particles with integral spin) like W and Z bosons (boson responsible for weak interaction) are very massive while interaction particle like photons (boson responsible for electro-magnetic interaction) are massless. So without Higg's bosons, particles will mass less and meaningless. In July, 2012 Scientists found a strikingly similar particle like the Higg's boson but, still there is no confirmed report of discovery of the Higg's boson and research is still going on to prove the exactness of the 2012 report.

Why Higg's boson was proposed?

To explain this, Higg’s boson has been proposed which interacts with other particles in specific ways to give them mass. In the attempt to unify quantum mechanics (involving electro-magnetic, strong and weak interaction) and general relativity (involving gravity interaction), the calculated masses around the universe is found to be enormously larger than the masses observed. In fundamental sense, the mass of Higg’s boson is inevitably huge. Nearly 80% of the mass in the universe is invisible. They are called dark matters. The constituent particles of dark matters are the WIMP (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) which are massive shadow partners corresponding to the particles observed under the Standard model. WIMPs interact only through weak and gravity interaction.

Source - LiveScience.com

Higg's field is everywhere, if assume the universe is a big invisible cocktail party then sometimes really famous celebrities come into the party as mentioned in the above example and you know what happens. The more a particle interacts with the field the more heavier it gets like protons and neutrons. Now if someone random comes in to the party then anyone will hardly notice him so he will pass away easily like electrons and neutrinos. But it's still unclear that why different particles behave differently with Higg's bosons.

What is Supersymmetry?

This correlation of a massive shadow particle with a standard particle is called Supersymmetry. In essence, Supersymmetry gives the connection between bosons and fermions (particles with half-integral spin). For a boson(fermion), there exists a massive supersymmetric fermion(boson). Pedagogically, any symmetry relation is associated with a Parity operator whose two eigenvalues (+1 and -1) correspond to two partners of the pair. In Supersymmetry, the eigenvalues (+1 and -1) of R-parity operator gives the supersymmetric partners. This is analogous to the CP-symmetry of particle and anti-particle subject to charge parity operator.

Blackholes - The masters of the universe

2013-01-23T15:51:00.000+05:30

Black hole - from an artist's point of view

Black holes are one of the most powerful and weird developments of our universe. Black holes can consume anything in the universe, starting from stars to entire galaxies. Even light can not escape it.

Stan Lee created a fictional character for Marvel comics which was debuted in the series Fantastic Four in 1996. The character was 'Galactus'. He was like a demi god with god like powers. He consumed planets, rich with both thermal and organic energy. That's why he was called 'the devour of planets'. But unlike Galactus who feeds to survive, black holes feed because it's hunger is infinite. No matter how much it eats, it will keeping eating and eating forever.

Galactus

But what is the mechanism behind this weird phenomenon? What is the secret of a black hole?

I would like you to get clear about how gravity works before reading any further.The life a star depends of the dynamic equilibrium between nuclear force and gravitational force. When nuclear fusion stops and nuclear energy runs out, gravity crushes the star until it's destruction.

But When stars die, they leave behind a corpse. The nature of the corpse depends on the mass of the star. when a mid sized star like our sun dies, it leaves a white dwarf behind. When a massive star goes supernova, it creates different kinds of neutron stars. But when a super massive star dies in a hypernova, it gives rise to a baby 'black hole'.

The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform space-time to form a black hole. So anything with a sufficiently compact mass could create a black hole. If our earth is compressed enough to the size of a ball with a radius of 9 millimeters then it would produce such strong gravity that the escape velocity at it's surface will be more than the speed of light. so light will be trapped itself if it gets too close.

This critical radius for any object to become a blackhole is called 'Schwarzschild radius'. The Schwarzschild radius for the sun is 3 kilometers. So if the sun is compressed to that radius then it will be a black hole but, the solar system will remain unchanged because the gravity of the sun will stay the same. Because we know gravity depends on the mass and the mass of the sun is still the same as it was but, only the density is greatly increased even more than a neutron star. That's why only at the surface of the compact sun (now it's a black hole) the gravity will be so strong that the escape velocity will be greater than the speed of light.

Schwarzschild radius

When a super massive star runs out of nuclear fuel, the gravity crushes the star's core to zero volume and infinite density. It is called a 'singularity'. The laws of physics breaks down at this point. There is a region around the singularity, where the gravity is so strong that even light itself gets sucked in. It is called the 'event horizon'. As light can't reflect back from the event horizon, it appears black. The singularity creates a hole in the space-time fabric. Hence the name black hole.

But why can't a supernova create a black hole?

Because to create a black hole gravity must be strong enough to crush the core of a star to such extent, that space-time continuum disrupts itself. From Newton's law of universal gravitation, we know that objects with more mass creates more attraction or gravity and the more the mass, the bigger the size. So the equation to have sufficient mass to produce enough gravity for creation of a black hole could only fit inside a super-massive star. That's why only the super-massive stars will have sufficient gravity to form black holes.

What does it exactly mean that the black holes deform space-time continuum ?

To understand what it means let's see a video clip about a simple example. 'the dead and alive paradox' from Leonard Susskind. He is the man who proved that black holes obey the law of 'conservation of information'. That is whatever a black hole consumes, the information about it is stored in it's core and it's 2D surface area or in the even horizon.
Please watch the video clip before going further.

Video Rights belongs to Discovery channel

Well after seeing the video you must be wondering how is it possible ? This is ridiculous. Well the math of this phenomenon is woven into the very fabric of a black hole.

Our milky way galaxy contains may be a thousands of stellar mass black holes( formed by gravitational collapse of a super massive star). We have detected only a dozen. So we have no idea where the rest of the black holes are, they are wandering through out the galaxy.

As black hole consumes matter or other black holes, it grows in size.

What is the significance of the black holes in our universe? Are they here only to eat and destroy?

To know more about the black holes we have to go 14 billions years back to the time of the 'big bang'. The initial stars were formed from the clouds of the dust and gas which were almost everywhere in our universe. In regions where this cloud was the thickest, eventually the dust and gas get collected with the help of gravity forming an accretion disc( An accretion disc is a structure formed by diffuse material in orbital motion around a central body, typically a star or a black hole ). As the gases begin to gather and rotate with high speeds, the tempreture rose and when the tempreture was high enough to sustain nuclear fusion, then a new star was born.

But the initial stars were super massive. They burnt through their fuel very quickly and exploded to give rise to black holes. so in the early phase of the universe, there were a lot of black holes moving around. eventually over hundreds to millions of years they attracted each other and merged. So some of the black holes became super massive like millions or billions times more than the mass of the sun. They were called 'supermassive black holes'.

As black holes grew bigger and bigger, they produced stronger gravity and pulled in more and more gas clouds. As the gas cloud became thick as even gravity drew them together, new stars formed and eventually over millions of years, galaxies shaped from it having the super massive black hole at their center. Most galaxies are formed like this. But super-massive black holes and gravity are not completely responsible for creating galaxies, they merely play a small part. We will discuss about that later at the end of this article.

The super-massive black hole eats anything it can quickly. When the galaxy was young and new stars were forming, there was a lot of gas all around the super massive black hole. So as the black hole attracts more and more gas it also feeds on it. But the rate of consumption of gas was so high that it was way over the consuming capacity of the black hole itself so it spits most of it back as 2 beams of light in the opposite directions emerging from the black hole.

The matter coming close to the event horizon forms an accretion disc around the it as it gets drawn towards it. The spinning disc has huge velocities and high tempretues. As the matter falls or is pulled towards the black hole, it gains kinetic energy, heats up and is squeezed by tidal forces. The heating ionizes the atoms, and when the atoms reach a few million Kelvin, they emit X-rays. The X-rays are sent off into space.

These are the first, focused high-energy X-ray views of the area surrounding the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, called Sagittarius A*. The three images on the right side show Sagittarius A* before, during and after an X-ray flare that was spotted in July. (pictures taken from NASA's NuSTAR telescope)

The long jets of X-rays are called 'quasars'. They are literally the brightest light source in the universe. Quasars could blast away huge amounts of gas from itself, the equivalent to 10 earths masses each second.

Gradually as the galaxy starts to grow in size, the gas accumulation slows down. As the black hole eats and spits gases at such a high rate that the gas cloud will eventually disappear and star formation will stop. The galaxy will stop growing and the quasar jets will fade away. So scientists speculate that the size of a galaxy truly depends upon the size of the super-massive black hole at it's center.

So now it's clear that almost every large galaxy has a super-massive black hole at it's center and small galaxies have dense star clusters in their centers. Our own galaxy 'Milky way' is home to a super-massive black hole which has a mass of 4 million suns is situated at 28,000 light years from earth. Our neighbor Andromeda galaxy has a super-massive black hole which has 140 millions times more mass than the sun.

Some galaxies even contain dual nucleus, as a supermassive black hole and a dense star cluster.

The M-s relation was discovered in the year 2000. It is called the "Faber-Jackson law for black holes". From the relation we can found out that the mean ratio of black hole mass to bulge mass ( mass of the galaxy) is now believed to be approximately 0.1%, that means a galaxy of one billion solar masses contains a super-massive black hole of approximately one million solar masses. It's been used ever since.

Hobby-Eberly Telescope Facility

Recently astronomers have used the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at The University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory to measure the mass of what may be the most massive black hole yet discovered, having mass of 17 billion Suns in galaxy NGC 1277, which 220 million light-years away in the constellation Perseus. They have also found out that the supper-massive black hole in it's center weights 14% of the weight of the entire galaxy which contradicts the above rule.

Types of black holes

Previously scientists thought that , a black hole is either small like few miles across ( around 2,3 times the mass of sun ) or supper massive ( millions or billions times more heavy than our sun). But recently scientists have found out that mid sized black holes do exist.

Well this is not all. In the early moments of the big bang, the tempreture and densities were huge so it is possible that micro black holes or quantum primordial black holes or tiny black holes were created in the high-density environment of the early Universe (or big bang), or possibly through subsequent phase transitions.

These mini black holes can be produced inside the large hydron collider providing the 1st experimental evidence of Hawking's radiations. These mini black holes would be so tiny that they would evaporate almost instantly.

To know more, please visit - arxiv.org

Blackholes as wormholes!

The best description of a spinning black hole was given in 1963 by the New-Zealand mathematician Roy Kerr, using Einstein’s equations of gravity. He predicted that if one fell into a black hole, one might be sucked down a tunnel (called the “Einstein-Rosen bridge”) and shot out a “white hole”( the opposite side of a black hole) in a parallel universe! Kerr showed that a spinning black hole would not collapse into a point (singularity), but to a “ring of fire.” Because the ring was spinning so rapidly that the centrifugal forces would keep it from collapsing. This “wormhole” may connect two parallel universes, or even distant parts of the same universe.

So if the above statement is true then it could be possible that our black hole is only the flip side of a 'white hole' so whatever our black hole consumes it spits it back through the white hole on the other side. Scientists have calculated that when you put the parameters (Like mass, size) of our universe into the equation of a black hole, then it fits perfectly So our universe solves the equation for a black hole. Well if it's true then we are inside a black hole ourselves and there could be billions of other universes out there.

Black hole is still an unsolved mystery. So may be some of the things we have discussed till now could be meaningless in the future.

So it's clear that the black holes are the biggest mystery out there. But there are things even more mysterious than black holes.

What are the supreme forces of the universe and how galaxies are built?

Supernovae - The most important piece of puzzle to our universe

2012-12-17T17:13:00.000+05:30

"After" and "Before" real images of a supernova by NASA

One of the most energetic and explosive events in the entire universe is known as a supernova. Supernovae are extremely luminous and cause a burst of radiation that can briefly outshine an entire galaxy.

For a better understanding, please go through this post - How stars work ?

This event occur at the end of a star's ( particularly big sized stars = minimum mass 8 times that of the sun ) lifetime, when its nuclear fuel runs out, the star unable to provide necessary resisting force towards the gravity, gravity crushes the star and it's core to itself. Gravity does this so strongly that even the atoms crush together, making the core more and more unstable and intense so at certain point the energy building up overcomes gravity and causes a blast of shock-wave that ejects the star's envelope into interstellar space.

Some of the stars bigger than our sun.

Video rights belongs to Discovery channel

There are 2 types of Supernovae found based on presence hydrogen line in their spectrum and these two are further divided into sub categories.

if you wish to know more about how the classification is done then please visit - http://en.wikipedia.org

But actually supernovae are divided into 2 basic physical types depending on the physical mechanism involved that is how they exploded

1. A white dwarf thermonuclear explosion supernova ( type Ia )

2. A core collapsed supernova ( type II )

1. A white dwarf thermonuclear explosion supernova

Unlike our sun, the vast majority of stars orbit in pairs. So when one of the star dies and becomes a white dwarf. If the other star is close enough then the gravity starts drawing materials from the other star. The white dwarf sucks clump of gas and dust to itself.

As the white dwarf sucks more and more materials it gets heavier and denser. Eventually it will acquire too much from the other star and undergo nuclear overload. Increasing temperature and density inside the core will ignite carbon-oxygen fusion to form iron. The moment iron is formed, the white explodes leaving without a trace behind and scatters a lot of iron and other particles into the universe. Almost all the iron in our solar system came from a double star supernova that exploded more than 5 billion years ago.

The peak luminosity of the light curve is extremely consistent across normal Type Ia supernovae, that is astronomers have reason to believe that the peak light output from such a supernova is always approximately equivalent to an absolute blue sensitive magnitude of -19.6 ( like a constant value in a measuring scale ). Thus, if we observe a type Ia supernova in a distant galaxy and measure the peak light output, we can use the inverse square law to infer its distance and therefore the distance of its parent galaxy. This allows them to be used as a standard candle to measure the distance to their host galaxies.

2. A core collapsed supernova

This kind of supernovae are otherwise known as single star supernovae. These supernovae are the source of all the other heavier elements like gold, silver etc. We know that in massive stars the fusions process continues until iron is produced . When iron is produced and the core goes off balance then the star's gravity will crush the star and it's core to itself at the rate of 1/3rd of the speed of light to the size of a city from the size of a planet.

Eventually the pressure building up inside the core will overcome gravity and will be blasted away with a huge shockwave ripping the star apart. While the shockwave is ripping through the inner layers of star it creates all the heavier nuclei like gold,silver,platinum... all the way towards uranium. These elements are blasted trillion of miles into space and responsible for creation.

Single star supernova

Chain of events just before supernova

Like the mid sized stars, supernovae leaves a corpse behind.

A supernova explosion sometimes gives rise to very small, dense (high density) core called a 'neutron star'. A neutron star has the mass of a star but the size of a few miles in diameter. The name "neutron star" comes from the fact matter is compressed so tightly that protons and electrons are squeezed together inside atomic nuclei to form neutrons. It is so dense that a teaspoon of of a neutron star would weight 100 million tons. So if this teaspoon of material is drooped on earth, it would fall right through it.

Neutron star

Inside a neutron star

When a mass as great as our sun's, is packed into a space which is about the size of a city, the conserved angular momentum causes the resulting neutron star to spin very rapidly and emit a ray of high-energy light that sweeps around like a lighthouse beam. It is a neutron star called 'pulsar'.

The name 'pulsar' derives from the fact that the beam appears to be a pulse that it can be only observed when the beam is pointed in the direction of earth. Pulsars usually spin between .1 to 60 times per second. The newly discovered PSR J1311-3430, which is located in the constellation Centaurus could be the fastest spinning pulsar discovered till today.

Pulsar

Inside a pulsar

When supenovae having mass greater than 30 times that of the sun collapses they gives rise to a type of neutron star that is only 12 miles in diameter and called a 'magnetar'. Magnetars generate powerful magnetic fields. The fields can be 100 trillion (10^15) times more powerful than the magnetic field of the earth. It is is so powerful that it is capable of sucking the iron right out of the blood from thousands of miles away. But their life us short, the strong magnetic fields decay after about 10,000 years. SGR 1806-20, is a magnetar located 50,000 light-years from Earth on the far side of our Milky Way galaxy in the constellation of Sagittarius.

Magnetar

But these neutron stars are not the weirdest remains of a supernova. When stars having mass over 100 times the mass of our sun explodes, it does't just crushes the electrons and protons together but, the comparable gravity crushes space and time itself and creates one of the most dangerous and mysterious developments in our universe, a 'blackhole'.

Blackhole

This exploding star explodes with such enormous energy, scientists call it a 'hypernova'.

Hypernova

During a hypernova explosion when the core produces iron and nuclear fusions stops, the gravity is so dominating that it crushes the the core of the star to a blackhole.

The blackhole instantly starts to eat the star from inside at a rate of a million earth masses a second. But a million earth masses per second is too much to go into a tiny space so the black hole spits a lot of it back out in opposite directions with nearly the speed of light.

This creates two beams of pure energy blasting it's way through the stars inner layers ripping it apart. When the jet breaches the star's surface, it produces a pulse of gamma rays typically lasting a few seconds. Satellites like Swift and Fermi can detect this emission if the jet is approximately directed toward us. This is called 'gamma ray bursts'. These gamma ray bursts are so energetic that they light up the entire universe. Any point in the universe will eventually pick up this radiation. They are the most illuminating things of the universe.

Gamma ray bursts

Hypernovas can recognized by picking up gamma ray bursts. So when ever a super massive star undergoes a hypernova, it's leaves a monster behind, a blackhole.

A monster capable of destroying space and times itself.

The next generation house - can be assembled in any environment, can be modified easily, uses highly recyclable materials, can be disassembled easily and moved to a new location and Eco-friendly.

2012-12-16T06:04:00.002+05:30

As technology is growing day by day, it is influencing everything around us. Everyday new techs keeps popping up. People are challenging the old ways of doing things and innovating whole new different ways, like the people at BMW have created the 'GINA'.

Like this, the architecture firm Kierantimberlake has been rethinking of how architecture is designed and constructed that is more linked towards the contemporary material flows, design factors, fabrication technologies, and assembly processes currently used in such industries as automobile, ship, and aircraft manufacturing.

Cellophane House is a five-story, off-site fabricated dwelling made of transparent, recyclable materials commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art for the 2008 exhibition, Home Delivery.

The Cellophane House is incredibly flexible and a temporary structure with recyclable materials. The entire structure is an extruded aluminum frame to which all other built elements such as floors and ceilings, stairs, bathrooms, and mechanical rooms are attached with reversible connections (screws, nuts and bolts unlike conventional methods of welding and gluing), enabling a rapid disassembley and recovery of components for reassembly.

Moreover, this frame allows any of the walls, floors, structure, or envelope to be replaced at any time if there is a need without invasive modifications. Theoretically it can be placed in any type of environment.

The transparent and translucent walls, floors, ceilings, roof and envelope exploit the sun as the primary source of illumination and energy. The building is enclosed with SmartWrap™, a multi layered PET which is integrated with photovoltaic cells and acts as the the building envelope.

[ Source - Wikipedia
Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET, PETE or polyester) is commonly used for carbonated beverage, water bottles and many food products. PET provides very good alcohol and essential oil barrier properties, generally good chemical resistance (although acetones and ketones will attack PET) and a high degree of impact resistance and tensile strength. The orienting process serves to improve gas and moisture barrier properties and impact strength. This material does not provide resistance to very high temperature applications—max. temp. 200 °F (93 °C). ]

A layer of film on the interior allows daylight to enter and diffuse throughout the living spaces, while providing greater insulation than any glass unit. An air cavity between the inner and outer layers of PET, serves as multipurpose mechanism.

During the summer, air is ventilated through the cavities, exhausting warm air through the top and replacing it with cooler air from below. This is an example of how the Cellophane House utilizes the Stack Effect; air is drawn in from below and is exhausted at the top. During the winter, air is trapped within the air cavity. Solar rays radiate heat onto the exterior wall and as a result heats up the trapped air within the walls, warming the house in this heated envelope.

At night, the house is illuminated with light-emitting diodes (LED). Chosen for its low-voltage and energy efficiency, LED generates very little heat, minimizing the need for cooling; and automatic sensors switch the lights on only when needed to limit wasted energy.

A range of material options allows the house to be customized to the different needs, tastes and budgets of consumers. Someone desiring more privacy and a lower cost might choose a quite different set of materials. Cement board might replace the transparent smart warp layer, making the building solid and dense rather than light and ephemeral. it can adapt to a range of climatic factors, solar orientations, slopes and adjacencies.

This type of house is preferable in places with relatively cold winters and cooler summers and where security is not a primary concern.

But still hats off to the innovation and of course it is the stepping stone towards the next generation of houses.

Source

http://ail5ag.wordpress.com

Programmable Matter - The next level of Evolution

2012-12-02T14:38:00.000+05:30

We have all seen this movie and i'm sure most of us liked it. I liked it because the movie revolves around a bond of friendship between a human and a few highly advanced beings whose technological advancements are light years ahead of us and how they stick with each other through ups and downs. Even the transformers have hearts inside their chests and they feel like we do. It's just extraordinary. This particular scene shows, how incredibly advanced they are. But this science fiction concept will soon become our reality. How about that.

Thanks to Prof Seth Goldstein, Carnegie Mellon University who is trying to revolutionize our future with programmable matter and yes it works exactly as the way it sounds, you can program matter to take various dynamic 3-D shapes. But of course the matter is entirely different.

Prof Goldstein is trying to combine systems nanotechnology, modular robotics and computer science to create the dynamic and 3 dimensional display of electronic information known as claytronics. It sounds like science fiction but, its not. The basic building blocks of claytronics is called catoms or claytronic atoms. These catoms are nano scale computers which can communicate with each other to form dynamic, 3-D shapes.

The secrets of the universe. How stars work? Is our Sun ever going to die?

2012-11-27T20:37:00.001+05:30

Our universe is almost 14 billions years old and it stretches billions and billions of galaxies across that's why astronomers prefer the term 'observable universe' because the observable universe consists of the galaxies and other matter that can, in principle, be observed from Earth in the present day as light (or other signals) from those objects has had time to reach the Earth since the beginning of the cosmological expansion.

The observable universe is so vast that millions of stars are born and millions of others die everyday, yet our sun has been there for about 5 billion years. The universe created us along with some of the most mysterious objects like black-holes, which defy the laws of physics as we know it. Our understanding of the universe is still incomplete. But there are some things, we have been able to uncover.

Like where did the Universe came from and what is the big bang?

Our universe was once a single point, a point which was even smaller than an atom. Scientists say that this point was infinitely dense, hot and violent, a point of pure energy. Imagine everything our universe has till today, all of the matter, all of the energy,space and time itself was once inside that small dot. Suddenly it started expanding, the 1st thing to come out was gravity, after fraction of seconds there was a huge shock wave of energy immersed from it and within a blink of an eye our universe grew larger than the size of earth, with tempretures of trillions of degrees Celsius. It was literally expanded faster than the speed of light, breaking one of most common laws of physics.

Our Universe was expanding to a factor of a millionth, a millionth, a millionth and a millionth times it's size in a span of a millionth, a millionth, a millionth and a millionth part of a second. Unbelievable isn't it? The time was moving so fast that a new unit of time was introduced to measure it. It is called the plank time.

So how tiny a plank time is ?
There is more units of plank time in one second than all the seconds since the big bang till today. 1 plank time = 10^-43 secs.

But if big bang only gave birth to gravity and energy then where did all the matter came from ?

Albert Eisenstein was the most influential physicist of the 20th century and a legend. Due to his work on the mass-energy equivalence formula ( E= mc^2 ) we are able to understand the creation of matter, when nobody even knew that something like the big bang exists. The formula explains that matter and energy are interchangeable Now we know that the pure energy from the big bang is converted into matter that we see today.

But at the earliest moments of the big bang ( in starting few plank seconds ), there were only sub atomic particles and photons everywhere, moving with incredible speeds. Due to such diverse conditions and such extreme tempretures particles are constantly appearing and disappearing inside the hot dense space. But soon when the universe started to cool down further the sub atomic particles stopped converting into energy. Now the universe moved into the most critical stage of the big bang.

Eisenstein equation gives rise to the possibility of negative energy, this leads to anti-matter. At the dawn of time when the sub atomic particles were created at the very same time anti-sub atomic particles were also created.

Anti matter is the exact same thing as matters but, with an opposite charge. So when they collide together, they annihilate each other. Well it's not just theory, this destructive event also occurred in the dawn of time.

If all the matter and the anti-matter canceled each other then where did all the matter came from that created the universe?

Well there is a glitch. In the epic battle of matter and anti matter, there was winner and it was the matter of course because for every billion particle of anti matter there was a billion and one particle of matter. Those leftover matters created everything we know today.
Till this point, our universe is only a second old.

As the universe expanded further, it cooled down and at a suitable tempreture range the sub-atomic particles fused together to form atoms. The first elements that was created was hydrogen and within the the next 3 minutes of the big bang, helium and lithium was created but, these atoms were not complete as there was no electron in them. Even at this stage the tempreture was too hot for the electrons to stabilize. it took 380 thousand years for the electrons to slow down enough and stick to the atoms. the first stars were created about 200 million years from the big bang and after a billion years the first galaxies were created. Our sun was created 5 billion years ago.

Stars are the most important piece of puzzle of our universe. As we already know stars created us and almost everything around us and a star, such as our sun is also keeping us alive. So without stars, our existence is impossible. But a star can be responsible for creation as well as destruction.

But have you ever wondered how star is created and What's keeping it alive?

Video Rights Belongs to Discovery Channel

Stars produce massive energies and light. In the early 20th century nobody knew,what was the source of power of a star. Again it was Albert Eisenstein and his equation E = mc^2 showed us the way . He suggested that stars use the energy locked up inside atoms. Now we know everything is made of energy from the very beginning, This energy can be released by smashing atoms together which is fusion.

In stars, hydrogen atoms are fused together to form helium and releases energy. Fusion at the core of the star burn 600 million tons of hydrogen to generates the power of a billion nuclear bombs every second . So why doesn't the star blows itself up with such devastating power. Because of extreme gravity, gravity is so intense in stars that it could literally crush the atoms together producing high tempretures. Gravity and nuclear forces are constantly trying to overcome each other but, it's incredible that the nuclear force balances the gravitational force for millions and billions of years till the nuclear fuel runs out. This is the secret of a star.

Light travels at 670 million miles an hour. A beam of light can travel 7 times around the earth in a second. Still it takes 8 minutes for the sunlight to reach earth. Yet there are stars so far away whose light takes millions and billions years to reach us.

Light travels in form of photons(A photon is an elementary particle, the quantum of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation). Photons are created from the fusion process inside the core of a star. Al thought, photons have the speed of light, it takes them thousands of years to come to surface of the star because when a photon is created and it starts moving then within milliseconds it gets smashed into other particles like a proton or a neutron etc. Even they are consumed by atoms at some higher level from the core and within seconds redirected in another directions. These smashing and consuming processes continue for billions of times until the photon finally arrives at the surface of the sun. From there it's only a matter of minutes to reach earth.

But the photons are also responsible for dangerous phenomenons like solar winds. Photons heat up the surface of the sun changing the tempreture and pressure gradients in the surface producing extreme turbulence and shock waves.

The speeding gases generates massive magnetic fields and as the sun moves these fields clashes and giant magnetic loops erupt into space. when these giant loops collide with each other, they burst millions of tons of particle into space. Earth's magnetic field consume the solar radiations at poles producing one of the most amazing natural light effects, Southern and Northern Aurora. But large scale solar winds could be deadly for us.

But what happens when fuel that powers the sun runs out?

Video Rights Belongs to Discovery Channel

If a medium sized star like our sun could die such a violent death, then imagine what happens to stars much bigger than our sun.

What happens when a massive star undergoes a supernova ?

Where did we come from ? Are we really stardust ?

2012-11-23T23:13:00.001+05:30

We are in 21st century, with such technological advancements that we can go back in time to the point of creation, when everything started. We are able to understand how everything works around us. Although we can't prevent natural disasters, we can predict them and take necessary precautions. Today we have built skyscrapers to live like kings, we live in luxury houses with technology all around us to make our life simple and easy. We have built cars, ships, underwater-ships and air-planes to satisfy our needs, use wireless cell phones to stay connected with others whenever we want & above all the internet to know about anything anytime. Even we have invaded the space with highly advanced spacecrafts.

But a good designer always know that to transform a good design into a better reality, you need the best building block. Afters thousands of years of evolution man has finally been able to understood the secrets behind the magic material and was able to use it efficiently. Just look around you and you will find it almost everywhere, one of the basic building block of 21st century, steel. Steel is a primary mixture of iron and carbon (carbon content 0.2% and 2.1% by weight depending on the grade) but, the desired physical and mechanical properties of steel can be achieved by adding various metals like Silicon, titanium, vanadium, molybdenum, chromium, manganese etc. That's why steel is suitable for various applications like, building a small needle to a massive and complected mega machines but, it's not the only reason steel is so popular. It is popular because it's an iron alloy and iron is one of the most abundant element of planet Earth. It forms much of earth's outer and inner core.

But ever wondered where does the iron comes from?

Yeah i know it sounds like a stupid question because we have studied that iron is present below the surface of earth in form of ores. So we just have to dig it up and refine it from the impurities like oxides, chlorides, carbonates, rocks and lots of other stuffs.

But the real question is how iron is formed ? What kind of conditions under the surface is responsible for formation of iron ? Yeah time to think.....

If you already know the answer then it's good and you can still continue reading.
And if you don't know what it is, then i guess you have got no choice but, to continue.

Well iron is not created inside earth.

nuclear fusion in our sun

Iron comes from stars.

Stars are massive nuclear fusion (nuclear fusion is a nuclear reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei join together, or "fuse", to form a single heavier nucleus ) reactors that runs for billions of years without stopping. Our sun also has a nuclear reactor in it's core. In the fusion reactor of our sun hydrogen(H) atoms constantly fuses to form Helium(He) atoms, releasing energy.

so again the question rises that does the iron comes from sun.

Answer is no. Our sun is too small to produce iron in its core. When Hydrogen runs out for a star it starts to fuse Helium atoms into Carbon(C), again when it runs out of Helium it fuses Carbon to form Oxygen(O). When our sun will make carbon then it will begin to die.
It will never produce enough energy to fuse carbon atoms to oxygen.

So where does iron comes from?

Iron is formed inside giant stars which undergo a supernovae. The minimum size of a star should be at least 8 times the mass of sun to go Supernova. In this kind of star nuclear fusion goes even further, Carbon and Oxygen start to fuse together to form Iron(Fe) and when stars form iron they die because iron is the most poisonous stuff to stars.

The star tries to fuse iron atoms together in order to continue the fusion process but, Iron has a very stable nucleus. It drains almost all the fusion energy of a star so with insufficient energy there is no nuclear fusion and without the force of fusion acting against gravity, the extreme gravity crushes the star and it's core to itself. As it gets smaller and denser, it builds up more and more energy. The gravity is so intense even the atoms gets crushed together. After a critical point when, not even the gravity is able to contain such immense energy, the concentrated energy breaks free and the star explodes from inside out. From the moment Iron is formed to the explosion of the star, all these events happens in a millionth of a second.

When the star explodes, the blast rips through the outer layer of the star and in this process makes all the heavier particles like cobalt, Nickel, Gold, Platinum....to Uranium. The explosion spreads all these elements throughout the space. That is how our planet and our solar system are built, out of the last remains of a supernova that may have exploded a long time ago.

That is how we are all built up and everything around us. Literally all the elements we see around us and within us came from supernovae that blasted years ago. That means the supernovae gave us life and without them nothing will be possible.

So we are the creation or children of stars.

Regenerative Medicine - Science Fiction Or Fact !

2012-11-21T22:32:00.002+05:30

Regenerative medicine is the process of replacing or regenerating human cells, tissues or organs to restore or establish structures and functions absent or lost due to congenital defects, ageing, disease or damage. Due to advancement in medical science, it is possible to understand the human genome (a full set of chromosomes, all the inheritable traits of an organism.), thus using body's own mechanisms to heal itself.

The obvious question arises here that how to do that. This is all possible due to the stem cells. Stems cells have the ability to divide and create an identical copy of themselves. This process can continue if necessary till the formation of fully functioning tissue types such as liver, lungs or skin. This replicating nature is called self-renewal.

The FDA (U S Food and Drug Administration) defines cell therapy as, “The prevention, treatment, cure or mitigation of disease or injuries in humans by the administration of autologous, allogeneic or xenogeneic cells that have been manipulated or altered ex vivo.” taken from Pall Corporation .

The goal of cell therapy, overlapping with that of regenerative medicine, is to repair, replace or restore damaged tissues or organs.

Cell therapy may take the form of a stem cell transplant such as a hematopoietic cell transplant that is used to restore the blood and immune system of patients with leukemia, lymphoma or other blood disorders.

But the term stem self itself represents the basic three types of cells

1. The Totipotent stem cells

2. The Adult stem cells

3. The Pluripotent Stem cells

The Totipotent stem cells are known as the “master” cells of the body because they have the capacity to differentiate into the 216 specialized cell types that comprise the human body plus the placenta. A fertilized egg is an example of a totipotent cell.

The Adult stem cells are thought to exist in most of the body’s tissues such as the blood, brain, liver, intestine or skin. These cells are committed to becoming cells from their tissue of origin, but they still have the broad ability to become any one of these cells.

Like stem cells of the bone marrow, for example, can give rise to any of the red or white cells of the blood system. Stem cells in the brain can form all the neurons and support cells of the brain, but can’t form non-brain tissues.

The Pluripotent stem cells are either embryonic or induced Pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Embryonic stem cells exist only at the earliest stages of embryonic development and go on to form all the cells of the adult body. In humans, these cells no longer exist after about five days after conception. Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent, meaning they have the ability to differentiate into any of the 200 plus cell types required by the body except the fetus.

The induced Pluripotent stem (iPS) cell is taken from any tissue from a child or adult that has been genetically modified to behave like an embryonic stem cell. As the name implies, these cells are pluripotent, which means that they have the ability to form all adult cell types.

The sole aim of Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine is to apply the principles of regenerative medicine to repair or replace diseased tissues and organs.

Dr.Anthony Atala, is director of the Institute and his team have been able to produce the first lab-grown organs, a bladder, the artificial urinary bladder to be implanted into a human.

They have also been able to harvest stem cells from the amniotic fluid of pregnant women. These stems cells are pluripotent, meaning they can be manipulated to differentiate into various types of mature cells that make up nerve, muscle, bone, and other tissues while avoiding the problems of tumor formation.

But the possible applications of Regenerative Medicine are unlimited. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicines developing new stem cell-based therapies for chronic, debilitating diseases. Diseases like

Alzheimer's disease
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease)
Arterial disease of the limbs
Autism
Cancer: Glioma
Cancer: Leukemia
Cancer: Melanoma
Cancer: Solid tumor
Deafness
Diabetes
Epidermolysis bullosa
Heart disease
HIV/AIDS
Huntington's disease
Macular degeneration
Multiple sclerosis
Osteoporosis
Parkinson's disease
Severe Combined Immune Deficiency (SCID or "bubble boy disease")
Sickle cell disease
Spinal cord injury
Stroke
Thalassemia ect.

Regenerative Medical Services Pvt. Ltd. is a leading Biotechnology in India company focusing in enhancing the quality of life using advanced cartilage and bone cell treatment.

RMS Regrow has undertaken over 350 successful bone and cartilage implants, and over 4,000 cord blood samples have been stored. Our company is currently focusing its expertise in stem cell-based therapies such as autologous cartilage regeneration therapy, autologous bone regeneration therapy (ABI-Ossron), umbilical cord blood banking (babycell) and theraform skin reconstruction says Dr Satyen Sanghavi, CSO, Regenerative Medical Services (RMS Regrow).

Some of the other institutes are
Regenerative Medicine Institute(REMEDI)
Nichi-In Center for Regenerative Medecine

There are a number of organisations like these that are currently focusing on how to make this technology more and more effective.

Nobody knows what secrets the future holds for us.

BMW - GINA

2012-11-20T16:11:00.002+05:30

BMW has taken the concept of mobility to a whole new level where they have challenged various aspects of a car starting from it's conventional design patterns to it's manufacturing needs and processes. The outcome was a revolutionary new concept 'GINA'. The GINA principle lies within a new idea that is "Geometry and Functions In “N” Adaptions". The goal of this concept is to break free from the so called wisdom of making a car and to design the shape and functionality of a car in 'N' ways or infinite different ways.

The GINA has an almost seamless outer skin, a flexible textile cover that stretches across a movable substructure. This material is highly durable, extremely expansion-resistant, water-repellent and resistant to high and low temperatures and that's why it is suitable for this application.

Another essential material property is a maximum level of dimensional stability. It must remain dimensionally stable irrespective of the temperature and air humidity it is exposed to even after severe and constant expansion.

In the interior, the car’s variability is also adapted to suit the driver’s needs. This creates a close interaction between driver and car in various different situations.

As in when the car is parked, the steering wheel, the round instruments panel, speedometer and fuel gauge which are vertically arranged on the center console, are in idle position. This provides the driver with maximum comfort upon entering the car. When the driven enters the car, the seat only assumes its optimized functional position and shape, the headrest rises automatically with the steering wheel and instrument panel moves towards the diver.

The design of the rear element allows for automatic lifting of the rear spoiler when a certain speed is reached, thus creating extra down force on the rear axle at higher speeds which is really essential for a light vehicle like GINA.

But the most amazing feature that makes GINA truly different from others is that you can talk to her. You can tell GINA to do certain things and she responds.

Video Rights Reserved to Discovery Channel

Although now GINA is not exactly a production line car and it a has an internal combustion engine but, in future GINA could be the perfect car.

For more info visit - http://www.bmwusa.com/Standard/Content/AllBMWs/ConceptVehicles/GINA/Default.aspx

How about a resort in space - Sounds exciting !

2012-11-17T21:33:00.000+05:30

Space pioneer Sir Richard Branson and his company Virgin Galactic is planning to establish a space resort for tourists where you can buy a stay of of your dreams.

Sir Richard Branson

Xavier Claramunt

The galactic resort will be much smaller than regular resorts or hotels present in our planet but, it's an entirely different experience when you are literally floating around at 300 miles above the surface of earth. The Galactic Suite Project, run by directors Xavier Claramunt, who is also the designer of the resort and Marsal Gifra, aims to offer travelers the “most thrilling and adventurous experience ever”. Guests will be able to experience a new world of sensations including weightlessness, star gazing, amazing views of planet Earth, with not to mention being aboard a spaceship that takes you from 0 to 28,000 km h in 10 minutes.

The Space Resort

The main hub of the resort will serve as the docking platform to the spaceship and four arms of the resort are four private suits with a giant window each. This window can get you a mesmerizing and absolutely beautiful view of earth. The amazing fact is that you will circle around the globe in every 80 minutes catching 15 Sunrises and Sunsets each day. If you are tired of floating around then you can stick to the walls of the room with a specially designed Velcro suit.

Well the excitement doesn't just end here because The hotel also offers you a memorable day trip to the moon in pre-programmed 2 seated space crafts. These crafts will take you as close as may be a 100 ft above the surface of the moon and bring you back to the resort at night. Now that sounds exciting.

But going to space is not similar as going for a under water dive, it requires certain knowledge and physical condition. So you have to undergo a training process. It’s not just the stay in space that is exciting about this whole space adventure, Unlike those in the NASA program who face training in special locations in the US, travelers to Galactic Suite will undergo their astronautic preparation at a luxury hotel on a tropical island in the Caribbean.

The project was due for completion toeards the end of 2012 but, it's been delayed An adventure like this won't be cheap. Claramunt calculates a three-day stay at the galactic suit is estimated at around €3 million (US$4 million). Claramunt and Gifra believe the trip is a bargain considering “this is the first package deal, as it includes transport from the tourist’s home to the Caribbean island, the training required for journeys into orbit, the flight to the hotel and three nights accommodation in the Galactic Suite”. The prices will come down quickly soon as more people starts to join the program and more space resorts are built gradually.

But Virgin Galactic is not the only company who had dreamed of project.

Private Russian company, Orbital Technologies, has now announced plans to build, launch and operate what could be the world’s first commercial space station (CSS). It envisions the station will be used by professional crews and corporate researchers to conduct scientific experiments, as well as private citizens looking for an out of this world holiday destination. To be built by Russian spacecraft manufacturer RSC Energia, the CSS would be man-tended, with a crew capability of up to seven people, with the capability to expand the crew size over time and plans to launch the first module of the CSS in 2015-2016.

CSS

The company Bigelow Aerospace has launched two prototypes of its inflatable space habitat is ready to launch a full scaled version that can be manned as soon as there is commercial space transport available, which is currently expected to happen by the 2015-2016 time frame.

BA 330

Now let's see who is the 1st one to transform this concept into reality.

“Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future” by Charles F. Kettering.

Orgasm at the push of a button !

2012-11-16T21:23:00.001+05:30

Dr. T. Stuart Meloy , M.D. is Medical Director of Advanced Interventional Pain Management (AIPM). In simple terms, he deals with pain management. He was in the operating room one day, implanting electrodes into a patient's spinal cord to treat her chronic leg pain. The electrodes are connected to a generator that sends impulses to the brain to block pain signals. But when he turned on the power, "the patient suddenly let out something between a shriek and moan and she was hyperventilating " says Dr. Meloy himself.

Then he asked what was wrong, she replied, "You'll have to teach my husband how to do that."

And that's how the Orgasmatron was born. The name of the machine was taken from Woody Allen's 1973 movie Sleeper.

Dr. Stuart Meloy

The Orgasmatron is made of 3 parts

1.Electrodes

2.A generator

3.Programmable remote controller

The electrodes interacts with various nerve networks of pelvis that passes through the spinal cord and stimulating those nerves takes an electrical pleasure signals straight to the brain which is processed there.The generator has to be inserted just beneath the skin which connects the electrodes. The generator communicates with a wireless remote that controls the intensity of the orgasm. So when you push the button viola, 100% real orgasm.

Dr. Meloy ran a formal pilot study of his modified version of the device, implanting it in the spines of 11 women, who kept the implant for nine days. Meloy's study, published in 2006 in the journal Neuromodulation, reported that 10 out of 11 of the patients felt pleasurable stimulation from the device, including increased vaginal lubrication. Five of the women had previously lost their ability to have orgasms; four regained it with the device, and the fifth reported never used the device due to work stress. Dr. Maloy claims it could be a solution for ''female orgasm dysfunction'' and it can make your relationship stronger.

However the devices are still not on the general market because electrode placement is still by trial and error to hit the right places and some other medical reasons.

Today the Orgasmatron is surgically implanted but, the time will soon come when you won't be needing all the wires they are using now and the functions can be synchronized into your cell phone then things will be as easy as making a phone call.