I think all aspiring and professional writers out there will agree when I say that ‘We are never delighted with our work. We always feel that we can do better and that our best piece is yet to be written. For the love of Physics, I always question myself what's so interesting in it? How can I Relate it to Basics? How to Explain it to Common Man? Every question creates some space in my mind and suddenly pen jumps in my hand and starts to Fire Words. It's not like I'm a good writer but trying to be which needs some Research, Exploring & Curious Mind, and yes more importantly an Interest.
From my side, I have tried my level best. Hope you will enjoy the readings and could find some Interesting kinds of Stuff.
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"Incredible Nature - Bioluminescence"
Nature Has Provided A Radical Gift To Night-Time Beaches In The Form Of Bioluminescent Waves That Crash And Froth With An Otherworldly Light.
What Is Bioluminescence?
"Bioluminescence Is The Production Of Light By Means Of A Chemical Reaction Within A Living Organism." Most Bioluminescent Organisms Are Found In The Ocean It Includes Fish, Bacteria, And Jellies. You May Come Across Some Bioluminescent Organisms Like Fireflies (Jugnoo) And Fungi. "There Are Almost No Bioluminescent Organisms Native To Freshwater Habitats." It Means You Can't Take Beauty To Home. Bioluminescence Is A "Cold Light." Cold Light Means Less Than 20% Of The Light Generates "Thermal Radiation Or Heat."
"Arousing Curiosity - Chemistry"
Bioluminescence Involves Chemical Reaction Which Requires Two Unique Chemicals:
1. Luciferin And Either
2. Luciferase Or Photoprotein.
"Luciferin Is Mainly Responsible For Production Of Light." The Arrangement Of Luciferin Molecules Produces Different Bioluminescent Colour {Yellow In Fireflies (Jugnoo), Greenish In Lanternfish}. Bioluminescent Dinoflagellate Causes The Ocean To Sparkle At Night. Some Organisms are Not Able To Produce Luciferin Instead They Absorbs It From Other Organisms Either As A Food Or Symbiotic Relationship.
"Luciferase Is An Enzyme." It Is A Catalyst Chemical That Interacts With A Luciferin To Affect The Rate Of A Chemical Reaction. This Chemical Reaction Of The Luciferase With Oxidized (Oxygen-Added) Luciferin Oxyluciferin And Yes More Importantly Light. Bioluminescent Dinoflagellates Produce Light Due To A Luciferin-Luciferase Reaction. The Luciferase Found In Dinoflagellates Is Related To The Green Chemical Chlorophyll Found In Plants And It Is Very Rare. In India, We Can See Bioluminescence At Beaches Such As South Goa's Betalbatim Beach Lakshadweep's Kavaratti Island, and Maldive's Beach.
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"Uranium - An Ocean of Energy"
On August 6, 1945, A 10-Foot-Long (3 Meters) Bomb Fell From The Sky Over The Japanese City Of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Less Than A Minute Later, Everything Within A Mile Of The Bomb's Detonation Was Obliterated. A Massive Firestorm Rapidly Destroyed Miles More, Killing Tens Of Thousands Of People. The Blast That Destroyed Hiroshima Had The Power Of An Estimated 15 Kilotons Of TNT, All Created With Less Than A Kilogram (2.2 Pounds) Of Uranium Undergoing Fission.
Martin Heinrich Klaproth, a German Chemist, Discovered Uranium in 1789, Although It Had Been Known About Since At Least A.D. 79, When Uranium Oxide Was Being Used As a Colouring Agent For Ceramic Glazes And In Glass.
Stone Contains Uranium (U=92) It Is Silvery White Metal in the Actinide Series of the Periodic Table; It Has 92 Protons and 92 Electrons Of Which 6 Are Valence Electrons. Uranium Is "Weakly Radioactive" Because All Isotopes Of Uranium Are "Unstable" With Half Lives Varying Between 159,200 Years And 4.5 Billion Years. The Most Common Isotopes In Natural Uranium Are U-238 And U-235. Uranium-235 Is The Only Naturally Occurring Isotope Capable Of Sustaining A Nuclear Fission Reaction. Its Nucleus Is Unstable, So The Element Is In A Constant State Of Decay, Seeking A More Stable Arrangement. In Fact, Uranium Was The Element That Made The Discovery Of Radioactivity Possible. In Comparison, The Most Radioactive Element Is Polonium. It Has A Half-Life Of A Mere 138 Days. The Half-Life Of Uranium-238 Is 4.5 Billion Years. It Decays Into Radium-226, Which In Turn Decays Into Radon-222. Radon-222 Becomes Polonium-210, Which Finally Decays Into A Stable Nuclide, Lead.
Marie Curie, Who Worked With Uranium to Discover Several Even More Radioactive Elements (Polonium And Radium), Likely Succumbed to the Radiation Exposure Involved in Her Work. She Died In 1934 Of Aplastic Anemia, A Red Blood Cell Deficiency Probably Caused By Radiation Damage To Her Bone Marrow.
How Much Energy It Can Produce? You Can Relate Things to their Energy.
• 1 Kg Of "Coal" Can Produce 8 Kwh Of Heat.
• 1 Kg Of "Mineral Oil" Can Produce 12 Kwh, And
• 1 Kg Of "Uranium-235" Can Produce 24,000,000 Kwh.
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"Radiation at Your Step"
What Is Radiation?
Powerful and Very Dangerous Rays Are Sent Out From Certain Substances. You Cannot See or Feel Radiation But It Can Cause Serious Illness or Death. The Amount Of Radiation Your Body Gets Is Measured In An International Unit Called A Sievert (Sv). Symptoms Of Radiation Sickness Show Up When You're Exposed To Levels Of More Than 500 Millisieverts (Msv), Or Half A Sievert.
More Than 4 Sv To 5 Sv Is Likely To Be Fatal You Can Relate Things To the Popularly Known Incident At “Chernobyl” Where Those Workers Received Radiation Doses Of 700 Msv To 13 Sv.
From X-Rays, We Get exposed To 3 msv To 10 msv, and People Who Work in Nuclear Power Plants and Industries Are Not Allowed to Expose to More Than 50 msv A Year. Natural Radiation Is Everywhere in Air, Water, and Material Like Granite. From These Typically We are Exposed To 3msv.
Let’s See Some Facts…!
Are Bananas Radioactive?
Yes, They Are...!
It Contains Potassium – K – 40 Radio Isotopes Which Continuously Emits Radiation. Theoretically, If We See Human Bodies Are Too Radioactive (Very Less). Your Entire Body Is Made of Lots of Cells, Which Are Made of Lots of Organic Molecules, The Framework of Each Of Which Is Made of A Lot Of Carbon. A Carbon Atom (Generally Speaking) Is Found To Possess Either 12 Particles In Its Nucleus, Or 14. Atoms With 12 Particles In The Nucleus (Called C-12) Are Normal And Much More Abundant. Those With 14 (Called C-14) Are Radioactive And Much Less Common, But Present In Some Small Concentration In Any Natural Carbon Sample, Including Your Own Body.
Now, In Relevance to the Question, Bananas Have Potassium Atoms of Three Kinds: K-39, K40, and K-41; 39 And 41 Are Not Radioactive. K-40 Atoms Are Those You Are Interested In. 100 Grams Of Banana Have 0.328 Grams Of Potassium, Of Which 0.012 percent Is K-40. Which is to Say 100 Grams of Banana Gives You 0.00003936 Grams of K-40.
Seems Very Small?
It Is. But Wait, Now, The 0.00003936 Grams Of K-40 That You Did Get Has A Half-Life Of 1.25 Billion Years, Compared To The 5,715-Year Half-Life Of The C-14 Inside You. So You Are Much, Much More Radioactive Than 100 Grams Of Bananas.
Keep Buying Bananas!
Not Only Bananas But There Are Some Other 'Radioactive' Potassium-Rich Foods which Include Spinach, White Beans, Apricots, Salmon, Avocados, Mushrooms, And Yogurt.
#Radiate_Happiness
Radiating Banana
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"Why Magnets are Magnetic?"
Why Magnets are Magnetic?
Magnetic Objects can magnetically attract at a long distance because
they generate magnetic fields that extend invisibly out beyond the objects.
But the mystery is this: Where do magnetic fields come from?
Well, many people are known for a long time that electricity and
magnetism are just two sides of the same coin, kind of like mass and energy or
time and space, and they can be transformed into one another. Magnetic fields are basically just what electric fields turn into when electrically charged objects
start moving!
This means sense for explaining why a current of electrons flowing
through a wire causes a magnetic field or how currents in the earth’s outer
core generate the geomagnetic field…
But the bar magnet or the compass needle itself is just a piece of
metal without any current running through them.
But where does it comes from?
Well, at the microscopic level, there are loads of electrons whizzing around in the atoms and molecules that make up any solids. And the magnetic behavior of any everyday object is influenced by a fascinating combination of effects ranging from the level of particles to atoms, collections of atoms and collections of collections of atoms.
1. Individual Particles:
The particles like electrons and quarks have fundamental properties
called mass and electrical charge, and most particles also have another
Intrinsic property called Intrinsic Moment.
But really this is just a technical mumble jumble, so in simple language,
this intrinsic moment is nothing but Bohr Magneton which is also called Tiny Magnets.
If a question arises
in your mind like Why there are Tiny Magnets?
Well, this
question is similar to why objects with energy and momentum attract each other
gravitationally?
In 1922, From the experiment of Stern-Gerlach, we only know that each individual electron and proton is basically a tiny magnet.
2. Atoms
An atom is a bunch of positively charged protons with a bunch of
negatively charged electrons whizzing around them. The proton tiny magnets are
about 1000 times weaker than the electron ones. These electrons are also moving
around the nucleus which gives rise to Orbital Magnetic fields and spinning
itself.
The electrons in a filled shell zoom equally in all directions and so
the currents they generate cancel out which results in no magnetic field. These
electrons also come in pairs whose tiny magnets point in opposite directions
and cancel. However, in Half filled shells, all the electrons are unpaired
and their tiny magnets point in the same direction and add up, meaning that
it’s the intrinsic magnetism of the electrons in the outer shell that gives an
atom majority of its magnetic field.
So, the atoms in the periodic table with full or nearly full outer
electron shells are not magnetic. And the atoms with half-filled and unpaired
electrons are magnetic.
E.g., Nickel, Cobalt, Iron, Manganese, etc
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"Will Quantum Teleportation be possible in the future?"
Is it possible to teleport?
Is a baseball capable of carrying radio waves across buildings, bouncing
around a corner, and then transforming back into a baseball?
Quantum mechanics, surprisingly, reveals that the answer might be yes.
Almost. The point is that, although baseball could not be aired live,
all information about it could. In quantum physics, atoms and electrons are
regarded as a set of distinct qualities such as position, velocity, and
intrinsic spin. The particle's configuration is determined by this feature.
Giving it a quantum state's identity.
Two electrons have identical quantum states. The aggregate quantum states
formed by our baseball's countless atoms describe it in a literal sense. If
this quantum state information could be read in Boston and across the world,
atoms for the same chemical elements might be imprinted with it in Bangalore
and instructed to assemble in the same way, resulting in the same baseball.
There is, however, one shortcoming. Quantum states are a bit harder to measure.
The uncertainty principle asserts that a particle's position and momentum
cannot be measured at the same time in quantum physics. The easiest means of
determining an electron's specific position is to scatter a photon off it.
However, as a consequence of the scattering, the electron's momentum is
unpredictable. All previous understanding of momentum had vanished.
Quantum information is sensitive in several ways. When data is measured, it
is changed. So, how can we transfer something we aren't authorized to read in
its entirety without damaging it? Quantum entanglement, a strange phenomenon,
contains the key to the answer. Entanglement is a long-standing and unsolved problem
in quantum physics. When the spins of two electrons get entangled, they have a
far-reaching influence. Whether the particles are a mile apart or a light-year
apart, the spin of the first electron determines the spin of the second.
Without having to travel across space, information about the first electron's
quantum state, known as a qubit of data, impacts its partner somehow. Einstein and his team used the phrase "spooky activity at a
distance" to describe this odd communication. While it seems that the
instantaneous transmission of a qubit over space is aided by entanglement
between two particles, there is a catch. The starting point for these
interactions must be local interactions. The two electrons must get entangled
before one of them may migrate to a new position.
In and of itself, quantum entanglement is not the same as teleportation. To
complete the teleportation successfully. We'll need a digital message to
interpret the qubit on the receiving end. The original particle generated two
bits of data when it was measured. These digital bits must be sent through a
conventional channel that is limited by the speed of light, such as radio,
microwave, or fiber optics. We lose quantum information when we measure a
particle for this digital message, therefore the baseball must leave Boston to
teleport to Bangalore. Teleportation just sends knowledge about baseball
between the two places, never duplicating it, according to the uncertainty
principle. So, although we may hypothetically be able to teleport items to
people, it is unlikely that we will be able to monitor the quantum states of
trillions of atoms in large objects and replicate them elsewhere. This is a
challenging task that takes a tremendous lot of energy.
For the time being, we can transfer single electrons and atoms, which might
lead to incredibly secure data encryption in future quantum computers. The
philosophical ramifications of quantum teleportation are subtle: a reported
item, unlike physical objects or intangible information, does not transfer or
communicate through space.
 |
| Quantum Teleportation |
Gravity is the force that holds the universe together. Like the galaxy in which we live, it seems to be eternal and unchanging. In any case, our current understanding of gravity paints a or maybe distinctive story. Gravity can bend and twist the shape of space itself. And, if that’s true, then it’s very interesting to ask how quickly those distortions can move. In a lame form, the question is “How Fast is Gravity?”
Let’s look into it.
The speed of gravity is a question that has puzzled scientists for centuries. The first sophisticated theory of gravity was developed by Sir Isaac Newton and was first published way back in 1687.
According
to Newton, gravity was transmitted everywhere across the universe at infinite speed.
However, Newton’s theory of gravity isn’t the newest and most successful theory of gravity.
In
1915, Albert Einstein published his theory of general relativity, which
interprets gravity as the distortion of both space and time.
In
his theory, these distortions could change the shape of things like stars and
planets and, of course, space itself. These changing distortions would
then move through the cosmos by means of a phenomenon called “gravitational
radiation.”
He postulated that the speed of gravitational waves was identical to the speed of light. Thus, Einstein would say that the speed of light and the speed of gravity are the same.
So, who’s right?
Einstein
and Newton are both strong contenders in any contest for the title of the most
influential physicist of all time.
I mean, I would pay good money to watch those two guys debate, but when you get right down to it, it doesn’t much matter what either of them thinks.
Physics
is an empirical science and answering the question requires a measurement. So
how would you measure the speed of gravity?
Well,
first and foremost, you need to be able to detect gravitational waves and
that’s hard. Gravitational waves distort the size of objects. For
instance, if gravitational waves passed over you, they would change your height
and width.
Your
height would shrink and width increase, and then the opposite, with height
increasing and width, shrinking. And that cycle would happen a few times as
the gravitational wave passed over you.
That’s the basic idea.
But
do they exist?
Einstein
predicted they existed way back in 1916, but it took basically a century for scientists
to both devise a credible methodology and then develop the technology to do
it. While gravitational waves are made when any massive object moves, most
waves are ridiculously tiny.
The
only known way to get big gravitational waves is to rapidly move objects with
both tiny volumes and the mass of stars in an oscillating way.
That
sounds crazy hard.
However,
nature is way ahead of us. The universe is full of stars and many star systems
consist of not one star like our solar system, but rather two. And, of course,
some of these star systems were formed early in the universe, long before our
own star formed some four and a half billion years ago. So, these super old
stars have lived and died and some of them are now black holes, which are just
long-dead massive stars. And in binary star systems, there could be two
black holes orbiting one another.
The lightest black holes have a mass of three times the sun – some are much heavier. The smallest known black holes are pretty small…about six miles or ten kilometers in diameter. Those are just ballpark numbers. Because they’re heavy and small, two black holes can get very close to one another and when they orbit, they move at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light and undergo extreme acceleration, and therefore they emit appreciable amounts of gravitational radiation.
On
the other hand, black holes are very far away from Earth. Even if they emit a
lot of gravitational radiation, when that radiation gets to Earth, it only makes
tiny distortions of lengths and widths. That means that you need a crazy
precise detector. So, back in the 1990s, researchers began building what is
called the LIGO facilities.
LIGO
is short for Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory.
Each facility consists of two hollow tubes; each tube is 4 kilometers or 2.5 miles long. The two tubes are oriented in the shape of an “L.” A laser is shined down the tube to a mirror and reflected back to a detector. Using some very precise optics and multiple reflections, the LIGO facility can measure changes in the length of the legs as small as one-one-thousandth the length of a proton.
It’s just amazing.
I
should say that there are actually two LIGO facilities in the US, one in
Louisiana and one in Washington State, as well as similar facilities in Europe
and Japan. Now Indian Scientists are too working to develop LIGO
facilities in India specifically in Hingoli, Maharashtra. The observatory will cost 12.6 billion rupees (US$177 million) and is scheduled for
completion in 2024. The multiple sites make it possible for scientists to
determine where in the sky gravitational waves are coming from. So, it took a
long time to get going, but in 2015, researchers made their first observation
of
gravitational waves, which were made when two rapidly orbiting black holes
crashed into one another about 1.3 billion light years away. It literally
happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away. So, being able to detect
gravitational radiation is super important, but it doesn’t tell us how fast
gravity actually moves. I mean, you do get some information from when the
gravitational waves pass over the various detectors arrayed across the
Earth. For instance, the distance between the two American LIGO detectors
is 3,000 kilometers or about 1,900 miles. If gravitational waves wash over
the Earth,
they’ll
hit one detector first, then the other. You can use the time difference to
get a handle on the speed of gravity, but the time difference also depends on
the orientation of the Earth when the gravitational waves arrive, so it’s not
so precise.
To
get a precise measurement of the speed of gravity, ideally, you’d like to know
exactly when the black holes collided, but since colliding black holes are
invisible, that’s hard to do.
However,
again, nature has helped us. While colliding black holes can make gravitational
waves, it’s not the only way. Remember what we need is objects with the mass
of stars close to one another. Black holes are perfect, but when stars die, not
all of them make black holes. Some of them make neutron stars. Neutron
stars are less massive than black holes and slightly larger, but they still will
do the trick. If two neutron stars could orbit one another in a very tight
orbit and then crash together, that would be great. The collision would
both make gravitational waves and a very bright flash that we could see using
telescopes. And, in the fall of 2017, we got lucky. The Earth’s
gravitational wave detectors detected the passage of a gravitational
wave. And, about 2 seconds later, orbiting telescopes detected a brief
pulse of gamma radiation coming from deep space.
After
some analysis, both the gravitational wave detectors and telescopes agreed that
the source was in the same location in the sky, which was eventually nailed
down to being an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Hydra called NGC 4993. NGC
4993 is located about 144 million light-years from Earth. Given that we
know the speed of light, that means that the collision occurred 144 million years
ago. Furthermore, gravitational radiation and gamma radiation were emitted
almost exactly at the same time. From this event in which light and
gravitational waves were simultaneously created, we can get a very precise
handle on the speed of gravity.
They both traveled for 144 million years– that’s 4.5 times ten to fifteen seconds – and the two pulses arrived within 2 seconds of one another. And, from this, we can say with extremely small uncertainties that gravity moves at the speed of light. The difference is – ballpark – less than one part in a quadrillion. Now, you might be wondering why light arrived about two seconds after gravity, but the answer is probably simple. Gravitational radiation is emitted all the time, but it’s the biggest when massive objects are moving very fast. That occurs just before the neutron stars collide. Then the collision occurs, and light is emitted. Qualitatively at least, that tiny delay is expected.
So, there you have it.
Using what is called multi-messenger astronomy, which is when researchers combine information from different kinds of detectors, we now have a very precise measurement of the speed of gravity. Einstein’s conjecture back at the beginning of the 20th century was true. Okay- although the fact that the speed of gravity is the same as the speed of light was something that made a lot of theoretical sense, I am personally much happier when you can make a direct measurement.
If
you enjoy learning about all of this cool physics stuff, please visit my blog https://mayurphysics.blogspot.com that’s something everyone should know Physics is Everything.
