Amazing discoveries in Science!

1.  Electricity and Magnetism are one and the same thing.

 

This was clear from Faraday and Oersted's experiments but was theoretically unified completely by Maxwell's great equations. Now it underlies all of modern electricity generation and hence, modern economy. Still thinking about it, it is amazing. What has Magnetism of Compass, magnets have to do with electric current, light bulbs and so on. This is one of the results which separates a learned man from an illiterate to me.

2. Light is an electromagnetic wave.

Nowadays this looks like a normal thing everyone knows. Still think about it. What has light from sun, moon and candle have to do with electricity or magnetism. 

This was the result which made me realize the beauty of science!

This is science at its most beautiful and pure, elevates one spiritually on to a different plane and no religion or other superstitious nonsense can event match remotely. 

This is again from Great Maxwell who purely by theoretical work and completing his equations purely in terms of mathematical elegance came up with this discovery.

3. E=Mc^2

When I first saw this equation [in high school] I thought it must be a printing mistake as what does light has to do with mass or energy?

When I understood special relativity and implications behind this it was truly amazing. To truly appreciate the beauty of this one should read Einstein's original paper which is very readable even for a non physicist. To start from 2 simple assumptions and to derive something this powerful, well I guess that is genius!

This also has the non-intuitive implication that there is no absolute notion of time or simultaneity which is amazing in its own right!

4. Evolution and natural selection

This shook me to the core when I first learned Darwin's theory in my higher secondary school. This meant we are not "special" and just one among so many animals. When I saw the proof it was hard to deny it with so many things pointing in its way - DNA, common proteins, blood, bones and embryology among so many others. You really have to be an idiot to reject it after being shown the evidence.

But it is one of the foundational results in all of science.

5. Gravity

It is unfair not to include Newton in this list as he pretty much started all of modern physics and quite a bit of mathematics including calculus. His many discoveries are important in so many ways. 

That said the discovery that moon is bound by the same force which breaks one's bones when falling from tree is truly amazing and enlightening!

How to know if you are educated

How to know if you are educated - that is well-educated. It simply doesn't mean you have a degree in something.

1. You know earth is round. 

It is so simple and obvious, but I don't think many people feel it in their bones. For example, How would you tell a kid that earth is round?

I was taught the example of approaching ship. When it approaches we would see its  bottom part first instead of mast. As I hadn't seen a ship approaching, I had no way of knowing whether it is true. I  could simply accept either statement as true!

One illustration I can think of is you can fly to USA from India in two different directions say through Tokyo or through London. It will be possible only if earth is around.

Another is when it is day in say India it is night in USA. It can't happen if earth is flat. All the earth will get sunlight at same time.

Another is all the satellites rotate the earth and in particular some as geo-synchronous. This makes sense only if earth is round and rotating in its axis.

2. You know earth orbits sun and not the other way around.

It is very hard to get an intuitive feel of this. Particularly because earth hardly seems to be moving [except when there are earthquakes!]. Here you need a good education to help you.

Many people would think that seasons occur because of earth's orbit. No - it is actually because of earth's tilt of 23 degrees. In fact most of the northern hemisphere is farthest from sun in summer.

One way to see this is [if we assume earth is moving] if we were not rotating we will fly away [or towards] from sun and it should get colder over years. So only option left is to orbit. Of course we could be standing still. Why that is not an option with sun around is our point 3)

3. You know Newton's theory of Gravity.

That every thing attracts every thing else [not just girls attract boys or vice versa]. It is the reason we feel pressure on us when sit or stand. That's the reason it hurts when we fall. In fact it is the reason we fall at all.
If earth were to stand still sun would simply attract it and earth would have collided with sun.
Once we understand gravity it is the easiest of all to grasp as we feel it all the time.

4. You know Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.

You understand all species once shared a common ancestor and evolved into different species due to natural selection.
This one is hard to swallow because it hurts our pride. We have to come to the realization that we are only special to the extend every other species are special as far as earth is concerned.
But all that shared DNA code, chimpanzee and kangaroo loudly proclaims its truth. We are not well-educated we don't understand evolution.

5. Common courtesy

If we don't have basic respect for people then all our education hasn't really done anything for us after all. It simply didn't have the intended effect - to make us civilized.

My reasons for evolution being true

My reasons for evolution being true or should I say for evolution being obvious, at least in hind sight?  In particular, why human beings are just another animal species although with some remarkable abilities, in particular in brain.

1.  Chimpanzee

When we see a Chimpanzee It looks remarkably similar to us. If we are special why do these guys look very similar to us? Just to fool us in to thinking that we are their cousins? In fact, to me these guys are the 'missing' link! Only an idiot can miss the link...

2. DNA

Why do we have the same DNA made up of same 4 bases [Adenine, Thymine, Cytosin, Guanine]? Why didn't we get created through some other genetic code. This makes it look very very obvious that we evolved from same animals [more exactly from our common ancestors].

3. Germs and diseases

We get pretty much the same diseases as other animals from very similar viruses and bacteria. For example, we get swine flu - So pigs and humans have to be quite a bit similar for these viruses to survive in both the species. In fact we are very similar - we are both mammals.

4.  Breast feeding

Both woman and other female animals breast [or udder] feed their young through nipples in very similar ways. It is striking in particular for other primates.

5. Kangaroo

Why are no Kangaroos to be found in say India, United States or Germany? If every species are specially created there is no particular reason to place all species of Kangaroos in Australia or near by.  Why not place red kangaroo in Australia and Grey one in say India?

Doesn't the geographical distribution of all animals make it very clear, all closely related animals evolved from their common ancestor which happened to be in one particular geographical location. 

Before the invention of air planes, one particular species had to be in close proximity for reproduction and survival. It is another matter, now we have become planetary wide pests like cockroaches or rats.

What is Temperature?

I was thinking about what is Temperature.


What it means for something to be in particular temperature? I looked around in the net, and learned that it is simply average kinetic energy of molecules.

If something is hot, the molecules in that something is moving around or oscillating faster. In the case of metals it is electrons. If something is cold, the molecules are relatively slow.

Why do we feel hot when we touch a hot object? The molecules in the object collide pretty hard on our fingers, trying to disturb our cells which is felt by our neurons as 'hot'.

Why do we feel cold? When molecules in the air is taking away average kinetic energy from us through collisions and we lose energy [heat].

10 most important scientific questions - part I

This is my list of 10 most important scientific questions.

1. What is consciousness? How does it "emerge"?
2. What is the fate of universe? If universe collapses in big crunch what will happen after that? Endless void? What does it even mean? BTW, what was "before" big bang? I know time started in big bang. But suddenly why some 14 Billion years ago, universe had to start? And it started out of what? I placed consciousness before this question as answer to 1) may have implications for this, although it is probably even deeper question.
3. Are there other intelligent creatures in the universe? [I am pretty sure there are organisms outside earth, at least single celled ones like bacteria]
4. How exactly quantum wave function collapse to an eigen value occurs upon observation? Is it a "real" feature or an artifact of our current incomplete quantum theory?
5. How to build physical theories based on discrete space-time? It is obvious, that real numbers are anything but real [talk about infinite precision!]. Time can only be measured through some periodic activity and there is definitely a limit to fine grained granularity we can go into. Since time and space are interchangeable it implies there should be a limit to space measurements as well. That said why is our calculus [continuity] based theories working at all?
6. Are there any near earth objects which has high probability of collision with earth and wipe out humanity, in say next 1000 years? On a related note, are there any other 'planets' outside solar system within 10-15 rocket speed year distance we can live in?[in 1000 years we definitely would have colonised whole of solar system - Jupiter, Mars etc.]

Next 4 are in next post...

Why plants reject green, most abundant wavelength in sun?

When we look at the solar spectrum it has its maximum around green.

 
So it is really odd, that plants reject green light  when it has the most energy. Is it simply the quirk of evolution [chlorophyll won out as the top photo synthesizer] or is there a deeper reason?

Genesis of purpose!

Great video from christmas lectures of 1991 by Dr. Richard Dawkins.

I was feeling a bit blue yesterday and tried to find purpose in life [I have long outgrown religions] and hit upon this video. I was totally refreshed by this video. Although I have seen it earlier, every time I see it, I get a different perspective. His style of explanation is excellent.

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Ep5: The Genesis of Purpose - Growing Up

How the distance from stars are measured

We all know it is using parallax. But I didn't understand how we can actually measure the parallax angle. Finally this link explained it well. It is because we know the angle subtended by telescope's field of view.

If whole picture is 10 degrees and picture width is 10 centimeter and star seems to move 1 centimeter its angle is 1 degree. of course at 1 degree we will be fried to death - but that was just an example!

what is the use of [pure] science?

and mathematics?
OK - what is the use of Music? I can see no material benefit out of it. So why do people spend so much time listening to it?
1. It brings happiness
2. It fills time in nice way
3. It is really beautiful and sublime
4. It helps to attract mates, if you have [or pretend to have] musical talent

Well, Mathematics and science [physics and biology - not bogus science like psychology, social science] brings these benefits in a much higher level and plane except probably 4). But atleast in today's knowledge economy any modern mathematician can get a job [say as software engineer] and perform better than most of those professionals. So even 4) is true but in a non obvious way through the money it brings.
But forgetting 4), it serves first three in a much better way and in a much higher level.
1. I jumped for joy, when I learned integral calculus, because now I had a way to calculate the length any curve [not easy to integrate it even for simple cases like Ellipse though:)] , area of figure and volume of an object - That one of the time I was most happy in my life.
2. It takes a lot of time to learn Mathematics and physics. Try learning things like Complex numbers, Topology, relativity.
3. Euler's theorem of e^ix= cosx+isinx - isn't this beautiful? it connects things which look so unrelated. what has sides of right triangles have to do with power of something? That to complex power.
or look at maxwell's derivation of c - speed of light purely from constants of coulumb's law and ampere's law. That is simply too beautiful.

And over and above, that is the only useful pursuit in the ultimate sense. Everything [useful] else is done for money and what is the point of money when I die? If Darwin's theory of evolution was not there [and Prof. Dawkins' selfish gene], I would still have been hurting my head doing sujud to a non existent entity following a 7th century liar [or mad?], trying to find meaning of life in Bullshit called Qur'an.
So before someone says science and mathematics is waste of time, say that a trillion times to Music and then you can say that a trillions times again to Music and then ...

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

by Richard Feynman!

Nice video - light non-technical!

Evolution videos in Google videos

There are nice set of videos in Google videos about Evolution - MUST see:

Evolution - Episode 3 -- "Extinction"

PBS Nova Evolution Episode number three (3), maned "Extinction" Documentary. (3rd out of 7)

WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT?

This site has nice answers to this question by eminent thinkers of our time.
http://edge.org/q2008/q08_1.html

Great lecture for kids by Richard Dawkins!

If I were to have a girl I would show this to her as soon as she can understand:

'Growing Up in the Universe' Ep 1: Waking Up in the Universe

Berkeley webcasts

There are nice video lectures on UCB site.

For example here is the Biology one:

http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978456

I really enjoyed lectures on Photosynthesis - I have a renewed respect for Photosynthesis now!

Robo cars with speeds of 15 miles an hour!

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,139277-c,artificialintelligence/article.html

Carnegie Mellon's Robocar Wins DARPA Challenge
A robot racing team from Carnegie Mellon University beat out Stanford University to win DARPA's Urban Challenge, a 60-mile race involving self-guided vehicles.

2 questions to ask high school kids

1. Does earth rotate clockwise or counter clockwise seen from North pole to south?
2. Does earth orbits around the sun clockwise or counter clockwise seen from North pole to south?

I found it very useful to think about these questions. It helps them appreciate about experimental physics too.
Advanced: It made me realise that I can't measure my own velocity [or direction of spin or orbit] just by looking at me. Velocity has no absolute meaning [special relativity]

US patents on the net

You can see all the US patents on the net - very interesting!
This is the very first
http://patimg1.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=00000001&homeurl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO1%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526d%3DPALL%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsrchnum.htm%2526r%3D1%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526s1%3D0000001.PN.%2526OS%3DPN%2F0000001%2526RS%3DPN%2F0000001&PageNum=&Rtype=&SectionNum=&idkey=NONE&Input=View+first+page

MIT world: distributed intelligence

http://mitworld.mit.edu/ - Great talks about varied topics. Science, Economics, poverty etc. Very good to spend time meaningfully!
I just now taking a talk about:
The World Turned Upside Down: The Impact of the Return of India and China to their Historical Global Weight

Professor Walter Lewin - Great teacher!

Happy new year!
If you want to learn classical Physics he is the best teacher I have come across. I simply love the way he teaches.
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-01Physics-IFall1999/VideoLectures/index.htm

Godel's theorem!

Godel proved there are true statements, whichever are unprovable!!
Isn't interesting?
That forever dashes the hope we can prove all mathematical facts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_G%C3%B6del
It also has interesting consequences for what we can calculate algorithmically.