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The Birth of Atoms

Your body contains trillions of atoms, of many different elements. There are atoms of hydrogen and oxygen, carbon and nitrogen,...but your body also contains many atoms of calcium, nickel, potassium, iron...even gold!


In all, there are 92 different types of atoms, most of which can be found in the molecules that make up the tissues of your body.

Since we know that when the universe formed, the only elements around were hydrogen and helium, where did all these other types of atoms come from?

The answer is quite startling...all of the atoms in your body, other than helium and hydrogen, weremanufactured in the center of a supernova...a star that once existed, but destroyed itself in a gigantic explosion!

To understand how this is possible, we need to look at what atoms are. The simplest atom is hydrogen, which contains a nucleus composed of one proton, circled by one moving electron. The next simplest atom, helium, has a nucleus with 2 protons, and is circled by 2 electrons.


The biggest naturally occurring atom is uranium, with 92 protons, and 92 electrons.

(For simplicity, we will ignore the fact that these atoms also contain neutrons in their nuclei.)

                                  

 It is possible for small atoms to combine to form bigger ones...but only under intense heat and pressure...the millions of degrees found in the center of a star. This process is called nuclear fusion.

Large stars will be so hot in their interior that hydrogen atoms are forced together to form helium atoms, helium atoms are forced together to form still larger atoms,...and so on. Eventually, large stars will contain in their interior, shells of many different heavier atoms, some as big as iron (57 protons).

If the star is large enough, when it runs out of fuel it will collapse in on itself. The relatively cooler outer layers hit the incredibly hot interior, and a massive explosion occurs, called a supernova. Stars that do this don't live very long...while a smaller star like our sun may burn for tens of billions of years, a massive star that is destined to become a supernova may burn out and explode in a matter of a few million years...a ten-thousandth of the lifetime of our sun.

During this explosion, temperatures rise once again; coupled with intense pressure, this is enough energy to force larger atoms to combine, creating all of the heavier elements from iron to uranium!

This explosion is so large that it propels the contents of the star out into space...including all the heavy elements it has made. Vast clouds of atoms of all types remain, where once there was a star.

We know that at the beginning of the universe, there was only hydrogen and helium. Massive stars formed from these gases, burned out in a few million years, and spewed the heavy elements they created into space around them.

This process has occurred over and over since the universe began some 17 billion years ago. We can observe it still happening today, in our large telescopes.

When our star (the sun) and its family of planets formed from interstellar gases some 5 billion years ago, those gases were already well seeded with heavy elements formed in supernovas that occurred in our interstellar neighbourhood in the previous 12 billion years. All of the heavier elements that went into forming the earth, the ground, the biosphere,... everything... came from this interstellar gas cloud. And so did all the elements in your body!

If you would like to learn more astronomy & astrophysics, visit 'We Are Not Alone'.

Ref Link: http://www.worsleyschool.net/science/files/thebirth/ofatoms.html

                                                                                                                                                                                      

E=mc2 Explained

 

Albert Einstein is perhaps the most famous scientist of this century. One of his most well-known accomplishments is the formula E=mc2


Despite its familiarity, many people don't really understand what it means. We hope this explanation will help!


One of Einstein's great insights was to realize that matter and energy are really different forms of the same thing. Matter can be turned into energy, and energy into matter.



For example, consider a simple hydrogen atom, basically composed of a single proton. This subatomic particle has a mass of


0.000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 001 672 kg


This is a tiny mass indeed. But in everyday quantities of matter there are a lot of atoms! For instance, in one kilogram of pure water, the mass of hydrogen atoms amounts to just slightly more than 111 grams, or 0.111 kg.


Einstein's formula tells us the amount of energy this mass would be equivalent to, if it were all suddenly turned into energy. It says that to find the energy, you multiply the mass by the square of the speed of light, this number being 300,000,000 meters per second (a very large number):
                   
                 E=mc2 = 0.111 x 300,000,000 x 300,000,000 = 10,000,000,000,000,000 Joules


This is an incredible amount of energy! A Joule is not a large unit of energy ... one Joule is about the energy released when you drop a textbook to the floor. But the amount of energy in 30 grams of hydrogen atoms is equivalent to burning hundreds of thousands of gallons of gasoline!


If you consider all the energy in the full kilogram of water, which also contains oxygen atoms, the total energy equivalent is close to 10 million gallons of gasoline!


Can all this energy really be released? Has it ever been?


The only way for ALL this energy to be released is for the kilogram of water to be totally annhilated. This process involves the complete destruction of matter, and occurs only when that matter meets an equal amount of antimatter ... a substance composed of mass with a negative charge. Antimatter does exist; it is observable as single subatomic particles in radioactive decay, and has been created in the laboratory. But it is rather short-lived (!), since it annihilates itself and an equal quantity of ordinary matter as soon as it encounters anything. For this reason, it has not yet been made in measurable quantities, so our kilogram of water can't be turned into energy by mixing it with 'antiwater'. At least, not yet.


Another phenomenon peculiar to small elementary particles like protons is that they combine. A single proton forms the nucleus of a hydrogen atom. Two protons are found in the nucleus of a helium atom. This is how the elements are formed ... all the way up to the heaviest naturally occuring substance, uranium, which has 92 protons in its nucleus.


It is possible to make two free protons (Hydrogen nuclei) come together to make the beginnings of a helium nucleus. This requires that the protons be hurled at each other at a very high speed. This process occurs in the sun, but can also be replicated on earth with lasers, magnets, or in the center of an atomic bomb. The process is called nuclear fusion.


What makes it interesting is that when the two protons are forced to combine, they don't need as much of their energy (or mass). Two protons stuck together have less mass than two single separate protons!


When the protons are forced together, this extra mass is released ... as energy! Typically this amounts to about 0.7% of the total mass, converted to an amount of energy predictable using the formula E=mc2.

Elements heavier than iron are unstable. Some of them are very unstable! This means that their nuclei, composed of many positively charged protons, which want to repel from each other, are liable to fall apart at any moment! We call atoms like this radioactive.


Uranium, for example, is radioactive. Every second, many of the atoms in a chunk of uranium are falling apart. When this happens, the pieces, which are now new elements (with fewer protons) are LESS massive in total than the original uranium atoms. The extra mass disappears as energy ... again according to the  formula E=mc2! 
 "This process is called nuclear fission."

these nuclear reactions release a small portion of the mass involved as energy. Large amounts of energy! You are probably more familiar with their uses. Nuclear fusion is what powers a modern nuclear warhead. Nuclear fission (less powerful) is what happens in an atomic bomb (like the ones used against Japan in WWII), or in a nuclear power plant.



Albert Einstein was able to see where an understanding of this formula would lead. Although peaceful by nature and politics, he helped write a letter to the President of the United States, urging him to fund research into the development of an atomic bomb ... before the Nazis or Japan developed their own first. The result was the Manhatten Project, which did in fact produce the first tangible evidence of E=mc2 ... the atomic bomb!

Ref Link : http://www.worsleyschool.net/science/files/emc2/emc2.html

Honda Presents: LIVING WITH ROBOTS

2010 XJ Technology from Jaguar of Tampa

Future Technology 2009 The year of technology invention (milliongenerator)

Phil Collins - "In The Air Tonight" / Live and loose in Paris /

NASA wants you ... to help find meteorites

The blazing meteor lit up the Alabama sky on May 18

This composite, wide-angle view of the meteor was captured from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center on May 18. NASA has put out a call for any meteorites from the event.

NASA has launched an all-out search for any meteorites that may have survived from a bright fireball that streaked over northeastern Alabama last month. And the space agency wants your help.

The blazing meteor lit up the Alabama sky on May 18 and was spotted by all-sky cameras at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville and the Walker County Science Center near Chickamauga, Ga.

Scientists estimate the space rock, which came from the asteroid belt, weighed about 60 pounds (27 kilograms), though it may have broken into pieces if any reached the ground.

"Expert opinion is that one or more pieces of this meteor survived to make it to the ground as meteorites, and calculations indicate that the area of the fall lies north of a line joining Woodville and Scottsboro," NASA officials said in a statement.

NASA is asking residents who saw the meteor, or those who may have noticed or picked up an unusual rock in the vicinity, to contact the Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center.

source ref: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37553911/ns/technology_and_science-space/

Ernest Rutherford ( ATOM MAN)

The creator of modern atomic physics and forerunner of the nuclear age, Rutherford was one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908 and a baronetcy in 1931, choosing the title Baron Rutherford of Nelson. In the words of Einstein, hew was "a second Newton", the man who "tunneled into the very material of God": inventor, experimenter and Nelson farm boy.

Source from : http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/rutherford.html

more info : http://www.rutherford.org.nz/

links to scientist biographies

1.  Archimedes	2.  Aristotle	3.  Nicholas Copernicus
4.  Marie Curie	5.  Charles Darwin	6.  Leonardo da Vinci
7.  Alexander Graham Bell	8.  Albert Einstein	9.  Ben Franklin
10.  Thomas Alva Edison	11.  Galilei Galileo	12.  Isaac Newton
13.  George Washington Carver	14.  Jacques Cousteau	15.  Frances Crick
16. Robert Koch	17.  Robert Hooke	18.  J. Robert Oppenheimer
19.  Alfred Nobel	20.  James D. Watson	21.  Gregor Mendel
22.  Stephen Hawking	23.  Konrad Lorenz	24.  Camillo Golgi
25.  Carl Sagan	26.  Ivan Petrovich Pavlov	27.  Alexander Fleming
28.  Bill Gates	29.  Jane Goodall	30.  Steven Jobs

more info:

• http://www.libraryspot.com/biographies/  Links to scientist biographies
• http://outreach.rice.edu/~dgabby/science/famoussci.htm  Links to web sites that have biographical information about famous scientists
• http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Biographies/Science/Scients.htm  Alphabetical list of biographies of scientists

Aryabhatta (476-550 A.D.) The Indian Mathematician

Aryabhatta (476-550 A.D.) was born in Patliputra in Magadha, modern Patna in Bihar. Many are of the view that he was born in the south of India especially Kerala and lived in Magadha at the time of the Gupta rulers; time which is known as the golden age of India. There is no evidence that he was born outside Patliputra and traveled to Magadha, the centre of education and learning for his studies where he even set up a coaching centre. His first name "Arya" is hardly a south Indian name while "Bhatt" (or Bhatta) is a typical north Indian name even found today specially among the "Bania" (or trader) community.

Whatever this origin, it cannot be argued that he lived in Patliputra where he wrote his famous treatise the "Aryabhatta-siddhanta" but more famously the "Aryabhatiya", the only work to have survived. It contains mathematical and astronomical theories that have been revealed to be quite accurate in modern mathematics. For instance he wrote that if 4 is added to 100 and then multiplied by 8 then added to 62,000 then divided by 20,000 the answer will be equal to the circumference of a circle of diameter twenty thousand. This calculates to 3.1416 close to the actual value Pi (3.14159). But his greatest contribution has to be zero. His other works include algebra, arithmetic, trigonometry, quadratic equations and the sine table.

He already knew that the earth spins on its axis, the earth moves round the sun and the moon rotates round the earth. He talks about the position of the planets in relation to its movement around the sun. He refers to the light of the planets and the moon as reflection from the sun. He goes as far as to explain the eclipse of the moon and the sun, day and night, the contours of the earth, the length of the year exactly as 365 days.
He even computed the circumference of the earth as 24835 miles which is close to modern day calculation of 24900 miles.

This remarkable man was a genius and continues to baffle many mathematicians of today. His works was then later adopted by the Greeks and then the Arabs.

source from : http://ezinearticles.com/?Aryabhatta,-The-Indian-Mathematician&id=580066

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Shalini_Singh

Indian Scientists

source from: http://www.scribd.com/doc/7148674/Indian-Scientists

Aryabhatta defined the shape of Earth to be round in 499 A.D.,

Ancient Indian Scientists 

The ancient Indian people possessed great scientific knowledge which they applied for the benefit of community. The Vedic sciences are considered the richest and most comprehensive science of ancient India. The Vedic sciences include several branches like astronomy, medicine, space science, mathematics and there were numerous Indian scientists who studied and enhanced Vedic sciences. Aryabhatta, Charaka, Sushruta, Panini, etc. were some of the eminent scientists in the ancient era. While Aryabhatta defined the shape of Earth to be round in 499 A.D., Charaka and Sushruta largely contributed in the development of Ayurveda. On the other hand, Panini discovered the systematic linguistic analysis during the fourth-century B.C. These ancient Indian scientists have also given many mathematical and scientific explanations that can be proved using the current methods.


Source from : http://www.indianetzone.com/8/indian_scientists.htm

Pioneer of electro-magnetic waves

Jagadis Chandra Bose (1858-1937) 

Pioneer of electro-magnetic waves and widely regarded as the first modern Indian scientist, Jagadis Chandra Bose was a far-sighted visionary and gifted experimentalist. In 1895 in Calcutta, he publicly demonstrated wireless transmission of electromagnetic waves for the first time anywhere in the world, using the waves to ring a distant bell to thereby explode some gunpowder. The Daily Chronicle of England noted in 1896 that "The inventor (J.C. Bose) has transmitted signals to a distance of nearly a mile and herein lies the first and obvious and exceedingly valuable application of this new theoretical marvel." Bose was also the first to use a semi-conducting crystal as a detector of radio waves. According to Neville Mott "J.C. Bose was at least 60 years ahead of his time" and that he had "anticipated the existence of P-type and N-type semiconductors." Bose was invited by Lord Rayleigh to present his experiments at the Royal Institution in January 1897, attended by Marconi's business partner who importuned him to take out a patent and share his proceeds with him. Bose refused on the grounds that scientific discoveries must inure to the benefit of the public. Marconi's wireless transmission on Salisbury plain did not occur until May 1897. Bose also crossed from physics into biology, challenging widespread notions that these realms were different - among the fields he is regarded to have anticipated is cybernetics, through his model of memory as an information storage device. His boundless curiosity led him to study the electrical response of plants and the phenomenon of photosynthesis. Freethinking pioneer and icon, Bose was born and educated in rural Bengal and later Calcutta and achieved both a knight hood and international distinction. He was admitted to read Natural Sciences at Christ’s in 1882, took his BA in 1884 and MA in 1896.

Source from :http://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/alumni/distinguished-alumni/bose/

for more info:

http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/scientists/JCBOSE.htm 

http://www.tuc.nrao.edu/~demerson/bose/bose.html 
http://web.mit.edu/varun_ag/www/bose.html

Newton's Three Laws of Motion

Sir Isaac Newton
Scientist and Mathematician, 1642 - 1727

Isaac Newton was born on December 25, 1642 (by the Julian calendar then in use; or January 4, 1643 by the current Gregorian calendar) in Woolsthorpe, near Grantham in Lincolnshire, England. He was born the same year Galileo died. Newton is clearly the most influential scientist who ever lived. His accomplishments in mathematics, optics, and physics laid the foundations for modern science and revolutionized the world.

Newton was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge where he lived from 1661 to 1696. During this period he produced the bulk of his work on mathematics. In 1696 he was appointed Master of the Royal Mint, and moved to London, where he resided until his death.

As mathematician, Newton invented integral calculus, and jointly with Leibnitz, differential calculus. He also calculated a formula for finding the velocity of sound in a gas which was later corrected by Laplace.

Newton made a huge impact on theoretical astronomy. He defined the laws of motion anduniversal gravitation which he used to predict precisely the motions of stars, and the planets around the sun. Using his discoveries in optics Newton constructed the first reflecting telescope.

Newton found science a hodgepodge of isolated facts and laws, capable of describing some phenomena, but predicting only a few. He left it with a unified system of laws that can be applied to an enormous range of physical phenomena, and that can be used to make exact predications. Newton published his works in two books, namely "Opticks" and "Principia."

Newton died in London on March 20, 1727 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, the first scientist to be accorded this honor. A review of an encyclopedia of science will reveal at least two to three times more references to Newton than any other individual scientist. An 18th century poem written by Alexander Pope about Sir Isaac Newton states it best:

“Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.”

Source Ref : http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95dec/newton.html
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/newton3laws.html

Albert Einstein(Physicist)

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

Albert Einstein
Physicist, 1879 -1955


Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Wurttemberg, Germany. Einstein contributed more than any other scientist since Sir Isaac Newton to our understanding of physical reality.


Einstein was slow to learn to talk, not beginning to speak until sometime after his second birthday. His slow verbal development combined with a native rebelliousness toward authority, led one schoolmaster to say that young Albert would never amount to much.


Einstein’s mother, Pauline, was a talented pianist. She introduced Albert to music as a small child, beginning his violin lessons at age six. He labored under unimaginative instruction until discovering the joys of Mozart’s sonatas at age 13. From that point on, although he had no further lessons, his violin remained a constant companion. Einstein said later that, “I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in the form of music.”


When Einstein was 10, a poor student named Max Talmud began dining with the Einstein family once a week. Max would bring illustrated science books for Albert to study, and they would discuss what Albert learned. Max gave him a geometry textbook two years before Albert was to study the subject at school. Max later recalled, “Soon the flight of his mathematical genius was so high that I could no longer follow.”


In 1896, Einstein entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be trained as a physics and mathematics instructor. He graduated in 1901, and unable to find a teaching position, accepted a job as technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. Einstein worked at the patent office from 1902 to 1909. During this period he completed an astonishing range of theoretical physics publications, written in his spare time, without the benefit of scientific literature or close contact with colleagues.


The most well known of these works is Einstein’s 1905 paper proposing ̴the special theory of relativity.” He based his new theory on the principle that the laws of physics are in the same form in any frame of reference. As a second fundamental hypothesis, Einstein assumed that the speed of light remained constant in all frames of reference.


Later in 1905 Einstein showed how mass and energy were equivalent expressing it in the famous equation: E=mc2 (energy equals mass times the velocity of light squared). This equation became a cornerstone in the development of nuclear energy.


Einstein received the Nobel Prize in 1921 but not for relativity, rather for his 1905 work on the photoelectric effect. He worked on at Princeton until the end of his life on an attempt to unify the laws of physics.

Source Ref: http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96mar/einstein.html