The forest product in

Inphinite
When we were thinking of a name for our magazine this year, “Inphinite” just popped into
my head. Not “infinite” but “Inphinite”. I’m sure you’re wondering why it’s spelt wrong but
it’s actually a mishmash of “infinite” and “phi”.
Infinite, Latin for “unbounded-ness”, means everything; a quantity without bounds or
ends, endless. And phi is its complete opposite; it means ‘nothing’. And that is what science is. Science is not tangible; it can’t be held in our hands, yet it is everywhere. Everything we see, touch, taste and feel is science. From the coding that makes blackberry
messenger work to why the chilli flakes on a pizza taste spicy; how the brain interprets
love to how the satellite orbiting the earth interprets signals sent from miles away in Florida; why we can see rays of light but we can’t see waves of electricity, how radio waves
turn into sound and how proteins get digested. Everything around us is science and without it, nothing exists. It literally “runs in our blood” and is the “light” of our lives.
Science, today, is the world on our fingertips and its future is our canvas. We can make it
whatever we want it to be. So, the cover of our magazine tries to show a glimpse of just
how vast science is. It attempts to capture the present; what we are doing with the clay
that has been put in our hands. It depicts how Carbon dioxide is slowly taking over our
earth, the loss of the true spirit of sportsmanship as one takes drugs to do better, and the
concept of artificial intelligence. The cover also envisages the future, our future. It shows
the possibility of plant based plastics that use plant fibres to replace objects like plastic
bottles. It depicts the skyline of a future city that’s already being built in places like Dubai,
Japan and China. It illustrates our earth burning up, symbolic of our growing greed and
lack of care for the planet. It shows the evolution of man, from an upright individual, free
of all sorts of aches and pains, who slowly starts slouching because of a laid back lifestyle and diseases like arthritis and osteoporosis. He finally reaches that point where he
begins to rely on the computer completely; the ideas we have in our mind have slowly
been replaced by the ideas represented on our computer screen. We want to bring a new
perspective into the way we look at the world, has this situation led us to everything (infinite) or nothing (phi)?
“The possibilities are Inphinite.”
Mira Rajput
(Cover Design)
One
Through the Years...
CV Raman
ONE
One day in 1903, when Professor Eliot of Presidency College, Madras , saw a young boy
of 13 or 14 years in his B.A. class in English He thought that the child might have strayed
into the room by mistake, the Professor asked,
"Hi, boy... there... why are you here?"
"Mm... Sir," the boy stammered.
"Are you a student of the B.A. class?"
"Yes Sir," the boy answered.
"Your name?"
"C. Venkata Raman."
At the age of 15, CV Raman completed his BA at the top of his class. His academic brilliance was obvious since the very beginning.....
Vasant Valley School
Science Magazine
Issue XIII
-i-
-5-ii-
A Note From
We’ve all had crazy childish dreams; ideas
born out of imaginations gone wild. We’ve
climbed up the slide as fast as possible to
run away from dinosaurs, not stepped on
the red tiles while walking pretending they
were lava, made absurd drawings hoping
they would come to life, sat on carpets pretending they were flying or done something
else which others might have considered
completely ridiculous. But with age comes
maturity and “sensibility”. When we are
told often enough not to be silly, we try to
change the way we think and imagine. We
learn to stick to reality, believe only in the
facts and silence that part of our heads that
tells us that the strange rock on the ground
has come from another world. We’re made
to believe that science is a factual subject,
completely logical in its approach, with no
room for improvisation. However, if we all
believe only what we see, then where is the
scope for progress?
Most inventors and visionaries in the past
have been people whom no one could understand; people who let their creative spirits soar and in one way or another created
something: an idea, a concept, an object
which had never been thought of before.
So, the truth is, just because something is
crazy doesn’t mean it’s impossible. We are
all inventors in our own right, with random
ideas that deserve to be let out of the closet, no matter how stupid they seem. With
this belief, we decided to explore the possibilities for our future and all the ways it has
been visualized; by people, movies, books,
tv shows and different areas of research.
Everyone has something to say about the
the
Editor
future, and we believe every thought is
worth listening to.
There are no easy solutions to the problems
faced by our world today. As we look ahead,
we don’t know what to expect. We all want
a better day tomorrow and a brighter future,
and we can have all that we hoped for and
more. The future is a piece of clay in our
hands; it is up to us what we want to make
with it. The science of our lives is as much
about creativity as it is about rationality. Everything around us is food for thought, even
the baffling inventions we see on Phineas
and Ferb or the strange contraptions from
Tom and Jerry. We believe that the future of
science is crazy science. The more absurd
the idea, the more probable it is. No one
can say what our future will be, we can only
think of what we want it to be. So lets make
it as exciting as we can, the possibilities are
in(phi)nite, they can be nothing and everything at the same time…
Ramya Ahuja
-iii-
A Letter From Last Year’s
Editor
On one of the first mornings of class eleven I stood in assembly, sleepy and half listening to the morning’s announcements, only to hear Ms. Krishnan call my name as Editor
of the science magazine. In my excitement of being appointed editor at that time I most
certainly underestimated the hard work, the challenges and the sense of accomplishment
that came with the post.
Our editorial board was smaller than those of
the previous years and we had our work cut
out for us. Our attempts at collecting articles
came with varied results. Those that were
allotted the junior classes stumbled upon
success far more easily than others who endlessly waited for articles which would most
definitely be given up that coming Monday!
Once we had collected articles, I met with every editor’s worst enemy – plagiarism! Much
to my surprise, many of the articles I received
were picked off of the Internet. While this reduced the material we had for the magazine,
we put our minds together and decided to
have competitions to encourage more articles
and new ideas. We realized that the first ever
gadget making competition was a huge success as we struggled to contain the participants in the physics lab. Once the editing
was complete, we met with monstrous task of
collating and designing the magazine. Months
after editing and chasing deadlines, I had in
my hands the first copy of ‘Ethos’.
While ‘Ethos’ was a outcome of all our hard work, it would have been impossible without
some help. Mrs. Johar and Mrs. Vohra were a constant source of a support even though
we continually tested their patience by extending deadlines. Mrs. Banerjee would always
greet me with a smile and a number of articles every time I visited Junior School in break
and Mrs. Malhotra was always generous with her advice on the layout of the magazine.
My experience as Editor of ‘ONE’ was like no other. My advice to all future editors is to take
advantage of this wonderful opportunity and enjoy every moment of it. It might sound clichéd but, from my own experience, standing on stage releasing the magazine on Science
day, makes all the Saturday’s spent in school and all the sleepless nights spent proof reading absolutely worth it.
Vaasvi Goyal
-iv-
Editor: Ramya Ahuja
Co-Editor: Varun Datta
Editorial Board
Advika Gupta
Akarshita Dhawan
Amar Singh Dhingra
Anahitaa Bakshi
Dhruv Singh
Gautam Nagpal
Ishita Sethi
Mira Rajput
Pihu Yadav
Shaurya Kumar
Shoubhik Ghoshal
Special Thanks
Tushar Nath
Rishika Dhawan
Pranav Kochhar
Ms. Charu Johar
Ms. Ashita Puri
Ms. Malvika Vohra
Mr. Atul Datta
-v-
The World Is Our Canvas
Let There Be Light
Ramya Ahuja
2060
Ishita Sethi
2
The Invisibility Cloak
Pihu Yadav
10
Plastic: Which Angel Will Bring An
End To This Monster?
Advika Gupta
12
6
15
Energy Crisis
Aananya Banaik 17
Energy Tomorrow
Shubhee Rawal
19
Nuclear Energy
Viraj Nanda
24
An Alternate Route
Shoubhik Ghoshal 27
Artificial Intelligence
Neel Mehdiratta
34
The Large Hadron Collider
Aayush Sharma
-vi-9-
Cold Fusion
Amar S. Dhingra 36
Antimatter
Shreya Chadha
38
PCR-A Magical Genie
Vandita Khanna
40
Are Aliens Real Or Not?
Aditi Banerjee
41
Fun Facts!!
Shome Advani
46
Synthetic Life- Pros and Cons
Vaasvi Goyel
48
The Ignite Experience
Kaamya Sharma & Riya Kothari
51
The World At Our Fingertips
Where Did The Earth Come From?
Krishna Singh
62
Evolution: Yet No Solution...
Akarshita Dhawan
65
What Do You Choose To Believe?
Rishabh Prakash
66
-vii-10-
Matter
Sukoon Dinodia
69
Plasma: The Fourth State Of Matter
Yashitha Jeet
70
The Bose - Einstein Condensate
Gautam Nagpal
71
Kinetic Theory
Nikita Dhawan
78
Simple Machines Crossword
Krishna Singh
79
The Theory Of Everything
Anirudh Sethi
81
Relativity
Shaurya Kumar
84
Pollution
Aastha Kamra & Anjani Gupta
87
Maritime Safety And Pollution
Aishwarya Chawla
88
Volcanic Ash In Iceland
Sanjari Kalantri
90
The BP Oil Spill
Nikita Dhawan
92
-viii-11-
The Slick Crushers
Anahitaa Bakshi
93
Junk Food
Maayashree Goel & Prithvi Singh
95
Harmful Soft Drinks
Indraneel Roy
97
Doping- The Menace In Sports
Navia Dayal
98
Extra Sensory Perception: The Sixth
Sense
Anjani Gupta
100
102
Did You Know?
Ashrant Kohli
Multiple Intelligences & Career Planning
Shreyas Kadaba
103
106
Strategies for the Survival of the
Tiger and its Habitat
Vandita Khanna
The End Is Near
Will The World End In Fire Or Ice?
Dhruv Singh & Amar Dhingra
110
-ix-10-
-11-
A Section On
Our Future
-1-
Let There Be Light
Let there be Light
“Finish all the food on your plate. If you waste
it, God will get angry.” Every time his mother
reprimanded him for being a fussy eater, with
this classic line, that omnipresent three letter
word never failed to kindle Palini’s curiosity.
The ambiguous concept of a God, or many
Gods, as some religions would have us believe, had intrigued him since his 2-year old
mind had been introduced to it. This idea puzzled all little children, with each creating his
or her own fantasy of a being to be feared,
revered or loved; till they grew up into adults
with no desire to question the accepted. But
Palini was different.
Throughout his childhood, he would sneak
one of his family cars out of the holding and
steer it clumsily through the clouds. The ignition booster on full throttle was his attempt to
propel the vehicle into space, to Andromeda.
Flying over the crystal domes of laboratories
in the region with his heat analyzer on, he’d
keep his eyes peeled for an abnormally intense heat source, indicating the presence of
God somewhere. The rest of the time, little
Palini could be found with his nose buried in
books with actual paper and ink in the hope
that his ancestors could shed some light on
the subject. On the Mocaso family’s annual
trips to other Moons he’d teleport any inter
esting material he found to the secret stash
of ‘clues’ he kept in his room. Such was the
nature of Palini’s obsession with God.
Recently , some androids and other slightly
delusional cyborgs of Palamanio had been
making claims of becoming aware of the existence of certain particles which could control
the environment, both physical and biological, around them. They could influence the
creation of other things as well. These mysterious particles were supposed to be God.
The almost adult Palini however had not paid
much heed to these stories, being completely
preoccupied with preparations for his school’s
Science Fair. For years he’d been attempting
to get the better of Carlaka, his once best
friend, who sabotaged other’s projects, but
Palini always ended up in second place. The
morning after the fair, he would always complain to God, whatever that may be, about
the unfairness of it all. But some people just
don’t change.
For his birthday, Palini’s parents had gifted
him his very own hovercraft with access to
the best research facility in Cudgensville. It
was the night before D-day and he had been
pottering around the lab all day to synthesize
his Platinum-Catamanum nanocrystals which
he believed could function as nano-turbines
more efficient than the present radioactive
Francium ones But there seemes to be a critical flaw in the procedure he had designed; it
wasn’t getting him anywhere. He didn’t want
to consult with any of the resident robots either, for fear that they might tip Carlaka off.
As it was nearing the time when the systems
would shut down and he would have to call
it a night, he was getting desparate. For the
synthesis, he required a number of different materials he’d procured from around the
globe. But he had realized his answer could
not be found with the tried and tested. It was
-2-
Let There Be Light
time to put his secret stash to use.
While he could go on for days without sleep,
his worries had exhausted him. Disregarding
previous calculations, he added his favorite
materials in a random order, only controlling
the physical conditions like temperature and
pressure. But when he looked down at the set
up from his perch on the ceiling something
seemed different, odd. He glanced at his foot-
he had been trying to create. It seemed impossible to explain what had happened but
his eyes had bore witness.
The results of the experiment were staring
him in the face. His spine tingled ad he realized he had discovered the ‘God Particle’.
Looking up and around the room he was in,
he suddenly realized that he had also seen
God. Everything and every being in the vicinity were frozen in their position, all motion
ceased; only the ‘hand of God’ could possibly exercise such supreme control. He continued to gawk as time restarted and all was
restored to normal around him, for life would
never be the same for him again. It was time
to head home to a good night’s sleep. Palini
knew the results of the fair next day would be
in his favour. They had to be, this time God
was on his side.
Ramya Ahuja
12-B
wear and realized he had fallen asleep and
lost track of time, when he noticed they had
become a pale blue colour, indicating a level
of inactivity only possible during his sleep. All
of a sudden, the institute’s sun too, bailed on
him. The temperature of his set up would rapidly fall, and the results could be catastrophic.
His mind drifted to drawings he had seen of
something called lamps used by the ancients.
As he traced it in the air, it was created before his eyes. Glancing around the illuminated
chamber, in absolute amazement he realized
that it was his apparatus which was giving out
a mysterious chrome light and diffusing calm
in the room. However, it seemed like there
was nothing inside the container. But next to
it, was a corked flask with the nanoparticles
-3-
Doctor Who
The Doctor is an alien adventurer, a 'Time Lord', seemingly the last of
his race, who travels through time and space in his TARDIS battling evil
wherever he finds it.
Dr. Who’s Amazing Gadgets
1. Sonic Screwdriver – A screw driver that can give you information
on nearly anything and control anything mechanical.
2. The “TARDIS”- A time traveling police box
3. The Fob Watch - a watch that stores memories of past lives
4. Psychic Paper – A paper which writes down your thought when
you focus on it
-4-
-5-
2060
If I woke up 50 years from now, what would
the world be like....
“Life and Intelligence must never stagnate, it
must reorder transform and transcend its limits
in an unlimited progressive process. Our goal
is the exuberant and dynamic continuation of
this unlimited process.” - Max More, strategic
futurist
At the time of its emergence more than three
centuries ago, science was a reaction to the
imaginative speculation, superstition and mysticism that dominated thought and belief in a
previous age. Science countered these earlier
belief systems by establishing rationality, systematic methodology, predictability and repetition as fundamental principles in the quest
for knowledge. And in a world like ours, dominated by science and fast paced development,
50 years is a long time. Even after 5 years a
country changes so much that it is tough to
recognise! So after 50 years, I would expect to
find a lot of different things onour planet Earth!
First and foremost would be the most obvious
changes, there would be many great advances
in technology and mind boggling new inventions; I would expect to find a lot of gadgets
like robots, auto driven cars and voice operated
houses. In the future, with greater advancements in technology we might have the entire
earth being run on nuclear power, hydrogen or
other alternate sources of fuel. Stepping into
such a world, all these changes would be thrilling to understand, explore and adopt.
and booming. Nanotechnology works from the
level of an atom and if we really master this we
can truly achieve anything.In the world of “Star
Trek”, machines called replicators can produce
practically any physical object, from weapons
to a steaming cup of Earl Grey tea. Long considered to be exclusively the product of science
fiction, today I believe replicators are a very
real possibility. This technique is called molecular manufacturing, and if this dream ever does
become a reality, it could drastically change the
world.Atoms and molecules stick together because they have complementary shapes that
lock together, or charges that attract. Similar
to the attraction in magnets, positively charged
atoms will stick to negatively charged atoms.
As millions of these atoms are pieced together
by nanomachines, a specific product will begin
to take shape. The goal of molecular manufacturing is to manipulate atoms individually and
place them in a pattern to produce a desired
structure.
These replicators could work together to automatically construct products, and could eventually replace all traditional labour methods. This
However, all these things are merely fantasies. Looking at the situation from a scientificperspective, I would hope to find that our
great scientists have made the impossible possible. Nanotechnology is one
of the many fields of science that
seem to be fast emerging
-6-
2060
2060
will continue to build until the limitations of the
field become public knowledge, and then interest (and funding) will quickly dissipate.
However all changes and innovations such as
these do come at a cost. As excited as I would
be to see all these phenomena, I would dread
to finding out what’s happening to our environment. Rapid technological advancements such
as these have always had detrimental effects on
our environment. And only if we adopt the path
of sustainable development can these be avoided. Thus, looking 50 years ahead, my greatest
fear would be to see our forests depleted and
our river beds dried up; environmental damage
at its peak. At the rate that we are going it is
difficult to tell whether we will be smart enough
to combat global warming or not. Some scientists have hypothesised that at the current rate
of environmental damage, the world might go
into a second ice age in order to cool down,
but before this a number of natural disasters
may also occur. Thus, it is predicted that global
warming will ultimately lead to our demise.
could vastly decrease manufacturing costs,
thereby making consumer goods plentiful,
cheaper and stronger. Eventually, we could be
able to replicate anything, including water and
food. Thus, the consequences of poverty could
be eradicated by machines that fabricate goods
for the poor.
Nanotechnology may have its biggest impact
on the medical industry. Patients will drink fluids containing nanorobots programmed to attack and reconstruct the molecular structure of
cancer cells and viruses. There’s even speculation that nanorobots could slow or reverse
the aging process, and life expectancy could
increase significantly. Nanorobots could also
be programmed to perform delicate surgeries
-- such nanosurgeons could work at a level a
thousand times more precise than the sharpest scalpel. By working on such a small scale,
a nanorobot could operate without leaving the
scars that conventional surgery does. Additionally, nanorobots could change your physical appearance. They could be programmed to perform cosmetic surgery, rearranging your atoms
to change your ears, nose, eye color or any
other physical feature you wish to alter.
Many nanotechnology experts feel that these
applications are well outside the realm of possibility, at least for the foreseeable future. They
caution that the more exotic applications are
only theoretical. Some worry that nanotechnology will end up like virtual reality -- in other
words, the hype surrounding nanotechnology
Theses days, it seems, so much of our interest
lies in fashion, technology and overall development, that we do not realise the consequences
of what we are doing. Corruption and malpractices are rampant, not only in India but all over
the world today and the only way we can do
anything about it is by taking a stand against
all of this. People have become so self absorbed
that they fail to see the bigger picture; the picture which includes our earth slowly dying.
All the ‘development’ that we are refusing to
compromise for the sake of the environment
will be worthless. What is the point of a self
driven car if there is no one left to drive it!? If I
woke up 50 years later, to find an earth that is
barely inhabited, technology so unsustainable
that it cannot be used, and the earth’s bounty
-7-
2060
on its decline, I will blame no one but myself;
me and all the other people of my generation
who didn’t stop this from happening. For it is
our generation which has the power to stop all
of this. The future is finally left in our hands.
Because WE are the future of this planet, and
50 years later WE will be the ones who will
have to face the wrath of the environment.
It is up to us, and only us to take care of the
damage, before it is too late.
dividual can accomplish, we require a group
effort, a global effort.
Our demise is something that we can still stop,
but only if we take an initiative, and not wait
for someone else to do it first.
So I really do hope that when I wake up 50
years later, I awake to a world where man,
machine and environment live together in
harmony, as opposed to the earth in a deteriorating condition and the fall of humans, something that is left entirely in our hands
Most of all, I would be ashamed that no one
in the world took the initiative to stop these
atrocities. And everyone is to blame, because
saving our planet is not something that an in-
Ishita Sethi
12-B
The Jetsons
The Jetsons’ city was one of the first representations of what was felt the future had
in store fore us; buildings raised high above
the ground, mostly from the Googie style
of architecture, flying cars and a number of
labour-saving devices
The unstoppable force paradox
"What happens when an irresistible
force meets an immovable object?"
-8-
Haven’t you always felt that
you want to be in a character’s place in the book you’re
reading.
The Worldmakerinator does
just that! It makes the book
and creates a world just like
life in the book.
Devesh Mittal
These shoes allow you to fly due to
the mind jet engines under your
sole. The shoes are solar powered
and are controlled by a small handheld remote.
-9-
Arvaan Kumar
The Invisibilty Cloak
The Invisibility Cloak
Soon Harry Potter won’t be the only one with
an invisibility cloak, that is if the scientists at
University of St. Andrews in Scotland have
their way. The team has created a new kind
of material called ‘Metaflex’ that can bend
light and render it’s wearer invisible.
The workinator is a suit
from head to toe which
has 4 extra hands, 2 extra
feet and a thinking cap.
This comes with a workulator which is a calculator
which controls the workinator when switched on.
The workinator helps do
things faster because of
the extra parts. When a
command is sent through
the workulator the work
will start.
Metaflex is made up of artificial materials
known as metamaterials, which have a negative refractive index and can enable invisibility
over a range of frequencies of light. These
materials also have the potential to be used
in sensor detection, solar power management
and high frequency communication.
Contrary to popular belief, invisibility is not
a very recent phenomenon, in fact scientists
had already created invisible materials that
work under high frequencies of light prior
to the discovery of Metaflex. Providing invisibility under visible light posed a greater
challenge. For this to happen, the building
blocks of metamaterials, meta-atoms, would
have to be very small. Another problem was
the hardness of metamaterials, which made
it difficult for them to be worn as clothing. The St Andrews' research team, led by
Dr. Andrea Di Falco, fixed this problem by using only meta-atoms and stacking them on
top of each other to provide a highly flexible
metamaterial, or Metaflex.
Even though invisibility cloaks being sold
commercially in the coming future is a farfetched thought, world leaders and scientists
across the world have already started picturing the consequences of such a feat. While
they could have numerous applications in a
variety of fields, many worry about their use
in the hands of terrorists and well, even
stalkers.
Pihu Yadav
12-C
-10-
Pranati Kapoor
Spray on Clothes
The Liar Paradox
A Cretan sails to Greece and
says to some Greek men who are
standing upon the shore: "All Cretans are liars." Did he speak the
truth, or did he lie?
Have you ever imagined spraying clothes onto your body
so that they fit smugly and let your figure really show?
Well, you’re in luck! The Imperial College London and Fabrican have now launched this as part of a new technology
using solvents (polymers) that have spray paint which
materialise into clothes. This layer of fabric then acts
exactly as any other clothing - it can be removed (peeled
off), washed and reworn. It is similar to the principle of
velvet, where the fibres are bound together by a binding
agent instead of being woven together.
-11-
Plastic
Plastic
Plastic:
Which Angel will bring an end to
this monster?
Did you know that plastic bags kill an estimated 1 million birds, land animals and sea
creatures every year? Or that each plastic
bag can last up to 1,000 years in a landfill?
Shocked? And yet, with knowledge of those
facts, all of us, together, continue to consume
over a trillion plastic bags each year.
The word plastic is derived from the Greek
word meaning capable of being shaped or
molded. It refers to their “malleability that
allows them to be cast, pressed, or extruded into a variety of shapes like films, fibers,
plates, tubes, bottles and boxes.” Plastics are
being used in various products, ranging from
ships and aircrafts to common pins. This is
primarily because of the properties of plastic
which make it versatile, easy to manufacture
at low costs and impervious to water. In fact,
plastic has, in terms of popularity, overtaken all traditional materials like natural hide,
stone, ivory, pottery, wood, paper, glass and
metal.
However, plastic is not the ideal material one
should use. Environmentalists worry about
both the creation and destruction of plastic.
This is because the disposal of petroleum
based plastic causes pollution, the release of
greenhouse gases, and the creation of landfill
material which is both biodegradable and nonbiodegradable. Plastics can be recycled, but
the process is both manpower intensive and
extremely tedious. Furthermore, the cost of
plastics has been increasing in the last
few years. This is due to the fact
that the main material used
to manufacture plastics
on a commercial level, petroleum, is becoming
more expensive as the days progress. Hence,
research is being conducted on cost effective
and superior alternatives to petroleum-based
plastics.
Plant based plastic alternatives include jute,
hemp, wood, organic cotton, recycled paper
and biodegradable plastic.
Products made of jute are both biodegradable
and environment friendly. Their production
results in generating employment in the rural
parts of the countries. This fiber can be used
to make cloth and paper. As a plant, it needs
little pesticide and fertilizers. It is also often
used in rotational cropping.
Hemp is a fibre that has thousands of known
uses and can replace anything including plastics. It is versatile enough to make both paper
and fuel. Hemp plant uses minimal amounts
of water and no pesticide. In fact, it helps in
the removal of weeds. Hemp is free of injurious chemicals, is strong, is resistant to weathering and looks amazing. Some even consider
it to be stronger than steel. A product made
out of hemp is biodegradable and was hence
successfully used by Henry Ford to manufacture a four wheeler in 1941.
Wood is, of course, a traditional alternative.
Bamboo, small twigs and bigger branches are
used to make a variety of wooden products.
-12-
Organic cotton has also gained popularity.
Traditional production systems, now referred
to as organic systems, help to maintain the
fertility of the soil through natural fertilisers
(rather than chemical ones); prevent excessive usage of pesticides which would tend to
ruin the eco system and balances therein;
and depend on natural rain, minimally supplemented with irrigation. The cotton fibers that
are produced through this method are biodegradable and are used for many purposes –
cloth being the major one.
Recycled paper follows one of the principles
of the 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle). This
paper comes from wood that has already been
cut and will be wasted if it is not used. Quite
naturally, reusing it saves trees. It is cheap
and can be done even at an individual level.
However, it is not impervious to water, hence
has restricted usage. Also, newspapers must
be used carefully, as the ink on newspapers is
poisonous for human consumption.
Starch from natural sources like wheat, tapioca, corn and potatoes is being used to manufacture biodegradable resins. These plant
based plastics or biodegradable plastics (different scientists use different words) can be
produced using several processes including
‘starch conversion’, ‘microbial conversion’ and
‘genetic modification of plants’. Starch from
the natural source is extracted and converted
into sugar and then into lactic acid through
the process of bacterial fermentation. The
lactic acid is then refined into ‘pellets’ that can
be made into multiple final products.
Initially, our society was based on materials made from plants, such as corn, soy and
sugar beets. Plants, not oil, were the primary raw material used to produce chemicals,
paints, construction materials, clothing, and
other household materials. Actually, the birth
of plastic was through a “plant based plastic!” This product was obtained from cotton
and was meant only as a substitute for ivory.
However, the ‘chemical revolution’ as some
journalists call the period after the industrial revolution, favoured industrially produced
plastic made from petroleum and natural gas.
Ironically now, a century later, we are reverting to our research on bio-plastics.
Research is being done on biodegradable
plastics that disintegrate when exposed to
sunlight, dampness, bacteria, enzymes, wind
erosion and pest or insect attack. But, these
modes of degradation will only work if the
plastic is exposed at the surface. Similarly alternatives are effective when other situational
variables like availability of oxygen exist in either the landfill or the composting site.
Bio-plastics are a modern alternative to chemical plastics. Bioplastic products are used to
make items of daily use like packaging material, disposable forks, knives, spoons, plates,
glasses and bottles, automotive components,
mattresses, CDs and many other consumer products. Many of the chemicals used in
polyvinyl chloride (PVC) have been linked to
cancer, birth defects, and other health problems. On the other hand, bio-plastics are
-13-
generated using natural materials that cause
no harm. Their degradation has less harmful effects on the environment than plastics.
Further, the bio-plastics industry has lead to
economic development of the rural areas, by
being a source of revenue for the poor farmers. Production of these also uses less fuel
(including the fuel needed to sow and harvest the plant) as compared to their competitors, petrochemical plastics. Bio-plastics are
compostable. While they may not deteriorate
in smaller, local landfills or in home based
composting sites, they can be composted in
a bigger facility, where they will degrade in
a month and a half, in comparison to traditional plastics that can take over a century
to just start the long drawn process of degradation. Also, with rising oil prices, plastic
production is becoming uneconomical, giving
bio-plastics a lot of scope.
However, it must be kept in mind that conventional corn production uses significant
amounts of toxic pesticides that can adversely impact ground and surface water, leads to
soil erosion, impacts soil production and wildlife habitats. In addition, the current trends
towards genetically modified agriculture, the
uses of hormones and steroids, over-usage
of pesticides, fertilisers and irrigation, and
the strain on infrastructure supporting recycling needs to be addressed. Science just wants to help us grow and develop, to make our lives more comfortable
and help us live in a better environment. All
we need to do to allow science to achieve
this goal that ultimately benefits us, is to follow the path science points us towards. And
in this case, we should try to minimise our
plastic consumption and make a steady shift
towards plant based plastic alternatives.
Plastic
How about using mushrooms
to make plastics? There are 3
immediate and vast advantages –
1) No petroleum products
needed
2) Only about one-tenth of
the energy is used to make the
plastic
3) Completely degradable.
Advika Gupta
12-A
-14-
Energy Crisis
Energy Crisis
The lifeline of our modern civilization is energy. Energy is in everything. It comes in different forms — heat (thermal), light (radiant),
mechanical, electrical, chemical, and nuclear
energy. The use of energy has been pivotal in
the development of human society by helping us control and adapt to the environment.
Managing the use of energy is inevitable in
any functional society. In the industrialized
world the development of energy resources
has become essential for agriculture, transportation, waste collection, information technology, communications that have become
prerequisites of a developed society. The increasing use of energy since the Industrial
Revolution has also brought with it a number
of serious problems, some of which, like global warming, present potentially grave risks to
the world.
In society and in the context of humanity,
the word “energy” is used as a synonym for
“energy resources”, and most often refers
to substances like fuels, petroleum products
and electricity, in general. These are sources
of usable energy, in that they can be easily
transformed to other kinds of energy sources
that can serve a particular useful purpose.
All forms of energy are stored in different
ways in the energy sources that we use every day. These sources are divided into two
groups — renewable (an energy source that
can be replenished in a short period of time)
and nonrenewable (an energy source that we
are using up and cannot recreate in a short
period of time). Renewable and nonrenewable energy sources can be used to produce
secondary energy sources including electricity
and hydrogen.
Renewable energy sources include solar energy, which comes from the sun and can be
turned into electricity and heat. Wind, geothermal energy from inside the earth, biomass from plants, and hydropower and ocean
energy from water are also renewable energy
sources. However, we get most of our energy
from nonrenewable energy sources, which include the fossil fuels like oil and coal.
Fears of global warming aside, burning fossil
fuels releases chemicals and particulates that
can cause cancer, brain and nerve damage,
birth defects, lung injury, and breathing problems. The toxic stew released by combusting
hydrocarbons pollutes the air and water, and
causes acid rain and smog. Nuclear energy,
once touted as “too cheap to matter,” has
never been economically successful when all
costs are factored in, and fear of disasters like
the Chernobyl reactor melt-down have virtually shut the industry down in the U.S. and
Europe. Inexpensive and seemingly abundant
nonrenewable energy fueled the twentieth
century economy, but geologists, climatologists, environmentalists, and many others
are warning that the honeymoon
may soon be over.
Aananya Banaik
9-B
-15-
Energy Tomorrow
Energy Crisis
Energy Tomorrow
The world energy demand is increasing
But our energy sources are decreasing
We’ll have no energy left for tomorrow
It’s going to become the reason for our sorrow.
Energy is the basic necessity for life,
We use it in our daily lives,
It’s the asset on which we survive.
The essential part of life (energy)
Which keep us alive
Is depleting because of humankind.
A greater energy-efficiency commitment
Is a promise to be made
With the world and ourselves, else
Nothing will be left if we work at this rate
We have to take action and start to conserve
Because our next generations do deserve
To have equal rights as us
So don’t be selfish, but preserve.
The future is in your hands
The decision is yours
Take a stand
Reserve or ignore!
Subhee Rawal
9-B
The cheapest energy is the energy
you don't use in the first place.
-- Sheryl Crow
-16-
-17Arshya Chopra
Nuclear Energy
Nuclear Energy
Visits from the future
Let us say that a time travel machine is invented in
the near future, and further, that it is I who invents
this machine. I determine right now that as soon as
I invent the machine, I shall visit myself at this time.
But I have not been visited by myself. So, time travel
must not be possible.
Introduction
Nuclear energy is created by a controlled nuclear chain reaction that boils water, produces
steam, and powers steam turbines.
30 years ago, nuclear energy was an advanced technology; the subject of experimentation and far fetched ideas. Nowadays, nuclear energy is one of the largest sources of
electric power after coal. In the world, there
are more than 440 nuclear energy plants.
These plants supply more electricity than any
oil, natural gas or hydropower plant. These
plants have also been able to save consumers
around $170 billion over other fuels used to
make electricity, since 1973. Along with the
economic benefits achieved through the use
of nuclear energy, there are environmental
benefits as well. There are, however, various drawbacks caused by the production of
electricity through nuclear power. Although
there are quite a few risks involved when using nuclear energy as a source of power, we
argue that the benefits greatly outweigh any
possible problems that may arise.
TYPES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
There are many different kinds of nuclear reactors of which the two most important are
Boiling Water Reactor and Pressurized Water
Reactor.
BOILING WATER REACTOR
In a boiling water reactor (BWR), the water,
which passes over the reactor core to act as
a moderator and coolant, is also the steam
source for the turbine. This has a disadvantage as any fuel leak might make the water
radioactive and the radioactivity would reach
the turbine and the rest of the loop.
This reactor operates at 70 atmosphere pressure and 285 degrees Celsius.
PRESSURIZED WATER REACTOR
In a pressurized water reactor (PWR), the
water, which passes over the reactor core to
act as a ‘moderator’ and coolant, does not
flow to the turbine, but is contained in a pressurized primary loop. The water in this loop is
converted into steam in the secondary loop.
This steam produced drives the turbine.
-18-
This kind of nuclear reactor has two main advantages. The obvious advantage is that
a fuel leak in the reactor core would
not pass any radioactive containment to the turbine and
condenser. The other
-19-
Nuclear Energy
advantage is that the PWR can operate at a
higher temperature and pressure than the
BWR (160 atmospheres and 315 degrees Celsius). This higher temperature in turn increases the pressure acting on the steam turbine.
This higher amount of pressure helps spin the
generator faster and produce more energy.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
All nuclear reactors currently in operation use
nuclear fission to produce energy. “Nuclear
fission is a nuclear reaction in which a heavy
nucleus (such as uranium) splits into two
lighter nuclei (and possibly some other radioactive particles as well.)”.
“Nuclear energy can also be released by fusion of two light elements (elements with low
atomic numbers). The power that fuels the
sun and the stars is nuclear fusion.”
A large amount of heat energy is produced
when atoms are spit and this heat boils the
water. The energy produced is transferred to
steam turbines in the form of heat and is then
used to generate electricity. Except for the fact
that a nuclear plant uses a different source of
energy, a nuclear energy plant is no different
from any fossil fuel power plant. Both of these
plants use the energy source to generate heat
to drive turbines that generate electricity. This
electricity generated is then fed into a grid for
domestic and industrial use.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
Some say that nuclear energy is a ‘clean’
source of producing electricity since the nuclear power plants do not release any of the
‘traditional’ power generation air pollutant
such as sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide and
nitrogen oxides. Nevertheless, the requirements for the operation of the power plants
result in environmental impacts, including air
emissions, at all stages of the uranium procurement process.
Though plant operations do not
emit gases similar to those emitted by fossil plants, nucle-
ar plants can release small amounts of airborne radioactive gases.
Uranium mining techniques are similar to
those used for coal. Issues of toxic contamination of local land and water resources arise
in the process – similar to those issues with
coal mines. Problems related to unique radioactive contamination hazards to mine workers
and nearby populations are also capable of
arising. Abandoned mines contaminated with
high-level radioactive waste can continue to
cause radioactive risks for as long as 250,000
years after shutting down.
-20-
Nuclear Energy
In nuclear fuel processing, the uranium enrichment process depends on large amounts
of electricity, the majority of which is provided
by dirty fossil fuel plants giving out all of the
traditional air pollution
emissions not released by
the nuclear reactor itself.
In addition, the fuel processing produces radioactive wastes, which must
be adequately stored and
sequestered to minimize
the risk of the release of
radioactive material.
Nuclear plants that rely
upon water for oncethrough cooling systems
require
two-and-a-half
times as much water as
fossil fuel plants. The impact on water resources, aquatic habitats, and fish are therefore considerably larger with nuclear power
plants than any other power generation technology (with the possible exception of hydroelectric facilities themselves).
Some of the most severe impacts linked to
the generation of electricity on land can also
be attributed to nuclear plants. While the
amount of solid wastes generated at nuclear
plants is relatively small, these radioactive
wastes pose health risks that exceed that
of any other source of electricity. There are
chances that these radioactive wastes will be
stored for a century or more at existing nuclear plant sites, a prospect that may prevent
any of these areas from being used again in
the future as they will become contaminated.
A major malfunction in
a nuclear power plant's
cooling systems can create a nuclear meltdown,
where fuel rods melt
within a few seconds.
The heat from the unrestrained reaction can
melt everything it comes
into contact with. Catastrophic accidents could
harm or kill thousands
of people.
The surroundings of a
nuclear power plant in India are monitored by
the Environmental Survey Laboratory (ESL)
set up well before starting the operation of
the plant. The ESL collects data on forest, flora and fauna, marine products, food and air
etc., to set up base level data on their quality
prior to commencement of the operation of
the plant. Samples are drawn and regularly
analyzed to ascertain the status on a continuous basis. The ESL functions independent of
plant authorities, and the data collected is
checked by the regulatory authorities for control purposes.
ADVANTAGES OF NUCLEAR ENERGY
Reduction of dependence on oil:
In 1973, oil provided 24% of the world’s electric supply and at that time nuclear energy
provided only 1%. In 1990, however, oil represented only 9% of the world’s electric supply while, nuclear energy accounted for 12%.
This proves that the people realized that
nuclear energy is a better source of energy,
which has resulted in people depending less
on oil.
Efficiency:
Nuclear power plants are also very efficient
as compared to other sources of producing
energy. For example, the nuclear power
plants are working at 98% efficiency
which helps produce a lot more
electricity.
-21-
Nuclear Energy
Protecting our Environment:
Since nuclear energy produces electricity
through the fission of Uranium, nuclear power plants do not pollute the air with nitrogen
oxides, sulphur oxides, dust or greenhouse
gases such as carbon dioxide obtained from
the burning of fuel.
Nuclear energy also offers an alleviation of the
global carbon dioxide problem that everyone
is facing. If the 16% of the world’s energy,
which is currently produced by nuclear pow-
er, were to be produced by coal, 1600 million
more tons of carbon dioxide would have been
emitted annually.
France is an example where the environmental benefits of nuclear energy can be seen.
In the 1980’s, due to the concerns over imported oil, France more than tripled its nuclear energy production. During that period
the pollution from the French electric power
system dropped by 80% - 90%.
DISADVANTAGES OF NUCLEAR ENERGY
Waste:
This is the biggest disadvantage of nuclear energy. Although the amount of waste produced
is small, it releases harmful radiation when it
decays. Unfortunately, so far no method has
been found to get rid of the waste or speed up
the decaying process.
Accidents - Core Meltdown:
If the reactor core cooling fails, e.g. due to
a major leakage in the reactor cooling circuit, and the emergency core cooling system
fails simultaneously, the residual heat in the
fuel created by the radioactive decay of the
fission products heats up the reactor core possibly until the fuel melts. During the meltdown, the core support structures also fail so
that the whole molten mass drops into
the lower hemispherical area of the
reactor pressure vessel. It can
be assumed that the heat
released by the molten mass melts through
the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel. The
density of the containment is important for the
extent of radioactive substances released to
the environment in the case of such a core
meltdown accident.
This happens when the nuclear core over
heats and harmful radiations are emitted. Not
only does this contaminate the environment,
but it is also harmful to people’s health and
often causes cancer.
This can be solved by using Pressurized Water
Reactors to produce nuclear energy as there
are fewer chances of them leaking and causing a lot of damage, therefore preventing accidents from occurring.
But a consoling fact is that nuclear power has
a very good safety record for a period spanning more than three decades. The Three Mile
Island (TMI) accident in March 1979 and the
Chernobyl accident in April 1986 have raised
apprehensions in the minds of the public all
over the world.
In the case of TMI, no radiation injury had occurred to any member of the Public. In fact all
the safety systems had worked as designed
and no radioactivity was released to the atmosphere. At Chernobyl, 31 people died and
they are all plant personnel. However, it must
be recognized that the Chernobyl accident occurred due to the negligence of operators who
violated the safety procedures. Besides, the
-22-
Nuclear Energy
Chernobyl reactor is a totally different type. It
employed Graphite as a moderator. Graphite
is a form of carbon and its combustible property contributed to explosion in the reactor
core. Such a sequence of events in the nuclear
plants is not possible and explosion in the core
is ruled out as it is cooled and moderated by
heavy water. Adequate safety features in the
plant are provided to ensure its safe operation. Paramount importance is given in setting
up of nuclear power installations, to the safety
of operating staff, public and environment.
Safety experts and regulatory personnel are
associated at all levels which ensures smooth
operation of nuclear power plants. Thus Chernobyl type accidents are ruled out in Indian
Nuclear Power Plants.
Weapons:
Nuclear energy has the potential to be converted into weapons. Every nuclear reactor
can make enough plutonium to build over 30
nuclear bombs annually.
Uranium:
Nuclear energy needs a large amount of uranium to power the plants. And since there
isn’t enough uranium in the world, nuclear
energy can’t completely replace other fossil fuels. Other types of reactors are able to
produce energy by using other materials. But
these other reactors are slow, expensive and
the technology will not be ready for at least
another ten years.
Cost:
Nuclear power plants are built using 3-5 billion
dollars. Maintenance and operating costs are
also very high.
CONCLUSION
Nuclear energy has proven to be the most
beneficial source of electricity. As a result of
this, several countries have decreased their
dependency on oil. Nuclear energy is also a
protector of the environment, as its production does not emit harmful greenhouse gases.
Although there are some major drawbacks
using nuclear energy, its uses outweigh those
of any other source of energy.
Viraj Nanda
11-B
“A nuclear power plant is infinitely safer
than eating, because over 300 people
choke to death on food every year”
-23-
An Alternate Route
An Alternate Route
An Alternate Route
We humans have utilized the resources that
we have obtained as a gift from Mother Earth
since the day we stepped on it. Not only have
we used these resources to benefit us but we
have thoroughly started exploiting them to
meet our ever growing demands without worrying about the consequences. And now it is
payback time. With rapidly declining crude oil
reserves, pollution levels shooting up, climate
change and sky rocketing petrol prices, it is
time we get our act together. The common
man has not worried about the dwindling natural resources and is waiting to be shocked
and surprised at the same time!
What will happen when one morning I wake
up to find that there is no petrol to drive me to
my workplace? This reminds me of the television advertisement where a little boy advises
the father to shut the engine while waiting at
the traffic signal so that there is some conservation of the liquid gold which the next generation can dream to use.
There is no denial that we are the most
evolved species on this planet and hence we
have always tried to find solutions to the
existing problem. With CNG taking
a lead role for day to day commuters in Delhi, not only
to increase fuel efficiency and reduce the
carbon footprint on the earth. Manufacturing
Hybrid vehicles is the prime target of many
automobile giants. The term Hybrid applies to
a combination of two power sources- namely
the engine and an electric motor. A few years
ago we got the opportunity to witness a solar
car in school as well. I remember how everyone was excited to see those huge solar
has it taken care of the pollution problem but
is easy on the pockets as well. The buses and
auto rickshaws are CNG driven and many well
known car makers have also manufactured
cars which have this alternate option.
The mandatory Pollution Under Control (PUC)
checks have further helped to make Delhi a
green city. However, a bigger problem looms
large on us, with the economy boosting up,
the number of cars plying on the roads have
shot up leading to endless traffic jams. Very
recently, the Chinese Government has decided to reduce the vehicular pollution and congestion in Shanghai by curbing the number
of new vehicles that are to be registered. In
other parts of the world Congestion Tax and
Parking fees are extremely high. India needs
to wake up and think that making more flyovers and roads is not the solution to traffic
woes. It needs to make stricter norms and restrict the number of vehicles used per family.
We have definitely tried our hands at alternative fuel resources as well, Biodiesel claims to
be a non-polluting energy resource. Researchers, scientists and automobile engineers are
constantly finding newer innovative methods
-24-
panels kept on the roof of the trailer. Though
it is still in the experimental stage, I am sure
there are people who are thinking of utilizing
the unlimited steady supply of solar power in
the automobile sector.
Looking at all these achievements, there is
solace and hope for the future. We may be in
the path of creating a right balance between
production and consumption. The key word is
green and hopefully we are inching towards
green energy. We cannot give back what we
have already taken from the earth but at least
try and save the rest for our future generations.
Shoubhik Ghoshal
12-A
Gadget Making
Electricity Generating Brakes
Leonardo Singh 8-B
-25-
At high speeds
whenever a sports
car brakes, the
brakes
create
heat and friction
along the brakes
there are wires
which when braking get heated up
and as metals
are good conductors of heat , take
the heat to the DC
generator which
converts heat into
electricity
and
changes the car
battery
Artificial Intelligence
BMW has created a concept car which does not have steel sheets for
a body – instead, it has a frame of wire and cloth. And, some parts of
the cloth covering actually move to allow contextual actions, like exposing the headlights at night.
Yves Behar and Forrest North unveil Mission One, a sleek, powerful
electric motorcycle. A motorcycle which runs only on electricity and
gives a top speed of 150 miles an hour
Artificial Intelligence
Gaak, a robot exhibited in June 2002 in the
Magna science centre in Rotherham
gave all the scientists an alarming demonstration. It made a dash for freedom from an exhibit! Gaak crept along a barrier until it found
a gap and squeezed through. Having left the
building, it reached Magna’s exit by the M1
motorway before it was rumbled. It showed
how a machine can become independent!
A machine behaving like a human.
This underlies artificial intelligence (AI). It
involves the study of intelligent behaviour
in machines. Scientists, for a long time now,
have been undertaking research focused on
creating machines that could solve problems
and reason like humans.
One of the most difficult problems in artificial
intelligence is that of consciousness, feelings,
emotions and social skills like a human being.
Creating a self-aware robot with real feelings
is a significant challenge faced by scientists
hoping to mimic human intelligence in a machine.
Since the early 1990s, researchers have concentrated on developing smaller, independent
robots instead of trying to recreate human intelligence. The model for many of these machines is insect intelligence, which is - in its
own way - very sophisticated.
Approaches to AI
Thus, researchers and scientists working on
AI branched into broadly two approaches but
they had the same goal of creating intelligent
machines. The two schools of thought are the
bottom up approach and the top down approach.
Neural Networks
-26-
This is the bottom up approach. It basically
aims at copying the structure and function of
the human brain, to create intelligent behavior.
Expert Systems
This is the top down approach. Instead of
starting at the base level of neurons, by taking benefits of the related computational
power of the modern computers, followers
of the expert systems approach are making
smart machines that solve problems by deductive logic.
From chess games like Fritz which can beat
Grandmaster Gary Kasprov to the daily weather forecast systems; many things in our daily
life are based on Artificial Intelligence.
Artificial Intelligence has applications in every
field of human endeavor. They combine precision and computational power with logic, to
solve problems and reduce errors in operations. Robots are taking over many jobs in industries that are dangerous for or are beyond
human ability.
Humour Test!
Knock knock……..Who's there?
A.I. …… A.I. who?
A.I. heard you were looking for a
good joke!
If your computer laughs at this,
I would classify it as non-intelligent.
APPLICATIONS OF AI
Heavy Industries and Space
Robots or machines have started manufacturing cars in big car industries. It is really tough
to put all the different pieces of cars in less
than 10 minutes for man but machines
are manufacturing cars in such industries
where they want a new car every
10 minutes. In Japan, robots
have started controlling
-27-
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence
is often present as the opponents you play
against.
AI is present all around us and sometimes
we don’t notice it. It is present in computer
games, in our cars and our e-mail. Machines
have always excelled at tasks like calculation.
But now they challenge humans in games like
chess and football.
unmanned air crafts to space for us to learn
about new planets in our solar system.
Finance
Banks use intelligent machines to see the
stock market rise and decrees every day
which is one of the toughest jobs for humans.
Computer Science
These intelligent machines have created spinoffs like dynamic programming, object orient
programming, symbolic programming, intelligent storage management systems and many
more. Their main aim of creating AI is that
people should learn to lead.
Aviation
Planes have monitoring systems to monitor
the atmospheric conditions and calculate the
amount of time to reach the destination.
Weather Forecast
Neural networks are used for predicting
weather conditions. Earlier data is fed to a
neural network which learns the pattern and
uses that knowledge to predict weather phenomena.
Smart games
A place where artificial intelligence has
found a natural home is in computer games. In games, AI
Chatbots Chatterbots, or Chatterboxes.
A chatbot is a computer program
that is designed to simulate an intelligent conversation with humans.
Many chat bots use artificial intelligence to interpret speech or text
input and before providing a response.
Social skills
Some LATEST AI Happenings
FILMS Inspired by AI
In The Terminator (1984), a computer network nukes the human race in order to achieve
supremacy. This network manufactures intelligent robots called 'Terminators' which it programs to annihilate human survivors.
In The Matrix (1999) and The Matrix Reloaded (2003), a machine enslaves humanity,
using people as batteries to power its mainframe. Steven Spielberg’s AI: Artificial Intelligence (2002) paints a more sympathetic view
of artificial life, depicting sensitive robots that
are abused by brutal, selfish human masters.
Sporting chance
The Robocup Football Challenge has robots
play one on one football matches against each
other. The tournament has different leagues
for different robots, including one for Sony’s
Aibos and one for humanoid robots. It has a
proper fixture and venue for the tournament.
The robots try and navigate themselves to
their opponent’s goal. A special ball with sensors is used.
-28-
The goal of AI research
was trying to make machines understand humans.
At the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
(MIT), scientists have
designed a robot called
Kismet that can have realistic conversations with
people. Kismet is capable
of seven different facial
expressions and can vary
the tone of its voice. It also adjusts its gaze
and the orientation of its head towards the
person it is speaking to.
ROBO DJ
Scientists at HP have designed an electronic
DJ. The DJ selects beats and tunes and then
mixes them up.
Building bridges
A computer program developed at Brandeis
University in Massachusetts has learnt how to
design and build bridges, cranes and tables
all by itself. It reinvented support structures
such as the cantilever and the triangle without prior knowledge of them.
Fraud busting
Credit card companies use a computer program called The Falcon to detect card
fraud. The Falcon
works by constantly
updating a profile of
how customers use
their credit cards. It
then looks for uncharacteristic patterns of
credit card use in the
data.
Roving eyes
A robotic head built by a Scottish robotics
company can determine a woman’s attractiveness. It works by examining faces to determine how 'feminine' or 'masculine' they
are.
Consumer gadgets
Robots designed for the consumer market
and employing very basic forms of AI
have become increasingly popular in
recent years.
-29-
Artificial Intelligence
Almost Human
At the University of Texas, Dallas, researchers have designed a human face
capable of 28 facial movements, including
smiling, sneering, furrowing its brow and
arching its eyebrows. It could be used to
put a human face to the artificial brains of
the future.
Sony's Aibo robot dog behaves like a puppy
when it is first activated. But it "learns" new
behaviour as it spends more time with its human owner.
Omron's NeCoRo robotic cat and Sanyo's robotic guard dog are other examples of this
wave of consumer robots. This is likely to
continue in future as consumer robots become more and more sophisticated.
Air ware
A software program called FACES could stop
mid-air collisions between planes. It makes
planes perform avoidance manoeuvres in
synch. When tested in a flight simulator, the
software prevented a pile-up between 35
planes sharing airspace.
The next best thing is comedic computers.
Imagine that the ATM next door had a better sense of humour. Artificial intelligence researchers are creating computer programs
that can recognize a good joke.
And this is not all. Research and development
in the area of AI is ongoing and is getting
more and more advanced. The future holds
immense possibilities.
Neel Mehdiratta
8-C
‘Data’ is a stand up comedian
that is a robot – and it can adjust its jokes based on the type
of audience as well as this audience’s response to its earlier
jokes.
-30-
A long time ago, far away on the planet of Cybertron, a war was being
waged between the noble Autobots (led by the wise Optimus Prime)
and the devious Decepticons (commanded by the dreaded Megatron)
for control over the Allspark, a mystical talisman that would grant
unlimited power to whoever possessed it. The Autobots managed to
smuggle the Allspark off the planet, but Megatron blasted off in search
of it. He eventually tracked it to the planet of Earth (circa 1850), but
his reckless desire for power sent him right into the Arctic Ocean, and
the sheer cold forced him into a paralyzed state, but his body has begun to defrost...
-31-
-32-
-33Vedika Modi
The Large Hadron Collider
The Large Hadron Collider
The Large Hadron Collider is the world’s largest and highest energy particle accelerator. A
particle accelerator is a device that propels
particles using large and very powerful electromagnets. The magnetic fields accelerate
the particles and help them change direction.
The particles accelerated are sub-atomic particles like electrons, protons and neutrons.
Accelerating particles is not the only job of
the L.H.C. (Large Hadron Collider). When
particles have reached sufficient speeds close
to the speed of light, they are literally collided
or smashed to create even smaller particles
called elementary particles which cannot be
broken down into simpler particles. These
particles form groups called Hadrons which
gives the collider its name. The elementary
particles created are very high energy but
short lived particles which can flash into existence for a few micro-seconds.
First it was thought that subatomic particles
were the smallest parts of matter but then
scientists Murray Gell Mann and George Zweig
proposed the theory of even smaller particles
in 1964 called quarks. Soon scientists were
searching for them and found many elementary particles with the help of many other colliders. This research can also help us to find
out how the Big Bang took place and would
help science greatly.
The process of colliding particles sounds very
simple but is very complex and dangerous.
Even one mistake would cost dearly. Elementary particles are created by smashing sub-
The Large Hadron Collider
atomic particles like
protons with their antiparticles which have
the same properties
but opposite charge.
Particles are first fed
into the collider tunnel
which has a special insulation which doesn’t
let particles escape.
The particles are first
accelerated separately
with the magnets and
then on accelerating
into beams they are
put in the same tunnel and collided. The particles break up and
elementary particles are released for a few
micro-seconds. Electronic sensors show their
tracks on screens to scientists which let them
calculate mass, electric charge, density, etc.
The L.H.C. helps us understand a lot about
physics. Protons were first fired on 10th
September, 2008 but
in the process, the
magnets got damaged cancelling the
colliding
process.
On 23rd November,
2009 particles were
first collided. People
had thought that the
L.H.C would destroy
the world by colliding
particles but this was
just science fiction.
Scientists at L.H.C.
are currently searching for a new type
of particle known as the Higgs Boson which
is thought to give things mass. It should be
found in 2 to 3 years.
DID YOU KNOW?
1. The combined strands of the
superconducting cable being produced for the LHC would go around
the equator 6.8 times. If you added
all the filaments of the strands together they would stretch to the
sun and back 5 times with enough
left over for a few trips to the moon!
2. When the 27km long circular tunnel at CERN was excavated, between
Lake Geneva and the Jura Mountain
Range, the two ends met up with
just one centimetre of error!
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-35-
Ayush Sharma
9-B
Cold Fusion
Cold Fusion
Cold Fusion
A topic which has been getting a lot of attention recently is the problem of finding a sustainable energy source. For this governments
are looking far and wide and finding many
natural sources of energy which can be used
indefinitely. However, a yet largely unheard
of source of energy which not only has the
potential to limitlessly power the earth but
which could also be used without completely
changing the current structure of power generation is cold fusion.
Cold fusion is a process similar to that which
takes place on the sun. It involves the fusing of two small atoms, usually Deuterium, to
create a larger atom where the mass of the
larger atom is less than the combined masses
of the two initial atoms. Unlike the fusion on
the sun which takes place at close to 50,000K
cold fusion, if conducted successfully, will take
place at just over room temperature. By using
such little energy to fuel the reaction we can
produce much more energy (approximately
10 times) than the same reaction produces
on the sun.
What happens to that missing mass?
Using Einstein’s famous equation, E = mc²,
the lost mass gets converted into energy by
multiplying it by the (speed of light)². That
means that a single Kilogram of Heavy Water (water with Deuterium instead of Hydrogen) can power a city the size of New York
for 24 hours. So with just 1000 kg of Heavy
Water we could power the earth for a day.
But where do we get this heavy water form?
It’s all around us – in the ocean. 1% of all the
water in the ocean is heavy water – enough
to power the Earth until the year 30,000 CE.
As with any new method of energy
generation people ask – “What byproducts does it produce”. The
best part? The ONLY
by-product of cold fusion is pure water. Not
only does Cold Fusion solve the energy crisis
but can also provide clean drinking water for
the same period of time. However, cold fusion does have a single drawback. Obtaining
Heavy Water from the oceans is, as of now, a
costly process costing almost Rs. 50,000 for a
single Kilogram. This has significantly slowed
down its’ acceptance into the scientific com-
munity as many feel that the money is better
used to achieve other objectives.
The original acceptance of cold fusion as a
method of generating energy was in 1989
when Martin Fleishmann and Stanley Pons
published a paper on what they believed was
a successful cold fusion Experiment. During
their reaction they managed to split Deuterium molecules before getting them to fuse
instead of fusing them, which, until then,
had been the norm. Though their experiment
could not be replicated and was ultimately
frowned upon it created the foundation of the
modern cold fusion experiments. Today scientists are working on two types of cold fusion.
-36-
The first type is muon-catalyzed fusion,
where the scientists replace the electrons in
the atoms with muons, which have the same
negative charge as an electron but weigh 217
times more. This means that the intensity of
the negative charge decreases significantly making it easier to bring the atoms close
enough to fuse. The second type of cold fusion scientists are working on is a continuation of the Fleishmann-Pons experiment. This
is an electrolytic process with a Deuterium
anode, Palladium cathode and Heavy Water
electrolyte. When electricity is passed through
it the heavy water produces deuterium atoms
that converge at the cathode. The palladium
cathode increases the compressibility of the
atoms causing them to fuse. Though neither
of these methods appears to be successful,
the Fleishmann-Pons type fusion is showing
mixed results with erratic energy outputs of
2500% the energy input. However, these outputs are not significant enough to attract attention.
In the past decade many nations have come
to recognize that cold fusion is a future option
and have begun to invest in it. The United
Nations has set up a laboratory in Switzerland
in association with CERN with the goal being to successfully achieve cold fusion. Even
the Indian government has recognized its
benefits and have begun funding efforts to
invent a successful cold fusion generator and
these investments have brought fruits as a
Japanese scientist, Yoshiaki Arata, working in
Bangalore has reported successful cold fusion
experiments yielding 1500% energy output.
His experiment is now working by powering
his laboratory but still has too many flaws to
be used commercially.
Though still thought to be in its youth by the
scientific community the possibilities opened
by cold fusion are thought to be endless as
the limitless energy can be used to power experiments considered too power hungry like
those in the Large Hadron Collider. I strongly
believe that cold fusion, if successful, would
create a new future for mankind, because we
could live powerfully and unafraid, because
there will never be a too much.
Dr. Ock, Spiderman’s
nemesis, was the first
fictional scientist to
use cold fusion to power
his evil schemes
-37-
Amar Singh Dhingra
12-C
Antimatter
Antimatter
Antimatter
Antimatter sounds like the stuff of science fiction and it is. But it is also very real. Antimatter is created and annihilated in stars every
day. Here on Earth it is harnessed for medical
brain scans.
"Antimatter is around us each day, although
there isn't very much of it," says Gerald Share
of the Naval Research Laboratory. "It is not
something that can be found by itself in a jar
on a table."
So Share went looking for evidence of some in
the Sun, a veritable antimatter factory, leading to new results that provide limited fresh
insight into these still-mysterious particles.
Simply put, antimatter is a fundamental particle of regular matter with its electrical charge
reversed. The common proton has an antimatter counterpart called the antiproton. It
has the same mass but an opposite charge.
The electron's counterpart is called a positron.
Antimatter particles are created in ultra highspeed collisions.
“One example is when a high-energy proton
in a solar flare collides with carbon”, Share
explained in an e-mail interview. "It can form
a type of nitrogen that has too many protons relative to its number of neutrons." This
makes its nucleus unstable, and a positron is
emitted to stabilize the situation.
But positrons don't last long. When they hit
an electron, they annihilate and produce energy.
"So the cycle is complete, and for this reason there is so little antimatter around at a
given time," Share said. Antimatter has tremendous energy potential, if it could ever be
harnessed. A solar flare in July 2002 created
about half a kilogram of antimatter, according
to new NASA-led research. That's enough to
power the United States for two days. Laboratory particle accelerators can produce highenergy antimatter particles, too, but only in
tiny quantities. Something on the order of a
billionth of a gram or less is produced every
year. Though scientists like to see antimat-
ter as a natural thing, much about it remains
highly mysterious. Even some of the fictional
portrayals of mirror-image objects have not
been proven totally out of this world.
"We cannot rule out the possibility that some
antimatter star or galaxy exists somewhere,"
Share says. "Generally it would look the same
as a matter star or galaxy to most of our instruments."
Theory argues that antimatter would behave
identical to regular matter gravitationally.
Shreya Chadha
11-C
The music beat is a device to be used while
lsitening to music. You tie the band around
your wrist. It calculates your pulse and
makes you hear music according to that.
For example if your pulse is fast, it makes
you hear music that is slow and calms you
down. It is a very useful gadget to use if
someone is angry, hyper or depressed.
Saieeshaa Sethi
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-39-
PCR - A Magical Genie
PCR - A Magical Genie
The human body is made of cells, which enclose a nucleus, which in turn contains the
chromosomes constituting the DNA. Too long,
eh?
But do you know how small this very chromosomal or genomic DNA is? No? Well, frankly,
even I don’t. But the fact remains to surprise
me that this very segment of genomic DNA
can be multiplied into billions of copies in a
matter of a few hours. It’s technology, it’s intriguing, it’s polymerase chain reaction.
The DNA segment of interest or target DNA,
an enzyme called Taq Polymerase, free nucleotides and primers are the ingredients to
the perfect recipe of
copies of DNA. The
primers are mere
“copy cats”, so they
contain the same
end sequence as
the target DNA. As
in the movie, Inception, there were 3
different levels of the
dream, similarly in
PCR there are 20-35
cycles to create the
end products while
the principle on
which they are created is thermal cycling, i.e. repeated heating
and cooling of the target segment for DNA
melting and enzymatic replication of DNA.
Firstly, as you would be aware, the DNA contains 2 strands. Hence, by heating the target
DNA, the hydrogen bonds are broken apart
and the DNA is denatured into 2 single strands.
Then, the primers start forming hydrogen
bonds or anneal with the specific segments
of DNA according to the base pairs of Adenine, Guanine, Thymine and Cy-
tosine. It’s the rule of every strand of DNA to
make Adenine and Thymine join hands while
Cytosine and Guanine do the same. Then as
the temperature is risen to about 72 degrees,
the Taq Polymerase displays its heroic nature
and saves the day. It adds free nucleotides to
the 3’ end of the primers, extending or hence,
elongating it, like a chain. Thereafter, 2 copies
of double stranded target DNA are created.
By repeating this simple process of denaturing, annealing and polymerization: Voila! At
the end of cycle 25, you have 33,554,432
copies of the target DNA.
It doesn’t stop there. These very billion copies of DNA in a sample
are then used not only
for the clichéd cloning, but also the very
exciting forensic field
for genetic fingerprinting. These PCR-based
techniques have been
successfully used on
animals, such as a
forty-thousand-yearold mammoth, and
also on human DNA,
in applications ranging from the analysis
of Egyptian mummies to the identification of
a Russian Tsar. It can also identify genetic relationships between individuals, such as parent-child or between siblings, and are used in
paternity testing.
It’s rising technology, it’s changing, it’s chemical reactions, it’s polymerase chain reaction,
it’s Science.
-40-
Vandita Khanna
11-A
Are Aliens Real Or Not
Are Aliens Real Or Not?
Numerous humans stop what they are doing and stare at the great big twinkling object hovering in the night sky as one question
crosses their minds: Have the aliens finally
reached us? And are they here to befriend
us or destroy us? Some others took this object to be a hoax, another attempt to prove
to people that aliens are real. Who is right in
their belief?
Throughout history, people have talked of
‘aliens’ and ‘UFO’s’ (Unidentified Flying Objects), but do they exist? Etchings have been
found on walls in caves of human shapes, except with the strange shaped head and eyes.
Up till today, those who say they have seen
‘aliens’ all give similar descriptions. There are
hundreds of people all over the world who
claim to have seen UFO’s, either in flight or
hovering over them. But have these people
actually seen them or are they just trying to
cause a stir, see their names in the papers
perhaps?
On the other hand, arguments stand that if
man can build ships to fly billions of miles
into the unknown, design suits and breathing equipment to help protect them whilst out
there in the universe, why can there not be
aliens who can do the same? Perhaps they
can be even be more advanced than us. Why
ings for this article, my attention was caught
by an incident which was published by Patty
Brown on the 27th of March 2010:
“In July 1947, near Corona, New Mexico, after
a hot and humid afternoon, a huge thunder-
should it be that we, humans, are the only
living creatures, able to fly and explore other
planets? How do we know there have not
been ‘aliens’ here on earth long before we
came into being?
There have been many films depicting ‘aliens’
in different forms, colors and skin types, but
nothing really matches what have been supposedly seen and photographed. Many believe that the painting called ‘The Baptism of
Christ’ depicts a disk shaped object in the sky,
thus feeding the minds of those who believe
that ’aliens’ do exist. We know there are planets out there in far off galaxies that can support life, so why not alien beings?
While I was reading about various UFO sightstorm filled the night sky which was usual for
sheep rancher Mac Brazel. He was used to
the sounds of thunder, lightning and
wind, but this night he heard
a sound that worried him:
-41-
Are Aliens Real Or Not
an extremely loud noise like a crash. Thinking no more of it, he retired for the night,
sleeping through the rest of the storm.
The following day, Brazel went off to check
his land for any damage only to find strange
looking debris in a field. He picked some of
the unusual looking materials and took it to
his neighbor who urged him to report his find.
After reporting his find to the Roswell N M
authorities, he was then questioned by the
local radio reporter Frank Joyce who also
reported the find to Roswell Army Air Force
Base. On July 8th, a statement was released
to the press confirming the Air Force had in its
possession a ‘Flying Disc’. Later the statement
was changed and the disk was then changed
to a weather balloon. All the debris was removed and taken to Air Force Headquarters
in Ft. Worth, Texas, and later changed for
weather balloon material.
Back at Roswell, a funeral home was contacted and 4 child sized hermetically sealed
coffins were ordered. A nurse was called to
assist in an ‘alien autopsy’ and even though
she was sworn to secrecy, she confided in the
mortician and drew him a sketch of what she
saw. She was later ‘transferred’ but never
seen again.
The news of the flying disc made headlines in
the news across the globe which had Brazel
regretting the day he found the debris. It was
said that a number of people had seen the
UFO wreckage and alien bodies. The wreckage and alien bodies are now being stored
at Roswell temporarily before being flown to
Wright-Patterson field in Ohio.”
The above incident proves that nothing is
impossible when it comes to life beyond that
of ours on Earth. We just have to be broad
minded and accept that we may not be the
only living creatures in our galaxy or the galaxies beyond ours. But until we get sufficient
evidence, we don’t know anything for sure.
Only speculations can be made. Thus, the
question still stands: Are aliens real, or just
another figment of our imagination?
Do you believe in Aliens?
Vani Shriya: No, but I do believe that its
asking a lot to accept that Earth is the only
planet in the only solar system in the only
galaxy out of millions that is capable of supporting life; and believe that its more probable than not that life on other planets does
exist - just not in this solar system.
Jaya Mehta: Yes I do believe in aliens and
that the world will be inhabited by welldressed and better looking et creatures who
will dress like the 70's 80's
Yunhee Ji - Yes, Jaadu!
Aditi Banerjee
11-A
The Fermi Paradox
The apparent size and age of the universe sug-
gest that many technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilizations ought to exist.
However, this hypothesis seems inconsistent with
the lack of observational evidence to support it.
Or, in Enrico Fermi’s words,
“Where are they?”
-42-
-43-
The Hitchhikers Guide To The
Galaxy
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
Everyone has bad mornings. You wake up late, you stub your toe, you burn the toast...
but for a man named Arthur Dent, this goes far beyond a bad day. When he learns that
a friend of his is actually an alien with advanced knowledge of Earth's impending destruction, he is transported off the Earth seconds before it is exploded to make way for
a new hyperspace motorway. And as if that's not enough, throw in being wanted by the
police. Add Earth II, an insane electronic encyclopaedia, no tea whatsoever, a chronically depressed robot and the search for the meaning of life, and you've got the greatest
adventure off Earth.
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
1.
The Guide to the Galaxy- A Guide about Everything
2.
The Toaster Knife
3.
The Babel Fish – A fish which makes every language understandable
4.
The original Thinking Cap – A cap which helps you think and is powered by lemons
5. Sub Etha Sens-o-Matic – A device which is put on your thumb and helps you
hitchhike.
-44-
Star Wars
Star Wars
Science Fiction movies first became popular in the 1960’s with the release of Star Wars
and Star Trek; movies over 30 years old and still being watched by children and adults
alike all over the world.
A long time ago (yet somehow how in the future) in a galaxy far, far away…..STAR
WARS. The most famous of all science fiction movies and shows, Star Wars shows us
gadgets and technology we wish we had. So far one of the only star wars like things we’ve
managed to achieve is doors that open when we approach them, but we’re going to reach
giant space ships and rocket gliders soon
Star Wars
1.
Light Sabers – Used by the Jedi to kill their foes light sabers are beams of energy
that emit from a sword hilt and can cut through anything except other light sabers.
2.
The Droids – Super intelligent robots that help the Jedi Droids are a crucial element in the six Star Wars movies
3.
Blaster Guns – The gun of choice for the Jedi (and later Sith) army the guns are
the main weapon through most of the two trilogies coming in second only to the light
saber.
4.
Space Ships – Space ships like the one in the picture are used not only as a means
of travel but also as a base of operations for both sides, the most notable two being the
Millennium Falcon and the Death Star.
-45-
Fun Facts
Fun Facts!!!
13. The Humming bird is the only animal that can fly backwards.
1. The most dangerous animal in the world is the house-fly. Because of its hab-
14. There are more living organisms on the skin of a single human being than
there are humans on Earth.
2. Snakes are the only true carnivores because they eat nothing other than animals.
15. Cheetah’s can accelerate from 0 to 70 km/h in 3 seconds.
its of visiting animal waste, it transmits diseases more than any other animal
3. Fleas can jump 130 times their own
height. In human terms that is equivalent
to a 6 foot man jumping 780 feet into the
air.
4. The ears of a cricket are located on the front legs, just under their knees.
5. An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
6. The legs of a locust are about 1000 times more
powerful than an equal weight of human muscle.
7. The letter “J” does not appear in the periodic
table.
8. Shrimps hearts are in their heads.
16 It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
17. Starfish don’t have brains.
9. Cats have over a 100 vocal sounds while dogs have around 10.
10. Porcupines float in water.
18. Lobsters have blue blood.
11. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tub and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
19. Sharks’ teeth are literally as hard as
steel.
12. Hawaii is moving towards Japan at a rate
of 4 inches per year.
-46-
Shome Advani 9B+
-47-
The Synthetic Life
The Synthetic Life
The Synthetic Life: Pros and Cons
Winner of the Science Essay Prize 2010
Put in about 40 million dollars of financial
backing, more than a decade of determination, a challenging dream, four bottles of
chemicals, some common microbes and a
DNA synthesizer and you’ve got yourself the
recipe for the world’s first synthetic life form.
Genetic entrepreneur Craig Venter began his
research in 1995 when he sequenced the first
two genomes in history. The process of determining the exact order of the 3 billion chemical building blocks (called bases and abbreviated A, T, C and G) that make up the DNA
is called genome sequencing. He describes
his fifteen-year long journey as one that was
much longer than he expected. Craig Venter
and his team began their work by learning to
write the genetic code for synthetic pieces.
Venter and his team ultimately succeeded in
creating genetic code longer than 1 million
letters. Learning how to synthesize this cell
meant mastering a field of chemistry scarcely
visited, but it also resulted in creating the first
ever multiplying organism whose parent was
a computer.
To create the organism, Venter's team began
with a computer reconstruction of the genome of a common bacterium, Mycoplasma
Mycoides. The information about the genome
was fed into a DNA synthesizer, which produced short strands of the bug's DNA. These
strands were then stitched together by inserting them first into yeast and then into E.
Coli bacteria. The bugs' natural repair mechanisms saw the strands as broken fragments
and reassembled them.
After several rounds, the scientists had pieced
together all 1m letters of the bacterium's genome. To mark the genome as synthetic, they
spliced in fresh strands of DNA, each a biological "watermark" that would do nothing in the
final organism except carry coded messages,
including a line from James Joyce: "To live,
to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out
of life.” The scientists then took the synthetic
genome and transferred it into another kind
of bug. As this bug multiplied, some of the
bugs’ progeny discarded their own DNA and
began using the synthetic genome.
Scientists all over the world believe that this
breakthrough will be a source of as much controversy and debate as the cloning of Dolly
the sheep and the splitting of the atom. While
some defend its benefits, others argue that
this ‘miraculous’ discovery will have unimagined fallouts.
Since his discovery, Craig Venter has often
been accused of “playing God”. Unfazed by
-48-
these accusations, Venter asserts that the
creation of this cell helps us understand how
life works. He has proposed many uses for
such a cell making its uses and advantages
seem limitless. The potential benefits of research on synthetic life are many. Venter’s
company “Synthetic Genomics” suggests that
we might one day be able to create life forms
that form the basis of new environmentally
friendly fuels, as well as new life forms that
consume pollutants and reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Venter has secured a
deal with the oil giant ExxonMobil to create
algae that can absorb carbon dioxide from
the atmosphere and convert it into fuel — an
innovation he believes could be worth more
than a trillion dollars. The uses of this cell
might even go as far as to include vaccines
for the common flu and biological based electron parts. Another interesting application of
the cell is to use it to clean oil spills faster
than they are cleaned now. Many believe that
while this organism does present certain risks,
the potential for benefit is far greater than the
risk of harm.
Critics of this discovery present strong ethi-
cal arguments. They claim that the risks involved in the creation of new life are significant. Some say that it is possible for new and
dangerous infectious organisms to be created
that will kill on a massive scale. Others argue
that this could set the groundwork for bioterrorism by being a gift to terrorists bent on
developing weapon-ized microbes. The strongest ethical argument against the creation of
this life form is that of human beings messing with Nature’s order of things. Certain scientists denounce this breakthrough as man
playing God. They argue that trying to mimic
billions of years of Nature’s evolution is not
a recipe for success rather one for complete
disaster. There are a number of people who
find this mimicry. They believe that there are
certain areas that are better left alone. While the pros and cons of synthetic life are
many, one thing is clear – it stands on its
own as a groundbreaking creation. Good
or bad, synthetic life promises an
enormous impact-whether it is
unlocking the door to a
better life or opening
-49-
The Ignite Experience
The Synthetic Life
Pandora’s box. Quoting a line from a Spiderman movie, ”With great power comes great
responsibility.” Venter agrees. He told BBC in
an interview, "It's clearly a dual-use technology and that requires immense responsibility
for whoever's using it. We are entering an exciting new era where we're limited mostly by
our imaginations."
Vaasvi Goyal
Alumnus
Metabolic materials (semi-living things) used in architecture can be made to have all kinds of properties
– from the ability to extract carbon from the atmosphere to the ability to self-repair. These buildings
then become connected to nature and interact with it,
feeding off it without harming it.
The Ignite Experience
When the four of us (Kaamya Sharma, Riya
Kothari, Mehr Mehta and Nimran Kang) left for
Ahmedabad to receive our prize from Doctor
Abdul Kalam, we felt extremely honoured. We
had entered an idea for a competition called
Ignite, where children give ideas to help the
world. The essence of the competition was
‘you send the ideas in, and we’ll act on them’. We won third prize for our idea in the category of class eight and under.
We reached Ahmadabad on the morning of
the 8th of November and went to IIM Ahmedabad where the whole function was to be
held. When we reached the campus we saw
everyone else’s ideas and all of them were
very innovative and different. Ignite is organized annually by the by the National Innovation Foundation (NIF).
This was our submission for the competition:
TITLE - The cycl - o - cleaner
DETAILED DISCRIPTION -
This is a cycle that is very helpful for the
enviroment. It has two cylindicular brooms
attatched to the back wheel. These rotate
due to the gears that connect the rods. The
brushes are close together so that when they
rotate the dust slips through and is pushed to
the sides of the road, cleaning the driveway
or road.
-50-
This cycle includes an extra contraption that
can be attatched to the front of it. This contraption is a dustbin, meant to collect large
scraps and pieces of garbage which look untidy even at the sides of the roads. The cycl-ocleaner could make life easier for people who
clean roads for a living. It is a new, convenient way to clean roads.
The creation of this idea was based on the
hope that it would help people who spend
their whole day cleaning roads, on foot.
In our stall the organizers had made a huge
poster with the details of our idea, for us.
They had even made a life size prototype of
our idea that actually worked! We rode the
cycle around the campus and cleaned up the
place. The excitement in the air escalated
when Dr. Kalam reached the campus. Everyone was just as eager as us to show him their
ideas.
He was very curious and treated us like his
friends. A while later, we went into the auditorium where Dr. Kalam awarded prizes to
everyone. Each of us, the winners, received
colossal trophies! After that he gave a very
inspiring speech.
Later that day, all the participants interacted
with each other, and we discovered many children who were really diamonds in the rough.
I mean, seriously, what would you say if you
found out a 17 year old girl had a minor planet named after her and a 16 year old boy had
been given an offer to work at NASA?
We returned to Delhi, amazed at the excellence that so many Indians have achieved,
be it Dr. Kalam himself or the young students
we met. We came home and realized that not
only had our trip been a great experience, but
also a huge inspiration.
-51-
Kaamya Sharma and Riya Kothari
7-C
As we become more conscious of our environment and climate it becomes
more important that we reduce our dependency on non-renewable sources
of energy. Now, by using this gadget, you can power your home and/or
small gadgets with green energy produced from your own hands!
In this gadget one is meant to compress the rudder constantly just like
they do while using their palm/fingers. As you can the center of the
ball is connected through a rubber pipe to a rectangular housing which
houses a rotor blade, 2 permanent magnets and a coil central shaft with
gears. This is like a small motor. The rotary blade is powered by the
wind pumping through the pipe only in one direction. The shaft with
gears is connected to an armeture containing several turns of electrical wires, placed between two permanent magnets. Therefore it rotates
albiet at a much higher rate as a result of electromagnetism created byt
the two magnets on either side of the shaft, electricity is generated in
the coils which is stored in the batteries. This is in efeect the conversion
of mechanical energy into electricity which is stroed in the rechargable
batteries.
This excercise with the rubber ball is very helpful for paralytic patients,
whose upper limbs have been affected, as they have to undergo physiotherapy to regain the lost strength of their muscles. Thus by using this
gadget they an regain their lost strength, as awell as produce energy
which can be used as electricity
-52-later on, that to at the same time
Rishabh Chatterji
-53-
Kanishk Ali Khanna
Phineas And Ferb
PHINEAS AND FERB
Any kid on a weekend would wake up to say, “Ah, no school today, I can
watch ‘Phineas and Ferb’ all day!” That’s right, we’re talking about
the all time favorite Disney cartoon whose popularity only continues
to grow by the day. ‘Phineas and Ferb’ is, for those of you who aren’t
aware, a twenty minute long animated TV show, each episode focusing on a different invention made by two brothers during their summer vacation. The inventions are crazy and unimaginable, they are
big and innovative, they are fun and creative but most of all, they are
an inspiration to each individual who has been told that they need to
get their feet back on earth, for what they are imagining is impossible.
So, we decided to get into action and see what the youth’s favorite
invention is in their favorite show. Here, we’ve ranked the different
episode based on our findings.
II. Voice-inator
The voice-inator makes turns peoples
voices to a higher pitch so that Doofenshmirtz own voice sounds lower.
III. Shrinkspheria
The Shrinkspheria causes everything
Doofenshmirtz dislikes to shrink to exceedingly small sizes.
IV. Make-up-your-mind-inator
This machine aims to destroy anybody
who is having trouble making up their
mind.
Favourite Doofenshmirtz Inventions
I. Termite Controlling Helmet
Doofenshmirtz designs a helmet that enables him to control termites. His plan is
to make them eat up all the wood, so that
he can sell aluminium siding.
-54-
Phineas And Ferb
V. Poopinator
This invention is used by Doofenshmirtz
to hypnotise pigeons into pooping on
his brother.
-55-
Phineas And Ferb
Phineas And Ferb
Favourite Phineas and Ferb Episodes
I. Candace Loses Her Head
In this episode Phineas and Ferb carve
their sister, Candace’s face into Mount
Rushmore as a birthday present. Using
what appears to be mountaineering gear
and dynamites along with other digging
equipment.
The Best named ‘inators’
I. Giant Robotic Penguin Icy Freeze Your
Socks Off Breath-inator thingy
Doofenshmirtz plans to freeze the entire Tri state area using giant penguins,
he feels this shall help him sell hot chocolate.
II. Toy To The World
In this episode, prompted by their sister
Candace’s new job at a toy store, the boys
decide to create their own toy, modeled
around their pet platypus, Perry.
III. It’s a Mud,Mud,Mud,Mud World
Phineas and Ferb try to help Candace learn
how to parallel park by remodeling their
family car into a monster truck and organizing a monster truck rally for her to take
part in.
-56-
II.
Who's Blinded by Sandinator
or
Who's Crying Now-inator
Doofenshmirtz uses this machine to kick
sand over the house of a boy who used to
bully him.
-57-
It writes on air! It floats on air! Its 100% Bio-degradable!
We all know about global warming and its effects so I invented a mode of communication that won’t use electricity and won’t pollute the world. With the Aeropenator you
write what you want on air and write the adress of the person you’re writing to and then blow on the message gently
and within seconds it will-58reach the other person.
Kanishk Ali Khanna
-59-
It never gets tired
It can shoot lasers out of its eyes
Its red nose beeps when there is danger
It has a police siren
It shoots bullets
It can fly
It can talk
It can shoot water
-60-
-61-
The Big Bang Theory
Where Did The Earth Come From
Where Did The Earth Come
From
One theory is that, the earth came from a cloud
in space. Scientist think that the Earth was
formed by a huge cloud of gas and dust around
4500 million years ago. A star near the cloud
exploded, making the cloud spin. As the cloud
spun around, gases gathered at its centre and
formed the Sun. Dust whizzed around the sun
and stuck together to form lumps of rock. In
time, the rocks crashed into each other to make
the planets. The earth is one of those planets.
Is “BORING!!!” the first thought that comes to your mind when someone says, “Science”? Well Chuck Lorre’s “The Big Bang
Theory” not only changes that, but makes you want to become a physicist. “The Big Bang Theory” is about four socially awkward super geniuses and their interaction with the outside world . Though it’s mostly a comedy, you learn science, good English and a little bit philosophy and it is filled with fun facts and quotes.
Our top 5 favourite quotes from the Big Bang Theory are -
Krishna Singh
7-A
The History Of The World According To The Big Bang Theory
Our whole universe was in a hot dense state,
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started. Wait...
The Earth began to cool,
The autotrophs began to drool,
Neanderthals developed tools,
We built a wall (we built the pyramids),
Math, science, history, unraveling the mystery,
That all started with the big bang! BANG!
"Since the dawn of man" is really not that long,
As every galaxy was formed in less time
than it takes to sing this song.
A fraction of a second and the elements were made.
The bipeds stood up straight,
The dinosaurs all met their fate,
They tried to leap but they were late;
And they all died (they froze their bottoms off).
The ocean said "Pangaea?
"See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya!"
Set in motion by the same big bang!
It all started with a big BANG!
It's expanding ever outward, but one day
It will pause, then start to go the other way;
Collapsing ever inward,
we won't be here, it wont be heard.
Our best and brightest figure that
it'll make an even bigger bang!
Australopithecus would really have been sick of us
Debating how we're here,
They're catching deer (we're catching viruses).
Religion or astronomy (Descartes or Deuteronomy);
It all started with a big bang!
1. Sheldon: (on why he isn’t going for a fundraiser)
Leanord: How do we tell Sebert you’re not coming?
Sheldon: Tell him that Dr. Cooper feels that the best use of his time
is to employ his rare and precious mental faculties to tear the mask off nature and
stare at the face of god.
Penny: Sheldon, its Saturday night. You’ll be doing laundry.
Sheldon: Don’t tell him that, tell him the mask thing .
2. Sheldon: “I'm polymerized tree sap and you're an inorganic adhesive, so whatever verbal projectile you launch in
my direction is reflected off of me, returns along its original
trajectory and adheres to you.”
(Translation: I‘m rubber you’re glue, whatever you say bounces off me and gets stuck to you)
3. Sheldon: “What do I do?”
Leonard: “Alright let me see if I can explain your situation
using physics. What would you be if you were attached to another object wrapped helically around an axis? “
Sheldon: “Screwed” (then realizes his situation)
-62-
-63-
The Big Bang Theory
Evolution, Yet No Solution
Evolution, Yet No Solution
4. Sheldon: “I agreed to speak to you this evening because I
was told you are the best and the brightest of this university’s doctoral candidates. Hmm of course that’s like saying
you’re the most important electron in a Hydrogen atom.”
5. Sheldon: (explaining his version of rock paper scissors)
“Scissors cut paper, paper covers rock, rock crushes lizard, lizard poisons Spock, Spock smashes scissors, scissors decapitate lizard, lizard eats paper, paper disproves
Spock, Spock vaporizes rock, and as it always has, rock
crushes scissors.”
-64-
Evolution is often described as a process by
which different organisms gradually develop
from their earlier forms.
Man and apes are supposed to have a common ancestor, we all know this, but hear this
one… Two strains of Africa’s most notorious
malaria transmitting mosquitoes appear to be
evolving into two genetically distinct species.
Evolution is usually development of the species that increases their life span and helps
them survive longer, but this evolution is seriously dangerous for humans.
This evolution means the insects could become immune to strategies adopted to control malaria: a deadly disease killing thousands of people every year around the world,
especially in Asian and African countries.
Researchers at the Imperial College, London
who studied the Anopheles gambiae mosquito, the chief carrier of the malaria causing
protozoan in Sub-Saharan Africa, found that 2
strains of the mosquito were rapidly diverging
in their genetic make up, despite appearing
physically identical.
According to scientists, genetic differences
between the 2 strains, known as M and S,
were scattered throughout the insects’ DNA.
The changes had occurred in areas likely to
affect development, feeding behaviour and
reproduction. A further study comparing the
2 strains showed that they seem to be evolving differently.
Maria Lawniczak, a member in the research
team, said, “From our new studies, we can
see that mosquitoes are evolving more quickly than we thought and that unfortunately,
strategies that might work against one strain
of mosquitoes might not be effective against
another.”
Thus it is important to identify and monitor
these hidden genetic mutations in mosquitoes
to succeed in bringing malaria under control.
It is a point to ponder upon that such microscopic changes in the living organisms as well
as our surroundings can cause such a great
deal of destruction and damage.
Akarshita Dhawan
12-C
-65-
What Do You Choose To Believe
What Do You Choose To
Believe?
A Miracle of Science
And Moses said unto the people: 'Fear ye not,
stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD,
which He will work for you to-day; for whereas ye have seen the Egyptians to-day, ye shall
see them again no more for ever.
astounding.
As the myth portrays, after being led out of
Egyptian slavery by Moses, the Jewish prophet, the Israelites find themselves trapped; be-
The LORD will fight for you, and ye shall hold
your peace.'
And the LORD said unto Moses: 'Wherefore
criest thou unto Me? Speak unto the children
of Israel, that they go forward.
And lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thy
hand over the sea, and divide it; and the children of Israel shall go into the midst of the
sea on dry ground.”
And as Moses stretched out his hand over the
sea, the LORD caused the sea to go back by
a strong east wind all night, made the sea dry
land, and the waters were divided.
And the children of Israel went into the midst
of the sea upon the dry ground; and the
waters were a wall unto them on their right
hand, and on their left.
And by the LORD, hence it was done.
Miraculous. Extraordinary. Phenomenal .
Words are not enough to describe this amazing feat.
Instead, engineers argue that the event likely
took place in the Nile Delta, where a similar
wind setdown was recorded in the late 19th
century.
Using satellite data and earlier research into
the ancient geography of the Nile Delta, researchers etimated the lay of the land around
1250 BC and ran their simulation. The model
suggested that the crossing could have taken
philosophers over the span of 3000
years from its occurrence, this
phenomenon was truly
With a revolutionary breakthrough, research-
Speculated upon by many scientists and
place at Manzala -- about 80 miles north of
the port of Suez -- where an ancient branch
of the Nile entered the lagoon, then called the
Lake of Tanis. Manzala runs east to west and also matches the alternate Biblical translation of "Reed
Sea," as it was once filled with papyrus reeds.
The engineers found that if a 63 mph east
wind blew across the water for 12 hours, a
2.5-mile-long, three-mile-wide stretch of mud
flat would have been exposed. That path
would remain clear for about four hours, giving the Israelites plenty of time to make their
escape. The researchers' findings also suggest that, if
the pharaoh's troops were crossing the mud
flats when the wind died down, they would
have bit hit by "an advancing wall of churning water." Or as Exodus puts it, "the waters
returned, and covered the chariots, and the
horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that
came into the sea after them; there remained
not so much as one of them." Devout Christians, Muslims and Jews will continue to see the work of a divine hand behind
the unlikely combination of factors that allowed the Israelites to escape. Others, meanwhile, will argue that Moses and his flock were
simply in the right place at the right time to
fore them lies a seemingly impassable body
of water, while behind them the pharaoh's
army is fast approaching.
Moses appeals to Jehovah for help, and God
obligingly blasts a "strong east wind all night"
into the sea, creating a path to freedom for
the Israelites and, when the wind subsides, a
watery grave for the Egyptians. By the Lord’s
might, it was done, they said. Behold the supernatural, behold God’s supreme power.; the
question is though- Was it really?
The parting of the Red Sea is one of the
Old Testament's most spectacular episodes.
ers at the National Center for Atmospheric
Research in Boulder, Columbia, in the U.S.A.,
say they have found a plausible natural explanation for this apparent miracle -- though not
at the Red Sea itself. Using computer models,
they have discovered that a strong wind blowing across the perfect spot -- a sharp bend
where a shallow river meets a coastal lagoon
-- with the right contours on the bottom of the
waterway, could result in water being driven
upstream and downstream, opening up a dry
walkway. Hence we witness the miracle.
That phenomenon is known as a "wind setdown," but, for those of you who believe the
account in Exodus, it's unlikely to have occurred at the Red Sea, as noted by software
engineers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. That's because the Red
Sea runs north to south, so an eastward wind
wouldn't have been able to sweep the waters
to one side.
What Did You Choose To Believe
-66-
-67-
What Do You Choose To Believe
take advantage of a rare natural occurrence.
The scientists at the NCAR noted that if "a
crossing actually took place here, any debris
field of military artifacts should be found to
the North" of the crossing site. But even if archaeologists found ancient Egyptian skeletons
and armor at the site, secularists and believers are unlikely to agree over the supposedly
miraculous nature of the biblical episode. We
are again left with a coin with two sides.
As always, Science battles the mysticism of
the religious supernatural. Fact slowly seeps
into the sea of theology. What we choose to
have faith in is countered by the bitter truth
of reality. Was it really God’s hand, or a random burst of strong wind? Did Moses really
part the Red sea, or did he just check the
weather forecast?
In the end, it’s really all about our faith. What
do you choose to believe?
Rishabh Prakash
11-C
Do you believe in miracles?
Matter
Matter
Archimedes told his daughter,
You should put gold in water,
To find the density of matter,
More density if the object is fatter.
Liquids are light,
Solids are mostly easy to sight.
Through the gases in the air,
A bird can fly;
But on land a fish will die.
Most people cannot fathom,
That the smallest particle of matter is an atom.
Others have no clue,
That several atoms bond to form a molecule.
However, thought Archimedes’ daughter,
Liquid, Solid or Gas, how does it matter?
Sukoon Dinodia
9-C
Yes
No
Sometimes
-68-
-69-
Plasma - The Fourth State Of
Matter
Plasma - The Fourth State of
Matter
Most of us have been taught that there are
only 3 states of matter- solid, liquid and gas.
As surprising as it may seem, there is a fourth
state of matter - plasma. You may assume
that plasma isn’t important, but it is, in fact,
it is the most abundant form of matter in the
universe.
When a solid is heated to a certain temperature it becomes a liquid, when that liquid is further heated it changes into a gas.
As the temperature is increased, the atom is
stripped of electrons and plasma is formed.
Hence, plasma is made up of electrons and
ions. As the negatively charged electrons and
positively charged ions can move freely together, their charges cancel each other out
and Plasma is considered neutral.
Since Plasma is made up of positively and
negatively charged particles, it interacts with
magnetic and electric fields. This property
makes it different from the other three states
of matter. Although plasma behaves like a gas,
when it comes to the magnetic and electric
field, it is very different. The magnetosphere
is constituted by plasma which is dominated
by the earth’s magnetic field. By studying the
magnetosphere, scientists have been able
to understand the phenomena behind auroras. The ionosphere, again plasma, conducts
electricity, especially in the Polar Regions, because of the influence of the earth’s magnetic
field. The ionosphere is a very special kind of
plasma as it contains fair amount of neutral
atmospheric molecules which collide with the
ions and electrons. And since when electrons
hit an obstacle, they can produce light (television screens and computer monitors operate
that way), leading to the idea that perhaps
the aurora was produced like that, too, when
beams of electrons from outer space entered
the atmosphere.
Well, plasma is the matter found in the interstellar space (stars), all the stars that we see
shining, they are nothing but plasma. Yes,
plasma is found abundantly in the universe,
but it’s only found in limited places on earth,
like plasma is found in a lightning bolt, in the
fluorescent lights, in flames and aurora.
Natural plasma only exists at either very high
temperature or low temperature vacuum. Artificial plasma can be made by using electrical
charges on gas like neon signs. Natural plasma is so hot and the energy is so high, that is
vaporizes any material is touches. Thus scientists still haven’t found an effective use of it.
PLASMA is thus the fourth state of matter that
we don’t encounter in our daily lives, but it is
the most common form of matter and makes
up 99% of the visible universe!
Yashitha Jeet
10-A
-70-
The Bose Einstein Condensate
The Bose- Einstein Condensate
In early 1920’s, Satyendra Nath Bose studied the idea that light came in little discrete
packets, now also known as “photons” or
“quanta”. Bose classified certain rules for deciding when two photons should be counted
as identical or different. These rules are presently called “Bose statistics” or sometimes
even “Bose-Einstein statistics”. However,
Bose found trouble in advertising his conclusions as not many
people believed him. So he sent
his findings to Einstein with the
hope that he would be able
to use his influence to spread
the findings amongst people
through magazines, newspapers, etc.. Apart from helping
Bose to publish his theory, Einstein also scrutinized his ideas. He predicted
that Bose’s rules might also be applicable to
the behavior of the atoms present in a gas.
However, it was later discovered that not all
atoms behave in the way Einstein predicted.
What Einstein did not realize was that he was
actually unable to fully observe and draw all
the right conclusions from his equations and
studies. The most important effect that his
equations were predicting was that at nor-
mal temperatures the atoms are present at
different quantum levels (energy levels) and
at low temperatures most atoms are in the
same quantum level.
These atoms piling up at the lower most
quantum level is what we call Bose-Einstein
condensation. This gives form to a different
material. It means that all the atoms are absolutely identical. There is no
possible measurement that can
tell them apart as all the atoms
are present one on top of the
other. That is why it took people a long time to understand
what BEC really meant. Atoms
can actually be all in the same
place like this, but this fact goes
against convention, for atoms
do not take this form normally. For example,
we have tables, chairs, and all these other
objects that have their shapes because their
atoms are arranged in different places. It is
only at special incredibly low temperatures
that atoms lose their individual identities
and coalesce into a single blob (BEC). Some
people have also called this material a “super
atom”.
HOW IS BEC MADE?
It took 70 years for Einstein's
concept of Bose-Einstein condensation in a gas to come to
be known amongst the public. It was first accomplished
by Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman in Boulder, Colorado in
1995. They did it by cooling
atoms to a much lower temperature than had been previously achieved. Their technique used laser light to first
cool and hold the atoms, and
then these atoms were further
cooled by something called
evaporative cooling.
The temperature that had to
be reached to cool these atoms was less than one millionth of a degree above absolute zero, which is millions of
times colder than the lowest temperature found
in the depths of outer
s p a c e . Tw o
-71-
The Bose Einstein Condensate
broad techniques were used to reach BEC. In
a crude way, the first step involves shining
a laser light on the atoms to cool them to
about 1/10,000 of a degree above absolute
zero, and the second step involves evapora-
1. Laser Cooling
tive cooling. These two stages are just like
taking a pan out of a hot oven and letting it
cool off in air first, and then dunking it in ice
water.
large bowling ball by shooting ping pong balls
at it.
When we think of laser cooling we immediately think of a contradiction in the phrase.
How does shining of light make something
colder and not hotter? You immediately think
that if sunlight fell on our hand the light is
absorbed and turns into heat. You are right
in thinking so. But, yet we use laser lights to
cool atoms. The trick to making atoms colder
is to make the light bounce off them rather
than to make the light get absorbed by the
atoms. It is experimentally seen that the light
bounces off with more energy than when it
hits the atoms.
It took scientists quite a long time to figure this out. However, when they did, they
did this by using the concept that laser light
comes as a stream of photons. These photons (being extremely small compared to the
atom) when used in large numbers are successfully able to push the atoms around by
bouncing off them; just as we can move a
When the photons are bouncing off the atom,
the electron in the atom absorbs the photon
and jumps up to a higher energy level, and
then it quickly jumps back down and spits the
photon back out. But we have to remember
one thing, that every type of atom responds
only to a specific colour of light as the electrons of the atom require a specific colour
to change their energy state. If the colour is
wrong the photons go right through the atoms. The complexity of the process of laser
cooling is further enhanced by the fact that
only the vibrations in the floor of a normal
building make the color of a laser change so
much that it ceases to match the atoms any
more. Thus, Scientists have to work very hard
to make the laser light stay the proper color.
The Bose Einstein Condensate
This is what physicists call “Optical Molasses”.
Now, won’t the atoms eventually wander out
of the laser beams and manage to hit the
walls of the box and warm up? To prevent
the atoms from wandering away, physicists
arranged the laser beams so that atoms that
tried to move away from the center (where
the laser beams crossed) would be pushed
back into the middle by more light hitting
them from other laser beams. This is known
as a “laser trap”. We just put a couple of small
coils of wire around a cell and run current
through them in opposite directions. That
makes a magnetic field that shifts the color of
light the atom wants to absorb slightly. Thus,
by using the magnetic field shift and the Doppler shift together, the light will slow the at-
b. Using The Doppler Shift
a. Laser Cooling and Trapping: Optical Molasses
So if I have the right color of laser, it allows
us to slow down the fast atoms without pushing the slow ones backwards because of the
Doppler shift. But this is just in one direction
while atoms in the box are bouncing around
in all directions. Thus, we encounter yet another problem. How should we slow all of
them down?
So scientists thought of sending the laser
beam at the atom from all different direc-
tions. Then if we adjust it to exactly the
right color all the atoms will get cold
and we can obtain big bunches of very cold atoms.
-72-
oms down and push them into the middle of
the cell where it will hold them. They look
bright to us because of the entire laser light
that is bouncing off them.
Now that the problem of the atoms hitting
the walls and heating up is solved we face
another problem. Can’t they heat up by
bumping into each other? That is why we attach a vacuum pump a to the BEC apparatus.
This pump sucks almost all the air out of the
glass cell, so that, except for the few atoms
required to trap, there are no other atoms
remaining to bump into the cold atoms.
Now when we consider slowing atoms by laser cooling one problem arises. How do we
prevent the laser light from hitting the already
slow atoms and from making them faster and
hotter? Or how should we avoid hitting the
slow atoms with light while hitting the fast
ones to slow them down? Some very clever
physicists figured out how to do this by using
the idea that the color or the light is Doppler shifted by the atoms' motion. What is the
Doppler shift?
The Doppler shift states that if an atom is go-
The Doppler Shift is the change
in the pitch of sound as an object
moves to and away from you. We
experience this everyday but fail
to note what it really means.
ing towards the laser light, it sees the light
shifted to a bluer color, and if it is going away
from the laser, it sees the light as redder than
it really is. And the amount of the shift depends on the speed.
So if the laser is just the right color, the Doppler shift of a fast atom will make the light
look the right color for exciting it, and so photons will bounce off and slow it down. But if
the atom is moving slowly, or in the wrong
direction, the Doppler shift will be different,
and the laser light will be the wrong color to
excite the electron. In that case, the laser
light just goes right by the atom. Therefore
the scientists have to keep adjusting the colour as the atom cools
down.
-73-
The Bose Einstein Condensate
c. Magnetic Trapping
The Bose Einstein Condensate
What is Bose-Einstein condensation good for?
We had said earlier that the laser cooled the
atoms to less than 1/10,000 of a degree above
absolute zero. But we have to keep in mind
that that is still way too hot for BEC and the
laser light cannot cool the atoms any further.
This is because each photon gives a certain
kick to an atom, so when the atoms are moving as slowly as possible, they are still always
getting jostled around by the amount of a single photon kick, and this motion is what limits
the temperature. Therefore scientists had to
use the second method, mentioned earlier,
known as evaporative cooling.
But before this they still needed to find a way
that would further keep the atoms from hitting
the walls of the container, for this they used
a magnetic trap. We have to keep in mind
that this trap is not the same magnetic field
used for the laser trap. Here a very strong
magnetic field is used that pulls directly on
the tiny bar magnets attached to each atom.
If the right kind of magnetic field is made, it
will pull on those little bar magnets and help
Magnetic Trapping is what is
used in Particle Accelerators
to move atoms at 99% of the
speed of light.
keep the atoms in the center of the cell without any light.
These cold atoms are held in the same way
as the tops that spin for a very long time because they have magnets in them and are
held by magnetic fields.
BEC is too new and we know too little about
it for it to become immediately popular. There
are also some engineering problems that will
have to be solved before BEC can be used
extensively.
1.
It is the most fragile thing that has ever
existed!
2.
Physicists are still making very small
quantities of it, only a few million atoms at a
time.
3.
Scientists can only make it out of a few
different types of atoms.
FUTURE USES AND BENEFITs
All the atoms in the condensate are exactly
the same. So this means that we now have
much better control over atoms: where they
are and how fast they are moving. In fact,
we now can control them as well as the
uncertainty principle will allow. It is a pretty
good bet that someday BEC will be appropri-
2. Evaporative Cooling
Evaporative cooling uses the same physics
that cools a cup of hot water. In the water,
the most energetic water molecules escape
from the cup and come off as steam. When
they do this, they take away more than their
share of heat, and the atoms left behind in
the cup are colder because they have lost energy. Similarly to make BEC, the most energetic atoms are allowed to escape from the
magnetic trap. In order to do this, we lower
the edge of the bowl at the rate that gives us
the coldest atoms in a given amount of time.
What does a Bose-Einstein condensate look like?
Once the BEC is finally created, it looks like a
dense little lump at the bottom of the magnetic trap; kind of like a drop of water condensing out of damp air onto a cold bowl.
When it first forms, though, the condensate is
still surrounded by the normal gas atoms, so
it looks a bit like a pit inside a cherry.
This is a picture of the actual data of Wieman
and Cornell when they performed the
experiment.
These pictures show the change as they cool
the atoms from 400 billionths of a degree
above absolute zero down to 50 billionths.
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ate for making very sensitive measurement
instruments and maybe making tiny structures, like the ones used in computer chips.
Gautam Nagpal
12-B
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-77-
Kinetic Theory
Simple Machines
Simple Machines
Kinetic Theory
We know that all substances can exist in
three different forms: solids, liquids and gases. These are called states of matter.
The theory that explains the properties of
solids, liquids and gases is called the Kinetic
Theory. It is based on the idea that all substances are made up of moving particles. It
explains the properties of solids, liquids and
gases in terms of the energy of these particles.
Heating a substance gives the particles more
energy, enabling them to move around faster
and to change from one state to another. A
substance changes from one state of matter
to another depending on its temperature and
pressure. When something changes state,
heat is produced or lost as the energy of its
particles is increased or decreased. Different
substances change state at different temperatures.
Nikita Dhawa
7-B
1
2
3
4
5
6
Clues
Across:
3. The point of support on which a lever pivots. (7)
4. A ramp. (13)
6. This simple machine lets cars and bicycles roll. (12)
Down:
1. A wheel over which a rope is passed, used in lifting things. (6)
2. A metal pin with a spiral ridge round its length, fastened by turning. (5)
5. A pivoted handle used to operate machinery. (5)
6. A simple machine thick at one end and tapering a thin edge at the other,
found in a knife blade. (5)
Krishna Singh
7-A
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Answers on Page 84
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Off Or On?
Off or On??
Theory Of Everything
The Theory Of Everything
“It is human to search for the theory of everything and it is
superhuman to find it”
-Anonymous
Suppose you have a lamp with a simple on/off switch. Press the switch when it is off
and the lamp will be turned on, press it again and it will be turned off. Now suppose
you run the following experiment. You turn the lamp on at the start of a minute.
Half a minute later, you turn it off. Half of half of a minute later, you turn it back on,
then 7 and a half seconds later back off again, and so on throughout the midpoints
of whatever time remains. Now the question is this: at the end of the minute, will the
lamp be on or off?
Since the lamp has been turned on and off an infinite number of times, for
every time it has been turned on, it has been turned off, and vice versa. At
the end of the minute, therefore, it can be neither on nor off. But it must
be one or the other.
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What is “The Theory of everything (TOE) “
you may ask ? Well it is actually a theory
which seeks to provide an explanation for
everything, big and small. This theory is considered the “Holy Grail” of Physics and there
have been many such attempts to find it ,
however I will elaborate on two of the most
important ones - General relativity and Super
String Theory. There is such a theory that
is consistent, however is not applicable to
the minutest sub-atomic particles, this theory is known as Einstein’s Theory of General
Relativity. Einstein viewed our Universe as a
smooth, curved four dimensional surface (at
that time the 4th wasn’t heard of, now more
have been found, which exist only as formu-
lae) the 4th dimension being time. Einstein’s
postulate, that the laws of nature should appear same to all freely moving observers was
the foundation of the theory of relativity, as
it implied that only relative motion was important. This means that the speed of light is
measured the same for all freely moving observers, independent of speed at much they
are travelling or direction. This also implies
that nothing can travel faster than the speed
of light.
One important aspect of relativity is the
relation between mass and energy,
which has grown as a very important
formula and is usually the first
thing that pops into
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Theory Of Everything
people’s minds when they hear “Einstein”E=mc2. This means that when we accelerate
an object using energy, its mass increases,
making it harder to accelerate anymore. If
we were to accelerate it to the speed of light
we would require an infinite amount of energy. This formula represented the equivalence
between energy and mass, and when a world
war was approaching a group of scientists
who realized these implications persuaded
Einstein to overcome his pacifist scruples
and add his authority to a letter to President
Roosevelt urging the United States to start
a program of nuclear research. This led to
the Manhattan Project which ultimately led
to the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
After a longtime of research when he was
back in Zurich, Einstein has the brain wave
of realisation that equivalence would work if
the geometry of space-time was curved and
not flat (as had been assumed previously).
His idea was that mass and energy would
warp space-time in some manner yet to be
determined. Objects in spacetime would try
to move in straight lines however their paths
would appear to be bent by a gravitational
field because space-time is curved. This new
theory was called general relativity to distinguish it from the previous theory without the
component of gravity now called Special
Relativity. This forever transformed
space and time from a passive
background to an active and
dynamic one. However this posed one problem that still remains unsolved to this day.
The universe is full of matter, and this matter
warps space-time in such a way that bodies
fall together. Einstein found that his equations
didn’t have a solution that confirmed a static
universe, not changing with time. So instead
of giving up such an everlasting universe he
rigged his equations by adding a cosmological constant which warped spacetime in the
opposite sense so that bodies would move
apart. This repulsion would then balance out
the attraction thus making it static. However
because of this, Einstein missed out an important aspect due to this change, and if he
had stuck with the equations he could have
predicted the expanding and contracting nature of the universe. Einstein later noted the
Cosmological Constant as the greatest mis-
take of his life, however further studies have
shown that this constant may have not been
a mistake after all. However General relativity was not applicable to subatomic particles.
The other theory that is sometimes known
as the Theory of Everything is known as Super String Theory. People started taking it for
granted that they will expect infinities in their
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formulas and this idea makes them fatally
flawed. Strings on the other hand are 1 dimensional-only length, in string theory these
strings are said to move through background
spacetime. The ripples will correspond to
bosons and fermions, therefore the positive
and negative ground energy will cancel each
other out resulting in finite numbers. Due to
this String theory was called “The Theory of
Everything”. This “Super Symmetric String
Theory” Quite simply says that all forces and
particles are all forms of different vibrations
of minute one dimensional strings (possibility that may be membranes) vibrating in 10
dimensions too small to even detect. This
means our universe is made of small strings
and loops that vibrate in different ways to
form the universe. Due to these vibrations
we cannot determine what they as they
would just appear as any other subatomic
particle. Super string theory started taking
over Supergravity as this was only a low energy approximation, thus implying it was not
the theory of the universe, but just one of
the five possible super-string theories.
After a few years it was apparent that Super Symmetric String Theory did not give the
Theory Of Everything
whole picture. There were many such particles which extended in more than one dimension. Professor Paul Townsend did a lot
of work on this subject and gave them the
name P-branes. A p-brane has length in p
directions, a p=1 brane is a string, a p=2 is a
membrane or surface. All the p-branes could
be found as solutions of the equations of supergravity theories in 10 or 11 dimensions,
however these dimensions are so small we
don’t even notice them.
None of these theories however actually give
us the complete “Theory of everything” as
they all still have limitations. We are yet to
understand many aspects and come up with
the true TOE, and Physicist Stephen Hawking has said that there is 50/50 chance that
someone will come up with it in the next 20
years.
Anirudh Sethi
12-B
Today Physicists are
working on what is being
called the Grand Unified Theory which could
explain the origin of the
universe and how everthing works.
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Relativity
Relativity
Relativity
Say you woke up one day in a void. Everything around you was gone; your house, your
room, your bed, everything. Nothing was
around, not even a star. Now say you want to
move around to investigate. Can you move or
not? How do you know that you are not stuck
in one spot, or that you are not moving toward the left? Can you tell? No. To move you
need to move towards or away from something. But if you’re the only body in that void,
you can’t say you move.
Now say that your bed appears. So there is a
something with you in the void. But now how
can you say if the bed moves or your move
or both? You can’t. I can say whichever. Flip a
coin. Who’s right?
Now say that your bed went away and the
sun appeared in its place. You can’t say that
the sun is moving because it is so big, so it’s
probably you who is moving. But you can’t
really say.
In other words you can’t say that there’s one
true “at rest”. Sir Isaac Newton gave this principle. You can say that everything else is at
rest and you move or that you are at rest and
everything else moves, it’s all the same.
But wait, you might say, the sun gives off
rays! So why not measure how fast the rays
go by you? Then you can tell how fast you are
moving. No. Because rays of light move at the
same speed whether their source is moving
or not.
Say you wanted to test this out so you took
a lamp and started moving away from it. But
even as you moved faster the speed of the
rays was the same. 3x108 m/s. Even if you
stayed in place and the lamp came toward
you the speed of the rays would be the same.
And this is what Albert Einstein said ““Not
only do rays move at 3x108 m/s if their source
is held fast or not; they move at 3x108 m/s
even if you are held fast or not.” What this
says is that you can move as fast or as slow
as you want, and rays will go by you at 3x108
m/s all the time.
That’s weird, right? You, back in that void,
you just cannot say if you move or not. Not
that you can’t tell: it can’t be said.
But for this to be true, then time also has to
be involved. For you and your friend to see
the same light ray go by at the same instant,
his idea of time must be different from your
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idea of time!
For example we have two people, Bob and
Ron. Say Bob is sitting on the pavement and
Ron is on a bus going downwards. Now say a
meteor enters the Earth’s surface, breaks into
two and one piece falls down the road and
the other up the road. Now if we take Bob as
“at rest”, he sees both the rocks at the same
time but Ron sees the one down the road first
and then the other. Since Bob is “at rest” he
says that I saw both at the same time and
hence they did land at the same time. And
Ron will say that I saw the one down the road
first and then the other but if i take in the fact
that I am moving down the road they must
stay at rest you tend to stay at rest and if you
move you tend to come to rest. Newton then
came along and said “No. If you are in motion
you tend to stay in motion.” To come to rest
you need a force (or de-accelerate). Then
there is gravity also. It defines what stays up
and what come down. It keeps the moon in
orbit too.
Now we had to deal with the way gravity
acts. If a body has more mass then it also
has more gravity. That is why we spin around
the sun and not the opposite. So then why do
some objects not fall faster than others? This
is because the more mass it has the more it
wants to stay put… or we say that it has more
inertia. These two cancel out and everything
falls at the same speed.
Shaurya Kumar
12-B
"Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute,
and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty
girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.
THAT'S relativity."
Albert Einstein
Answers to Crossword on Page 78
have landed at the same time.
But what happens if we take Ron as “at rest”?
He will say that I saw them land at different times and hence one beat the other. And
Bob will say that I saw them land at different
times but if I factor in the fact that I am moving away from the other then I can see that
one did in fact beat the other.
So, you can see that when you give up the
idea of one true “at rest” you must also give
up one the idea of one true time. And if you
give that up then you must give up the idea of
one true way to see size and mass.
As you can see this stirred up a controversy.
But what Albert Einstein said next was even
bigger.
Aristotle gave the concept of inertia: If you
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Pollution
Pollution
With a ‘Honk! Honk! Beep! Beep!’,
I get up from my sleep.
And take a breath of pollution,
Not caring to think of a solution.
I still see that planet, now not what it was,
Green, clean and pollution free, to live we had a cause.
But now there’s gray smoke in the sky and garbage in the sea,
the rays of the sun stronger than ever and plastic bags on trees.
The world that once provided beautiful scenery,
Now clear of vegetation and any greenery.
And I still don’t stop to think, I still don’t see the sign,
Of the crisis that’s on the brink, which may wipe out mankind.
Nature we provoke,
By letting out industrial smoke.
Depletion of the ozone layer,
Can we be saved by any prayer?
Combustion of fuels in automobiles, Release of carbon dioxide,
Harmful deforestation and burning of fossil fuels worldwide,
Manufacturing units, factories, and industrialization,
Adds to the ever increasing amount of air pollution!
Bronchitis, lung cancer, asthma more and more disease!
Atmospheric haze and smog reduces visibility.
Acid rain from chemical emissions damages property.
Destroying signs of life, these effects don’t stop to increase…
It’s time we stop this unrest,
It’s time to wake, to clear this mess.
Let’s come together in a revolution,
To save the world from air pollution!!!!
Let’s use carpools and public transport,
Save energy by minimising machine support,
Try to Reuse and Recycle products,
Pollution from our lives let’s deduct.
Aastha Kamra and Anjani Gupta
9C+ AND 9A+
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Ishita Malhotra
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Maritime Safety And Pollution
Maritime Safety And Pollution
‘Maritime’, according to the Oxford English
dictionary, implies objects or activities relating to a form of a water body—an ocean or a
sea, for instance.
Hence, maritime pollution has severe, strong
influences on water bodies, creating dilapidated conditions in the sea that can prove inordinately harmful. We know that water is the
Additionally, as life in both domains— land
and sea—helps, hones and harms the other,
the effects of maritime pollution blot themselves onto the very human map as well. The
true identity of the phenomenon then calls
itself into question, and we find ourselves
sliding to unmask it, seeking to really see its
cruel strokes upon every life-form it impacts.
In essence, there are three ways water bodies
find themselves polluted. To begin with, the
inordinate proportions of oil pollution create
permanent, irrevocably damaging water contaminations that potentially kill marine larvae
and spread deadly diseases. In addition, the
thick oil may stick to the bodies of marine organisms, hindering bodily functioning. Those
worst affected by oil pollution are perhaps the
sea birds, for the oil deprives them of flight.
Also, various marine plants are rendered incapable of photosynthesis as the oil forms layers on them, its density being lesser than that
of water.
elixir of all life, from mammals to reptiles to
even plants. Water thus proves key to keeping the food chain knotted. Maritime pollution, then, foils faults in a myriad
species.
Secondly, sediments, e-wastes and other like
wastes are disposed off into water bodies,
clouding their surfaces and preventing sunlight from reaching the plants below. These
plants are then made incapable of photosynthesis. When heavy sediments lodge themselves onto the ocean bed, they can bury fish
and other light-weight organisms underwater,
coral reef, for instance. Gill-clogging in fish
adds to the problem, wiping away a significant
part of the food web. Again, fish sometimes
mistake plastic or similar wastes to be food,
and are inevitably choked to sudden death.
Maritime Safety And Pollution
for organisms like shell fish, later consumed
by humans have the tendency to concentrate
radioactivity in their bodies. Pesticides enter
water via disposal, and are often consumed
by water organisms, posing a special threat
to humans that consume sea food.
To summarize, maritime pollution clearly creates a web of suffering, trapping various marine organisms and inevitably humans as its
prey. With marine accidents posing a dire and
dreary definiteness, one cannot shield one’s
eyes from the significant environmental consequences that potential oil and fuel spills
can cause, either. Maritime safety, therefore,
is paramount, imperative, irreplaceable. It is
a deep global issue that necessitates transnational cooperation for effective address.
About eighty percent of all goods are, after
all, transported by sea, and we cannot wait
for spills, spoils and slides to blow out blows
into the lives we long for and the world we
will to be our own.
Architect Kate Orff suggests
that phenomenally polluted
rivers can be made wonderfully clean by using oysters which “slurp up pollution”.
Finally, chemical or radioactive pollution
makes its own presence felt as many discarded materials, disposed off by numerous
nuclear submarines, can enter the food chain,
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Aishwarya Chawla
11-A
Volcanic Ash In Iceland
Volcanic Ash In Iceland
Winner of The Science Essay Prize 2010
Our Earth has many natural resources like
oceans, rivers, mountains, soil, etc. These
natural resources are essential for our survival. However, sometimes these resources can
cause calamities leading to massive destruction like tsunamis in oceans, flooding rivers,
volcanoes from mountains, etc. I would like
to focus on volcanoes and tell you more about
their effect.
Volcanoes are mountains which erupt
letting out hot magma, ash and other such
gases. They are generally found where tectonic plates are diverging or converging. They
also take out lava and poisonous gases from
the crater at its summit. There are many different types of volcanoes on Earth. Some of
them are the Rio Grande Rift in North America
and Pu'u O'o on a flank of Hawaii.
In 2010, the volcano Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland
erupted in March. This eruption was different
from other volcanoes as it threw out a lot of
ash and smoke particles along with lava.
The volcano started erupting on 20th March
and its first phase lasted up to 14th April.
During this phase, the lava was flowing on
the flanks of the mountain. The second phase
occurred beneath the glacial ice from 14th
April to 20th May. And then the third phase
took place between 21st May and 23rd June.
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Volcanic Ash In Iceland
The whole world, especially Europe was impacted because of the volcanic ash. Several
flights to and from Europe were either significantly delayed, rerouted or cancelled. The
volcanic ash had spread widely over 250 million cubic meters. The temperature of rivers
in the area rose from 60oC - 110oC to 500oC
- 600oC.
This effect also caused a lot of serious trouble
for the farmers living next to the volcano in
Southern Iceland. All farmers who kept their
cattle and horses outside were advised to
keep them inside the house. They were kept
on evacuation alert during the ash fall. A
thick layer of ash fell on some of the Icelandic
farms.
Whereas the lives of these farmers were
in danger. The biggest inconvenience was
caused to the millions of travellers worldwide
as they were stranded at various airports in
Europe. The ash forced all the flight operations in Europe to be suspended for several
days. Many people could not reach important ceremonies and business meetings. Even
some cricket teams were late in reaching
West Indies for the T20 World Cup matches.
All this affected many economies and industries – the biggest ones being the airlines and
the tourism industry.
In the end, I would like to stress that this natural phenomenon brought into focus the su-
premacy of Nature over humans who, in spite
of so many technological advances, have no
control over the wrath of Nature.
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Sanjari Kalantri
7-C
Did you know that
every year anywhere from 50 to
70 MAJOR volcanic eruptions
take place.
The BP Oil Spill
The BP Oil Spill
Winner Of The Science Essay Prize 2010
and it is believed that the kinks prevent an
even worse gusher of oil from escaping. A
geyser of oil and gas shot from the riser creating a giant plume of flame and black smoke.
An oil spill is the release of liquid petroleum
hydrocarbon into the environment due to human activity and is a form of pollution. The
term usually refers to marine oil spills, where
oil from tankers, offshore platforms, drilling rigs or wells is released into the ocean
or coastal waters. Such oil spills may take
months or even years to be cleaned up.
A similar devastating situation occurred on
Monday, April 26th 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. The Transocean Deepwater Horizon was
drilling a well when it exploded and sank, releasing huge quantities of oil. The oil spill is
known to have leaked about 42,000 gallons
a day from a well nearly a mile deep in the
ocean. It is believed that the well is leaking
its liquid from the riser which is a 5,000 feet
long pipe extending from the wellhead on the
ocean bottom that was connected to the
drilling platform. Now detached, the
riser is kinked like a garden hose.
The leaks are at the sea floor
These spills are a huge environmental disaster causing deaths of marine life and birds.
The oil penetrates the structure of the plumage of the birds in the water, reducing its
insulating ability and so, making the birds
more vulnerable to fluctuations in temperature and also less buoyant in water. It also
impairs the birds’ flight, abilities to forage and
escape from predators. As they preen, the
birds ingest the oil that covers their feathers,
causing kidney damage, altered liver functions and even digestive tract irritation. This
and the limited foraging ability quickly causes
dehydration and metabolic imbalances. Most
birds affected by an oil spill die unless there
is a human intervention. Marine mammals exposed to oil spills are affected in similar ways
as the sea birds. Oil coats the fur of sea otters and seals, reducing its insulating ability
and leading to body temperature fluctuations.
Ingestion of the oil causes dehydration and
impaired digestion. As the oil floats on water,
lesser sunlight penetrates the water, limiting
photosynthesis of marine plants and phytoplankton. This as well as the decreasing populations of fauna, affects the food chain and
the marine eco system.
The government is taking various measures
in response to the oil spill. They spent lots of
money on robot subs and specially designed
skimming vessels.
We need to be very careful and alert and not
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The BP Oil Spill
allow such disrupting disasters to take place
because not only do they harm the aquatic
life but they also waste a very important resource ... Crude Oil (used for petrol, diesel,
etc.). Utilizing the resources of the environment is our requirement and is something
we all need to and should do. But, destroying
these resources is not our right.
So take care if all you have, and that will take
care of you.
NIkita Dhawan
7-B
The Slick Crushers
Microscopic Heroes to the Rescue
A Marine Scientist’s dream is to be able to
study the effects of a a massive oil spill resulting in severe environmental and economic
damage but it isn’t a practical or a very good
idea.
But when more than 4 million bbl. of oil spilled
into the Gulf of Mexico after the sinking of
BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig last April, which
mucked up coastlines and caused tens of billions of dollars’ worth of damage to the Gulf
Coast economy, it also gave scientists an unprecedented chance to examine how a major
man made disaster like this would effect the
ocean as well as the inhabitants of it.
They wanted to know what would happen to
the methane and other chemicals released
with the crude? Where would the oil go?
While the world was debating the economic,
social and environmental problems caused by
the oil spill.
The Gulf itself began working to clear up the
oil spill. The vast majority of the oil and other hydrocarbons seem to be gone, less than
six months after the crude stopped flowing.
And the biggest heroes of the cleanup turned
out to be not the thousands of workers who
scoured oil from the beaches or the shrimpboat captains who turned their vessels into oil
skimmers. They were actually the microscopic bacteria in the Gulf that digested much of
the hydrocarbons while they were still deep
under the surface.
Bacteria’s that can eat or consume Oil are:
1. ALCANIVORAX BORKUMENSIS:
Alcanivorax Borkumensis is a naturally occurring marine bacterium. It relies on oil hydrocarbons as its only source of energy, so much
so that while it’s nearly undetectable in water
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The Slick Crushers
The Slick Crushers
of normal conditions, when the water body
becomes polluted by oil, Alcanivorax Borkumensis becomes ubiquitous. This is one of the
many bacterias that helped to clean up the oil
spill that was caused by man’s irresponsibility.
2. COLWELLIA (GENUS):
This clan of oil-eating microbes can be found
from cold Arctic and Antarctic waters to the
balmy seas of the Gulf of Mexico. It also has
the ability to thrive in a variety of habitats,
from marine sediments to Arctic sea ice—
making it one of the more adaptable spill
fighters. Given that oil in sediments—or cold
waters—is much harder to break down, scientists are in hot pursuit of this wide-ranging
extremophiles’ spill-fighting traits.
3.CYCLOCLASTICUS:
Some of the most dangerous constituents of
an oil spill are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons—volatile molecules that can be highly
toxic. Fortunately, at least 23 strains of the
bacterial genus Cycloclasticus native to
the Gulf of Mexico can degrade such nasty
oil constituents by tapping them for energy. Even better, some members of the rod-
shaped group can eat other aromatic hydrocarbons that are even more toxic, such as
toluene. They even have tiny flagella to help
them move from source to source, cleaning
up toxics as they go. That is why scientists
are busy decoding Cycloclasticus pugettii, a
strain found in the waters of the Puget Sound
and being dredged for here, in the hopes of
improving its toxic avenger abilities.
4.OCEANOSPIRILLALES (ORDER):
This order of microbes—part of the Proteobacteria phylum, named after the shapeshifting Greek god
Proteus—assume
a number of forms
and roles in eliminating an oil spill.
The most famous
oil-eating member
of the order is the aforementioned A. borkumensis, but other members can play a role in
eliminating petroleum as well. Pictured here
is the salt-loving Halomonas elongata, which
grows best in extreme environments but does
not eat oil.
5. OLEISPIRA (GENUS):
Another alkane eater (like A. borkumensis),
various Oleispira turn oil into more and more
Oleispira cells, along with carbon dioxide and
water. One unintended side effect can be local “dead zones,” as the industrious microbial
6.NEPTUNOMONAS (GENUS):
Some members of this genus attack the carcinogenic constituents found in most oil deposits—the aforementioned polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons—and can be found throughout
the planet’s oceans. Members of the genus
play a role not only in cleaning up oil spills—
but also the fatty acid residue of whale carcasses, like Neptunomonas japonica pictured
here. Other microbial genuses that contribute
to such toxic tidying are Pseudomonas and
Vibrio, although they may not be as abundant
as Neptunomonas or Cycloclasticus.
7.THALASSOLITUUS OLEIVORANS:
Much like A. borkumensis, T. oleivorans
makes its living by turning the alkanes in oil
into microbial cells, CO2 and water—and can
be found from the Black Sea to the Gulf of
Mexico, as can other members of the Thalassolituus genus. Unfortunately, such like minded bacterium don’t cooperate; experiments
show that adding T. oleivorans reduces the
activity of A. borkumensis and other oil-eating microbes as the tiny bacteria vie for oilingesting supremacy. Humans aren’t the only
species waging chemical warfare in the Gulf.
Junk Food
I’ll tell you something about food
Not eating your green veggies isn’t good!
They give you a lot of nutrition
All your proteins, vitamins and minerals.
Drinking milk may not sound cool,
But by not drinking it, you’d be a fool!
And then you might get deformed bones,
So milk is better than ice cream cones!
consortia, like the one pictured here, consume
much of the dissolved oxygen in the seawater
as they feast on the oil. Another extremophile
species in this genus has been found in Antarctic waters (Oleispira antarctica) as well as
the subtropical waters into which the Macondo well has been spilling.
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Don’t eat a lot of junk,
For you will regret it later.
You’ll say, “I should have listened to my mother!”
And eaten a healthy diet instead.
Maayashree Goel
5-B
-95-
Anahitaa Bakshi
12 C
Harmful Soft Drinks
Junk Food
Junk Food
I know what gives you a bad mood
And that is School food!
For me, it doesn’t taste good at all,
But then, how will I be strong and tall?
How will I have a healthy living,
If I don’t get what that food is giving?
I know you like all that junk food
Because that’s what puts you in a good mood.
I, too, love chocs
But if I don’t use them, they become rocks!
Junk food is anything that is sweet,
It tastes like a birthday treat!
If you avoid vitamin C
You will have Scurvy,
And then your teeth will be curvy.
Prithvi Singh
5
During a two month long study, rats were allowed to gorge on foods
rich in sugar and fat. It was observed that they put on weight, and
also became “anxious” when this food was replaced. Overeating,
caused decreased levels of a certain receptor in the brain and therefore a decreased responsiveness in brain circuitry. This in turn led to
compulsive eating. Researchers conclude that eating junk food may
have effects as severe as those of obesity and drug addiction .
-96-
Harmful Soft Drinks
If you really know what the contents of soft
drinks are, you would not think that it is ‘soft’.
It is actually quite ‘hard’ on your health. Soft
drinks have become so much a part of modern living, especially in urban areas globally.
Soft drinks mainly appeal to the younger generation who drink them instead of water. Soft
drink advertisements target young people
who are oblivious to the harm these drinks
can do to their bodies. No wonder people love
drinking them. They give a refreshing feeling
and seem to quench thirsts on an extremely
hot day.
But what do these soft drinks contain?
CAFFEINE
SUGAR
Caffeine is an addictive drug that enhances
the soda flavour. It artificially stimulates the
nervous system and increases heart rate.
When consumed it may temporarily arouse
the intellect and diminish fatigue.
Acids
A majority of soft drinks contain large amounts
of refined sugar. An average soft drink has up
to 15 teaspoons of sugar in a 350 ml can!
One can a day gives you more sugar than is
necessary for your body. Sugar erodes teeth,
increases your risk of diabetes, heart disease,
indigestion and skin problems.
Most soft drinks contain acids such as citrus,
phosphoric, malic or tartaric acids. These acids are what give the soft drinks a refreshing sting and at the same time preserve the
quality of sweetness of the drink. A study
was done where extracted human teeth were
placed in cola drinks. Within 2 days the teeth
became very soft and the enamel lost most of
its calcium.
Indraneel Roy
9-B
-97-
The Menace In Sports
The Menace In Sports
Doping
The Menace In Sports
On 7th October 2010, an air of excitement
filled the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium as Nigerian athlete Oludamola Osayemi bags the
gold in the women’s final 100meter race in
the Commonwealth Games 2010 held at New
Delhi. The euphoria was short lived…
On 11th October 2010: The newspaper
and television headlines ran, “Nigerian athlete Oludamola Osayemi has been stripped
of her gold medal in the 100m after methylhexanamine was detected during drug testing. The 100m gold now goes to Australia's
Sally Pearson.”
Methylhexanamine like many others is a performance-enhancing drug used by athletes.
The usage of these drugs is prohibited by the
World Anti-Doping Agency.
Blood Doping is another form of doping used
by athletes. This is the practice of boosting
the number of red blood cells in the bloodstream in order to enhance athletic performance. Because these cells contain haemoglobin that carry oxygen from the lungs
to the muscles, more RBCs in the
blood can improve an athlete’s aerobic capacity
and endurance. Blood doping is most commonly used by endurance athletes, such as
distance runners, skiers and cyclists.
There are two methods by which blood doping is carried out. The first is a Homologous
Transfusion in which red blood cells from a
compatible donor are harvested, concentrated and then transfused into the athlete’s circulation prior to endurance competitions. The
second is an Autologous Transfusion in which
the athlete's own RBCs are harvested well in
advance of the competition and then re-introduced before a critical event.
Blood doping has its short lived benefits,
however this comes at a very high price. According to various news reports on July 24,
2007. Tour de France rider, Alexander Vinokourov of the Astana Team, tested positive for
two different blood cell populations and thus
for Homologous Transfusion. A doping test is
not considered to be positive until a second
sample is tested to confirm the first. Vinokourov's B sample tested positive, and he faced a
suspension of 2 years and a fine equal to one
year's salary.
Another example is that of the 19-year-old
Russian hockey player Alexei Cherepanov
who was engaged in blood doping for several
months before he died on October 13, 2008,
after collapsing on the bench during a game
in Russia.
-98-
Athletes that fail the drug tests are not only
stripped of their accolades but bring shame
to themselves and their county. The physical and medical side effects of blood doping
may only appear later on and not at the time
of transfusion.The increased number of red
blood cells leads to increased blood viscosity.
Our body is unable to pump such thick blood
and thus leads to numerous complications.
These include Myocardial Infraction(heart attack), Pulmonary Embolism( this is the blockage
of the pulmonary artery), Cerebral Ebolism(
the blockage of an artery), Cerebrovascular
Accident(stroke)
and
other infections. Homologous Transfusions are
prone to further effects
such as allergic reactions and risk of bloodborne diseases such as
hepatitis C,B and HIV.
Although blood doping
may provide positive results in the short term,
it only leads to ruin in the long run. I hope
this article reinforces the unfortunate truth of
this statement.
Navia Dayal
11-B
The earliest known record of
use of drugs in sports was in
England in 1807 to win an
endurance race - what is now
called a marathon.
-99-
ESP : The Sixth Sense
Extra Sensory Perception
The Sixth Sense
Have you wondered if there is a sense, a sixth
sense, which we often casually call ‘instinct’ or
gut feeling? This question has been pondered
over through the centuries and has baffled
even the best scientists and psychologists. So
is there some unknown external force, some
extra sensory power of the mind that enables
humans and animals alike to subconsciously
react to certain situations in ways that cannot
be explained by science?
Extra Sensory Perception or
ESP is defined as the acquisition
by a human or animal mind of
information. It could not have
been received by normal, sensory means. The term was first
used by Sir Richard Burton, and
later adopted by Duke University psychologist, JB Rhine. The
study of ESP and such mental phenomena is called parapsychology. Science is largely
based on evidences, proof and
testable experiments that give
rise to knowledge and information. ESP however contradicts
the basic limitations of science,
and has been rejected due to
lack of evidence and results.
Instances of Extra Sensory Perception are
often subconsciously felt, but rarely noticed.
For example, various fish, sharks and sea
creatures often rely on their instinct and apparent sixth sense while hunting. Scientists
often explain this as electroception, the ability
of certain creatures to sense electric and even
magnetic fields, which are used for communication and hunting. But apart
from this known ability of extraordinary creatures,
is it not possible that all living beings possess
some unique power that they themselves do
not know? This doesn’t invariably mean that
this so called ‘sixth sense’ will always be correct, or that reactions on the basis of this perception will prove helpful, it only means that
there may be a spontaneous psychological
drive, a ‘sixth sense’ that is responsible for
human behavior and psychic responses.
This sixth sense is external to the five known
The Sixth Sense
Have you ever felt that you
have a sixth sense?
Vani Shriya- About some things sometimes, but not enough to consider it
something extra ordinary - just random gut feelings
Madhav Vohra- Weird feelings which turn out to be correct.
Amira Singh - Definitely felt déjà vu
human senses, and till date has not been thoroughly proved, explained and experimented,
and is hence not completely recognized in the
scientific world. Science is nothing but new
discovery and research. But isn’t possible that
science does NOT have the solution or the answer to this bizarre question? Well, maybe it
is best to leave this question unanswered and
for once let this apparent force of nature be
undisturbed and forever undiscovered.
-100-
Anjani Gupta
10-A
-101-
Did You Know
Multiple Intelligences
Multiple Intelligences
Here are some of sciene’s many unknown and humorous facts …
Aside from man pigs are the
only mammals that can get
sunburns.
In 1983 a psychologist, Howard Gardner
came up with the theory of multiple intelligences. If we accept that intelligence is the
ability to adapt to our various circumstances then we can easily understand Gardner’s
theory, of multiple intelligences. Till Howard
Gardner came up with his theory it was widely believed that intelligence is that which can
be measured from scholastic/academic performances.
Anyone else smell bacon?
Crocodiles are colour-blind.
The Dead Sea is so
salty it is impossible to
sink in it.
If you’re stuck behind one at a
traffic light you know why.
Good luck scuba diving…
Romans cured toothaches by
tying toads to their jaws.
And you think your dentist is bad…
If the sea level continues to rise at
its current rate the Eifel tower will be
completely submerged in 200 years.
A racing pigeon can fly up
to the speed of 117kmph
Haven’t been there? You’d better hurry
One day on Jupiter
lasts only nine hours
and fifty minutes.
It’s a plane… Its superman…nope it’s just a bird…
And you feel that you
don’t have enough time.
Ashrant Kohli
9B+
-102-
The theory that Gardner proposed included
six of the following intelligences:
•
Spatial
•
Linguistic
•
Logical-mathematical
•
Kinaesthetic
•
Musical
•
Personal
words, reading, writing and memorizing
dates. Such people learn best by reading, taking notes or listening to lectures. They have
high verbal memory and careers of writers,
philosophers and lawyers suit them.
3.
Logical-Mathematical: People with this
intelligence have great reasoning capabilities
and logical thinking. Such people are good
with numbers, have abstract patterns of recognition and can perform complex calculations. Careers of mathematicians, logicians
and engineers suit people with these skills.
4.
Kinaesthetic: Bodily Kinaesthetic intelligence involves having the ability to control
one’s body motions and skilfully handle objects. It also includes having a good sense
of timing along with the ability to train responses to work like reflexes. It is said that
people with high Bodily Kinaesthetic intelligence learn better by muscular movement
and are said to be good at sports and dance.
Careers suiting people with this intelligence
are of athletes, builders, soldiers and so on.
1.
Spatial: This intelligence deals with the
ability to judge the space in your surroundings using your mind’s eye. Good designers
and architects possess this intelligence as
their job requires them to be able to visualize
and design structures mentally.
2.
Linguistic: People with high verbal
or linguistic intelligence are very good with
-103-
Multiple Intelligences
5.
Musical: This intelligence has to do with
sensitivity to sound, rhythm and music. People with high musical intelligence can usually
sing well, play musical instruments and compose music. Since such people have a good
ear most of them learn best through lectures.
Careers suiting people with this intelligence
are those of musicians, poets and composers.
6.
Personal: This intelligence is of two
types, interpersonal and intrapersonal. In-
fectively and thereby assist them in making a
career choice most suited to their skills.
Howard Gardner has also identified the types
of abilities that would be required in the future. He calls it Five minds of the Future:
The Disciplinary Mind: the mastery of major
schools of thought, including
science, mathematics, and history, and of at
least one professional craft.
The Synthesizing Mind: the ability to integrate
ideas from different disciplines or spheres
terpersonal intelligence refers
to an individual’s ability to in-
The year 2011
was declared the
International Year
of Forests by the
United Nations .
into a coherent whole and
to communicate that integration to others.
The Creating Mind:
the capacity to uncover and clarify
teract with others and
interpret their feelings
through subtle signs
from body language,
expression and tone of
They hope to raise awareness and strengthen sustainable forest management and development
and conservation of all
types of forests for the
benefit of current and
future generations.
new problems,
questions and
phenomena.
voice.
People
possessing this
intelligence
communicate
and
cooperate
well with others, thus making
them both good
The Respectful
Mind:
awareness of
and appreciation for differences among
human beings
and
human
groups. The Ethical
Mind: fulfilment of
one's responsibilities as a worker
leaders and followers.
Such people learn best
through
discussions
with others and jobs of managers or teachers suit them. Intrapersonal intelligence involves an individual’s understanding of his
own-self. People with this intelligence have
intuitive skills, are aware of their strengths
and weaknesses and are able to predict their
reactions. Careers suiting people with this
intelligence are those of philosophers, psychologists and so on.
Today there are psychological tests that
can help determine an individual’s
special area of intelligence ef-
and as a citizen.
While these theories provide fascinating insights to the way in which we understand and
perceive ourselves they also perform many
useful functions: they tell us that the traditional methods of defining IQ [intelligence
quotient] no longer hold good in a diverse
and multicultural global village and that we
need a different yardstick by which we can
identify and recognise the vast abilities that
we as humans possess.
Shreyas Kadaba
9B+
-104-
I
N
T
E
R
N
A
T
I
O
N
A
L
Y
E
A
R
Forests are an integral
part of global sustainable development. The
World Bank estimates
that more than 1.6 billion people depend on
forests for their livelihoods.
O
F
The forest product industry is a source of
economic growth and
employment,
with
global forest products
traded internationally
in the order of $270
billion.
-105-
F
O
R
E
S
T
S
Survival Of The Tiger
Survival Of The Tiger
Strategies for the survival of the
tiger and its habitat
Tiger, Tiger burning bright
Dreadful is your present plight
Tiger, tiger, bright as flame
Your extinction would be our shame
Less than 3200 tigers left in the world. Less
than 1400 in India. It’s no longer about words,
but about the life of my national animal. And
I’m not just going to sit and watch, while the
numbers deteriorate.
Poachers
ruthless
and always set
To kill the world’s
pride? You bet
Alive, some admirers
it may please
But dead, it’s worth
lakhs of rupees
With humans thriving
all over the world
It’s home is converted, restricted and
furled
Deforestation
and
degradation too
Kills it’s habitat as remain only a few…
Strategies to save the tiger and its habitat,
hence include:
1.
Firstly, Environment service payments
should be more widely introduced. They encourage changes in the land use practices
such as reforestation and retention of landscape, by providing incentives. It could include a scheme as simple as a conservation
contract among communities living in or
around a tiger reserve, with payments linked directly to the
focal species.
2.
Developing Ecotourism: India, with
its former hold of tigers has the largest tiger
tourism industry in the world. More than 1.29
million tourists visit tiger reserves annually.
The average Indian reserve receives 60,000
tourists per year but collects little in revenues,
largely due to low entry fees. Hotels in these
areas contribute little to tiger conservation. In
contrast, Nepal has developed a communitybased tourism model,
emphasizing on sharing benefits with locals
and on the regeneration of degraded forests. The approach
has been successful
in reducing poaching,
restoring habitats, and
creating a local constituency for conservation.
3.
The
government with scientists
should identify and
monitor key tiger population areas where
immediate techniques have to be introduced.
A tiger’s habitat includes a large region, 1000
km away from human activity, with a vegetative cover, prey and sufficient water. Moreover, specialists should advance research on
tiger behavior and ecology for long term solutions.
4.
Strict, on-the-ground protection is essential to protect tigers from poachers seeking tiger parts for the lucrative market in
traditional Chinese medicine. Officers, forest
guards and staff need to be hired, funded,
trained and legally empowered to protect the
tiger from illegal hunters, day and night.
-106-
5.
Why be dependent on the government? Community based sustainable development programs would be an initiative on
the personal level. And it’s about time we do
something on our own. Those communities
whose livelihood depends solely on the use of
forests where tigers live, with the help of institutions, NGOs and banks should contribute
to tiger conservation.
6.
Spreading awareness in the masses
about the conservation will always help to
get ideas, resources and helping hands in the
process. So ecologically sensitive development combined with educational conservation
programs should inform the people, empower
the indigenous and inspire locals to participate in the protection of the tiger. Consumers across the globe should also be educated
about Chinese medicinal products and their
origin.
7.
If the numbers decrease as drastically
as they are, the genetic material wouldn’t be
enough to breed tigers, and that is what will
lead to extinction. Zoos hence, ensure against
such a threat, which could affect small tiger
populations in the fragmented reserves.
As far as long term plans are concerned, the
government along with Officials at sanctuaries, national parks, Customs officers and traders need to be trained and informed about
closing markets for tiger parts and products.
Targeting the consumer would mean no demand and hence, poaching for this purpose
should decrease.
At the same time, as the World bank has issued, privately owned tiger farms need to
be shut down immediately as they promote
inhumane acts and trading of tiger parts.
Some feel that tiger farms are the solution
to prevent poaching in the wild and at the
same time, meet the demands of trade. However, such production of Chinese medicines
needs to be stemmed without doubt as its
completely ridiculous. Moreover, keeping tiger
farms will prove the ban on selling tiger parts
ineffective and not contribute to the conservation of the tiger, to say the least.
Instead, such tiger farms should be converted
to sanctuaries or parks for small populations
of tigers with strict officials and forest guards
to prevent killing and promote protection.
In conclusion, all these strategies may have
been thought of by many others, perhaps
hundreds. But what is different this time is
that it’s truly the last chance to save the tiger. If numbers decrease consistently it will
be extinct within 2 decades. Perhaps, holding summits and protests, signing petitions
and making posters wouldn’t magically heal
these wounds (as opposed to what Chinese
citizens think of their medicines made of tiger products ironically). But it may just make
6,893,800,000 people aware of the loss they
are about to suffer. What we need is another
Project Tiger to boom the numbers, what we
need is trained forest officials in secure protected sanctuaries, what we need is ruthless
poachers behind bars, what we need is the
majesty and grace of the king of the jungle.
He deserves to be here and the future deserves to witness him. Save the tiger.
-107-
Vandita Khanna
10-B
My gadget is very simple. Attach it to your cotton
jacket in winter and it will keep you warm. You dont
have to wear layers of warm clothes. In the summer
it will keep you cool. It adjusts itself to the climate
when you press the buttons on it. It is also a compass
and helps in navigation.It can also be a reminder.
Just press the remider button and it will beep when
required. A small gadget many advantages
-108Diya Narag
-109-
Will The World End In Fire Or Ice
Will The World End In Fire Or Ice
Will the world end in fire or ice?
Earth’s crust.
When it
seemed all hope
should be lost,
the volcanoes
erupted, spewing hot magma
and the carbon
dioxide that had
been absorbed
by the Earth’s
crust. The Earth
began to become
warm again.
As the Earth
became warmer,
life began to
flourish and
more carbon
To understand
how the world will
end, first we must
understand how
it began; when
I say, “the world
will end” I don’t
mean the planet
will be destroyed,
just the life forms
on it. The world
has been following a cycle for
millions of years,
and it will continue to do so
even after we are
extinct.
Soon after the Earth was created, life
began to flourish and eventually the world
was covered in forests. Forests which absorbed carbon dioxide. The oceans where
filled with plankton; microscopic creatures
which also absorb carbon dioxide. With
all this carbon dioxide being absorbed, the
amount of heat being trapped in the atmosphere became less and less.
Over millions of years, Ice began to develop at the poles; Ice which reflected
some the sun’s light causing the world to
become even colder, causing even more
Ice to form. It was the beginning of the
first Ice Age. All the while, dead, carbon dioxide rich plankton had been
absorbed from the ocean
floor and stored in the
dioxide was released so the ice began to
melt. As the ice began to melt, less sun
light was reflected and the Earth became
even warmer. A chain reaction had once
again begun, but in the opposite direction.
This cycle has been going on since the
Earth was created.
The Mayan sun calender which is the main
reason for the end of the world theories works on a system of having days in
groups of 10. The calender so far has been
accurate in predicting every solar and lunar
eclipse we’ve seen and the calender ends
on the 21st of December 2012.
The most commonly accepted theories for
why the world should end in 2012 are -
-110-
Super Volcanos
Magnetic Fluctuation
We all know the Earth is surrounded by a
magnetic field that shields us from most
of the sun’s radiation. What you might not
know is that the magnetic poles we call
north and south have a nasty habit of swapping places every 750,000 years and right
now we’re about 30,000 years overdue. Scientists have noted that the poles are drifting
apart roughly 20-30 kilometres each year,
much faster than ever before, which points
to a pole-shift being right around the corner. While the pole shift is under way, the
magnetic field is disrupted and will eventually disappear, sometimes for up to 100
years. The result is enough UV outdoors to
crisp your skin in seconds, killing everything
it touches.
Yellowstone National Park in United States is
famous for its thermal springs and old faithful geyser. The reason for this is simple, it’s
sitting on top of the world’s biggest volcano
and geological experts are beginning to get
nervous sweats. The Yellowstone volcano
has a pattern of erupting every 650,000
years or so, and we’re many years overdue
for an explosion that will fill the atmosphere
with ash, blocking the sun and plunging the
earth into a frozen winter that could last up
to 15,000 years. The pressure under the
Yellowstone is building steadily, and geologists have set 2012 as a likely date for the
big bang.
Meteor Hit
Thousands of small meteors hit the Earth
every day, however most of them are so
small in size that we wouldnt notice them
even if they hit us in our face. hHowever
the impact of a 22km large metoer is said
to have caused the extension of the dinosaurd to be the cause of the extintion of
the dinosaurs. a large enough meteor hit
would cause significantly large earthquakes
and tidal waves and would throw up enough
dust into the atmosphere to block out the
sun.
-111-
Will The World End In Fire Or Ice
Solar Activity
Solar experts from around the world monitoring the sun have made a startling discovery. Our sun is in a bit of strife. The energy output of the sun is, like most things
in nature, cyclic and it’s supposed to be in
the middle of a period of relative stability.
However, recent solar storms have been
bombarding the earth with lot of radiation energy. It’s been knocking out power
grids and destroying satellites. This activity
is predicted to get worse and calculations
suggest it’ll reach its deadly peak sometime
in 2012.
Do You Think The World Will End In 2012?
Vani Shriya - No. The Mayans couldn't see life continuing on after 2012
but there's no real actual scientific basis in the theory that we'll all die
December 21st 2012
Shiksha Kamra - I don't believe in roman mythology and hence don't
think the world will end in 2012.
Sarthak Grover - Because I loved the movie and I think it’ll end exactly
like that
Scientific Calamity
Though unlikely a major scientific mishap
such as a black hole being formed by the
LHC (scheduled to be completed in late
2012) or malfunctioning or atomic goods
could cause large parts of Earths mass to
be annihilated causing the Earth to spiral
into the sun leading some to call such devices “Doomsday Weapons”.
Osho Singh - At least not the whole world
Madhav Vohra - A lot of stuff has to happen before the world ends
Shift in the Earths Tectonic Plates
As shown in the movie “2012” a large
enough shift in the Earths’ tectonic plates
would cause a rearrangement of both land
and water bodies causing Tsunamis and
earthquakes on a scale that would level
all the major cities and cause a shift in the
Earths’ magnetic field, most likely rendering
and electronic devices useless.
Will the world end in 2012?
Amar Dhingra and Dhruv Singh
Note: All theses are still theories and
none are, as of yet, based on concrete
evidence.
-112-
-113-
I shouldn’t be HANGED!
A judge tells a condemned prisoner that he will be hanged at noon on one weekday in the following
week but that the execution will be a surprise to the prisoner. He will not know the day of the hanging until the executioner knocks on his cell door at noon that day.
Having reflected on his sentence, the prisoner draws the conclusion that he will escape from the
hanging. His reasoning is in several parts. He begins by concluding that the "surprise hanging" can't
be on a Friday, as if he hasn't been hanged by Thursday, there is only one day left - and so it won't be
a surprise if he's hanged on a Friday. Since the judge's sentence stipulated that the hanging would
be a surprise to him, he concludes it cannot occur on Friday.
He then reasons that the surprise hanging cannot be on Thursday either, because Friday has already been eliminated and if he hasn't been hanged by Wednesday night, the hanging must
occur on Thursday, making a Thursday hanging not a surprise either. By similar reasoning
he concludes that the hanging can also not occur on Wednesday, Tuesday or Monday.
Joyfully he retires to his cell confident that the hanging will not occur at all.
The next week, the executioner knocks on the prisoner's door at noon on Wednesday
— which, despite all the above, will still be an utter surprise to him.
Everything the judge said has come true.
-114-
-115-
Science Magazine Editorial Board
Giant Meteor Hit
Super Volcano Eruption
Shift in Tectonic Plates
The World Will Never End
Melting of Polar Caps
Massive Solar Storm
Pole Shift/Magnetic Disruption
Scientific Calamity
How will the world end?
Shivanshu Dev- Shortage of Resources
Roshni Sondhi- All
Sarah Mirza- Nuclear Bomb
Priyanka Vashisth- Human Ignorance
Sumer Kohli- Alien attack (they‘ll come and eat us all up)
Jaya Mehta- Machines will take over the world and the
human race
-116-
2011
-117-
We are the Future
Science is Our Paintbrush
The World is Our Canvas
-118-
-119-