A choice to be Scientific?

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May 6, 2020

Coined by Jawahar Lal Nehru in 1946, ‘Scientific Temper’ describes an attitude towards life where every decision, every argument made by an individual is the result of logic and science. Though the term is the origin of Indian sub-continent, we are the very people who lack it. In this time of crisis, with covid-19 on a rise and no sign of flattening of curve, people are busy finding solutions through public meetings of Nizamuddin Mazrak or cow urinal.

There have been instances in the past one and half month since the ‘Janta Curfew’ was first initiated by the prime minister that showcase how intolerant we are towards the logic and can justify government’s actions with any reasons that appeal to us. When the prime minister asked citizens to clap or beat utensils, the reason behind this initiative that did the rounds of social media was ‘it boosted blood circulation’ or ‘rendered the virus ineffective’.

This was the beginning of the superstitions that were to come up in order to secure a win over the pandemic. From drinking cow urine to eating rasam, they have emerged as a potential way to prevent the spread of the virus. This is not new to our country. We have shutdowns during the lunar and solar eclipses. And the best reasoning to everything is given as ‘It is scientific. It has been mentioned in our scriptures.’

When the prime minister announced to switch off the lights at 9 pm on April 5 for 9 minutes, the first thing you see is a portal of Government of India putting up a video explaining the ‘science’ behind it. But in these testing times, the only hope of survival, we might have, is developing ‘scientific temper’.

What doesn’t surprise me though is these steps are science for most people as if mocking the medical staff and their efforts across the world to curb the virus. If lighting ‘diyas’ and clapping could cure the disease, Italy and Spain would not be in the dire condition they are today. Though Prime Minister in his address said that the point of the exercise was to thank and encourage our health workers, it is no reason to propagate it as a scientific method to prevent the pandemic.

The world has progressed in the field of science since the first anti-biotic ‘penicillin’ was invented. And so, has India. We’ve come a long way from beating cholera to swine-flu to covid-19. But what still remains embedded in our society is our superstitions under the umbrella of culture and rituals. ‘Scientific Temper’ is a fundamental duty as mentioned in the constitution of India.

When Jawahar Lal Nehru first used the term, he would have never expected it to be a mix of both logic and religion i.e., we want our health services to be of world standard but at the same time keep praying for the well-being of our own.

Hypersonic aircraft: The future of Air Travel

By

Sugat Srivastava

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April 10, 2019

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Concorde, the flag-bearer of supersonic aircraft, retired more than a decade ago. Some thought that the era of supersonic traveling will end in grave. But, some scientists didn’t lose the motivation and are still working on bringing the concept of supersonic air travel back to reality.

U.K.-based Reaction Engines is developing technology for Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engines (SABRE), which could one day allow aircraft to fly up to five times faster than the speed of sound — that’s Mach 5 or 3,836 miles per hour. At that speed, hypersonic flights between London and Australia could be over in just four-and-a-half hours.

After the retirement of the Concorde in 2003, supersonic commercial air travel came to an end. With an average speed just above Mach 2 (1,354 mph), the Concorde’s fastest Transatlantic trip between New York and London occurred in 1996, lasting just 2 hours 52 minutes and 59 seconds.

Its retirement was seen by many as a real loss even as there were serious problems with commercial supersonic air travel, primarily the noise. It was prohibited from flying at supersonic speeds over land to spare those down below from the loud sonic boom as it flew. Though a sonic boom seems like a single event, the boom itself is relative to the observer, the boom itself simply being the moment the compressed sound waves of the aircraft finally reaching the observer. Traveling over land, a supersonic aircraft is essentially raking the ground below with its sonic boom.
Boeing has gone further than many of its competitors by unveiling a design for a hypersonic aircraft that could potentially travel five times quicker.

But for those speeds to be possible, the futuristic engines need to process air flows with extremely high temperatures. Now Reaction Engines has revealed that its precooler component – designed to manage extreme heat – has successfully handled temperatures of 420 degrees Celsius, matching the conditions it would face when reaching Mach 3.3 speeds. At that speed, an aircraft would be traveling three times faster than the speed of sound and 50 percent faster than Concorde.

The test took place at Reaction Engines’ facility at the United States’ Colorado Air and Space Port. They were the first phase of an extensive trial program, which will eventually see the precooler exposed to temperatures hotter than 1,000 degrees Celsius – the conditions expected during Mach 5 hypersonic flight.

In space rocket mode, the engines are being designed to speed a craft up to Mach 25.

Over the last four years, Reaction Engines has secured more than £100 million ($130 million) in investment from backers including BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, and Boeing’s venture capital arm. The firm has also received a £60 million ($78 million) funding commitment from the U.K. Government.

The commercial feasibility and the impact of supersonic traveling on human bodies is yet to be tested. The technology is on the right path and with each successful tests, the day of supersonic traveling would come nearer.

Stephen Hawking, Born on the date of Galileo’s death, 8th January. Died On Albert Einstein’s Birthday, 14th March.

By

Sharad Tripathi

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March 14, 2018

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By: Vaibhav Singh

The surprising facts about Stephen Hawking: “Stephen Hawking was born on the date of Galileo’s death, the 8th of January. He died this morning on the date of Albert Einstein’s birth, the 14th of March. The great physicist StephenHawking was expected to live not more than 2 years after he was caught up by the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a motor neurone disease, he completed his Ph.D, married two women and had three children, such confident gentleman.

Stephen Hawking wasn’t only a man of wisdom, but also a man of art, and the best art the displayed to everyone was the art of living and Cosmology was only a subject, which he was studying. He unboxed the abyss of the universe and it’s origin. His contributions to the world and science are unprecedented, which he discovered just by sitting on a chair. Hawking was the idol of
millions and trillions of people in the world. He was known to be one of the best brains in physics after Sir Albert Einstein.Hawking mastered in the theory of relativity and black hole, and loved the theoritical science more than observation science. What he describes as his proudest achievement is the discovery of Hawking radiation. This theory explains that nothing escapes the black hole, not
even light, except the radiation, which was later named as Hawking radiation.

In his initial days, Hawking continued at Cambridge after his graduation, serving as a research
fellow and later as a professional fellow. In 1974, he was inducted into the Royal Society, a
worldwide fellowship of scientists. In 1979, he was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, the most famous academic chair in the world (the second holder was Sir Isaac Newton), also a member of the Royal Society

Along with his scientific studies, Hawking wrote a handful of books using complex text and speech machinery installed in his chair. Many people around the world heard his plight and finally Walt Woltosz from California sent him a computer programme called equaliser, which allowed him to form a sentence by choosing a word from the given series and after completing the sentence, he can speak out the sentence through a speech synthesiser. After that the machine was advanced by a Cambridge student of Adapted Communication named David Mason, through which the text can be printed out.Thus way he completed his books, which includes” A briefer history of time, The Universe in a nutshell, The Grand Design and On The shoulder of Giants.

He and his daughter, Lucy Hawking, also created a fictional series of books for middle school children on the creation of the universe, including ‘George and the Big Bang’ in 2012.

Image source: googleHawking made several television appearances, including a playing hologram of himself on ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation and a cameo on the television show ‘Big Bang Theory’. PBS presented an educational miniseries titled Stephen Hawking’s Universe,’ which probes the theories of the cosmologist. In 2014, a movie was also made on Stephen Hawking, The Theory of Everything, Hawking praised the movie very much and said that the movie relates very much to him.

Stephen William Hawking was the man who took the Universe most seriously and tried to dig
down this bottomless pit. Above cosmology and science, Hawking had a great belief in God
and he believed that if every secret of the Universe is understood, then we can understand the
existence of God. The best can be said on this disheartening day is that he was a hand-picked jewel by God. God picked the man, who drew the spark of instigation in the world and he gave us an insight into the unknown.

Tag: Science

A choice to be Scientific?

Hypersonic aircraft: The future of Air Travel

Stephen Hawking, Born on the date of Galileo’s death, 8th January. Died On Albert Einstein’s Birthday, 14th March.