Author: Anupum Pant

Nine Principles to Living 100+

By Anupum Pant

In his ted talk, Dan shares the story of Ellsworth Wareham, a 100 year old multi millionaire who lives in Loma Linda, California. The story goes…

One day Mr. Wareham wanted to get a fence made. And to get it done professionally, he began talks with a contractor who asked for a hefty price of $6000. This wasn’t agreeable to him. So he decided to go ahead and do the arduous task of carrying heavy wooden raw material and building it himself – all alone. The next day, he ended up in the ICU. The twist in the story comes when you find out that he wasn’t in the ICU as a patient, instead as the 100-year old heart surgeon. Dr. Ellsworth Wareham is one of the first persons to ever have performed open heart surgery and his experience still is invaluable.

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Seven Experiences From 500+ Days of Blogging

By Anupum Pant

Let’s cut the chase right to where the juice is. But before starting, I must warn you that these may be extremely random points, and might sound like self-help mumbo jumbo. But all of it comes from the most honest part of me. This way or the other, you’ll definitely take something away by the end of it. Like I said yesterday, here are my experiences.

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The Illusion of Transparency

By Anupum Pant

Imagine learning something whilst a very experienced person speaks about a subject that he’s been working on for 35 years. Let’s say, we’re talking about a professor here. It’s pretty annoying to listen to them using mysterious abbreviations, jargon and what not. This is a very normal thing for humans to do. Because we are basically not smart. Our brains have their own ways to fail us.

I’m doing my graduate studies and it’s not very rare that I come across very learned professors who aren’t very good teachers. Being a good teacher, speaker or a textbook author isn’t the same as knowing stuff, and is possible to be one when you know one thing, and just one thing.

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The Largest Ape that Ever Lived

By Anupum Pant

An ape as big as a polar bear, about 10 feet tall and weighing about 1200 pounds existed about 300,000 years from now. Thankfully, it no longer exists. The historical existence of this ape came to be known in 1935 when researchers found an unusually large molar being sold in a pharmacy in Hong Kong. This ape is called the Gigantopithecus and is believed to have lived in a region which is now India, China and Vietnam.

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How massive is Jupiter?

By Anupum Pant

If you combined the masses of all the planets in the solar system, that would still weigh almost less than half of Jupiter’s mass. That’s heavy. So heavy, that effectively when it tries to revolve around the sun, it also makes the sun revolve around it a little. That is to say, both these massive bodies revolve around a common point, called a barycenter. The barycenter for the sun and the Jupiter lies just outside of the sun! Almost on the surface. At about 1.068 times the radius of the sun.

“Jupiter’s mass is 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined—this is so massive that its barycenter with the Sun lies above the Sun’s surface at 1.068 solar radii from the Sun’s center. Jupiter is much larger than Earth and considerably less dense: its volume is that of about 1,321 Earths, but it is only 318 times as massive.”

Wikipedia

The Boat Puzzle

By Anupum Pant

I remember solving this problem when I was in the twelfth grade. However, I no longer remember how I did it. Nor do I remember the answer. The boat puzzle goes like this.

What if you are in a boat that’s floating in water (a small body of water) and have a rock in your hand. You choose to drop the rock into the water. The rock, as they all do, sink to the bottom. Did you just make the level of water rise, or make it drop, or did not change it at all. How? Try to answer and watch this for the explanation…

The Mysterious Lake

By Anupum Pant

Lac de Gafsa of “Mysterious lake” just like it is named, mysteriously appeared in the Tunisian town of Gafsa in 2014. In a place where there was only sand and was suffering from a major drought, this 2 acre lake, 10 meters deep, came as a surprise for locals and tourists as well. People started flocking it and taking dips in this young mysterious lake.

It’s said that seismic activity gave birth to this lake. Some said that the water in it was radioactive due to the phosphate mining that was going around that place. When it first appeared it was turquoise and then soon turned green due to uncontrolled algae growth.
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Some Inventions That Caught my Eye

By Anupum Pant

1. The tethered drone which follows you like a kite and keeps filming you. It uses the tension in the tether to determine where you are and where you want it to move to.

2. A 3D pen which can be used to write things in 3D. But those are many, you’d say. The twist with this one is that it comes with a soldering attachment, a burning attachment and a foam cutting attachment!

3. A smart halo which attaches to your bike permanently and connects to your smartphone. Finds you the best bike path for you. It points you at every turn and warns you for other things. Also tracks all of your workout. Also alerts you if someone tries to steal your bike. The phone remains in the pocket. Oh, and it also has a smart light!

4. A special 3D printer which can also engrave and do PCB milling. It can also scan things in 3D and recreate them for you.

5. The last one is a hi-tech backpack that has places for a technophile, from USB ports to speakers to charger or a place 3G to wifi device.

Making a Light Bulb was Never Easier

By Anupum Pant

Who’d have thought that making a real light bulb was so easy. Yes, the one with a filament that glows red hot due to the resistance. For this project the major things you’d need are, a power source (couple of D batteries), leads to connect them and a pencil lead as the filament. Go ahead and just put them together like this…

Curiosity Kills the Cat

By Anupum Pant

Booby traps play with your mind. They cause fear and uncertainty and can be hidden in anything. For these psychological traps to be the most effective, they are often hidden in the most familiar or the most ordinary things. Especially something that a soldier would decide to move for some random reason.

During the world war one and two the Germans probably demonstrated the most creative booby traps. The most interesting one was booby trapping a framed picture on the wall. The Germans would make the picture skewed and booby trapped it. Knowing that the gentlemen soldiers would come in and straighten the picture without even thinking that it could be a trap, they’d trigger the bomb.