Talk by Arvind Gupta Will Make You Salute Him

By Anupum Pant

Background

We are all born scientists. Young kids have an inborn talent of thinking and learning by interacting with their environment – just like scientists do. Their everyday play is a type of experimentation and the toys they use, are their scientific equipment.

But unlike the children of developed countries, in India, a major chunk of little kids are not fortunate enough to cross ways with these fancy toys. In a place like India where 70% of the nation’s population still resides in backward villages, a man like Arvind Gupta is doing some really incredible work that deserves a salute. He’s popularizing science among kids by showing them quirky ways to convert trash into useful toys.

The Story of Mr. Gupta

He is the Indian Bill Nye – the Indian science guy – Arvind Gupta.
Arvind Gupta calls himself a toy maker (I think that is a very humble name he gives himself) and he has been doing it for the last 30 years! During the 70s when Mr Gupta was studying in IIT – Kanpur, he lived through a period which came with a revolution that aimed at revitalizing primary science in the village schools. Later, he went to the US, studied at Caltech, came back, worked at the top research laboratories in the country, and yet he wasn’t satisfied.

He somehow felt that the cutting-edge research he was doing, its effect on the major part of the Indian people wasn’t directly visible to him. This was when he started a village sized program to popularize science among the rural kids. He continues to do this even today. His way of doing it – Teach them to convert trash into toys. It was a beautiful idea.

I still remember watching Arvind Gupta on Doordarshan, teaching us science. We never noticed we were learning –  by touching, feeling, cutting, sticking – pulling things apart and putting things together.

His toys

He can turn anything into a toy that explains a basic science principle in a very interesting way to children. For instance, his way of sticking match sticks together to make objects as simple as 2 dimensional angles to objects as complex as bucky balls, is just amazing. But that’s not all.

Go to his YouTube channel you’ll find a number of tutorials to create amazing little devices from trash, which even adults will enjoy. Besides that, to cater to the linguistically diverse population of India, his videos come in languages like Hindi, English, Tamil, Bengali etc…

Watch his talk below. In a 15 minute breathless talk you’ll watch him demonstrate everything from simple mathematical, biological, chemical and physical principles with match sticks and rubber tube parts, to at least twenty other plain yet ingenious toys. Watch him make it all, right there at the talk! You can’t miss it.

The one I like the best is the slate he makes, using wool and velcro, for blind people. The second best toy in my opinion is the incredibly simple whistle made by cutting a straw. The crank generator made of trash is impressive too! What do you like to most? Let’s discuss in the comments below.

Every kid would love science this way.

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Five Mundane Things That Can Be Turned Into Diamonds

By Anupum Pant

Background

Diamonds are natural things…or are they?
All of those who have bought a wedding ring, have most probably been informed at the shop that diamonds can be made in the laboratory. And these diamonds are virtually indistinguishable from the real (mined) ones. Today they go by the name, laboratory-created, lab-grown, synthetic diamonds or man-made diamonds and are available at almost all jewelers. They have the same physical and chemical make up as that of the mined diamonds. The primary difference between the real deal and the lab diamond is their price. The lab-grown ones are usually easier on your wallet.

Normally, synthetic diamonds can be made using 2 different processes – high temperature and high pressure method and Vapor deposition method. The former is used to convert most mundane things into diamonds. But the later is used too…

Note: If this post reminds you of the classic track, Diamonds made from rain by Eric Clapton, then for a minute, you might want to stop playing it in the back of your head. And for the record, no, diamonds cannot be made from rain.
Fun fact: However, scientists say it does rain diamonds right here, in our own solar system, in the planets Jupiter and Saturn. But that is for some other day.

For now, I have collected a small and interesting list for you below. Four out of 5 are made using a similar process (number one from the two mentioned above). The list has been made to realize how there are diamonds hidden and lying around you. Let’s see what are those mundane things that can be turned into diamonds, right here on earth, in laboratories. Continue reading Five Mundane Things That Can Be Turned Into Diamonds

Disposable Paper Microscope Costs Just 50 Cents

By Anupum Pant

Background

While doing my daily rounds on the internet today, I came across this awesome piece of modern engineering – An extremely durable and disposable microscope made out of paper and very tiny ball lenses. I saw it first on a Ted talk that I’ve attached below. Ingenious I say!

What’s new?

Microscopes are no longer those sensitive, bulky and costly instruments which were used to observe tiny life forms. These engineers have changed the age-old definition of the microscope. The fold-able paper microscope or foldscope is an origami microscope that weighs just 9 grams and is designed by a Manu Prakash, a Bioengineer professor and his team from Stanford. Instead of costing thousands of dollars, this ingenious origami microscope costs less than a dollar and is set to transform the way people use microscopes.

Besides being light, cheap and foldable, the microscope is water proof, durable to the extent that it can be dropped from the top of a building without getting damaged, does not require any external power, provides a 2000x magnification, can be assembled by a first grader in ten minutes, is easy to carry and is absolutely flat! What more can we ask for!

It can even project the image of bacteria on your wall. How cool is that! I bet your lab microscopes can’t do that.

It is set to transform the lives of those billions of people living in the developing countries. The piece of engineered paper will change the speed and accessibility of medical diagnosis in the poor nations.

Material and actual cost

Well, as the heading tells you it is a 50 cent microscope, not really. It costs only a little more than that. Still, it costs lesser than a dollar – about $0.97. Here is the material cost break-up:

  • Tiny Spherical lens: $0.56
  • 3V button battery: $0.06
  • LED light: $0.21
  • and a couple of other things like tape, paper and switch: $0.14
  • Total: $0.97

Beta testing: The team is currently looking for beta-testers for Foldscope. They’ll choose 10,000 people who would test it in a variety of settings and would help them generate an open source biology/microscopy field manual. See “Ten Thousand Microscopes signup” for details.

It reminds me of

The incredible cheap microscope discussed above is new and very precise. Until recently we didn’t have that. DIYs on the internet taught us to construct (not really) not-so-accurate microscope setups at home using a laser pointer.

All you were supposed to do is point the laser pointer through a suspended drop of bacteria infested water (or other clear liquids).This is how I toyed around (I still do) with a laser pointer to see hazy pictures of possible micro-organisms:

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Problem with Facebook – On Facebook Everybody Loses

By Anupum Pant

I had to say this a couple of weeks back. But, now I think, I’ve gravely been irritated by Facebook to let it out. So here goes a post on how Facebook is repeatedly trying to make you confirm your own  pre-conceived notions and is basically making you an ignorant person everyday, is hurting page owners, and they are doing all of this to make short-term money for themselves. It is evil. That, is the problem with Facebook.

Almost every good thing you want to see is hidden from you on Facebook

Okay, let us start with my Facebook page. I know it is a small one, with just 446 likes (as of today). That said, I can tell you one thing for sure, I never forced any one of these people to like my page, nor have I ever advertised my page on Facebook to amass likes. All, or may be most of the people who like my page wished to clearly subscribe to my content and my views. Clearly, they wanted to be updated on the things I was posting. But Facebook tells me, that isn’t happening, unless I pay them the money.

Now take a minute to look at the screenshot below:

Facebook page insights
Look at the total reach.

See the first post in that list. Of all the 446 people who’ve subscribed to the page, this appeared on only 15 news feeds. Moreover, the chances are high that all of these 15 people must have not even scrolled down to see the loaded post. So, probably 10 of the 15 loads were just useless loads. 5 of them who actually saw the post, decided (probably subconsciously) to not engage – that is understandable. Even if all the 15 people did see this post, how is that fair? Continue reading Problem with Facebook – On Facebook Everybody Loses

Chocoholics Have no Fear, Chocolate Pudding Fruit is Here

By Anupum Pant

I’ve heard of all sorts of fruits. But this is something I came across just yesterday and I think it is worth mentioning. I bet you haven’t heard of it too. This fruit is called the Black Sapote (the scientific name is Diospyros digyna, in case you need it) also known as the Chocolate pudding fruit or Black persimmon.

Description: The chocolate pudding fruit or Black sapote (not related to the more common mamey sapote) is an apple sized, olive-green colored fruit found in eastern Mexico and Central America. When ripe, it turns from bright green to a lighter shade of green. At this stage it is plucked and allowed to soften for 3-6 days. After it is allowed to soften, the skin turns brownish and the fruit becomes very soft. Now, when it is cut, a smooth and silky textured brown colored chocolate like pulp is obtained from the inside.

Although Black Sapote is slightly larger, It looks a lot similar to the apple like fruit that grows in the world’s most dangerous tree.

Taste and Recipes: Not that I’ve eaten it. Still it is interesting to know that the fruit might or might not have seeds, is delicious and tastes very close to chocolate pudding. The texture is free from any gains and feels smooth in the mouth like papaya. It is often used as a substitute for chocolate in milkshakes, ice-creams, smoothies and juices to impart a creamy rich chocolate color and flavour. It is also mixed with orange juice and served with cream. Other times it is mixed with wine, brandy, cinnamon and sugar.

Health and Fitness: For chocolate addicts, this fruit is actually very healthy. Mostly because it does not fatten you – it is low in fat. At the same time the fruit is pretty rich in Vitamin C. One fruit is said to normally contain four times as much as Vitamin C as an Orange! I don’t have to tell you that Oranges are known for their Vitamin C content.

I wonder why it doesn’t grow in India. The climate pretty much suits it! Or do you have it in India too?

Article In a sentence: There exists a fruit that goes by the name of Black Sapote or “chocolate pudding fruit”. It  tastes, looks and feels a lot like chocolate pudding, is actually low in fat and has about four times as much Vitamin C as an Orange. [Video]

[More about it]

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5 Visually Incredible Science Experiments You Cannot Miss

By Anupum Pant

Here is a small list of visually incredible science experiments that will keep you visually mesmerized for a couple of minutes. Later, you’ll be left wondering about what you just saw.

The list is a small one, to not overwhelm those avid readers who follow the articles everyday. I think, more than 5 videos, is just too much wonder to take for a single day.
I do have a collection of hundreds of other such incredible experiment videos (in my bookmarks) that I’ll be sharing in the future…probably with the same heading suffixed with “part 2”.

Now without any more delay, here is the list. Have fun and do share if you like them! Ask me in the comments section if you have any questions.

1. Decomposition of Mercury (II) Thiocyanate

2. Liquid Nitrogen + 1500 Ping Pong balls

3. Dry Ice + Water

4. Quantum Trapping / Quantum Locking

5. Flying top

Conan The Bacterium – The World’s Most Toughest Bacterium

By Anupum Pant

I have been a big fan of Tardigrades and the Radiotrophic fungi since the day I found out about them. I’m a fan mostly because these are the kind of creatures that can survive in very different (extreme) kind of settings. For instance, Tardigrades can waddle through the vacuüm of space without getting harmed! (more in the links above).

These are Extremophiles – creatures that can survive extreme heat, cold, dehydration, acidity, or radiation. But Extremophiles have their own abilities and specialties. That means, if they are able to survive one kind of harsh condition, say extreme heat, there is a fat chance that the same organism will have the ability to survive other harsh conditions too. That is not the case with the bacteria we see today…

The badass bacteria beats Tardigrades.

A bacteria that goes by the name Deinococcus Radiodurans enters. It is the king of Extremophiles. Or, you can call it a Polyextremophile (reason below). So, to my list of the most badass creatures, I’m happy to announce that I’m adding a new creature – Conan the Bacterium or Deinococcus Radiodurans (DR).
(If you don’t get it, it is a bacteria nicknamed after the badass barbarian warrior movie – Conan the Barbarian – not after the funny guy on TV – Conan.)

This bacterium is so tough that it is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as “the world’s toughest bacterium”.

What can it survive? Now what makes it better than Tardigrades or any other known creatures out there, is its ability to withstand all of the extreme conditions at the same time – Polyextremophile. So, if you decide to put it through all of these conditions at the same time –

Vacuum + Zero humidity + 85 degrees C temperature + 500,000 rads of radiation

– it will survive. The most amazing part – it will survive all of it easily. To give you an idea how much 500,000 rads of radiation is, human beings would get cooked (or charred) to death within seconds if they get exposed to that amount of radiation! Yet Conan the bacterium takes it all as if it was nothing, and can still go up to 1,500,000 rads. At those levels, even the molecular structure of glass begins to break down!

Habitat: No one knows where this bacterium belongs naturally. It is found anywhere and everywhere. You might find it in elephant’s dung or in the polar areas of the earth where the environment of earth closely resemble that of Mars.

DNA repair with a twist: Like most other bacteria, DR can repair its own DNA after damage due to extreme amounts of radiation. But, even here, it manages to stand out from the masses (other bacteria). Other bacteria like E.Coli can’t survive, more than two or three major DNA breaks. However, DR can keep on bringing its broken DNA to the original state over and over. And every time, it can stitch back its completely blown DNA bits, in a matter of few hours. There is still a lot to learn about how it manages to do this.

However, the mechanism it uses is certainly different and better from the way other bacteria do it. It doesn’t seem to have any DNA repair genes like other bacteria. And yet it is able to make complete repairs in the DNA with the help of a certain protein.

Data storage: In the future, if we ever wish to make extremely robust storage devices, we could probably learn to store data in this bacteria’s DNA. And then we might never lose data even in the case of a nuclear apocalypse.

[Source 1] [Source 2] [Source 3]

Platypus is a Very Strange Animal!

By Anupum Pant

Background

What would you get if you if you crossed a duck, frog & snake? Hint: It is a mammal and lays eggs!
You’d have one of the most weirdest and mysterious animal, the Platypus.

Knuckles the echinda.pngNote: Unlike what is popularly taught in schools, Platypus is not the “only mammal that lays eggs”. Echidna – Knuckles from Sonic the Hedgehog – is the second kind of mammal that lay eggs.

So, Platypus is considered a strange animal because, it secretive and even today, not everything is known about it. It has a beak that looks like a duck’s beak, it’s feet are webbed like that of a frog’s. Besides that, this cute & cuddly looking creature, found in the Eastern part of Australian fresh waters, uses venom like a snake. But there is more:

Some Incredible things about the Platypus

Firstly, it lays eggs and is not a reptile. It is one of those two mammals which lays eggs.

For up to 3 months the male Platypus stores the eggs in its bill.

They swim underwater with their eyes shut and come out mostly at night.

Venom: They have a sharp and hollow thumbnail (spur) in their hind legs that is venomous. The venom is strong enough to kill a dog (doesn’t kill humans, but is extremely painful). This is used only in self defense. And only males are venomous. I never knew they had venom, but since they are from Australia, I had expected that.

Electrolocation: Under water, they detect electrical signals to find insects, store them behind their bill, come up and then eat them. It uses electrolocation – sees using electricity – Like bats use echolocation.

Under their bill are about 40000 sensors arranged in longitudinal strips. These sensors can detect fluctuations in the surrounding electric field. Even something producing a very minor electric fluctuation at a distance – contractions in the muscles – can be detected by the Platypus.

Sharks do the same and this is the reason they attack and damage our internet cables under the sea.

Mechanical sensors:  Besides that 60000 mechanical sensors (push rods) are used to detect movement in the water. Scientists say that the information from the electrical sensors and mechanical sensors is combined by its brain to calculate the prey’s exact location.

No Nipples: The young ones feed on milk from the mother Platypus. This milk doesn’t come from nipples, it comes from modified sweat glands (not unique to platypus) under its body. It has no nipples.

They can eat their own body-weight in under a single day.

They find it hard to stay underwater because they have a natural buoyancy. Yet, they can use other objects to stay under water for a maximum of 10 minutes. Then they have to come up for air.

Babies: The baby Platypus does not have an official name. Some call it puggle (which is not correct). But the accepted word, “Platypup” can be used.

Water vs. Red-Hot Nickel Ball

By Anupum Pant

Let me just not say anything before I make you watch this video today:

In the video, a Nickel ball is heated using a torch and is dropped into a bowl of water. As the hot ball touches water for the first time, it makes a certain “Ping” sound. It enters the water and gets covered in a bubble sort of thing. As it cools and the bubble is lost, that “ping” sound comes back again. The “Ping” repeats several times and is fun to hear a metal ball do that!

So much fun that the good guys on Reddit even made a couple of ringtones out of it. Download the longer one here. And the shorter one for notifications here.

Why does it form a Bubble cover?

This happens because the metal that is dropped into water is extremely hot and makes the water around it vaporize. The vapor formed around the ball acts as an insulator and doesn’t let the water touch the metal ball. This is the same effect that lets dip your hand in molten lead or Liquid Nitrogen without getting harmed by it. The same thing happens when you drop water on a hot pan – it dances.

This effect is called the Leidenfrost effect and I’ve covered it in an article before…

I’m not sure what exactly causes the “Ping” sound. If you know or have any theories, please tell me in the comments below.

CrashCourse in Quenching

Well, if I’d have wished to piss you off with jargon, I’d have said: “You just watched a hot Nickel ball being quenched in water”

Yes, quenching. Quenching is the name for making a hot metal cool very quickly. It is pretty interesting to know why some one would, with great effort, heat a metal, and then choose to drop it in water to cool off!
Cooling a hot piece of metal very quickly makes it extremely hard. So hard, that the same process is used to make the hard edges of swords that don’t get damaged even if they are used to cut metal!

There is so much more I wanted to write about the process, but I feel this isn’t the right place for it. Let me leave it for some other day.

Can a Single Sand Grain Power a Car for 10 km?

By Anupum Pant

I literally binge on YouTube, especially on science videos. Since I’ve been doing it for a long time, I follow a huge number of channels and among them, are some channels that need a special mention. For that, my plan for today was to create a list of five to ten spectacular YouTube science channels that are not popularly known. But while carrying out the research to collect data for this little list, I happened to stumble upon something which needs a post dedicated to it. So, I thought of delaying my original plan of collating a list of those lesser known science channels.

Background

To tell you about the thing I discovered, you need to know this first:

MinutePhysics: You know MinutePhysics right? I mean, who doesn’t know them. If you think you’ve never come across a video of their’s, try going to their channel. There is a high chance you’ll recognize their signature style of simplifying science – through animated videos. With more than 2 Million fans on YouTube, they have a huge following and almost every video of their’s goes viral, to some extent. It was started by Henry Reich and I’m guessing there is definitely a team behind the channel – If some one from MinutePhysics is reading this, like the one I did with Jaan Altosaar from UsefulScience.org, I’d love to do a short chat with you, if you have the time.

MinuteEarth: Now, the same people who created MinutePhysics also upload similar styled videos explaining the planet earth at MinuteEarth. You should check that out too. But that is not all I’m talking today…

MinuteLabs

I’m not sure how I landed on the Youtube page of MinuteLabs.io, but the instant I spotted the dot io in the end, I knew there was more to this channel than just two videos. I watched one of those videos – video (embedded below)

I could instantly connect to what Jasper was doing in the video. I often have such questions and I make these queries on Google all the time. But I had never endeavored to do what he (maybe with his team) did on his website.  And that brought me to MinuteLabs.io‘s Mass-energy scale.

Mass-Energy scale

When you land on the Mass-Energy scale page of MinuteLabs, you’ll find a vertically massive scale, listing out a couple of things on the right and left side. So, this is a scale which is based on the popular equation E=MC2 .

It lists out a number of everyday (plus other) objects and the energy associated with them on the left side. On the right side of this scale are the masses of some other objects. This is how it works…

minutelabs mass energy scale

For example, if you take the mass of a sand-grain and multiply it with the constant C2, you’ll end up with some amount of energy (E) that is *theoretically* stored in its mass. To get an idea about how much this energy is, they have collected that huge list of energies associated with everyday objects on the left scale.

After referring to the scale, you’ll find that the amount of energy that is theoretically stored in the mass of a sand grain is almost equal to the energy that is needed to move a family car by 10 km. Even though you don’t really have an access to all that energy, Isn’t that huge, for a “very fine sand grain”! Check out the scale to see how huge things can get…

What I appreciate about it

Firstly, I appreciate the amount of effort it would have taken to collect that sort of data. I know that because I’ve tried doing something similar once. Trust me, It is a pain!

Secondly, I appreciate the fact (and again the effort) that their media is made using the latest web technologies. This makes their media so accessible to people.  Today, all you need for learning science, is an internet connection and a nice browser, like Chrome or Safari.

Besides this particular media (Mass-Energy scale) they have created, there are a couple of others that have already been up and running since the start of this year. I’m sure, like me, you’ll have a couple of hours of fun, learning and playing around with them. Cheers to simplified science and MinuteLabs for doing this project.

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Build an Autonomous Toothbrush Robot in Minutes

By Anupum Pant

Background

If you are looking for a cool little science project, I think your search should end right here because today I’m sharing with you an awesome way to transform your toothbrush into an autonomous toothbrush robot. This one is just autonomous enough to move around on its own, hit obstacles, turn around and continue. But remember, since it is a fun project that can be completed within minutes (in under $5), you can’t expect a lot out of this basic bot.

Also, I did not invent this thing. I happened to stumble upon a video by Evil Mad Scientist on YouTube that taught me the basic idea of how this thing works. So, cheers to him. However, since my supplies were constrained, I felt a need to find some alternative methods to construct a similar bot. I’ve shared the original video and my own alternatives (in text) under it… You can skip reading the next two sub-headings and watch the video below them.

Here is what you’ll need:

  • A toothbrush (preferably, one with angled bristles)
  • A cellphone vibrator motor
  • Some double side tape
  • and a Button cell

Here is what you do:

Firstly, do not worry if you don’t have the exact materials mentioned above, I’ve suggested some alternative ideas after the video.

Stick on motorCute but unstable

  1. Grab the toothbrush and carefully cut off the handle, we’ll just need the head. Now, this part can be the most difficult because the plastic at the neck can be pretty tough sometimes. If you are not confident, take help from an elder.
  2. Use the double side tape to stick the motor on top of the head in a way that the rotating shaft of the motor doesn’t touch the bush.
  3. Connect the button cell to the terminals of the motor. If the whole bot starts vibrating with the motor, It’s done. Place it on the floor and watch moving…

[Video]

Alternatives

  • Suppose you don’t have a brush with angled bristles. You can just take any other toothbrush and keep it under your mattress for a day to get pressed. The straight bristles turn into angled bristles. I had to do this, so I know.
  • Now, if you don’t have a cellphone vibrator motor, you can use one of these common motors too. All you’ll have to do is stick a piece of clay or tape on the shaft to make a counter weight so the motor vibrates when it rotates. You don’t want it rotating smoothly here.
  • To make the bot turn away better from obstacles, I stuck 3 toothpicks on top of the brush in a way that one of them was sticking out in the front and the other two were pointing out from the sides to form wing like structures.

It hardly takes any effort to try it out and then you’ll have your own bot moving around on the floor of your house. It feels great to watch it move like that! If you can, try making a huge variant. Use a bigger brush, pencil batteries and a bigger motor.

[See this for more details]

The Science of Blogging Better – for Newbie Bloggers

By Anupum Pant

The following is not a cheat sheet to double visitors, conversions or rank better on search engines. Like AweSci’s tagline says, this article is meant for “being a better person through Science”.

Even though I’m doing good with Google search results, I’m not much of an SEO enthusiast. I blog because I love to do it. I don’t like to craft posts to trap clicks from a search engines. I write about things that really interest me, and not necessarily about the things that are most searched.

However, I don’t mind making a few logical alterations to my style, that would NOT change the kind of articles I really want to write, and at the same time would add better value to people reading it. My aim would be to write for that person, who would search for something on Google, would end up here, and thank me for giving him/her the answers he/she was searching for. That would make me a better person.

The science of it

Blogging gurus will tell you to “produce quality content”. To break down the meaning of “quality content” in a detailed way is impossible in a single article. However, here are some of the most important things that will turn your content into “quality content”. The two major studies I discuss here are no less than full-blown psychological studies (is the reason I put it in the Psychology section) – They don’t mention the hard science separately, but they essentially deal with the psychology of your readers.

While going through a blogging guru’s blog yesterday, I noted the following interesting things that can clearly help you newbie bloggers stand out and create real value on the internet. And I think it is worth knowing. For millions of people out there looking to start a blog, or the ones have just started blogging, a careful initial look at “Blogging” with the magnifying glass of science would definitely make them better people on the internet. That, I think, should be anyone’s aim with a blog. So, here is the basic science of blogging better – Continue reading The Science of Blogging Better – for Newbie Bloggers

Pi Day – 31.4 Things About Pi You Probably Did Not Know

By Anupum Pant

“International” Pi day?

Today is pi day. Pi day is celebrated on March 14 at the Exploratorium in San Francisco (March 14 is 3/14) at 1:59 PST which is 3.14159.

Since pi day is today’s date written in the mm.dd (03.14) format, it could not be a pi day for most of you because dd.mm is the format used for writing dates in most countries around the world. In fact, those countries where more than half of the world’s population resides, will never have a pi day because you know, we can’t have a 14th month! Pi day is a valid celebration for people living only in the United States (including the 49th and northernmost state, Alaska and Hawaii of course) and Belize. Everywhere else people get zilch today?

date format map
Only the purple parts in the map use the mm.dd.yy format to write dates

 

Firstly, there is always the pi approximation day, which is celebrated on 22nd July (22/7) and uses the dd.mm format. Talking about March 14th, there is much more to pi day than just the date format itself. Let’s see…

Birthdays

I know, Eugene Cernan – The NASA astronaut who was the last man on the moon, and the one you can hear speaking in a popular Daft Punk Track – is one famous man who was born on pi day, 79 years from now, is an American too.

But guess what? Albert Einstein, one of the most genius men of recent times, was born on pi day too. He was a German born physicist (He did live in the US for more than 15 years and in fact, even took his last breath in New Jersey)

pi day birthdays
Left to Right: Albert Einstein, Gene Cernan and the commander of Apollo 8, Frank Borman, have their birthdays on March 14, Pi Day.

So, you see there is a little bit of pi day for every one around the world today. It is not just an American thing. Now moving on the most amazing things about pi.

Irrational pi

Firstly, pi, unlike what we all are taught in school, isn’t 22/7. 22 divided by 7 is just an approximation of pi – it is only 99.95975% accurate. As we all know, pi is actually the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. A slightly better approximation of pi would be 104348/33215 – which is 99.99999998944% accurate. But, since it is an irrational number, it can never be written in the form of a fraction.

Exact Value

The exact value of pi is impossible to write in digits because the number of digits needed to write it would be infinite and could never be fit inside the known universe.

To think of it in another way, if you divided the whole universe into the smallest possible volumes (plank volume), you’d end up with a mind bogglingly large number of volumes. Suppose you started writing the digits of pi inside these little volumes, you’d finish up the universe and would be still left with infinite more digits to write.

The Digits of Pi

The latest record for the maximum number of known digits of pi is 12.1 Trillion digits (December 28, 2013), as calculated by Alexander J. Yee & Shigeru Kondo.  They have run out of disk space to store more numbers. Here you can have a look at the first 100,000 digits of pi. And One million digits, if you need more than that.

In these first one million digits, the sequence 12345 occurs 8 times!

The Feynman Point: If you’d like to hear what pie would sound like if you mapped a couple of pleasant sounding notes to each of the digits of pi, try listening to this. If you kept listening for a while and made it till the 762th digit, you’d hear a series of (6 of them) high frequency notes (the ones mapped to the digit nine) that get played continuously. This place in the digits of pi is called the Feynman point where six 9s occur one after another. Isn’t it incredible for six same numbers to be there consecutively in a random irrational number!

Feynman point
The Feynman point – series of six consecutive 9s highlighted in red.

Practically useful pi

Pi can be used in real life to make a couple of things easier. For instance, if you were to find the size of your hat (usually measured in diameters), you’d have a hard time measuring the diameter of your head. This is what you can do to get a good approximation:
Measure the circumference of your head and divide it by π.

Another one trick is used by forest guards: To estimate the height of an elephant the Diameter of an elephant’s foot is multiplied by 2 π.

Pi Jokes, facts and Coincidences

  • It is an impressive coincidence that 3.14 if horizontally flipped, looks like the word “Pie”. You can check this in the mirror.
Pi looks lie pie in the mirror
Pi looks lie pie in the mirror
  • Another one is that, the 16th Greek letter is ‘Pi’ and the 16th letter in the English alphabet is ‘P’.
  • The famous comedian John Evans once made a joke: “What do you get if you divide the circumference of a jack-o’-lantern by its diameter? Pumpkin π.

  • There is a cologne named pi and is sold with the following marketing mantra: “highlighting the sexual appeal of intelligent and visionary men.”
  • The height of the Great Pyramid of Giza multiplied by 2 π is equal to the perimeter of its base.
  • The 90841th place in pi is 122189 – which is also my birth date in the mmddyy format. Find yours here and tell me in the comments below.

Download the PiDay wallpaper here.

Do share with me in the comments, other facts about pi you know and I haven’t covered them here.

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Harmless Flour is an Incredibly Explosive Substance

By Anupum Pant

Background

The next time you are biting off from a bread, pizza, pancake or a doughnut, you should probably take a minute and pay a silent acknowledgement to the people who work in flour mills to bring flour to your homes. Yes, because flour, the seemingly harmless cooking ingredient can be an incredibly dangerous substance – It explodes.

Wait a minute. It isn’t a minor explosion I’m talking about. I’m talking about really big explosions. Read on to know more.

Burning Flour

Flour is almost completely starch (or carbohydrate). Since Carbohydrate is nothing but a large molecule which is essentially a couple of sugar molecules linked to each other, it burns like sugar. And everybody who has tried burning marshmallows on a candle knows how easily sugar catches fire. Agreed, carbohydrate isn’t as sweet, but it is just like its cousin sugar when it comes to flammability.

So, that is how flour can catch fire. But what is it that makes it bring down full-sized buildings?

Flour in air

Flour in your kitchen’s flour container can be a very boring thing. The fun starts when the tiny flour particles are suspended in air.

Flour particles suspended in air, or for that matter, almost anything suspended in air that can catch fire, is a dangerous thing. For example, look at one of the most hazardous situation you can have in a coal mine – There is coal dust around and accidentally there is a small sparkle around it. The whole place explodes like a bomb. This has resulted in some of the worst ever mining accidents in the history.

Such explosions happen because anything that is in powdered form and is suspended in air, has a far more surface area exposed to oxygen per unit weight, than normal lumps of the same substance. This is true for industrial stuff like powdered coal, sawdust, and magnesium. Besides that, mundane substances can explode too – like  grain, flour, sugar, powdered milk and pollen.

All it takes to cause a disaster is a suspended combustible powder and a little electric arc formed from electrostatic discharge, friction or even hot surfaces – A little spark is enough.

Such settings are common in flour mills, where there is flour floating around literally everywhere. This is what caused a giant explosion in a flour mill in Minnesota on May 2nd, 1878, killing 18 workers. But that was more than 100 years ago. Kitchens are relatively safe because you don’t have enough flour in the air to catch fire and produce great volumes of air that are enough to cause an explosion.

This happens even today. From the year 1994 to the year 2003 there have been 115 such reported explosions in food processing industries in the US.

[Source 1] [Source 2] [Source 3]

Experiment

The following is a simple experiment you can do at home (obviously with adult supervision) to understand the explosive nature of a harmless cooking ingredient. [Video]

What you need: Safety glasses, Tin can (with lid), Candle, Matches, a long Straw and fine white flour

  • Take a tin can, one with a relatively tighter lid. Make a hole at the lowest point in the side wall (just enough to fit in a straw).
  • Open it up and put in a handful of flour inside it. Now is the time to put on your safety glasses.
  • Now, burn a candle and carefully place it inside the can.
  • Close the lid, insert the straw into the hole. Now blow at the base of the can, in a way that flour stirs up inside without extinguishing the candle.
  • Watch the lid pop up 10 feet into the air.

Daft Punk – Contact – The Radio Broadcast Mystery

By Anupum Pant

Background

Since the day Daft Punk’s album RAM (Random Access Memories) came out last year, I’ve been listening to it at least one time every day. I don’t have a time-table sort of thing that makes me listen to it. But, since the tracks are played on shuffle, nearly all of the tracks from RAM are played at least once by my Media Player.

Every one of those tracks is wonderful. The best part, I think is their retro-styled fluid basslines (that phrase is what comes to my mind). We hardly come across such basslines in Dance music these days. But I’m not a music critique and let me stop messing around with random words to describe its bassline. I’m here to talk particularly about a track from that album that is about space – Track 13 Contact. I’m here to talk science.

The Track

The song starts with a broadcast. Pretty soon, with the eerie bassline (again) playing in the background, you are convinced that the radio broadcast is related to space – the broadcast sounds as if taken from a real archived tape. The combined effect of both the broadcast and the music playing creates a very mysterious setting. This is what the person talks in the track –

Hey Bob I’m looking at what Jack was talking about and it’s definitely not a particle that’s nearby. It is a bright object and it’s obviously rotating because it’s flashing, it’s way out in the distance, certainly rotating in a very rhythmic fashion because the flashes come around almost on time. As we look back at the earth it’s up at about 11 o’clock, about maybe ten or twelve diame…Earth diameters. I don’t know whether that does you any good, but there’s something out there.

The guy talking in it describes a “bright flashing object” which he sees in space and ends with a sentence that makes Goosebumps appear on your skin. A heavier bassline ensues. And the following thoughts start rushing into your mind.

Was that an alien ship the man saw in space? Is this some sort of a classified broadcast that got leaked and Daft Punk found it? With all sorts of government and UFO stories floating out there, it seems pretty plausible.

That is what I thought. So I decided to find out.

What is it really?

The astronaut that speaks in the broadcast is the commander of Apollo 17, Gene Cernan.  Disappointingly, it is not an alien ship being described here. Moreover, it isn’t even a leaked tape or something like that. NASA gave this recording to Daft Punk for using it in a track.

The object Gene Cernan describes on the radio was a discarded upper stage of the Saturn V rocket. As a rocket lifts up, discarded parts are normal things. This one, as things in space would, was spinning rhythmically and was reflecting sunlight at regular intervals. That explains, “Because the flashes come around almost on time”.

Yes, that’s all. Indeed, the track makes it sound very interesting. Probably that ability, to make seemingly mundane things sound appealing, is what makes Daft Punk so popular.

[Source]

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