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Why Antimatter Matters

Vibhor Singh
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0
Why Antimatter Matters

Upon hearing the word antimatter, images of some sci-fi movies or webseries pops up into our head. But the concept of antimatter is a fact and is very important for the existence of this very universe, even from the viewpoint of particle physics. It’s a mysterious entity in our universe, and we know very little about it. It has existed since the creation of the universe, the Big Bang, even so, why is it that we know very less about it than any other “Matter” is a very important question.

Let’s start with something we know about, i.e. Matter.
The universe was formed billions of years ago in a “Big Bang” which was neither big nor was there a bang. Just after the big bang, the universe was filled with fundamental particles. In the first few fractions of a second, these particles combined and we had protons and neutrons. In the next 300 thousand years or so, the first atom was formed. And after the first 14 billion years, we were formed, asking how all of this happened.

That part of the question can be easily answered today. Just by looking, observing, following patterns, sending probes to the far away to look more, we can answer this question satisfactorily. This exactly is the Astrophysics branch of study. But if we want to know the mechanism behind it, the journey from the big bang to now, that can be explained only by particle physics.

Particle physics says that all the matter in the universe is made up of 6 quarks and 6 leptons. They are tiny particles, i.e they are very small, as small compared to atoms, as atoms are to us. But, that is not all of it. There are bosons to hold these particles together.

(Image: Wikipedia)

Thus the jigsaw of the universe is completed. This picture can also be expressed mathematically, which is so elegant that it can be expressed on a t-shirt

antimatter T-shirt
(Image: Memetic)

This beautiful theory is called the standard model.

But that’s only half of the story. Each of the fundamental particles has a twin, i.e. a counterpart who goes by the name “antiparticle”. The thing that we know about them is that when the twins meet, there is a “BANG”, they annihilate each other producing lots of energy.

(Image: Pinterest)

1 quarter gram of matter and 1 quarter gram of antimatter can cause a BANG equivalent to 5 kilotons of TNT. But this is such a rare event that it almost never happens.

So, why do we need antimatter?

Classically the motion of an electron is given by E = mv2 or E = mgh. All these equations give the solution for the electron and there is no need for any other solutions.

But some advances in physics suggested that the classical theory is not the complete picture. This view was developed since Einstein, who suggested that the motion of electron diverged from the previous equations when they are going very fast. This was the beginning of relativistic physics. On the other side, quantum mechanics was being developed which showed that classical physics was entirely wrong when we go to a smaller and smaller length scale.

One of the physicists, Paul Dirac, tried to unify the special relativity and the quantum mechanics to describe the bigger picture of the motion of the electron. He succeeded in doing so and gave the equation

ihyμδμΨ = mcΨ

The equation was very elegant and beautiful and equally true. It did explain the motion of electrons at higher speeds and lower scales. But there was one catch to this: the equation gave two sets of solutions. One was the electron with its usual negative charge and the other was a particle exactly the same as an electron, except for a positive charge instead of negative charge (now called the positron).

Many scientists discarded the other set of solutions claiming it to be wrong. Some went further to say that the quantum theory itself is not mature enough to describe the universe. But Dirac wrote the equation himself and said that the second part of the solution had to be true. The debate went on for years, until Carl Anderson, who was doing an experiment on cosmic rays, found the particle described by the second half of the solution. He had a cloud chamber, which was filled with saturated liquid.

Whenever a charged particle passed through it, it formed a vapour trail. The particle’s path can be controlled by applying magnetic and electric fields, i.e it could be bent left or right with a magnetic field depending on the charge being positive or negative.

(Image: Wikipedia)

In one such experiment, he found the trail of a particle exactly similar to the electron, except that it bent in the opposite direction, i.e. it had a positive charge. This was the very particle Dirac was looking for. The counterpart of the electron was found. SInce 1932, we have accepted that “antiparticles” corresponding to each fundamental particle do exist.

Why is it interesting?

Antiparticles are interesting because they have a huge implication to the early universe. At the time of big bang, along with the matter we see today, antimatter is also supposed to have existed. If the early universe was an equal distribution of matter and antimatter, then in a few seconds, matter and antimatter should have started annihilating and creating BANGS everywhere producing light (not necessarily in the visible region). Eventually, the universe should have expanded and cooled until everything had annihilated and nothing existed.

Today whenever we look, what we see is the consequence of a very tiny difference in the equal distribution, the difference of about one in a billion parts. This imbalance is the reason why we are here. If the matter and antimatter were equal in amount, the universe would be full of light. So we should take antimatter seriously.

How do we have more matter?

This tiny difference of matter and antimatter is what we call “CP Violation”, where C refers to charge and P stands for parity. According to Dirac’s theory, antimatter is related to matter by CP transformation, i.e opposite charge and parity.

Dirac’s theory predicted a symmetry between the behavior of particles and antiparticles, but this is not always true. There is CP violation, and as a result of this violation life exists. So the symmetry we thought should exist is violated, as a result of which there is an imbalance between matter and antimatter. But we do not know the answer to why there is such a violation.

So, if we were to summarize what we know about antimatter, it would look something like this.

This is “not” a lot. That is because there is no underlying explanation for the existence of antimatter.

But that doesn’t mean that the case is closed, or nothing can be done about this. This is where experimentalists stand out higher than the theorists. In particle physics, there is a parameterization of this difference. What we can do is perform lots of experiments and with the help of the data, we can try to fix the theory. If the experiment doesn’t match with the theory, we can modify the theory. It does not explain the mechanism, but at least it works. Experimental physicists some up with new and better ways to dig into the world of antimatter day by day.

Microneedle Patches: The Future of Pain-Free Diagnostics

Om Desai
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1
Microneedle Patches: The Future of Pain-Free Diagnostics

Needles. This is the thing which has hurt and gave pain to most of us once in a life time. Whether it be injection or a test diagnosis or a COVID-19 test; these are the things which are pierced into our body for getting the blood sample. Some get through this very easily, while many-a-times blood vessels burst or sometimes complications happen too. Biomedical techniques have always been finding to solve the issue and here they are; pain-free, time-saving and an easy way of diagnostic tests – Microneedle patches.

Biomarkers: Defining diagnostics

Biomarkers & Microneedle Patches: Defining Diagnostics
Biomarkers & Microneedle Patches: Defining Diagnostics
(image: The Translational Scientist)

Before we move towards the microneedle patches, let me first clear the concept of how exactly diagnosis is done. We all know that is an infinite network of blood vessels and blood veins that run throughout our body. They carry blood. Blood carry biomarkers. Biomarkers occur naturally into our body in the form of molecule or gene material and through biomarkers particular pathological or physiological process can be identified. So, when laboratories take your blood sample through that hurting needles, they actually look for biomarkers and diseases can be identified after diagnosing the sample.

Interestingly, these biomarkers can also be found near our skin, where dermatologic cells are located. There is dense liquid surrounding those cells and, in that liquid, biomarkers exist. So, why not capture that liquid instead of blood sample? Why doctors want to hurt us by piercing that needle?

Role of a biomarker : Microneedle patches
Role of a biomarker (image: medium)

Calm down! Those biomarkers are found in trace amounts in the dense liquid compared to blood flowing through veins. It is hard to detect them. So, diagnostics is therefore not so good and we have to face pain while being diagnosed.

Not any more…

Microneedle Patches: Redefining diagnostics

This technology is robust and cost efficient. These are patches, which can be applied on the skin, biomarkers of desire can be captured, diagnosed easily and in no time and there you are; no pain, no worries. But wait! Previously I said that to find biomarkers from that fluid is really difficult. Then how does these microneedle patches work?

As the microneedle patches don't reach upto the pain-receptors; they are far more better than ordinary needles
As the microneedle patches don’t reach upto the pain-receptors;
they are far more better than ordinary needles
(image: Sciencedirect)

Well, using them is similar to an ordinary blood sampling only. Normally, a chemical solution is injected to find the biomarkers from blood or the fluid. But while using these microneedle patches, biomarkers are directly captured from interstitial fluid. Usually, finding that specific biomarker precisely, the interstitial fluid needs to be captured as a whole and then later biomarkers are extracted from them. But that conventional process becomes difficult and painful. Instead, patches can directly capture them without extracting the fluid as a whole.

But that again is a difficult task, as interstitial fluid is dense with other impurities and molecules and compounds. So, how exactly the issue can be resolved then?

Microneedle Patches: Easy, Time-saving, Cost-efficient & pain-free
Microneedle Patches:
Easy, Time-saving, Cost-efficient & pain-free
(image: newswise)

A secret weapon. A gift to diagnostics.

As they say, to become successful, conventional paths need to be abandoned and follow your own new one. With unconventional approach, research team used plasmonic-fluor. Okay. This is something new. Let me elaborate. Plasmonic-fluor is an ultrabright fluorescent nanolabel which signals about the target protein or a biomarker. This means that, whenever they detect some biomarker, they signal that target brighter than other normal compounds and impurities, which makes the biomarkers stand-out from others. This makes the task of finding the biomarkers from the interstitial fluid easy and they can be captured and extracted with ease.

Plasmonic-Fluor : Microneedle Patches
Plasmonic-Fluor (image: Global Biodefense)

Interestingly, when an assay was done on a microneedle patch with plasmonic-fluor, the signal of target biomarker proteins became brighter by 1400 times and detectable enough by the patch. Also, previously the concentrations of biomarkers in the fluid were of a few micrograms per millilitre. Using plasmonic-fluor, this was obtained of the order of picograms per millilitre of fluid; which is really a great.  

Multiple usages. Multiple applications. Boom to Diagnostics.

With such robust idea of microneedle patches, the field of diagnostics is leaved to a whole new level. In emergency or in daily research or other useful data-gathering – microneedle patches could serve in every scientific research.

For starters, take example of COVID-19 testing. There is this antibody test involved in research which detects whether or not there are antibodies generated against coronavirus pathogens. Those results were used to make corona virus vaccines. Now, to check the efficiency of the vaccine, microneedle patches could be very helpful. How? The patches can directly detect that how efficiently the vaccine produces the antibodies and for how long those remain in vaccinated human body.

How these patches can be useful in corona virus vaccination… (image: Global Biodefense)

Another real-life example could be considered of some patient complaining about chest-pain or heart problem. These microneedle patches can help immediate testing and resulting to know what is the cause and doctors could solve the problem in almost no time. So, instead of rushing to the hospital for blood sampling, the test for troponin, which is biomarker for indicating myocardial infarction; can be carried out using microneedle patches.

Similarly, if patient has to have regular check-ups for some chronic diseases, then these patches can eliminate unnecessary trips to hospital; which is beneficiary especially in these harsh times of pandemic when we need to keep social-isolation.

Microneedle Patches having endless applications (image: Scroll.in)

For research labs, microneedle patches could reduce the number of animals required to carry out researches and help acquire progressive and accurate results without harming the animal kingdom.

Future and Beyond. Novel Diagnostics.

With such great scientific feats, humans keep on evolving endlessly. Talking about many applications, there is still a scope for plenty of research. For instance, research is going on to deliver the methods for long-distance and harsh conditions. Scenario of rural healthcare and making these patches cost-efficient is still a question. Surely this will be resolved as researchers see option for rural sector.

One of the most interesting research which scientists looked for was of “Cocaine-Vaccines”. This can stop the ability of cocaine to enter the blood and ultimately to brain cells. This could be a major application that microneedle patches can offer.

With AI and IoT entering our technological aspect of life

Such Scientific Advancements take care of our biological & healthcare aspect.

—OSD

Space Junk: What is it and Why is it a problem for us

Keith Kamson Fernandes
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1
Space Junk: What is it and Why is it a problem for us

Ever since, the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1 was launched in 1957, we have launched more than 10,000 satellites, with nearly 6,000 still in orbit out of which about only 3,000 are currently operational. The amount of space junk generated by them is so much that it’s now becoming a huge concern to us. In this articles we’ll discuss What is Space Junk and How is it a problem

What is Space Junk or Space Debris?

Space Junk or Space Debris is a term used for defunct man-made objects in space (mainly in Earth’s orbit) which are no longer serve a useful function. These include dilapidated spacecraft, abandoned launch vehicles, and fragmented debris from the breakup of dilapidated rocket bodies and spacecraft. Besides the defunct man-made objects left in space, other debris has also been seen such as paint flecks, solidified liquids expelled from spacecraft, and unburned particles from solid rocket motors.

(Video: Stuart Grey/YouTube)

How much of this debris is around Earth:

Back in 2019, a paper on the distribution of space debris around in orbit around Earth was released. In which they found that: > 1m: 5,400 objects > 10 cm: 34,000 objects (out of which only 2,000 are active satellites) > 1cm: 900,000 objects > 1mm: 130,000,000 objects

Note: For debris object >10cm were collected by US Space Surveillance and from objects <10cm was collected by ESA based on a statistical model. To know more on these stats click here

(Image: Space Environment Statistics/ESA)

Now that we know what is Space Debris, but we all might have a question in mind

Why is Space Junk a PROBLEM?

Though the sizes mentioned above may be very small but it can pose a huge collision hazard. This is because the velocity at which these objects travel can be about 7-8 km per second, which be about 12875 kmph. At these speeds, these small flecks of matter can cause huge damages to space crafts and satellites. So if we take a 1-centimeter fleck of paint and it’s traveling at about 7-8kmps then it would inflict the same amount of damage as a 250kg object traveling at 96kmph on Earth.

A small screw destroying satellites because of its fast speed

Though it is lethal enough to kill a person, we already have something else that is protecting us from this space junk or space debris: Our Atmosphere. So anything from the orbit will have to go through it first. One could say it’s “Our Firewall”.

So how does the atmosphere protect us? About 10 minutes before the debris is going to hit the ground, the dense atmosphere starts to heat up and decelerate the debris, resulting in it to melt. But, in the case of very compact and huge satellites that tend to have materials with very high melting points like stainless steel or titanium, so debris of such satellites will hit the ground.

Re-entering Space Junk
Re-entering Space Junk (Image: The Economist)

So how much are the chances of being hit by them? To answer this question NASA had released an estimate in 2002 that the odds a person will be hit by space debris is 1 in 3200 people. This means that the chances of any person being struck by it are trillions to one. With odds like this, you are a million times more likely to be struck by lightning.

But, the bigger problem with having so much debris in the orbit it can be dangerous over time, this is known as the

Kessler Syndrome or Kessler Effect

One might ask what is Kessler Syndrome, well it is a theoretical scenario in which the Earth’s orbit is overpopulated with objects and debris, preventing the use of artificial satellites in certain parts of the planet. In this scenario, space pollution is perpetuated by collisions between orbiting objects, creating more debris and thus creating a domino effect of future collisions. This theory was put forth by NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler in 1978.

The direct cause for this scenario is not fully related to the existence of man-made objects, but the collision between them, which can generate exponentially greater amounts of debris. One example is the collision between the American and Russian communication satellites back in 2009 which generated over 2000 pieces of debris. As some may know that SpaceX’s Starlink project is planning to launch a mega constellation of about 42,000 satellites, which would be providing us with satellite broadband. (To know more about this click here)

Space Junk (Image: Denver Post)

This increase in satellites will not only cause more debris or junk in space but will also increase the amount of damage done to the other operational satellites and also to the upcoming space missions, which could incur huge losses. Another problem is that it poses a huge risk to the astronauts and scientists living in the International Space Station (ISS) as there have been many instances where the station is being hit by debris or the station had to maneuver due to potential threat by these debris. (To read one such incident click here)

Here’s what space debris does to the Kevlar shielding protecting the International Space Station (Image: Extreme Tech)

Well by now, most of us might be thinking that if the amount of satellites increases so will the number of collisions between the satellites and this space junk, therefore we should reduce the no. of satellites launched. But this cannot of done as we now live in a world where we are gradually depending more on satellites for faster internet broadband to accurate weather forecasting. (To know more on this read my previous article on Space Research). But we can clear out this Space Junk or Space Debris in various ways which I will talk about in my next article. So stay tuned.

Fermi Paradox: Why the absence of alien life is actually a relief

Adithya A Rao
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3
Fermi Paradox: Why the absence of alien life is actually a relief

A question has haunted humanity for aeons. The seemingly simple question does not admit any simple explanations and demands the extremums of the human imagination to answer. Why is it that in all these centuries, has there been not even the slightest case of Extra-Terrestrial contact? In this vast universe, billions of light-years wide, we are nothing more than an insignificant speck of dust, but still, it seems as if we are special, as if we are the one and only planet where life exists, and none of the reasoning explaining the same makes much sense. This question has plagued the scientific society, but even after centuries of head-scratching, we still have not reached a reasonable conclusion. But what if alien contact actually meant, wait for it, doom?

The Paradox.

In the summer of 1950 at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, three geniuses sat on a lunch table having a casual discussion, and somehow the conversation managed to drift towards the rumours of UFO sightings when suddenly one of them exclaimed: “Where are they!?”. One of them, Herbert York, later recalls, “followed up with a series of calculations on the probability of earthlike planets, the probability of life given an earth, the probability of humans given life, the likely rise and duration of high technology, and so on. He concluded on the basis of such calculations that we ought to have been visited long ago and many times over.” But we do know that there haven’t been any such incidents, not a single one recorded, which clearly gave rise to a paradox, today widely known as the Fermi Paradox, after the genius who penned it, Enrico Fermi.

Fermi Paradox- why are we alone in this vast universe?
Why the hell is it as if we are alone in this vast universe, while there are supposedly billions of planets out there with flourishing life?
[Image: wallpapercan]

Speculations.

In 1961, Frank Drake formulated an equation to determine the number of technologically advanced civilizations in a given galaxy. The equation goes as N = R* fp ne fl fi fc L, where R* is the rate of formation of stars in a galaxy, fp is the fraction of stars that develop a planetary system, ne is the number of planets per system, fl is the fraction of planets in which life appears, fi represents the fraction of intelligent life forming, fc is the fraction of such civilisations that reach technological advancements capable of sending extraterrestrial signals and L is the length of the time interval for which they send such signals. The equation looks quite promising, but it faces a fundamental problem, the last four variables in the equation are entirely unknown, and hence the equation is entirely subjected to speculations alone.

Drake's equation
[Image: Science Line]

There have been both optimistic and pessimistic calculations of N, based on pure speculatory deductions, with N ranging from some millions to some mere fractions. The optimist group argues in support of the Fermi paradox, stating that the numbers should mean that the visit should have taken place centuries ago, while the pessimist group shows that the Fermi Paradox is nothing but a hoax and that the numbers clearly indicate that life itself is very rare. But all these are mere hunches and are not enough to actually prove or disprove the Fermi Paradox.

A Possible Explanation.

There have been innumerous attempts at resolving the Fermi paradox, to explain the seemingly unexplainable lack of Extra-terrestrial communication, or to be better put, to explain the deficiency of intelligent life in the entire universe, and one of the scary but promising theory seems to be the Great Filter.

Consider the evolutionary path of intelligent life, which would look somewhat like this,

  1. The right star system (including organics and potentially habitable planets)
  2. Reproductive molecules (e.g. RNA)
  3. Simple (prokaryotic) single-cell life
  4. Complex (eukaryotic) single-cell life
  5. Sexual reproduction
  6. Multi-cell life
  7. Tool-using animals with intelligence
  8. A civilization advancing toward colonization explosion, i.e colonizing other planets and star systems (where we are now)
  9. Colonization explosion

The great filter hypothesis places its bet on the hunch that one of these steps (if the list is supposedly complete) must be highly improbable, thus preventing most of the life forms from evolving into higher, more intelligent beings.

The great filter hypothesis
The great filter hypothesis is an effective,but equally eerie theory that manages to explain the silence, but at the same time being scary about the uncertain future. [Image: Rand Fishkin on SlideShare]

There are a lot many speculations about which of the step might be the great filter, some argue that the birth of multicellular life is the most improbable one, while others argue that intelligence is a rare feat, and thus the formation of intelligent life is the highly improbable step. All these are just hypothesis’ and there is no denying the fact that the probability of step 9 being the great filter is also non zero.

Why a blip would mean bad news?

Imagine waking up tomorrow to the headlines “History is written: The first contact of humanity with aliens”, or maybe “ They are finally here, the first extraterrestrial contact that humanity has forelooked for decades”.  This would be the worst news one would ever hear. This is because the contact could mean these possibilities. Either the newly contacted alien life is the same as us, implying that all the steps until step 8 were not improbable, meaning that the great filter is ahead of us and both of us will have to face it and test our lucks, or even worse, it could mean that they have already reached step 9, which would make the possibility of us making it to step 9 really low.
In any case, it is really bad news if we get a blip in our sensors, it would mean that we are destined to face extinction in one way or the other, thus fulfilling the great filter.

One possible scenario of the filter being ahead of us.
The scenario if at all one day we receive a signal from some distant galaxy implying alien civilization.

And you are thinking it couldn’t get worse, well it could, and it is actually. The scenario of all the space research obtaining something as insignificant as microscopic life on Mars would mean bad luck too. Since such a discovery would mean that none of the steps from step 2 to 8 is not highly improbable, meaning that the great filter, without any doubt, lies ahead of us and not behind us. Humans are again doomed, with our extinction already predicted by such a sighting.

Thus if the great filter hypothesis is correct, we need to be thankful for not receiving any signals from out there, and even for not getting signs of organic life on Mars or any other planet. The day of contact is that dreadful day when we should implicitly assume that we might be doomed in the near future and that it is possible that any day could be our last. But before fretting, one needs to consider the probability of the great filter hypothesis being correct, since there are innumerous theories lurking out there making their own attempts to explain this unlikely silence that has haunted us ever since.

A comic end. pun intended.
[The Fermi Paradox…
Image: geeksaresexy]

The Top 10 Mind-blowing Technologies That Stole The Spotlight In CES 2021

Harshil Bhanushali
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17
The Top 10 Mind-blowing Technologies That Stole The Spotlight In CES 2021

With 2021 kicking off and everyone filled with a sense of a-liveliness(😝) are looking forward to a great year ahead! The Technology sector brought the biggest show on the road- ‘The CES 2021.’ Though the event was organized virtually, the spirit and enthusiasm remained the same.

With Samsung’s line of smart home innovations to LG’s promising products, this year no doubt marked the official welcome of AI into the commercial market. There were many futuristic technologies as well as some unexpected machines that will mark its debut on the calendar this year. Without any further delay, I present you the ‘TOP-10’ Attractions that stole (literally!🤩) the show in CES 2021.

10. Touchless Doorbell By Alarm.com

The Touchless doorbell by Alarm.com will change the way you look at video doorbells. With a unique design and consumer’s protection in mind, this doorbell is designed to prevent contact and reduce health risks. Eliminating the need to physically press the doorbell button, the person stands on a mat (accessory) kept at a safe distance, and the bell rings.🔔

ALarm.com presented the touchless doorbell at its Keynote in CES 2021.

The technology uses rapid and accurate person detection to activate the bell. Whenever a person comes close, the system automatically rings the bell, starts video recording, and sends an alert to the home-owner. The owner and talk through the doorbell to the person standing and interact through a two-way audio channel. The bell can be integrated with other smart devices as per the user’s convenience providing a 150° wide FOV.

9. Vuzix Smart Glasses

Vuzix smart glasses; First introduced in CES 2020
Vuzix smart glasses; First introduced in CES 2020. [Image- vuzix.com]

Smart glasses were always in the discussion and even the best Sci-Fi gadget everybody wished to be true😎. But Vuzix Smart glasses have stepped up the technology. Their smart glasses focused more on comfort and appealingness whilst not compromising on functionality. The ordinary-looking glasses are powered by one of the best micro-LED projectors. The info can be projected on to the crisp and thin lenses and does not obstruct the wearer’s vision.

Smart glasses showcased by Vuzix Corp. at its keynote in CES 2021.

With noise-canceling earphones, BT connectivity, gesture controls, and much more. It also includes an 8 MP camera with autofocus and recording feature. This tech has won the ‘CES 2021 Innovations Award Honoree’ and will be launching in the 1st quarter of 2021.

8. LG’S Rollable Phone

 This year witnessed a lot of hype was around concept phones. And LG proved the rumors to be true when it teased a short glimpse of its Rollable Phone at CES 2021. The Rollable phone or what the company calls “Unique Resizable Screen” offers a bigger screen size area at a touch of a button. This phone won the ‘Best Phone Of CES 2021 Award.’ (By Engadget)

LG teased the rollable display at CES 2021
LG teased the Rollable display at CES 2021. [Image- channelnews]

Though LG did not unveil any specifications so far, speculations are that the device may house a 700 series Snapdragon processor. So far nothing is official, so they might also use 888 or 865+ Snapdragon processors if the company’s aiming for a $1000 above smartphone. The phone is expected to launch in the 3rd quarter of 2021. Let’s see how it rolls for LG.

7. Asus ZenBook Pro Duo 15

Asus’ products have always made a style statement about themselves. This year Asus redesigned the dual-screen laptop to give it a more bold and sleeky look. The ZenBook Pro Duo is the technology that lets you a glimpse of the future. With a 15’ inch 4K-OLED HDR screen and OLED secondary display (Asus ScreenPad Plus), it houses an 8-core Intel i9 processor (Or i7), 32 gigs RAM, and GeForce RTX 3070😲 (or 2060) GPU. It literally has all the horsepower that a Creator needs.

Asus ZenBook Prod Duo 15 unveiled at CES 2021.

They have also changed the ergonomic design by providing a tilt of 9.5° to the secondary display. They have also optimized cooling by 36% more airflow. The laptop has already hit the market at a price of ₹ 2,19,885. This product won the ‘CES 2021 Innovation Award Honoree’ and ‘Best Laptop CES 2021 (Engadget).’

6. Samsung’s Eco-Packaging

Nope, this is not the latest product by Samsung but the idea is simply elegant. Though introduced in 2020, Samsung in collab with DeZeen scaled it up to all its TV lineups. For years sustainable living taught us to follow 3R’s and that’s what Samsung did. The corrugated cardboard boxes come with printed dots and an instruction manual to turn them into a whole new useful product.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJkt6u4Mfvg
Samsung’ Eco packaging challenge launched at CES 2020.

This recreation and reduction of wastage are called “Upcycling”. You can make various household items with this packing. Be it a bookshelf, magazine rack, or cat house, you can have fun while contributing to the good of the environment. This initiative won the ‘CES 2020 Innovation Honoree Award.’

5. MBUX HyperScreen By Mercedes

MBUX HyperScreen launched by Mercedes at CES 2021.
MBUX Hyperscreen showcased by Mercedes in its keynote at CES 2021. [Image- mercedes-benz.com]

Mercedes unveiled a new type of infotainment this year and awed everyone else with its technology as well as a futuristic design. The MBUX HyperScreen is a large curved screen covering the entire dashboard. This type of screen is a fusion of digital and analog. With dedicated AI it offers voice recognition capabilities and quick access to most used functions.

MBUX Hyperscreen unveiled by Mercedes in its keynote at CES 2021.

The design houses several displays that seamlessly blend resulting in an impressive curved screen band. There are 3 screens; one replacing the driver control panel, the 10.5-inch infotainment center screen, and lastly a smaller personal screen for the front passenger. Under the dashboard is an 8-core CPU with 24 gigs of RAM. Introduced in 2019 in A-class and S-class, 1.8 million Mercedes cars have been equipped with MBUX. This technology won the ‘CES 2021 Best Transporation Tech Award. (Engadget)’

4. LG Insta-View ThinQ Refrigerator

Once again LG has proved that Innovation with Style indeed makes Life Good. The all-new Insta-View ThinQ Refrigerator maximizes conveniences while minimizing useless space. Operated by a linear Inverter, the refrigerator offers a French 4-Door design with built-in Alexa/Google Assistant Voice Recognition and Wi-Fi. The left door encloses Ice-Water Dispenser with 3 types of ice to choose from.

The new LG Insta-View ThinQ refrigerator revealed at CES 2021.

And the Spec sheet just gets better. The Right door houses a 29-inch OLED panel with clear blacks, just two knocks on the screen and you can Insta-view almost everything inside without opening it. This is possible because of a panoramic camera fitted inside with 7 temperature controls and 2 crispers. The appliance has won the ‘Best of Innovation CES 2021 Award.’

3. Samsung’s Line Of Smart Home Appliances

Samsung has always been at the forefront of developing technology focused more on “You”. The virtual event witnessed 3 new additions of AI integrated robots to ease the human load. The Bot Handy, JetBot 90 A.I.+ and Samsung’s BotCare rocked the conference with their aesthetic yet elegant functionality.

https://youtu.be/3H6g19EhXQQ
Smart Gen robots with powerful capabilities showcased by Samsung at CES 2021.

All the bots contain 3-D cameras as well as LIDAR sensors to detect and map surroundings. Bot Handy can help with everything in the kitchen and recognize almost every object with its smart-sense. The BotCare is a more personalized robot that takes care of you and your schedule. But the real deal is JetBot 90 A.I.+ which is like an intelligent cleaner plus remote monitor for your home and pets. The JetBot 90 AI+ won the ‘CES 2021 Innovation Honoree Award’ and ‘Best Connected Home Product Award. (Engadget)’

https://youtu.be/bQd2J-53PTU
Samsung’s Smart Ai Integrated JetBot 90 A.I.+ revealed at CES 2021.

2. Mudra Band By Wearables Devices Ltd.

This band took the whole event by surprise when it said “We are the first to introduce Gesture Control to Apple watch making smart, even smarter.” The Mudra Band is just like an ordinary band you can snap on your Apple Watch, just as you change regular bands. The band has to be connected via BT to the Apple watch. The smart sensors fitted inside grasp electrical signals sent to fingers by the brain.

Mudra Band and its functionality demonstrated at CES 2021.

Then they map those to pre-configured motions used to interact with the watch letting you open apps, control music, and type with few fingers and wrist gestures. Unlike other companies, Wearable Inc. is trying to invent new tech but building upon the most ubiquitous devices on the market. The band won the ‘CES 2021 Best Wearable award. (Engadget)’

1. TCL’s 17” Printed OLED Scrolling Display

17" printed OLED scrolling display by TCL.
17″ printed OLED scrolling display by TCL. [Image- pocketnow]

The most awaited technology of the decade, future of electronics: Rollable Displays. Flexible electronics have been in the talk for a long time but commercial viability still seemed far from the truth. But now, TCL’s marvelous innovation seems to break the stereotype of viability. This new kind of Modernized display uses cutting edge Inkjet printing technology with a 100% color gamut.

TCL CSOT’s latest marvel: 17″ printed OLED Scrolling display teased at CES 2021.

The significantly enhanced OLED display is attached with two rods at the end and can be opened like a scroll painting. With a thickness of just 0.18mm and self-luminous RGB technology, it costs 20% lower than traditional tech. This display can be applied in a larger size, curved, foldable, transparent commercial displays.

Change Does Not Wait For Innovation To Catch Up.

Union Budget 2021: Major Expectations and Predictions to look

Om Desai
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2
Union Budget 2021: Major Expectations and Predictions to look

With 2021 not having much of great news, apart from Elon Musk reaching new heights of net worth and breaking records; big news for India will start from February first week – when the Union Budget 2021 will be announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Here are some of the major expectations Indians need to see for and these are the predictions government may change about.

Pharmaceuticals: Important Sector to look for in Budget 2021

Budget 2021: Indian Pharma Sector
Budget 2021: Indian Pharma Sector (image: Unsplash)

While pharma sector has sustained the Indians during the harsh times of COVID-19 and still showing potential growth with vaccines distribution; this will be major look out for all. For this reason, Budget 2021 has task to justify both; transitional and strategic needs. As far as transitional needs are concerned, it mostly includes vaccine drive to control the corona virus spread and this part is surely a multi-year plan for govt. Reportedly, the average cost of vaccine doses is expected to be around Rs. 500. This means if even 50% of population needs to be covered than it translates to about 30,000 crore budget. And then there will be add-ons like storage, transportation, distribution and so on; which becomes to 80,000 crore one-time allocation.

Looking for another bit i.e., strategic needs; there are two elements in it. One of them is Total Health expenditure in India which is approximately 1.3% of GDP. This is much lower than BRICS countries which have a window of 3.6% atleast and many other having average 7.6% allocation of GDP. Seemingly, current pandemic situations boost allocations in Ayushman Bharat & Jan Aushadhi schemes.

Healthcare services to grow...
Healthcare services to grow… (image: gettyimages)

Another aspect is self-reliance or “Aatmanirbhar”. Due to pandemic and supply-chain system getting cut-off in international market; countries are switching over to producing starting materials and raw products on their own. This has led to Govt. launching different a series of product-linked incentives to promote bulk drug parks and production of medical devices locally. This all will be enhanced during the allocation of Budget 2021 potentially.

Agriculture Sector: Crucial Side of Budget 2021

While the farmer’s protest reaching new heights and govt. not been able to still settle the issue down; Agriculture Sector will be a major aspect where all eyes will be focused on. Many reports confirm that union may roll out measures to compensate the farmers and present a farmer-centric policy. Speculations also rise that government has already made regulations and changed measures for the sector and thus there might not be any major decision that finance ministry take.

Effect of farm bill on Budget 2021
Effect of farm bill on Budget 2021 (image: barandbench)

Already government has introduced various schemes for both farmers and farm workers like PM Kisan, MGNREGA, 1 lakh crore agriculture infrastructure fund and many more. In Budget 2021, few schemes related to insurance for farmers and their goods or schemes similar to MSMEs can be expected for sure.

Tourism & Hospitality: How Finance Ministry plans to revive this sector?

The Tourism and Hospitality sector faced a major hit during this pandemic situation and made some huge losses. With Unlock guidelines from government it is reviving bit by bit; but still left to get back on track. Interestingly, Malaysia has provided a exempted hotel accommodation from service tax for a 6-month period. This small but unique change reduced the hotel fares by nearly 15% and attracted many people to stay overnight – giving rise to the industry. India may take some similar measures to help grow its own tourism and hospitality sector.

How will hotels, travels and tourism be affected from Budget 2021
How will hotels, travels and tourism be affected from Budget 2021 (image: gettyimages)

Talking about such unique and extraordinary steps taken by governments; United Kingdom had one of its own. They launched “Eat Out to Help Out (EOHO)” scheme. Under this, government provided 50% off discount on food and/or non-alcoholic drinks eaten-in at registered restaurants all over UK. Similar steps taken by the government can help boost the sector again and recover well in the economy.

Educational sector: Pioneering skills with Budget 2021

This Budget will be first union budget since the New Education Policy (NEP) was announced last year by Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with Education Ministry. NEP solely focuses on removing rigidness of Indian society towards extracurricular and vocational skills in comparison to academic skills. To achieve the desired policies mentioned in NEP, strong and crucial steps need to be taken towards the educational sector. These reforms were needed for Indian Education System since many decades and to compete with global learning standards, the financial view of NEP is most important aspect. By normalizing and liberalising the FDI, philanthropic and private investment in Budget 2021 – this economical aspect can surely be enhanced.

How education sector will change...
How education sector will change… (image: expresscomputer)

If we glance back to a year ago, the funding for Educational sector was increased to 5% of GDP in previous budget. Looking to provide robust research & innovation and strengthening the core educational system along with all the infrastructure required; this funding needs to be around 8-10% of GDP. This is surely a major portion to allocate, but youth is power and youth is future for any country. So, it will be one of the foremost sectors to look for in Budget 2021.

Ease of doing business: Boosting small-scale and start-up industries

Due-dates, tax rate changes, GST laws, frequent notifications amending procedures – all these make business complicated and keep taxpayers always in a hurry and tension. Thus, govt. may plan launch major amendments and policy decisions in the union budget 2021 easing the business proceedings.

Liberalising terms for business proceedings in Budget 2021
Liberalising terms for business proceedings in Budget 2021 (image: India Today)

Also, the security for global trade transactions needs to be maintained, which currently is not up to the mark. At the same time, special valuation branch (SVB) is burdened with large pile of pending cases which can only be resolved with more rigorous administration.

Legislative Expectations and GST in Budget 2021

With aim of ‘one nation, one tax’ GST is currently in the market levied at different rates – from 0.25% to 28%. This not only makes the taxation system complex, but also does not make India tax-friendly and competitive globally. It will be major expectations from stakeholders whether or not Union relaxes or reduces the rate slabs in Budget 2021 seeing the current revenue pressure.

how taxation system will be after Budget 2021?
how taxation system will be after Budget 2021? (image: Freepik)

Also, there is a demand of including petroleum products under the eye of GST, which seemingly was being neglected in the previous budgets. At present, the prices for these products include 70% taxes from central and state. Making them under GST will surely rationalize the petroleum prices; which are just now hovering around Rs. 80/litre. This step will potentially reduce the transportations costs, logistics and distribution costs & in turn reducing the prices of locally made goods.

Railways: Modernizing to become world-class

During the harsh pandemic times; railways not only remained an important goods carrying linkage nation-wide; but also provided covid-safety services. Govt. took full advantage of train compartments to transform them into Covid-19 wards where there was lack of beds in hospitals and thus this sector is important looking towards the future economical growth.

Reportedly, Indian Railways will develop several world-class railway stations across the nation. Budget 2021 is expected to give a boost to railway infrastructure as they are considered to be lifeline for country. Regarding this, the Indian Railways Development Corporation has been working on redevelopment of two airport-like world-level Railway stations even during the pandemic situation. They are to be built at Habibganj and Gandhinagar cities. Both the stations will have ultra-modern facilities; from plush retail shops to luxurious waiting lounges and 5-star hotels and amenities along with sustainable infrastructure to help promote government’s “Green Railway” dream by 2030. The work for both these stations is on advanced stage and likely the phase 1 will be executed by end of Jan 2021.

Gandhinagar Railway Station Redevelopment project Budget 2021
Gandhinagar Railway Station Redevelopment project (image: YouTube)

Another flagship redevelopment project for Railway Ministry is for Delhi and a capital expenditure of Rs. 6500 crores is expected to be allocated for the New Delhi railway station. With such projects incurred for several other cities of multiple states; railway sector will surely grow with leaps and help promote tourism, employment, real estate and other markets along with it.

Other Important sectors to look for in Budget 2021

Other sectors which can see potential reforms would be Real Estate, Highways & Transportations and Defence sector. Apart from this reskilling, relearning and remote working areas of the society can see many positive allocations after the whole pandemic situation. There will also be advent to increase digital market and move towards sustainability in many sectors and green tech companies with solar power manufacturers will hope some growth in their sector too.

Defence Sector to look for in Budget 2021
Defence Sector to look for in Budget 2021 (image: The Financial Express)

Facts, Conclusion & Key takeaways

Interestingly the Budget 2021 will be completely paperless for the first time in history of independent India. Considering the threat of corona virus spread, the members will be provided soft copy of the Budget and the Finance Minister will present the Budget directly. This move also breaks the traditional convention of ‘Halwa Ceremony’ which is attended by all people connected to Budget formation and marks beginning of printing process.

Well, facts apart. Overall view for budget would be a justified one. Notedly, the Pharma, Agri & Edu sectors are the most important sectors to look for. Also, common man or a middle-class man can expect some positive and key allocation for them in taxation system. Economically weak and farmers are always a focus in each budget and so will they for this one too. Techno, start-ups, digital market and green & sustainable sector are some other which can also have few reforms and allocations.

Well! Lets see what Finance Ministry has plans ahead for India’s Growth (image: BBC)

References:

Business Standard

The Financial Express

Quantum Gravity: The End of Time?

Vibhor Singh
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0
Quantum Gravity: The End of Time?

We think of time as a long line, i.e. a sequence of past, present and future. But the recent advances in the field of Quantum Gravity makes us rethink time. Time is a strange and mysterious entity. But nowhere in the present equations of Quantum Gravity (which is supposedly the most fundamental and basic theory of the universe) occurs time as a variable.

quantum gravity

The Intuitive Time

quantum gravity

To get to the idea of time, we must first and foremost lose all the ideas of time. What we imagine time, is something like this:

Quantum Gravity

i.e a long line, which is a sequence of instants, which is an ordered 1-Dimensional thing and it has a direction – from past to the future.

The key feature of this idea of time is that it has a past which is fixed. The past is given, we remember it, we know it, we have the traces of the past in books, in history departments, craters of the moon, in our memories, etc. And about the future, we know nothing, it still has to come.

The Problem with Time

quantum gravity

The duration of time elapsed is measured with clocks. If we have two clocks which show the same time, if we take them farther away from each other and then bring them back together they still show the same time. This is the time of our experience. It works as long as we are talking about our daily life. But, it stops working when we look a little bit far ahead from our daily life. The more we look farther, the more properties of time go away.

We consider time as a single thing which has multilayered concepts, i.e the combination of properties.  But, if we start removing its properties one by one, what remains is nothing at all. To get along with the modern idea of time, we have to consider four points, some of which we know, and some which we don’t.

1. “Clock measures time”

quantum gravity

We think that all clocks measure time (which is sort of true) and all the clocks go at the same speed (that is not true).
If we take two clocks and take them apart from each other and bring them back together again, if they are good clocks there is quite a probability that they will show different times.

This is because, from Einstein’s equations, mass slows down time. If we take one of the clocks near a black hole and then bring it back to Earth, it will show a different time than the one present on Earth. In our daily routine, we are used to the fact that all the people age uniformly. The difference is very very small, so one does not notice it at all, we are used to it.

(Image: wallpapertip)

So this brings us to the fact that the idea of time as a line is wrong, and the difference between two intervals is not fixed. Thus, there isn’t a single time for everyone.

2. “The meaning of NOW”

quantum gravity

Let’s say I have a meaning of NOW and you have a meaning of NOW. When I look at you and you look at me, do we have the same NOW?
Not really, because it takes time for the light to travel from you to me in the duration when I see you, i.e I see a past you.

This duration becomes 8 minutes when I look at the sun, 12 hours when I look at Jupiter and more than 4 years when I look at the stars. Between the you I see and the you that sees me, the moment I see you some time has elapsed and that elapsed time can be of order of millions of years if we were situated in different galaxies.

The more you play this game, the more you realise that there is no meaning of “NOW” outside the regime that disregards the time for the movement of light. If we still want to define NOW, we can think of it as a bubble of radii r = cΔt (where c is the speed of light) for Δt in which it can be completely ignored, there is no meaning to NOW outside this bubble.

Thus there is no preferred NOW that you can pick-up. For philosophers, this shook the ground beneath their feet because the very notion of reality of now has to be rethought. The whole idea of “one instance of time” is destroyed. There is no common NOW and no order in a mathematical sense.

3. “Past is different from Future”

quantum gravity

Where does the distinction between past and future come from? The basic laws of physics, i.e the laws of mechanics , electromagnetism, standard model, relativity all do not have the distinction. This distinction between past and future comes from the second law of thermodynamics which states that the entropy always grows towards the future.

Maxwell and Boltzmann stated that this law of entropy is statistical, i.e entropy is not a fundamental quantity, but a measure of how mechanical things are disordered.

Thus, this law also states that the universe in the beginning was highly ordered. That cannot be a coincidence, who prepared it in order? Neither physicists nor philosophers have any answer to that question yet.

(Image: Free Wallpaper Desktop)

Thus the distinction of the future from the past is a macroscopical effect and not a fundamental thing.

4. “Time is Granular”

quantum gravity

This point is not as solid as the first three points because this is not yet proved. General relativity says that there is a connection between time and gravity. Mass affects the flow of time. The understanding of gravity disregards quantum mechanics. That itself is the problem of Quantum Gravity, to merge quantum mechanics with the theory of gravity.

 Any clock that measures local time cannot do it continuously, there is a minimal amount of time it can measure, i.e time is ”granular”. The shortest grain of time should be of the order of Planck time, i.e. about 10-44 seconds. And the clock should be in a superposition of different positions of hands and there is a probability distribution for the passing of time from one instance to the other.

Everything about Time

quantum gravity

Everything we know about time disappeared when we went to the most basic level of science. At the basic level, time is any of the ways of counting the change of something. For example, you can make time as the counting of the rise of the moon and sun. Aristotle said that time is a number of changes of some event. Few years later Newton said that time is “change” plus “something else”. That something else is a uniformly flowing thing, i.e time always flows in a certain fashion even if nothing happens.

After that, Einstein came along with his theory of general relativity and called that “something else” as the gravitational field which is a dynamic entity made out of 4D space-time.

When we try to mix general relativity with quantum mechanics, the idea of Newtonian time explodes and nothing remains. The only thing that remains of time is the definition given by Aristotle (the event of counting). Time is not ordered in a line but it is scattered granules like the Aristotle which are connected to one another in some way.

You can follow one bit to another bit and on and on and define the certain event/process as a series of such bits. That is the only thing that remains (i.e the minimum notion of time) when you remove all of its properties at the fundamental level. All of this shows that time is macroscopic, it is not fundamental. This is the reason that in quantum gravity (which we consider as the most basic theory) does not contain any time variable.

quantum gravity

Quantum Gravity

Supercapacitors: Can they Give a Tough Fight to Batteries?

Umakant Bohara
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11
Supercapacitors: Can they Give a Tough Fight to Batteries?

Global electricity consumption continues to increase faster than world population, leading to an increase in the average amount of electricity consumed per person. 

With increasing power demands, the need for efficient storage rises and quest for such devices intensifies. Batteries have played and will be playing a crucial in serving the energy storage needs. Supercapacitors and associated components have been drawing a lot of attention right from its invention due to the technology’s exceptionally high capacitance with an almost unlimited charge/discharge cycle life. Supercapacitors promise an operational voltage between 1 and 3 V for both organic and aqueous electrolytes, with the potential for improbable energy storage and rapid charging.

Supercapacitors in markets have the ability to charge instantly. Image Credit: AVX

Supercapacitors store energy using electrodes and electrolytes and both charge and deliver energy promptly – traditional batteries deliver the same task in a much slower fashion. Super capacitors have the ability to charge and discharge rapidly over very large numbers of cycles.

However, because existing super capacitors have inadequate energy density per kilogram (currently around one twentieth of existing battery technology), they have been unable to grapple with traditional battery energy storage. Even with this limitation, supercapacitors buses are already being utilized in China.

Scientists and researchers around the world are a a quest to end the the limitations of supercapacitors and hence forsee them as future of energy storage devices.

Graphene based Supercapacitors

A team of researchers at the Technical University Munich (TUM) has developed a highly efficient super capacitor.
This energy storage device is based on a novel, powerful and sustainable hybrid material composed of graphene and its performance is comparable with the currently employed batteries.

Image featuring a supercapacitors's breakdown and highlighting graphene.
Supercapacitors composed of graphene based hybrid material. Credit: TechXplore

Sustainable material delivers high performance

Graphene hybrid material for supercapacitors serves as the positive electrode in the energy storage device. The researchers are combining it with a proven negative electrode based on titan and carbon.

The latest energy storage device achieves an energy density of up to 73 Wh/kg, which is comparable to the energy density of nickel-metal hydride battery and also performs better than most other supercapacitors at a power density of 16 kW/kg. 

The secret of the new supercapacitor is the combination of novel materials—hence, chemists refer to the supercapacitor as ‘asymmetrical.’

Nature Inspired Hybrid Materials

To overcome the limitations of standard materials, scientists have plan to come up with nature inspired hybrid materials. Roland Fischer from German University says: Nature is full of highly complex, evolutionarily optimized hybrid materials—bones and teeth are examples. Their mechanical properties, such as hardness and elasticity were optimized through the combination of various materials by nature.

Prolonged Stability makes them fit for various applications

However, that is not the only benefit of the new material. To obtain a chemically stable hybrid, we need strong chemical bonds between the ingredients. The bonds are apparently the same as those between amino acids in proteins.

The stable connection between the nano-structured components has tremendous improvements in terms of long term assurance: The more stable the bonds, the more charging and discharging cycles are plausible without significant execution impairment.

For comparison: A classic lithium accumulator has a valuable life of around 5,000 cycles. The novel cell developed by the TUM researchers holds close to 90 percent capacity even after 10,000 cycles.

Supercapacitors are already being used in laptops and similar electronic devices that demand instant charging and gradual discharging. Supercapacitors can also be seen near railway lines as these require large amount of energy to accelerate from rest and/or lower the speed in very less time.

Supercapacitors happen to be best source of power for modern day electronics like e-skin, e-cloths and other flexible electronics.

Humans have been in a continuous quest of energy storage devices that best suit the modern day applications. In near future all the discoveries and events associated with energy storage devices might be seen as The Age of Energy Revolution.

Supercapacitors and similar inventions can bring a energy revolution.
In the history, Ongoing decades would be marked as THE AGE OF ENERGY REVOLUTION. image credits: IEEE

Virtual Particles: The Reality of the Unreal Particles

Adithya A Rao
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2
Virtual Particles: The Reality of the Unreal Particles

People say physics is slowly fleeting away from reality. Every new prediction and every new advancement is so abstract and hence seem too absurd to our perception. The firm believers of a simple and beautiful theory of reality refuse to believe in the advancements of physics. They discard these theories calling them ridiculous and not realistic. But poor them, they have no idea that reality itself is bent and twisted in ways beyond our perception. It is not physics that is absurd but reality itself is absurd beyond our understandings.

The Reality of Today’s Physics

Physics is often woven by desperate ad-hoc of physicists distressed attempt to explain reality. One prime example could be of the legend Max Planck. He wrote down the equations for the black body radiation in an attempt to explain the catastrophic predictions of the existing theories. The predictions of the theories gave infinite energy but observed energy tends to zero at higher frequencies. Max Planck was lucky in his assumption that the walls of blackbody absorbed and emitted radiation, not in continuous amount, but in discrete levels. The exponential function he introduced in his equation and the constant named after him were intended to vanish off in the final form of his equation.

But alas, it remained there and hence opened the doorway to an entirely new understanding of reality called quantum physics. When we sit back and think about it now, it is amazing how a desperate attempt of explaining an observation actually lead to a right description of reality.

Ultraviolet Catastrophe
The mathematical hack of quantization introduced by Planck to explain the Blackbody radiation ended up describing our reality [Image: Pinterest]

In the 1800s, if you had told someone that classical mechanics which had, till then, stood firmly against all the testing was fundamentally wrong and that reality was described by some absurd theory by the name quantum mechanics where God played dice with the universe, they would call you a madman and they would argue that reality is simple, elegant and deterministic. But today we are used to the world of quantum, no one anymore seems to reject the quantum mechanical explanation of the universe. 

Quantum weirdness - The Schrodinger's cat
The absurdity of quantum makes us question the very mathematical fundamentals that govern the world. Quantum mechanics is where our intuition fails and is the first step towards accepting an abstract reality and forget all the directions our intuition points to.[Image: Wallpaperflare]

The Modern-Day BlackBody

A similar ad-hoc was introduced in the Quantum Field Theory (QFT) formulation of reality. QFT tells that all of the universe is nothing but fields, different fields corresponding to different particles cover up the entire universe, and particles are excitations in these fields. A good analogy would be that of a layer of water covering the entire plane, and particle as a ripple on it. QFT describes the interaction between particles via energy transfer through other fields. For example, if you consider two electrons interacting,  they both interact with the electromagnetic field, disturbing it and influencing each other.

To put things intuitively, let the electron field be a layer of oil on the layer of water which is electromagnetic (photon) field. An electron is a ripple on oil, and this ripple can cause a disturbance in the layer of water. When two electrons (ripples) come close to each other they cause disturbances in the electromagnetic field. These disturbances, in turn, affect the electrons and hence causing an interaction to take place.

Electron electron interaction according to qft.
An illustration of how two electrons interact via the electromagnetic field.
[Image: PBS Space Time]

The Birth of Virtual Particles

When physicists tried to model this interaction, things blew up. The disturbance caused by electrons in the photon field lead to a back-interaction and affecting the electrons. This in turn affected the disturbance in the photon field and hence affecting the electron and hence so on. This meant that they had to add an infinite number of terms to get the desired interaction. There was no way to keep an account of these interactions, the maths was chaos and it was not possible to solve it anymore. 

This is where the perturbation theory makes its entry. Perturbation theory models a complicated interaction by starting with the simplest possible interaction and adding the more complicated interaction to it to increase precision. To explain these interactions, physicists came up with another ad-hoc, the virtual particles. In the case of two electrons repelling each other, the interaction is pictured as virtual photons being exchanged between the two electrons, like a game of dodgeball. The photons impart momentum, pushing the electrons away from each other.

Virtual particles in particle interaction
A computer simulation of how virtual particles (the small balls) mediate the force between the larger balls.
[GIF: reivan] (The source code of the simulation can be found here

Richard Feynman devised an ingenious method, now famously known as the Feynman diagrams to keep a track of these complicated interactions and how much they contribute to the actual interaction. 

Feynman diagram for a bit complicated interaction between electrons. The particles entering or leaving the diagram are real particles while those which start and end within the diagram are virtual particles.
[Image: Dr Micheal G Strauss]

Virtual Particles – A Proof that Physicists have gone nuts

virtual particles

These virtual particles look so unreal that it seems they do not belong to our reality. They have eerie properties that can haunt the nighttime of any physicist. The first thing to be said is that the virtual particle is a perfect momentum manifestation of the field, i.e. it’s momentum is perfectly known without any uncertainty. This would mean that its position counterpart has infinite uncertainty, again thanks to Heisenberg. What this means is that there is no way to find out where the particle is at any point in time.

These particles have non-realistic properties, the uncertainty in the position implies that the particle is created and destroyed everywhere in the universe instantaneously. This would imply properties like the ability to travel faster than the speed of light, and also having imaginary masses. These particles also violate energy conservation, randomly popping in and out of existence, as if it was not weird enough already.

The Reality of these Virtual Particles

virtual particles

These uncanny properties of the virtual particles might make you think that these are unreal and are nothing more than mathematical abstraction or mathematical hack created in order to explain the interactions. But you are dead wrong. The mathematical ad-hoc is indeed real, not kidding. These particles have some real physical consequences and effects that are observable in experiments.

There are quantum effects like the Casimir effect, where two mirrors placed in perfect vacuum attract each other with a force greater than the gravitational force, and vacuum birefringence, where perfectly unpolarised light becomes polarised while travelling through the vacuum in presence of strong magnetic fields, and many other effects which are direct consequences of virtual particles popping in and out of existence in the vacuum.

The plates restrict the number of modes of particles in between them thus resulting in a net attractive force between them.
[Image: Pinterest]
Neutron stars are the strongest source of magnetic field ever accessible to us…and voila, quantum birefringence has been observed via these giants.
[Image: PhysicsCentral]

Thus, with these effects proving the existence of these particles time and time again, we need to open our eyes wide and realise that reality is indeed mysterious. Reality is neither simple nor deterministic, and there is no way we can bend reality to our convenience. It is time, that we keep our trust in mathematical abstractions to unveil the curtains hiding the true nature of reality, the underlying machinery of the grand apparatus called the universe.

virtual particles

Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.

Niels Bohr

virtual particles

Riemann Hypothesis: The Prime Obsession of Mathematicians

Dhruvi Saraniya
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7
Riemann Hypothesis: The Prime Obsession of Mathematicians

hypothesis

Mathematics aficionados always concede mathematics as supreme beauty with unanticipated links in natural sciences. This beauty is ineffable. One can find it with sense of aesthetics and abstraction. However it’s really tough for non experts to find beauty in prodigious complex equations. According to Occam’s Razor (Principle of Parsimony) entities should not be multiplied without necessity.

There are many mathematical results whose formulations can be understood by non-mathematicians, and whose beauty can surely be understood by many. Simplest explanation is usually the right one. Prime numbers are the very atoms in number theory. Prime numbers have always fascinated mathematicians. They materialize among the integers seemingly at random, so far not discrete they appear to be some order or pattern. Composite numbers wear prime numbers on their sleeve.

Infinitude of Prime numbers:

hypothesis

Euclid (300 BCE) was soon to prove there are infinitely many primes by method of Contradiction. His proof is the classic example of reductio and absurdum. This is a method of logic whereby one assumes a statement is false and shows this leads to ‘absurdity’. But mathematicians assumes there are only finitely many primes. They seek to glean an ‘absurdity’ from this assumption. Let’s presume there are one million primes, but no more. Multiply all of these one million primes together and then add one to the answer. Call this huge number N.

Now what is the remainder when you divide N by one of the primes? Answer is One!! This means that N is not divisible by any prime! This is our ‘absurdity’.

Infinitude of Prime numbers: Mathematics Hypothesis
Euclid & Infinitude of Prime numbers
(image: Math with bad drawings)

Euclid’s theorem tells us that there are infinitely many primes, but doesn’t give us a good recipe for finding them all. The largest explicitly known prime is  

                                                     232,582,657– 1

Which is 9,808,358 digits long and was shown to be prime in 2006 by the GIMPS distributed internet project.

In spite of not having an exact  formula for the sequence of primes, we do have a fairly good inexact formula.

Riemann Complex Conjecture:

hypothesis

The nineteenth-century mathematician Bernhard Riemann, who ascended the study of prime numbers in modern times more than anyone else, developed further tools needed to deal with it. Formal proof of theorem was given only in 1896 independently by Hadamard and de la Vallee- Poussin, after a century ago it had been stated. The Riemann hypothesis is a salient magnificent problem in number theory as its validity will aver the manner of the distribution of the prime numbers.

According to precepts of fractal geometry, phenomena which appears random when viewed, exhibit some orderliness and pattern which could be regarded as a fractal characteristic. For instance, the prime numbers are very arbitrary and haphazard entities, yet when viewed, they display a regularity in the way they thin out, whereby it is affirmed that the number of primes not exceeding a given natural number n is approximately n/ln n, in the sense that the ratio of the number of such primes to n/ln n in due numbers approaches 1 as n becomes larger and larger, ln n being the natural logarithm of n. Limit of the quotient of the 2 functions

\lim\limits_{n \to \infty } \frac{\pi(n)}{n/ln(n)} =1

𝛑(n) ~ (n/ ln n )

Here \pi is only a opportune symbol adopted to denote the prime counting function. This theorem called ‘The prime number theorem‘. This theorem states the frequency of prime numbers.  Frequency of number of primes around P in a given set is inversely proportional  to the number of digits in P. This result is one of the landmark achievements of number theory. The proof of this result uses much more advanced mathematics than Euclid’s proof, and is quite remarkable. 

Music of the Prime numbers:

hypothesis

There is a very informal sketch of proof of this theorem. Create a ‘sound wave'(Von Mangoldt Function)which is noisy at prime number times, and quiet at other times.

.**.*.*…*.*…*.*…*…..*

‘Listen'(or take Fourier transforms) to this wave and record the notes that you hear(the zeroes of the Riemann zeta function or the ‘music of the primes’). Each such note corresponds to a hidden pattern in the distribution of the primes.

Music of prime numbers and the relation with hypothesis
(image: Spacemachine)

All this is despite the fact that the primes are meagre and meagre as n is larger and larger. The prime number theorem could be in fact be regarded as a weaker version of the Riemann hypothesis which put forward that all the non-trivial zeros of the zeta function ζ on the critical strip bounded by x=0 and x=1 would be at the critical line x=½.

It propounded that all the non-trivial zeros of the zeta function ζ lie on the critical strip between Re(x)= 0 and Re(x)=1 at the critical line Re (x) = ½. We define the Riemann zeta function as

\sum_{x=1}^{\infty}1/x   when |x|≥ 1

At x= 1 this series is called the harmonic series and its sum is infinite. At x > 1,the series converges to a finite number as consecutive terms are added. If x < 1 then the sum is again infinite.

This zeta function is defined for all complex numbers except for x=1. The region  0≤Re(x)≤1 is called the critical strip. The zeros of the zeta function which lie outside the critical strip are called trivial zeros, would be found on an oscillatory sine-like wave which oscillates in spirals, there being an infinitude of these spirals (representing the so-called complex plane). A zero of a function is a point at which that function vanishes. A pole of a function f is a point at which, if 1/f is defined to be zero, then 1/f is homomorphic at Re(x)=1. Hadamard and de la Vallee Poussin had in 1896 independently proven that none of the non-trivial zeros lie on the very edge of the critical strip, on the lines Re(x)=0 or Re(x)=1. One can deduce prime number theorem from this.

Riemann Hypothesis and prime number theorem
(image: Grendz)

Riemann had posited that the margin of error in the estimate of the quantity of primes less than a given number with prime counting function 𝛑(x) is expressed in terms of the J(x) function which is a step function involving the non-trivial zeros expressed in terms of the ζ(x).

J(x) = Li(x) – ∑Li(xp) – plog2 + ∫x∞dt/{t(t2–1)log t}

Where J(x)= exact quantity of primes less than a given number.

The zeta function has the property of prime sieving encoded within it, the properties of the prime counting function 𝛑(n) being somehow encoded in the properties of the zeta function. The characteristic of the primes on the input side of the function determines the characteristics of the zeros on the output side of the function zeros.

ψ(x) = ∑pm≤xlog p

In this notation, p is a prime number and m is a positive integer. This function which imitates the distribution of the primes. It was created by Tchebychev. The distribution of primes determines the distribution of the zeros, so that from the study of the distribution of the zeros the distribution of the primes could be deducted and vice versa.

Even though the prime counting function 𝜋(n) of hypothesis provides a progressively better estimate of the quantity of primes towards infinity – there is no such really great disorder or irregularity among the primes, a state of affair which is plainly proclaimed by the fact that the corresponding non-trivial zeros at the critical line Re(x)= ½ on the critical strip between Re(x) =0 and Re(x)=1 display regularity in the way they line up at with no zeros appearing anywhere else on the critical strip.

Prime counting function in Riemann Hypothesis and its variation
(image: University of Exeter)
However Riemann hypothesis has been found to be true for the 3×1012 non-trivial zeros. Non-trivial zeros at the critical line Re(x)=½ become more and more closely packed together the number line, the density of the one is approximately the reciprocal of the density of the other wherein the complementariness, regularity, symmetry is evident.  

The prime counting function 𝜋(n) provides a progressively better estimate of the quantity of primes towards infinity. If the non-trivial zeros of the zeta function of hypothesis lies outside critical strips then Riemann zeta would be of no use in those regions.

Recipe To Become Millionaire

hypothesis

Zeta function has zeros at the negative even integers -2, -4, -6 and one refers to them as the trivial zeros. The other zeros are the complex numbers ½ + i 𝝰 where 𝜶 is a zero of ζ function. But non-trivial zero have real part ½.Now this is the conjecture and it’s one of the world’s seven ‘Millennium Prize Problems‘ divulged by Clay Mathematics Institute of Cambridge, Massachusetts for which it will pay a $ 1,000,000 prize for the solution! Hitherto if you’re not intrigued, maybe this prize will persuade you. This problem is superlative of all those problems.

Solve Riemann Hypothesis – Become Millionaire

hypothesis

Top technology trends to see in 2021

Om Desai
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1
Top technology trends to see in 2021

Leaving 2020 and welcoming 2021 was like a relief to many of us. While 2020 had some worst things to remember about, it also gave rise to many of the technology which will emerge in both; near and long-term future. These are some of the technology trends that will be hot favourite amongst the researchers and scientists and developers, in 2021.

1. Internet of behavior (IoB)

With Internet of things (IoT) growing with leaps and bounds in the past decade (Ya!! Now its past decade; as we moved to 2021 LOL) gadgets and humans have come closer like never before. From driverless cars to smart clothes and insanely intelligent smart eyewear and footwear; IoT has helped the technological sector in ways we can’t even imagine of. But in 2021 – developers are taking another big step by investing billions of dollars into this new sector called Internet of behavior (IoB).

Top Technology Trends of 2021: Internet of Behavior (IoB)
Top Technology Trends of 2021:
Internet of Behavior (IoB)
(image: iStart)

Extending the IoT while tracking customer action and fulfilling client needs is basically what IoB aims at. While behavioral science is divided into four categories (emotions, decisions, augmentation, companionship) future tech is going to take all this burden for you. For instance, consider you driving a car configured with IoB. When you accelerate; system takes information of how much you pushed the paddle; similarly, for braking, turning angles, steering wheel maneuverings and all that you do to handle your vehicle. Next time you sit in there – you need to relax and let your car handle things for you; not just driving on its own but also mimicking your driving style.

Maybe with IoB; your home automatically changes its "Behavior" according to your "Behavior" : Technology Trend
Maybe with IoB; your home automatically changes its “Behavior”
according to your “Behavior”
(image: ASN)

Another example could be considered of health app on your phone. Today it shows diet chart, exercise plan and your heart rate, sugar level and sleep patterns. But with IoB this can totally be different. Along with the above information, you will also get alerts when you mood is off, or you change your usual pattern of behaviour which can be known from change in heart rates and many more stuff which can make you feel better and as a health app can actually take care of your ‘health’.

Google, Facebook & Amazon are some big fishes which are acquiring small software companies developing IoB and for 2021 this is the top technological trend world may seem to move to.

2. Total Experience (TX)

With IoB, companies aim to improve the overall customer experience and help them to use the technology in best way. But then what about the intersection point of all the pieces of company community? That is employee, user and customers to gadgets and technology combined. Here’s when Total Experience comes into play.

Technology Trends: Total Experience (TX)
Technology Trends: Total Experience (TX)
(image: Gartner)

Oftenly it is referred as TX. After coronavirus (sorry “with coronavirus!!”); most of the interactions on day-to-day basis are virtual, distributed, distant and mobile and it goes beyond to cover individuals working remotely. It aims to improve the experiences of multiple constituents to achieve a transformed business outcome. Many experts expect that using TX; companies will outperform their competitors in next three years after this whole pandemic crisis.

For example, one telecommunications company transformed its entire customer experience in an effort to improve the safety and satisfaction. In the first place, it deployed an appointment system via an existing app. When customer reached nearer to their store, say 75 feet; they received two things: (1) A notification to guide them to check-in process further in their appointment (2) and alert informing them about exactly how long it would take before they could safely enter the store and maintain social distancing.

Another Major Technology Trends of 2021: Total Experience TX
Another Major Technology Trends of 2021:
Total Experience TX
(image: gotepoem)

Company also added more digital kiosks to enhance the experience. It also enabled its employees to have tablets so that they can co-browse with customers’ device; without even physically touching them. Thus, amongst other technology trends of 2021 – TX provided safer and smoother environment for both; customer and the employee.

3. Extended Reality (XR)

Technology Trends: Extended Reality
Technology Trends: Extended Reality
(image: Forbes)

With Virtual reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) already introduced in our lives; Extended Reality (XR) will take over the future. Technology which uses glasses or headsets to project computer-generated imagery directly into the user’s field of vision is XR. When superimposed over what user is viewing in real world; it is AR. And when it completely puts user in computer-generated world; it is VR.

Challenges posed by the current world situation can’t be tackled using just one of them; and next year we see Extended Reality (XR) to grow rapidly having amalgamated VR & AR. To life getting back to normal, XR will play a major role achieving that.

Extended Reality (XR): The amalgamation of VR, AR and IoT
Extended Reality (XR):
The amalgamation of VR, AR and IoT
(image: Geospatial world)

For instance, consider an optician. Your entire medical examinations and diagnosis can be carried with VR; as ultra-HD cameras giving crystal-clear image of patient’s eye. At the same time, AR will offer range of glasses and frames to choose from and how it will look and fit on him. This is the beauty of XR.

Another big area where XR can potentially take over will be educational sector. Instead of you going to crowded classrooms and increasing the transmission rates of virus; use XR and sit at ease to study from a safer environment. One of the major technology trends to see after IoB would definitely be XR in 2021…

4. Cybersecurity Mesh

2020 witnessed many depressing incidents – of which – security breaches and hacks on some major institutions and companies were devastating. It could affect organization, people working there and people linked to them all at the same time. Not anymore!! Its time cybersecurity mesh.

Technology Trends: Cybersecurity Mesh
Technology Trends: Cybersecurity Mesh
(image: sealpath)

Cybersecurity mesh is basically a digitally distributed architectural approach which is scalable, flexible & reliable cybersecurity control. Today most organization’s cyberassets are out of the traditional physical and logical security parameters. With cybersecurity mesh, we can access and digital security asset – no matter where it is located at. Most important benefit of this is, we can put security wall around individuals rather than the entire organization. This makes hack and breach process more complex and next to impossible. Mesh allows security perimeter to set around the identity of a person or thing. This enables more modular & responsive security approach by centralizing policy orchestration and distributing policy enforcement.

By 2025, Cybersecurity Mesh will support over half of digital access control requests of the world. it will become the most practical approach to ensure access to, and use of, cloud-located applications and distributed data from uncontrolled devices.

5. Hyperautomation – 2021

Today each company or enterprise; either small-scale, large-scale or multinational – all have automated production line and atleast one robot in their factory. Robots are now taking most of our jobs and leaving just monitoring work for us. This is still just automation!!

Hyperautomation can be best explained as: “Anything that can be automated in an organization should be automated.”

Technology Trends: Hyperautomation
Technology Trends: Hyperautomation
(image: PASSIONATE IN ANALYTICS)

Sounds confusing right? No worries. In simpler words; Hyperautomation is a disciplined approach that organizations use to rapidly identify, vet and automate as many approved business and IT processes as possible. With pandemic hitting our lives, a sudden need of “Digital First” is created all over the world. experts claim that Hyperautomation is now inevitable and irreversible with ever-increasing needs of production line.

In the future, organizations that don’t focus on efficiency, efficacy and business agility will be left behind and will underperform compared to their competitors.

To sum up; we would possibly get a better of everything in 2021 !! From IoB taking the gadget and technology aspect of our life to whole new level – with extended reality giving unparalleled experience of everything we deal with in everyday life. Total experience and Hyperautomation helping companies to grow like never before. And lastly Cybersecurity Mesh protecting us and big-firms from fatal hacks and security breaches – safeguarding things globally. 

With such technology trends; life will be better, easier, secure 
and complicated (Yes! Complicated...) all at the same time...

2020 in A Nutshell: Mathematics Breakthroughs so far

Divya Bariya
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0
2020 in A Nutshell: Mathematics Breakthroughs so far

Mathematics is the most fascinating form of science – with its awesome theories and predictions and proofs; it is always fun doing maths. With its wide application in each and every field of research, there is always something new to find in it and discover more in it. Here we present recent breakthroughs in mathematics from 2020 and recent years so far.

Mathematics

Sum of three Cubes problem for the first 100 Numbers have been found.

Our thirst for finding patterns is unquenchable. Mathematicians wondered how can you express the number 33 as the sum of three cubes i.e. 33 = x^3 + y^3 + z^3. But it went unsolved for 64 YEARS (Yes ! You read it right 64 years !).

The solution is as follows

33^2 = (8866128975287528)^3 + (-2736111468807040)^3 + (-8778405442862239)^3

You can surely try but calculators won’t be able to compute. The numbers are in quadrillion range i.e. 1 followed by 15 zeros.

Mathematics Breakthroughs: Sum of three Cubes problem
Mathematics Breakthroughs:
Sum of three Cubes problem
(image: Quanta magazine)

The solution was found by a Mathematician Andrew Booker of the University of Bristol. So how did he come up with the solution? Well, a simple approach would be to try every triplet of (x,y,z) until you came up with a definite answer but even with supercomputer finding a set of (x,y,z) in such large range of numbers is a tedious job.

A better approach would be to write the equation as 33 = x3 + y3 + z3 and we know that sum of two cubes can be factored as (x + y)(x^2 + y ^2 - xy). So for a number found in LHS by putting a value in z we try to factor that number n the form this &  if it can be factored then we have our solution. But, it is still not easy. With the help of this little trick and number theory Andrew Booker was able to find the solution. The solution itself took 3 weeks of time for a supercomputer because the range in which the solution was found is very large (10)^{15}

The equation x3 + y3 + z3 = 2is called Diophantine equation and its solution must have integral values and it becomes more fascinating because there is no mathematical method to tell us whether any given Diophantine equation has solution(s) or not (one more mystery).

The other case like 33 is of number 42 whose solution is found by Andrew Booker and Andrew Sutherland (Mathematician at MIT).

This leaves us to the lowest unsolved case for number 114.

Mathematics

A new way to solve the Quadratic Equations

Mathematics Breakthroughs: A new way to solve Quadratic Equations
Mathematics Breakthroughs:
A new way to solve Quadratic Equations
(image: expii)

You must have encountered equations of the form

Ax^2 + Bx + c = 0

well the solution is easy Right!

The first method would be apply the Sridhar Acharya’s formula :

(-b \pm \sqrt {b^2 - 4ac})/2a

or to guess two numbers such that their sum is B/A and their product is C/A

If you use the first method then you would have to calculate the square root of the term B^2 - 4AC which can be quite mind boggling and if you use the guessing method it does not always work especially when the negatives are involved.

This method was discovered by Professor Po-Shen Loh of Carnegie Mellon University. The method is so simple that it can be integrated into mainstream curriculum in schools and anyone with proper knowledge of Quadratic Equations can discover this method himself (Not Joking!!).

Well we know that,

(x-k)(x+k)=x^2-k^2+xk-kx=x^2-k^2

So if we can solve this method in reverse then we can solve Quadratic Equations easily !!

Let’s try the reverse process  for the equation

x^2-5x-24=0

It would be easier if we could write the above equation in the form (x– ) × (x – ) but what to put in those blank spaces? The most common method would be guessing two numbers whose sum is  -5 and product is -24. it can be frustrating as it has many possibilities.

We know that sum of roots is -B/A which is 5 and the product of roots is C/A which is -24.

Expressing this in form of variables

α+β = 5

αβ = -24

Here α and β are the roots of the above equation, so if we can express the roots in the form (a + b) and (a–b) our job gets a lot easier. The sum of roots is 5 so on taking average of the sum we get 5/2 and try to look for numbers in the form (5/2+k) and (5/2-k) these two numbers automatically add up to 5 so we need them to multiply to -24 which can be done easily…

(5/2 + k)(5/2 - k)=-24

as seen earlier it is in the form of and can be solved easily upon solving you get

k=\pm 11/2

It does not matter if you take the Positive value of k or the Negative value  (try yourself).

5/2 + 11/2 = 8
5/2 - 11/2 = -3

Indeed 8 and -3 are the two numbers which add up to 5 and whose multiplication is -24 and they also satisfy the equation

x^2-5x-24=0
Professor Po-Shen Loh
(image: nytimes)

Here’s another example

x^2 + x - 20 = 0

Coefficient of x represents sum of roots which is -1 and its average is -1/2

the numbers (-1/2 + k) and (-1/2 - k) add to -1.  So on satisfying the other condition (product of roots is -20)

i.e.

(-1/2 - k)(-1/2 + k)= -20

with simple algebra you get two values of k which is \pm 9/2 and again you can use any value of k

and (let’s go with the positive one!!)

(-1/2 + 9/2) = 4

(-1/2 - 9/2)= -5

4 and -5 are the roots of the equation  x^2 + x - 20 = 0  and also can be expressed in the form x – 4×x + 5 (remember sign convention).

So next time you encounter quadratic equation(s) solving them is going to be easy-peasy.

Mathematics

Collatz Conjecture: The Most Fascinating Mathematics

Mathematician Terence Tao showed us that the Collatz conjecture is almost true for almost all numbers. We still do not have full proof of the conjecture but an advancement has been made by professor Tao.

Before jumping into what Collatz conjecture is, remember this “trying to solve this conjecture is like falling into its spell and giving up your useful time”.

Jeffrey Lagarias stated in 2010 that Collatz Conjecture “is an extraordinarily difficult problem, completely out of reach of present-day Mathematics”

Lothar Collatz introduced this idea in 1937, two years after receiving his Doctorate.

The problem is simple and fascinating and you can also explain it to people with no mathematical background. Just pick a number(any); if the number is odd multiply it by 3 and add 1; if the number is even, then divide the number by 2. Now repeat these steps with the new number and repeat again and again. Eventually, you would be stuck in an endless loop or that’s what would happen.

f(x)=\begin{cases} x/2, \text{if $x$ is even} \\ 3x+1, \text{if $x$ is odd} \end{cases}

Mathematics Breakthroughs:
Collatz Conjecture
(image: i-programmer)

For example 11: It’s odd, so we triple it and add 1. We have 34, which is even, so we halve it to get 17, triple that and add 1 to get 52, halve that to get 26 and again to get 13, triple that and add 1 to get 40, halve that to get 20, then 10, then 5, triple that and add 1 to get 16, and halve that to get 8, then 4, 2 and 1. And we’ve stuck in the loop again.

So if you start with any positive integer you would always end up in a loop. The most fascinating thing about this conjecture is that it is true for any particular number but it is difficult to prove it for every number.

Graphing Some of the Collatz Numbers
(image: Swimming the STYX)

An anonymous reader commented on professor Tao’s blog that instead of solving it completely why not solve for almost all the numbers. Professor Tao was inspired by this comment and made some great progress in proving the Collatz Conjecture. The conjecture continues to attract mathematicians so why not give it a try but remember not to get stuck in its endless loop.

Mathematics

With such breakthroughs mathematics continues to stay fascinating, fun, advanced and progressive all at the same time.

To know About “The Abel Prize” – which is awarded to such breakthroughs of mathematics and encourage betterment of whole mathematics field – Click Here

Mathematics

2020 in a Nutshell: Astronomy & Astrophysics at its Best

Keith Kamson Fernandes
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0
2020 in a Nutshell: Astronomy & Astrophysics at its Best

Thought this year may have been a bad one for some, it wasn’t the same in the field of Astronomy & Astrophysics as we were able to witness many new findings and events throughout the year, starting with the dazzling first image taken of the Sun by the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (click here to see them) and ending the year by witnessing the closest Great Conjunction in 397 years. Astronomy & Astrophysics had tons of new discoveries and theories that help us reach to getting an better understanding of various astronomical events and objects.

Jupiter Meets Saturn which amazed the Astronomy & Astrophysics community
Jupiter Meets Saturn (Image: Astronomy Picture of the Day/NASA)

1. The Great Conjunction that amazed the Astronomy Community

We all were able to witness a rare and once in a lifetime astronomical event, Great Conjunction, where Every 20 years, Jupiter and Saturn appear the closest to each other or one could say they appear as one in the night sky. The main reason why the Great Conjunction is special this year as we were able to witness the closest Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn with a difference slightly less than 0.1 degree since 1623 which is a 397 years back.

Fun Facts about the Great Conjunction

  1. The last closest conjunction was in1623., during the time of Galileo
  2. The last time that the conjunction was visible this close was back in 1226 which is 794 years back.
  3. The next closest conjunction between the two planets will be in 2080, 2417 and 2477
  4. The actual average frequency of the Great Conjunction is 19.86 years
  5. As this year’s conjunction is before Christmas, it known as the “Christmas Star” or the “Bethlehem Star”. Some religious scholars also believe that the Star of Bethlehem that led the Three Wise Man to the location of Jesus’s birth was none other than the Great Conjunction. Though others believe that the Star of Bethlehem was supernova explosion or a comet.
  6. The Great Conjunction is also known as the “kissing stars” or “double planet”
  7. Another phenomenon in the Great Conjunction is the Triple Conjunction where occasionally Jupiter appears to pass Saturn three times, in a zigzag pattern. This is actually an illusion caused by Earth’s own movement around the Sun. The most recent Triple Conjunction was back in 1980-81.

2. Asteroids delivered to Earth

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Hayabusa2 Mission successfully dropped off its sample collection capsule on December 6 in Australian Outback. The capsule contained samples from the Near-Earth Asteroid 162173 Ryugu (meaning “Dragon Palace”) that was collected earlier this year. The sample is one of the first subsurface materials that’s been ever collected from an asteroid. The Hayabusa2 is now moving on to visit other asteroids to collect samples.

Hayabusa2 mission – the first subsurface asteroid sample on Earth

The interesting part is that asteroid Ryugu is an ancient fragment of a larger asteroid that formed in the cloud of gas and dust that spawned our solar system. It is rich in carbon, which is an element essential to life making it a very interesting asteroid. The samples from this asteroid will help us get a better understanding on how the solar system was formed and the origin of water on Earth.

Prior to the Ryugu delivery, JAXA’s Hayabusa mission brought back tiny samples of Asteroid 25143 Itokawa back in 2010 as part of the first asteroid sample-collecting mission in history. Also in 2006, NASA were successfully able to collect a small sample from comet Wild-2 under the Stardust mission.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission briefly landed on the near-Earth Asteroid 101955 Bennu and successfully collected a sample from the asteroid’s surface that will be delivered back to Earth by 2023

3. Black Holes in the Spotlight

We could say that 2020 would go down in Space History as the year for Black Holes. Astronomers were able to observe a record-breaking explosion which was by a black hole 390 million light-years away from Earth. The explosion was the biggest explosion detected in the Universe, with some also comparing it the 1980 Mt. St. Helens volcanic eruption.

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics: Black holes and the centre of our galaxy (Image: Ci)

The biggest spotlight was that the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for black hole discoveries that revealed the darkest secrets of the Universe.

Astronomers were also able to witness the spaghettification of a star as it was shredded and devoured by a supermassive black hole. They also found the closest black hole to Earth which is about 1000 lightyears away.

This illustration depicts a star experiencing spaghettification as it’s sucked in by a supermassive black hole. [Video: YouTube/
European Southern Observatory (ESO)]

They also discovered the long-sought intermediate-mass black hole, the size which is between that of a small black hole and a supermassive black hole. This discovery will help us get a better understanding on how black holes evolve. This observation of an intermediate-mass black hole is now known as IMBH.

2020 In A Nutshell: Advancements in Experimental Physics

Vibhor Singh
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2
2020 In A Nutshell: Advancements in Experimental Physics

Physics has been making groundbreaking discoveries over the years. Sometimes coming up with an update to some existing theory, or sometimes making a completely new theory to explain a new phenomena. But the real challenge lies in coming up with an experimental technique to validate the theory. Here are few such experimental feats that were achieved in this year.

1. Taking snapshots of Quantum Measurement:

Marcus Hennrich and his colleagues at the Stockholm University, Sweden, together with the researchers at the University of Siegen in Germany and the Basque Country & Seville in Spain used a series of “weak measurements” to see the process of quantum mechanics.

Some ideal measurement forces a quantum system into a classical state causing it to destroy all the Quantum-Information in the process.

Quantum Measurement - Experimental physics
Advancements in Experimental Physics:
Measuring a quantum bit
(Image: towards datascience)

But their groundbreaking research shows that some weak measurements can be done on a system, so that not all the Quantum-Information is lost, and the act of measurement is not instantaneous although it takes less than a fraction of milliseconds to occur.

They did the measurement experiment on a single ion of Strontium with two possible energy levels. They excited it with a laser and observed the radiated photon. Weak measurements can be done by gradually reducing the power of laser, so that it can give results as ‘snapshots’.

2. Borexino spots solar neutrinos from an elusive fusion cycle:

Advancements in Experimental Physics
(GIF: The Atlantic)

Astrophysicists believe that stars convert Hydrogen to Helium via two processes. One is called the PP chain  in which two protons collide to form deuterium which in turn collides with another proton to form helium-3. Finally two helium-3 fuse to create a helium-4 emitting neutrino in the process.

The second process is carbon-nitrogen-oxygen cycle (CNO) responsible for 1% of fusion energy in sun sized stars. This theory was proposed in 1938 by Hans Bethe and Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker. This cycle is driven by the fusion of protons with carbon, nitrogen and oxygen nuclei in a six-step process that creates one helium-4. The process is very difficult to observe and hence there was almost no proof supporting it, until the Borexino experiment was conducted.

The data in  the study was acquired during phase-III of the Borexino experiment which ran for over 1000 hours starting from July 2016 to February 2020. This result provided important confirmation of how the CNO cycle should dominate the fusion in stars larger than sun.

3. Fundamental constants set upper limit for the speed of sound:

Kostya Trachenko of Queen Mary University of London and her colleagues at the University of Cambridge and the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for High Pressure Physics derived a formula which can determine the upper limit of sound, comprising only of fundamental constants, i.e. fine structure constant and proton to electron mass ratio.

Advancements in Experimental Physics
Advancements in Experimental Physics
(Image: Cartoon Stock)

Initially the speed of sound depends on modulus of elasticity of the material. This can be written in terms of electrostatic interactions, in which case the velocity of sound can be simply expressed in terms of proton to electron mass ratio (inverted halved and square rooted), fine structure constant and speed of light in vacuum.

Plugging in the values, researchers found that the highest possible speed of sound comes out to be 36000 m/s which is twice as fast as the recorded 18000 m/s obtained for diamond. This formula was also tested for metallic hydrogen, and the experimental value was found to be 35000 m/s, which was still below the upper limit.

Read the other such amazing set of pieces in our series of articles: 2020 in a Nutshell

physics

2020 In A Nutshell: Most Awesome Innovations in Technology

Harshil Bhanushali
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5
2020 In A Nutshell: Most Awesome Innovations in Technology

All good things must come to an end! And 2020 is no exception (how ironic!🙁). With people wrapping up this year and getting ready to welcome next year with great expectations. The “Best of..” tradition is on the run and it’s infected the technology sector too. Since we are unique (you already know that!😏), we have started with the “In the Nutshell” tradition.

A lot of new and cool like really fricking marvel cool technologies were proposed and some even had prototypes. After, analyzing, assessing, auditing, and performing all things ‘a’; We have hand-picked a few technologies that surpassed all the others in every aspect. Without further ado, let’s kick off (2020 too!😎).

The Digital Yuan Project: Reshaping the Currency Model

Amid the ongoing pandemic, digital payment technology became the new way to pay in these social distancing times. Though the underlying tech is simple its impact is huge. However, a large number of people with no bank acc. “Unbanked people” can’t use these services because they require a bank acc. to operate.

Digital payment technology has come a long way in influencing daily transactions.
Digital payment technology has come a long way in influencing daily transactions. [Source- sumhr]

Thus, the digital currency was born. But cryptocurrencies couldn’t survive the brunt of the market and earn the trust of users, because of its volatility. But China would be the first country ever to use central bank digital currencies for the “Unbanked people.” A digital currency acc. uses any Govt. issued a verified document to register the person’s account. The person can deposit cash in any of the 4 intermediate banks. The bank then generates the same amount of ‘Renminbi’ (China’s national currency) and deposits it into a user’s wallet.

Difference between crypto and DC.
Difference between crypto and DC. [Source- sourceessay]

The user can then pay at any local store via the internet, QR-code, or barcode scanner. And the mind-blowing part is you can pay even if you don’t have internet (😮). Keeping two devices close, payments can be initiated through NFC and all transactions are recorded in the wallet.

How is China making this possible?

These types of payments are done on the DC/EP platform which is a centralized blockchain. It is also going to integrate smart contract service with blockchain with asymmetric cryptography security. Sounds like big terms but have simple explanations, just stick with me! Let us first understand the Ledger. It is simply a detailed list of all the transactions of a certain account. But verifying any flaw in it is tiresome, so enters DLT. This is a decentralized ledger that is maintained by many people. When over 50% of the people approve a transaction or correction it is recorded or modified.

Digital Yuan project will surely transform and elevate china's economy.
Digital Yuan project will surely transform and elevate china’s economy. [Source- ledgerinsights]

Blockchain is a shared distributed ledger on which all transactions are recorded and linked together. It is also ‘immutable’ because the records once entered cannot be changed. For every new transaction, a new block is added to the chain after verification. Each block stores data, an encrypted hash, and the hash of the previous block. This way you can’t tamper with blockchain. Barely scratching the surface here, but this revolution of China would pave a major way of globalizing its currency and strengthening its economy.

Diagram of blockchain technology.
Diagram of blockchain technology. [Source- 101blockchains]

“CBDC is the true evolution of cryptocurrency and the potential future of Money.”

Will this project lead to the ban on physical money? Can’t tell but one thing is for sure “Digitalization is The New Revolution.” How about an AI integrated into your body?! or better an IA- Intelligence Augmentation device?

Alter-Ego By MIT: The AI version of You

After Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift (listen to their top songs here), and Narendra Modi, AI is the most discussed topic in the net community. Every Stark fan here wanted just one thing: Tony’s sidekick- ‘Jarvis’ (Okay two, include the suit also!😉). Researchers at MIT have developed a technology that will literally act as the ‘Voice Inside you Head.’

Iron Man's AI Jarvis is the dream of future for many tech enthusiasts.
Iron Man’s AI Jarvis is the dream of future for many tech enthusiasts. [Source- indianweb2]

Their device called “Alter-Ego” is a wearable silent speech interface that contains electrodes placed on the face and jaw part. The amazing technology used for communication is ‘Bone Conduction.’ The electrodes pick up neuromuscular signals when you speak something inside your head. The signals are fed to a machine-learning program trained to correlate particular signals with particular words.

A video showing the capabilities of this remarkable technology.

Ask anything and it will process and relay the info through bone conduction to your inner ear without obstructing your ear canal without interrupting your routine. Let’s go over the working lightning fast. ⚡

Understanding the Voice Living In Your Head

Arnav Kapur a Fluid Interfaces Research assistant at MIT wanted to combine the powers of humans and computers. This type of tech depicts a fascinating departure from the norm. Triggering all the functions without tapping, touching, or speaking loudly can be of great use in IoT.

Alter ego technology by MIT
Alter ego technology by MIT and Arnav Kapur explaining it. [Source- forbes]

The main property is the non-invasiveness of the device which does not require users to speak or mouth their words. Speaking is perhaps one of the most complex motor tasks humans perform with seamless ease. Though the process is qubit complex, we will provide it a touch of simplicity. Whenever we conceive any action in our brain, a motor neuron is activated and nerve impulse is sent through the spinal cord. Now, a chain reaction is started with the release of a neurotransmitter. After releasing it binds with nicotinic receptors and this, in turn, liberates sodium ions causing a varying potential difference. This difference generates a unique myoelectric signature akin to a signal which is detected by the system.

Bone conduction headphones used in Alter Ego
Bone conduction headphones used in Alter Ego which allows AI to send messages internally. [Source- walesonline]

Signals are captured using TPE plastic and gold plated silver electrodes. All these signals travel through electrodes and are sent to the AI unit which identifies the words spoken internally. The device is connected to the internet and searches your query and answers you internally. The interface is attached to 7 points on the face, jaw, and chin and offers unique flexibility.

The electrode points where neuromuscular signals are strong enough to picked up by AI.
The electrode points where neuromuscular signals are strong enough to picked up by AI. [Source- thenewsstack.io]

“The device melds humans and machines such that it feels like an internal extension of our cognition,” says Arnav. The system tanked at 92% transcription efficiency as reported in the Paper. This technology can help people with ALS, cancer, paralysis, or those who are struggling to speak. With IoT hailed as the ultimate transformation platform leading our civilization into the type-II phase, this interface can guarantee smooth sailing in this sea of networks.

Alter Ego helps communicate chess moves internally as per the opponents moves.
Alter Ego helps communicate chess moves internally as per the opponents moves. [Source- forbes]

“The technology should enable people to harvest its benefit but do it in a way that lets them remain in the present.”

But in this vast sea of networks and ocean of devices, vulnerable species (devices or networks) are bait for phisher-man (😈). What if I told you Internet can be made unhackable?!!

Quantum Internet: The Ultimate Unhackable Future

In just 37 years, the internet grew twice as fast as compared to the size of my brain! (Though I’m younger than the internet.😜) A thing that big holds as much data as the square of Avogadro number. With so much data flowing back and forth, a single packet can help you leverage literally anything under the net.

internet has truly revolutionized the civilization with its massive power.
internet has truly revolutionized the civilization with its massive power. [Source- howtogeek]

In my Quantum series of articles, I did make them look like ‘Doomsday devices.’ But the ones who can break it are the ones who will make (or mend) it. Governed by laws of the quantum realm, armed with electricity and a hint of uncertainty (principle), the creators are quite certain that this technology will surely knock the socks off the hackers. The classical hacks won’t make any sense in this ‘Realm of Weirdness.’

Quantum Mechanics meet Dear Internet

Everybody knows quantum mechanics is hard to understand, probably hackers don’t understand it too. However, researchers have established small networks that show the power of this technology. The whole system relies on the two weirder properties of quantum physics namely- ‘Superposition and Entanglement.’

Qubits and superposition is one of the greatest feature of a quantum computer.
Qubits and superposition is one of the greatest feature of a quantum computer. [Source- interestingengeneering]
Quantum entanglement can help to make internet more secure and fast.
Quantum entanglement can help to make internet more secure and fast. [Source- towardsdatascience]

If you recall in previous articles, we introduced you to qubits, now picture two of them. This pair of qubits and can be entangled and as they are qubits they are superposition themselves. Using these phenomena you can leverage light-speed communication and faster internet. But how does this help to make it uncrackable?

RSA the most widespread encryption system is getting too vulnerable to secure confidential information.
RSA the most widespread encryption system is getting too vulnerable to secure confidential information. [Source- medium.com]

Well, standard encryption like RSA (refer here) has 3 working rules: key generation, distribution, and encryption/decryption. The Uncertainty principle changes the game here because of quantum mechanics, you can generate literally billions of random numbers with no subtle patterns. Now, another property of qubits is when they are observed they collapse to any one state. The key distribution process can use this benefit to send keys in form of qubits. Even if an eavesdropper interrupts and picks the qubits, he/she cannot confirm if the measurements he took are correct or not. Moreover, if he thinks of copying it, sorry my friend but physics won’t allow you to do that because of the “No-Cloning theorem.”

Quantum internet technology can replace traditional one with same hardware infrastructure.
Quantum internet technology can replace traditional one with same hardware infrastructure. [Source- livescience]

Such a phenomenon can truly transform the era of the internet we are living in right now. With every technology there are costs as well as opportunities, while new tech can prove a threat to an existing interface, it can open door to new endless possibilities.

“The Quantum Computer is a double edged sword, forged to protect the future at the expense of the Present.”

Top Songs of 2020: International Hits of the Year

Om Desai
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2
Top Songs of 2020: International Hits of the Year

top songs of 2020

To check out the Top 100 songs of 2020 that was curated by our team click here

With 2020 starting with coronavirus, there was not much left for us besides sitting at home and get bored on our couches. But the one thing which kept as thriving and kept our lives going was music and the cool things which came with it. While there was lockdown in most part of the world by march-end; Twenty-One Pilots had their own way of enjoying pandemic with standalone song “Level of Concern”.

Well ! This was just a start to one of the greatest year music – as fans of “Taylor Swift“ didn’t expected “Folklore” album; which had almost all the songs to be chartbusters. The album was a hitlist and with liked song as “Cardigan” it went on top of every list of best songs of 2020. Taylor Swift herself broke many records with album and it was like a gift to listeners in harsh times of pandemic.

With chartbusters releasing every month and 2020 being so intense with its depressing surprises; another hit song came out “MOOD (ft. iann dior)” by American Rapper “24kGoldn”. It was truly mood changing and was trending everywhere; from YouTube to Instagram to Twitter.

Top songs of 2020

Then came biggest hit of the year & our No. 1 song of the playlist ‘WAP’ by Cardi B & Megan Thee Stallion. This was and still on the top of each list of top songs of 2020 and was truly a Hip-Hop chartbuster.

While 2020 was going towards an end; there was yet another surprise by Taylor Swift with back to back album of 2020; “Evenmore“. With its song “Willow” the album reached new heights of music industry and so did Taylor Swift in the hearts of her loving fans.

And at last; just before Christmas, Ed Sheeran came up with “Afterglow” and a live performance of it is still trending leaving behind all the hit songs of 2020.

So enjoy the top 100 songs of 2020 playlist from thehavok.com !!

You can find the playlist at:

Spotify - top songs of 2020
YouTube Music - Top Songs of 2020

Top songs of 2020

2020 in a Nutshell: Newer Technology For Better Living

Adithya A Rao
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2
2020 in a Nutshell: Newer Technology For Better Living

Technology has always changed the way we live our lives. From the very industrial revolution, there has been no area of life that has been left untouched by technology. The most important ones, of all the feats of technology, are those which offer better healthcare and lifestyle. With the so-called ‘horrible’ year of 2020 approaching its end, here is a compilation of three top technological inventions of the year. The innovations that revolutionize health and medicare industry, offering new and better lifestyle, making life better.

You can read other articles under the title ‘2020 in a Nutshell’ here.

XVision: Making Surgeries Easier…

Superpowers have always been the writers’ favourite topic. Comics like DC and Marvel have been the fan favourite among people of all age groups. But, what if surgeons get a superpower, something like x-ray vision? That is precisely what the augmedics team has come up with, a superpower that allows surgeons to look what’s under the subjects’ skin and accurately operate on them, especially in surgeries where every single millimetre counts.

Superman using xray vision
An illustration of superman shooting x-ray laser from his eyes.
[Image: The Conversation]

Armed with Augmented Reality technology, the xvision is a powerful headset with a powerful, high-speed processor of its own. It converts the CT scan data of the patient’s body into 3D models and superimposes it on the patient’s body with extreme accuracy.

The xvision headset
Surgeon wearing the xvision headset

The AR headset enables surgeon to perform surgeries with greater precision and attention.

The technology aims at eliminating the attention shift in precision surgeries. These require total concentration, and having to look at the screen away from the operating table disrupts their attention. With this technology, the surgeon no more has to look at a different screen to look at graphs and scanned data, everything gets projected right on the patient’s body.

2020 technology xvision
The xvision see-through surgery…

Equipped with a surgical tracking system, the headset also efficiently tracks the surgical equipment and effectively guides the surgeon through the surgery.  Thus, it acts as a personal assistant, improving the efficiency of the surgeon, and the success rate of the surgery.

On June 17 2020, Dr Frank Phillips became First in the World to Use Augmented Reality Surgical Guidance in Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery, displaying the effectiveness of this technology in performing surgeries.

Earlens: Beautifying sounds…

The dream of every hearing-impaired people is to listen to the beauty of music and to hear their dear one’s voices. They wait for that magical moment when they finally will be able to listen to all these dear sounds. Well, there goes a quote “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Technology has truly proven to be beautiful magic for these people.

hearing illustration
[Image: Texas ENT center]

For aeons, conventional hearing aids have been the enchantments. These help people with damaged cochlear hair cells hear sounds. They cannot sense sounds with low volume but can hear very loud sounds. The hearing aids amplify sound and make it loud enough for them to hear. But this technology is not efficient, they perform very well at middle frequencies and utterly fail at high and low frequencies.

Enter magicians who go by the name EARLENS, they totally change the league of hearing aids. This technology enables one to hear sounds as it was meant to be heard. The magic is in the ‘lens’. Earlens uses a small lens placed directly on the eardrum to vibrate and activate your natural hearing process. This lens receives signals from the ‘behind-the-ear processor’, and it vibrates the eardrum of the wearer. By sending sound information directly to the eardrum without a speaker, you get more complete sound than any other hearing device on the market. The result? Rich, natural sound. 

2020 technology earlens
Comparison between the conventional and earlens hearing aid.
Comparison between the conventional and earlens hearing aid.

EARLENS is a groundbreaking invention. It is something that realises the dreams of millions, and allows them to live their life to the fullest. This is indeed a giant leap and represents a unique and significant step forward in the hearing device industry.

LUCI: Smarter Mobility…

The world is a beautiful, dangerous place, and power wheelchairs should make it more beautiful and less dangerous for the people in them. LUCI is a smart wheelchair technology for the most fearless people on Earth. Tripping over in a wheelchair is very common. More than 90% of wheelchair users have reported having tripped and fallen off the wheelchair. Some injuries can also be too large and may require hospital admission. But the sad fact is that wheelchair users are also left behind when it comes to technology. This all changed when the thought struck, what if wheelchairs could be made smarter?

wheelchair freedom



LUCI intends on doing the same. It adds smart technology to your existing power wheelchair for stability, security, and connectivity. LUCI’s goal is not autonomy, it is independence. LUCI is designed to automatically, smoothly slow a power wheelchair to a stop before colliding with things or driving off steps or curbs. It combines stereo vision, infrared, ultrasonic and radar data into a single view of the world, enabling never-before-seen possibilities for power wheelchair riders. Using this data, it detects curbs and other obstacles effectively saving the user of the fall. LUCI is a simple installation which can be used with an already owned power wheelchair, but the job it does is fairly great. Not only this, but it also offers connectivity, sharing the user’s location and other data in real-time. 

2020 technology LUCI mobility


LUCI has made the world a better and safer place for everyone to live. It has eliminated the fear out of their minds and has made them independent. With this technology, everyone can move around with ease and without any worries. It indeed makes the world a more beautiful place for power wheelchair users.


With this, I conclude the list of the three amazing innovations of 2020 that has made people lifes better. These inventions prove that humanity still lingers deep down in the dark alleys of life. There are people who still strive to make the world a better and more beautiful place for everyone. Technology has been the glimmer of hope that everyone can cling to, dreaming of an elegant future, a future where one can throw away all the heart’s fears and live life to its fullest.

“At times the world may seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe that there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough. and what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may in fact be the first steps of a journey.”

Lemony Snicket

2020 in a Nutshell: Sensational Breakthroughs in Chemical Sciences

Umakant Bohara
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15
2020 in a Nutshell: Sensational Breakthroughs in Chemical Sciences

2020 has been full of surprises that no one would have ever asked for. From Wildfires, worldwide disease spread followed by economic hardships, lockdowns, mental traumas to vaccines, most of us made it through the end of this so-called year of staying alive. People also seemed to be experiencing loses from the productivity viewpoint, however, the scientific community, especially from chemical sciences background, had an uncommon time in laboratories and came up with striking discoveries with the essence of innovativeness.

These days people seem fed up of headlines that create negative sentiments, again owing to the downfall in mental health, like that of economies falling, shutdowns, second waves and geopolitical conspiracy tales behind pandemic and other so-called evil theories. Having said that, this happens to be a good occasion to get acquainted with researches with the pure essence of chemical sciences. These innovations could lay the foundation of sustainable, green, plastic-free and undoubtedly, a brighter age of humanity. Let us look at what else, other than vaccines, chemical sciences has decided to give away as new year present:

New Nitrogen-Assembly Carbon catalyst: Reshaping the Chemical Manufacturing Methods

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory have devised a metal-free carbon-based catalyst that has the ability to be more efficient for many industrial applications, including the production of bio- and fossil fuels, electrocatalysis, and fuel cells.

In a general sense, these industrial processes include splitting strong chemical bonds, hydrogen-hydrogen, carbon-oxygen, and carbon-hydrogen bonds to name a few. Traditional ways of accomplishing such bond splittings are by using catalysts that use transition elements or precious metals, most of them are expensive and low in natural abundances, platinum and palladium, for instance.

Graphene - A chemical sciences outcone.
Image featuring a Carbon Sheet. Credit: Wikipedia

The scientists conducted experiments with a type of heterogeneous catalyst, Nitrogen-Assembly Carbons (NACs), in which the design and placement of nitrogen on the carbon surface greatly influenced the catalytic activity of the material. These N atoms on carbon surfaces were previously believed to be distant from one another, as the close placement of N atoms is thermodynamically unstable.

Scientists derived and conducted experiments on a new type of heterogeneous catalyst, Nitrogen-Assembly Carbons(NACs). The catalytic activity of this catalyst is influenced by the design and placement of nitrogen atoms on the surface of the carbon. Owing to the thermodynamic instability of closed placing of Nitrogen atoms, it was assumed that the N atoms are arranged distantly.

The team of scholars at Ames Laboratory also correlated the N precursors and the pyrolysis temperature for sysnthesis of the NACs, and discovered that unexpected catalytic reactions were delivered by the meta-stable assembly of Nitrogen atoms that were designed separately.

Reactions like dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene, hydrogenolysis of aryl ethers and the most common among all hydrogenation of unsaturated functional species containing keto, alkene, alkyne and nitro groups. Further, this catalyst is robust and consistent in delivery products from the both gas phase and liquid phase reaction mixture under extreme condition of temperature and pressure.

Chemically driven wheels that transform to gears and perform mechanical work

Gear being one of the oldest mechanical tools in industrial history, it has led the development of machines ranging from clocks and irrigation tools to high-end robotics and Modern engines. Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh came up with a method of utilizing a catalytic reaction that pushes a chemically coated, two-dimensional sheet to spontaneously transform into a three-dimensional gear that performs mechanical work.

Gifs indicating the simulations, another boon of chemical sciences.
Animation clip from simulation demonstrating rotors and their control through a cascade reaction. Credit: A. Laskar

These findings could pave the way towards industries based on chemically driven machines and minimize the need for external power by depending on a chemical process involving the addition of the reactants to the surrounding solution. The motion of both magenta coloured rotor which is coated with Graphene oxide(GOx) and of green coated with CAT is placed in a solution containing H2O2 indicated by spatial background map.

The first reaction that occurs produces H2O2, which makes up the first step of the cascading reaction. Due to the presence of H2O2, the motion of the CAT coated rotor is triggered, while the GOx rotor converts to 2 D and stops rotating due to the depletion of glucose in the solution. Gradually, the H2O2 is also exhausted and the sheets become flat with no motion at all but can be started upon the addition of reactants.

Balazs expressed his views about this innovation: “The more remote a machine is from human control, the more you need the machine itself to provide control in order to complete a given task, The chemo-mechanical nature of our devices allows that to happen without any external power source.”

These self-morphing gears are the latest evolution of chemo-mechanical processes developed by Balazs, Laskar, and Shklyaev and are foreseen to be used for large scale machinery, however, this could be used directly to drive some reactions in soft robotics. With this, chemical sciences seem to have many more surprises hidden in the fume hoods of labs.

Platics Alternatives Derived from Industrial Waste

Image depicting industrial waste and the power of chemical sciences to transform it.
Industrial waste sortred and stacked for disposal. Credit: Recover

Research Scholars at one of the Brazilian University have developed a film made from scraps left after industrial p processing. The raw materials used are sustainable and can be used for food packaging. This finding clears the path towards a plastic-free lifestyle of humanity.

The film is made from hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) and bacterial cellulose and it outperformed the film made only using HPMC. They filled the HPMC matrix with bacterial cellulose nanocrystals to improve it’s properties and also to create a green protocol for the development of new-age composites by including the reuse of industrial waste.

A limitation of the films made of HPMC and other biopolymers is their small range of mechanical strength when compared with those derived from petroleum products. High permeability to water has also limited their application. However, these shortcomings were improved by introducing bacterial cellulose.

Among several advantages, the one that stands apart is the presence of nanometric fibres in its structure, as this gives the material can withstand certain loads and stresses without cleaving. The use of cellulose scraps and similar wastes can help in diminishing the processing cost.

The use of cellulose scraps and other kinds of waste also helps reduce processing cost. Consumers typically prefer plastic film for packaging because it is cheap. Moreover, there are other promising sources of bacterial cellulose, such as the sugarcane and soy industries.

More such researches in the field of chemical sciences have not only awakened the hopes for more sustainable human lifestyle but also helped in tracing the path towards making planet Earth, a safer place for all life forms.

Chemical Sciences

2020 In A Nutshell: Chemistry Innovations of The year

Om Desai
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0
2020 In A Nutshell: Chemistry Innovations of The year

Christmas is near; 2020 is ending; with corona virus turning our lives down and no solid sign of vaccines; world was still for months and we were packed inside our houses. The one thing that was evolving everyday were the chemistry labs and innovations which will redefine the coming decade ahead. Whether they be biochemistry, material science, nanochemistry or the latest one, quantum chemistry; many new technologies and sciences has and will change both humans and the way we live. Here are the top innovations 2020 in chemistry hand-picked from all over the world.

(Spoiler: There are some Christmas Greetings at the end of article…)

1. Senolytics – The Anti-Aging Drug

Aging is one such phenomenon defined as progressive decrease in physiological function accompanied with steady increase in mortality rate. None of us want to be look aged, dull, house of diseases and lying on bed waiting for death. It is not just this, but aging leads to many chronic diseases and becomes root cause of many disorders and amongst them; the fundamental mechanisms which cause aging is cellular senescence.

We may not have to age so fast; thanks to chemistry and biology
We may not have to age so fast; thanks to chemistry and biology
(image: The Wall Street Journal)

Cellular Senescence & Senolytics

Cellular Senescence is a major contributor to age-related dysfunction and multiple diseases throughout one’s life span. So basically, when cells re hurt beyond repair, they enter a protective state known as senescence. In this state they cease to divide further into daughter cells. During this, cells begin a pre-programmed self-destruct sequence known as apoptosis. Thus, this prevents injured cells from spreading and doing damage to our body. But in some cases this doesn’t happen. Then these cells persist there as zombielike in our tissues and begin to harm other cells around them.

As older we get, the more senescent cells begin to build up and this is the fundamental cause of issues arising while aging. With aging, these cells accumulate and at etiological sites of multiple diseases which mostly lead to high rates of morbidity, mortality & health costs. Accumulation of senescent cells causes local and systematic inflammation, tissue destruction, immune system inhibition and stem cell dysfunction.

Senolytic Drugs: The anti-aging drug
Senolytic Drugs: The anti-aging drug (image: Wiley Online Library)

The discovery of Senolytic drugs that selectively eliminate these senescent cells, created a new route for alleviating age-related dysfunction and diseases.

The two Senolytic drugs identified by the scientist are called Dasatinib and Quercetin. Dasatinib was previously designed as cancer drug for use in humans and Quercetin is found naturally in some fruits and vegetables. Initially both were given to small group of diabetic kidney patients for three days and results indicated that there was decrease in number of senescent cells, in turn reducing aging.

Discovery. Development. Future. Senolytics
(image: FEBSPRESS)

Also later on, another drug was discovered, called navitoclax; which also cleared senescent cells effectively and at the same time also helped to replenish stem cells that had undergone senescent. Thus, all three drugs potentially helped kill senescent cells and reduce aging along with generating new stem cells to help body remain as it is.

With Senolytics, one may enhance healthspan and delay, prevent or cure multiple chronic diseases; but still side effects, tolerability and safety of the drug should also be taken into consideration. Nevertheless Senolytics are not yet used on large-scale; but dream of staying young and anti-aging still prevails and can be fulfilled in near future.

2. 2022 Nano-Car Grand Prix: Revving the nano-engines

With motor sporting events like F1, adrenaline rush for racers and viewers is beyond imagination and now the Nanotechnology is here to increase that excitement. With advanced research in the science of single-molecule machines; the NanoCar lineup for 2022 International NanoCar Race is getting ready. This time; cars will be more advanced, more pumped up and most importantly faster than before.

The First ever NanoCar race (organized in 2017)
The First ever NanoCar race (organized in 2017)
(image: The Truth About Cars)

This race is powered by some of the most amazing concepts of chemistry. The track course will be a surface of gold and all the teams will control their cars via internet on tracks under scanning-tunnelling microscope in their home labs. This year, cars will be more lighter and built with few more than 100 atoms as per new regulations. The track will be of 100-nanometers.

The Podium Finishers – All Set to Win

Talking about one of the winners of previous race, they stated that in 2020 they have constructed ultimate racing machine all set to win again. Their nanocar’s working is based on principle of multiple permanent dipole moments which make the cars more susceptible to being influenced by electric field gradients. They are also easily manoeuvrable and can be propelled along the course perfectly.

The one-molecule car has a permanent dipole that makes it easier to control.
NanoCar Vehicle for 2022 Grand Prix
(image: RICE UNIVERSITY)

With 114 atoms, the new car’s wheels are of all tertiary-Butyl or all adamantyl or a combination of both. Ultimately, permanent dipoles are the one which increase the speed and drivability of the nanocar.

Purpose Behind NanoCar Races: Boom to Chemistry

Unlike F1, these are not just for adrenaline rush or earning money, but for the growth of nanotechnology, chemistry and biology all at the same time. The main aim for conducting the race is to advance the development of nanomachines capable of real work. One important application would be, to carry molecular scale cargo to target place inside our body under emergency conditions and help cure diseases faster and in more accurate way. Also, through this competition, worldwide expertise could be achieved and the entire field of “nanomanipulation” is encouraged to progress all the faster.

https://www.extremetech.com/
Nanomachines potentially contributing in chemistry and drug delivery
(image: ExtremeTech)

This could potentially bring new advancements in the research field of molecular motors that drill through cells to deliver drugs and in turn help humankind in becoming biochemically stronger than ever.

3. Quantum Thermometer: Newest Member of Quantum Technique

In day-to-day life, measuring temperature is pretty straightforward right? But at molecular or atomic levels – even the minute change in the temperature can exhibit large changes in the properties of materials or entire chemical reaction or rather sometimes destroy a super computer working on quantum principles. For the first time in history of quantum chemistry, scientists have now detected the smallest changes in temperature, at only tens of billionths of a degree above zero kelvin, which is absolutely critical.

Quantum thermometer: Newest Member of Quantum Technique
Quantum thermometer: Newest Member of Quantum Technique
(image: OIST)

The Importance in Chemistry

Temperature measurements are crucial for many experiments using ultracold atomic gases, for example when calibrating quantum simulators or when determining equations of state. Here, researchers have specifically measured the temperature of an ultracold Fermi Gas by observing the nonequilibrium dephasing dynamics of impurities immersed in it. Basically, Fermi Gas is an ensemble of fermions which do not interact with each other except for Pauli exclusion. Fermions are type of elementary particles; for quick understanding, electron is a fermion.

So here, researches have used a single supercooled atom as a thermometer; Yesss!! A single atomic thermometer. When added to the system, the thermometer atom exists in two different energy states at the same time – a unique, counter-intuitive property of quantum systems. As the atom reacts with ultracold gas, the quantum features of the combined energy states decay.

Thermometer Atom Decay - directly proportional to - temperature of ultracold gas
Thermometer Atom Decay
– directly proportional to –
temperature of ultracold gas
(image: APS Physics)
The rate at which the thermometer atom decays, is directly related to temperature of ultracold gas (increasing/decreasing). So, scientists have to measure the state in which thermometer atom is and they will know the temperature. The colder the gas, the slower the decay process is because then that slowly the atom will interact with the gas.

This new method of single supercooled atom thermometer has pushed the bounds of thermometry and reached new heights in chemistry while opening new paths in the further study of quantum physics and developing super computers even, in one or the other way.

These were the Best of 2020 in the field of chemistry; Senolytics, Nanocar Race & Quantum thermometer. While wrapping up the year, chemistry always is dangerous, unique, interesting and funny all at the same time.

So, lastly some X-Mas Greetings to all our readers from thehavok.com – in a chemical way…
image: Pinterest

Emergence of Atomic Hypothesis

Vibhor Singh
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5
Emergence of Atomic Hypothesis

The concept of Reality is very obscured in physics that now Physicist don’t even talk about Reality. Take for example Quantum Mechanics, in mid-90s, people tried to make sense out of Quantum mechanics from their notion of reality, but the outcome was so bizarre and unprecedented that physicists have left that thing to metaphysicist and philosophers.

Fox and the grapes
(Image: DeviantArt)

You would’ve heard the tale of the “Fox and the grapes”, in the end the fox leaves the grapes and says, “They are sour.” In the similar ways physicists have stopped talking about reality. They make a theory, publish it and get going, not bothering to talk about the intuitive reality behind that. Sometimes our intuitious comes true and sometimes it doesn’t. One such example is the story of “The Atomicity of Matter”.

The idea that world consists of standard little parts (now we call atom) originated long ago. The atomic hypothesis existed side by side with the belief that the world consisted of a single continuous substance and it’s transformation eg: “fire”, “air” or “water”. The fact that the existence of water in different forms of solid, liquid or gas at different temperatures was taken as an example that how one substance might be able to stimulate world’s enormous variety. However, until nineteenth century the arguments for the continuum and the atomic hypothesis where mainly rhetorical; little evidence existed for either of these views.

Dalton’s Hypothesis

In 1808, John Dalton discovered that the chemical substance always combine in fixed ratio- eg: two part of Hydrogen combines with one part of Oxygen to make water, provided each of these were assigned a standard weight. Dalton proposed that these constant combining ratio represented the actual atoms whose atomic weights were proportional to standard weights. Thus, water consists of two atoms of Hydrogen and one atom of Oxygen. Dalton took these constant chemical ratios as token of an invisible atomic reality.

water consists of two atoms of Hydrogen and one atom of Oxygen
Water Molecule (Image: University of Arizona)

Believers and The Energetics

Many scientists were convinced with this theory but few prestigious opposed the atomic hypothesis on the basis that it went beyond the facts. In 1826, Dalton received the Royal Society of London’s medal of honour for the discovery of law of “chemical equivalent” and not for the hypothesis of invisible entities behind the phenomena i.e. atoms.

Chemists from different nations united to oppose the atomic hypothesis. French scientist Jean Baptise Dumas said, “It goes further than experience, and that in chemistry, we should never go further than experience.” The German chemist August Kekule, famous for the discovery of Benzene ring said, “The question whether atoms exist or not has the little significance from a chemical point of view, it’s discussion belongs rather to metaphysics.

In chemistry, we have only to decide whether the assumption of atoms as a hypothesis adapted to the explanation of chemical phenomena.” Even the defenders of the Atomic hypothesis saw little hope of directly verifying the atomic hypothesis. Because the size of these elementary entities- if they were really at all- was about thousands times smaller than the  wavelength of light, technically invisible forever.

On the other side, in the continuum hypothesis the field of chemical thermodynamics was an alternative to Atomic hypothesis. The real idea behind this was of the real underlying component of the universe- “Energy” and it’s variation forms. The two laws of thermodynamics- which requires conservation of energy and an entropy based limit on this energy’s utilization- had been extended by Maxwell & Gibbs to describe successfully the intimate details of physical and chemical reaction without the Atomic hypothesis. The ones who believed in this theory were called “Energetics”.

Debates in Journals and conferences between the supporters of atomic hypothesis and energetics were sharp and emotional- leading to the suicide of Ludwig Boltzmann.

Einstein and Brownian motion

In 1905, Albert Einstein published a paper on Brownian Motion that pointed the way to conclusive experiments bearing on the real existence of Atoms.

Whenever micron-sized particles suspended in liquid they undergo a perpetual dance whose origin had been a mystery. Early experiments on Brownian motion performed with pollen grains was believed to be of biological origin. When it was discovered that any sort of finely divided matter would show such agitation, the biological hypothesis was discarded and various physical mechanisms such as temperature gradients, surface tension, electrochemical effects were proposed but none of them quite worked and Brownian motion remained a mystery tucked away in an obscure corner of physics.

Einstein explained Brownian motion as the action of numerous atoms colliding with the Brownian particle. This explanation had been previously rejected because the atoms were millions of times less massive than the Brownian particle and their collective pressure could lead to no net motion because equal amounts of atoms were pushing in every direction.

(GIF: makeagif)

Einstein showed that in any random direction, the relative fluctuations were inversely proportional to the square root of the numbers of samples- smaller the sample, larger the fluctuation. For a large particle, the pressure is balanced but for a smaller particle, the fluctuations were sufficient to propel it in an unpredictable direction with a predictable force. Einstein showed how this random force would vary with temperature and particle size. If atoms existed, Einstein’s theory would be able to predict the number of atoms striking a Brownian particle and it succeeded in 1913 with the counting of the number of atoms in a drop of water.

Acceptance of Atomic Hypothesis

In response to the work of Einstein, the leader of energetics (Ostwald) bowed to the experimental evidence and accepted the existence of atoms. The atomic hypothesis is thus raised to a scientifically well-founded theory. Now, we can talk about the existence of atoms with the same containing as the existence of stars. Nobody today doubts that atoms really exist.

To get familiar with more of such not so known physics theories; Click Here.

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