Have You Ever Wondered...?

Are you still there?
Or are you lost somewhere?
Leaving your body here,
But your mind elsewhere?

Are you lost in the galaxies?
Or in the sprawling cities?
Or simply wondering life
And its absurdities?

Are you listening to what I say,
Or do you dream of the Milky Way?
Are you even alive with me,
Or your thoughts far away?

What do you ponder so deeply immersed?
Are they the mysteries of the Universe?
Do you even know that I'm here,
Or have you dived into thought headfirst?

Do you ever wonder the origin of life?
How creatures creature evolve on the edge of a knife?
How humanity springs back
Again and again from times of strife?

Do you ever ponder ever
The answer to why we are here?
Do you ask yourself
Why we age every year?

Do you find yourself pondering why
You are pondering the reason why
You ponder what you ponder,
Where you ponder, how you ponder and why?

Do you ever doubt yourself, of what you can do?
And what is beyond the miracle that is you?
Do you ever question reason itself,
And the reason why reason is true?

Do you ever worry that god never did exist?
Or if he does, what is on His divine list?
Or if he doesn't, why the world is as it is,
Lost, forever shrouded in mysterious mists?

Do you ponder how Beethoven wrote
His beautiful works, note by note?
Do you ever humourously compare
A Frenchman to a goat?

Do you wonder what really lies
Just beneath the canopy of the skies?
Do you wonder how a bird feels
When above the clouds, it flies?

Have you ever wondered what lies after death?
What drives our lives, our every breath
Have you ever asked yourself every now and then,
What it means to be greatest?

Did you ever wonder what it means
To be truly human, beneath material screens?
Do kindness and love, care and adoration
Come inherited through genes?

Or are they learned behavioral traits?
Would that explain the more cruel aspects
Of human psyche, like evil?
Or are they just a play of the fates?

Ever asked the goodness in you, that will
The same things that drive you to love, drive you to kill
Ever asked the human within you,
Why is the morality in us so ill?

Ever wondered why questions occur so many?
Why some make sense, but most are silly?
Ever wondered the mysteries of the mind,
Why some people seem warm, and some chilly?

Do you ever find yourself so lost in thought,
That you don't see what is before you, and what is not?
Do you ever ponder the meaning of words
That lose their meaning when sought?

I wonder all these and more,
Yet they remain unanswered and sore...
The one answer I so desperately seek is
What lies at the core of my core?

What teaches me about joy, pain, love and hate?
Do I really do what I do, or has it been determined before date?
What, then, is the purpose of my existence,
If I resign myself to fate...?

If I resign myself to fate...
If I resign myself to fate...

Antimatter as an Energy Source

Mangesh S. and Atharv Joshi

Artist rendition of Antimatter Rocket.

One may no doubt be aware of the existence of 'Antimatter'. This topic was addressed for the general public in the science-fiction novel 'Angels and Demons', written by Dan Brown. The entire story revolves around this particular form of matter, and the potential it has for energy.

Cover of First Edition of 'Angels and Demons'

What exactly is antimatter?

The Universe is believed to have three symmetries, the Charge, Parity and Time symmetry. Antimatter is just the symmetrical twin of matter. It is opposite in charge (for example, an anti-electron will have a positive charge, instead of negative), parity (it will have the opposite spin; if the electron has a spin of +1/2, the anti-electron will have a -1/2 spin), and time (an anti-electron is theorised to be an electron moving back in time). Now, the funny thing is, all three properties would have to be flipped to get a stable universe. Flipping any one property will result in an unstable universe. Thus, the properties of antimatter cause it to be the exact opposite of matter. This is very important, as you will see later on.

The physicist, Paul M. Dirac, in 1928, while solving the Schrodinger wave equation relativistically, he found in them a slight inconsistency. He discovered that E=±mc², not just the positive value of it. This implied the existence of energy 'pockets', that contained matter with opposite properties to that of normal matter.

The existence of antimatter was discovered by Carl Anderson in 1938, using a cloud chamber, which we have constructed. The first antiparticle ever discovered was the positron (a contraction of positive-electron) or the anti-electron. Weirdly enough, an anti-electron can be thought of a reverse charged and reverse-spin electron going back in time!

First ever positron photograph of positron taken in cloud chamber.

The term antimatter was first used by Arthur Schuster in two rather whimsical letters to Nature in 1898, in which he coined the term. He hypothesized antiatoms, as well as whole antimatter solar systems, and discussed the possibility of matter and antimatter annihilating each other. Schuster's ideas were not a serious theoretical proposal, merely speculation, and like the previous ideas, differed from the modern concept of antimatter in that it possessed negative gravity.

Almost all matter observable from the Earth seems to be made of matter rather than antimatter. If antimatter-dominated regions of space existed, the gamma rays produced in annihilation reactions along the boundary between matter and antimatter regions would be detectable. Since this is an occurrence that is not observed, save along the event horizons of super-massive black holes, we can safely assume that there are very few such regions of antimatter dominated space, all beyond 13.7 billions light years away (this is because 13.7 billion years is the estimated age of the universe, and any light has to travel that distance or less to reach us).

What is a Cloud Chamber? How does it work?

A cloud chamber is a device, invented by Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, used to observe trails of ionic particles that are usually too small to be seen with the naked eye. It consists of a sealed environment, containing supersaturated vapours of alcohol or water, as clouds.

The cloud chamber constructed by us is a small 20x20x15 acrylic box. Using felt as the source of the alcohol (ethyl alcohol, 99.9%), and dry ice at the bottom of the box to achieve the required temperature, we succeeded in causing the alcohol to supersaturate in the air between the walls of the box.

Now, what happens is, when any alcohol is in supersaturated state, between liquid and vapor phase, it is in unsteady equilibrium. When ionic particles such as electrons, or positrons (beta particles), or alpha particles (positively charged nucleons) pass through the vapours, they rip the electrons from the atoms in the vapour, causing the equilibrium to collapse, causing the vapour to condense on the ions. This creates a trail through the air large enough to be observed by the naked eye.

Ionic trails visible inside a cloud chamber.

The Sodium-22 radionuclide, the isotope used in this experiment, is a natural emitter of positrons. It is a radioactive element, with a half-life of 2.7 years. It undergoes Beta decay in two forms, the β^- (electron capture) 7.2% of the time; and the β⁺ (positron emission) 92.8% of the time.

In the β⁺ decay, ²²Na decays into ²²Ne in the presence of 1.275 MeV (Mega electron Volts) of energy, along with a positron and a neutrino. This then further degrades into ²²Ne (ground state)* Ƴ 1.275 MeV. This is more than sufficient to meet the excitation energy of positrons at 1.022 MeV (2*0.511 MeV), thus sustaining the reaction.


The emitted particles can then be detected inside the cloud chamber as described. Other isotopes that naturally undergo β⁺ decay are ¹¹C, ⁴⁰K,  ¹³N, ¹⁵O, ¹⁸F, and ¹²¹I


Is antimatter currently used?


Yep. The Positron emission tomography (PET) scans use positrons to produce a three-dimensional image of functional processes in the body. Positrons are introduce to the body, and the system detects the gamma radiation emitted. It maps the overall functions in three dimensions.

PET device.

Further more, it could be used as a power source. As you can see, in antimatter and matter reactions, almost 100% of the rest mass gets converted into energy. That means a near 100% fuel efficiency is offered by antimatter. Among commercially available vehicular fuels, LNG (liquefied natural gas) has the highest fuel efficiency with 55 MJ/kg (5.5*10⁷  J), or a 6*10^-8% (0.00000006%) efficiency, as opposed to matter-antimatter reactions giving out, on average, 8.5*10¹⁶ J/kg (85 PetaJoules/kg). In other words, antimatter-matter reactions have a 95% efficient energy mass conversion (some energy is lost as neutrinos in proton-anti-proton reactions, so this is an average). Mind-boggling, isn't it?! 


1 kg of matter reacting with 1 kg of antimatter would produce 1.7*10¹⁷ J of energy. This is 70% of the energy released in the Tsar bomb, the worlds largest nuclear bomb explosion, equal to 40.63 megatons of TNT. It is within one order of magnitude of the energy used in the United states in one whole year. And that's just one kg of antimatter! One single gram of antimatter could make a car run for 100,000 years without a break.


While electron/positron reactions result in gamma ray photons, in reactions between protons and antiprotons their energy is converted into relativistic neutral and charged pions, and while the neutral pions decay into high-energy photons, the charged pions decay into a combination of neutrinos (carrying about 22% of the energy of the charged pions) and unstable charged muons (carrying about 78% of the charged pion energy), with the muons then decaying into a combination of electrons, positrons and neutrinos (the neutrinos from this decay carry about 2/3 of the energy of the muons, meaning that from the original charged pions, the total fraction of their energy converted to neutrinos by one route or another would be about 0.22 + (2/3)*0.78 = 0.74). Gamma radiation can be largely absorbed, although some is lost. Neutrinos very rarely interact with any form of matter, so for all intents and purposes, the energy converted into neutrinos can be considered to be lost.

So, ultimately, CAN antimatter be used as fuel?

At the present levels of technology, no. Antimatter takes enormous amounts of energy to be generated, far more than they would give out, in particle accelerate. However, do not abandon hope yet! There are several alternative sources that may be considered.

• We could use naturally occurring isotopes, such as the Sodium-22 radionuclide. Others are also listed above. These could be harvested in a vacuum environment. If not naturally abundant, they could be synthesised by decaying higher elements into them, or even bombarding the stable, common isotopes with neutrons. Synthesis by bombardment requires far less energy than accelerating protons and electrons in an accelerator, colliding them, generating antimatter and storing it. 
• Antiparticles are created everywhere in the universe where high-energy particle collisions take place. High-energy cosmic rays impacting Earth's atmosphere (or any other matter in the solar system) produce minute quantities of antiparticles in the resulting particle jets, which are immediately annihilated by contact with nearby matter. They may similarly be produced in regions like the center of the Milky Way and other galaxies, where very energetic celestial events occur (principally the interaction of relativistic jets with the interstellar medium). The presence of the resulting antimatter is detectable by the two gamma rays produced every time positrons annihilate with nearby matter. The frequency and wavelength of the gamma rays indicate that each carries 511 keV of energy (i.e., the rest mass of an electron multiplied by c²).  About a kilogram of antiprotons enters our Solar System every second, but only a few grams reach the vicinity of the Earth in a year. That would seem to make collecting naturally produced antimatter impossible save for one thing. Planets with strong magnetic fields create properties in nearby space that can create much larger fluxes as the particles interact with both the magnetic field and the atmosphere.

"In comparison to artificial production, natural sources of antimatter are plentiful and relatively easy to exploit for benefit. A natural antiproton radiation belt is generated in a manner analogous to the traditional Van Allen radiation belts, which surround the Earth. The high-energy portion (E>30 MeV) of the proton belt is primarily formed by the decay of neutrons in the Earth’s magnetosphere. The CR flux interacts with the planet’s upper atmosphere to release free neutrons with a half-life of just over 10 minutes. A fraction of these neutrons travel back into space (albedo) and decay into a proton, electron, and an anti-neutrino while still within the influence of the magnetosphere.  The magnetic field of the planet forms a ‘bottle’ that can hold the protons and electrons formed during the decay process. The Lorentz force causes the particles to spiral along the magnetic field lines in a slow drift around the planet. And the process is self-replenishing: As particles are lost through diffusion, new ones are generated so that the supply is relatively static. Basically, the same forces responsible for pair production (baryogenesis), creating the antimatter, also keep the generation system in equilibrium.

The interaction of cosmic radiation with the upper atmosphere also produces antiparticles from pair production… The produced antineutrons follow a trajectory primarily along the path of the original cosmic ray, but can be backscattered after interacting with the atmosphere. These albedo antineutrons decay in a manner similar to the regular neutrons. However, the antineutron will decay into a positron, antiproton, and neutrino and therefore acts as a source for the antiparticle radiation belts surrounding the Earth. The physics that govern the trapping and motion are identical between the particle and its antiparticle with the exception that the two will spiral and drift in opposing directions due to their opposing electric charges."

 James Bickford, of NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts, on baryogenesis near Earth, quoted and slightly abridged.

 Judging by the size of the magnetic field, and hence, the girth of the planet, one might reach the conclusion that Jupiter would be the mother lode of antimatter production. But the magnetic field of this gigantoid actually shields Jupiter's atmosphere from the cosmic ray production process. A better production would be achieved on Saturn, where a larger magnetic flux reaches the atmosphere, and the antineutrons that are copiously generated do not have to be backscattered to yield stable trapping.

Even more surprisingly, the highest flux is actually found around Earth where the relatively slow radial transport in the magnetosphere produces long residence times, which allow the antiproton trap to fill over a period of years.” So Earth’s radiation belts give us our most intense localized source of antiprotons, while the greatest total supply of antiprotons is the magnetosphere of Saturn. In fact, reactions in Saturn’s rings inject almost 250 micrograms per year into the planet’s magnetosphere.

If Bickford is right, available antiproton supplies in our Solar System are sufficient to power the nanogram to microgram-level missions, such as the Antimatter Catalyzed Microfission/Fusion (ACMF) mission designed at Penn State and the ‘antimatter sail’ concept Steven Howe developed for NIAC.

• The Casimir effect could be exploited to generate antimatter. According to this effect, even 'empty' space is teeming with thousands of virtual particles that pop in and out of existence within a few billionths of a second. It could be possible to separate the matter-antimatter pair in this time interval by subjecting the pair to powerful magnetic fields. Being oppositely charged, they would curve in the opposing directions. The anti-particles could then be trapped and used.
• Recent observations by the European Space Agency's INTEGRAL satellite may explain the origin of a giant cloud of antimatter surrounding the galactic center. The observations show that the cloud is asymmetrical and matches the pattern of X-ray binaries (binary star systems containing black holes or neutron stars), mostly on one side of the galactic center. While the mechanism is not fully understood, it is likely to involve the production of electron–positron pairs, as ordinary matter gains tremendous energy while falling into a stellar remnant. As more information is uncovered regarding this mechanism, it is not unreasonable to assume that judicious quantities of antimatter could be harvested in laboratories.
• Anti-matter streaks have been observed during Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes. Approximately 500 TGFs occur every day. You can see more information on the following links:

1. http://spaceports.blogspot.com/2011/01/nasas-fermi-gamma-ray-space-telescope.html
2. http://thetruthbehindthescenes.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/first-direct-evidence-terrestrial-gamma-ray-flashes-create-antimatter/
3. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/fermi-thunderstorms.html

An image of a Relativistic Jet, emitted by Elliptical Galaxy M87,

 as taken by Hubble Space Telescope

As you can see, the requirements of generating and controlling antimatter reactions are beyond our technology, but not by much. Within a few decades, the power of antimatter will most certainly be in our hands.

How would usable energy be generated, exactly?

Antimatter and matter would be reacted within a controlled environment, generating energy, and then chanelling it. Two types of annihilation reactions would be considered:

1. Antiproton annihilation reactions produce charged and uncharged mesons, in addition to gamma rays. The charged mesons can be channeled by a magnetic passage, producing thrust and rotating a Faraday Dynamo. It is not perfectly efficient; energy is lost as the rest mass of the charged and uncharged mesons, lost as the kinetic energy of the uncharged mesons (which can't be deflected for thrust), and lost as gamma rays.
2. Positron annihilation has also been proposed for energy generation. Annihilation of positrons produces only gamma rays. Early proposals for this type of energy production, such as those developed by Eugen Sänger, assumed the use of some material (light sails) that could reflect gamma rays, used as a sail to derive thrust from the annihilation reaction in the chamber. However, the momentum of gamma rays can indeed be partially transferred to matter by Compton scattering (by transferring the energy of the gamma rays into electrons via inelastic collisions between the rays and electrons).

Artist rendition of a photon sail, or light sail.

The energy derived from these reactions could be used directly to turn a turbine connected to a Faraday Dynamo, or it could be used indirectly by heating a working fluid, generating steam, which would then generate usable energy.

In our Antimatter Power Plant, a steady stream of Positrons would be fed into a reaction chamber, which would be preferably located in the centre of the Power Plant. Here, it would be combined with electrons i.e. normal matter, and this would create a controlled reaction. The ions created in the reaction chamber would be sent out through a magnetic channel into the Generator stage of the Power Plant where it induces current. This AC current will then follow the normal procedure i.e. it will be fed into the Transformer to step-up the current and it will reach people’s homes via power lines.

But if antimatter is so volatile, how to store it?


Antimatter cannot be stored in any material container as it would immediately annihilate, releasing tremendous energy in the process. That makes it very difficult to contain. But since antimatter is of an ionic nature, it can be suspended inside a vacuum between the walls of a container by using adequately powerful magnetic fields.

A device known as the Penning trap has been constructed by the University of Pennsylvania. It uses the superposition of magnetic and static electric fields to trap an anti-ion between the walls of a container. To channel the antimatter into the reaction chamber from the containment  chamber, the electric field would merely have to be removed from the direction leading to the chamber (while the magnetic field would be downwards). Using electrical pulses to push the anti-ions through to the chamber, we could then react them with their normal counterparts, generating energy in the process.

For antimatter consisting of electrically neutral particles, a Magnetic Trap is used. A Magnetic moment uses a magnetic gradient to trap particles having a magnetic moment. Since all particles are intrinsically magnetic (since they are composed of charged particles, but the net charge is zero), this is very effective in storing neutral antimatter, like anti-atoms.

Magnetic trap, for holding electrically neutral anti-particles.

Other techniques are being sought for, and NASA’s work on a new technology called HiPAT (High Performance Antiproton Trap) aims at improving the situation still more through the use of strong magnetic fields and extreme cooling. Japanese researcher Masaki Hori is currently researching on a method of using radio frequency waves rather than magnetic fields to store anti-protons.

How can antimatter be used as fuel?


One of the most attractive uses of antimatter is as rocket fuel. This would enable us to reach distant star systems in a fraction of the time and costs it would take us today.  For example, Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to us, is 4.3 light years away from us. At present levels of technology, it would take 40000 years to reach it. Even after taking into consideration relativistic effects such as time dilation, it would still take 4 or 5 generations to reach there, and another 4 or 5 to come back. Antimatter jets could accelerate us to near light velocities, making the round trip in less time than the lifespan of a single human on board (maybe a couple of generation in earth time). Eventually, the earth is going to die, in a few billion years' time. More info on this here. Stellar colonisation is essential for human survival (I hope I'm not sounding pro-invasion ;) ).

A viable schematic of an antimatter rocket.

Another is as mentioned above. To meet the growing energy demand of the planet. In a non-polluting, eco-friendly way.

Any major breakthroughs\developments in this field?


Yes. Quite recently, developments have been made in the production and storage of antimatter. Scientists at C.E.R.N.'s Anti-hydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus have trapped 309 anti-hydrogen atoms for 1,000 seconds using superconducting magnets. This is an enormous improvement over the previous record: 38 anti atoms for a period of only 172 milliseconds in 2010.

The Large Hardron Collider, CERN.

These are gigantic developments causing the production costs of antimatter to drop steeply. In the foreseeable future, antimatter could be commercially produced and used to for energy generation.

So far, particle accelerators that can produce antiprotons are not specifically designed to do so, so they are quite inefficient. Such particle accelerators are designed primarily to be research tools, not factories for antimatter. That is why there is a need for building a new particle accelerator that will be specifically designed to produce copious quantities of antiprotons to drive down the cost.

Antimatter tracks (along with gamma rays and other particles) detected by LHC.

What makes antimatter so good as a fuel?


For one thing, antimatter is tremendously efficient. For another thing, it could be reacted with the wastes produced in the world. Antimatter doesn't distinguish between what kind of matter is required. We could react a kg of antimatter with one kg of garbage, giving us energy, and reducing garbage, by one kg. It will not just reduce pollution, but actually eliminate it, piece by piece!
Besides that, it does not release any polluting waste residue. Whatever by-products are formed, decay naturally into neutrinos, which are harmless.

Okay. What are the cons, or problems of this?


Some of the problems have already been cited above. The problems can be summarised as below:

1. Right now, Generation of antimatter in particle accelerators (such as LHC in CERN or Tevatron of Fermilabs) requires enormous amounts of power, and the amount of antimatter produced, or even the antimatter finally stored (which also takes up a lot of energy) gives far less energy. Thus, alternative methods are being used to obtain antimatter.
2. And as Antimatter is still being artificially generated, enough quantities are not being generated. However, in the coming years, and concerning the recent developments in the field, it won’t be long before we find a source.
3. Antimatter is also highly volatile, and would need to be used in the most careful conditions, because a slight containment breach would lead to a massive disaster (since antimatter reactions produce exponentially greater power than even a fusion reaction on that scale).
4. And there is the cost problem. Science today is limited in doing research because of cost constraints. Until a source of antimatter is found, this problem will not be resolved.

The PDF of the above can be found here.

This project was met with a lukewarm response at the National KVS Science Exhibition. But the future of this project doesn't stop at the denial of recognition by a zoo (yup; KVS is a zoo). This is a viable alternative to squeezing the planet dry of its resources. As such, it should be taken seriously by all.

Although impractical, and unfeasible at present technologies, antimatter will, hopefully, become a commercially available reality in a few decades. Soon, this will be running all our energy needs. It will boost development by a few orders of magnitude...

Happy Learning!

Things That Make You Go "Hmmm..."

I was just throwing tea leaves outside the window when an idea struck me.

If I want to measure the height of my building, I would have to only measure the time it takes for the leaves to hit the ground, and I'd know my value. But to get an accurate value for scientific accuracy, we'd have to take in many things... For human mind's sake, let me take the values upto four decimal places alone.

For example, firstly, I'd have to take into account the exact radius of the planet at the point I'm standing to derive the precise value of g. For that I'd have to take into account plate techtonics, and stuff. Going to a simpler level, I'd have to measure the time it takes for the sound to reach me as well, taking into account the speed of sound. But for that, I'd need the value of the ambient air temperature. Now, because I need this temperature, I'd have to measure the air pressure at that point as well. For the air pressure at the point, I will need the exact height of our plot from sea level.

Not only that, if I take into consideration, the air resistance, then I'll have to calculate that as well. For the air resistance, I would need to take into account several factors such as the wind direction, the humidity in the air (that would affect it's viscosity), and the surface area of the leaves themselves. Now, upon calculating that, for accuracy, I'd have to account for air pressure again. And so on.

But the value of 1 atm at sea level was derived several decades ago, since when the water levels have risen. So I'd have to measure the volume of water increased. Thus, I would need to know precisely how much ice has melted over the polar caps to get that much volume. For knowing how much ice has melted, I would need to take into account the convectional currents in our atmosphere (which, by the way is part of turbulent fluid mechanics, an impossibility at current levels of physics). For knowing the convectional currents in the atmosphere, I would have to calculate very precisely the speed of the earth's rotation about it's axis. And for calculating that, I would need to know how fast it goes about the sun (since energy has to be conserved). Then, by that logic, I would also need to know how fast the sun is revolving about it's axis.

For that, I would need to know, or calculate, how fast the stellar cloud rotated 4.5 billion years ago, for which I'd need the velocity with which the gas cloud contracted. For that velocity, I would need to know the gravitational potential of each and every particle, not to mention the electromagnetic effects in there at the time. Fast forwarding, all in all, I would need to know the exact value of the exponential constant at which the universe inflated. Which takes me right to the moment of the big bang.

And the WHOLE thing is thrown out if we take into account relativistic motion, however small, as it would, inevitably, affect the final result.

Assuming we found out ALL of these values, adding all the errors in the system would lead to a figure SO FRICKIN LARGE, that it would be mind boggling...

All in all, it's a hell lot of work to do to derive the height of my house to a hundredth of a centimeter only... It might be an interesting holiday project...

When Life Sucks...

When one is lost
In the tangles of life
Inextricably messed up
In problems and strife...

One thinks, enough,
Running out of luck
This is the time when
Life starts to suck.

Far from optimism
When all seems wrong
No pleasure in romance
No wonder in song.

No beauty in nature,
No grace in the sky
No coolness in the ocean...
And then one begins to cry.

There's no peace inside
No love in the world,
One is lost, and all alone
In the darkness unfurled.

Distrust from one's own
Stabs wounds deep in one's heart
From whence flow tears of blood,
All hope ripped apart.

When life sucks so bad
One wishes for the end
Of luck, or life, it matters not,
Because neither seems to mend.

Yet one continues to fight
Against one's inner despair.
For what, we know not
When no one seems to care.

Death would be welcome
Than living with such pain.
For what does one keep fighting,
When there's nothing left to gain...?

But when one has ambition,
Those fiery flames within,
When one is driven by passion
Burning beneath the skin...

The thoughts of others matter not,
When one's goal is their desire.
When something is worth fighting for,
What's living a while in fire...?

One does then cherish the pain,
The reminder of one's passion
When one has nothing left to lose
Where's the need for motivation?

One thinks of nothing but the goal
Giving strength to carry on,
And stop at nothing to get at it
Despair long since gone...

When one has a purpose, a goal, an aim,
Something in life to achieve,
Life then begins to seem to glow
And joy it seems to give.

Life no longer seems to suck,
As it just did before,
And when one thinks back upon those times,
They seem so long ago...

When life no longer sucks again,
The beauty of life appears.
The reason to live, to love again
Blooms beyond all the fears.

Romance seems pleasurable again,
The wonder back in song,
Optimism seems back at hand...
Now nothing seems to go wrong.

Nature's beauty, the graceful sky,
The cool ocean beckons.
One has all but forgotten away
The mind's inner demons.

Now life just looks so wonderful,
It's all in one's perception...
Did life really begin to suck,
Or was it all just a deception...? 

I Still Remember the Day I Died

I still remember the day I died
Over my corpse no body cried.
Not a whisper, not a tear shed,
Nobody ever came when I was dead.

A lone some soul, I led my life.
Everyone left me; my baby, my wife.
No one cared how I was, how I lived.
And when I died, no one grieved.

My story is sorry, my life is pain.
What would I not give to live once again?
Not much to say, as I’m already dead.
So let me narrate how my life was once led.

I grew up in the wake of an orthodox dad
Seven brothers, one sister I had.
For my mother and sister, their life was hell
No one to turn to, no one to tell.

For years this life went on and on
A females were harassed at the time I was born.
Abortion was impossible in the country back then
And my sister was born to see nothing but pain.

My mother was tortured for bringing into this world
A daughter; And for heaven’s sake, it was a girl!
She was cursed at, abused, ridiculed
The poor creature was thrown out of our world.

Then one day, our world abruptly turned.
In the usual bouts of violence, my mother was burned.
After beating her up, my father took a snatch
Doused her in petrol, and lit up the match…

Drunk as he was, he barely could think
His wife up in flames, and he sat with his drink.
We watched in horror as he gulped down the liquor
Our mother was burning, being watched by the sucker.

My sister cried for help just then
And the devil in him rose up once again.
He grabbed her by the hair, and smashed the bottle in two
I…I can’t describe what he proceeded to do…

My mother was in ashes, my sister lay bleeding
We stood by the window, hearing the faint pleading
Then slowly, her voice faded away…

I lost my mother and sister, that day.

*********************

The violence I saw took root deep within me
And defined my future, the man I would be.
Adding to my father’s legacy, a long list of crime
Killing and worse, took up a large part of my time.

Every time I took a life, there burned within me
A savage pleasure, a cruel glee.
The look in the eyes of the “Victim of The Day”
Would fill me up better than any liquor could lay.

My hunger was great, yet it grew with time
And there increased my list of crime.
The monster within me craved for ever more
I lived in the gory, my life was gore.

Yet the world chose ignorance, blind to me.
People went missing, yet it refused to see.
On the outside, I led a normal life,
And just like others, I too got a wife.

But even then, my habits lived on.
Hidden from my wife, till my baby was born
Then came the lightning, the bolt from the blue
And stirred me to my senses, which even time couldn’t do.

I came home in a stupor, a few bottles downed in me.
My wife was home, and hell- she was angry.
I lost my temper then, I forgot who she was
I snatched away the baby. Then it went for a toss.

I grabbed her by her hair, the monster within free
And as habit was always, the killer took over me…
An hour later I woke up, vague memories in my head.
Something warm and sticky touched me. I looked. My wife was dead!

I crawled over to her side, the only woman I’d ever loved.
I turned her over, through her heart the knife shoved.
That instant it hit me, the monster in me fled.
My wife, my life, my love, lay before me- dead.

For the first time I cried, I cried my eyes out.
I cried my voice hoarse, yet continued to shout.

When, I do not know, I stemmed my weeping
Got up and stumbled past the blood that was seeping.
Hazy, and shaken, I tottered to the door.
And then my heart sank right through the floor…

My baby was dead, cold and pale
My life, that instant, had turned to hell.
I killed my family… slowly it came…
The pain, the sorrow, the despair, the shame…

My mind numbed, my body paralysed
I dropped to the floor, tears streaming from my eyes
And crying, sobbing, there I lay
Next to the corpse of my daughter that day.

The next day it was out, in papers everywhere
The killer in white, now entirely laid bare.
The police arrived and dragged me away.
Forever and ever, I remember that day.

I sat there in jail, lonely for once
But money has its uses, its own allowance.
I bought my way out, with bribes very many.
But then I was free, though free without money.

But money can’t buy love, how true that saying
You just can’t get respect by buying or paying.
I went back to my home, lonely again
The monster long gone, replaced by pain.

Twelve months I lived, without meaning or reason
I cared about nothing, not time, nor season
Then at last, I couldn’t take it any more
I went to my room, and bolted the door.

An old necktie, my father’s from school
Came handy today as a useful tool
Standing on the wardrobe, I tightened the noose
I checked it again. No, it wasn’t loose.

Taking a deep breath, my last ever
I thought about my own death, something I never.
My victims’ faces swam before my eyes
I faced the fact, conscience never lies.

Gritting my teeth, I stepped to the edge
And worded my last breath into a pledge-
“This killer of many dies right here right now.
Death, I welcome you. To you I bow.”

And then I jumped off a wardrobe two metres tall
Yet death was instant, a second from my fall.
The tie snapped my neck, and I hung there.
Limp as a rag, with no one to care.

An instant of pain, and darkness thereafter
I awoke to the sound of cruel laughter...
I was dead, but then, why was I there…?
The ghost of evil, dead, yet aware.

My body was discovered only for the stench of decay
No one would cry, no one would stay.
My corpse was moved out and buried away.
And my house was closed for ever that day.

I’m cursed to remain this way forever
Remembering my sorrow, my pain, my crimes,
My wife, my daughter, my mother, my sister
My dear family was gone with the times…

So thus am I a mere memory in minds
And I’m cursed to remain forever behind blinds
How I wept and how I cried…

I still remember the day I died…

Mangesh S.

Quantum Quiz 2... for die hard physicists...

This is a VERY hard quiz for die hard quizzers set on my favourite subject, Quantum Mechanics and Relativity. This was co designed by me and Atharv Joshi




Rules


1) Googling is allowed, but the level is so tough that I doubt you'll even find the answers.


2) 10 questions


3) Answers in comments.


4) No discussing, please.




Okay?


3
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2
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1
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GO!




1) _____ is by far the most common form of cluster decay where the atom undergoing the decay emits a certain number of nucleons (in pairs of protons and neutrons), leaving behind fixed number of nucleons.


2) It is a sealed system consisting of densely saturated vapours of water or alcohol. This is used to detect subatomic ionic particle, which, when moving through the vapours, condense them, leaving behind distinct trails. Name it, and it's inventor.


3) Which theory, often called the most successful theory of quantum mechanics, incorporates the elements of BOTH relativity and quantum field theory. It describes how light and matter interact, and is the only theory in which relativity and quantum mechanics are complementing each other. Also, name at least one of it's founding fathers.
Note: It is NOT the string theory, because the string theory isn't really a physical theory, rather a mathematical one.


4) Which physicist proposed the idea that, as on earth, Universes too have 'offspring', which have variations of constants from their parent Universes. Name the physicist.


5) You can cohere two particles such that they are in phase with each other. If you separate these by a large distance, even more than a light year, if you spin one particle in one direction, the other will IMMEDIATELY spin in the opposite direction, thus transfering random information instantaneously, irrespective of the distance, breaking the light barrier also. Name the process of cohering the particles.


6) According to the C symmetry of the universe, if the charge and spin of a particle is reversed, you get a form of matter which is known as antimatter. The principle of antimatter as we know it was put forth by whom?


7) This book, mainly addresses the story of quantum mechanics, as it unfolded from the discoveries of Planck, Einstein, Bohr, Schrodinger, Heinsenberg, Pauli, Dirac and about later additions by John Bell & David bohm. It also addresses the question of the nature of reality, and also about the Einstein Bohr debates. Name the book, and it's author (who's Indian born, living in Great Britain).


8) X, known for his eponymous law partly addressing the ultraviolet catastrophe had Y as his doctoral student. Y is best known for his discovery of a subatomic particle, upon which you depend to see this quiz. Y's doctoral student Z, made an important contribution to the structure of an atom, while his student A defined it using Planck's idea of the quantum, even introducing definite paths. Name X, Y, Z and A, some of the greatest minds known to both classical and quantum physics.


9) Which mathematician, in 1854, came up with a matrix defining the mathematics of what is today known as the string theory. Einstein, who came later, stumbled upon the same aspect of physics, but he worked out the physical portion of the problem, lacking in the mathematical bit. He was introduced to the work of this person, using whose theory, he built the four dimensional design of space time. This matrix was later used to unify the theory of relativity with Maxwell's equations in the Kaluza Klein theory. And then, expanding the matrix, the string theory was born. Name this person.


10) This Indian physicist has made important contributions to the string theory, and to thermodynamics, including the concept of entropy. Having done his PhD at Stony Brook University, he went on to work at Fermilabs and SLAC. AS of now, he works at the Harishchandra Research institute. Identify him.


Bonus Question for timepass:
"X, best known for his work, devising new theories on the cooking time of goose eggs, the braking speed of the Ford Cortina in an oil slick and the natural propensity for objects, when released in midair, to hit the ground, was also responsible for the propagation throughout the physics world of theories designed to anger fellow physicists. The 'Malicious Theories' are seen by some as aberrations, by some others as 'Easter Eggs' in his otherwise dull work."
The above is a description by the parody website Uncyclopedia of whom? PS, when you're done, you can have a laugh... XD


I don't really expect anyone to answer all the questions, but here's an idea of what to expect

8-10 > You really know your Physics, and are an upcoming scientist. Hats off.
5-7 > Excellent. You have a really vast knowledge of physics. Keep it up.
3-4 > Very good. You've got amazing knowledge.
1-2 > Good. You have read up on this. Keep working.
0 > Never mind. This quiz WAS very hard.

If you get all 10,  you're me!!! 

PS: All the above questions are based on what I have read, so I've not picked stuff out of the blue here. If you've read the books I've read, you'll hack this.

Cheers!!!


I'll put up the names of those who get it.

The World's Greatest Woman

There is one woman
Who's been there for me
Since before I came into
This world to see.

She held me within her
Nourishing, nurturing, growing
For forty weeks, I was protected
Within her womb, not knowing.

The pain she bore to see me through
And open my eyes to the world.
And visualise for the very first time
The colours of the world unfurled.

She saw me through my ages
She taught me with great skill
She held my hand while I walked
And fulfilled my every will.

She taught me my first words
And number, oh so many
She cultivated in me an intuition
So accurate, so uncanny.

She bore with my silly tantrums
Through my teenage years
She wiped away with a loving finger
All my disappointed tears.

She tutored me with patience
So great, as yet I still wonder.
She strove so hard, and washed away
Every naively committed blunder.

She raised me with such hardship
Yet she gave me so willingly away
To my husband with such a sacrifice
With tears on my wedding day.

She stood besides my bed
In the hospital in which I lay.
Screaming in excruciating agony
Gentle yet firm her hand would stay.

And then she took into her stride
My little one, my child
Whilst I was away at work all day
And raised it up so mild.

She was always there by my side
When I needed her, or not.
Yet I never really said thank you
Althought it was always in my thoughts.

And now it is far too late
I stood with tears down my cheeks.
While she lay in a hospital bed
For perhaps her final weeks.

Then she turned towards me and spoke
With an obvious great effort.
She said, 'Don't cry, my dear child,
I cannot bear to see you hurt.'

And then I took her into my arms
And whispered at last that day
'Thank you so much, I love you, ma.'
Then, smiling, my mother passed away.

Mangesh Sonawane

When the sun will finally die...

Stars do not live forever. They live for billions of years, but not forever. The sun, too, is a star, and will eventually die.

Let us look at the Sun's resume. It is a middle aged star, at 4.5 billion years, and has 5 billion years more to live. It is a type G, yellow star, second or third generation, head of the Solar family. It is located in the Orion Arm of the Milky way galaxy.

How will the Sun die?

The sun is small, and will one day burn out all it's hydrogen supply. In the process of fusion, hydrogen is converted in to the heavier helium, and the extra proton mass is released as energy. Hydrogen, being lighter than helium, will rise to the outer layers, while helium will sink towards the centre. Eventually, the sun will run out of it's hydrogen, and start burning helium. When that ends as well, the outer layers will expand, and cool in the process. The star will become what is known as a Red Giant star. When the core collapses under it's own gravity, the outer layers and most of its mass will be shed in a beautiful display called a Planetary Nebula. The core will compress the helium at the center, and it will fuse to form carbon, which releases energy. At this stage, the star is a white dwarf. It is extremely dense, and slowly burns of its fuel, until it will slowly become a hunk of black nuclear matter floating in space.

This explanation can be better explained in a much more concise manner at

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/sun/sundeath.shtml

Death of a Black Hole

This is a very Frequently asked question...

How do black holes die?

Well, some people think they last forever, and they're very nearly right. Black holes do die, but it is on a timescale of billions of years. No one has ever seen a black hole actually die, but astrophysics Stephen Hawking has proposed a theory about black hole death.

Black holes aren't black at all. In fact, they constantly emit radiation in the form of small virtual particles that are born in pairs out of photons, i.e. particles and antiparticles. At the event horizon, there is a sort of gravity well, which seperates the innards of the black hole from the outside. At this point, the energy is sufficient enough for the photons, or energy packet (also called quanta) to 'condense' into matter. Since the law of conservation of mass and energy is maintained, the particles have to be each others' anti selves.

Mostly, these particles do not last more than a few millionths of a second, quickly annihilating each other to form photons again. This is the actual Hawking radiation, the emission of photons by such a physical reaction. Unfortunately, this radiation is much too faint to be detected by even the most powerful telescope on earth.

But sometimes, it doesn't work out so well for the particle. They do not get to meet with their other halves. The anti particle gets whisked away beyond the event horizon, falling down the intense gravity into the object's core. The other particle is left partner less, and wanders off alone. Since it has a positive mass, it has a positive momentum and it can escape the gravitational field of the black hole (mind you, the event horizon is the point of no return. Anything outside that can and will escape).

The antiparticle goes and annihilates with a positive particle at the black hole's core, thereby reducing the mass of the black hole by one particle.

So what happens then?

Billions of years later, the mass of the black hole drops sufficiently to fall beneath the Chandrasekhar limit of 1.44 Solar Masses. At this stage, Pauli's exclusion principle kicks in. The particles, that have been oppressed and crushed into this tiny little space for billions of years by their own gravity, explode outwards violently. The energy released in this explosion is phenomenal. It could blow away half of the galaxy in which the black hole resides. Let's just say that if the Black hole at the centre of a galaxy a few billion light years away exploded by this method, when the light eventually reached us, it would make our nights as bright as day. That is the awesome power of an exploding black hole.

Will we be able to see one any time soon?

No. Like I said, black holes don't live forever, but they come very very close. If the theory is correct (and so far, it has never been disproved, and all evidence seems to back it), it'll be a few billion years (few hundred billion years, actually) before one does die. And even then, depending on its distance from us, it'll take even longer for the light to reach us. But, as you know, Earth isn't gonna last more than 5 billion more years, thanks to our daddy, the Sun. It's gonna become an old star, expand its size till it engulfs all four terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) before shrinking into a tiny white dwarf that will eventually cool off to become a hunk of helium floating in space.

More on this cheerful topic of the Earth getting fried next time... Tune in to Young-Geniuses.

Big Bang continued...

Another reason why the Big Bang is a plausible theory is according to the CMB radiation observed by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson in 1964, for which they rightfully deserved the Nobel Prize in 1978.

With a traditional optical telescope, the space between stars and galaxies (the background) is completely dark. But a sufficiently sensitive radio telescope shows a faint background glow, almost exactly the same in all directions, that is not associated with any star, galaxy, or other object. This glow is strongest in the microwave region of the radio spectrum. At first, Penzias and Wilson thought it was an error, and even cleaned up the telescope of pigeon droppings. But then, when the glow persisted, they realised that it had to come from the Universe itself, and was almost exactly the same on all sides.

What is CMB radiation?

CMB radiation stands for Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. It is the after glow of the Big Bang, the residual energy that was released during the moment of creation.

But how is this related to the Big Bang?

The Universe is vast, far greater than what we can observe with even the most sensitive, powerful telescopes. The CMB radiation observed is almost equal from all sides. That means that the residual energy is more or less evenly spread out all over. But since nothing can travel faster than light, that means heat can't either. This implies that if the Universe was always this big, then the heat wouldn't have enough time to radiate in all directions equally, leading to HUGE holes in the detected radiation.But it is all even. That means that at some point of time in the past, the Universe was relatively close together, close enough for the heat to flow even to all points.We know the state of the Universe today, and we can calculate the distance the Universe must have had to have the heat flow evenly. Joining these two 'points', we can say with enough evidence that at some point of time, or the zero time, as physicists refer to it, the Universe was compressed into a zero space (not exactly zero, but the nearest possible). This then exploded, or expanded, or inflated, whichever you prefer, into the Universe we know today.

That, my dear friends, is the Big Bang.