Friday, June 4, 2010

Scientific morality

Modern critics suggest that Scientists should take moral responsibility for their own advances in science. This corresponds with a perceived inability for moral values to keep pace with scientific progress, cloning being a prime example.
For discussion:
1) At what point is a scientist responsible for his discoveries. In theory the first major step towards the nuclear bomb was Rutherford’s nuclear theory, is he responsible for the ensuing arms race? in a science based on incremental steps, who, if anyone is responsible for scientific progress.
2) If Science is responsible for moral values associated with scientific progress, should politicians be allowed to play with scientific advances through legislation and funding?
3) If a scientific area is found to be morally objectionable by one society, are it better for that society to make the greatest advances in that science so as to control its direction rather than banning it and allowing a society without such objections to move ahead without such restraints.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

The importance of the first voice

She did her best to push everything out of her mind, choosing instead to focus by losing herself in the mere act of jogging. The utter repitition of picking up her feet and putting them back down again, one at a time, over and over, the scenery changing both suddenly and gradually, looking up and realizing over ragged breath that she'd come nearly two miles was therapy in and of itself. And to think that people pay for doctors, she laughed as she took and kicked forward again, her mind drifting away from running and where she was until reality jammed its way back into her life, jammed itself right and square and undeniable as before her she saw

My visit to IIT madras

I visited IIT madras during their Open House 2008 and saw a whole new world. I got to touch an army tank, photograph the Renault F1, heard about wind energy generation, rocket launching, saw how tidal waves are simulated and how a power steering works. I got to travel in the GPS enabled IIT bus and was also lucky to see a black buck. The students of the CS department fascinated me and my brother with their Robots. They taught us how to make Robots from broken toys and cars. I bought a T-shirt, designed by the CS students, as a memento.The T-shirt read "The end is near January 19, 2008 03:14:07 GMT". Well it was not about the world coming to an end, like I thought initially, but the end of all computers based on 32 'bit' architecture.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Back to the Past

From this Einstein proved that space and time are two aspects of the same thing and that matter and energy are also two aspects of the same thing. From the second of these concepts we get the most famous equation in physics

E = mc2

Now since time and space are aspects of space-time and we wish to travel through time and not build atom bombs we will leave E=mc^2 for the moment. To illustrate this, look at the extension of Pythagorean theorem for the distance, d, between two points in space:

d2 = x2 + y2 + z2

Where x, y and z are the lengths, or more correctly the difference in the co-ordinates, in each of the three spatial directions. This distance remains constant for fixed displacements of the origin.

In Einstein's relativity the same equation is modified to remain constant with respect to displacement (and rotation), but not with respect to motion. For a moving object, at least one length from which the distance, d, is calculated is contracted relative to a stationary observer. The equation now becomes:

d2 = x2 + y2 + z2 (1-v2/c2)1/2

And this infers that the distances all shrink as one moves faster, so does this mean there are no constant distances left in the universe? The answer is that there are because of Einstein's revolutionary concept of space-time where time is distance and distances are time! So now

s2 = x2 + y2 + z2 - ct2

And this new distance s (remember s stands for Space-time) does indeed remain constant for all who are in relative motion. This distance is said to be a Lorentz transformation invariant and has the same value for all inertial observers. Since the equation mixes time and space up we have to think always in terms of this new concept: space-time! This means that time is not constant and that by simply increasing the velocity (to close to the speed of light for it to have an affect) significant time dilation effects can

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Resource for Contact Lens

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