Indian Spacecraft to Moon The Chandrayan - 1

28 October, 2008

Indian Spacecraft to Moon The Chandrayan - 1

India's historic maiden mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-I, launched early on Wednesday (today)22nd October 2008 morning at 6.22 am from the mission control room at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh State, India. Exactly after 19 minutes of its take off from the second launch pad at SHAR, the spaceship separated from the launch vehicle, PSLV-C11, and was successfully placed in its orbit.
Chandrayaan-1 is a scientific investigation – by spacecraft – of the Moon.The name Chandrayaan means 'Chandra- Moon , Yaan-vehicle', –in Indian languages (Sanskrit and Hindi) , – the lunar spacecraft. Chandrayaan-1 is the first Indian planetary science and exploration mission.

The spacecraft bus is roughly a 1.5 meter cube with a dry weight of 523 kg. It is based on the Kalpansat meteorological satellite. It will also carry a 30 kg probe designed to be released from the spacecraft and penetrate the lunar surface
India’s first spacecraft will orbit the moon and survey its surface with high resolution equipment to produce a complete map of its chemical characteristics and its three dimensional topography. This is also expected to help find answers to questions about the moon’s origin.
This mission is aimed at high-resolution remote sensing of the moon in visible, near infrared(NIR), low energy X-rays and high-energy X-ray regions.
Specifically the objectives will be:
§ To prepare a three-dimensional atlas (with a high spatial and altitude resolution of 5-10m) of both near and far side of the moon.
§ To conduct chemical and mineralogical mapping of the entire lunar surface for distribution of elements such as Magnesium, Aluminum, Silicon, Calcium, Iron and
Titanium with a spatial resolution of about 25 km and high atomic number elements such as Radon, Uranium & Thorium with a spatial resolution of about 20 km.

This will be really a proud moment for ALL INDIAN when Chandrayaan-1 is successfully launched today.
For ISRO and knowing the efforts that have been put into this project, there is no doubt in my mind that it will be a grand success.

You may send all of your wishes for Chandrayaan-1 to be a grand success to moon@isro.gov.in

The Chandrayaan mission took its first tentative steps towards successful execution with a picture-perfect launch early this morning. The PSLV C-11 lifted off at 6:22 AM sharp, carrying the historic payload along. Although the launch was not clearly visible due to cloud cover, all parameters were normal from the word go.
At this moment, the PSLV has successfully injected the Chandrayaan into an elliptical orbit around Earth. From here, the probe will shift to a 'transfer orbit' and will eventually be captured by the moon's gravity field via a final thrust towards our celestial neighbour. Although the mission is far from complete, the textbook launch has boosted confidence and everyone is looking forward to a successful completion.


Chandrayaan-1's path to the moon:


Along with the scientifc instruments, the Chandrayaan also carries a symbolic Indian flag which is expected to detach from the craft and land on the moon.
At the post-launch press brief, the people behind the launch could not contain their excitement -- there were smiles and giggles all around. The scientists termed today's launch as a red letter day in the history of modern India. G Madhavan Nair, the Chairman of the ISRO quipped that "...it is a historic moment as far as India is concerned.. we have begun our journey to the moon".
The Chandrayaan will take approximately 15 days to reach its intended lunar orbit where it will remain -- continuously mapping the lunar surface and sending back valuable data. It also carries with it, as many as 11 scientific instruments provided by various other space organizations, including 6 from India alone.
Everyone waits with bated breath for the moment when the Chandrayaan launch mission reaches its final stages with its placement into the lunar orbit; a few hours from now.


The focus now shifts tothe ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (Istrac) at Peenya in Bangalore City, India which will be the country's nerve-centre for tracking and controlling Chandrayaan-I for the next two years.
Peenya will receive the first signals from the spacecraft, when the fourth stage of the rocket separates and injects the spacecraft into Earth's orbit. From the 17th minute to the very last day of the spacecraft's life - two years from now.
The Deep Space Network (DSN) at Byalalu will join ISTRAC in tracking the spacecraft six hours after take-off. Both DSN and ISTRAC will act as back-up stations for each other, with ISTRAC concentrating on the data flow from the spacecraft, and DSN helping in reception of the radio signals owing to its powerful 32-metre antenna. But ISTRAC will be the primary agency tracking the craft.
The control centre at ISTRAC has about 350 people monitoring the health of Indian satellites. While there are groups designated for specific satellites, any member from any group could be called upon to help with Chandrayaan.

Chandrayaan, weighing about 1400-kg, is shaped like a cuboid with a solar panel projecting from one of its sides. The spacecraft carries 11 payloads and aims to achieve its primary objectives of expanding scientific knowledge of the moon, upgrading India’s technological capability and providing challenging opportunities for planetary research.
" India started our journey to the moon and the first leg has gone very well....

Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman G Madhavan Nair described the successful launch as a historic moment in India's space programme.
"The launch was perfect and precise. The satellite has been placed in the earth orbit. With this, we have completed the first leg of the mission and it will take 15 days to reach the lunar orbit," Nair announced in the mission control centre shortly after PSLV-C11 put the spacecraft in a transfer orbit.
After circling the earth in its highly elliptical Transfer Orbit for a while, Chandrayaan-1 would be taken into more elliptical orbits by repeated firing of the spacecraft's Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) at opportune moments.
Subsequently, the LAM would be again fired to take the spacecraft to the vicinity of the moon by following a Lunar Transfer Trajectory (LTT) path, whose apogee lies at 3,87,000 km.
Later, when Chandrayaan-1 reaches the vicinity of the moon, its LAM would be fired again so as to slow down the spacecraft sufficiently to enable the gravity of the moon to capture it into an elliptical orbit. The next step would be to reduce the height of the spacecraft orbit around the moon in various steps.
After some more procedures, Chandrayaan-1's orbit would be finally lowered to its intended 100 km height from the lunar surface, which was expected to take place around November 8.
Later, the Moon Impact Probe would be ejected from Chandrayaan-1 in a chosen area following which the cameras and other payloads would be turned on and thoroughly tested, marking the operational phase of the mission.

ANTI GRAVITY INVENTIONS

10 October, 2008

ANTI GRAVITY INVENTIONS OVER PAST 100 YEARS

Here is a list of the most prominent and successful anti gravity inventors of the past 100 years or so. Each of these inventors has built and successfully tested their anti gravity machines. If you are wondering why anti gravity technology is not currently in use today, the main reason is that no one could duplicate the machines of these brilliant inventors. However many people are currently working on duplicating the inventions of these inventors.
Each link below brings you to a very in depth look (which includes pictures) of all of the inventor's inventions that deal with anti gravity.

John Worrell Keely

-Successfully rendered objects weighing up to 500 pounds absolutely weightless. He is our favorite anti gravity inventor, due to his immense success with his amazing anti gravity technologies.
John Hutchison

- Succesfully rendered objects weightless using sound and high frequencies.
Edward Leedskalnin

-Successfully moved Extremely heavy stone sculptures without the use of heavy machinery. He did so with his own anti gravity technology. He claimed that he knew how the Ancient Egyptians built the pyramids.
Viktor Schauberger

-Successfully built machines which copy nature's motion. His devices produced "anti gravity lift". This propulsion lift can be used to either lift vertically or forwards of backwards if applied properly. His machines were very powerful.
T. Townsend Brown

-Successfully built an electrogravitic propulsion device.

IN BRIEF :

John Worrell Keely-Accomplished Anti Gravity Inventor-His inventions and biography

John Keely was probably the best inventor of all times in my opinion. Nikola Tesla was probably second to John in my view. John Keely got to the very heart of how things work. He understood the nature of vibration. All things vibrate whether it be a rock, a mirror, a person, or a musical chord. He understood how to manipulate objects via their vibratory rates. He did this through sympathetic vibration, he also did other amazing things too which didn't only employ sympathetic vibration.
John Worrell Keely was born September 3, 1837. He later died in November 18, 1898. He was quite literally a genius.
Here is another picture of John Keely, in this picture you see him alongside one of his inventions called the Musical Dynasphere.
And now I present to you some of the most amazing anti-gravity inventions ever made by John Worrell Keely.
This is a picture of a glass cylinder filled with water in which is placed a weight. John attached a wire to the cylinder which is also attached to a small sphere and a string musical instrument. When John would strike the zither string the weight would lose it's weight and it would float up to the top. He could also make the heavy object regain it's weight, he therefore had complete control of the weight within the glass container.
So how exactly did this device work? Well the wire which went from the musical instrument to the glass cylinder actually changed the vibratory rate of the weight within the water. When the zither string was struck it would send a vibration through the wire to the inside of the cylinder. John Keely has said repeatedly in his writings that every object has a mass chord. Or a vibration if you will that is unique to each object. He thereby negated some of the vibrations in the weight that made the weight heavy. He did this through sympathetic vibrations. The sound from the musical instrument made the wire vibrate which in turn struck a chord with the weight. John knew how to affect the weight of an object by simply striking the right notes on the instrument.
John Keely also did the same type of experiment but with different machinery, hence the Liberator.
Here is a picture of another one of his successful machines. The Liberator. The Liberator when activated could render heavy objects absolutely weightless. As you can see in this picture there is a heavy weight. John could make this weight weightless simply by harnessing the power of the etheric vapour which was stored and used with his liberator and other devices which were stored on his person. He did so with a series of gold, silver, copper, and platinum wires. At one time he did a demonstration for a group of people. They were amazed to see him move a 500 horsepower vibratory engine from one end of the room to the other all on his own without even scratching the floor. The people who were there knew that this was not possible without the use of a crane or derrick. Since the engine he transported across the room was so very heavy. This was only one of many anti-gravity demonstrations that he made for some priviledged few of the public.
John was quoted as saying that his Liberator machine would release an etheric vapor which he then vitalized and stored for use in the various machines that he built. This etheric vapor had immense power and was created or harnessed if you will using the Liberator. It was written in newspapers that he had harnessed a new force of nature.

John Hutchison, Anti Gravity Inventor of modern times, his inventions, and biography

Here is a picture of John Hutchison in his apartment/workshop.

Here is another picture of John, you can see a little bit more of the machinery in his workshop.

John lives in Vancouver B.C. He has done presentations for several members of the Government and many other important scientists.

The following 2 videos are from Google Video. When you click on the link it will open up a new window.
Here is a video of John Hutchison showcasing the anti gravity Hutchison Effect.
John Hutchison is a modern day genius. John is most well known for the Hutchison Effect. The Hutchison Effect is not just one effect, it is many put together.
The Hutchison Effect is what happens when John turns on some of his machinery, he creates radio wave interferences in a zone of spatial volume encompassed by high voltage sources, usually a Van de Graff generator, and two or more Tesla coils.
The effects produced include levitation of heavy objects, fusion of dissimilar materials such as metal and wood (exactly as portrayed in the movie, "The Philadelphia Experiment"), the anomalous heating of metals without burning adjacent material, spontaneous fracturing of metals (which separate by sliding in a sideways fashion), and both temporary and permanent changes in the crystalline structure and physical properties of metals. The levitation of heavy objects by the Hutchison Effect is not---repeat not---the result of simple electrostatic or electromagnetic levitation.
Claims that these forces alone can explain the phenomenon are patently ridiculous, and easily disproved by merely trying to use such methods to duplicate what the Hutchison Effect has achieved, which has been well documented both on film and videotape, and has been witnessed many times by numerous credentialed scientists and engineers. Challengers should note that their apparatus must be limited to the use of 75 Watts of power from a 120 Volt AC outlet, as that is all that is used by Hutchison's apparatus to levitate a 60-pound cannon ball.
It is surmised by some researchers that what Hutchison has done is tap into the Zero Point Energy. This energy gets its name from the fact that it is evidenced by oscillations at zero degrees Kelvin, where supposedly all activity in an atom ceases. The energy is associated with the spontaneous emission and annihilation of electrons and positrons coming from what is called "the quantum vacuum." The density of the energy contained in the quantum vacuum is estimated by some at ten to the thirteenth Joules per cubic centimeter, which is reportedly sufficient to boil off the Earth's oceans in a matter of moments. Given access to such energies, it is small wonder that the Hutchison Effect produces such bizarre phenomena. At the present time, the phenomena are difficult to reproduce with any regularity. The focus for the future, then, is first to increase the frequency of occurence of the effects, then to achieve some degree of precision in their control. The work is continuing at this time. Before long, we shall see what progress can be made.
Here is the disappointing part of John Hutchison's research. Many different devices are used together to produce the anti gravity effect where objects levitate. John doesn't succeed every time to levitate objects. He has not mastered control of this phenomena. And it has been several years since he has discovered this effect. Another major roadblock to his research is that his machinery weighs several tons, and he can't move it out of his apartment. The reason why he has to move it is because when he conducts experiments it affects the neighbors in several ways. Their appliances don't work, their lights go on and off and things of that nature. So until he can move out and conduct more tests we will have to wait and see if he can master control of the Hutchison Effect.
John has also succesfully built a free energy battery. Here is a picture of it. Using this battery someone can get power for an electrical device without the use of conventional batteries, John's battery will never deplete it's energy.

Edward Leedskalnin, creator of Coral Castle, his anti gravity inventions and his biography

Edward Leedskalnin is the creator of Coral Castle. What is Coral Castle? It is a museum of sorts that has huge stone sculptures. Edward Leedskalnin laboured for over 28 years to build a monument to his lost love. He was a very compassionate man. Edward moved over 1 100 tons of stone on his own. He claimed to know how the Egyptians built the pyramids and moved the stones from place to place.

Here is a picture of Edward Leedskalnin's device that he used to move the gigantic coral stones from place to place. This apparatus uses magnets. Ed knew the secret of magnetic currents. He often said that modern science doesn't really know how magnetic currents work.

Here is another picture of one of Edward Leedskalnin's magnetic devices. This device also deals with magnets and magnetic current.

Here is a picture of the device that many people think Edward Leedskalnin used to move his stone scultpures.This device is used along with his magnetic wheel.

This is a picture of some of the stone sculptures that Ed built at Coral Castle.

Edward also wrote a book about Magnetic Current, in this book he explains in somewhat technical terms how magnet currents really work. He says that science has it all wrong. His ideas are great, I recommend this book.

The original book cover is below, notice the symbol of two curved lines, many people believe this symbol to be important in deciphering his magnetic current theories.

Viktor Schauberger, Anti gravity propulsion inventor
Viktor Schauberger was born the 30th of June 1885, he later died the 25th of September 1958. Viktor was a successful inventor and invented several inventions that used vortex like patterns that copied nature.
Viktor Schauberger was an Austrian forester who was active during the first half of the 19:th century. He had a huge beard and a friendly laughter, this he combined with an uncompromising belief in himself and his ideas. He was obstinate in combination with a choleric temper. He was a good drawer and probably a skilled craftsman. Even if Viktor was not schooled the academic way he had a deep knowledge in biology, physics and chemistry. His sense and understanding on how water flows in the nature was exceptional. From his observations he formulated his new hydrodynamic basic theory. His friends and opponents described him as highly intelligent and with this intellectual sharpness he made a deep cut in his (and ours) physical paradigm.
During World War Two, Victor Schauberger was interned in a Nazi concentration camp and was forced to work on a flying disk project using his ideas. It is not known if the project was completed, or, if the saucers actually flew in Germany. Reports vary, and no confirmed documentation remains. It is rather convincingly coincidental, however, that our own (US) pilots reported "strange flying disks" over Germany just prior to the War's end. After World War II, Viktor migrated to the United States on promises by various agencies (CIA) to help him develop and test his ideas. Those promises later proved to be hollow. He went to a facility in Dallas Texas, and under uncertain direction, signed over all of the rights to his inventions and patents, to, none other than the US government (Army, Navy...who knows?!). He was sent back to his home-land of Austria, only to die, broken and disillusioned five days later. It would make a great headline for the 'National Enquirer'...and unfortunately...it's TRUE!
His Inventions: The Repulsin:

An original picture-sketch of the Repulsine above : A flying model of a Schauberger Repulsine, Type A, tested in January 1940. This device has been built with copper and uses a very high speed motor for the main vortex turbine. The Repulsine Type "A" device is an Electro-Aero-Dynamic device (E.A.D.) and uses two effects :
1.) The Coanda Effect: a pure Aerodynamic effect based on the Bernoulli's principle.
2.) The Electro-Dynamic effect : The high speed vortex in the "vortex chamber" produces an electric, charged separation effect, called "the diamagnetic effect " by Schauberger. These two effects, combined, create the so-called "implosion effect".
When the main electric engine is started, the Coanda effect begins to create a differential aerodynamic pressure between the outer and the inner surface of the primary hull. At a higher speed, the vortex chamber becomes a kind of high electrostatic generator due to the air particles, in high speed motion, acting as an electrical charge transporter. The Repulsine will begin to glow due to the strong ionization effect of the air. Now, we have all the ingredients for a continuous and strong Aether Flow along the main axis from the top to the bottom of the craft...The radial air pressure required for lifting 1kg with the Coanda Effect is about 1,4 kg/cm2
Machines of Genius - The Repulsine, or "Flying Saucer" of Viktor Schauberger:
Viktor used implosion to run his devices, implosion created great power in his inventions. Also known as water-hammer or cavitation. Not very much is known about cavitation and how to apply it to inventions. Viktor however knew all too well how to use it in inventions.
When his repulsion would be in operation the turbine with the aid of implosion would create a propulsion effect which would levitate the craft into the air.
Most of the documentation you will find on Viktor Schauberger's work and inventions is almost always very technical. Experiments that you and I the struggling inventor can do to imitate his inventions are hard to come by. It would be nice if there would be some experiments we could try to see how his inventions actually work. I myself have searched through books written by him and on internet sites for actual experiments I could try to see how his inventions work. I have not found any. One of his books that does explain how he used water for anti gravity inventions is well explained for those who are not rocket scientists. It is a very good book. It explains how water really flows and how water is energized, it gives a lot of information on water flow and how he developed his anti gravity ideas from watching trout go upstream. He noticed that they jumped up over rocks and such when going upstream, he noticed a kind of anti gravity levitation when they jumped upstream. This allowed him to experiment and learn a lot about water flow. He also created several inventions for logging, his inventions for sending logs through water to designated areas were very successful. Viktor maintains that water should not flow in a straight line, water likes to flow in curves, like down a winding river, it energizes the water.
Repulsin B -To the Left is a picture of an original prototype showing the major components of the "Repulsine, type B" engine. The air, being drawn in from the top slits, is set into a spiral vortex movement. Schauberger had claimed that once the devise was set in motion, the primary motor could be switched off and the forces at work would power the generator, which was housed in a central location inside the craft.
The implosion motor uses the suction forces of implosion; there is no heat barrier and no sound barrier, because with friction almost entirely lacking, no heat is generated. The air flows through the rotating air inlets, placed in the middle, and follows the gap between the double membranes (with the wave pattern). This creates a spiral contraction of the flowing medium and creates a vacuum which increases the "pull", via implosion. The enhanced vortex turbine uses two flat membranes with concentric "rills" on it. A wave pattern has been set on the upper and on the lower membrane. The upper wave is slightly out of phase with the lower wave. This is a direct application of the "Coanda" effect. The air flow passes through small cavities where the volume sometimes is larger, and sometimes smaller, due to the difference in phase relationship between the upper and the lower membrane. When the air passes different cavities it starts to pulsate. The pulsations are directly dependant on the angular speed of the discs. This "push-pull" action creates an harmonic pulsation of energy...
The Repulsine uses the same phenomena. Cold water, drawn through a base hole, is spun in between the two wavy impellers and cools the air inside the units’ shell. As this partial vacuum draws in the air, it is spun into a cyclone by intake fins. After the air is cooled and humidified, still spinning, it is then expelled from an upper turbine, which reacts with the exiting cyclone. This centrifugal air has so much angular momentum that it is able to leave the Repulsine, even against a strong internal vacuum. That is a direct analogy to the rocking tank implosion-based water pump, described above.
The hot, rising vapor, trapped in a snail-shaped chimney, is lighter then the surrounding dry air and adds to the suction on the Repulsine's top. The upper turbine, spun by the exiting cyclones' action, directly drives the internal wavy vaporizing discs, which atomize the cold intake water. The electric motor (used for starting purposes) only has one purpose, and that is to spin up the vaporizer so that it properly atomizes the cold water from the inlet hose. The power source is implosion of hot, dry, desert air.
Remember that the power source is the Thermal difference between cold ground water and hot, dry desert air, just as is done in the implosion tank-rocking water pump from Texas. There is no mystery here. This device does nothing but convert the energy present in the combination of cold ground water with hot dry atmosphere. That is how it actually works. In many ways, it is similar to Schauberger’s water turbine, which also uses a pulsed pressure reservoir. Keep in mind that without the cold-water input, the pulsating vacuum trapped inside the Repulsine soon diminishes and stops. There is a lot of mystery behind this device.
To quote on what Schauberger said:
“ I connected the implosion motor to an outdoor water tap and it began to spin and finally took off, powered off of nothing more then ordinary, cold, tap water.”
If you look at the Repulsine, you will find a water pipe beneath, sticking out to the side. Schauberger was a master of water implosion technology. It is possible to cool air by simply pulling on a piston, but you require work to do that. At the same time, if you compressed air in a piston, it will get hot. That requires force over a distance or mechanical work to accomplish. You see; there is no gain! Simply expanding a piston and contracting it (or a vortex) accomplishes little more then creating a spring. We all know springs eventually stop bouncing. Schauberger’s expanding and contracting tornado also eventually ceases without an energy source. Recall the Hilsch-Rankine tube or Maxwell’s demon. The tube generates spiral airflow and creates hot air in the large tube and cold air -140F in the small diameter tube. In order to accomplish this, compressed air in large volumes must be used for its ability to do work. No free ride there. It is possible to make a vertical tube howl like a banshee, but the second the flame is removed from the tubes’ inside wall - the resonance stops. Again, it requires a defined energy source. That is Viktor Schauberger’s secret.
Hopefully someone will soon come along who will explain it to us in plain English how his devices work, and show us a prototype of similar design to Viktor's. If we are to combat Climate Change and natural disasters technology using Viktor's ideas would surely help us a great deal. We could also build flying crafts with his inventions. It is a pity that those who used Viktor to gain his knowledge have left nothing to the public of his inventions or more insight into his work.

Thomas Townsend Brown, Electrogavitic propulsion inventor

Thomas Townsend Brown has been flying strange metal saucer-like discs of his own secret design and make for more than 30 years - some big ones too, up to 30 inches in diameter!
Mostly, Brown has flown his discs in good old common air. The discs are tethered to a mast or pole and the thin, double-saucer-like things fly a circle around and around the mast in free flight.
Thomas Townsend Brown, (1905-1985) an American physicist, was a leader in developing theories concerning the link between electromagnetic and gravitational fields theorized by Dr. Albert Einstein. He advanced from theory to application with the development of solid and disc-shaped apparatuses which are believed to have created and utilized temporary, localized gravitational fields.
Brown's work became very controversial due to the similarity between his work and what is believed to be the propulsion method of some observed UFO's. His name is also often mentioned in the same breath as the so-called "Philadelphia Experiment," as a possible candidate along with Nikola Tesla, A.L. Kitselman and Dr. Einstein.
Defying Gravity is a biographical mystery that ponders the question “how come nobody has ever heard of T. Townsend Brown?”
Townsend Brown was a celebrated prodigy of electrical science during the 1920s, was respected as an innovative physicist throughout the mid-century, and is generally regarded as the seminal pioneer in the field of anti-gravity research and technology. So how is it that the trail of Brown’s life and work is almost impossible to trace? Why is it that every lead seems to trail off down some dark corridor of intrigue or run into a brick wall of officially “classified” material?
Townsend Brown was a teenager when he discovered a theoretical link between electricity and gravity. The concept he pioneered is, ironically, now embodied in a common household appliance that is advertised on television every day. The same principal is also secretly deployed in some of America’s most sophisticated combat aircraft.
So why is this man's life such a complete mystery?
Born in 1905 to a prominent Midwest family, Thomas Townsend Brown was expected to take the reins of the family’s diverse business interests. Like so many of his now-revered predecessors, he chose instead to explore the mysteries of a much larger universe.
Expanding on his original discoveries through more than four decades, Brown built numerous wingless devices that flew without any conventional means of propulsion – the precursors to a future generation of gravity-defying “electric spacecraft.”
The Biefeld–Brown Effect is an effect that was discovered by Thomas Townsend Brown (USA) and Dr. Paul Alfred Biefeld (Switzerland). The effect is more widely referred to as electrohydrodynamics (EHD) or sometimes electro-fluid-dynamics, a counterpart to the well-known magneto-hydrodynamics. Small models lifted by this effect are sometimes called 'lifters'.

The effect relies on corona discharge, which allows air molecules to become ionized near sharp points and edges. Usually, two electrodes are used with a high voltage between them, ranging from a few kilovolts and up to megavolt levels, where one electrode is small or sharp, and the other larger and smoother. The most effective distance between electrodes occurs at an electric field gradient of about 10 kV/cm, which is just below the nominal breakdown voltage of air between two sharp points, at a current density level usually referred to as the saturated corona current condition. This creates a high field gradient around the smaller, positively charged electrode. Around this electrode, ionisation occurs, that is, electrons are stripped off the atoms in the surrounding medium, they are literally pulled right off by the electrode's charge.
This leaves a cloud of positively charged ions in the medium, which are attracted to the negative smooth electrode, where they are neutralized again. In the process, thousands of impacts occur between these charged ions and the neutral air molecules in the air gap, causing a transfer in momentum between the two, which creates a net directional force on the electrode setup. This effect can be used for propulsion (see EHD thruster), fluid pumps and recently also in EHD cooling systems.
The effect has become something of a cause célèbre in the UFO world, where it is seen as an example of something much more exotic than electrokinetics. Charles Berlitz devoted an entire chapter of his book The Philadelphia Experiment to a retelling of Brown's early work with the effect, implying he had discovered some new electrogravity effect being used by UFOs. In fact Brown was fully aware of how the device worked, but that makes for a less interesting story. Today the Internet is filled with sites devoted to this interpretation of the effect (see below for some of the more profound sites).
An article by M. Tajmar (see below, or a summary) describes an experiment designed to test the possibility that this effect may need some other effect than ion winds for its explanation. No such effect was found, to the limit of experimental accuracy. In particular, no thrust could be observed in a vacuum.
Some people think that the Tesla coil might be related to this effect. In fact, when Tesla came to the USA he was supposedly carrying plans for a "flying machine". The only common factor between a Tesla coil and the Biefeld–Brown effect is that, in both of them, high voltage plays a vital role. High field gradients between electrode plates, can be produced by an AC circuit powered by Tesla coils.
Here are some pictures of T. Brown and his inventions. Most of his inventions utilized air molecules that become ionized and therefore charged. This creates a lift effect. Many people are working on perfecting lifters that utilize this technology. You can stay up to date on the success of lifters and anti gravity technology on the Current Anti Gravity Inventions page.

Here is a picture of a modern day lifter, the object being lifted doesn't weigh very much so it is easy to lift. Heavier lifters are being made as we speak.

TOP 10 AMAZING FACTS ABOUT EARTH

TOP 10 AMAZING FACTS ABOUT EARTH

1. Gravity is not the same over the surface of the Earth

It turns out that in some places you will feel slightly heavier than others. A low spot can be seen just off the coast of India, while a relative high occurs in the South Pacific Ocean. The cause of these irregularities is unknown since present surface features do not appear dominant. NASA's GRACE twin satellites, launched in March 2002, are making detailed measurements of Earth's gravity field which will lead to discoveries about gravity and Earth's natural systems.

2. Atmosphere 'escapes'

Due to thermal energy, some of the molecules at the outer edge of the Earth's atmosphere have their velocity increased to the point where they can escape from the planet's gravity. This results in a slow but steady leakage of the atmosphere into space. Because unfixed hydrogen has a low molecular weight, it can achieve escape velocity more readily and it leaks into outer space at a greater rate.[61] For this reason, the Earth's current environment is oxidizing, rather than reducing, with consequences for the chemical nature of life which developed on the planet. The oxygen-rich atmosphere also preserves much of the surviving hydrogen by locking it up in water molecules.

3. The Earth is slowing down

As a result of variation in gravitational forces due to the moon, the sun and other planets in the solar system, displacements of matter in different in different parts of the planets and other excitation mechanisms, the rotational speed of the Earth about it's axis varies in time. Recently, days have been getting shorter by hundredths of a second, which implies that the angular velocity of the Earth has been increasing. The factors causing this increasing in the Earth's rotational velocity have not been determined. The rotation data shows oscillations over several different timescales. The one with the largest variation is seasonal: Earth slows down in January and February.

4. Van Allen radiation belt

The Van Allen Radiation Belt is a torus of energetic charged particles (plasma) around Earth, held in place by Earth's magnetic field. Apollo astronauts who traveled to the moon spent very little time in the belts but probably have a slightly higher risk of cancer during their. NASA said that they deliberately timed Apollo launches, and used lunar transfer orbits that only skirted the edge of the belt over the equator to minimize the radiation. Besides, there have been nuclear tests in space that have caused artificial radiation belts. Starfish Prime, a high altitude nuclear test created an artificial radiation belt that damaged or destroyed as many as one third of the satellites in low earth orbit at the time.

5. Moon is moving away from Earth

The reasons why have to do with tides and conservation of energy and angular momentum. Measurements have been collected now for over 25 years, and it is clear that the Moon's orbit is slowly growing larger and that the Moon is moving away from the Earth. The net result is that the Moon is receding from the Earth at about 4 centimeters a year. However, astronomers have predicted that when the Sun enters the red giant phase in around 5 billion years - during the red giant phase of the Sun - both Earth and Moon will be affected by the Sun's extended atmosphere and will aproach again. Then the Moon will swing ever closer to Earth until it reaches a point 11,470 miles (18,470 kilometers) above our planet, a point termed the Roche limit. The result: Moon will be torn to pieces and will be scattered to form a spectacular 23,000-mile-diameter (37,000-kilometer) Saturn-like ring of debris above Earth's equator.

6. Moon has a tidal effect on the atmosphere

The Moon have a tidal effect on the atmosphere as well as the oceans. Theory predicts stronger lunar pressure oscillations in the tropics but their amplitude rarely exceeds 100 microbars or 0.01 percent of the average surface pressure. Detection of such a tiny signal masked by much larger pressure variations associated with weather phenomena required the development of special statistical techniques and the accumulation of a long series of regular observations. It is common for atmospheric waves to grow in amplitude with height as the air becomes thinner. The lunar tide, however, remains weak compared to the solar tide in the upper atmosphere.

7. The Chandler wobble

The Chandler wobble is a small variation in Earth's axis of rotation, discovered by American astronomer Seth Carlo Chandler in 1891. It amounts to 0.7 arcseconds over a period of 433 days. In other words, Earth's poles move in an irregular circle of 3 to 15 metres in diameter, in an oscillation. The cause is unknown. On 18 July 2000, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that "the principal cause of the Chandler wobble is fluctuating pressure on the bottom of the ocean, caused by temperature and salinity changes and wind-driven changes in the circulation of the oceans. However, on janauary-february 2006 scientist noticed the Chandler wobble had stopped and there was a near six week period in which a significant pause occurred. This anomaly has been of great interest in gaining a better understanding, but it is not yet known if this has or will cause any catastrophic changes in the overall rotation axis of the planet.

8. Earth electric charge

Since 1917 scientists have known that the earth's surface is charged with negative electricity, but no one knew for sure what keeps it charged. In areas of fair weather, an electric current flows between the earth and the air in a direction which would tend to dissipate the charge. It is not much of a current: only about 1,500 amperes, not much more for the entire earth than flows in a few power lines. But the electricity taken from the earth must be restored somehow or the earth's electric charge would soon drain away. An obvious guess is that thunderstorms somehow restore the lost charge, but no one had proved it. Three years ago the institution borrowed airplanes from the Air Force and began to measure electrical stirring in the still air above active thunderheads. Sure enough, the instruments showed a current moving in the opposite direction to the current in fair-weather areas. The scientists figured that all the thunderstorms going on at one time generate a net current of about 1,500 amperes, just enough to balance the drain and keep the earth's charge constant.

9. Tons of interplanetary dust reaches Earth every year

According to space.com, about 30,000 tons of interplanetary dust reaches Earth's surface every year. Most asteroids roam around the Sun in a belt between Mars and Jupiter. The fragments of their collisions, and the dust, can be drawn toward the inner solar system and sometimes approach Earth. Dust and rocks moving fast in relation to Earth frequently slam into the atmosphere and burn up, generating shooting stars. Stuff moving more slowly relative to Earth can be captured by the planet's gravity and survive the plunge.

10. Earth's magnetic poles change places

The poles on the Earth have changed places - many times! We can tell this has happened because the magnetic moment of the rocks that make up the ocean floor have an alternating direction. Which direction they exhibit depends on which way the poles were oriented when the rocks were being formed at the mid-ocean ridge. During a reversal, which can take thousands of years, the magnetic poles start to wander away from the region around the spin poles, and eventually end up switched around. Sometimes this wandering is slow and steady, and other times it occurs in several jumps.

Ten things you didn't know about Google

Ten things you didn't know about Google

1) The name Google is a spelling error. The founders of the site, Larry page and Sergey Brin, thought they were going for 'Googol.' Googol is the mathematical term for 1 followed by 100 zeros. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, Mathematics and the Imagination by Kasner and James Newman. Google's play on the term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web. Initially, Larry and Sergey Brin called their search engine BackRub, named for its analysis of the of the web's "back links." The search for a new name began in 1997, with Larry and his officemates starting a hunt for a number of possible new names for the rapidly improving search technology
2) The reason the google page is so bare is because the founder didn't know HTML and just wanted a quick interface. Due to the sparseness of the homepage, in early user tests they noted people just kept sitting staring at the screen, waiting for the rest toappear. To solve the particular problem the Google Copyright message was inserted to act as an end of page marker.
3) Google started as a research project by Larry page and Sergey Brin when they were 24 and 23 years respectively. Google's mission statement is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. The company's first office was in a garage, in Menlo Park , California . Google's first employee was Craig Silverstein, now Google's director of technology. The basis of Google's search technology is called PageRank that assigns an "importance" value to each page on the web and gives it a rank to determine how useful it is. However, that is not why it is called PageRank. It is actually named after Google co-founder Larry Page.
4) Google receives about 20 million search queries each day from every part of the world, including Antarctica and Vatican . You can have the Google homepage set up in as many as 116 different languages -- including Urdu, Latin , Cambodia , Tonga , and Yoruba. In fact, Google has the largest network of translators in the world.
5) In the earliest stage of Google, there was no submit button, rather the Enter key needed to be pressed. Google has banned computer-generated search requests, which can sop up substantial system resources and help unscrupulous marketers manipulate its search rankings.
6) The Google's free web mail service Gmail was used internally for nearly two years prior to launch to the public. The researchers found out six types of email users, and Gmail has been designed to accommodate these six. The free e-mail service recently changed its name for new UK users. Following a trademark dispute with a London-based Independent International Investment Research, the mail account has been renamed Google Mail.
7) It would take 5,707 years for a person to search Google's 3 billion pages. The Google software does it in 0.5 seconds. Google Groups comprises more than 845 million Usenet messages, which is the world's largest collection of messages or the equivalent ofmore than a terabyte of human conversation
8) The logos that appear on the Google homepage during noteworthy days and dates and important events are called Google Doodle. The company has also created an online museum where it has all the logos it has put on various occasions so far. Dennis Hwang, a Korean computer artist in the United States , is the guy behind these witty Doodles. Hwang has been drawing the face of Google for over two years.
9) You have heard of Google Earth, but not many know there is a site called Google Moon, which maps the Lunar surface. Google Moon is an extension of Google Maps and Google Earth that, courtesy of NASA imagery, enables you to surf the Moon's surface and check out the exact spots that the Apollo astronauts made their landings
10) Keyhole, the satellite imaging company that Google acquired in October 2004 was funded by CIA. Keyhole's technology runs Google's popular program Google Earth that allows users to quickly view stored satellite images from all around the world





10 Amazing Facts About Chocolate

Chocolate is made from beans derived from the cacao tree. These beans are very bitter, so the cocoa solids and the cocoa butter has sugar added to it, along with some other ingredients in order to make the chocolate that is available to the general public.Chocolate is particularly popular at certain times of the year, such as Easter, Valentines Day and Christmas. As such, chocolate shaped gifts are popular. Hearts for Valentines day and cute bunnies at Easter are two high up on the gift selection list. Here are 10 interesting facts about chocolate:
1. Chocolate is lower in caffeine than tea, coffee and coca cola. A one ounce bar of chocolate contains about 6mg of caffeine, whereas a five ounce cup of regular coffee contains over 40mg.
2. Chocolate was regarded as an aphrodisiac by Aztec Indians.
3. Chocolate contains antioxidants which may help prevent cancer and heart disease.
4. Chocolate is the favourite flavour in the United States Of America.
5. The shelf life of a bar of chocolate is approximately one year.
6. In 1842 Cadbury's in England created the worlds first chocolate bar.
7. The Swiss eat the most chocolate. The average person eats 19lbs a year.
8. Chocolate contain theobromine, which is a mild relative of caffeine and magnesium. This chemical is found in some tranquilisers. Because coffee also contains caffeine, it both picks you up and calms you down.
9. It is widely believed that chocolate consumption releases a chemical into your body very similar to what is produced when you are in love.
10. Chocolate manufacturers use 20% of the worlds peanuts and 40% of the worlds almonds.Chocolate is mildly addictive, but a bar now and again is not going to hurt. With all those great antioxidants it contains, it may even help you live longer. After all, as the saying goes, “A little of what you fancy does you good”.

Amazing facts about Human body

The Skeletal System
The largest bone is the pelvis, or hip bone. In fact it is made of six bones joined firmly together.The longest bone is the 'femur', in the thigh. It makes up almost one quarter of the body's total height.The smallest bone is the 'stirrup', deep in the ear. It is hardly larger than a grain of rice.The ears and end of the nose do not have bones inside them. Their inner supports are cartilage or 'gristle', which is lighter and more flexible than bone. This is why the nose and ears can be bent.After death, cartilage rots faster than bone. This is why the skulls of skeletons have no nose or ears.
The Muscular System
There are about 60 muscles in the face. Smiling is easier than frowning. It takes 20 muscles to smile and over 40 to frown.The longest muscle in the body is the sartorius, from the outside of the hip, down and across to the inside of the knee. It rotates the thigh outwards and bends the knee.The smallest muscle in the body is the stapedius, deep in the ear. It is only 5mm long and thinner than cotton thread. It is involved in hearing.The biggest muscle in the body is the gluteus maximus, in the buttock. It pulls the leg backwards powerfully for walking, running and climbing steps.
The Circulatory System
The heart beats around 3 billion times in the average person's life.About 2 million blood cells die in the human body every second, and the same number are born each second.Within a tiny droplet of blood, there are some 5 million red blood cells, 300,000 platelets and 10,000 white cells.It takes about 1 minute for a red blood cell to circle the whole body.Red blood cells make approximately 250,000 round trips of the body before returning to the bone marrow, where they were born, to die.Red blood cells may live for about 4 months circulating throughout the body, feeding the 60 trillion other body cells.The brain looks like a giant, wrinkled walnut.Unlike other body cells, brain cells can not regenerate. Once brain cells are damaged they are not replaced.The brain and spinal cord are surrounded and protected by cerebrospinal fluid.
The Immune System
The skin secretes antibacterial substances. These substances explain why you don't wake up in the morning with a layer of mold growing on your skin - most bacteria and spores that land on the skin die quickly.Tears and mucus contain an enzyme (lysozyme) that breaks down the cell wall of many bacteria.Lymph nodes contain filtering tissue and a large number of lymph cells. When fighting certain bacterial infections, the lymph nodes swell with bacteria and the cells fighting the bacteria, to the point where you can actually feel them. Swollen lymph nodes may therefore be a good indication that you have an infection of some sort.
The Digestive System
Adults eat about 1,100 pounds of food per year.About 3 pints of saliva are produced each day.The esophagus is approximately 10 inches long.Muscles contract in waves to move the food down the esophagus. This means that food would get to a person's stomach, even if they were standing on their head.An adult’s stomach can hold approximately 3 pints of material.Every day 3 gallons of digested food, liquids and digestive juices flow through the digestive system, but only about 3 ounces of fluid are lost in feces.In the mouth, food is either cooled or warmed to a more suitable temperature.We get two sets of teeth. Our 20 'Baby Teeth’ are replaced starting at around 6-7 years of age with our 32 ‘Adult Teeth’.
The Respiratory System
At rest, the adult body takes in and breathes out about 1.6 gallons of air each minute.The right lung is slightly larger than the left.Hairs in the nose help to clean the air we breathe as well as warming it.The highest recorded "sneeze speed" is 102 miles per hour.The surface area of the lungs is roughly the same size as a tennis court.The capillaries in the lungs would extend 1,000 miles if placed end to end.We lose half a more than two cups of water a day through breathing. This is the water vapor we see when we breathe onto glass.A person at rest usually breathes between 12 and 15 times a minute.The breathing rate is faster in children and women than in men






Strange but true facts about the Earth

In 1783 an Icelandic eruption threw up enough dust to temporarily block out the sun over Europe.
About 20 to 30 volcanoes erupt each year, mostly under the sea.
A huge underground river runs underneath the Nile, with six times more water than the river above
Lake Bosumtwi in Ghana formed in a hollow made by a meteorite.
Beaver Lake, in Yellowstone Park, USA, was artificially created by beaver damming.
Off the coast of Florida there is an underwater hotel. Guests have to dive to the entrance.
Venice in Italy is built on 118 sea islets joined by 400 bridges. It is gradually sinking into the water.
The Ancient Egyptians worshipped a sky goddess called Nut.
The world's windiest place is Commonwealth Bay, Antartica.
In 1934, a gust of wind reached 371 km/h on Mount Washington in New Hampshire, USA.
American Roy Sullivan has been struck by lighting a record seven times.
The desert baobab tree can store up to 1000 litres of water in its trunk. The oldest living tree is a California bristlecone pine name 'Methuselah'. It is about 4600 years old. The largest tree in the world is a giant sequoia growing in California. It is 84 meters tall and measures 29 meters round the trunk. The fastest growing tree is the eucalyptus. It can grow 10 meters a year.
The Antartic notothenia fish has a protein in its blood that acts like antifreeze and stops the fish freezing in icy sea.
The USA uses 29% of the world's petrol and 33% of the world's electricity.
The industrial complex of Cubatao in Brazil is known as the Valley of Death because its pollution has destroyed the trees and rivers nearby.
Tibet is the highest country in the world. Its average height above sea level is 4500 meters.
Fresh water from the River Amazon can be found up to 180 km out to sea.
The White Sea, in Russia, has the lowest temperature, only -2 degrees centigrade. The Persian Gulf is the warmest sea. In the summer its temperature reaches 35.6 degrees centigrade.
There is no land at all at the North Pole, only ice on top of sea. The Arctic Ocean has about 12 million sq km of floating ice and has the coldest winter temperature of -34 degrees centigrade.
The Antarctic ice sheet is 3-4 km thick, covers 13 million sq km and has temperatures as low as -70 degrees centigrade.
Over 4 million cars in Brazil are now running on gasohol instead of petrol. Gasohol is a fuel made from sugar cane.

its amazing ...read it

Clapping with One Hand & with both Hands separately at the same time: Navneet Singh performed my Unique Talent of Clapping with Only One Hand at the " Famous Reality Show named, SHABAASH INDIA" which is being telecast on Zee TV. I have made a Record of Clapping 284 times in Just 1 Minute with Only One Hand. The T.V. Channel have also issued a Certificate stating " Record of Clapping with Only One Hand". An article has also been published in News Paper "The Tribune" Chandigarh, about this achievement.
The US produces 25 per cent and owns 35 per cent of the world's cars. Fifty per cent of vehicle trips in the US involve only the driver.
Antarctica is COLDEST continent, averaging minus 76 degrees in the winter.
Paris, France has more dogs than people.
The heaviest apple weighed 1.849 kg (4 lb 1 oz) and was grown and picked by Chisato Iwasaki at his apple farm in Hirosaki City, Japan October 24, 2005.
The highest accepted named number in the system of successive powers of ten is the centillion, first recorded in 1852. It is the hundredth power of a million, or 1 followed by 600 noughts. The number 10100 is designated a googol. The term was suggested by the 9 year old nephew of Dr Edward Kasner (USA). Ten raised to the power of a googol is described as a googolplex. Some conception of the magnitude of such numbers can be gained when it is said that the number of electrons in some models of the observable Universe is of the order of 1087.The highest named number outside the decimal notation is the Buddhist asankhyeya, which is equal to 10140 and mentioned in Jain works of 100 BC.The highest number ever used in a mathematical proof is a bounding value published in 1977 and is known as Graham’s number. It contains bi-chromatic hypercubes and is beyond description without the special arrow notation, devised by Knuth in 1976 and then extendedto 64 layers.

Amazing Language Facts

There are more than 2,700 languages in the world. In addition, there are more than 7,000 dialects. A dialect is a regional variety of a language that has a different pronunciation, vocabulary, or meaning.The most difficult language to learn is Basque, which is spoken in northwestern Spain and southwestern France. It is not related to any other language in the world. It has an extremely complicated word structure and vocabulary.All pilots on international flights identify themselves in English.Somalia is the only African country in which the entire population speaks the same language, Somali.The language in which a government conducts business is the official language of that country.More than 1,000 different languages are spoken on the continent of Africa.Many languages in Africa include a “click” sound that is pronounced at the same time as other sounds. You must learn these languages in childhood to do it properly.

General interesting facts ...really amazing

• No piece of normal-size paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.The first product to have a bar code scanned was Wrigley's gum.
• Earth is the only planet not named after a pagan God.
• A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight.
• Every day is about 55 billionths of a second longer than the day before it
• Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
• The Himalayan gogi berry contains, weight for weight, more iron than steak, more beta carotene than carrots, more vitamin C than oranges.
• Fingerprints of koala bears are similar (in pattern, shape and size) to the fingerprints of humans
• Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.
• SCUBA divers cannot pass gas at depths of 33 feet or below
• Pele has always hated his nickname, which he says sounds like "baby-talk in Portuguese".
• As of 2006, 200 million blogs were left without updatesUrban birds have developed a short, fast "rap style" of singing, different from their rural counterparts.The lion costume in the film Wizard of Oz was made from real lions.Fathers tend to determine the height of their child, mothers their weight.The Pope's been known to wear red Prada shoes.Donald Rumsfeld was both the youngest and the oldest defense secretary in US history.Coco Chanel started the trend for sun tans in 1923 when she got accidentally burnt on a cruise.Up to 25% of hospital keyboards carry the MRSA infection.In ancient Greece, children of wealthy families were dipped in olive oil at birth to keep them hairless throughout their lives.Sex workers (Prostitutes) in Roman times charged the equivalent price of eight glasses of red wine.As of 2006, more than one in eight people in the United States show signs of addiction to the internet.More than 90% of plane crashes have survivors.The Mona Lisa used to hang on the wall of Napoleon’s bedroom.Barbie's full name is Barbie Millicent Roberts.Eating a packet of crisps a day is equivalent to drinking five liters of cooking oil a year.Plant seeds that have been stored for more than 200 years can be coaxed into new life.For every 10 successful attempts to climb Mount Everest there is one fatality. (As of 2006)Watching television can act as a natural painkiller for childrenForty-one percent of English women have punched or kicked their partners, according to a study.The more panels a football has - and therefore the more seams - the easier it is to control in the air.Music can help reduce chronic pain by more than 20% and can alleviate depression by up to 25%.The egg came first.Modern teenagers are better behaved than their counterparts of 20 years ago, showing "less problematic behavior" involving sex, drugs and drink. Britain is still paying off debts that predate the Napoleonic wars because it's cheaper to do so than buy back the bonds on which they are based. In Bhutan government policy is based on Gross National Happiness; thus most street advertising is banned, as are tobacco and plastic bags. The best-value consumer purchase in terms of the price and usage is an electric kettle.Camel's milk, which is widely drunk in Arab countries, has 10 times more iron than cow's milk.Iceland has the highest concentration of broadband users in the world.The age limit for marriage in France was, until recently, 15 for girls, but 18 for boys. The age for girls was raised to 18 in 2006.The brain is soft and gelatinous - its consistency is something between jelly and cooked pasta.The Himalayas cover one-tenth of the Earth's surface.A "lost world" exists in the Indonesian jungle that is home to dozens of hitherto unknown animal and plant species.The two most famous actors who portrayed the “Marlboro Man” in the cigarette ads died of lung cancer.
• All US Presidents have worn glasses. Some just didn't like being seen wearing them in public.
• The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. It was the fashion in Renaissance Florence to shave them off.
• Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
• The inventor of the flushing toilet was Thomas Crapper.
• The average bed is home to over 6 billion dust mites.
• The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
• The average chocolate bar has 8 insect legs in it.
• Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do. (Makes you think about ambidextrous people)
• Its impossible to smoke oneself to death with weed. You won\'t be able to retain enough motor control and consciousness to do so after such a large amount.
• Every drop of seawater contains approximately 1 billion gold atoms.
• The US national anthem actually has three verses, but everyone just knows the first one.
  During World War II, IBM built the computers the Nazis used to manage their death/concentration camps.
• The total combined weight of the worlds ant population is heavier than the weight of the human population.
• The deadliest war in history excluding World War II was a civil war in China in the 1850s in which the rebels were led by a man who thought he was the brother of Jesus Christ.
  Just about 3 people are born every second, and about 1.3333 people die every second. The result is about a 2 and 2/3 net increase of people every second. Almost 10 people more live on this Earth now, than before you finished reading this.
• Happy Birthday (the song) is copyrighted.
• The number of people alive on earth right now is higher than the number of all the people that have died. Ever.
• The doorbell was invented in 1831.
• The electric shaver was patented on November 6, 1928.
• Japan is the largest exporter of frog's legs.
• There are seven points on the Statue of Liberty's crown.
• Napoleon was terrified of cats.
• The first Lifesaver flavor was peppermint.
• The typical American eats 263 eggs a year.
• The parking meter was invented by C.C. Magee in 1935.
• The oldest known vegetable is the pea.
• Jack is the most common name in nursery rhymes.
• The avocado has the most calories of any fruit.
• The first zoo in the USA was in Philadelphia.
• France has the highest per capita consumption of cheese.
• The shortest English word that contains the letters A, B, C, D, E, and F is "feedback."
• The state of California raises the most turkeys out of all of the states.
• George Washington Carver invented peanut butter.
• Iceland was the first country to legalize abortion in 1935.
• The dumbest domesticated animal is the turkey.
• Russia has the most movie theaters in the world.
• The most fatal car accidents occur on Saturday.
• The Eiffel Tower has 1792 steps.
• The mongoose was barred live entry into the U.S. in 1902.
• Goldfish swallowing started at Harvard in 1939.
• Dry fish food can make goldfish constipated.
• The stall closest to the door in a bathroom is the cleanest, because it is the least used.
• Toilet paper was invented in 1857.
• Alaska could hold the 21 smallest States.

20 Amazing Facts about Voting in the USA

1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.
2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.
3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.
6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.
7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.
8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.
9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.
10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.
11. Diebold is based in Ohio.
12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.
13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of Global Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.
14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.
15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.
16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie here: http://blackboxvoting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov.)
17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.
18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.
19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.
20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.

How far can a spacecraft fly in one year?

When Deep space 1 flew past asteroid Braille on July 29, 1999, both the spacecraft and asteroid were about 188 million kilometers from Earth! How far is that? If you had a piece of yarn that long, it would weigh 80 million kilograms (about 88,000 tons), or about as much as 40 fully fueled space shuttles.That's more than enough yarn to make sweaters for every person in the United States!If you made a ball of that much yarn, it would be 100 meters (330 feet) high. That's as tall as a 32-story building or over twice the height of the Statue of Liberty!

E=mc2

07 October, 2008

What hasn't Einstein's equation touched in our world?

It's difficult to separate the enormous legacy of E = mc2 from Einstein's legacy as a whole. After all, the equation grew directly out of Einstein's work on special relativity, which is a subset of what most consider his greatest achievement, the theory of general relativity. But I'm going to give it a try nevertheless.

The equation explained

First, though, a capsule explanation of "energy equals mass times the speed of light squared" might be helpful. On the most basic level, the equation says that energy and mass (matter) are interchangeable; they are different forms of the same thing. Under the right conditions, energy can become mass, and vice versa. We humans don't see them that way—how can a beam of light and a walnut, say, be different forms of the same thing?—but Nature does.
So why would you have to multiply the mass of that walnut by the speed of light to determine how much energy is bound up inside it? The reason is that whenever you convert part of a walnut or any other piece of matter to pure energy, the resulting energy is by definition moving at the speed of light. Pure energy is electromagnetic radiation—whether light or X-rays or whatever—and electromagnetic radiation travels at a constant speed of roughly 670,000,000 miles per hour.
Why, then, do you have to square the speed of light? It has to do with the nature of energy. When something is moving four times as fast as something else, it doesn't have four times the energy but rather 16 times the energy—in other words, that figure is squared. So the speed of light squared is the conversion factor that decides just how much energy lies captured within a walnut or any other chunk of matter. And because the speed of light squared is a huge number—448,900,000,000,000,000 in units of mph—the amount of energy bound up into even the smallest mass is truly mind-boggling (see The Power of Tiny Things.)
Of course, intuitively understanding that energy and matter are essentially one, as well as why and how so much energy can be wrapped up in even minute bits of matter, is another thing. And E = mc2, which focuses on matter at rest, is a simplified version of a more elaborate equation that Einstein devised, which also takes into account matter in motion (more on that in a moment). But I hope that you, like I, now have a basic comprehension with which to appreciate the equation's prodigious influence.

E = mc2 in miniature

Perhaps the equation's most far-reaching legacy is that it provides the key to understanding the most basic natural processes of the universe, from microscopic radioactivity to the big bang itself.
Radioactivity is E = mc2 in miniature. Einstein himself suspected this even as he devised the equation. In the 1905 paper in which he introduced E = mc2 to the world, he suggested that it might be possible to test his theory about the equation using radium, an ounce of which, as Marie Curie had discovered not long before, continuously emits 4,000 calories of heat per hour. Einstein believed that radium was constantly converting part of its mass to energy exactly as his equation specified. He was eventually proved right.
Today we know radioactivity to be a property possessed by some unstable elements, such as uranium, or isotopes, such as carbon 14, of spontaneously emitting energetic particles as their atomic nuclei disintegrate. They are metamorphosing mass into energy in direct accordance with Einstein's equation.
We take advantage of that realization today in many technologies. PET scans and similar diagnostics used in hospitals, for example, make use of E = mc2. "Whenever you use a radioactive substance to illuminate processes in the human body, you're paying direct homage to Einstein's insight," says Sylvester James Gates, a physicist at the University of Maryland. Many everyday devices, from smoke detectors to exit signs, also host an ongoing, invisible fireworks of E = mc2 transformations. Radiocarbon dating, which archeologists use to date ancient material, is yet another application of the formula. "The decay products that we see in carbon dating—that energy is directly obtained from the missing mass that you see in E = mc2," Gates says.

Heavenly applications

Space technologies owe much to the equation. Unceasing E = mc2 disintegrations from radioactive elements such as plutonium provide everything from power for telecommunications satellites to the heat needed to keep the Mars rovers functioning during the frigid martian winter. Space travel in the distant future may also rely on such radiation-derived power. Photons streaming out from the sun and other stars hold energy that in the vacuum of space can theoretically be harnessed to propel a spaceship. "In the far future," says David Hogg, a cosmologist at New York University, "if you imagine that we're sailing to distant stars with spaceships that are driven by radiation pressure—if that ever happens, that will be a really big legacy of Einstein's kinematics."
Kinematics is the study of motion without reference to mass or force, and it figures in a more elaborate form of Einstein's equation that—unlike plain old E = mc2, which concerns mass at rest—also takes into account mass in motion. (If you must know, it's E2 = m2c4 + p2c2, where p equals momentum.) "His bigger equation plays an enormous part in our understanding of how light works, and how energy and light can be transferred and transformed from one place to another, and that sort of thing," Gates says. "So if you consider the larger context, the part of the equation that's not in the public eye, it has an even larger legacy in science."
One application that draws on this larger equation, Gates says, is the giant neutrino detector now being built in Antarctica. Sunk deep in the ice, it will detect the eerie blue light, known as Cherenkov radiation, that is given off by neutrinos. Neutrinos are subatomic particles so lacking in mass that they pass straight through the Earth unscathed. Studying their light helps cosmologists better understand these mysterious particles and their distant sources, which may include black holes. Thus, says Gates, "as part of the equation's legacy, we'll be using the ice of Antarctica to look at neutrinos and other objects coming from outer space. And without knowing the relationship between the energy, momentum, and mass, that would be inconceivable to do. In fact, it was the use of this equation that led to the realization that neutrinos must exist."

A nuclear world

Einstein's equation also perfectly describes what's happening when we produce nuclear energy. As Arlin Crotts, a professor of astronomy at Columbia University, puts it, "our entire understanding of nuclear processes would be sort of lost without it." Fission reactors in nuclear power plants generate electricity by unlocking the energy tied up in fissionable materials. Fusion also furnishes energy from mass just as the equation posits. When two hydrogen atoms fuse to form a helium atom, the mass of the resulting helium is less than the two hydrogens, with the missing mass manifesting itself as fusion energy. Nuclear weapons, too, operate on the principle defined by the equation. Indeed, the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb explosion is E = mc2 made visible.

“One of its legacies is very sociological: it just captures the imagination of everyone.”

The equation spawned a whole new branch of science—high-energy particle physics. Labs that work in this field thrive on E = mc2 conversions. In fact, proper design of particle accelerators, as well as analysis of the high-speed collisions within them, would be impossible without a thorough comprehension of the equation. Within accelerators, colliding particles are constantly vanishing, leaving only energy, and dollops of energy are constantly transmuting into newly fashioned particles. "Our species has repeatedly used an understanding of the equation to convert E into new forms of m that had never previously been seen," Gates says. "One of the outposts of science for the next century may well be whether the E includes super-E, and m includes super-m—new forms of energy and matter called 'super-partners.'"
A grasp of the equivalence of mass and energy also comes in handy when studying antimatter. When a particle meets its antiparticle, they annihilate eachother, leaving only a pulse of energy; by the same token, a high-energy photon can suddenly become a particle-antiparticle pair. Altogether, says Hogg, "E = mc2 has been very important in diagnosing and understanding properties of antimatter."
Einstein's formula also accounts for the heat in our planet's crust, which is kept warm by a steady barrage of E = mc2 conversions occurring within unstable radioactive elements such as uranium and thorium. "When they decay, some of the mass is lost and a little energy is created, and that keeps the crust warm," says John Rigden, a physicist at Washington University in St. Louis and author of Einstein 1905: The Standard of Greatness (Harvard, 2005). "So the temperature of the outer Earth, the crustal matter, is directly related to E = mc2."

A cosmological constant

A similar process happens far beyond Earth, inside stars. The warmth we feel from the sun, for example, is the result of the energy generated as hydrogen deep within our star continuously fuses to form helium. And stars don't stop there. When they exhaust their hydrogen, they begin to burn new fuels and create new elements, which are spewed out into the universe when the stars eventually explode, as burnt-out stars are wont to do. "The carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen that make up living organisms were baked in the innards of a star," Rigden says. "In terms of what goes on in stars, we owe our existence to E = mc2."
Einstein's equation even tells of what transpires at black holes, which can contain the mass of millions of stars. Here, E = mc2 is taking place on an astronomical—and highly efficient—scale. "In a nuclear process, you convert something like one part in 1,000 of your rest mass into energy, whereas if you fall into a black hole, you can convert something like 20, 30, 40 percent," Hogg says. "So from the point of view of the energetics of the universe, these black holes are important, because they are big converters of rest mass into energy."
On the largest scale of all—the beginning of the universe—E = mc2 is the only accepted explanation for what was going on. In the first seconds after the big bang, energy and matter went back and forth indiscriminately in exact accordance with the equation. "The description of how the big bang unfolds would be much, much different if you couldn't interconvert mass to energy," Crotts says. If it weren't for E = mc2, the universe would have ended up with a completely different collection of particles than we have now. "I'm not sure what we would have, but we definitely wouldn't be here," he says.

Intangible aspects
The equation's legacy extends into realms well beyond the scientific. David Hogg finds it very useful in teaching, for instance. "I use the equation a lot in class because it's the one equation that all students have definitely heard of," he says. "So one of its legacies is very sociological: it just captures the imagination of everyone." It also helps students remember the units of energy. "A joule is a kilogram meter squared per second squared, and the way you remember that is E = mc2," he says.
Arlin Crotts notes the world Einstein's equation opened up for us. "It just laid bare the fact that all this stuff lying around us is potentially a tremendous reservoir of energy, almost beyond the imagination, if only we could devise ways to get at it," he says. "And that's just an amazing fact." For John Rigden, the equation and Einstein's other leaps of imagination revealed how scientists can be just as visionary as artists, writers, and other "creative" types. "What he did," Rigden says, "has all the creativity in it of Absalom, Absalom or Monet's lily pads."
Jim Gates seconds that. Until Einstein's time, scientists typically would observe things, record them, then find a piece of mathematics that explained the results, he says. "Einstein exactly reverses that process. He starts off with a beautiful piece of mathematics that's based on some very deep insights into the way the universe works and then, from that, makes predictions about what ought to happen in the world. It's a stunning reversal to the usual ordering in which science is done. So that's one of the legacies, that we've learned the power of human creativity in the sciences—or, as Einstein himself might have said, 'to know the mind of God.'"
In the end, the equation's influence, on both scientific and sociological fronts, is indeed hard to separate from Einstein's influence as a whole—which, like E = mc2-derived heat from the sun, shows no sign of diminishing.