Investigating Life(UNIVERSE and Earth) - 1

Lets go back in time say about 300 years ago in 1714. Till now you don't have electricity, hardly any machinery, steam engine is not there and the fastest mode of transport that you have is the horse. For cooking you depend on wood. A person has no chance to communicate instantaneously with a person who is more than 200 meters away. 

 Now imagine a person from that time suddenly falls into a space time wormhole and comes to the year 2014 and what does he see cars, roads , lights , planes and he sees people being able to communicate with anyone who is located anywhere in the world or even in space. Flying was considered impossible for humans in his time but humans not only flew like birds but flew way better than birds . So much better that they crossed the boundaries of the atmosphere and even crossed the boundaries of earth's gravitation. The person would be astounded to see how much development humans have made in science and technology in a short period of 300 years.

Now imagine an alien race that was at our stage of evolution a million years ago , if in 300 years there can be so much development how much more development can be achieved in a period of a million years. The results ca be unthinkable. We may find stuff that would be way beyond our imagination. 

Now consider this NASA's Kepler mission observes planets around 125000 that have earth like conditions. Can similarly a highly advanced alien race be keeping a strong watch over us. They maybe observing us at the moment they may know what I and you are talking about. They may even have the power to influence you and me . Maybe their technology is so developed that they can take form of any human being and talk to others. 

Some of them may have already visited the earth by making a show of having being born from a human mother. They might have taught us , they might have been with us and some of them may even be reading this article as I type it down. 

The ancient man when he saw people with such very highly advanced technologies might have mistaken him to be the creator and might have called him God. So it is very much possible that what we call god , the different avataars like Shiva,Vishnu, Krishna, Ram, Mohommad, Jesus and all other gods from various cultures across the globe are no one else but this highly advanced creatures who came to influence and help in our development and evolution.

What was technology back then would have been interpreted as a miracle. For example :- The Chakra of Krishna or the Bramhastra of Bramha were highly advanced weapons capable of controlled destruction on a large scale , the technology was so advanced that the ancient man simply interpreted it as miracle or magic. They called it divine. 

This alien species might have had technology to read the thoughts of people. Already scientists today are working on technology to read thoughts but it is possible that our advanced alien race might have perfected this technology hundreds and thousands of years ago. When people were told about their thoughts they regarded this ancient aliens as gods. They called him the almighty capable of doing anything and everything and started worshipping him as gods created temples, churches, stupas , mosques etc.

Considering the universe as we know it alien life is a possiblity and it is also possible that such advanced aliens may exist or might have existed earlier. As compared to the Universe the earth by size is infinitesimally small entity.

An Invention that would make microscope an household item

It is believed that life started on earth when various biochemicals came together and formed the first micro-organism which is believed to be the amoeba. This life form constantly evolved into complex organisms birds, dinosaurs, various mammals and ultimately humans. Humans by their advanced, constantly evolving and improving brains invented the microscope to understand the microscopic world. To know about the various cells that constitute the human body, how do the microorganisms look like , to know how does finer particles of matter  look like. 

                              

Optical Microscope

• Eyepiece (ocular lens) (1)
• Objective turret, revolver, or revolving nose piece (to hold multiple objective lenses) (2)
• Objective lenses (3)
• Focus knobs (to move the stage)
  • Coarse adjustment (4)
  • Fine adjustment (5)
• Stage (to hold the specimen) (6)
• Light source (a light or a mirror) (7)
• Diaphragm and condenser (8)
• Mechanical stage (9)

   The optical microscope has been in use for a long time and there has been hardly any change to its design. However more advanced microscopes like electron microscopes did come into existence and provided great magnification. But for the sake of detection of diseases - to observe the microorganisms that causes the diseases an optical microscope is normally enough. 

Now the problem we have this microscope is , its bulky and expensive and it is not easy to carry around. Thus except for research institutes, scientists , laboratories  and educational institutions very few people use microscopes. 

Manu Prakash , Assistant Professor at School of Medicine at Stanford University along with his students have come out with a new kind of microscope named "Foldscope". It is essentially made of stout paper that needs to be folded and then it can be used as a projection microscope. As shown in the below video which is Manu Prakash's speech at the a TED event in  he describes the Foldscope.

This foldscope can make microscope a common item at home just like we have the thermometer or the mobile phone. The inventors of Foldscope want to make it as common as a pencil , Manu Prakash says "The vision we are pursuing is to make a microscope akin to a "pencil" - wherever you have a pencil, you should have a microscope". It will surely boost children's curiosity towards exploring the microscopic world. It is very very light , very easy to carry , waterproof and extremely sturdy. Last but not the least the most attractive feature of this new invention is that it will cost not more than $ 1 or in India terms less than Rs 65.

        I just hope that I can get hands on one of these very soon would love to have one and explore the microscopic world. Watch magnified samples of my skin, blood, saliva, semen ;)  and everything microscopic I find around me. I will upload all the pics on this blog and on my Facebook pages. Simple people investigating the microscopic aspect of nature ... how wonderful that would be. 

      I am absolutely sure that around the world there would be millions of people who would do the same and in fact observing microscopic world would become a pastime for many (the numbers will be in millions). When kids are introduced to such gadgets from childhood many of them would be inspired to turn into scientists of the future. That's how cool and wonderful this invention is. 

  For all of you who are  interested to be a beta tester for the foldscope project they can register at www.foldscope.com/beta-signup

Tannenbaum- Trovalds debate (David slaying the Goliath)

    A few days ago while translating a Wikipedia article to Hindi I stumbled on the Tannenbaum - Trovalds debate that happened almost 23 years ago. The GNU operating system was almost ready but it lacked one major component --Kernal. Stallman went for a multiserver microkernal called Hurd. However after so many years even today the Hurd is not ready for commercial deployment. A young university student named Linus Trovalds started a project to build a kernal for for the GNU OS. It was a hobby for him , just a part of his learning. By 1992 Linus successfully build a Monolithic Kernal( with the help of other programmers who co-ordinated over the internet)for the GNU OS .   

    Now Andrew Tannenbaum the renowned OS researcher and professor, who has written books that every computer science student has read at least once, made this post in comp.os.minix the title of post was "Linux is obsolete" . Tannenbaum argued that making a monolithic kernel in 1992 was taking a giant step backwards towards the 1970s. He also argued that the kernel was too strongly connected to the x86 processors which will be history in some time and that in some time the x86 line of processors would be superseded by other processors.


   As it turned out we now know that Tannenbaum was  totally wrong. Even today we use the Kernal designed by Linus Trovalds, of course many others wrote code for it. To this day most computers and servers run on x86 processors of course with time we have moved to the 64 bit version of the x86 processors , however most mobile phones , smart phones and tablets run on RISC processors of ARM.

    Parallela a startup has designed a low cost powerful computer with multicore processors that uses this ARM processors . But even in that computer the default operating system is GNU/LINUX the same kernal whose development was started by Linus. FSF was lucky that Linus Trovalds embarked on this project which was not a serious project to begin with. Just a pastime a rookie taking a shot at the game of big guys and turning himself into a big guy of the computing world.

    Had it not been for Linus the GNU OS might have still been in development even today and worse still the entire Free Software Foundation would have been nonexistent because they won't have had a Free Operating System for which the could have written application programmes.

For every geek, engineering student and IT professional reading this debate is a must the link is given here . Also read what Tannenbaum has to say about his Amoeba Operating System  .

We get to learn so much from this debate that the best in the field maybe wrong , grossly wrong. Who was Linus in front of Tannenbaum in 1992-- Tannenbaum at that time was a professor and operating system researcher who had developed the MINIX OS and was minting money from every copy that was licensed. Who was Linus-- A geeky university student in Finland just 22 years of age. Linus released the source code under GNU GPL making the source code avialable and giving freedom to users to modify and distribute the software.

    Its only much later in 2000 that MINIX was release under BSD licence but by the LINUX had surpassed its capabilites.

Era of Renewable Energy

Over the last 1 year I have made many posts on my blog regarding renewable and alternative sources of energy. After looking at all the options available I have come to a conclusion that International crude oil prices may come down further in the coming days. The major reason for this is we have come to a time when we have found ways to generate electricity without burning fossil fuel , without causing any pollution. Without generating more greenhouse gases thereby preventing global warming.

The global oil prices went as high as $140 and it was predicted then that oil prices would go as high as $ 200. This gave a great fillip to renewable energy research. Research on solar energy which was going on for decades have come to point where it has matched conventional energy in terms of price. Germany is one of the biggest consumers of solar energy now. Although Germany gets lesser sunlight as compared to many Asian and African nations.

New technologies for for harnessing wind power and tidal power has come into existence. New design of Windmills like Invelox - in which the direction of the wind flow does not matter anymore and the wind is channeled and concentrated. Which enables the generation of electricity even if the wind speed is very low. In fact the cut-in speed( the speed at which the system starts generating electricity) is as low as 2 miles per hour in other words a little less than 1 m/sec. Which makes it possible to be installed anywhere to generate electricity. The manufactures are claiming that INVELOX can produce electricity for as low as 2 cents per kilowatt hour. Also using kites to generate electricity.

Different Kinds of Tidal energy harnessing technologies are coming to existence viz Davidson Venturi Hill Turbine, Searaser, Minesto underwater kites. The tides are caused in the seas and oceans due to the gravitational fields of the earth and moon. The great thing about ocean tides is that they are highly predictable. Nowhere in the world you see an ocean or a sea that is quiet. While the Davidson Venturi Hill Turbine maximised energy output by using the Venturi effect, Searaser utilized the up and down motion of the sea waves to move a buoyant piston to pump water to a reservoir that is located at some height and then make the collected water fall with the help of gravity , this running water would move a turbine that would generate electricity.

Davidson Venturi Hill turbine

SEARASER

The Minesto underwater kites tapped into the low water speeds to generate substantial amounts of electricity, the motion of the kite is controlled by rudder by an operator. The benefit of ocean waves over atmospheric wind is that water is 800 times denser than air and being 800 times denser it contains 800 time more energy. The Minesto underwater kites has different models the largest 14 meter one generates electricity of 850 kilowatts at water speed of mere 1.73 m/sec.

Minesto underwater kites

Offshore Wind Energy farms exist all over the world. Denmark has lots of them. The condition of having an offshore wind farm in the sea is that the water should be shallow since the tower will have its base at the sea bed and hence there is a limit to the length of the tower. As we go farther into the ocean it gets deeper and deeper. But far off the cost the wind speeds are constant and very good. But setting up an offshore wind tower (the tower will have its base at the seabed) is not possible since the sea is too deep. This problem is solved now and engineers have come with Floating Offshore Wind towers. This towers since they are floating in the ocean can be set up anywhere.

Floating offshore wind turbine

The little higher costs will be offset by the better quality of winds. The major part of earth's surface is water (70%). So a country that has a large coast can generate as much electricity as it wants using this technology even in deep sea. The future of this technology may be very bright since in the future we may have electric ships that would get its energy from such plants that would be located at certain intervals along its path.

Thus now we have come to a point where we can get almost all our energy needs from renewable sources of energy and thus we can minimize the utilization of fossil fuels for energy requirements. No matter how low the prices of crude oil becomes the focus on utilization green and renewable sources of energy should not go away. 

Floating Offshore Wind Power Grid

In the sea the speed of winds is more and constant. Offshore wind power harnesses this by placing wind towers a few kilometres away from the coast. Now major portion of the earth is ocean ,70% of it. However these offshore wind towers can only be setup in areas where the sea or ocean is relatively shallow since only a certain height can be given to the wind towers. The base of the wind towers is on the seabed.

     However a new kind of off shore wind tower . This tower is actually a floating tower in the sea, so it is possible to set it up anywhere in the ocean. This brings major portion of the earth as a potential area of generation of wind power. In the past I have discussed many other wind power generation technologies in this blog. This one is equally exiting and promising . There is an excellent Wikipedia page on this floating Wind turbines .

The motivation behind writing this blog came from a NHK world programme I stumbled on today in which they showed this and described to potential for Japan to harness this energy . Japan does have very little shallow sea in its coastal areas so this technology is a boon for them and they estimate that Japan can generate many times more energy from this floating wind power stations as compared to solar power in that country. 

What other possible other applications of this floating wind power stations : one wild thing that comes to mind is that today Fuel Oil which is extracted from Crude Oil power most of the ships today. So if we can possibly have a chain of such floating power stations across the oceans of the world maybe our ships can draw energy from them and run on green electric power rather than the pollution causing fuel oil. This possibility deserves to be looked into although implementing this idea on such a large scale would be a huge challenge.

Also US Navy has come out with a technology which extracts CO2 and hydrogen from seawater and uses it as a fuel . 

Electricity from Kites

Makar Sankranti everyone knows about this day in India which falls on 14th January. This day is celebrated across the nation by flying kites millions and millions of them. This festival has been celebrated in India since times immemorial. The humble kite is known to people across the world and many among us have flown kites for fun.

But what if the same humble kite be modified and used for better purposes. To satisfy one of the most important needs of modern life electrical energy and at the same time not cause any pollution at all. Yes we have come to a time when researchers across the world have designed Kites that can generate electricity with the help of winds both in air and also under water using underwater waves.

For low water speeds less than 2.5 metres per second a Swedish company Minesto has developed a technology to generate electricity from underwater kites that can produce electricity. Water is 800 times denser than air and hence contains 800 times more energy. The Minesto Underwater Kites are tethered to the Ocean or river beds as shown in the picture. The rudder on the kites is controlled externally by the operators . Therefore the kites move along a controlled path. There is a gearless fast rotating turbine affixed to the kites that rotates along with the motion of the kites and generates electricity. The project is named deep green and has now 4 different products that are extensively tested one has 8 meteres wingspan and can generate 120 kilowatts of wind power at a stream velocity of 1.3 m/sec. The one with the largest wingspan Dg -14 has a wingspan of 14 metres and can generate power in tune of 850 kilowatts at a stream velocity of 1.73 m/sec. So this technology promises to be green and renewable source of energy. Ocean tides are predictable unlike Winds which are intermittent. You can get more information about the technology and the product form the this link .

In this video Link you can see how electricity can be generated using atmospheric kites. This technology developed at Delft University 

The other short video explains ho Dutch scientists have harness the power of kites to generate electricity. As seen in the video they used a 10 sq meter kite and raised it to a height of around 800 metres and generated 10 kilowatts of electricity. At this height the wind speed is higher than the wind speed on ground traditional wind turbine towers cannot reach such a height. 

   Now energy and speed has a cubic relationship. If the speed of wind is 5 m/sec at the height of wind turbines then the height at which this kite would rise it will have a speed of 7 m/sec. Thus approximately 4 times more energy can be generated at this height but it is not possible to have a wind tower that high. But kites can get to that height at a much lower cost. Scientists plant to create an array of such kites to generate many megawatts of electricity.

    So you see what was a source of fun to people when made better and when more thought and science is put into it has potentially become a solution to one of the most major problem on earth and that's totally clean and green energy.

GNU/LINUX (हिंदी में )

GNU/LINUX ऑपरेटिंग सिस्टम एक फ्री ऑपरेटिंग सिस्टम हैं । यहाँ फ्री का मतलब मुफ्त सॉफ्टवेयर नहीं हैं लेकिन अगर हिंदी  में कहा जाय तो यह मुक्त  सॉफ्टवेयर हैं । १९८५ में रिचर्ड स्टॉलमैन ने फ्री सॉफ्टवेयर फाउंडेशन  सुरुवात की थी । उस समय कम्प्यूटर्स और सॉफ्टवेयर के दुनिया में बहुत बदलाव  आ रहा था । ७० के दसक में प्रोग्रामर्स अपने अपने सॉफ्टवेयर आपस में शेयर किया करते थे । लेकिन ८० के दसक में यह सब बदलने लगा । कंपनियां प्रोप्रिएटरी सॉफ्टवेयर की तरफ धयान देने लगी । डॉ स्टॉलमैन ने इसी स्तिथि को परिवर्तित करने हेतु फ्री सॉफ्टवेयर फाउंडेशन  की स्थापना की थी । उन्होंने फ्री सॉफ्टवेयर को कुछ इस प्रकार परिभासित किया था :

१ ) फ्री  सॉफ्टवेयर वह हैं जो यूजर को उसे  किसी भी तरह रन करने की आज़ादी दे । 

२) फ्री सॉफ्टवेयर मैं यूजर को  उस सॉफ्टवेयर के सोर्स कोड को  अध्ययन करने की  आज़ादी होती हैं 

३) यूजर उस सोर्स कोड को अपने जरुरत के अनुसार बदल सकता हैं । 

४)  यूजर को असली और बदले हुए(modified) सोर्स कोड एवं सॉफ्टवेयर को वितरित करने की पूर्ण आज़ादी होती हैं ।

       १९८३ में जब रिचर्ड स्टॉलमैन ने GNU प्रोजेक्ट की सुरुवात की थी तब उनका लक्ष्य एक UNIX समान ऑपरेटिंग सिस्टम बनाना था , जो पूरी तरह से फ्री सॉफ्टवेयर से बना हो । १९९०  तक लघभघ पूरा ऑपरेटिंग सिस्टम बनकर तैयार हो गया था लेकिन ऑपरेटिंग सिस्टम का एक महत्वपूर्ण हिस्सा कर्नल (kernal ) बनकर तैयार नहीं  हुआ था । 

     स्टॉलमैन ने कर्नल बनाने के लिए एक एडवांस्ड डिज़ाइन चुना जिसका नाम हर्ड रखा गया था । लेकिन समय पर यह बनकर तैयार नहीं हुआ । १९९१ में फ़िनलैंड के एक विद्यार्थी लिनस ट्रोवाल्ड्स ने GNU के कुछ डेवलपमेंट कंपोनेंट्स इस्तेमाल करके एक करनाल बनाया और उसे फ्री लाइसेंस के तहत रिलीज़ किया । 

       इस प्रकार GNU सिस्टम और लिनक्स कर्नल दोनों को एक कर GNU /LINUX अस्तित्व में आया । मुक्त सॉफ्टवेयर होने के कारन पुरे दुनिया के डेवलपर्स इस पर काम कर सकते हैं और इसके सोर्स कोड को अपने ज़रुरत के अनुसार बदल सकते हैं । और ऐसा हुआ भी हैं पूरी दुनिया में आज GNU/LINUX के हज़ारो डिस्ट्रीब्यूशन्स हैं ।  जैसे  उबुन्टु ,फेडोरा , मिनट , डेबियन  ,काली वगेरा । 

      दुनिया भर के अधिकतम सेर्वेरों में GNU/LINUX ऑपरेटिंग सिस्टम ही इस्तेमाल किया जाता हैं। पूरी दुनिया के ९०% सुपरकम्प्युटर्स में भी GNU/LINUX ही ऑपरेटिंग सिस्टम का काम करता हैं । दुनिया का  सबसे लोकप्रिय मोबाइल ऑपरेटिंग सिस्टम एंड्राइड का कर्नल लिनक्स कर्नल से ही बनाया गया हैं ।