Solar power - Growth in production

In the last 3 to 5 years the cost of production of solar energy has come at par with traditional sources of energy. It is the reason why we are now able to see the exponential rise in solar energy production across the globe. 

The world leader in solar power production is Germany. Germany has installed around 39 gigawatts of solar power. During the year 2010,2011 and 2012 -- Germany annually installed 7 Gigawatts of solar power per annum. 

However recent data indicates that China has just surpassed Germany with an installed solar power capacity of 43.2 gigawatts. In 2011 China added 2.5 GW, in 2012 5 GW, in 2013 9.5 GW, in 2014 10.56 GW and in 2015 15.13 GW of solar power capacity was installed in China. 

In India where the installed solar power capacity was only 160 MW in 2010, today we have over 5 GW of Solar Power. In the last one year approximately 2.5 GW of solar power installation has been done in India and this will go up. 

So since the time prices of solar panels came to a reasonable level, countries around the world including India are tapping into the the vast amounts of available solar energy. India in particular gets tremendous amount of sunlight and in the future will be one of the biggest producers of solar power. 

This above numbers tell us why the prices of crude oil has come down. India gets far greater amounts of sunlight than Germany. India should produce more solar power than Germany.With development of cheaper and better energy storage technologies like ultra capacitors, people would start moving off grid, they would generate their own electricity. 

Solar power can potentially save our planet from all the pollution that is generated by combustion of fossil fuels. One just hopes that the exponential growth in production of solar power and installation of solar power plants across the world continues, along with increase in utilization of more energy efficient electrical appliances. 

The future of space exploration

3D printers can make complex objects. In the future this technology will definitely improve, now let us imagine this, we have robot of the future which is capable of 3D printing and this robot which is way more intelligent than current robots, is able to 3D print its own replica. This robot is more intelligent than the robots we have today, the robots of the future are going to be self learning systems, they would learn from their own experience, just like us. 

So we launch a robotic spacecraft and the robot goes to a distant planet. With the materials available there it creates its replica. It designs and creates machines along with other newly made robots. This machines are able to extract resources from the planet like fuel, iron ore etc. The machines are used to build factories and more machines are made by the robots to build better processors and increase memory to upgrade themselves and build spacecraft to come back to earth. 

In the future it would be possible to have powerful robots like these that can bring an asteroid near the earth's orbit and set its orbit. They can build a factory in space that would produce different material sourced from asteroids and other planets. The will send us whatever products we need by producing them in those space factories. The source of energy for them would be solar power that they would harness from the sun. 

Robots are going to be our future exploration devices. Currently scientists in NASA are working on a technology that would use lasers to accelerate a spacecraft to very high speeds. The energy that is produced from solar energy is used to create the laser beams that would the be focused on a sail of the spacecraft. 

Each photon that bounces off the sail would impart some momentum to spacecraft. When a very huge number of them bounce off the the sail a significant amount of acceleration is generated. When the spacecraft is accelerated over great lengths of time very high speeds can be generated. 

According to NASA scientist Philip Lubin the spacecraft can go as fast as 30% of the speed of light.  He says that with this technology a 100 kilo spacecraft will reach Mars in 3 days. This technology will also cut the propellant requirement. Currently a space launch vehicle's mass at launch time is 70% propellant. Propellant not only comprises of fuel but it also has oxidiser since there is no oxygen in space. 

So it is clear that in the future better propulsion technology along with robotonics, artificial intelligence, faster data transfer and 3D printing will determine our future of space exploration.

With these technologies it would be possible for us to build planets that would have the same rotational path of earth, the raw materials for the planets will be sourced by these robots from astreiods and other distant planets, these planets will be new homes for humans in the future. The only thing we need to make sure is that we should not let robots take over us. 

Human Evolution

Human beings are intelligent thinking beings. Our brains have evolved our millions of years of evolution. Life evolved on earth beginning from a single cell organism to complex organisms like us. When we use the term complex organism it does not necessarily mean biggest in term of physical size. The largest organisms ever to walk on this planet were dinosaurs that were as heavy as 60 to 100 tonnes and measured over 50 meters in length. In terms of size we are 1000 times smaller than them.

However their brains were much smaller than us. They were nowhere near our level of mental development. No other animal comes even close to human beings when it comes to the ability to think, create, imagine, design, feel, express etc. No other animals makes tools for themselves except the humans. 

Humans have evolved rapidly. Just around 10,000 years ago most humans used to live in jungle and they would hunt animals to feed themselves. At that time the tools they had were weapons made of stone and wood. With the rapidly developing brain they discovered that by sowing seeds of plants in the ground they can make the plants grow at places they want. This reduced human dependence on hunting for food and human beings started agriculture. 

As they practised agriculture they started sowing the best seeds that they can find. Selective breeding is responsible for many of the food stuff that we eat today, you can go to this link and find how some of the commonly used grains, vegetable and fruits looked a few centuries ago and how selective breeding done by us has changed them. 

From building simple tools for self usage, humans developed more complex tools. Beginning with simple machines humans were able to develop more and more complex machines that would run on power provided by humans or animals. Then later on windmill and waterwheel were made, which ran on wind and flowing water. 

After that development in science and technology led to discovery of the power of steam and humans started using steam, it was made by boiling water using coal. Steam was used to drive different machinery and locomotives. After that electricity was discovered and it was generated in enough quantity to power homes and industry, the steam engines were replaced by machinery running on electricity.

Similarly giant advances were made in electronics, computer science and information technology. This lead to entire world being better connected. Just 20 years ago one had to rely on letter to communicate with people living overseas. Land line telephones were there but call rates back then were prohibitively expensive. Today thanks to the internet people living on any part of the globe can instantly communicate with each other using various free video conferencing services available on the internet. It costs nothing except one needs to pay his monthly broadband bill.

Human intelligence is constantly expanding and it is expanding at a very fast rate. The rate of innovation and invention has gone up. For humans evolution is not about physical growth, it is not about becoming dinosaurs or becoming bigger than dinosaurs. But if you observe human behaviour it is always guided by his curiosity in nature. Our desire to know about the various aspects of nature leads to discoveries. It also leads to increase in knowledge and using this knowledge we are able to make different tools, vehicles, machines etc. 

Above all animals humans have this quest of knowledge that makes him stand apart from all other animals on earth. In the future humans will be the first and only organisms from planet earth that would make homes in other planets. Maybe by then we would have developed technology to genetically modify ourselves to beings who can exist in any condition. 

Human knowledge and innovation can do things that one can't even imagine.

Number Systems

Decimal Numbers

In practice we use a number system called decimal number system. In the decimal number system there are 10 numbers that we use 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. Using this ten numbers we can show any decimal value that we want to. Consider the number 251, we can describe it as
251= 2X(10^2)+5X(10^1)+1X(10^0) =(2X100)+(5X10)+10X1=200+50+1



So you can see that as we move from right to left in a number, for each position the power increases by one. Let us consider a few more examples
62= (6X10^2)+(2X10^0)=60+2
7821=7X(10^3)+8X(10^2)+2X(10^1)+(1X10^0)=7000+800=20+1.

Other number systems

In addition to the decimal number system there can be multiple different types of number system depending on number of literals that we want to use to describe a number.

In the hexadecimal number system in addition to the then literals 0...9 we also use the literals a,b,c,d,e,f. For the decimal number system this numbers correspond to a=10, b=11, c=12, d=13, e=14, f=15.

So (f)16=(15)10

If we want to convert a hexadecimal number to a decimal number, the method we need to follow is this:-

Consider and hexadecimal number (f2a)16 . Now let us convert this number into a decimal number

aX16^0+2X16^1+fX16^2

Now we know that a=10 and f=15. Hence the above equation becomes:

10X1+2X16+15X256=10+32+3840=3882.

Now to convert 3882 back to its hexadecimal form this what we will do.

16)3882(242

32

68

64

42

32

10

Reminder 10=f

16)242(15

240

2

Reminder 2

16)15(0

00

15

reminder 15=f

so the hexadecimal number become (f2a)16

In this way we can create any number system that we want to. We can even use an octadecimal number system by just increasing two more number, we can denote them as g and h, where g=16 and h=17.

Computers that we use today process the numbers as binary digits 0 or 1.

The decimal 5 is expressed as 101. Similarly (7)10=(111)2

Suppose there is a binary number 11001, this is how we find its decimal value.

We will move from right to left and keep increasing the power of 2 for each position. So

11001=1X2^0+0X2^1+0X2^2+1X2^3+1X2^4=1+0+0+8+16=25.

(11001)2=(25)10

Pycrete

If you live in a location where you have lots of ice all year round then you can try mixing water with sawdust and then freeze the mixture. The proportion should be 86% water by weight and 14% sawdust by weight. Which means that if you want 1 kg of the mixture you need to mix 140 grams of sawdust with 860 grams of water. When the mixture freezes the product you will get is almost as hard as concrete, it is called Pycrete. 

Pycrete is much harder than ice and it melts much slower than ice. On a hot summer day 1 cubic foot ice can melt into water in an hour. However a block of pycrete of equivalent size will take many days to melt.

It also takes more time to freeze the water and sawdust mixture to make Pycrete. The reason why Pycrete melts slowly and also why pycrete forms at a slower rate as compared to ice  is due to presence of wood particles, wood is a bad conductor of heat. In parts of the world where there is snow all around the year, people can use structures created out of Pycrete.

If we want to create man made structures in Antarctica, we can very well use Pycrete to create replicas of structures like Taj Mahal, Pyramids, Sphinx, White House etc out of Pycrete, since the temperature in Antarctica always remains below freezing point this structures will never melt. 

In Antarctica people can replace ice with Pycrete to build igloos. Their homes will be stronger because Pycrete is stronger as compared to ice. 

Pycrete was named after Geoffrey Pyke, an English journalist and an inventor. During the second world war he and his team discovered the properties of a frozen mixture of water and sawdust. He wanted to build a giant aircraft carrier out of pycrete, however the project never took off. 

Graphene

All of us have used pencil for writing. The pencil's lead contains graphite. The molecular structure of graphite has one carbon atom bonded to three other carbon atoms in one plane, forming an hexagonal array of carbon atoms per layer(Figure). Layer after layers of such planes are stacked over one another and each carbon atom, the forces between the layers are weak, that's why they are quite slippery and used in pencils. 

So when we write using the pencil, some layers are deposited on the paper. However till recently it was difficult to separate a single layer. Hence we were not able to extract graphene for a long period of time. 

Now that we have graphene, we have discovered wonderful properties processed by it. It is a superconductor which means it conducts electricity with very little resistance. It is 100 times stronger than steel. 

Scientists are looking forward to use Graphene as the material for supercapacitor. The supercapacitor will replace lithium ion batteries in the future and the would charge up very fast. The supercapacitors will be cheaper and provide an ideal energy storage solution for electric cars, offgrid solar powered homes etc. 

Honeycomb Lattice of Graphene.

Scientists are exploring ways to do different things with graphene according to this article, scientists have managed to make lens from graphene so thin that its thickness is 300 times less than the thickness of paper. With this lens it is possible to have data communications at the speed of light. 

This lens can also be used in nanosatellites that would reduce weight and focus better on earth. The lens weighs about 1 microgram. 

Microprocessors made from silicon and germanium have almost reached their highest possible clock speeds. Increasing clockspeed of microprocessors will result in heating and melting of the tiny circuits. In the future graphene is expected to solve this problem. Microprocessors made from graphene will not melt, even at very high clock speeds. So we can have even more faster processors in the future. 

Recently researchers at University of Glasgow have produced the material at a 100 times lesser cost, making graphene cheaper and increasing its potential usage in different different feilds . Scientists have also made a nanometre thick graphene film. It can absorb 95% of the light incident on it, making it the most light absorbent material on earth. 

Gravitational Waves Discovered

Dr Albert Einstein in his General Theory of Relativity showed how space becomes wrapped around a physical body. The more massive the object,the greater is the space- time curve. He also predicted when two black holes merged or if there was a supernova explosion, it would generate gravitational waves, similar to the effect that is created when a hammer hits a bell. 

The theoretical prediction of gravitational waves had existed for about a hundred years. It is only now that physicists at LIGO(Laser Interferometer Gravitational Observatory) have got evidence of gravitational waves.

The LIGO laboratory works by bouncing laser beams  back and forth along two 4 km long tubes. It allows physicists to observe very minute disturbances in space time. On 14 September last year they picked up a large change in their laboratory in Louisiana. After a gap of 7 milliseconds, they made a similar observation at their laboratory in Hanford, Washington. 

Source - LIGO

For months physicists rigorously studied this signals to verify if they were something else. On February 11th LIGO made the announcement of the discovery. Thus Dr Einstein's last prediction has now been conclusively proved. Indeed what a great scientist he was. 

The gravitational waves travel at the speed of light. The gravitational waves observed at LIGO is said to have originated 1.3 billion years ago due to the merging of two black holes. Now it remains to be seen how we utilize gravitational waves in the future. The discovery of x-rays, electromagnetic waves etc, had tremendouly influenced our lives. Let's hope gravitational waves does the same.