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Top 10 Indian Physicists

  Sometimes it's the detours which turn out to be the fruitful ideas  - Roger Penrose 1.  Sir C.V. Raman (1888-1970)   Alma matter : Presidency college, University of Madras. Research field : Optics and acoustics Awards received: Nobel Prize, Bharat Ratna, Lenin Peace Prize, Fellow of Royal Society. He is known for his prominent work in scattering which led to the discovery of Raman effect. 2.  Satyendranath Bose (1894-1974) Alma matter : Presidency college, Calcutta. Research field : Quantum Mechanics Awards received: Padma Vibhushan, Fellow of Royal Society He is known for the invention of boson and Bose-Einstein condensate. 3.  Meghnad Saha (1893-1956) Alma matter : Presidency college, Calcutta and Rajabazar Science College. Research field : Quantum and Statistical Mechanics, astrophysics. Awards received: Fellow of Royal Society He is known for developing Saha ionization equation. 4.  Homi J. Bhabha (1909-1966) Alma matter : University of Cambridge...

What is an electron volt 'eV'?

   eV is abbreviated as “electron-Volt”. Electron Volt is a simplified unit of energy. We know that joule ‘J’ is the S.I unit of energy. But why do we use eV then? Let’s see. The basic definition of an electron volt is, ‘It is the energy that an electron gains when it travels through a potential of one volt'. The energy associated with an electron is measured in small unit called eV. For an understanding, let us consider a parallel plate capacitor with positive charged plate on the left   side and the negative charged plate on the right side connected by a battery of 1V potential difference. Consider an electron on the side of a negatively charged plate which is attracted to the positive charged plate due to electrostatic force.  Therefore a kinetic energy is created when the electron moves from plate A to B. This kinetic energy is measured as one electron volt. 1eV means 1.6 x 10^-19 coulomb x 1 volt or just 1.6 X 10^-19 Joule. Though we have the S.I unit of energy ...

BLACK BODY RADIATION

         As we already saw in our blog ‘How do we see colors’, “It’s the material, Not the color! – how do we see color?”, black body is an ideal object.          Black body is an object that can absorbs all frequencies of radiation.          Due to this the object get heated up and when its temperature equals to the surrounding temperature, the object starts to radiate energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation .         Depending upon the temperature of the body the intensity of the radiation of different frequency varies.          Almost all the object behave like an black body (but not like an ideal one), example: sun, human body, hot objects …          In 18 th century when scientist thought that they found almost everything in the field of physics, black body concept came as a challenge in front of them.        ...

WHY EARTH SPINS?

           Earth is rotating on its axis about  1673 km/h.          Why do earth spin? is an age old question. Not only earth , everything in the universe spin .          And the common answer for such questions is inertia – the ability to resist change in motion.          But now, let's think deep into it.         To answer this we have to go to the beginning, about 4.5billion years ago.          In our old blog Nebula, we saw how the stars are formed.          4.5 billion years ago our solar system was formed from a nebula .           In that nebula as usual when hydrogen and helium atoms contracted and expanded, the nebula stated to rotate with an angular momentum. As the process goes on also, the direction of spin didn’t change.          After somet...

The domains of physics

Physics is divided in to four major domain with respect to size and speed.          Particle size more than a nanometer and in less speed compared to speed of light – classical mechanics.          Particle size less than a nanometer (near to size of atom) and in less speed compared to speed of light – quantum mechanics.          Particle size more than a nanometer and in speed comparable to speed of light – relativistic mechanics.          Particle size less than a nanometer (near to size of atom) and in speed comparable to speed of light – quantum field theory. Any type of study under physics will come under this four categories. With respect to energy:          Milli electron volt to few electron volts   -   solid state physics          Kilo electron volt to million electron volt   - nuclear physics   ...

Plasma - The 4th state of matter

 What is plasma?  The 4th state of matter We know the basic 3 states of matter; solid, liquid and gas. Lets consider solid, if we give more energy to solid (example by heating) it became liquid. If we give more energy to liquid it become gas, example water. But what will happen if we heat the gas? In gaseous state molecules and element are not in ionized form. When we heat the gas, above certain temperature the electrons get removed from the atom, we will get ionized gaseous state which is plasma. Plasma is  a gas of ions – atoms or molecules which have one or more orbital electrons stripped (or, rarely, an extra electron attached), and free electrons. Plasma makes 99% of visible universe. In 1879 Sir William Crookes first discovered plasma in laboratory. Irving Langmuir coined the term plasma, because it looked like blood plasma. Plasma is very energetic and emit light. Plasma can be created artificially by knocking of electrons from atoms which can be done by heating ...

Groovy glass - Is glass acting weird?

"Glass is the most magical of  all the materials, it transmits light in a special way" -Dale Chihuly From the ancient times to now, glass materials have been used in many ways and it's still a piece of attraction in the construction of buildings. But what is the composition of glass and what property makes the glass transmit the light in different ways and in different colors? Let's peep into it! History of glass: The history of glass is originated from Mesopotamian civilizations , which is still a mystery since some claim that they would have adopted the glass making from Egypt and it was estimated to be in existence from 3600 BC.  The first glass factory was established in 1608 which was built in Jamestown, Virginia, United States. However, the art of glass making and it's production was then embraced by other countries. What is a glass? Glass is a mixture of silicates with sodium carbonate and lime. It is an inorganic solid material , which is made from liqui...