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The gravitational field of a massive, spherical, body like the Sun is described in general relativity by a solution to Einstein’s equations called the Schwarzschild soution. Here is an elementary persepective on this solution, which — though far from a rigourous derivation — raises intriguing questions.
The 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg for the discovery of giant magnetoresistance (GMR). GMR is achieved in metallic multilayers, where the resistance of the multilayer changes considerably by the application of a magnetic field. This has paved the way for high density data storage in magnetic media.
Predicting the fight of spinning balls is an exciting aspect while playing cricket, tennis, table tennis or soccer. These games demand a wide range of skills to exploit the aerodynamic effects induced by spin, wind and gravity. The theory underlying these aerodynamic effects unveils bizarre opportunities for budding cricket, tennis and soccer stars!
The Ray chaudhuri equations are first introduced through simple examples and illustrations. Their use and the resulting consequences in cosmology are then briefly outlined.
This section of Resonance presents thought-provoking questions, and discusses answers a few months later. Readers are invited to send new questions, solutions to old ones and comments, to ‘Think It Over’, Resonance, Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore 560 080. Items illustrating ideas and concepts will generally be chosen.
In this article, we compute the volume Vn of the unit ball in an n-dimensional space. For n = 1, 2, 3, the volumes are respectively 2, π 4π /3, which are the length of interval [−1,1], area of a unit circle and volume of the unit sphere. The numbers Vn ‘appear’ to increase. But in fact this not so. In fact Vn tends to zero as n tends to infinity!
Benzoin condensation is an important carbon-carbon bond forming reaction. It is achieved by generating an acyl anion equivalent from one aldehyde molecule which adds to a second aldehyde molecule. The reaction is traditionally catalysed by a cyanide ion. Cyanohydrin anion is the first intermediate and is the precursor to the acyl anion equivalent. Cyanohydrins are found in plants as glycosides. A...
Real Time PCR is a new advancement in the field of molecular diagnostics. The evolution of capabilities of Real Time PCR from traditional PCR has provided researchers an upper hand over the quantification and detection of specific DNA sequences. During the recent years, the areas of application of Real Time PCR have expanded exponentially.
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