SCI-ART LAB

Science, Art, Litt, Science based Art & Science Communication

Krishna : ‘Ancient Science’ sounds oxymoronic.

Science got a true meaning and definition only in the last 5 centuries. Modern science with its distinctive characters evolved only in the nineteenth century and it ‘s a particularly important period in the history of science.

So ‘ancient’ understanding of the world around us was based mostly on perception and primitive thinking rather than scientific method verified evidence based facts.

Therefore, you can just call it ‘primitive knowledge’ that need not be correct when you take the methods through which it was obtained into account. It is quite natural for science to progress and when new date comes in, old one goes into background and sometimes totally disappears.

It is better to discard unreliable knowledge and if it disappears, no one in the scientific field regrets it. We want progress, not regression.

Q: Why do old books turn yellow or brown? Does that spread to nearby books?

Krishna: Most paper is made from wood, which largely consists of cellulose and a natural wood component called lignin that gives plant cell walls their rigidity and makes wood stiff and strong. Cellulose, a colourless substance, is remarkably good at reflecting light, which means we see it as being white. This is why paper is usually white.

Paper is made from these components that yellow over time — at least when they're exposed to oxygen. But when lignin is exposed to light and the surrounding air, its molecular structure changes. Lignin is a polymer, meaning it's built from batches of the same molecular unit bonded together. In the case of lignin, those repeating units are alcohols consisting of oxygen and hydrogen with a smattering of carbon atoms thrown in.

lignin, and in part cellulose, is susceptible to oxidation — meaning it readily picks up extra oxygen molecules, and those molecules alter the polymer's structure. The added oxygen molecules break the bonds that hold those alcohol subunits together, creating molecular regions called chromophores which reflect certain wavelengths of light that our eyes perceive as colour. In the case of lignin oxidation, that colour is yellow or brown. So after oxidation we see paper as yellow or brown sheets.

Typically, paper manufacturers try to remove as much lignin as possible by using a bleaching process. The more lignin that's removed, the longer the paper will remain white. But a newspaper has more lignin in it than a typical textbook page, so it turns a yellow-brown colour faster than other types of paper.

Interestingly, the producers of brown paper grocery bags and cardboard shipping boxes take advantage of lignin because it makes their products sturdier. These paper products aren't bleached, leaving them much browner than a newspaper and also stiff enough to give a bag carrying groceries its strength.

Sunlight and high-moisture levels can also negatively impact paper preservation. Sunlight speeds up the oxidation process.

In fact you can preserve your books in good condition, provided you keep out both oxygen and light indefinitely from them.

Oxidation doesn’t spread to other books from one book. All books made of similar material react in the same way to the atmospheric conditions around them.

Q: Why do some people say homeopathy can cure their diseases?

Krishna: Homeopathy can successfully cure… IMAGINARY PROBLEMS. Of which there are many.

'Homeopathic medicines' can also have a placebo effect on real problems. 

Apart from that no matter what people might say, science has given evidence that it cannot cure anything. Period!

Oh, yes, one doctor said this: 'the only thing that homeopathy cures is ECS. Also known as “Excessive Cash Syndrome.” '.

Q: How do I cure an irritable bowel system, both allopathic, Ayurvedic, and also in homeopathic and other treatments?

Krishna: First let me start with the different types of treatments you mentioned.

Homeopathy is pseudo-science and doesn’t work. What is the use of taking something that doesn’t work? If I say something, I should also show evidence. So please click on the links given below (1,2,3, 4, 5). Now forget homeopathy.

Then Ayurveda. Ayurveda is not completely ‘pseudo-science’. It is an ancient science, that needs to be validated. It is anecdotal and still has to stand the tests of modern science. Unless you test using modern scientific methods and prove or disprove all of ayurvedic medicine claims, you cannot trust it completely.

And we have some extremely bad reports about Ayurvedic medicines (6,7,8,9,10,11). I can show you several such research papers that say ayurvedic medicines cause severe toxicity.

Read this article for full description of these bad affects caused by alternative treatments.

This is what a liver transplant surgeon told me recently...

Now people ask me don’t allopathic medicines cause side effects? They do! But allopathic medicines are brought into the public domain after years and years of genuine scientific research and only when the positives outweigh the negatives, then only they are used. Moreover, as we know what the negatives are, we can manage them successfully.

So allopathic medicines are the only ones that should be trusted.

Now how do you cure it? By going to a highly reliable specialized medical doctor. You cannot cure it yourself. Without knowing the root cause, how can anybody cure it? Without knowledge, if you try to cure it by trying what internet says, you land in more trouble.

Never ask health related questions on any social media . You will get answers from all sorts of people - everybody tries to play a doctor here.

Footnotes:

  1. Homeopathy ineffective, study confirms
  2. 1,800 Studies Later, Scientists Conclude Homeopathy Doesn’t Work
  3. Another Review Finds Homeopathy Worthless | Science-Based Medicine
  4. Homeopathy officially doesn't work, according to Russia's top scien...
  5. This is what a liver transplant surgeon told me recently...
  6. Herb-Induced Liver Injury in the Berlin Case-Control Surveillance S...
  7. A rare case of acute hepatitis induced by use of Babchi seeds as an...
  8. Luffa echinata: healer plant or potential killer - PubMed
  9. Review article: herbal and dietary supplement hepatotoxicity - PubMed
  10. Acute renal failure secondary to ingestion of alternative medicatio...
  11. Acute renal failure secondary to ingestion of ayurvedic medicine co...

Q: What if biotechnology overtakes the cause of humanity?

Krishna: Hmmm!

Science itself helps the world.
But Some people complain that science also brings with it a few bad things like commercial GM crops along with the good it does to mankind. But according to the scientific community – science is like a knife. A knife can be used to cut throats and spill blood. It can also be used for good purposes like cutting fruits and vegetables. It depends on the person who uses it. Likewise science can also be used for the benefit of living beings as well as for their destruction. Which way it goes is in the hands of the person who uses it. The choice is definitely yours,
 Homo sapiens (1).

Bio technology includes genomics, bioinformatics, plant and animal biotechnology, medical biotechnology, agriculture, environment and biodiversity, biofuels, product and process development, bio-instrumentation, human resource development, vaccine development and biosafety (2).

Biotechnology has applications in four major industrial areas, including health care (medical), crop production and agriculture, non-food (industrial) uses of crops and other products (e.g. biodegradable plastics, vegetable oil, biofuels), and environmental uses (2).

Aren’t all these things helping the human and living beings (cause of humanity in your words)? Biotechnology is being developed to help the world.

If some people use it for other purposes, I don't think the rest of scientific community will keep quiet. We have our checks and balances.

Therefore, I am not worried about my own field, which is very humane and works for the human cause most of the time. And I suggest you too don't worry about it.

Footnotes:

  1. Choice is Yours
  2. Biotechnology - Wikipedia

Q: What is the strongest metal, and how strong is that?

Krishna : The strength of a metal can be measured in four different ways (3):

  • Yield strength – measures the amount of stress a metal can withstand until damage is caused.
  • Compressive strength – measures the degree of squeezing stress that will begin to cause damage.
  • Tensile strength – measures the amount of pulling stress a metal can take until damage is caused.
  • Impact strength – measures the lowest amount of impact energy which will fracture a particular metal.

In terms of tensile strength, tungsten is the strongest out of any natural metal (142,000 psi). But in terms of impact strength, tungsten is weak — it’s a brittle metal that’s known to shatter on impact. Titanium, on the other hand, has a tensile strength of 63,000 psi. But when you figure in titanium’s density and make a pound-for-pound comparison, it beats tungsten. Looking at titanium in terms of compression strength, it scores much lower on the Mohs scale of hardness (1).

Alloys are combinations of metals, and the main reason for making alloys is to produce a stronger material. The most important alloy is steel, which is a combination of iron and carbon and is much harder than either of its two elemental components. Metallurgists create alloys of most metals, even steel, and they belong on lists of the hardest metals. We’ll go ahead and call all these metals as they are still composed primarily of elemental metals(2).
So  taking different measures into consideration, , you will get different scenes. 

However, the five strongest metals (3) most people accept are ....

Osmium

One of the less well-known metals on the list, osmium is a bluish white colour, extremely tough and has a melting point of 3030 degrees celsius. Also, it’s one of the densest naturally occurring metals. Thanks to its supreme strength, osmium is commonly used in fountain pen nib tipping and electrical circuit components.

Steel

Steel is certainly the most common metal on the list, and has been used by humans for centuries; roughly 1.3 billion tonnes of steel is produced every year! It holds up our buildings, forms the shells of our vehicles, and is arguably one of the most useful and ubiquitous materials of the modern world. It is an alloy of iron and carbon, and often comes in the form of stainless steel, which is partly constituted by chromium.

Chromium

Chromium, arguably the strongest metal of the five, is a distinctive silvery colour and, as stated earlier, is commonly alloyed with steel to create stainless steel. It has a variety of uses, for example, chrome plating, pigment production and even tanning.

Titanium

Titanium, unlike osmium, has a very low density but a high strength. Consequently, titanium is noted for having the highest tensile strength-to-density ratio of any metallic element on the periodic table. Titanium is often alloyed with iron and aluminium, creating extremely light alloys which are invaluable across a number of applications such as aerospace and military engineering.

Tungsten

A particularly rare metal, tungsten is a silvery grey colour and is often alloyed with steel, greatly increasing its toughness. However, alone, tungsten has the highest melting point and also the highest tensile strength of any pure metal on the periodic table, making it a top contender for the strongest metal on the planet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptAR3allc7U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwCZ8xdiYK0

Footnotes:

1.  https://www.meadmetals.com/blog/what-are-the-strongest-metals
Q: Can you make water in a laboratory which is also consumable?

Krishna: Yes! But wait!

A molecule of pure water is made of two hydrogen atoms bonded to an oxygen atom. Water is the common name for dihydrogen monoxide or H2O. The molecule is produced from numerous chemical reactions, including the synthesis reaction from its elements, hydrogen, and oxygen. The balanced chemical equation for the reaction is

2 H2 + O2 → 2 H2O

While making small volumes of pure water in a lab is possible, it’s not practical to “make” large volumes of water by mixing hydrogen and oxygen together. The reaction is expensive, releases lots of energy, and can cause really massive explosions.

In theory, it's easy to make water from hydrogen and oxygen gases. Mix the two gases together, add a spark or sufficient heat to provide the activation energy to start the reaction, and you get water. Merely mixing the two gases at room temperature, however, won't do anything, like hydrogen and oxygen molecules in the air don't spontaneously form water.

Energy must be supplied to break the covalent bonds that hold H2 and O2 molecules together. The hydrogen cations and oxygen anions are then free to react with each other, which they do because of their electronegativity differences. When the chemical bonds re-form to make water, additional energy is released, which propagates the reaction. The net reaction is highly exothermic, meaning a reaction that is accompanied by the release of heat.

Reacting hydrogen and oxygen is basically burning hydrogen gas, except rather than using the limited amount of oxygen in the air, you're feeding the fire. During combustion, oxygen is added to a molecule, which produces water in this reaction. Combustion also releases a lot of energy. Heat and light are produced so quickly that a shock wave expands outward.

Basically, you have an explosion. The more water you make at once, the bigger the explosion.

So don’t try to produce water in your science lab without expert supervision. It is a dangerous experiment.

Q: Why is the water in the pot cold?

Krishna: Pots are usually made of clay. An earthen pot is porous in nature. Vaporisation is the process that takes place in every part of the environment.

Water placed in earthen pots is evaporated from minuscule pores it has as it is made of mud particles. There are a large number of extremely small pores in an earthen pot through which the water kept inside the pot keeps on evaporating and takes the latent heat required for vaporization from the earthen pot and remaining water. The earthen pot and water hence loses heat and this makes the water inside the pot cool. This evaporation of water produces a cooling effect. Some of the heat energy that is generated is used in the process of evaporation. Hence, water stored in earthen pots tends to become cooler in summer.

Q: Why is Tesla considered a better scientist than Einstein?

Krishna: Who considers? Media? Or common man?

You don’t grade scientists like that. All these are perception based opinions, not facts.

However, if a scientist’s work becomes more useful for the world, maybe some people consider that scientist as a better one. But all knowledge is important and useful.

While Einstein was preoccupied with how and why, Tesla was more interested in practical applications. Tesla was an engineer with the mind of a physicist. He looked at the way things worked and tried to figure out how to appropriate them into new inventions. Tesla was a scientist and visionary who developed the basis for AC electric power that most of the planet uses today and pioneered numerous technologies that improve our everyday lives, like motors, radios, X-rays, neon signs and other technology was advanced by his extraordinary mind.

Einstein’s Theory of relativity also helps us in everyday life(1). Einstein's theories of relativity have not only affected our daily lives in such basic ways as how we heat our homes, reach our destinations, and measure our days. In addition to his work on relativity, the physicist laid the scientific foundations for paper towels, lasers, and more common products. Albert Einstein is justly famous for devising his theory of relativity, which revolutionized our understanding of space, time, gravity, and the universe.

Both Einstein and Tesla are equally good and so do all other scientists. No one is inferior, no one is superior. Scientists depend on one another’s work and it is not easy to isolate any scientist’s work and say this one is the best.

Footnotes:

  1. 8 Ways You Can See Einstein's Theory of Relativity in Real Life

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