YES we can...not only america .India also need change and it is the time

Imagination is more important than knowledge

Seven IITians with their very own UAVs catch the Army Chief’s eye

General Deepak Kapoor at the Defence Expo NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 17: When a group of fresh IIT graduates team up with one of the largest Indian business conglomerates to foray into the booming Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) market, even the Army Chief has to sit up and take notice.

During his stroll around the CII-organised Defence Expo on Sunday, General Deepak Kapoor was smitten by a set of mini-UAVs developed indigenously by a group of seven IIT Kanpur graduates.

Clearly impressed by the small, hand launched UAVs — designed to be carried by an infantry soldier for tactical reconnaissance in the battlefield — the General has invited them for flight demonstration and trials.

While purchases may be a long way off — the Army is expected to shortly float a global tender for mini-UAVs in the same class for the infantry — the invitation is a major achievement for a product that was conceptualised by the students during college.

“We were friends in IIT, working on various projects when we decided to do something out of the ordinary. Some work (on UAVs) had been done in IIT during personal projects and after graduating, we decided to get together,” says Raman Puri, CEO of Aurora Integrated Systems (AIS), the company floated by the graduates.

The two UAVs designed by the company and unveiled at Defence Expo that caught the Army Chief’s eye are the Sky i Mk 1, a man portable 2.8 kg UAV fitted with cameras and infra red sensors and the Altius, a larger UAV with an endurance of 10 hours for battlefield surveillance and reconnaissance.

While the two UAVs match similar products available around the world, where the company is hoping to score is the promise of indigenous technology and the scope of a cheaper military solution due to domestic production.

“Our system is totally indigenous and we have home grown technology without any foreign assistance. The cost of the UAV would also be significantly lesser as we are a small company and the cost of development was not too much,” Puri says.

The project kicked off on a small scale in 2006 but the current UAV projects took off in earnest last year after the TATA group bought an equity stake in the startup company. Funding apart, the upcoming defence giant brought in expertise like composite materials technology and marketing skills.

While the flight demonstration for the Army is a good start, the company expects a growing UAV market for paramilitary forces like CRPF and BSF in counter insurgency roles as well as state police forces in riot control and anti-Naxal operations.

This person has not watched Indian movies!!!!!!!!!!!!

Imagination is more important than knowledge

Hydrogen expert shaken up by Quantum of Solace

Wednesday, 17 December 2008,@University of Salford

Professor Ross with a model hydrogen-fuelled car

A Salford University professor has accused the latest James Bond film of "irresponsible scaremongering" for its depiction of hydrogen in the climactic final scene - comparing it to the 1937 Hindenburg disaster.

Professor Keith Ross has criticised the scene - in which hydrogen is seen to explode dramatically - for portraying the fuel as dangerous when, in fact, it can be handled quite safely.

He blames the infamous fire of the German airship Hindenburg for the public and film-makers' attitudes. While widely believed to be caused by hydrogen, the fire has, in fact, been attributed to the flammable exterior paintwork.

He said: "I was perturbed to watch the James Bond film's climax. It was unrealistic and may perpetuate the fear that hydrogen should be avoided.

"Although potentially explosive in a confined space, the fuel can be handled quite safely. If released into the open air, hydrogen would only burn with a blue flame - a fact obviously of no interest to a film-maker!

"Like the famous photographs of the Hindenburg disaster, the scene's images could well stick in the public's consciousness."

Professor Ross is leading a major research project into the viability of hydrogen as an economical, low carbon fuel, and a more environmentally friendly alternative to petrol and diesel-based engines.

"The world needs a practical alternative to fossil fuels and I believe that hydrogen may be the way forward," he said. "The public needs to be reassured about its safety and scaremongering in the media will only set us back." Ref:http://www.salford.ac.uk/news/details/812

judging Einstein

Imagination is more important than knowledge

Judging Einstein

American Scientist 93 (2005): 104.

J. Donald Fernie

This year we celebrate the centenary of Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity. Indeed, 1905 was the year in which Einstein first gave notice of his astonishing abilities. He was but 26 and had just earned his doctorate, but that year he published four papers on separate topics, each of which marked a major advance in physics. The first of these, on the photo-electric effect, would bring him the Nobel Prize, but it was the third, on special relativity, that made him both famous and controversial. A decade after this flurry of papers, in 1915, he unveiled the theory of general relativity, shaking again the foundations of science.

So different was relativity from the prevailing beliefs that most physicists demanded proof that it could explain phenomena that Isaac Newton's canon could not. Satisfying such demands was difficult, because the difference between the two models could only be apparent under extreme conditions. There seemed little hope that any terrestrial experiment could decide between them, but Einstein later identified three astronomical tests. The first was the proper calculation of the orbit of the planet Mercury—a feat that was beyond Newtonian physics (see "In Pursuit of Vulcan" in the September-October 1994 American Scientist). The second test required the comparison of light emitted from atoms in the Sun with light from similar atoms on Earth—relativity predicted that the Sun's light would have a longer wavelength (an example of the so-called redshift). The third test posited that if relativity was true, then rays of starlight that passed near the Sun would be bent compared to the same rays when the Sun was elsewhere in the sky. In each case, the relativistic effects are caused by gravity from the Sun's huge mass.

Early attempts to perform these tests did not silence Einstein's critics, because some observations supported his theory and others did not. Thus, the general theory of relativity yielded a much better solution to the Mercury problem than did Newtonian models, but another prediction of relativity, the redshift of the solar spectrum, could not be verified. (Eventually, astrophysicists learned that several other factors complicated the observation of this phenomenon.) So with one result in favor and another in doubt, the third test became something of a deciding vote for or against relativity.

Einstein first suggested how this light-bending effect could be measured in 1911. He predicted that those rays of starlight that passed closest to the Sun would be deflected by 0.85 arcseconds (0.00023 degree) because of the Sun's gravitational field. However, stars that appear next to the Sun are only visible during a total solar eclipse. To test Einstein's hypothesis, one would have to take photographs during an eclipse that showed background stars near the Sun's disk and compare them with photos taken months earlier or later, when the same stars rose in the night sky. Did stars appearing on opposite sides of the Sun's disk maintain the same spacing when the Sun was gone, or not?

This prediction seemed easy to check. Many pictures of solar eclipses already existed, as did photos of the night sky. Even so, skepticism about Einstein's theory was so prevalent that few astronomers rushed to their archives. And when they did examine previous photographs of solar eclipses, they found that the pictures were unsuited to proving or disproving Einstein's claim: The telescopes had been set to track the Sun's motion across the sky, not the stellar motions, and the slight differences between these perspectives obscured the small, predicted shifts in star positions. However, as time went by and other experiments gave equivocal results, the solar-eclipse experiment represented the best chance to test the truth of relativity.

Hoping for a Dark Noon

As early as 1912 it seemed possible to capture the necessary photographs with little fuss. In October of that year, a total solar eclipse was to run across the northern parts of South America, and the astronomical observatory of Córdoba in central Argentina was near enough to mount an expedition. Unhappily, almost all of South America was under clouds that day.

Another suitable eclipse loomed in August 1914, running northwest to southeast across eastern Europe. Erwin Freundlich, a young German astronomer, was determined to test Einstein's theory but encountered grave difficulty raising money for the trip. The scientific establishment in Germany was uninterested in paying for it, leading Einstein himself to offer his own none-too-abundant finances. With so few options, Freundlich appealed to other countries for collaborators that would help fund the expedition. He had only one taker: William Wallace Campbell and a team from the Lick Observatory in California. Later, the Berlin Academy provided additional support.

The eclipse was due August 21, but the team of Germans and Americans established a camp near Kiev well before that date to prepare for the event. Unfortunately, history intervened: On August 1, 1914, Germany declared war on Russia, and the German astronomers were taken prisoner. Russian forces expelled the older scientists and held the younger ones as prisoners of war. The Russians did allow the Americans to stay for the eclipse, but again the sky was totally clouded out. Campbell later wrote "I never knew before how keenly an eclipse astronomer feels his disappointment through clouds. One wishes that he could come home by the back door and see nobody."

Arthur Eddington

The next year, at the height of the First World War, Einstein published his general theory of relativity. This timing greatly complicated the theory's dissemination because German scientific journals were then unavailable to the English-speaking world. It was an astronomer from neutral Holland who brought word of the new theory to Britain. Moreover, Britain was going through a period of almost hysterical opposition to all things German. Ardently opposed to this mindless, pervasive hatred, a young British astrophysicist named Arthur Stanley Eddington stood almost alone. Eddington was not only a rising star in astronomy but a Quaker—a religious pacifist. As such, he refused to fight in the war, although he was willing to risk his life providing aid to civilians caught in the violence. Because of his beliefs, Eddington lived on the verge of imprisonment during much of the war and suffered vicious attacks for his pacifism and efforts to counter his peers' nationalistic hostility toward German science.

Eddington learned of Einstein's general theory from the Dutch astronomer Willem de Sitter and was immediately taken with it. He was almost certainly the first (and, for a while, the only) English-speaker to understand the theory and appreciate its significance. Eddington grasped the fact that Einstein's new work meant that the eclipse experiment was an even more significant test of relativity—the general theory predicted twice as much deflection of light rays passing the Sun as did the special theory. Another suitable eclipse would occur in 1919, and although in 1915 there was no immediate hope for peace, the British Astronomer Royal, Frank Dyson, began to lay plans (no doubt at Eddington's prompting) for an expedition to photograph the event. Eddington, of course, was eager to lead such an expedition but worried that his uncertain standing with the authorities might cause difficulties for the project. Then, in a stroke of genius, Dyson wrote a carefully worded letter to officialdom. In response, the government notified Eddington that he was lucky so far in having avoided prison, and that his only hope of remaining that way was to lead Dyson's expedition, whether Eddington liked it or not! Eddington dutifully bowed to the hoped-for ultimatum.

Partly Cloudy

Around the same time, an eclipse in the United States in June 1918 was almost entirely obscured by clouds, but Campbell's team did get some photographs. These poorly exposed plates seemed to indicate no relativistic effects, much to the delight of Einstein's skeptics, including Campbell.

The eclipse of May 29, 1919, was to start near the border between Chile and Peru, then traverse South America, cross the Atlantic Ocean and arc down through central Africa. No part of the path was far from the equator, and the desirable, longest-lasting portion was in the Atlantic, a few hundred miles from the coast of Liberia. The British planners decided that the tiny island of Principe, nestled in the crook of Africa's Gulf of Guinea, would be best despite the poor astronomical viewing from low-lying tropical regions. The choice of Principe introduced other challenges. One modern travel agency advises prospective visitors to the island that "It's best to go between June and September. The rest of the year is muggy and hot—you'll be swimming in rain and your own sweat." Just in case Principe was cloudy at the crucial time, the British sent a second expedition to observe the eclipse from Sobral, in eastern Brazil.

The main instruments at both sites were existing astrographic telescopes of 33-centimeter aperture designed specifically for photographing star positions with high precision. Although these telescopes were designed to automatically follow the stars, their temporary emplacement in the field required each telescope to be immobilized as a clockwork-driven flat mirror tracked across the sky and fed light to the main lens. As an afterthought, the Brazil contingent added a small 10-centimeter telescope to its roster. In the end, it saved the day.

The expeditionaries set out months ahead of the eclipse to allow for travel difficulties. Although the war officially ended in November 1918, chaos continued for months thereafter. Upon arrival, they had to evaluate the terrain, choose a site, and set up and test their equipment. Eddington's group arrived at Principe in late April and, amid the heat and rain, found themselves under such constant attack by biting insects that they needed to work under mosquito netting most of the time. The rain grew worse as May advanced, and the day of the eclipse began with a tremendous storm. The rain stopped as the day wore on, but the totality phase of the eclipse would start at 2:15 p.m. and last only five minutes. Eddington wrote:

About 1.30 when the partial phase was well advanced, we began to get glimpses of the Sun, at 1.55 we could see the crescent (through the cloud) almost continuously and large patches of clear sky appearing. We had to carry out our programme of photographs in faith. I did not see the eclipse, being too busy changing plates, except for one glance to make sure it had begun.... We took 16 photographs ... but the cloud has interfered very much with the star images.

The weather in Brazil was much better—beautifully clear, in fact. The observers took 19 photos with the astrograph and eight with the small telescope. But when the photographs were developed, they found that despite their precautions, the astrograph's pictures showed, according to Dyson, "a serious change of focus, so that, while the stars were shown, the definition was spoiled." Even under ideal conditions, the predicted relativistic displacement on the photographs was only 1/60 of a millimeter—about a quarter of the diameter of a star on a sharply exposed image. Although they could measure such a minute shift, the poor focus made this task nearly impossible. By contrast, the small telescope's photographs were clear and sharp, but on a reduced scale.

The original caption for the graphical explanation of the experiment read as follows: The results obtained by the British expeditions to observe the total eclipse of the sun last May verified Professor Einstein's theory that light is subject to gravitation. Writing in our issue of November 15 [1919], Dr. A.C. Crommelin, one of the British observers, said: "The eclipse was specially favourable for the purpose, there being no fewer than twelve fairly bright stars near the limb of the sun. The process of observation consisted in taking photographs of these stars during totality, and comparing them with other plates of the same region taken when the sun was not in the neighbourhood. Then if the starlight is bent by the sun's attraction, the stars on the eclipse plates would seem to be pushed outward compared with those on the other plates…. The second Sobral camera and the one used at Principe agree in supporting Einstein's theory…. It is of profound philosophical interest. Straight lines in Einstein’s space cannot exist; they are parts of gigantic curves." From the Illustrated London News of November 22, 1919.

Weighing the Data

Many months later, back in England, Eddington pondered the inconsistent results. Einstein's theory predicted a displacement of 1.75 arcseconds, but none of the experiments was in perfect agreement with the theory. The usable photos from Principe showed an average difference of 1.61±0.30 arcseconds, the astrograph in Brazil indicated a deflection of about 0.93 arcseconds (depending on how one weighted the individual spoiled photos), and the little 10-centimeter telescope gave a result of 1.98±0.12 arcseconds. The smaller device, in addition to yielding the most precise data, afforded a wider field of view and supported Einstein's theory of how the displacement should vary with angular distance from the edge of the Sun. But the validation of relativity required exact measurements, particularly because physicists had realized that Newtonian theory alone could predict a stellar displacement that was half that of Einstein's, or about 0.83 arcseconds.

Eventually, Eddington, after much discussion with Dyson, suggested an overall measurement of 1.64 arcseconds, which he took to be in pretty good agreement with Einstein, but he also gave the separate results from each telescope so others might weight them as they saw fit. Moreover, Dyson offered to send exact contact copies of the original photographic glass plates to anyone who wished to make their own measurements, which should have gone far to refute the occasional allegation that Eddington had cooked the results.

Ironically, confirmation of Eddington's conclusion (and the theory of relativity) came from Campbell's team at an eclipse in Australia in 1922, for which they determined a stellar displacement of 1.72±0.11 arcseconds. Campbell had been open in his belief that Einstein was wrong, but when his experiment proved exactly the opposite, good scientist that he was, Campbell immediately admitted his error and never opposed relativity again.

Acknowledgment I am indebted to Dr. Jeffrey Crelinsten for granting access to his unpublished work on this topic and for providing comments on an earlier version of this article.

Bibliography

• Clark, R. W. 1971. Einstein: The Life and Times. New York: World Publishing Company.
• Crelinsten, J. In press. Einstein's Jury: The Race to Test Relativity. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
• Stanley, M. 2003. An expedition to heal the wounds of war: The 1919 eclipse and Eddington as Quaker adventurer. Isis 94:57-89.

Uncertanity principle amazing explanation

Imagination is more important than knowledge http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8IQbL_DnGk

Is Bangalore really Silicon Valley?

Imagination is more important than knowledge

Politicians, bureaucrats and residents of Bangalore take pride in the fact that they live in what they call the Silicon Valley of the East. The city is considered high tech because of the number of software and software services companies located here.

But is Bangalore really Silicon Valley?

California's Silicon Valley

In 1933 Frederick Terman, a professor of engineering at Stanford University, mentored two undergraduates named Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, and was instrumental in getting them to start a company.

They went on to form the company Hewlett-Packard. This was the first seed from which Silicon Valley grew.

Today around 2,000 electronics and information technology companies, along with numerous services and supplier firms, are clustered in the area.

Silicon Valley contains the densest concentration of innovative industry that exists anywhere in the world, including companies that are leaders in fields like computers, semiconductors, lasers, fiber optics, robotics, medical instrumentation, and consumer electronics.

Some products that went from dream to reality in Silicon Valley are the first video game, the ink-jet printer, the video recorder, the mouse, the personal computer, and much else that we take for granted in the information age.

Here's a sample of some Silicon Valley firms, familiar to most of us because of their products: Adobe Systems (Acrobat Reader), Apple Computer (computer), Hewlett-Packard (printer), Intel (the CPU in your PC), Netscape (Internet browser), Seagate Technology (the hard disk in your PC), Yahoo (Internet portal), VeriFone (credit card terminals in shops), Symantec (Norton anti-virus software), etc.

Such firms are called technology companies, because their chief resource is the technologies that they develop and own, not the real estate that they are sitting on or the equipment that they possess. Stocks in a technology company are called 'tech stocks.' Scientists and engineers working in these companies are called 'techies.'

Indicative of the inventive spirit is the fact that residents of Santa Clara County, which includes San Jose and other Silicon Valley computer hotbeds, were granted 27,617 patents during the 1990s.

Silicon Valley thrives on risk. Business in the Valley is about placing bets on people, ideas and inventions.

If the Silicon Valley were an independent country, its economy would be about the tenth largest in the world.

Bangalore or 'Coolie Valley'

If you ask the president of any of Bangalore's software development companies what his company does, he'll say "We provide end-to-end solutions for Xxxx." Xxxx could be any or all of these -- e-commerce, banking, telecom. . .

What he means to say is this: 'We'll do the software coding in any of these areas for you. Just tell us what you need. We have a huge mass of engineers who know various programming languages.'

These companies do not develop any technologies or products. They provide development services. They have engineers who specialize in programming languages rather than in technologies.

Their chief resource is the huge mass of low-cost labour that they have taken the trouble to recruit.

Ask them about patents, and you get the reply "Huh, what's that?"

These companies start with zero risk. They do not bet on their ideas or inventions. A company is started after getting some contracts in hand.

A typical engineer in these companies has no specialization in any technology. He does not use his engineering knowledge. You could say his body is employed, but his brain is severely under-employed.

Here is a sample of some prominent Bangalore software companies with what they specialize in: Tata Consultancy Services (end-to-end solutions), Wipro (end-to-end solutions), Infosys (end-to-end solutions)

DSQ Software (end-to-end solutions), Kshema Technologies (end-to-end solutions), Ivega Technologies (end-to-end solutions), MindTree Consulting (end-to-end solutions).

The comparison

Silicon Valley companies are based on 'know what.' They know the market, they know the technology and they know what products to make to earn money.

Coolie valley companies are based on 'know how.' They do the software coding for other companies that have the 'know what.' If you tell them what to do, they know how and will do it for you.

Silicon Valley companies invest huge sums of money on R&D. They generate new ideas and are constantly developing new ways of doing things.

Coolie Valley companies have nothing called R&D. They do not generate any new ideas.

A typical Silicon Valley engineer is a specialist in a particular technology, like inkjet printing or virus detection. He spends all his life working in this technology area.

A typical Coolie Valley engineer is a specialist in a few languages. He is not concerned about the technology that he is working on and is willing to develop any software with the languages that he knows.

A typical Silicon Valley engineer's education and work experience all relate to a technology. When he changes jobs, he changes to another company working on the same technology.

A typical Coolie Valley engineer's work experience does not teach him any technology. He may be a mechanical engineer currently working for three months on banking software, and then the next three months on shoe retailing software.

Silicon Valley is all about the excitement of creating things out of nothing. Companies like HP actually started in the garages of their founders.

Coolie Valley does not know the meaning of creativity. Some companies are started by people who quit other companies and take some of the parent firm's software development contracts with them.

Silicon Valley's entrepreneurs bet on people, ideas and inventions.

Coolie Valley's entrepreneurs bet on certainties. They start a firm after getting software development contracts.

Silicon Valley's firms are about technology management.

Coolie valley's firms are about man management.

It is extremely presumptuous to compare Bangalore with Silicon Valley, so all you Bangaloreans, please do me a favour and

• Don't call your city Silicon Valley ('pub city' or 'garden city', I have no problem with -- lots of pubs and lots of trees, but very little silicon).
• Don't call one of your new software companies a 'high technology start-up.'
• Don't call your engineers 'techies.' They've forgotten their engineering long ago.
• Don't say you've invested in 'tech stocks' ('body stocks' maybe ?).

If you are from Delhi or Mumbai and encounter a Bangalorean 'techie' spouting off about his work or about his Silicon Valley, you no longer need to develop an inferiority complex.

Author:

G V Dasarathi is director of a software products development company

Dare TO Create....MIT..the flower with the honey of geniusity

Need is the mother of invention.......But in india it is totally friction ,for a thinker, for his invention.

Any way atlest let us praise the genius for there dexterity.

Wireless power transfer over two-meter distance, from the coil on the left to the coil on the right, where it powers a 60W light bulb. Members of the team that performed the experiment are obstructing the direct line of sight between the coils; front row: Peter Fisher (left) and Robert Moffatt; second row: Marin Soljacic; third row: Andre Kurs (left), John Joannopoulos and Aristeidis Karalis

Goodbye wires… MIT team experimentally demonstrates wireless power transfer, potentially useful for powering laptops, cell phones without cords

Franklin Hadley, Institute for Soldier NanotechnologiesJune 7, 2007 Imagine a future in which wireless power transfer is feasible: cell phones, household robots, mp3 players, laptop computers and other portable electronics capable of charging themselves without ever being plugged in, freeing us from that final, ubiquitous power wire. Some of these devices might not even need their bulky batteries to operate. A team from MIT's Department of Physics, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (ISN) has experimentally demonstrated an important step toward accomplishing this vision of the future. The team members are Andre Kurs, Aristeidis Karalis, Robert Moffatt, Prof. Peter Fisher, and Prof. John Joannopoulos (Francis Wright Davis Chair and director of ISN), led by Prof. Marin Soljacic. Realizing their recent theoretical prediction, they were able to light a 60W light bulb from a power source seven feet (more than two meters) away; there was no physical connection between the source and the appliance. The MIT team refers to its concept as "WiTricity" (as in wireless electricity). The work will be reported in the June 7 issue of Science Express, the advance online publication of the journal Science. Late-night beeps The story starts one late night a few years ago, with Soljacic (pronounced Soul-ya-cheech) standing in his pajamas, staring at his cell phone on the kitchen counter. "It was probably the sixth time that month that I was awakened by my cell phone beeping to let me know that I had forgotten to charge it. It occurred to me that it would be so great if the thing took care of its own charging." To make this possible, one would have to have a way to transmit power wirelessly, so Soljacic started thinking about which physical phenomena could help make this wish a reality. Radiation methods Various methods of transmitting power wirelessly have been known for centuries. Perhaps the best known example is electromagnetic radiation, such as radio waves. While such radiation is excellent for wireless transmission of information, it is not feasible to use it for power transmission. Since radiation spreads in all directions, a vast majority of power would end up being wasted into free space. One can envision using directed electromagnetic radiation, such as lasers, but this is not very practical and can even be dangerous. It requires an uninterrupted line of sight between the source and the device, as well as a sophisticated tracking mechanism when the device is mobile. The key: Magnetically coupled resonance In contrast, WiTricity is based on using coupled resonant objects. Two resonant objects of the same resonant frequency tend to exchange energy efficiently, while interacting weakly with extraneous off-resonant objects. A child on a swing is a good example of this. A swing is a type of mechanical resonance, so only when the child pumps her legs at the natural frequency of the swing is she able to impart substantial energy. Another example involves acoustic resonances: Imagine a room with 100 identical wine glasses, each filled with wine up to a different level, so they all have different resonant frequencies. If an opera singer sings a sufficiently loud single note inside the room, a glass of the corresponding frequency might accumulate sufficient energy to even explode, while not influencing the other glasses. In any system of coupled resonators there often exists a so-called "strongly coupled" regime of operation. If one ensures to operate in that regime in a given system, the energy transfer can be very efficient. While these considerations are universal, applying to all kinds of resonances (e.g., acoustic, mechanical, electromagnetic, etc.), the MIT team focused on one particular type: magnetically coupled resonators. The team explored a system of two electromagnetic resonators coupled mostly through their magnetic fields; they were able to identify the strongly coupled regime in this system, even when the distance between them was several times larger than the sizes of the resonant objects. This way, efficient power transfer was enabled. Magnetic coupling is particularly suitable for everyday applications because most common materials interact only very weakly with magnetic fields, so interactions with extraneous environmental objects are suppressed even further. "The fact that magnetic fields interact so weakly with biological organisms is also important for safety considerations," Kurs, a graduate student in physics, points out. The investigated design consists of two copper coils, each a self-resonant system. One of the coils, attached to the power source, is the sending unit. Instead of irradiating the environment with electromagnetic waves, it fills the space around it with a non-radiative magnetic field oscillating at MHz frequencies. The non-radiative field mediates the power exchange with the other coil (the receiving unit), which is specially designed to resonate with the field. The resonant nature of the process ensures the strong interaction between the sending unit and the receiving unit, while the interaction with the rest of the environment is weak. Moffatt, an MIT undergraduate in physics, explains: "The crucial advantage of using the non-radiative field lies in the fact that most of the power not picked up by the receiving coil remains bound to the vicinity of the sending unit, instead of being radiated into the environment and lost." With such a design, power transfer has a limited range, and the range would be shorter for smaller-size receivers. Still, for laptop-sized coils, power levels more than sufficient to run a laptop can be transferred over room-sized distances nearly omni-directionally and efficiently, irrespective of the geometry of the surrounding space, even when environmental objects completely obstruct the line-of-sight between the two coils. Fisher points out: "As long as the laptop is in a room equipped with a source of such wireless power, it would charge automatically, without having to be plugged in. In fact, it would not even need a battery to operate inside of such a room." In the long run, this could reduce our society's dependence on batteries, which are currently heavy and expensive. At first glance, such a power transfer is reminiscent of relatively commonplace magnetic induction, such as is used in power transformers, which contain coils that transmit power to each other over very short distances. An electric current running in a sending coil induces another current in a receiving coil. The two coils are very close, but they do not touch. However, this behavior changes dramatically when the distance between the coils is increased. As Karalis, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science, points out, "Here is where the magic of the resonant coupling comes about. The usual non-resonant magnetic induction would be almost 1 million times less efficient in this particular system." Old physics, new demand WiTricity is rooted in such well-known laws of physics that it makes one wonder why no one thought of it before. "In the past, there was no great demand for such a system, so people did not have a strong motivation to look into it," points out Joannopoulos, adding, "Over the past several years, portable electronic devices, such as laptops, cell phones, iPods and even household robots have become widespread, all of which require batteries that need to be recharged often." As for what the future holds, Soljacic adds, "Once, when my son was about three years old, we visited his grandparents' house. They had a 20-year-old phone and my son picked up the handset, asking, 'Dad, why is this phone attached with a cord to the wall?' That is the mindset of a child growing up in a wireless world. My best response was, 'It is strange and awkward, isn't it? Hopefully, we will be getting rid of some more wires, and also batteries, soon.'" This work was funded by the Army Research Office (Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies), National Science Foundation (Center for Materials Science and Engineering), and the Department of Energy.

The first indian empire

Its the data which is required to solve a problem after the clear understanding of the problem.Now the problem is Indians always say they are great.But they themselves know that they are not compitative enough to be called as great.It is this feeling of guilty iam after.Yes Indians were great ,but now they are not.They have the potential but it is dieing under the blanket of culture,cast,arrogance...etc. This post is just to make all Indians awakened about what we were priviosly ,and what we are now and what we can do.

The First Indian Empire The Asian Way Of Life By the end of the Later Vedic Age about 500 B.C., a thousand years after the collapse of the Indus civilization, the Aryan invaders of India had established sixteen major kingdoms and tribal oligarchies in northern India, stretching from modern Pakistan to Bengal. The shock of Alexander the Great's invasion of India provided the spark that led to the unification of India. In 326 B.C. Alexander the Great, continuing his conquest of the Persian Empire (see ch. 2), brought his phalanxes into the easternmost Persian satrapy in the Indus valley, defeating local Punjab rulers. When his weary troops refused to advance further eastward into the Ganges plain, Alexander constructed a fleet and explored the Indus to its mouth. From there he returned overland to Babylon, while his fleet skirted the coast of the Arabian Sea and reached the Persian Gulf. After Alexander's death in 323 B.C., the empire he had built so rapidly quickly disintegrated, and by 321 B.C. his domain in the Punjab had completely disappeared. But he had opened routes between India and the West that would remain open during the following Hellenistic and Roman periods, and by destroying the petty states in the Punjab he facilitated - and perhaps inspired - the conquests of India's own first emperor. Chandragupta Maurya, India's First Emperor In 322 B.C., shortly after Alexander's death, a new era began in India. In that year Chandragupta Maurya seized the state of Magadha in the Ganges valley. Over the next twenty-four years Chandragupta conquered northern India and founded the Maurya Dynasty, which endured until about 185 B.C. At its height the empire included all the subcontinent except the extreme south. India's first empire reflected the imperial vision of its founder. He created an administrative system whose efficiency was not surpassed until the advent of British rule in the nineteenth century. Chandragupta was also a brilliant general and administrator. He was responsible for the first military victory of the East over the West; in 305 B.C. he defeated Seleucus, the general who had inherited the major part of Alexander's empire and had crossed the Indus in an attempt to regain Alexander's Indian conquests. Seleucus gave up his Indian claims in return for five hundred war elephants and established friendly diplomatic relations with the Indian emperor. Life In The Mauryan Empire Seleucus' ambassador to the court of Chandragupta, whose name was Megasthenes, wrote a detailed account of India, fragments of which have survived. They give a fascinating picture of life in the empire. Pataliputra, Chandragupta's capital known today as Patna, covered eighteen square miles and was probably the largest city in the world. Outside its massive wooden walls was a deep trench used for defense and the disposal of sewage. The remarkably advanced Mauryan empire was divided and subdivided into provinces, districts, and villages whose headmen were appointed by the state. The old customary law, preserved and administered by the Brahmin priesthood, was superseded by an extensive legal code that provided for royal interference in all matters. A series of courts ranging from the village court presided over by the headman to the emperor's imperial court administered the law. So busy was Chandragupta with the details of his surprisingly modern administration that, according to Megasthenes, he had to hear court cases during his daily massage. Two other agencies were very important in holding the empire together. One was the professional army, which Megasthenes reports was an incredibly large force of 700,000 men, 9000 elephants, and 10,000 chariots. The other was the secret police, whose numbers were so large that the Greek writer concluded that spies constituted a separate class in Indian society. So great was the danger of conspiracy that Chandragupta lived in strict seclusion, attended only by women who cooked his food and in the evening carried him to his apartment, where they lulled him to sleep with music. Complementing this picture of an efficient but harsh bureaucracy is a remarkable book, Treatise on Material Gain (Arthashastra), written by Chandragupta's chief minister, Kautilya, as a guide for the king and his ministers. Kautilya exalts royal power as the means of establishing and maintaining "material gain," meaning political and economic stability. The great evil is anarchy, such as had existed among the small warring states in northern India. To achieve the aims of statecraft, Kautilya argues, a single authority is needed that will employ force when necessary. Like Machiavelli, the Renaissance Italian author of a famous book on statecraft (The Prince), Kautilya advocates deception or unscrupulous means to attain desired ends. The Mauryan state also controlled and encouraged economic life. Kautilya's treatise, which is thought to reflect much actual practice, advises the ruler to "facilitate mining operations," "encourage manufacturers," "exploit forest wealth," "provide amenities" for cattle breeding and commerce, and "construct highways both on land and on water." Price controls are advocated because "all goods should be sold to the people at favorable prices," and foreign trade should be subsidized: "Shippers and traders dealing in foreign goods should be given tax exemptions to aid them in making profits." Foreign trade did flourish, and in the bazaars of Pataliputra were displayed goods from southern India, China, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor. Agriculture, however, remained the chief source of wealth. In theory, all land belonged to the state, which collected one fourth of the produce as taxes. Irrigation and crop rotation were practiced, and Megasthenes states that there were no famines. Ashoka, India's Greatest King Following Chandragupta's death in 297 B.C., his son and grandson expanded the empire southward into the Deccan Peninsula. However, Chandragupta's grandson Ashoka (269-232 B.C.), the most renowned of all Indian rulers, was more committed to peace than to war. His first military campaign was also his last; the cruelty of the campaign horrified him, and he resolved never again to permit such acts of butchery. Soon thereafter he was converted to Buddhism, whose teachings increased his aversion to warfare. Throughout his empire, Ashoka had his edicts carved on rocks and stone pillars. They remain today as the oldest surviving written documents of India and are invaluable for appreciating the spirit and purpose of Ashoka's rule. For example, they contain his conception of the duty of a ruler: He shall ... personally attend the business ... of earth, of sacred places, of minors, the aged, the afflicted, and the helpless, and of women .... In the happiness of his subjects lies his happiness. ^2 [Footnote 2: Quoted in Vincent Smith, The Oxford History of India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 131] Although a devout Buddhist, Ashoka did not persecute the Brahmins and Hindus but proclaimed religious toleration as official policy: The king ... honors every form of religious faith ... ; whereof this is the root, to reverence one's own faith and never to revile that of others. Whoever acts differently injures his own religion while he wrongs another's. ^3 [Footnote 3: Quoted in Charles Drekmeier, Kingship and Community in Early India (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1962), p. 175] Ashoka was a successful propagator of his faith. He sent Buddhist missionaries to many lands - the Himalayan regions, Tamil Land (India's far south), Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Burma, and even as far away as Syria and Egypt - and transformed Buddhism from a small Indian sect to an aggressive missionary faith. Modern Indians revere his memory, and the famous lion on the capital of one of his pillars has been adopted as the national seal of the present Indian republic. Fall Of The Mauryan Empire Almost immediately after Ashoka's death in 232 B.C., the Mauryan Empire began to disintegrate. The last emperor was assassinated about 185 B.C. in a palace revolution led by a Brahmin priest. Some five centuries of disintegration and disorder followed. Northern India was overrun by a series of invaders, and the south broke free from northern control. The sudden collapse of the powerful Mauryan state, and the grave consequences that ensued have provoked much scholarly speculation. Some historians have felt that the fall of the Mauryas can be traced to a hostile Brahmin reaction against Ashoka's patronage of Buddhism. Others believe that Ashoka's doctrine of nonviolence curbed the military ardor of his people and left them vulnerable to invaders. More plausible explanations for the fall of the Mauryan state take into account the communications problems facing an empire than included most of the Indian subcontinent, the difficulty of financing a vast army and bureaucracy, and the intrigues of discontented regional groups within the empire.