MUZZLE ANALYSIS

Last night, the last thing I read on Facebook was “Can a penny dropped from a skyscraper kill you?” I felt too sleepy to find out! So I slept, with an assumption that it must! I fascinated fabricating a secret mechanism to make sure the penny hit the target. I had even prepared a list of subjects in my mind as I slept in peace! When woke up the authenticity of the assumption bothered me a lot! So I went on with my following calculations and constrains.

So let us find out would it or would it not kill if we drop a penny from the top of tallest skyscraper.

My calculation would revolve around the present tallest building in world the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It has height of 829.84 m. Since we are considering a building in Dubai, I would prefer its currency to be used instead of Penny. So we are considering a coin of 1 AED that weighs 6.40g. (It has an advantage of its comparative heavy weight over penny!)

Now before calculating let us discuses some basic assumptions that we will keep in mind.

We are basically comparing the fallen coin with a bullet. However, if we consider the overall aerodynamic structure of bullet, it includes time of flight, mass of bullet, shape, calibre, penetration power, directional muzzle velocity, etc. So, for the purpose of this blog, I would consider only the mass of coin and rest of the assumptions and aerodynamic specification will be assumed to be ideal! Note; that it might affect its overall result.

My calculations will be based on SI system of measurements, primary because, I grew up India and In India they teach us metric system that makes sense unlike in USA or in interior design course all over the world.

When we drop the coin its initial velocity is 0m/s

It is accelerating towards the ground with an acceleration of 9.8m/s

The height of Burj Khalifa is the distance it would cover accelerating i.e. 829.84m.

Using Newton’s third equation of motion;      v²= u²+2as

Where;

v= final velocity or in our assumption muzzle velocity

u= initial velocity; 0m/s

a=acceleration i.e. 9.8m/s²

s= the height of the building i.e. 829.84m.

From the above data we get; V²=16265    (After rounding off)

This would give the value of muzzle velocity approximately 127m/s

Muzzle velocity of various types of gun range from 120m/s to 1700m/s

So Burj Khalifa is making it work! However, had it been a little shorter or any other skyscraper across the globe it might not have had worked under the similar set of constrains!

Hey! Hold your horses!  This velocity is not what we will experience in practice, due to the atmospheric drag. However, after calculating the effective drag force it will continue to free fall till velocity is as high as 70m/s (approximately). After attaining this terminal velocity it will not accelerate further. 

Nevertheless by the end, it will be the muzzle energy that would confirm our calculation. After all is an AED coin drop would match a gunshot is our prime objective. In the given circumstances, the mass of coin has a great significance.

Muzzle energy is the kinetic energy of a bullet as it is expelled from the muzzle of gun. It is a rough indication of the destructive potential of a gun.

Numeric value of muzzle energy can be calculated by;    E=1/2mv²

Where,

E=energy in joules

M=mass of object, ie coin 6.4g or 0.0064 Kg.

V= terminal velocity of 70m/s

From the above data we get; E=31joules

Well as a matter of fact this is an effective value of energy, according to Wikipedia muzzle energy levels of different types of firearms vary from 20- 32,000 joules.

To conclude; Accidental or deliberate dropping of an AED coin from the top of Burj Khalifa is potentially harmful! Ouch!

Isn't it incredible how gravity can make just a slip of coin from hand to hold energy of about 52 joules?

A wise man said it so right, “Ah, Gravity, Thou art a Heartless Bitch!”

Damn! I have evil thoughts!

HAPPY TOGETHER!

Humans are not monogamist by nature, perhaps it is in our emotional upbringing that brands us monogamist! Or the legal status/ de jure acceptable condition!  It is complicated to find out why we follow this socially specific behaviour in various nuances, ranging from hopeless romantics to heartless Casanova. We cannot generalize human love life or emotional status. That is primarily because emotions cannot be quantified. Thus, cannot assure their existence. Nowadays we cannot claim sole mates are made in heaven. (Contemplate solely the number of ‘on and of’ relationship status on Facebook can justify that this statement.) We desire for success and survival in daily and long-term basis of our personal existence and not that for the Homo sapiens (or anyone else as a matter of fact!) our most important goal is to ‘possess’ as much as we can! No matter whatever it is, it has to have a materialistic value associated with it. For our very goal me have placed emotional stability in the backseat and we are driving rash through the highway to the mountain cliff of success and beyond…

Life is not the same, if you are a swan, (that you probably are not!) swan mate for life they chose their partner once and stay together. The ideal condition that we fantasize in movies like ‘up’! ‘Together Forever’. They may be dispiritedly romantic! Or just lack industrialized civilization may be some of the gross reasons for them to stick together. Whatever the reason is it overwhelms me. This cute fact about the swan adds in an exception only when one partner is dead or lost. However, some cases of divorce have been reported lately, majorly due to nest and child issues. Shocked?! I know, who thought divorce was a contagious malady! 

Apparently, this forever together status is not just limited to Swans. Black Vultures; do not appear as beautiful as one would imagine an epitome of love to be. But, pragmatically they too mate for life like swan. Once they have chosen a partner they are truehearted towards their partner. In fact if a vulture is caught philandering, they are attacked by other vultures in the society! They make sure that there is no infidelity, however harshly but justified. Eagles too mate for life; they seem boldly beautiful and strongly soothing! Hence need no accounting!

We cannot forget lovebirds to be counted in this category. Best known for lovey-dovey, tender stroking and mushy skoodilypooping! (Apologise for this awkward description!) They stick with each other through thick and thin and go together like peas and carrots! Many other join this forever together status that we cannot imagine in our modern-day world!

People generally get awestricken by emotions when one thinks about love life of the swan or others in the same category. We tend to contemplate our love as minimal as a grain of sand. We consider our relations beyond comparison with their. However, the fact is they have their own reasons and their reason is not love! They mate for ‘life’ not love! Sorry to burst your bubble! Birds ‘together forever’ are not as amorous as one may think. They simply consider the time needed to migrate, establish territories, brooding and raising young birds. They consider that the extra time and energy needed for attracting a mate would reduce the reproductive time. Passing their progeny to the world and staying in the chain of evolution for sustainable time is their prime goal! We know nothing about their emotional attachments! And hell no! Swan does not cry to death due to loss of spouse, it just gets muddled-fuddled!

So here comes my smoulder “an open letter to the people I love!”

Dear

My love towards you is beyond the clandestine undeciphered intentions! It is beyond the sustainability of species and far-far beyond search for convenience and saving time. My love towards you is because; I celebrate your existence in my life! You mean a lot to my swell headedness and my existence.

Lot of love!

Karnika

CRACKED THE MYSTERY, ALMOST!

A few days ago my dear friend commented on my story "Curiosity". (For all those, who are keeping track on JPL's curiosity mars rover and hot mohawk guy! This post has nothing to do with JPL's awesome stuff.) She shared a cute story by her grandpa in the comment space. However, "curiosity killed the cat" mystery is not yet answered and this post is going to try to solve it! I have somehow arranged all the components of the jigsaw and here is what it looks like. Yeah! Yeah! I just figured out what this quote is about!

For all the science people; It is just one word (actually two) "Schrodinger's cat" and I wonder how I could miss that one!

For those who have no idea what Schrodinger's cat is; here is how it goes... In early 19th century Schrodinger purposed a thought experiment to illustrate that classical objects are different from quantum objects. This experiment leads to a paradox. His one of the important objectives was to point out that, if two objects follow different set of Law's they cannot be reconciled. In the case of the popular Schrodinger's cat experiment, atom is a quantum object and cat is a newtonian object.

To make our experiment more fun and easy to illustrate, let us do it in my high school lab record file style.

AIM:  To perform an experiment based on Schrodinger's cat experiment, in order to explain how curiosity killed a cat.

APPARATUS USED: A live cat, some radioactive atom, special mechanical harmer that bangs when the radioactive material is decayed, a glass bottle filled with poisonous gas, a big box/ chamber to perform the experiment.

PROCEDURE: Place the apparatus in the box in such a manner that, the harmer bangs the glass box filled with poison when the special mechanism is triggered with a radioactive decay. In this way the radioactive material's decay would release the poison in the box and would kill the cat. 

(since my teacher always insisted on making the experimental procedure, a scholarly work of "English literature" and not a step by step procedure. I am making it so. Err! Never mind!)

THEORY OR EXPLANATION: Concept of superposition in quantum mechanics; According to this concept a quantum particle can coexist in all its theoretically possible states at the same time. I.e. the atom under consideration can be decayed and not decade at any instant of time while the experiment is taking place. This infers that the poison is released and not released at the same time in the experimental chamber and finally after the chain of events involved it is clearly extrapolates that the cat is both alive and dead at the same instant of time. which is practically impossible because cat is not a quantum object. Thus this cat like rest of living non quantum objects is either alive or dead! So to find out if the cat is dead or nor or if the atom had decayed or not we must open the box and observe the result. However, in quantum mechanics the state of superposition is unobservable!  When observation is made the quantum superposition breaks down and the outcome is reveled.

The whole point of the experiment is while the box is closed the cat is considered both alive and dead! Of course that is beyond our daily observation and one of the major huddles in physics that newtonian mechanics and quantum physics does not go hand in hand. This uncertainty in quantum physics was the biggest challenge for Einstein’s latter year. This daunted him in his death bed! And was major issue between him and his contemporary physicist Heisenberg and Bohr.  That however is a completely different and waste concept so let us get back to our kitty experiment...

RESULT: The result of this thought experiment (if performed practically) has 50% chances that the cat is alive and 50% chances that it is dead till the box is closed. Once the box is opened the quantum superposition founders and the cat is either dead or alive.

SPECIAL NOTE: To break the paradox an explanation by bringing in the concept of parallel universe is quite ideal. It simply state; at the end of the experiment everything enters into the state of quantum super position, i.e. cat is alive and dead. New alternate and parallel universe are created in our experimental case there are two sets of universe in different set of dimensions exist. In one universe  the cat is alive and in other the cat is dead.

However, this curiosity to collect experimental data and record the probability of event by repeatedly performing the same experiment might kill many cats... so goes the “saying curiosity killed the cat”.

But, the mystery is still untangled, because that explains the use of the phase “curiosity killed the cat” after Schrodinger's cat experiment that took place in 1930s. Notwithstanding the fact that, this phase is used in 1500 century and may be even before that. So are you thinking what I am thinking? This could be a possible hint that someone made time machine! She/he travelled back in time and told the story about Schrodinger's cat to the people in past and created a vicious puzzle to confuse innocent and naive people in our era! Convincing? huh! I know…

HARDER CALCULATIONS

Sometimes mistakes, misunderstandings and misinterpretations are good!

Today I was being lazy! So I opted to study something out of the track! However, my desk and computer is loaded with my quotidian books, articles and webpages. I opted to read something that would ease my brain with more simple reading material and less quizzical derivations. So I took time off from, propeller mechanism and devoted it to something I consider as an accessory in our flying machines; a compass. (although, I totally agree it’s a vital part! no offence.)

Studying its introduction in the chapter lead me to the history and that is, when, I thought of writing a post…

We all know that a compass has 360 equally spaced arcs and each one representing a degree. Well! What fascinated me was the fact that, how during old times ancient people “Babylonian” divided these sections.

Babylonian people did an extensive study on the astronomical objects. They studied the motion of stars and concluded that there are 360 days in a year. So they divided a circle into 360 parts taking each small section as a day. This latter become the standard for the division of degree and no one bothered to correct it.

Perhaps, no one bothered because; it was easier to take the assumption into calculation. For illustration say; if they had known that there are 365 days (pardon the exception of leap year) we were going to have more vigorous calculations in out maths class! The value of pi in polar coordinate system was going to be 182.5`̊and geometry was going to have lot of multiplication. The significant figures were also going to be more precise. In brief, world was about to be a bit more complex.

If it would have been so, I would have been least bothered only after reaching college. After all, we were allowed to use scientific calculators!

PS Even if things are wronged, they will have a positive impact in long term! 

RAIN PELTS

The sun shone at a little south from zenith and I... 
I basked my body n restless pondering.

The warm vivid sun soon faded and I... 
I felt the cold breeze caress my hair.

The clouds coup d'état the reign of sun and I... 
I bereaved of hopes of your arrival.

The muddy road was macerated by rain and I... 
I was drenched in it too.

The rain got wild and the wind was harsh and I... 
I stood still in my forlornness.

DAMSEL IN DISTRESS

I bet! None of you could have think of a noble thought as, one of my friend. I wonder what made her so altruist and caring about not just the unsafe status of women in city, but also the same of female stray dogs too! 


So here I introduce an ‘over the top’ thoughtful- generosity of my Anonymous friend (she sure don’t want to catch extra attention or gasp! ~~ err applause! And of course I don’t want her to read this post! So, if you are reading ‘sweetie click the cross on the top right’)… 


The story starts with a small chat on contemporary social issue that our country is facing… you know! Corruption, bad politics, reservation (is that a social issue?), Anna Hazare and again Anna Hazare. (Well! that is all I can think of right now, thanks to the zealous media coverage. sigh!) and when the insurrectional chatting and blabbering ‘imaginary mike’ came over to our protagonist ‘Anonymous’. She mentioned how bad she feels for the ‘sexual assault’ that female stray dogs face in their day to day life! 


You must be thinking, ptss! Come on, what the heck is it? But, face it people according to my dear friend Anonymous, Poor!  Female dogs every day face non-consensual-love making! And to their pity there are no police, neither NGO nor even family to whom these poor creature can turn to for emotional and legal support after the assault. That is probably due to the fact that they still follow anarchy in 2011!!  Her humbleness could not allow her in anytime soon, but in future my loving friend is going to make it all end! She shall form an NGO for street children (I appreciate this without being sarcastic!) and female dogs for the sexual and emotional assault! 


I was thinking. Besides, if it goes on, It might raise the population of street dogs. I think Anonymous will have another concern about controlling their population too…! So it is a potential, viciously-growing concern list. you see!?! 


So to free my friend from this upcoming predicament! I have written this ‘general awareness blog’, to aware you about the up going molestation and exploitation of female dogs. Kindly please if you see injustice taking place,  in your locality or anywhere around you, Save the poor lady dog and hush the bad male dog!! 


Spread love among living beings, Help the poor lady Dog! 

On that note I shall sign out of here…<3

THANK HEAVENS, WE HAVE GOOGLE!

Today while making some notes I scribbled down “♂” for male and followed by “♀” for female. Well! There is not anything unordinary or special about jotting down the symbols for me. I have been using these symbols since high school biology classes. It is like a routine part of my short hand writing skills. However like many other times before, my concentration got struck in the symbols. I once again found myself trying to decipher the hidden meaning of the symbol.

Mostly I come up with the following tow conclusions...

First Conclusion... the male symbol represents male chauvinism as it is pointing to the top! I generally assumed that, some gender obsessed male might had decided this symbol to show off his potency as some supernatural power! On the contrary I assume female symbol to be more spiritual, representation a cross threaded in the circular loop. However the one who decided it might not be too good with shapes and had made the cross with dimensions not so proportional with the Holy Cross.
I know my first hypotheses do not fit into the puzzle very accurately, but hey! Man makes mistakes… so some men from history might have made a mistake... huh?

Second Conclusion… it’s pretty simple i.e. it represents some secret sexual behavior that I currently cannot understand as it is above my perception..!!

I know you must be thinking now “what rubbish!”

That’s what I thought today when I recapitulated my hypothesis. So I thought to myself, “buddy its 2011, you have got a laptop, internet and above all… the planet these days have some magic wand called Google! So quit assuming and GOOGLE it!!”

The gender symbols represents that men are from Mars and women from Venus. These symbols are derived from ancient Greek astrological symbols of planet Mars and Venus.

Here I am sharing a few more symbols of the same type…

Hope you enjoyed enlightenment!