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Google’s Global Science Fair 2011 – Sign Up Now
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To help make today’s young scientists the rock stars of tomorrow, in partnership with CERN, The LEGO Group, National Geographic and Scientific American, Google is introducing the first global online science competition: the Google Science Fair. It’s open to students around the world who are between the ages of 13-18. All you need is access to a computer, the Internet and a web browser.
To enter, register online and create your project as a Google Site. Registration is open through April 4, 2011.
Principle of Equivalence Led to the Formulation of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity
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The mass of a body, when subjected to a gravitational attraction but no acceleration (i.e., its gravitational mass) is the same when it is subjected to an acceleration but no gravitational attraction (i.e., its inertial mass).
This gave Einstein the idea that a gravitational field can be imitated by a field of acceleration and this, ultimately, led to the formulation of his general theory of relativity, wherein if showed that a non-accelerating or inertial frame of reference in which there is a gravitational field is physically equivalent to a reference frame accelerating uniformly with reference to the inertial frame but in which there is no gravitational field. This means, in other words, that experiments carried out in the two frames, under the same conditions, will yield identical results. This is called the Principle of Equivalence.
Un-Popular circumstances connected with Most Popular, Theory of Relativity
Image via Wikipedia First page from the manuscript explaining the General Theory Of Relativity
Henry Poincaré was trying to save the Old classical theory of Physics by Suitable Adjustments & Modifications in it.
When the experiments, like Michelson Morley Experiment, in search of the ether drift failed, it began to be increasingly realised that there was no such thing as an absolute or privileged frame of reference and that the basic laws of physics took the same form in all inertial frames of reference. The implications of the Galilian Invariance principle were emphasized by the french mathematical physicist Henry Poincaré when if stated that
. . . . . . . .the laws of physical phenomena [are] the same, whether for an observer fixed or for an observer carried along in a uniform movement of translation, so that we have not and could not have any means of discerning whether or not we are carried along in such a motion.
This simply means that if we are drifting with uniform speed in a spaceship, with all the windows closed, we shall not be able to say, with the help of any experiments we might choose to perform, whether we are at rest or in motion. If, however, we look out of a window we shall be able to say merely that we are in motion with respect to the fixed stars, but not whether we or the stars are actually in motion.
How near, indeed, had Poincaré thus came to expounding the theory of relativity and yet how far he actually was from it. For instead of grasping the implications of the failure of all ether-drift experiments, and building up a new theory on its basis, discarding older notions of space and time, he concerned himself with trying to somehow save the old (& cold 
) classical theory by suitable adjustments and modifications in it.
The real import of the negative results of the ether-drift experiments was clearly seen and understood by Albert Einstein.
For, discussing the reciprocal electrodynamic action of a magnet and a conductor where the experimentally observable phenomenon depends only on the relative motion of the conductor and the magnet, he goes on to say:
Examples of this sort, together with the unsuccessful attempts to discover any motion of the earth relative to the light medium, suggest that the phenomena of the electrodynamics as well as of mechanics possess no properties corresponding to the idea of absolute rest. They suggest rather that .. . . . .the same laws of electrodynamics and optics will be valid for all frames of reference for which the equations of mechanics hold good [i.e., inertial frames of reference] . We will raise this conjecture {the purport of which will hereafter be called the Principle of Relativity} to the status of a postulate, and also introduce another postulate which is only apparently irreconcilable with the former, namely, that light is always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity
which is independent of the state of motion of the emitting body. . . . . . . . . . . . The introduction of a luminiferous ether will prove to be superfluous in as much as the they here to be developed will not require an absolutely stationary space provided with special properties. . .. . . .
Thus, from the negative results of the ether-drift experiments and from his own reasoning, Einstein felt fully convinced that there was no such thing as an absolute or fixed frame of reference. He examined the physical consequences of the absence of such a frame of reference and had the boldness to break away from old and traditional concepts of space and time. He knit his conclusions and revolutionary ideas into a cogent theory which he announced to an unsuspecting world in the year 1905 as his Special theory of relativity. And, ten years later , in 1915, followed the second and the more complex and difficult part of it in the form of the General Theory of Relativity.
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- From Newton to Einstein – Search for a Fundamental Frame of Reference (wpgaurav.wordpress.com)
- Albert Einstein and His introduction to the Concept of Relativity (wpgaurav.wordpress.com)
- Does Special Relativity Support Verificationism? (unfspb.wordpress.com)
- Preludes to a relativistic theory of gravitation (nynke.wordpress.com)
- Understanding Poincaré Conjecture (wpgaurav.wordpress.com)
- Principle of Equivalence Led to the Formulation of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity (wpgaurav.wordpress.com)
On World Math Day – Do A Simple Self-Test to Identify a Creative Mathematician in You
Queen Christina of Sweden (left) and René Descartes--- Image via Wikipedia
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Albert Einstein and His introduction to the Concept of Relativity
Albert Einstein
This name need not be explained. Albert Einstein is considered to be one of the best physicists in the human history.
The twentieth century has undoubtedly been the most significant for the advance of science, in general, and Physics, in particular. And Einstein is the most luminated star of the 20th century. He literally created cm upheaval by the publication, in quick succession, in the year 1905, two epoch-making papers, on the concept of the photon and on the Electrodynamics of moving bodies respectively, with yet another on the Mathematical analysis of Brownian Motion thrown in, in between.
The Electrodynamics of moving bodies was the biggest sensation and it demolished at one stroke some of the most cherished and supposedly infallable laws and concepts and gave the breath takingly new idea of the relativity of space and time.
Symmetry in Physical Laws: PART II : Conservation and inner conversion of mass-energy
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What is it?
In practical, we see that if we burn a coal, it emits heat & gives ash. Scientifically, the coal (matter) is converted into heat (energy) and precipitate (matter). This is a balance conversion that matter converts into energy. Similarly, we can generate a lot of energy after nuclear fission, in which also matter is converted into energy.
In inverse, similarly, energy can also be converted into matter. Physics’ most famous equation E= mc² given by Einstein also says the same. E (energy) is directly related to m (mass).
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Statement of Conservation of Mass(Matter)
Matter can never be created or destroyed, but it can convert itself into several other forms of either matter or energy or both.
Statement of Conservation of Energy
Energy can never be created or destroyed, but it can convert itself to other forms of matter & energy.
Statement of Conservation of Mass-Energy
One can easily regard this as a Symmetry operation, in which Energy ↔ Matter. Usually you can say, Matter (mass) and Energy both are conserved with their inner-conversions and the total value of mass+energy is a constant, since origin of universe.
The mass and energy can never be produced or destroyed — but they can be converted into one form to other.
© Gaurav Happy Tiwari, 2011
