10th February 2016

What is the dot in ‘i’ called?

Derived from the Latin word titulus, meaning inscription or heading, the ‘tittle’ is a dot or diacritic that is used to mark a lowercase ‘i’ or ‘j’. It was initially used to distinguish ‘I’ and ‘J’ from the neighbouring letters. The ‘tittle’ appeared in the Latin alphabets in the 11th century. Originally a larger mark, it was reduced to a dot in the later Roman letters. These days the word tittle is rarely used and has been replaced with the word ‘dot’.

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10th February 2016

The golden era of Indian physics

In 1920, Meghnad Saha discovered his ionization formula (Saha Ionization Equation). In 1924, Satyendra Nath Bose found his photon derivation of Planck’s Law (Bose Statistics). In 1928, Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman discovered the Raman Effect. In 1930, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar predicted the Chandrasekhar Limit. Together they contributed to the golden era of Indian physics.

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10th February 2016

How does a goldfish develop its colours?

The goldfish (Carassius auratus) belongs to the carp family to which the common carp or Koi fish belongs. It was originally domesticated as normal grey or silver fish by the ancient Chinese. In several cases, the grey fish produced mutated fish that was yellow, orange or red. The yellowish orange (golden) fish were chosen to be further domesticated by the Chinese. Today goldfish is kept in aquariums at homes throughout the world. When goldfish is kept in a dark room for many days, it turns white.

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10th February 2016

The legend of Borra Caves

Borra Caves in Araku Valley, Visakhapatnam, got their name from a hole in the ceiling of the cave. Borra means ‘hole’ in the local language. According to a legend, one day a cow fell into the cave through this hole, and when the villagers reached the cave, they discovered a Shivalingam formation at the spot, which made them believe that the cow had been saved by God. There was also a rock formation like a cow’s udder right above, from which water was dripping on to the lingam. This turned into a river. The river was named Gosthani or Cow’s Udder.

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10th February 2016

Find Mars on Earth

The red dirt in Central Australia closely resembles the red surface of Mars, which also explains the abundant formation of gem-quality opal in the red dirt of the Great Artesian Basin in Central Australia. It is referred to as ‘Mars on Earth’.

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