15th February 2016

Tap into these largest reservoirs in the world

Lake Volta has been created by the Akosombo Dam over the Volta River in Ghana. It has a surface area of about 8,502 km² (3,275 square miles), making it the largest reservoir in the world by surface area. It is the fourth largest in the world in terms of the volume of water it contains. The first largest is Lake Kariba over the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe, the second largest is Bratsk Reservoir over the Angara River in Russia and the third largest is Lake Nasser over the Nile River in Egypt.

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15th February 2016

Can a computer daydream?

A virtual model of the brain which is capable of daydreaming just like human beings has been developed by scientists. The computer has been modelled on the dynamics of brain cells and the many connections these cells make with the cells in the brain. This is expected to be useful as a diagnostic tool for the treatment of brain injuries.

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15th February 2016

Invention of zero

Zero was invented by the Indian mathematician Aryabhata around 499 AD. The concept of zero first appeared in India around 458 AD. Zero was denoted by the word shunya, or void. In 628 AD, Brahmagupta gave the rules of computing with zero.

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15th February 2016

Tracking the origin of the human race

Scientists believe that humans originated about 200,000 years ago in the Middle Paleolithic period in southern Africa. One of the oldest human settlements dating back to 160,000 years ago has been found at Middle Awash in Ethiopia. About 70,000 years ago, humans migrated out of Africa. They spread to Eurasia and Oceania 40,000 years ago, and reached the Americas 14,500 years ago.

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15th February 2016

Suez Canal and a couple of coincidences

The canals which helped in a great way in reducing distances pertaining to sea travel are linked with such interesting coincidences: the first with the year of birth of Mahatma Gandhi, the second with the year of beginning of the First World War, while the date is same as that of Indian Independence.

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15th February 2016

Pythagoras Theorem – A crucial link between geometry and numbers

Pythagoras Theorem (PT) is the most remarkable contribution to mathematics of Pythagoras (ca. 570 BC – ca. 495 BC). Pythagoras Theorem helps translate the structure of nature into numbers. Among other things, his theorem brought about a crucial link between geometry and numbers. Let us look at the following identities:
9 + 16 = 25; 49 + 576 = 625; 25 + 144 = 169 and 64 + 225 = 289. They appear to be quite innocuous. But a more careful look into them could establish that these can be written as 32 + 42 = 52; 72 + 242 = 252;
52 + 122 = 132 and 82 + 152 = 172. In other words, trios like (3, 4, 5); (7, 24, 25); (5, 12, 13) and (8, 15, 17) can be the lengths of the three sides of a right-angled triangle, the largest one among them being the hypotenuse as according to PT, if the perpendicular sides and the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle are respectively a, b and c, then a2 + b2 = c2.

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