8th February 2016
Pigeons have been domesticated since ancient times to carry messages. They used to travel several miles to deliver messages. Even today, pigeon posts exist that serve the military in many countries. Pigeons have also been domesticated for a sport called ‘pigeon racing’. The racing is timed, and it has been found that the competing pigeons can fly up to 1,750 km a day.
8th February 2016
A spherical triangle is formed on the surface of a sphere by three arcs. When the magnitudes of the three angles are added, they have a value that is greater than 180°, which is the value for the sum of three angles of a normal triangle.
8th February 2016
‘Triskaidekaphobia’ is a word that arises from the greek tris meaning three, and deka meaning ten, i.e. thirteen, and phobia meaning fear. Triskaidekaphobia thus means the fear of the ‘number thirteen’. In western culture, the number thirteen is often associated with ill luck. Many hotels in the western countries have no thirteenth floor, and many streets are avoided being given the number thirteen.
8th February 2016
Space and time are woven together to form a fourth dimension called ‘space-time’. The ‘curvature’ is a geometric property of space- time. Einstein identified this property while he was working on his General Relativity theory. The curvature of space-time is directly related to the energy and the momentum of any matter or radiation. A standard way to illustrate this idea is to place a bowling ball (representing a massive object such as the sun) onto a stretched rubber sheet (representing space-time). If a marble is placed onto the rubber sheet, it will roll towards the bowling ball, and may even be put into ‘orbit’ around the bowling ball. This occurs, not because the smaller mass is ‘attracted’ by a force emanating from the larger one, but because it is travelling along a surface which has been deformed by the presence of the larger mass. In the same way, gravitation in Einstein’s theory arises not as a force propagating through space-time, but rather as a feature of space-time itself. According to Einstein, your weight on earth is due to the fact that your body is travelling through warped space-time.
8th February 2016
The QWERTY keyboard derives its name from the sequence of letters in the first row of the keyboard. It was invented by the American Christopher Latham Sholes in 1868, who had built the first typewriter and included this sequence of letters on the keyboard. The sequence is about 129 years old.
8th February 2016
Orville Wright is considered as the ‘father of modern aviation’. Together with his brother Wilbur, he invented the first airplane. He developed flight technology for the United States Army. Mahatma Gandhi, an international figure symbolizing peace, the Father of the Indian Nation, ushered in the Indian independence through non-violent means. Both Orville Wright and Mahatma Gandhi died on the same day, i.e. January 30, 1948.
