1st September 2016
Indian Standard Time (IST)
This day in the year 1947 saw the establishment of Indian Standard Time (IST) as the official time for the entire country. It is the time observed in India and Sri Lanka. It is denoted as E.
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5th April 2016
When Galileo measured time by his own pulse beat
It is said that Galileo Galilei determined the time taken by a pendulum to swing and complete one cycle by comparing its swing to his own pulse beat. He did this one day by observing the bronze chandelier in the Cathedral of Pizza when it started swinging due to a storm. He found that his pulse beat did not reduce even if the swing of the pendulum reduced.
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10th February 2016
Tokyo to Honolulu – Fly back in time and relive it!
There is a massive gap in time zones between Honolulu and Tokyo. Honolulu is 19 hours behind Tokyo. Subtracting the 7 hours and 45 minutes flight time between these two cities gives us a trip difference of 11 hours and 15 minutes. Therefore, you would actually reach Honolulu more than 11 hours before you left Japan.
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8th February 2016
What is space-time curvature?
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.
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