QuirkyHive

On January 1, 1894, Satyendra Nath Bose was born. Together with Albert Einstein, he formulated the Bose-Einstein statistics, one of the most significant discoveries in physics. He also made crucial contributions to mathematical physics. Satyendra Nath Bose was a Renaissance man. While his primary work was in science, he harbored deep interests in literature and music. He was an aficionado of Hindustani classical music's acoustics and French literature and actively promoted the study of science in the Bengali language. His scientific papers spanned diverse fields, including quantum quantization, spectroscopy, chemistry, statistics, unified field theory, theoretical mechanics, thermoluminescence, and even the ionosphere. At the University of Dhaka, he established a laboratory for biochemistry and an X-ray research laboratory at the University of Calcutta. These initiatives facilitated the work of other researchers. However, not all of his experimental studies culminated in detailed r...

On December 30, the eve of the year's end, India launched the "SPADEX Mission" from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Andhra Pradesh's Nellore district at 10 PM IST. The SPADEX (Space Docking Experiment) mission is for developing and demonstrating "docking" and "undocking" spacecraft technologies. It involves advancing the technology needed to connect (dock) and disconnect (undock) two orbiting spacecraft in Earth's orbit. Should it achieve success, India would join the esteemed group of countries that have mastered this vital and intricate technology, placing it alongside Russia, the United States, and China. Significance of the Mission for India's Space Endeavors Dr. S.P. Somanath, the Chairman of ISRO, articulated that the successful execution of SPADEX will have a profound impact on numerous forthcoming space projects within India. According to Dr. Jitendra Singh, India's Union Minister of State for Science and Technology and Earth ...

For almost 2,000 years, mathematicians have been searching for prime numbers. Even in the time of the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid, humans were fascinated by finding primes. Many have been found, but since prime numbers are infinite, the search goes on. Of the primes found to date, what is the largest? And how are such huge primes discovered? Well, before discussing the largest prime, let's understand what a prime number is. A prime number is that which cannot be divided by any number other than 1 and itself. The simple meaning of the statement is that it is divisible only by 1 and itself. For example, 7 is a prime number because it can't be divided into parts by any number besides 1 and 7. Every integer greater than 1 is either a prime or a product of primes. For instance, 18 is not a prime, but all of its divisors are primes: 2×3×3=18. And this is true for all numbers. The currently largest known prime number is  2^(82,589,933) − 1 . While this is easy to write, finding...

You must have come across headlines like "Bone-chilling cold disrupts daily life" in the newspaper. But cold essentially does not shake your bones. It feels that way when the chill has reached right to your bones through your flesh, but all of us know the phenomenon of chattering teeth. On a chilly day, our teeth knock against each other out of our will. Why does this happen? Warm-blooded animals, also known as endotherms, produce body heat internally. Most mammals, including humans, and few insects are endothermic. They cannot perform their bodily functions unless the body temperature is maintained within a range. This is called thermoregulation, or "heat control." We do a lot of physiological and habit-forming actions to increase the body's temperature. Shivering is a physiological activity. Wearing warm clothes is a habit. Imagine not wearing warm clothes in freezing weather and not doing anything to keep yourself warm. Under these conditions, your brain will...

2024 was a year of great research into many topics in physics. Two scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work in artificial intelligence for the very first time. End-of-year roundups from New Scientist, Physics World, BBC Science Focus, Science News, Discover, How It Works, and Scientific American included significant discoveries of the year. his list brings together 10 of the most-talked-about research works. The ranking of the list is not in order of priority or importance; numbering has been done for ease only. 1. Nobel Prize in Physics for Research on Artificial Intelligence This year's Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to American scientist John J. Hopfield and Canadian scientist Geoffrey E. Hinton for their groundbreaking discoveries and innovations that paved the way for the creation of machine learning through artificial neural networks. Their work dates to the 1960s. John Hopfield theorized artificial neural networks that would mimic the neuronal co...

To discover the universe's first molecule, we first need to find the first atom. Molecules, by definition, are combinations of several atoms. In the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang, the universe was so hot that the formation of atoms was not possible. Not even protons or neutrons could have been formed. All that existed were elementary particles such as quarks, gluons, neutrinos, and electrons. These particles were formed within the first microsecond after the Big Bang. In this short duration, the temperature fell to 10 trillion Kelvin. This temperature was incredibly hot, but ideal for creating the first protons and neutrons. Protons and neutrons were created by the fusion of three quark particles each. With the discovery of the first proton, the basic building block of an atom was in place. The identity of an atom is defined by the number of protons. One proton is hydrogen, two protons is helium, and three protons is lithium. The key distinction between the 118 elements that ...