Archive for the ‘Science’ Category

Earth Crust Displacement – Pole Shift theory

Monday, February 15th, 2010

This theory which is necessary to be discussed at this point of time. Yes, the earth’s crust displacement theory. Before you get exposed to this concept you might want to brush up some of the basic school geography.

The average density of Earth is 5,515 kg/m3. The earth is made up of 3 important layers.

Crust:  The Earth crust is the outer most part of the underlying mantle. The crust can be thicker than 80 kilometers in some spots, less than one kilometer in others.

The crust consists of two parts: the oceanic and the continental crust.

Mantle:  Earths is a ~2,900 km (1,800 mi) thick shell of compressed and heated rock, beginning below the Earth’s crust (lithosphere), which extends 5 km (3.1 mi) below the ocean floor and 30 to 50 km (19 – 31 mi) below the continents. The Earth’s mantle makes up 70% of Earth’s volume, in comparison to the Earth’s crust which makes up less than 1% of the total. 

Core:  At the core of the Earth, temperatures are thought to rise to 3,000 to 5,000 Kelvin.

2,890–5,150 KM – Outer core

5,150–6,360 KM -  Inner core

Layers-of-earth-crust

Layers-of-earth-crust

Pole Shift – Pole Reversal Theory

Directly below the Earth’s crust (or lithosphere) at a depth of 50-150 kilometres is a layer called the asthenosphere.

A pole shift happens when “North Pole changes to South and South Pole moves towards North “!!!.  Imagine what drastic effects it should produce. The Inner core of our planet consists of iron. It has its own spinning speed which differs from the normal spinning speed of earth.

Pole shift have happened before and will happen again. The last pole shift happened about 780,000 years ago and we are not sure when the next shift will happen.

According to a research the poles of earth interchange their position once in 300,000 years. So when comparing this there was no pole shift happened for last 480,000 years.

Effects of Pole Shift – Pole Reversal

What are all the serious effects we will face if our earth is going to shift its poles?

  1. A pole reversal would decrease the strength of our magnetic field to near zero.
  2. The entire living things will be more since the earth will start to rotate in opposite direction.

Yes, scientifically only when the earth rotates in opposite direction the pole shift can happen.

The Paleo-Magnetism and Mayans has predicted this pole reversal 1000’s of years ago.

Pole Reversal

Pole Reversal

What is Paleomagnetism ?

Paleomagnetism is the study of the record of the Earth’s magnetic field preserved in various magnetic minerals through time. The study of paleomagnetism has demonstrated that the Earth’s magnetic field varies substantially in both orientation and intensity through time.

Causes of Pole Reversal

But what are the reasons for this pole reversal. What factors influence the pole shift? Here are answers which we should accept and out of our control.

1.     Sunspot Cycle theory

The sunspot cycle theory was proposed very long time back by our ancestors. They are called as Mayans.

The theory states that “When a beam of light strikes a magnet, its poles(magnetic poles) get interchanged”.

Our earth is a huge magnet, with its own North and South Poles. A short-circuit with another external “beam of lightning,” or magnet, can end in a catastrophic polar reversal. This means that the magnetic North Pole changes place with the magnetic South Pole.

From the name “Sunspot” we got it clear that the only super force which can cause this catastrophic strike is The Sun. When a giant beam of light from the sun strikes our earth it will get tilted by its position.

With unknown power this solar lightning strikes our planet and causes a gigantic short circuit. That is the catastrophic truth behind a polar reversal of the earth. But what is the reason for  this horrible lightning attack?

Causes of SunSpot Cycle

The magnetic field of sun undergoes a drastic change for every 12,000 years. This is caused by the chaos effect and immense cloud of plasma.

1.     Solar Storms

Shooting large quantities of loaded particles on a strong bipolar magnet causes a “ring-stream” in the magnetic field. At a certain moment this stream speeds up to such an extent that the field of the magnet reverses completely. In the same manner the particles of a solar storm can compress the earth’s magnetic field and temporarily speed up the power of the earth’s field.

When the solar particles reach our planet, the electromagnetically-loaded particles will move in a spiral along the magnetic lines: from the magnetic north pole to the magnetic South Pole and back. While passing this north-south axis, they will move into the direction of the equator. When they arrive there, they will join into a super powerful “ring current.”

This “ring current” generates an intense magnetic field that is opposite to the earth’s magnetic field. In order to overpower the earth’s magnetic field you need a solar flame a hundred times more forceful than the biggest one we have ever seen. At the reversal of the magnetic field of the sun this degree will certainly be reached.

For example: In the case of an electric motor, when you change their poles the motor will start rotating in the opposite direction.  Oops! The same situation causes to our Earth.

Earth’s Crust Displacement

Before we get to know about Earth Crust Displacement theory, it is our responsibility to know about Charles.H.Hapgood, the father of Earth crust displacement theory. Though he is a genius and the first person to find this theory, the world refused to accept his theory. One of the reason is he was not a geologist.

Charles.H.Hapgood

Charles.H.Hapgood

Charles Hutchins Hapgood  (1904-1982) was an American academician, and one of the best known advocates of a Earth Crust Displacement theory. Hapgood received a master’s degree from Harvard University in 1932 in medieval and modern History. His Ph.D. work on the French Revolution was interrupted by the Great Depression.

Mr. Albert Einstein wrote his foreword to one of Hapgood’s book The Earth’s Shifting Crust: A Key to Some Basic Problems of Earth Science”

A great many empirical data indicates that at each point of the earth’s surface that has been carefully studied, many climatic changes have taken place, apparently quite suddenly. This, according to Mr. Hapgood, is explicable if the virtually rigid outer crust of the earth undergoes, from time to time, extensive displacement…

As we saw earlier you should have got a basic understanding about the layers of earth and its arrangement. Well, let go ahead and refresh it once again.

Asthenosphere:  This is a region which lies above the mantle layer. It is the mobility of the asthenosphere that makes it possible for the earth’s lithosphere (crust) to shift.

When the crust moves due to some natural calamities and movement of tectonic plates, the most drastic things happen in the world like volcanic eruption, earthquakes, Tsunami.

Before Earth Crust Displacement

Before Earth Crust Displacement

11,600 years ago, before the earth’s crust shifted, the Arctic Circle encapsulated most of North America and Greenland.

After Earth Crust displacement

After Earth Crust displacement

11,600 years ago the Antarctic Circle covered about half of Antarctica. The former temperate areas of Antarctica [an area equal in size to Western Europe] may have been the site of the lost island continent of Atlantis.

World’s safe Zones

Even when the whole earth is going to be washed out there will only 4 countries which will have less impact due to this crust displacement. They are Morocco, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Madagascar.

The Escape Plan

When a big earthquake hits in Los Angles, you need to start escaping to these places. Because Africa is the most geologically stable continent on earth. All of the continents broke away from it and it has never drifted away because it’s trapped by the Mid-Ocean Ridge and has never been under water since Pre- Gondwana times, where as the rest of the continent throughout the world seesawed in and out of the ocean since the continental breakup.

Regards,
R.Gopinath

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Chaos Theory -Tsunami and The Butterfly Effect

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

Chaos Theory Definition 

This is a theory that explains the complex and unpredictable results that will be produced in systems that are sensitive to its (their) initial conditions.

The Chaos Theory

The Chaos Theory

To explain more clearly, a small change in a system can cause a catastrophic effect in somewhere in the world.

Believe it or not, the flutter of butterfly’s wings in India can cause Tsunami in Indonesia.”

This is what the Chaos Theory states.

Tsunami in Indonesia

Tsunami in Indonesia

 

Chaos Theory and Tsunami

Chaos Theory and Tsunami

The Butterfly Effect

The butterfly effect Is stated as, “The small differences in initial condition of a system (like minor rounding off errors in maths) can cause a series of effects which cannot be determined. This is applicable to deterministic systems as well.

The Butterfly Effect

The Butterfly Effect

In deterministic systems we can predict the outcome of a operation. But due to the nature of chaos even the deterministic one turns unpredictable.

Chaos – Means “in a state of disorder”

Properties of A Chaotic System

1. Sensitive to initial conditions: This is nothing but popularly called  as the butterfly effect.

Each point in such a system is arbitrarily closely approximated by other points with significantly different future trajectories. Thus, an arbitrarily small perturbation of the current trajectory may lead to significantly different future behavior. However, it has been shown that the last two properties in fact imply sensitivity to initial conditions.

2.Topologically Mixing

The system will evolve over time so that any given region or open set of its phase space will eventually overlap with any other given region. This mathematical concept of “mixing” corresponds to the standard intuition, and the mixing of colored dyes or fluids is an example of a chaotic system.

3. Periodic orbits must be dense

This is more self explanatory. The orbits of the system undergoing must be densely populated. 

Properties of a Chaotic System

Properties of a Chaotic System

History of Chaos theory

Till now you are reading this article, surely you should have got a question how this chaos theory evolved? Who experimented and experienced. Yes, we have beautiful answers for it.

Lorenz’s  Experiment

The first true experimenter in chaos was a meteorologist, named Edward Lorenz. In 1960, he was working on the problem of weather prediction. He had a computer set up, with a set of twelve equations to model the weather. It didn’t predict the weather itself. However this computer program did theoretically predict what the weather might be.

Lorenz's Attractor

Lorenz's Attractor

He left the experiment as such, but one day he wanted to see it again.  So instead of starting from the first he started to take the readings from the middle of the sequence. He entered the number off his printout and left to let it run. When he came back an hour later, the sequence had evolved differently. Instead of the same pattern as before, it diverged from the pattern, ending up wildly different from the original. Eventually he figured out what happened. The computer stored the numbers to six decimal places in its memory. To save paper, he only had it print out three decimal places. In the original sequence, the number was .506127, and he had only typed the first three digits, .506.

“The amount of difference in the starting points of the two curves is so small that it is comparable to a butterfly flapping its wings”

Applications of Chaos Theory

The chaos theory has so many applications in wide range of fields like

  1. Mathematics
  2. Biology
  3. Computer Science
  4. Economics
  5. Physics and even in
  6. Robotics

Lorenz’s Attractor

In certain energy states, the motion of a particle described by certain systems will neither converge to a steady state nor diverge to infinity, but will stay in a bounded but chaotically defined region.(attractor)

Lorenz modeled the location of a particle moving subject to atmospheric forces and obtained a certain system of ordinary differential equations.

Lorenz Equations

Lorenz Equations

The particle appears to move randomly, and yet obeys a deeper order, since it never leaves the attractor.

After a while, though, he found that while the momentary behavior of the particle was chaotic, the general pattern of an attractor appeared. In his case, the pattern was the butterfly shaped attractor now known as the Lorenz attractor.

The most real time application of chaos is in ecology. Here this theory is used to show how population growth under density dependence can lead to chaotic dynamics.

FRACTALS

The fractals are one of the most important elements of chaos theory.

A Fractal is a geometric which is capable of reproducing itself at different measurements. A Fractal can be split into multiple parts; each part will look alike as a reduced size copy.

These fractals have many interesting properties. They are,

  1. Lack of well-defined scale
  2. Self-Similarity

Examples of Fractals

  1. Sierpenski triangle
  2. Clouds
  3. Pulmonary alveolar structure
Sierpensk Triangle

Sierpensk Triangle

Real-Time examples of Chaos Theory

CHAOS WASHING MACHINES

In 1993, Goldstar Corporation created a Chaotic Washing Machine. The washing machine works on the basis of  “Chaos Theory”. The washing machine uses the fact that there are identifiable and predictable facts in non-linear systems. The goal of this machine is to produce clean and less tangled clothes.

There is a Main Pulsator which periodically creates recurring phenomenon that alternately increases and decreases the stirring level of water. As  a result there happens a Chaos Motion. The amazing washing machine hit market and increased the annual share of Goldstar to 1.5 million in 1993.

CHAOS IN STOCK MARKET

Chaos analysis has determined that market prices are highly random, but with a trend. The amount of the trend varies from market to market and from time frame to time frame.

CHAOS THEORY IN WEATHER FORECASTING

As we saw in Lorenz’s Experiment, the chaos model is more helpful in long range weather forecasting.

There are many variables associated with the weather: temperature, air pressure, wind speed, wind direction, humidity and many more. The equations which control the weather involve all of these variables.

Cheers,
R.Gopinath

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What is Dream? Dream Analysis and Dream Control

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

Dreams are the result of Rapid Eye Movement of living organisms. Ok. What are all the living organisms that can dream?

Science and Research says that all the mammals can dream.

Definition of Dream

Dream is defined as the collections of imaginary pictures, scenes, voices and sounds etc., during the sleeping process due to the Rapid Eye Movement (REM).

What are dreams

What are dreams

Dream Analysis

The incidents that occur in the dream are almost happy and funny things. But often we get bad dreams. So what is actually happening inside our brain during the REM. The rapid eye movement occurs once in 100 minutes during our sleep and each course of REM lasts for 15-45 minutes.

There are possibilities of getting more than one REM course in a normal 6-8 hours sleep of humans. During this REM our brain activity is high and signaled by rapid horizontal movement of eyes. Most of the times we forget the dreams. But it is possible to remember it when a person is awake from the REM course suddenly by hearing some alarm sound or something like that.

Dream-Analysis

Dream-Analysis

But we forget most of our dreams since it happens in a period called “delta sleep” where one dream can erase or fade the memories of other dreams.

A great Austrian psychiatrist named  Sigmund Freud,  analyzed these dreams and he himself identified (termed) a region of our brain called “subconscious”. This is the area where our all memories, desires, anger, happiness get stored. During the process of REM our brain recollects these information and display a picture called DREAM.

The Dreaming Process

The human brain is mega sized STORAGE DISK (non-volatile) J . Yes our brain stores almost everything we do in our day-day life like seeing a flying bird, watching a movie, hearing sound of a horn, taste of a candy and much more. These feelings are stored in the brain in a much comfortable way like images or files so that the brain can easily recall them whenever needed.

So what is it to do with the Dreams?

 

 

Stages-of-Sleeping

Stages-of-Sleeping

click here for larger image

When you go to sleep this is the real time where the brain actually becomes more active. You are not supposed to think or worry about anything when you go to sleep. Because you need some rest now. The brain now collects all those collected bits and pieces of information and puts them in a screen where you see it as “the dream show”. So many dreams will be scary, some will be funny and some will be interesting like a long story.

Many people interpret dream as future forecasting tool and many just ignores it.

Dream Theories

The dream theories are broadly classified into two important categories. They are,

1. Physiological dream theory

2. Psychological dream theory

Physiological dream theory

1. We dream to exercise the synapses (pathways) between brain cells.

2. When we are in our waking state, we constantly receive and transmit external messages.

3. Dreaming is the form this process takes in the sleeping state.

Psychological dream theory of Sigmund Freud

The most famous psychiatrist named Sigmund Freud proposed the Psychological theory for dream. He says “Man’s long lasting feelings and desires turn out to be a dream so that he is satisfying his need at least in his dreams.”

Psychological-dream-theory

Psychological-dream-theory

Recalling and Remembering the Dreams

  1. Before you get into sleep train yourself saying “I want to remember my dreams”. This will workout 98% as I remember most of my dreams after saying like this.
  2. Set your alarm to ring for every 2 hours so that you can come out of REM sleep and can recall your dreams.
  3. Have a notebook and pen near you. Whenever you got awake from the REM sleep, make a note of your dreams.
  4. Drink lot of water before you get into the bed, so that you can get up in between at least once. Now you have a chance to remember your dreams.

 Don’t want to remember bad dreams?
 Just forget it…

Lucid Dreaming

Lucid dreaming is a technique through which you can realize that you are in a dream and you will be able to control your dream. This is a rare and great skill that not all persons can get it.

Rapid-eye-movement-sleep

Rapid-eye-movement-sleep

 click here for larger image

Through lucid dreaming you can control what dreams you can remember and what you don’t want to. Consider you have a dream like A Ghost is chasing you horribly. You are in more fear. Now apply the lucid dream technique. Stop running and turn back to the Ghost and say “Hey!!! why you are following me ? Get lost!!!”. Now you are out of  bad dream and you will not remember that no longer.Lucid-dreaming

Dreams can change lives

Dream is a great tool; you need to be a master to use it effectively. Dreams changed normal persons into great poets, writers, scientists, politicians. Here we can see few of them.

  1. Kekule, the German chemist who discovered the structure of the benzene molecule, had worked endlessly to figure it out. Then, in a dream, he saw snakes forming circles with their tales in their mouths. When he awoke, he realized that the benzene molecule, unlike all other known organic compounds, had a circular structure rather than a linear one.
  2.  Mary Shelly, author of “Frankenstein,” got the idea for the story from a dream.
  3. Edgar Allen Poe got inspiration from a dream featuring large luminous eyes for his story, “Lady Ligea.”
  4. Golfer Jack Nicklaus found a new way to hold his golf club in a dream, which he credits as significantly improving his golf game.

 

REM-Sleep-Process

REM-Sleep-Process

Your Comments and feedbacks are welcome.

Regards,
R.Gopinath

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Biploar Disorder

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

What is Bipolar Disorder ?

Bipolar Disorder is a state of manic depression. This is also called as bipolar affective disorder.

This is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks. If this disease is left untreated it may lead to suicide.

Bipolar disorder starts to develop in a individual’s late teens or early adult years. At least half of all cases start before age 25. Some people have their first symptoms during childhood, while others may develop symptoms late in life. 

 

Biploar-Depression

Biploar-Depression

 

Symptoms of Bipolar Disorder

The symptoms include most of the mental characteristics. This may look normal at the beginning. It will take a longer time to diagnose the disease. This disease accompanies two phases.

  1. Manic Phase

  2. Depressive Phase 

 

 

Symptoms-of-bipolar disorder

Symptoms-of-bipolar disorder

 

Symptoms of Depressive Phase

Sadness

Hopelessness

Suicidal thoughts or behavior

Guilt

Appetite problems

Loss of interest in daily activities

Symptoms of Manic Phase

Extreme optimism

Poor judgment

Rapid speech

Increased drive to perform or achieve goals

Tendency to be easily distracted

Decreased need for sleep

Types of Bipolar Disorder

The Bipolar disorder is classified into 3 important types. Utmost 4 types. They are

    1. Bipolar I disorder – The person must had at least one manic episode with or without previous episodes of depression.

    2. Bipolar II disorder – The person should have get affected by at least one episode of depression and at least one hypomanic episode.

Hypomanic Episode: This is similar to manic depression but not severe lasts only for few days.

This results in irritability in mood, some changes in character, but it will not affect the normal day t to day activities.

            3. Cyclothymia -  This is a very mild bipolar disorder. This has high and low mood swings. But not much s severe as in the case of manic depression.

Bipolar-Moods

Bipolar-Moods

Causes of Bipolar Disorder

It is not possible to point out specific cause for this. The reasons may include the daily living environment or from the persons we have relationship with.

Biochemical factors: This is also due to the unexpected physical changes in Brain. There are brain chemicals called Neurotransmitters. These neurotransmitters are tied to mood. Scientists believe these chemicals also can cause this disorder.

Genes: Bipolar disorder may also happen due to the heredity problems by the transfer of genes to the offspring’s. So it Is a genetic disorder too.

Environment: Environment also is thought to play a causal role in some way. Environmental causes may include problems with self-esteem, significant loss or high stress.

Causes-of-bipolar-disorder

Causes-of-bipolar-disorder

Preventing Bipolar disorder

There is no proper way to prevent this disease. One should take care of his mental health. Treatment in earlier stage of symptoms will reduce the risk of getting manic depression.

Treatment for Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder normally requires life long treatment. Even in the course of the treatment you may feel good. But it is still recommended to continue the treatment.

Medications for Bipolar Disorder

Medications are the important treatment for Bipolar disorder. Medications for Bipolar disorder can cause serious side effects. But the side effects are not in the majority case. They are observed rarely.

Mood stabilizers

Lithium (Eskalith, Lithobid) is used as major mood stabilizer in the treatment. This help in keeping the mood in

control so that it will not swing between depression and mania. Consulting your doctor is recommended before taking medication and continuing it.

Anti-seizure medications

Medicines, such as valproic acid (Depakene), divalproex (Depakote) and lamotrigine (Lamictal), are widely used as mood regulators. These are also called as anticonvulsants.

Antidepressants

Use of antidepressants in bipolar disorder, although once common, is now controversial.Cognitive behavioral therapy

Psychotherapy for Bipolar Disorder

The focus of cognitive behavioral therapy is identifying unhealthy, negative beliefs and behaviors and replacing them with healthy, positive ones.

Family therapy

Family therapy involves you and your family members. Family therapy can help identify and reduce stress within your family. It can help your family improve its communication style and problem-solving skills and resolve conflicts.

Group therapy

Group therapy provides a forum to communicate with and learn from others in a similar situation. It may also help build better relationship skills.

Regards,
R.Gopinath

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